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I remember we were bantering about electric cars a while ago in the office and Clive suggested garages where you drive in and swop your flat battery for a replacement...

Well it's a reality! At least in Israel and soon in Holland...

BBC News - Has Israeli firm cracked electric car angst?

"There is a network of dozens of "switch stations" around Israel - they look like a car wash but without nozzles or brushes.

You drive in, and robotics take over - removing the battery from under the car and replacing it with one that has been charged. The switch lasts about five minutes.

The battery weighs 250kg (equivalent to the weight of about three adult men) and it takes up a large space behind the back seat, but there is still plenty of room for luggage as there is no petrol tank."

Sounds like a superb idea, if money can be found for the infrastructure. Wouldn't surprise me to see Google battery stations soon

Can only go my interpretation, so may be talking cobblers but I think it's more of a ratio rather than an actual number. Ie if 70% of your links had the exact same anchor text, then that looks unnatural and could be an issue. Likewise if you have hundreds, thousands etc but from the same domain, then these will be discounted as duplicates, so not an issue (eg blog rol, footers, forums etc).

I had over 2 million from one of my domains pointing to the other with the same keyword phrase. Prob not best practice, but didn't seem to get penalised. Reality is, they will be disregarded as dupes. Have now changed it just in case!

Varying anchor text is the way you should do it, makes it more natural.

Ref google ranking on visitor time, I'm more cynical

I've been told in the past they look at bounce ratios, length of visit etc, but if these are signals, they are minor ones and not worth losing sleep over. As a directory, we have a high bounce rate as people arrive mid site from google after looking for a biz or phone number, get it then leave.

Where as something like a forum is a lot more sticky, so will have longer page times and lower bounce rate. But they serve different audiences, so hard to write a one size fits all rule.

I still think content is a deciding factor and how it is presented, ie number of adverts non content above the fold etc rather than things like length of visit.

Like I say, I can only talk from my experience

Credit to marketoonist

Had it made by Elaine's Cakes after a recent family trip to Oban.

100% recommended, couldn't be more helpful and the cake was awesome! Fingermarks are from an overeager daughter number 1

Problem is, spamming, blackhat and shortcuts have worked so well for so long, it's not surprising so many people are caught up in it.

I've had a few directory and large site owners ping me asking if we had also been hit hard from various updates, but other than a bit of keyword churn, overall (touch wood) we've weathered Panda, Penguin and the like pretty well.

But if you game the system, at some point your going to crash.

No doubt we've all done a bit of keyword anchor text, but overall I think we've played it pretty straight over the years, and the only time we've generated dubious quality links is when I've had a go at outsourcing some link building, which 9 times out of 10 has been an expensive waste of time

I only hope that people that have been bitten by poor SEO techniques now don't get suckered in to Social Optimisation by buying 1000's of likes and +1's as they will no doubt get penalised and fall flat on their face in about 2 years time....

Hello John

Moved your question to a new thread.

The Google Penguin updates are all about link quality and your "link scape", ie does it appear natural, artificial etc.

If you have been penalised, then take a look at the way you have been building links. If you've been taking shortcuts, using dubious techniques, then you need to re-evaluate and address any issues.

Look in your webmaster tools and see if you have any messages, or something like Open Site Explorer and look to try and spot any issues.

If you have been concentrating on keyword anchor text, and you have countless links with the same anchor text, then this can be an issue. Remove any links from bad neighbourhoods if possible.

hmmm it is interesting how they will monetize whilst keeping the focus on social.

They almost need a separate network like Amazon, that you can dip out of FB, buy your goodies, and pop back in again, without being bombarded with adverts.

Hmm, who would buy who I wonder.... Amazon or FB?

Welcome aboard Lee and making the transition from lurker

In my opinion, mobile sites are now a must, and their importance is getting bigger every year.

Looking at our own stats, and listening to other people, mobile visitors now make up about 30% of traffic. So if your site can't be easily seen on a mobile device, then thats a lot of potential punters you've lost.

But I think a lot of it is relevance. If you're a tradesman, then I'd bet about 50% of your traffic is mobile. If you're a taxi company, maybe it's more?

Would I be searching for a photography site on my mobile? Chances are I would use a full browser, as any photographer site will have example pics for me to look at, so I'd prob use an ipad or laptop, but thats just me.

Also depends on your own website. If you are using, wordpress for example, there are (I beleive ) some straightforward plugins to make your site viewable on a smart phone.

Or you can go the route of something like a .tel domain, where you pay a tenner a year, and use their template. Just plug in a few details, contact details and some propaganda and your good to go. Telnames are a partner of ours, so thought'd try one myself: My Local Services - basic mobile site example

It's a cheap and cheerful solution, but personally I'd be wary of someone trying to sell you a complex and expensive solution.

Google has a good webpage to test your current site against, to see if it is mobile friendly: en-gb test-your-site-overview Test Your Site

Anyone else got any mobile site opinions?

Not really much of a James Bond (or Jane Bond!)

Ms Jin is accused of working for SunKaisens, a technology company affiliated with the Chinese military.

In 2007, Ms Jin was stopped by customs agents at Chicago's O'Hare International airport. She had a one-way ticket to China, $30,000 (