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Yesterday I was so happy to tell you all how wonderful I felt after my first trip to the gym in quite some time ... but now I've got to tell you that I'm paying for it today. I don't exactly ache in every muscle and joint, I'm sure there are some muscles and joints inside me that aren't aching but I haven't found them just yet.

But that hasn't made me change my mind about the importance of exercise. It really is something that you must do if you want to stay healthy and keep on having fun.

Google really is getting tough on links
Google has been making quite a bit of noise lately about paid links and some people and businesses have been listening but others haven't. One company that obviously wasn't listening ran a website at gocompare.com a website that was right at the top of the rankings in the United Kingdom for 'car insurance' until someone at Google decided to flex their muscles..

As of yesterday the website had dropped from number one to somewhere down on page seven of Google's search engine results pages for 'car insurance'. The Hitwise graph that shows the rise and fall of gocompare.com is a very nasty lesson to all of us and once Google took action the drop in market share for gocompare.com looks like a cliff face.

In percentage terms gocompare.com suffered a drop of 87% in search engine traffic in the week following the adjustment by Google according to Hitwise. It seems that Google didn't care for all the inbound links that were pointing at gocompare.com and it seems that the people at Google didn't need to be rocket scientists to see that many of those links were paid for ... in one way or another.

Some of the links that Google didn't like were not your usual paid banner or link spots but were pay-per-blog posts.

So there's a lesson for those who still think that paid links are a great way to increase your rankings in Google. The next time you see someone selling link spots on their sites it might pay you to have a cold shower before you jump in to take advantage of what might look like a great deal.

Does everyone think like you?
If you're a marketer ... and if you're websites sell adult products then you're just as much a marketer as someone who sells candles down at the local markets ... you should be thinking about whether or not everyone does think like you.

Now here I'm not suggesting that you should be wondering about whether everyone shares the same values and principles that you do, obviously they don't ... and it's unlikely that they ever will. What I want you to think about is whether or not everyone thinks of things in the same way as you do.

Why is that important? Well if people do think of things in the same way you do then you're not going to have a problem marketing your products to everyone. They may not buy what you're selling but if they're looking for your products then they have a very good chance of finding them online because they think in the same way you do.

But what if your target market doesn't think in the same ways that you do? What if you think in terms of categories but they're thinking in terms of ideas?

Now before you move on to something else because you think that I've finally lost my marbles let me tell you others far wiser than I am are seeing this as a real problem that marketers have to address if they really do want to be achieve good search engine listings and turn those listings into sales.

Let's take cars as an example. If you're building a website for a client who sells new Volkswagens then of course you're going to be thinking of ranking for terms such as 'new cars' ' new Volkswagens' and other terms that you consider ... and perhaps even statistics might show ... to be relevant for your client.

But what if there's a new generation out there who don't always think about new cars and new Volkswagens in the same way you do? What if they look and think about them in other terms and use those terms to search for deals when they want to buy a new car?

How will your sites rank then?

And there is a new generation who seem to be thinking in terms that are quite different to what we 'use' when we think. Research may be suggesting that those people born from 1980 onwards don't categorize things in the same we older people do and that's going to have an impact on your bottom line.

Before this all gets way too heavy I'll stop and leave you to think about it and see where that takes your marketing in future. Right now I'm going to take these aching joints off to enjoy some caffeine therapy and to think about nothing heavier than what I'm going to do tomorrow.