Housekeeping.

Well, due to work and other commitments, I’ve not been able to kayak this week. So instead here’s some housekeeping that needs to be done.

I am increasingly receiving emails through http://www.kayak.im/ with questions regarding kayaking on the Isle of Man. Many of these questions are from visitors or beginners wishing to try out the sport for the first time. I am often asked to recommend a commercial kayaking company. Some readers will know that I have coached for a Peel based company on the Island. However, in the interests of remaining impartial and maintaining the complete independence of www.KAYAK.im, I am not able to advise any potential paddlers on which commercial kayaking company to use. I can point out which ones are available however. There are some links from my website to local companies, although these do not include a link to the company for which I have worked, as the owner prefers not to link between our web sites. If I am able to provide impartial advice on any other subject related to kayaking on the Isle of Man, I am more than pleased to do so.
I have also been asked why is the www.KAYAK.im difficult to find on some search engines? Well, different search engines use different algorithms to rank listed web sites. Google has over 75% of the search engine market. They overwhelmingly rank a site according to the number and quality of external links feeding to a particular web site. Google call this a “word of mouth” recommendation and feel that it more than anything else indicates the relative importance of one website over another. The more links from high quality web sites that you have, the higher up the Google listings the site will be. Relevant word content is very much second to external links with Google. This means that a site which may hardly mention for example “kayaking” and the “Isle of Man”, but which has masses of external high quality links could be ranked above one which has 20 pages solely devoted to this subject. Search engine ranking is a highly competitive area particularly if, unlike myself, your living depends on your website ranking. Consequently it can be difficult to persuade others with well established web sites to link to your site. This could easily help one site to displace another from that all important top Google slot. Despite this traffic on http://www.kayak.im/ was up by 50% last month compared to the month before. Clearly, it can be found but maybe with a little difficulty. I would like to thank all those who have visited, and a special thanks to those who keep returning. I would also like to thank those who have supported http://www.kayak.im/ by linking to it, and finally to thank those who have contributed to it’s content.