We’ve been getting a lot of hail the last few days. The temperature here on the ranch has been flirting with freezing for the last couple of weeks. The snow is mostly gone from last week, but the hail is quite something.

These are color photos, but there wasn’t a a lot of light and they came out mostly black and white.

This cloud raced past beneath a high overcast, forming and flowing and reforming over the course of a couple of minutes into something apocalyptic.

This hill (”Goat Hill”) is a frequent subject; this is the darkest and most …

It was good to see People Magazine come to the defense of Tom Cruise’s religious beliefs this latest issue. A slew of celebrities have come out in defense of Tom, people like Adam Sandler, Demi Moore, her ex-husband Bruce Willis, Jennifer Lopez, Will Smith, Harvey Weinstein, and others. Here’s a video from MSNBC:

Ranch life has its perks and today was full of them. It snowed pretty steadily from about midnight last night to this afternoon, when the sun broke out and we bundled up to go out and look at the winter wonders.

This is an oak tree up the hill from our house, burdened with about 6 inches of snow:

This is the view toward the northwest, a view of Long Prairie in the sunshine.

Our garden in winter — usually all you can see is black plastic as we cover the whole thing so that there are no weeds when we’re ready …

I’ve been taking walks lately, usually in the afternoon, sometimes just before dark. The lighting on these walks varies from direct sunlight to light that is reflected off the clouds, to the gold of sunset and the “crepuscular” light of twilight. Always a challenge to know how to shoot photos of some of the views that present themselves on the walks in the varying light.

Here are a few photos from the last week or so.

This madrone tree is a frequent subject - the trunks are smooth and shiny, and usually golden or white. In the glow of sunset they became …

Question from Todd: Will keywords in the table summary help boost rankings? An analysis of one competitor’s code suggests that it is helping them boost SEP.

Answer: You know, that’s a good question. For several years I routinely put in a table summary tag and put the keywords for the page in it — and it didn’t seem to make much difference. It didn’t hurt, either.

So it’s optional. Let me know if you have any success using it.

If you’re going to use tables, however, then I recommend you also use the “table trick” described here: http://www.wordsinarow.com/tabletrick.html

Best,

Jeré Matlock
http://www.wordsinarow.com …

The Church of Scientology is reported to have issued a statement about Andrew Morton’s unofficial biography of Tom Cruise, aka “the pack of lies”.

The statement is being carried by MSNBC, here.

Most of the lies (except the ones that Morton simply made up) are pretty consistent - the are the same lies you find repeated many times on various apostate sites. That’s the thing about apostates - they have an axe to grind and aren’t afraid to repeat every rumor, innuendo, and lie that they’ve heard over their lives. These get picked up and repeated on enough websites that …

If you’ve read much of this blog, you’ve probably figured out I am not a believer in the myth of man-made global warming. I’ve seen enough evidence to come to an understanding that the average temperature Earth may have risen a degree or so during the last 150 years. Even that fact is not 100% completely sure.

John Stossel has put together an interesting video about global warming that is making the rounds on YouTube. It’s a good video in that it presents a case for the opposition.

The debate’s not over, no matter how much they would like to shut …

Question: Jere - I have the stable datum that keyword density should be around 3-4% of the page content for best optimization. More is bad apparently for Google and less isn’t as effective. Any thoughts?

Answer: Good question. That’s not a bad stable datum, but in practice I’ve seen keyword density on a high-ranking page at Google range from 0.01% to 10%.

This page on my site about optin email listsusually ranks at #1 for “optin email lists” at Google.

I have no idea what the keyword density is on that page (I’ve never checked), but I can tell you it’s probably pretty …

Every once in a while, when doing web design, it is necessary to get up from the computer and get out and take a walk to clear one’s head.

I usually take my favorite walking stick, my dogs (Max & Xena), camera (Pentax K-10D), gun (holstered 9-mil Sig Sauer), hat and gloves, because I live on a timber ranch in the middle of nowhere and because I remember my boy scout training (”Motto: Be Prepared!”)

Mountain lions, bears, lynx and coyotes, are all confirmed predators here on the ranch, and I keep a sharp eye out while walking, as it …

I’m doing an extension course on the book “Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health”.

The last time I read this book was about 30 years ago. I’d forgotten how much info was in it, and what a kick it was to read this book. The work you do on the extension course makes sure that you “get” the important points from each chapter, so you can retain and use them later on. There’s a terrific glossary so you don’t have to run to the dictionary constantly — they’ve got the words defined as they are used in the text, so …