Well, after almost four months, it looks like SwollenPickles.com could finally be out of the Google dog house. You can read up on the beginning of the saga here. In summary, up until earlier this week, you had to filter through around five pages of search results for "swollen pickles" before you'd find a link to this site. Prior to August/September SwollenPickles.com ranked number one for "swollen pickles" in the Google search results.

What did this mean? Well, the organic Google traffic effectively dried up, going from 200+ visitors a day down to 5-10 visitors a day. Not great, but fortunately I hadn't been relying solely on Google for my traffic.

Today I decided to see if anything had changed. Typing "swollen pickles" into the Google search box and hitting search, I was a little surprised to see SwollenPickles.com back at number one.

So after four months in the wilderness how did I find my way out? Since I have not received correspondence from Google at any point during this process I can only speculate. But here are the actions I took following my slapping.

1. Removed Text-Link-Ads from SwollenPickles.com - they were never a big earner for me anyway so I figured it was a trade-off between $10 a month and an extra 200 visitors a day. Obviously I went for the visitors.

2. Removed the PayPerPost tools code from my footer.php file - my theory was if Google was penalizing sites using PayPerPost then having PayPerPost code in my footer file would have raised an instant red flag at Google HQ.

3. Eased off on the PayPerPost opportunities - the number of opportunities I've taken on this site has really tailed off, partly due to the Google issues, but largely due to the quality of opportunities in conjunction with my disappointment with their turnaround time on approving a couple of posts. Long story short, took 29 (out of the 30 days) to review the post, only to have it rejected without payment. My argument was that since it had been live for 29 of the 30 days I should have at least received a pro rata payment of 97% of the total fee, seeing as it had been live for 97% of the total term. Anyway, that's another story...

4. Filed a reinclusion request via Googles webmaster tools - I never received a response from this, so I'm not sure whether I contributed to getting back in or not.

So maybe it was just one of those things, or maybe all four, that got me back where I belong. Who knows?

Overall, I'd say I'm happy things appear to be going back to normal in terms of search results, but I'm disappointed in the way Google seemed to handle the situation. At no time did I receive any notification of what I'd done to be slapped, and I received no response to any of my emails. But I guess that's what happens when one company basically holds a monopoly, or stranglehold, on the market.

p.s. For those not interested in Google, my apologies, check out some sketches of the Mitsubishi Concept-RA that is set to break cover at the Detroit Motor Show.

A couple of days ago I posted about Sproose, a search engine that effectively allows users to vote on the search results. I think Sproose has a lot of merit as a concept, but today I've found a similar site that seems to have taken off a bit quicker than Sproose.

It's called SpicyPage. Here's an example of what SwollenPickles.com looks like on SpicyPage. You can also create Facebook style groups within SpicyPage, so it's kind of like Google, Facebook and Digg got together and produced a single child.

Below is an example of one of their widgets that allows users to vote for a site.

Oops... tried embedding the widget in this post and it broke my theme. I may whack it in my sidebar for a while instead.

Good news, I can finally tick off one goal from my goals project list. That's right, a week ago I picked up an Xbox360! I can't believe I waited so long, that machine is freakin awesome. Hooked into surround sound I was blown away by the details. After a few games I was also glad that I picked up the version with the hard drive. Saved games would have quickly consumed the base level memory.

I've already accumulated a handful of games (largely from the 'Classics' collection) including Gears of War, Dead Rising, Saints Row, Project Gotham Racing 3, Crack Down and Command and Conquer 3. Due to time constraints, I've only had time to play Gears of War, Dead Rising and Saints Row for any length of time. Gears of War is flat out awesome, graphics are detailed, physics and gameplay are as realistic as anything I've come across, and the surround sound really puts you in the middle of the action.

Dead Rising has been a favourite due to it's liberal 'borrowing' of the "Dawn of the Dead" scenario, whereby you are trapped in a shopping mall fighting back hordes of zombies. The difference here is that you are a photo journalist, who, whilst fighting zombies, is also trying to solve the mystery of what has caused the zombie phenomenon in the first place. It leaves you a variety of creative ways through which to dispatch zombies, and you can either try and solve the mystery or just see how many zombies you can destroy. Fun for the whole family!

Saints Row is like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on steroids. More action, more crime and far more profanity. I can see was this one scores the MA rating!

All up, the Xbox360 was a good buy, and definitely well worth the wait. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a planet to save...

Outdoor advertising has come a long way. It used to be that outdoor advertising meant whacking up a billboard on a major arterial road for a month and hoping that it did its job. The hope being that the consumer received the maximum take up from the message, in the quickest time possible. There are still a lot of examples like that, and I'm sure they are effective in their own way. But of late, I've noticed an increase in innovative, and creative, outdoor advertising executions that steer away from the traditional such as interactive 'scent' bus shelters, messages inviting users to SMS for an immediate response, as well as other non-traditional uses for very traditional channels.

Here's an example I found whilst browsing the web. Coop's Paints made use of the side of a building right through to the car park for this piece of work.

I think you'd agree that if nothing else, it's attention grabbing! What's the most creative example of outdoor advertising that you've seen?

I found this one whilst browsing the forums. If you're getting a bit tired of Google, you might be looking to give another search engine a shot.

Sproose is a search engine with a bit of a difference, it combines a search engine with social networking/bookmarking. It looks promising.

They have a nice little Digg style widget as well, allowing users to vote for sites/pages.

Designing a good logo is a tough task. It's no where near as simple as it sounds. It's fair to say I've had a bit of a fixation with graphic design recently, and I've posted about logos before (anyone remember the Phallic Logo Awards?). This latest crop of logos don't quite fit into the phallic category, but they could be seen as somewhat smutty.

So here I count down the top 5 most inappropriate logo designs.

Number 5: Arlington Pediatric Centre

Well, I'm not exactly sure what the client was thinking when they approved this one. Maybe it's supposed be like a magic eye puzzle? At best it would have to be described as 'suggestive'.

Number 4: Kids Exchange

Kids Exchange also appeared in one of the earliest Swollen Pickles posts entitled, "Hazardous Domain Name Registration". If you can't figure out what is going on with the one, then you better go read that old post!

Number 3: Clinical Dental

Mmmkay, do you think that is the standard level of service Clinical Dental provide?

Number 2: Kudawara Pharmacy

Now if they had really intended that to be the letter 'K' why in the world would they add two dots on the top?... unless... unless they wanted it to look like two people 'doing' it...drum roll...

Number 1: The Computer Doctors

Well, this logo speaks for itself. Clearly the Computer Doctors get very excited and passionate about their business!

Immortal Iron Fist Vol.1: The Last Iron Fist Story is one of the coolest graphic novels I've read. It's one of those books that, similar to Sin City, is so cinematic in it's story and layout, that it's just begging to be turned into a feature length film.

The Immortal Iron Fist story follows the latest incarnation of the Iron Fist, Danny Rand, as he is confronted by enemies on all sides. His organisation is fending off a hostile takeover whilst, as Iron Fist, he is confronted with a Hydra army and the appearance of someone that may or may not have been the Iron Fist from years gone by. » Read the rest of the entry..