Mike H

These logs are still available...

Here's a pic of the Kestrel. The box was intended for an owl... sigh. Girlfriend took pic.

80m3 of wood - Oak and alder. I believe its good access and been lying for a couple of years. Its my brother in law selling it so if interested I can forward his email address. £40 per ton. Sorry images upside down!

Can I borrow your cat?

A pair of kestrels have just set up home 15 feet away from my processor. This would normally not be a problem and I would just move the processor elsewhere, but I have just built a new shed and set everything up for maximum efficiency!.... sigh. Anyone had experience of Kestrels being near machinery and are they tolerant of noise?

It must be an accident waiting to happen. Do they do a safety check on the ground as the tree is being cut? Probably not.

The future!....

I think focusing on one or two companies is a good strategy. Knowing them inside out can help you make money when their share price goes up or down. However, it takes a lot of work to beat a decent fund manager. Recently I opened a Hargreaves Lansdowne account online and invested in Fundsmith and also a fund run by Neil Woodford. Both have impressive track records and seem to be a good steady bet..... fingers crossed.

Her fears about her granddaughter are real to her, even if we think she is bonkers. It doesn't look like she will change, so a degree of acceptance may be the way forward. Perhaps you could say you accept her concerns and will keep the tree pruned, but could she let you take responsibility for the pruning.

I think increasing the tension is best avoided and for all concerned being able to talk it over would be the best result. Go talk to him face to face, express your frustration calmly and just be incredibly nice...

Andyd1606 - Re getting links in. Part of googles original algorithm put a lot of importance on links from other websites. The reasoning was that if someone links to another website, then that website has to be quite good, so it got bonus points allocated to it. Google also looked at the text (anchor text) that was used in the link. This was all many years ago and SEO guys started making 'link farms' and using every trick in the book to artificially gain links. So google had a rethink and began to make algorithms that could detect people just swopping links for ranking purposes or 'link farms', as opposed to genuine 'natural' links that were honest recommendations for that website. Now it is difficult to fool google and they can easily spot anything unnatural going on. In my opinion... the golden rules for linking are as follows: 1) Never join any scheme promising links to your website or randomly exchange links. You could start linking your website to websites that have been banned by google. That will have a negative effect on you. 2) Never buy any links from another website. 3) Link naturally to other websites IF it makes sense and could be useful to your readers. Remember, google wants to rank websites that are good for visitors and helpful. So if you are writing about types of chainsaws, linking to a useful review page or reference page will tick that box. Even if they don't link back, google will appreciate that you are linking and being helpful. Don't go mad, but a few links here and there I'm sure is a good thing to do. 4) If you do make a link to another website, make sure that the website is a decent one. A good test is to search for it in google just to make sure it hasn't ben banned. 5) Every few months, make sure your links are still working. Dead links are not good. 6) Only links from pages that are related to your topic have any value as far as google is concerned. So a link from a page on your wife's website about 'Alcohol Addiction' will not help your page about 'Logs for sale'! The best links are from a page related to the same topic as you and are in the middle of a paragraph. For instance, this would be a good link to have.... "I recently bought some logs and found a new [link]Firewood supplier[end of link] in Perthshire." 7) Always ask people to link to you and jump on every opportunity, but if you write really good informative stuff, people will link naturally anyway. 8) Don't forget that links from one page on your website to another can have a lot of value. For instance, you do landscaping and sell logs. On your home page, if you have two links, one to a landscaping page and one to a logs for sale page, the 'anchor text' you use for those links is very important. Whatever text you use, google will take as an indicator of what that page is about. So, think what people may search for and use that for the text in the links. E.G. Don't just use "landscaping' as the link text, but use "Landscaping in Surrey". This will really help you to rank for that phrase. Links used to be very important, but not so much now, because SEO's can easily fake hundreds of links in. One or two links from quality websites can do more for your rankings than hundreds of low quality links. My advice would be to write quality pages and let it happen naturally. Having said that, if you have a friend who has an on theme website, asking him to link to you from a quality and well written page is bound to help.

Not sure about biomass but I remember looking at Klover woodburning pool heaters. Air source heat pumps are relatively cheap and you can get specialist swimming pool ones that are very simple to install. They can be noisy though, so position has to be given some thought. I think wood is the best option if your mate has a good supply and 'Woodworks' is right about solar tubes.... perhaps a combination of the two could be a really good system. I would also buy a good cover and I think you can get special solar heating covers, which must be worth investigating.

Solar thermal tubes are excellent, but you will need a lot. Spending extra money on the pool cover, reduces dramatically the amount of heating required. I reckon a heat pump and large wood burner (specially made for heating pools) would make a good combination.... if you have a supply of cheap wood.

Air source heat pump works well.

GardenKit - If you open up an adwords account and go through the process of preparing an ad, google will suggest keywords you may want to bid for. You don't have to go on and do the ad... but you can take all their suggestions of keyword phrases. This info comes from their huge resource of what people have searched for, in relation to your topic. Another place to find potential search phrases is to do a search on google and then scroll down to the bottom of the page. There are sometimes 'suggested searches' listed there. Another really good test is to get friends to search for your products... see what they do. The final test is to get your granny to navigate your site and ask her to buy something. It is amazing how we think our sites are clear and easy to use, when they sometimes are not. Writing lots of fresh content is really good, but be careful with the 'keyword stuffing'... In my opinion, if you pack a page with too many known keywords and phrases, it may trigger suspicion. I think you could be seen as writing stuff for the search engine spider rather than the user, which could be frowned upon by google. They will notice what you are doing... they are really smart! In my opinion, write natural, informative copy and slip in the odd phrase where and when it makes sense. If you write really good informative stuff around a topic, people will naturally find it and may link to you. This 'natural' growth of links to your site will seriously impress google. It all takes time though.... sigh. Its difficult to generalise across all the different sectors, but generally a new website will be monitored and if everything appears genuine, then google will get more confident in ranking it higher. Having said that, some sites will rank well from day one because the phrases they are targeting are not very competitive. For what its worth, I think you are doing exactly the right thing by building up content and keeping the site fresh. If you can encourage some other sites which are on the same theme as you, to link to you, then that could help. I think the title tag is still very important. In my experience, a short title tag, with the phrase repeated in moderation throughout the page, works well. Broad match words to reinforce the title is a bonus. The description tag is also good and tailor made for each page. Make sure keywords in any of the metatags are also on the page as well. Keyword tag is hardly used these days, BUT if you have hundreds of keywords in it and many are not even on the page, then you could flag up a penalty. Just my 2 pence worth, hope its of help.