Matt Davies

Matt Davies

@mdavies.me

Dad. SEO consultant. Poker player. Toy collector. Miniature painter. 3D Printer. Guitar strummer (poor). Alan Partridge / Simpsons gif afficionado. https://www.slingshotsearch.co.uk/

442 followers118 following73 posts

In 2025 I turned 41 and got my first salaried job with colleagues for over a decade. When did everyone else get so young?

Just dropped a sick reference to an episode of Arrested Development that is only *checks* 22 years old in June and total crickets! What's going on?!

Feels increasingly relevant.

Matt Davies@mdavies.me

Big fan of SEO consultants that tell other SEO consultants that the trick to being a good SEO consultant is to stop doing SEO and become a brand consultant. Very helpful people.

Hello everyone. Dropping in to tell you I've opened an Etsy shop. I'm starting off by selling 3D printed backlit photos... or at least, I'd love to get my first sale and review to get things kicked off. They make lovely gifts, should you be shopping for one! Shop at www.etsy.com/uk/shop/3DPr....

Google always understates links.

Barry Schwartz@rustybrick.com

Google's @johnmu.com on losing lots of links fast; "SEOs often overestimate links" www.seroundtable.com/google-link-... via @mehdioudjida.bsky.social #google #links #seo #googlelinks #googleseo

This website has just been "reactivated" in the last 24 hours after "Google shut it down". They say they'll be posting fewer news articles and focus on "complex commentary, recommendations, discussion, and opinions". No mention of their plan for ongoing celebrity nude content.

Matt Davies@mdavies.me

There's an "independent publishing" guy on the other site complaining that his "independent entertainment news and geek commentary" site has lost most of its traffic and that means SEO is dead. Thing is, this site has been bolstering its traffic by optimising for celebrity nudes for years.

This site is still begging for donations under threat of closure. They're about 33% of the way toward the target they NEED to hit or they'll shut down FOREVER, tomorrow! I predict (a) they fail to hit their target, (b) they don't shut down and (c) they'll run the same grift this time next year.

Matt Davies@mdavies.me

Continuing down the "sad independent publisher" rabbithole... I've just seen the publisher of this site asking for donations since their traffic has, supposedly, dropped from 100,000 visits a day to 700. Can't claim to have checked all their rankings but those I have seem to be holding up.

Continuing down the "sad independent publisher" rabbithole... I've just seen the publisher of this site asking for donations since their traffic has, supposedly, dropped from 100,000 visits a day to 700. Can't claim to have checked all their rankings but those I have seem to be holding up.

There's an "independent publishing" guy on the other site complaining that his "independent entertainment news and geek commentary" site has lost most of its traffic and that means SEO is dead. Thing is, this site has been bolstering its traffic by optimising for celebrity nudes for years.

It's a SEMRush graph, so take with a pinch of salt. But traffic to this site for terms including the word "nude" seem as strong as it ever was. I guess Google has just decided that this site now is a premier source of info on celebrity nudes and decided to ignore everything else. Boo fuckin hoo.

Got my Bluesky ranking (bye bye Twitter). My handle is a .me domain that redirects to my business site. Interestingly (for people who's job it is to be interested) Google has described the listing with the opening paragraph from my business site. No doubt someone clever than me can explain why.

The response to this story over on LinkedIn has been WILD to witness. So many business wankers circling the wagons to protect one of their princes.

Matt Davies@mdavies.me

There's probably a discussion to be had about the general audience of podcasts and the utter bullshit that is sold on so many of them. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Big fan of SEO consultants that tell other SEO consultants that the trick to being a good SEO consultant is to stop doing SEO and become a brand consultant. Very helpful people.

I have unapologetically loved so much of the Marvel series. Even as the reliability has dropped off in recent years, I'm all in on it. But it will be so funny to watch James Gunn and DC totally eat their lunch in 2025.

James Gunn@jamesgunn.bsky.social

Look up. #Superman is only in theaters July 11.

Like, you know how they show those "buy silver" and "miracle product" ads in the middle of the day to target the doddery pensioners that they know are watching?

I don't generally have many opinions about transforming toys these days but I find the way this new toy is a bit bad to be a bit more bad than the way the older toy was a bit bad. If you see what I mean.

Just Norm@norminator.bsky.social

Nothing to see here, just a normal plane that isn't a robot in disguise

Sufficed to say, probably won't be spending hundreds of pounds on the toy that I think is a bit more bad than the one I already own.

Not trusting that "total listens" number though. I've definitely been made to listen to those ruddy critters more than 7 times this year.

Anyone managed to make an AI platform do a good job of keyword mapping? Spent a couple of hours last week trying to get ChatGPT to review a list of keywords and assign them to the pages on a site but it was either beyond its capabilities, or my prompting skills were lacking on that occasion.

I suspect that, to make this work, you'd have to provide more than just a list of URLs and titles tags (like I said, I only spent a couple of hours on this!), and the time needed to add the context needed would pretty much nullify the time saved by involving AI in the first place. For now...

Upgraded the printer so I can now print in multiple colours. Set it to work on a figure of Unit 01. The head alone took nearly 12 hours overnight 😬

That was easier than expected.

Shane Jones@shane.co.uk

Want your username to be a bit more on brand for who you are? ➡️ Head to the settings page - bsky.app/settings ➡️ Click "Change Handle" ➡️ Select "I have my own domain" ➡️ Enter the domain name you want your username to be ➡️ Add the TXT record to your DNS for that domain name. ✅ Then Verify Easy!

Although she's a bit too young to play the Poppy Playtime games herself, this year the kid has become enamoured with the Smiling Critters characters via their presence on YouTube. Christmas is coming but there are no decent figures of these guys yet, so I'm printing them instead. This is Dogday.

Got bored of painting cloaks and metal, decided to go with something fleshier next. Here's the start of a Nurgle army. These poxwalkers were pretty fun to paint. Good job too as I have 14 more to do.

Been painting again. Meet Belisarius Cawl. This is easily the most complex model I've ever put colour on. Completed over the course of a fortnight, it really pushed me and, while the result isn't exactly perfect, I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out overall.

Started painting Warhammer 40k Admech about 4 months ago. Up to just over 1000 points now, this Skitarii Marshall is my latest effort. Pretty happy with how he's turned out, feels like I've brought everything I've learned to the table while painting him.