The Seek Network's Top Ten

Over the ten years or so that Seek Southwest has been online, one thing that has hardly changed is the most popular searches performed on all the search engines which result in the Site being listed on Google. In no particular order, these are now:

1) Job vacancies; Southwest job vacancies, jobs in Devon, Cornwall jobs and so on are the consistent number one searches which result in Seek Southwest being found. Jobs in the southwest are easier to come by than in many parts of the country but even so looking in the job centres and employment agencies around the south west region you'd hardly think that this was the case. Most people in Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Bristol would probably argue that trying to find a job in the Southwest is as hard as it is anywhere else in the country and that their efforts to find work usually end up fruitless with their applications often not even being ackowledged by the companies they contact. Seek Southwest is an ideal focal point for job seekers in the region as it lists numerous job vacancy websites to try in the area with slective job types such as computing, secretarial, engineering, unskilled labour and with jobs available in both the full time anf part time markets.


2) Caravans for Sale; With Spring fast approching many people have started turning thir thoughts to their annual holiday but with caravans for sale in the Southwest, owning a caravan means that you have somewhere to go for many months of the year not just your summer holidays. Most caravan parks throughout the UK are open for the most part of the year meaning that you have the freedom to visit your caravan when it suits you whether this is for odd weekends or for the occasional full week, the choice is entirely up to you. Of course not only is your caravan available for holidays and short breaks you also have the option to let your caravan to both family and friends and to holidaymakers giving you the ability to earn a useful extra income from your holiday caravan at any time when you're not going to be using it yourself.

3) Dating Services; Online dating along with such fairly recent innovations as speed dating has brought dating services right up into the twenty first century and using such services is now the thing to do with no stigma attached as used to be the case just a few years ago. Southwest dating services are available throughout the south west counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Bristol to help you find the love of your life, perhaps your soulmate, or maybe just new friends in a new social circle. Whatever it is you're looking for, southwest dating websites are plentiful and here at Seek Southwest we have them listed.

4) Car Hire; Renting a car or van in the southwest is easy when you use Seek Southwest. Simply click on southwest self drive car hire to be taken to a great selection of car hire companies serving Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Bristol with cars in all sizes along with a great choice of self-drive vans. There's also a selection of sports cars to hire as well as exclusive car hire such as Bentleys and Lamborginies.

5) Self-Catering Holiday Accommodation; Nothing gives you freedom on holiday like a southwest self-catering holiday. Freedom to eat when you want to eat. Freedom to come and go as you please. Freedom to do what you want to do, when you want to do it. Don't tie yourself down, stay in self catering holiday accommodation in Cornwall, Somerset, Devon or Bristol and find yourself in a quaint cottage in the middle of the lovely southwest countryside or perhaps an old house overlooking the Cornish coast. There's a multitude of southwest holiday cottages, apartments or other accommodation and you'll find a good many of them listed on Seek Southwest.

6) Cars for Sale; Have a look at the southwest car showrooms listed on the southwest cars for sale page to find the car you've been looking for. New and used cars galore throughout the southwest counties of Bristol, Devon, Somerset and Cornwall. Car dealers throughout the region for just about very make of car there  is. Shop around for the best deals. The Southwest isn't huge so you're never more than afew hours drive away from your next car.

7) Boats for Sale; With the Southwest being surrounded on both sides by the sea, right down to the tip at Land's End, it's hardly surprising that that there are so many boats for sale in the region, with boats and boating being a large part in many people's lives. If you're looking to buy a boat in the Southwest, from a small two-man dinghy to a large fishing charter boat, sailing boats, sports boats, cabin boats, river boats, canoes, ocean going yachts, rowing boats, fishing boats, kayaks, canal boats and every other type of boat imaginable, have a look at the Seek Southwest boats for sale page.

8) Property for Sale; The property market may not be particularly bouyant at the moment but Southwest estate agents currently have thousands upon thousands of houses, flats and commercial property for sale throughout Devon, Somerset, Cornwall and Bristol, just waiting to tie them up with an ideal purchaser, possibly you. Some of the estate agents listed on the southwest property pages will do the searching for you once they've got your exact requirements and if you're from outside the area this can always be a good idea as you can rely on their local expertise and knowledge of the area to find you your dream property.

9) Training Courses; There's such an abundance of training courses available in the Southwest that if you don't know which type of course you definitely want, looking on the southwest courses page could give you an overdose of inspiration and possibly lead you in a direction you would never have thought possible. There's a mixture of both recreational and vocational courses to get you moving either as an improvement on what you already do or to start you off in a totally new direction. Whether you're looking at a business management course, an accountancy course, want to learn more about computers or you fancy learning how to fly, then have a look at the courses page on Seek Southwest for all the inspiration you need.

10) Debt management; Not surprising really to find southwest debt management in our top ten list considering the number of people and businesses who are falling foul to the current downturn in the economy. Getting hold of a good debt management company as early on as possible is a major factor in beating the problem if not at least making the symptoms more palatable. Vist the Seek Southwest debt management page for more information on how you can seek assistance with your money and debt problems.

Puppet Makers and Distributers

Well, after a lot of work I'm pleased to say that the new-look Kallini Puppets website is now up and running. Gone are all the glove puppets that Kallini Puppets has been selling for a number of years. The site is now concentrating fully on ventriloquist dummies and marionettes, both those made by Kallini Puppets in their North of England puppet workshop and those which it sells from its large puppet stock, such as the popular wrap around dog ventriloquist dummy. Kallini Puppet's 34" traditional style boy ventriloquist dummy has now been joined by its grumpy old man ventriloquist dummy and a traditional style girl ventriloquist dummy. In addition to these it sells a good range of 26" soft-headed moving mouth ventriloquist puppets such as the Dennis boy ventriloquist puppet and the amusing Old Man Ernest.

So whatever you're looking for in the way of a ventriloquist dummy or ventriloquist puppet, nip over to Kallini Puppets...it won't be a wasted journey.

I'm Being Driven Slowly Mad!

I told you a little while ago that on October 14th last year I became yet another victim of Google's notorious Panda update. Well I've been working hard to get Seek Southwest back into Google's good books and thought everything was going reasonably well, although visitor numbers were still hugely down on last year. Up to yesterday Southwest Job Vacancies was back to number 2 in Google and I was starting to get several hits every day for job related searches. Now to copy these results across all Seek Southwest's pages and then across the entire Seek Network and all would be fine. Wrong! Today the page seems to have disappeared from Google's search results completely (unless you actually include the word seek). So now whether you're looking for fish jobs in Devon, teaching jobs in Cornwall or anything else, Seek Southwest is nowhere to be found. WHAT THE HELL ARE GOOGLE PLAYING AT? How on this earth can a site be number 2 for numerous search terms then the next day be nowhere to be found for exactly the same terms? It's so frustrating! How on this earth is any business supposed to get on if Google can't make its Goddam mind up and keeps changing the goalposts? What is anyone supposed to do? I'm fast losing all patience and am almost in tears here, sad though it is to have to admit it. It's very hard to get motivated when nothing you do seems to work, especially when things seem to be improving then you're brought back to earth with a huge God Almighty bump. Please Google, give us a break!

Southwest Caravans For Sale, Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Bristol

Southwest caravans for sale again I hear you say. Change the tune. OK but at this time of year lots of people start looking to buy a caravan, not only in the south west of the UK but all over the country. They've had a lovely summer caravan holiday, maybe in Devon, maybe in Cornwall, perhaps even in Somerset and having got Christmas and New Year under their belts have started turning their thoughts to next year's summer holiday.

Going on holiday when you have pets means either taking them with you or putting them into a cattery or kennel, unless you're lucky enough to have friends or neighbours who are happy to take in your beloved dog or cat, or maybe your hamster or goldfish. Have a look at our southwest catteries and kennels page for a host of kennels and catteries in the region who will be able to look after your pet whilst you're out and about enjoying yourself.

Southwest animals and wildlife page is a useful resource for information on loads of the area's wildlife including the famous Dartmoor ponies, birds on the isles of Scilly, southwest aquariums and lobster hatcheries to name just a few. Linked to this page is the popular southwest animal welfare page which deals with such subjects as animal rescue, hedgehog sancturaries, cat rehoming and dogs trusts. Whilst on the subject of animals the southwest horse-riding and equestrian page makes for interesting reading if horse riding is your passion with websites concerning natural horesmanship, livery stables, children's riding clubs and equestrian property agents as examples. Linking on from this is the southwest riding holidays page which gives a great selection of ideas for horse riding holidays throughout the southwest counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Bristol.

Watch this page for more information on Seek Southwest. See You Soon!

Seek Northeast Photography Services

If you're looking for a professional photographer in Northeast England then visit Seek Northeast for a great selection of photographers from around the north east counties of Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, County Durham and Cleveland. From wedding photographers to food photographers and every sort of photography in between you'll be sure to find a northeast professional photographer to suit your needs. In addition to the photographers you'll find a good selection of online photos on the northeast photo galleries page.

Dozens of subjects are covered in Seek Northeast  including northeast self catering holiday accommodation for those of you wishing to holiday completely under your own steam and for those of you looking for northeast job vacancies then the site could help you find just the job you've been looking for.

Southwest caravans for sale

Well further to my last blog I'm pleased that all the Seek Southwest pages have now been renamed so it's now just a case of waiting for Google to re-index the entire site. As I said before, doing this was a risk but one I think that was worth taking. So now if you're looking for southwest cars for sale for car showrooms for used and new cars throughout the southwest counties of Devon, Cornwall, Somerset or Bristol or if you're a boating enthusiast southwest boats for sale could be the place where you'll find your ideal new or used boat. Back to the blog title, it may be that now Christmas is over and the New Year beckons, your thoughts are turning to next year's holiday already and plans to purchase a new caravan in the southwest could be surfacing. Perhaps you've been planning to learn to drive in the near future so if that's the case have a look at the southwest driving schools page for driving school websites throughout the south west. If you're looking for a new job or simply want to change the job you've already got then have a look at our southwest jobs page. It may just help you land the job of your dreams.

The fact is that whatever you're looking for in the souhwest, Seek Southwest is there to help you. And of course, if you're the owner of a southwest website and would like to add a listing for your site to Seek Southwest then simply go to any page and click on the 'list your website' link. It's cheap and once you're listed, you're listed - for good!

The Southwest is Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Bristol.

Well according to Seek Southwest it is, at least. This selection of counties didn't happen overnight though. Whilst building such visitor useful pages as southwest job vacancies and southwest self catering holiday accommodation it became clear that the south west was more than just Devon and Cornwall, which is how Seek Southwest started out. We had several requests to include Somerset in our listings and after a great deal of thought we decided to add Somerset to the directory. So now such pages as the ever-popular southwest photography services page which had seen a great interest from professional photographers from all around the Southwest counties of Devon, Cornwall, could now be used by photographers from Somerset as well. As time went on the Seek Network was born and Seek Southwest became one of over a dozen UK regional website directories all linked under the central hub of Seek the UK. What counties to include in what directories was a problem right from the start and a great deal of research was undertaken before final decisions were reached but one problem remained for quite a while. Where to stick Bristol?

For us, Bristol just wasn't far enough into the Southwest for our liking but by the same token wasn't deemed suitable to be included in the South Midlands but it had to go somewhere. Eventually the decision was taken to include Bristol County in Seek Southwest so now such pages as the southwest dating page would enable visitors from Bristol and its environs to find that special someone for long lasting love. (Alright, so it's corny).

Regular users of Seek Southwest may have noticed a recent change to the directory. We've started renaming all the pages by placing a preifix - southwest - to all the pages. This is always a risky process as there's a risk of not getting re-indexed by the search engines in the same way but as our visitor numbers are currently the worst ever this seems the ideal time to take the chance with the aim being an eventual large increase in visitor numbers. As we progress, we'll also be adding a large number of new pages to include separate pages for just Devon listings, Cornwall listings, Somerset listings and Bristol listings for selected subjects. So as well as southwest cars for sale there'll be pages for Devon car sales, Cornwall car sales, Somerset car sales and Bristol car sales.

This is a huge undertaking as we're not going to stop the process with Seek Southwest. Every site in the Seek Network will have the same treatment, so Seek Northeast job vacancies will be expanded to have separate pages for Northumberland job vacancies, Tyne and Wear job vacancies, County Durham job vacancies etc. Obviously this can't be done with Seek Scotland, Seek Northern Ireland and Seek Wales but we will be adding new town and city pages for specific subjects so in the future you'll be seeing such pages as Edinburgh job vacancies or Cardiff car sales. London is a problem so far as this process goes but as Seek London covers the whole of the Greater london area we may go down the line of having London Borough pages - for example Islington car sales.

So over the next few months the Seek network should be seeing some major changes, and hopefully a return to the sort of visitor numbers we're used to. Time will tell. Watch this space!