I keep getting semi-spam messages from firms trying to persuade me to use their services to get higher in the search engine rankings. (I call them semi-spam because at least they have been targeted, not just spewed out at random).

In response to one today which proudly announced that their own site was in the first page for certain keywords, the impulse came over me to see where this site came. The results were a bit of a surprise to me - since I've never really bothered about search engine rankings.

"Time management" - That's the really important key phrase. And this site appears at the bottom of the front page. That's really good.

"Mark" - It would be really great if I was on the front page for my Christian name alone, but no chance. Nowhere to be seen!

"Forster" - Yes! 5th position. Fantastic!

"Mark Forster" - In spite of the fact that my name is not that unusual, this site gets top position and six other mentions on the first page (including an advertisement by Amazon).

What did I do to get these search engine rankings? Basically nothing!