We answer our critic…!

We were highly amused to receive the following comments from an anonymous source…

It’s all rather pathetic, but entertained us nonetheless. Of course we could easily have deleted these messages but thought instead, for the amusement of our visitors it might be more entertaining to respond.

To set the scene here’s how ‘Bob’ came to visit our site (from a UK IP address)…

First off, ‘Bob’ visited Google and did a search for Elle Draper which landed them on Elle’s personal Blog (unlikely behaviour for a random ‘Bob’ in Cyprus) and viewed 4 pages over 24 minutes

From that ‘Bob’ then clicked a link to another Blog site of ours about moving to Lanzarote, he viewed 5 pages in there over a couple of minutes, before finding a link to this website.

After hitting this site ‘Bob’ viewed 28 pages over the course of 22 minutes!

The first message was this one in response to our article entitled ‘Internet Thieves…’ (profanities have been removed, which is the only change made to the originals) Our answers follow…

Author : Bob (IP: 90.194.38.250 , 5ac226fa.bb.sky.com)
E-mail : bob@bobstuff.com
URL :
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=90.194.38.250
Comment:
What a load of fu**ing rubbish. You are just promoting a poxy little business on a rock in the middle of fu**ing nowhere. How many web designers are on your sh**ty island? JUST YOU at a guess (or I bet that’s what you claim!). Jeez … little fish in a little pond slagging off anyone trying to make a living? You c**ts make me sick … if you are going to use negative marketing it isn’t a good advert for you and this sort of prose just makes you come across as a very small outfit trying to build a reputation quickly by appearing knowledgeable and smart. F*CK you’ve only been in business for what .. 18 months??? I live in Cyprus and we see twats like you arrive here all the time … big ideas, big mouths, and gone in three years. TW*T.

There’s not really much to comment on is there with the first message? Nothing more than a string of insults…. The second comment, below, was in response to an article called How not to build a website.

Author : Bob (IP: 90.194.38.250 , 5ac226fa.bb.sky.com)
E-mail : bob@bobstuff.com
URL :
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=90.194.38.250
Comment:
Go on then .. name a reputable competitor .. still get the feeling you are the only company there and you won’t recommend a genuine competitor…. cyprus has twenty good companies … how many you got there? Still reads like it’s just you and you are trying to stop anyone else getting a foot in “your” market … point me to a URL I can trust and I’ll get a quote from both of you. I’ve got three in mind on the island for my new estate agency … are you telling me via your page that you are the only one … or you have done a deal to get a cut from the “competitor” (who is probably a business partner of yours) you recommend .. come on … have it out on a public page not a “private email”.

You come across as protectionist and arrogrant – name your competitors so your potential clients can make a fair “online” comparison. BTW- stop bleating about search engines when your competitors seem to be higher than you (even golanzarote.com scores higher than you!)

Anyone else ?

Okay, now we actually have some comments that amount to more than a string of insults so we’ll answer the key points directly to ‘Bob’.

1. If someone wasn´t coming to us we´d suggest Timanfrae Media. We have NO financial arrangements with them or anyone else. Not sure how you conduct business ‘Bob’, but we pride ourselves on our professionalism.
2. Yes, there are few good web companies here, and many people who do it part time.
3. In number one on this list we answered your request for us to point you at a reputable alternative, can we look forward to receiving your quote then?
4. Now here´s where we got confused – you say you are looking for two web design companies to quote you for an estate agency website, so presumably you’re opening up as an estate agent here in Lanzarote if you are looking at web designers in Lanzarote. In your other message you referred to our island as a shit*y little rock in the middle of nowhere? Hardly the attitude for a prospective Estate Agent is it? Not sure that’s the way to sell houses.
5. As regards to the comment about us appearing big in our little market – we must be doing something right! Thanks for the compliment… If you care to look at our portfolio ‘Bob’ you may see that our clients tend to like our style of business – our profile has a knock on effect for them.
6. We make no apology for what you describe as ‘protectionist and arrogant’. We welcome healthy competition, it provides us the opportunity to prove our promises are more than just words. Again ‘Bob’, look at the portfolio on our Gandy-Draper site. Our clients love us – which isn’t something we feel warrants an apology!
7. On the same note, nor can we find it in ourselves to apologize for appearing ‘knowledgable and smart’. Thank you again for the compliment ‘Bob’!
8. We don’t really see the point you are trying to make about searches as any of the following searches – Lanzarote web design, web design Lanzarote, Search Engine Optimisation Lanzarote, Search Engine Optimization Lanzarote will usually put us within the top five , and you may find one or more of our other sites on the first pages too.
9. The mention of golanzarote.com (who as an information site is not a competitor) suggest more than a passing interest in Lanzarote.

The big question now is, who is ‘Bob’ in ‘Cyprus’. Anyone got any ideas?

• Is he Elle’s stalker?
• Is it just an attack on us for whatever reason, be that business or personal?
• Is he one of the competitors with a poor reputation elsewhere?
• Is he a ‘wannabe’ planning to move to island and trying to mix things up?
• Is he one of the sharks in Lanzarote we have talked about elsewhere?
• Is he actually ‘Bob’ in Cyprus? (In which case why is his original search on the name of Elle Draper? And, why would he be so sad as to post such comments on the site of a web design company on, in his words, a “shi*ty little island”. “a rock in the middle of fu**ing nowhere”, thousands of miles away?)
• Is he something or someone else? We’d love to hear your ideas…

You decide…! 🙂