Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Stephen Appiah’s Official Website
Checking my website’s visitor statistics today, I found a lot of entries for the keyword “Stephen Appiah”. So people who are looking for information about Stephen Appiah, the famous Ghanaian footballer, end up on my website!
And because I have so much time on my hands these days, I decided to do a little digging around to find out how this successful footballer is managing his affairs online. Sad to say, I wasn’t impressed at all.
First, the website http://www.StephenAppiah.com doesn’t belong to Stephen Appiah. From the public WHOIS records, the domain name “stephenappiah.com” belongs to one Murat Akal from Instanbul, Turkey.
Surprised? Just remember the cardinal rule of the domain name game: names available strictly on a first-come-first-served basis. The only exception to this is trademarks, which can be contested. But the last time I asked, no one could claim a trademark for his/her name.
The official website for Stephen Appiah is www.StepApp.com, which is also the home for his non-profit StepApp Foundation, as well as his fashion brand StepApp.
This site appears on the first page of the search results for the the keyword “Stephen Appiah” on all the three major search Engines: Google, Yahoo and Live (Microsoft). So why do people still end up on my website, which is buried so deeply away?
That’s easy enough to figure out: the unscrupulous firm working on the website have decided to use their client’s website to promote themselves, instead of their client. This is the first page of a Google search for “Stephen Appiah”:
As you can see, Stephen Appiah’s official website is the third on the page, but it doesn’t mention his name at all — not in the title, and not in the description (actually there’s no description at all). It only says StepApp :: Powered by AccurrateConsult.com (the web design firm working on the website).
So unless you know the non-profit and fashion brand StepApp already, you’re not going to associate that site with the Ghanaian footballer. And if you know StepApp already, you’re likely to go directly to the site instead of searching for what you already know.
Does Stephen Appiah know about this? I doubt he does. Would he care if he knew? I doubt he would. Should he? Absolutely. And I’ll tell you why he should in an upcoming post.
I knew you'd ask! George Appiah is a traveling technology consultant helping individuals, small businesses and non-profits leverage technology to hack poverty out of the world. Not enough for you? 
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i am a boy of 12 years who want to join your team so i want to ask if u can give me an invitation so that i will join your team please i hope u will do it for me because my dream is to became a good footballer i know you will help me achieve my aim,and i hope you will help me get there.hope to here from u soon.and i live in Ghana.i mean i want to play the junior side.
appiah s el mejor y mas bueno q a habido en africa ,pero me gustaria verlo jugar en el futbol chileno yla”u. de chile” y tambien en persona bueno sin nada mas q decir eres el mejor africano q ha habido xao tu admirador bruno juniel bazais reyes “bruninho” un admirador q juega en curico unido
so when are you getting back to lead the black stars? you know they need your presence out there on the field, right?!
i want to see you in the black stars squad again!!Please write to me.
AM FROM GHANA AND WANT TO BE A FAN OF YOUR TEAM AND WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU IF YOU REALLY WANT ME TO BE YOUR FAN THEN LET ME KNOW PLEASE.
Hi Appiah,
i am very happy that GOD has help
and you finally made it to be part of the blackstar squad.
you are my role modle indeed.
Appiah,please i have something to tell you so please
mail me back to show that you are really concerned.
MY GOD GRANT YOU FULL RECOVERY.
DEAR STEPHEN APPIAH IT MY FIRST TIME CHATING TO YOU ON THIS WEBSITE. APPIAH IMAY ASK WHICH TEAM ARE YOU JOINING NOW AND ALSO IAM A BOY OF FIFTEEN YEARS AND WANTING TO KNOW A LITTLE MORE ABOUT YOURSELF AND CAREER. MY ADDRESS IS;KWEKU ATA SAM C/O MR P.K. SAM PO BOX 279 TAKORADI. AND I ALSO WANT TO SEND ME SOME OF YOUR VIDEO CLIPS. THANK YOU HAVE A NICE DAY
Hmmm…
George, I can’t help wondering but did the folks who commented on your post ever read it at all?
@Remy Edmundson:
I kept deleting these comments until I got tired and simply left them.
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