John K Mitchell's Misc Blog

John Mitchell
Back-Button Hijacking: Why Small Business Websites Need to Stop Doing It


TL;DR: Back-button hijacking is the irritating trick that stops a visitor from using their browser’s Back button normally. Instead of returning to the page they came from, they may see an advert, a different page or be sent around a loop. It has annoyed web users for years, but Google has now made its position much clearer. In April 2026, Google announced that back-button hijacking would become an explicit violation of its spam policies, with enforcement beginning on 15 June 2026. Websites using the practice can face manual spam actions or automated ranking demotions. For a small business, that means a tactic intended to gain an extra page view could end up costing valuable Google traffic.


What Is Back-Button Hijacking?


There is a very simple rule when you browse the web: if you click your browser's Back button, you expect to go back. It sounds obvious because it is.

More at https://www.forestsoftware.co.uk/blog/?p=3182 https://www.forestsoftware.co.uk/blog/?p=3182

John Mitchell
When Your Mojo Disappears: How to Get It Back in Your Small Business


Running a small business can be exciting, rewarding and full of freedom. It can also be exhausting.

I was talking to a friend over the weekend who is an author, the one that has writen The Sleeping Phoenix series and he was saying about getting stuck on the most recent book.  This led me to say about writing blog posts and got me thinking.

Some days, you wake up ready to crack on. You have ideas, energy and a clear sense of where you are going. Other days, opening your laptop feels like a huge effort. The jobs you normally enjoy seem dull, and even small decisions feel harder than they should.

If that sounds familiar, your business mojo may have disappeared.

The good news is that this happens to plenty of small business owners. Losing your motivation does not automatically mean you have chosen the wrong career, your business is failing or you need to throw everything away and start again.

More at https://www.forestsoftware.co.uk/blog/?p=3178 https://www.forestsoftware.co.uk/blog/?p=3178

John Mitchell
Why You Check Emails While Getting the Kids Breakfast – and How to Manage Time Better


Do you ever find yourself buttering toast with one hand while scrolling through your inbox with the other? You’re not alone. Most small business owners start their day this way (I know I used to) – half in family mode, half in work mode. But why do we do it? And more importantly, how can we stop this cycle that leaves us frazzled before 9am? Let’s dig into the chaos, find out what’s really going on, and look at simple, real-world ways to get your mornings (and your mind) back.


The Breakfast Email Habit – How Did We Get Here?


Think back twenty years. The only way you’d check your emails before breakfast would be if you physically went to your computer, fired up your dial-up modem, and waited for that screeching noise to stop. Now, your phone is right there next to the kettle, flashing away with notifications before you’ve even had your first sip of tea.

It’s easy to see how this habit formed.

More at https://www.forestsoftware.co.uk/blog/2025/10/why-you-check-emails-while-getting-the-kids-breakfast-and-how-to-manage-time-bette/ https://www.forestsoftware.co.uk/blog/2025/10/why-you-check-emails-while-getting-the-kids-breakfast-and-how-to-manage-time-bette/

John Mitchell
URL Structures for a Small Business Website: What Should Your URLs Look Like?


TL;DR: A good URL should be short, clear and easy to understand. For most small business websites, something like domain.co.uk/service is usually better than a long, complicated URL. But there are times when adding another level, such as domain.co.uk/services/service, can make sense. The important thing is to create a structure that works for both people and search engines. Think about your website as a set of related topics, not simply a collection of pages.

Your website's URLs (or page addresses) might seem like a tiny detail. After all, visitors are usually more interested in what is on the page than what appears in their browser's address bar. However, the structure of your URLs can affect how easy your website is to understand, maintain and navigate.

A clear URL can tell somebody what they are about to find before they even click it.

More at https://www.forestsoftware.co.uk/blog/?p=3175 https://www.forestsoftware.co.uk/blog/?p=3175

John Mitchell
What To Do If Your WordPress Website Is Hacked


TL;DR: I've recently taken on a client with a new website whose old WordPress site was hacked and had around 200,000 pages injected into it. Many of those pages appeared to link to eBay products. The new website is now in place, but the old hacked site still needs dealing with. This is very much an ongoing project that may take several months to sort out properly.

If your WordPress website has been hacked, don't panic and don't start deleting everything you can find. First, work out what has happened, protect the website and your other accounts, create backups, investigate how the hacker got in and then clean the website properly. You also need to deal with the damage left behind in Google and other search engines.

A hacked website isn't just an IT problem. For a small business, it can become a business, reputation and SEO problem too.

More at https://www.forestsoftware.co.uk/blog/?p=3170 https://www.forestsoftware.co.uk/blog/?p=3170

John Mitchell
What Does “Discovered – Currently Not Indexed” Mean in Google Search Console?


TL;DR: If Google Search Console says “Discovered – currently not indexed”, Google knows your page exists but has not crawled it yet. It is not necessarily an error, and it does not automatically mean your content is poor. Google may simply have decided that other pages on your website are a higher priority right now. For a small business, the best response is usually to check your website structure, make sure important pages are easy to find, use sensible internal links, keep your sitemap clean and make sure Google can access your site reliably. Don’t panic and don’t keep clicking “Request Indexing” every five minutes. It is a request, not a magic button.

If you run a small business website, seeing pages sitting in Google Search Console with the words “Discovered – currently not indexed” can be surprisingly worrying.

More at https://www.forestsoftware.co.uk/blog/2026/08/google-search-console-discovered-currently-not-indexed/ https://www.forestsoftware.co.uk/blog/2026/08/google-search-console-discovered-currently-not-indexed/

John Mitchell
How to Turn Your Small Business Around Before Problems Become Bigger


Running a small business has never been easy. Rising costs, changing customer habits, higher wages, increasing National Insurance contributions, inflation and economic uncertainty have all put pressure on businesses across the UK. Every year, thousands of businesses close because they simply run out of cash or fail to adapt quickly enough, in 2025 approximately 288,000 businesses closed across the UK and the total registered company insolvencies reached 23,938.   The good news is that many businesses can recover if problems are spotted early and action is taken before they become overwhelming.

This is one of those topics that many business owners would rather avoid, but it is also one of the most important. It is easy to believe that next month will be better or that one large order will solve everything.

More at https://www.forestsoftware.co.uk/blog/?p=3165 https://www.forestsoftware.co.uk/blog/?p=3165