Saturday, October 29, 2005

I did some homework today on KPMG

Ever since I received that phone call from KPMG, I have been curious about a few things. The first is how they even found this blog! Let's face it, the traffic isn't huge. I'm on track right now to get around 5700 page views per month - I installed a counter recently. These are not big numbers. So, how did KPMG find me?

Well, I saw the domains that refer traffic to my blog, and it appears that somebody recently came to this blog from the MSN search window, using the criteria: KPMG and regulatory problems. This blog comes up on the seventh page of search results. But, it could have been the person who used Google to search for: "big four" accounting firms prosecution litigation 2005. That put the blog as the tenth option out of 515.

Thanks to everybody who is checking this out from as far as India, by the way. I appreciate your interest.

Assuming that somebody from KPMG found my blog, they still had to get my home phone number. Since I work from home (one of the perks of being a freelance writer), one can call me at home using my "work" number. Well, I recently published a few articles in the Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Journal (http://www.s-ox.com), and I listed my cell as my business number. This is usually more prudent, because I do a lot of my writing from a local cigar shop.

But, they called my home number. This means that they probably did a Google search on "tom johansmeyer, assumed I am not the guy who writes for an adult-oriented publication, and sifted through the many white papers I have written for Imceda and Quest Software. On the Imceda white papers, I list my home number as the business line.

Clearly, these folks did their homework.

I know that this doesn't provide much insight into the Big Four, but I did want to provide some context on the recent phone call from KPMG - as well as their reaction to my 9/30 story.

Tom Johansmeyer

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