Ali has asked me to provide the SEO community, who have all been so worried about Ian, a press release to let everyone know what actually happened in New Orleans/Atlanta that made Ian go missing.

He changed hotel due to the air conditioning system that was keeping him awake and he wanted a good night sleep after the conference and pub con before his flight home. He booked into the Monaco Hotel a few blocks away from the Park Plaza on the Saturday. Unfortunately this hotel wasn’t much better so he didn’t get his good night sleep as planned. He arrived at the airport drained from the conference week and the lack of sleep.

To make matters worse the flight was delayed to Atlanta meaning that he would miss the connection to the UK, plus the weather was bad. The flight to Atlanta was apparently very turbulent and Ian is a bad flyer and afraid of heights at the best of times.
This culmination of circumstances made Ian have, what can only be described as, a panic attack on the plane as it landed in Atlanta. The actual details here are quite vague and Ian is unsure of the whole events.
What did happen though was that he left his personal belongings on the plane (passport, wallet, laptop, coat) so subsequently he was arrested by the local police inside/outside the airport. Subsequent to this and the fact he had no ID on him he was detained in the local jail.

It has taken the past few days for the local police to sort this out with Homeland Security and the British Consolate and having no ID on him was a big problem. But as soon as he was traced to the jail and his identity was proved, we were able to get funds to him (thanks to Keith) which enabled the passport to be sorted for Ian.

He is currently at the airport hotel awaiting a flight home and has got some of his personal belongings back.

Ali has asked me to say how much she has appreciated all of the support that has been given to her and her family this last week which has enabled her to keep strong to cope with this frightening situation of not knowing what had happened to Ian.
She would like some quiet time when Ian gets back to the UK and we should respect her wishes. Once Ian has recovered from this ordeal I am sure that he will thank the community personally for everything that you have achieved.

I would personally like to thank the whole SEM community, Keith Hazelden – the man on the ground at Atlanta, Chris R, ThomasB, NickW, Danny Sullivan and Brett Tabke. I’d also like to thank the search engine reps Tim Mayer and Matt Cutts for their help.

My part in all of this started when Ali stickied me on Tuesday to ask if I’d seen or heard from Ian as he wasn’t home yet. This started the threads appearing on the forums to try and find him. I have been in communication with Ali through all of this offering advice and support, as well as helping his business partners in the UK with client issues on the SEO side of things (honest Tim & Matt i’ve kept it clean!).

Lets hope this is the end to the saga….

DaveN