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SEO From a Different Perspective: The Web 2.0 Approach
2007-11-09 13:51:00
Note: this post is authored by Mig (Mihaela Lica) of Pamil Visions.  Mig’s About Page reads: ” I am a freelance writer, have some SEO expertize and I am an online public relations and media consultant. I used to be a military journalist, worked six years as a freelance reporter for the Romanian National Radio Station (ROR) and four years in the Public Relations Direcorate of the Romanian Ministry of Defense. Since 2002 I live in Germany.”  Check out Mig’s MyBlogLog community to get an update on all of her blogs! What do successful bloggers have in common? Why are they so popular? Is it search engine optimization? Is it networking? Communication? Or is it a combination of all of the above plus a special extra something? I’ve been into SEO since 2002, and if there is something I learned from all this years of optimizing websites for the search engines is that the algorithms of the search engines change because people change. The way we search for in...
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Find Page Rank of Every Page of Your Site
2007-11-06 16:52:00
With so much talk about page rank in the past few weeks, I read a lot of articles, as I am sure all of you did too. I also read a lot of people mentioning different page ranks for their internal pages and wondered what my site’s individual pages ranked at. So a couple of minutes of search on Google, [did I mention I LOVE Google because these guys rock?] I was taken straight to the article “Find Page rank for Internal Pages of your site” [note the power of correct headline]. Jon Lee, the author of this article and blog, provides a link to a site named LivePR which not only provides page rank of your site’s individual pages, it also sorts them for you! BTW, I found Jon’s site very interesting and have subscribed! Another add to my ever growing google reader! which needs a thorough cleaning soon and I will be thinking of Meg’s letter to her subscribers and her criteria for dropping some feeds, ‘coz I find it intimidating ...
More About: Page Rank , Rank , Site

My lovely browser FireFox is hanging up!
2007-11-04 18:10:00
Red Panda - also known as Fire Fox photo by Damouns and giving me quite a heartache for the last couple of days now! I haven’t used IE for eons although have IE7 installed, just for the heck of it! But I am so used to the add ons in FireFox that working with any other browser feels so foreign. Thank God, I don’t have a problem with accessing my favorites since I transported all of them in Delicious! Yeah, so much for relying on technology! Which makes me wonder what I will (and you all will) do if we didn’t have access to the internet? chilling thought, isn’t it? Okay so the browser does load up, but it hangs up on ‘Options’, which are set to clear cache on exit, or on logging on to my beloved social networking site StumbleUpon; which is one of my most favorite activities on a daily basis now and needless to say, it’s added to the ‘blues’! yes, I am really frustrated and feeling sort of sad… This post I am wri...
More About: Firefox , Browser , Lovely , Browse

Dilemma of Paid Reviews!
2007-11-02 07:38:00
Darren’s article asking people if they have written paid reviews on their blog came at an interesting time since I just got notified by pay per post rejecting the review posts I wrote sometime back! Looking at the survey question responses on problogger, its clear that the blogging community is heavily divided on this issue and emotions run pretty high on both sides! I wrote 2 (supposedly) paid review posts and both were a negative experiences for me. First one was on the car garage guy which got rejected because I included a video in the post! Well, I thought Tim Allen’s video would make an otherwise boring review post interesting but obviously the advertisers didn’t think so! Second post was on pay day loans, a concept that I had never heard about, before reading on their site, and was titled Strapped for cash. This post also got rejected because pay per post guys cannot find a record of me first ‘reserving’ the ‘opportunity’ before ...
More About: Reviews , Paid , Dilemma , Dile

Happy Halloween
2007-10-31 14:37:00
  Photo: Vintage Halloween Postcard by riptheskull Halloween’s a sudden BOO!!And just as quick a scream;Laughing in the scary dark,Loving friendly fright. On Halloween, witches come true;Wild ghosts escape from dreams.Each monster dances in the park,Eating candy like a shark–Now kiss and say goodnight!
More About: Happy , Allo

Where would you like to go?
2007-10-29 20:16:00
Sunday was a nice day at fresh perspectives, weather wise and other wise, for a few good surprises! For one, Google was kind and assigned this blog a page rank of 4 and gave me a feeling of ‘official belonging’ to the blogosphere. What more? it came on my birthday (yes, not blog birthday, my birthday so that was a nice surprise! Now SportSayer would probably have to add one more page rank display button for blogs that got the PR for the first time because ‘has been’ or any other from his selection may not quite fit in this situation! May be a ‘lucked out’ button? A real nice long vacation on birthday would also have been great idea and as a matter of fact I feel it should be mandatory to stay out of work for a few days on or around your birthday. What do you think? Which brings me to this question: If money or time were not an issue, and you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?

Interesting posts around the blogosphere
2007-10-27 23:05:00
While the entire blog world has been abuzz with Page Rank dwindling from low to high and in between leaving many wondering about their future, Google guys are preparing to celebrate Halloween this weekend. What a nerve! So, we all have heard time and again to not lose heart and learn from every situation, and continue to forge ahead in pursuit of our goals! One of the most important lessons from Google’s unpredictable behavior also proves that we cannot rely on just one source for our income! Talking about income, I found another post that talks about 22 ways to build an emergency fund! Oh, Matt from blogging fingers also tells us of things that can earn passive income!  While talks of money making are all good, its also important to have fun doing it, so if you head over to Kim’s blog, you’ll find some neat contests and no mention of page rank and no such worries because life just has to go on!   And who knows? Some connections we make with peopl...
More About: Interesting , Blogosphere , Posts , Eres

Don’t let it bring you down!
2007-10-26 07:48:00
Bloggers hit by Page Rank Slam of Oct. ‘07 I’m not ranked, but I feel your pain!

How do you overcome blogger’s block?
2007-10-25 06:29:00
The following post is written by Pelf.  Check out pelf’s blog for some inspiration! Let’s face it. We all experience it once in a while, especially when we least expect it.  It doesn’t matter how long we have been blogging, there are times when we just can’t think of anything to blog about. Following are some websites that help bloggers overcome blogger’s block: Lorelle’s Blogging Challenge Once in a while, Lorelle @ Lorelle On WordPress throws her readers a blogging challenge. These blogging challenges serve to challenge our thinking and efforts in blogging and blog writing.  I personally love Lorelle’s Blogging Challenge not only because she always comes up with original blog topics but because after completing each challenge, Lorelle makes sure that we have learned something along the way and that we would be able to share, on our blog, what we have learned from taking up the challenge.  In other words, besides he...
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How would you use the empty space with blogrush gone?
2007-10-23 22:25:00
Can you guess whats missing in the blank space between Alexa and dealdotcom widgets in my right side bar? Well, there used to be a widget called Blogrush! Today I got an email from them telling me that my BlogRush Account has been made INACTIVE because this blog did not pass their Quality Review criteria. Huh?? It sure surprised me but also gave me a good chuckle ^_^ The email continues: “We determined that your blog did not meet our strict quality guidelines. Please do not take this personally but realize that we must abide by a very strict set of quality guidelines. (They are listed below.) If you feel you have made the necessary changes to your blog(s) to meet our guidelines, you can resubmit your blog(s) for review after this date: Wednesday, November 21, 2007. Below is a complete list of our quality guidelines… BlogRush Quality Guidelines: - The blog contains unique, quality content that provides opinions, insights, and/or recommended resources that prov...
More About: Space , Empty

Free RSS Icons - Help visitors become regular readers.
2007-10-23 06:54:00
This is a guest post authored by Mike Scott from Port 16.   The picture below is Mike  along with his adorable sons.  I remember when Mike first stopped by this blog I called him Mike and then another Mike stopped by, so then in order to make some distinction, I started calling him Scott but then another Scott stopped by and at that point I had to ask what name he preferred to be called by!  Mike told me it doesn’t bother him what name I called him by but that usually people go by Mike!    That was fine and then one day I was on Pownce, and as usual,  it was probably late in the day and I had really been devoid of sleep!!   Had a hard time keeping my eyes open when Mike had written something about the guest post and I replied, “oh sure Mark,  that would be wonderful”   -  and logged off!   Next day when I read Mike’s response, I couldn’t stop laughi...
More About: Icons , Readers , Free , Regular , Visitors

Strapped for cash!
2007-10-23 06:11:00
One of the commentors on the previous post was wondering if the Blog World Expo guys could adapt her!!  Well,  I am not that desperate to go but I did start wondering if I could simply apply for some fast cash advance from somewhere .. if not Las Vegas, may be the local casinos wouldn’t be such a bad idea!   And then I thought of pay day loan guys!   Did you know such a service existed where you could apply to get fast loans ranging from $100 to $1500 with no credit or background checks?     Well,  Oasis Payday Loan offers quick cash advances for times when you are in need of some cash.  They require no credit checks, no collateral, and no co-signers.   Getting approved for payday loans is much less time consuming, resulting in faster cash in your bank account.   And these loans require no credit checks, no collateral, and no co-signers.  &...
More About: Cash

Blog World Expo
2007-10-22 00:51:00
You know Blog World Expo is being held on - November 8 - 9, 2007 in Las Vegas! And according to their site, here are some Important Blogging Stats # Over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog. # More than 147 million Americans use the Internet. # Over 57 million Americans read blogs. # 1.7 million American adults list making money as one of the reasons they blog. # 89% of companies surveyed say they think blogs will be more important in the next five years. # 9% of internet users say they have created blogs . # 6% of the entire US adult population has created a blog . # Technorati is currently tracking over 70 million blogs. # over 120 thousand blogs are created every day . # There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day . # 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs . # 120,000 new blogs are created every day . # 37% of blog readers began reading blogs in 2005 or 2006 . # 51% of blog readers shop online . # Blog readers average 23 hours online...

Hopes and Dreams
2007-10-20 16:35:00
“Hope” is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul… And sings the tune without the words And never stops ….at all ~ Emily Dickinson I was reminded of this poem by a friend named Anna on one of the social networks! And it was nice to know that there is this little feathered being deep inside me, that sings non-stop! So often we start feeling we have come to a time and place that is void of hope and of possibilities, only to find that it is the very state of hopelessness that allows us to hit the bottom, give up the illusion of control, turn it around and ask for help, to make the impossible, possible. Out of the ashes of our hopelessness comes the fire of our hope again!! To be without hopes and dreams is a place of loss…… loss of our birthright as a human being. Hope does spring and sing eternal, even when we have wax in our ears! By recognizing and affirming our feelings of...
More About: Hopes , Dreams

You are invited (regretfully)
2007-10-18 17:46:00
Harmony Central   To Women:  Why can’t we get along? To Men:   What do you think?         

Tim the tool-man or Pearl the tool-girl
2007-10-17 05:21:00
Which one sounds better? I think “pearl the tool-girl” has a better ring to it, wouldn’t you say? For those who don’t know what I am talking about, Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor is a very famous character (played by Tim Allen) of an American sitcom called Home Improvement. Tim is married to Jill and they have three sons, Brad, Randy and Mark. Tim spends most of his time in his garage working with a large collection of tools and is always trying to ‘fix’ the appliances in the house to make them more powerful and of course in the process causes a whole lot of goof ups! One of the funniest shows ever….. and here is a clip that runs about 10 minutes but is worth every one of it! Okay I was kidding about tool girl being better than the tool man, he is definitely very funny and way better actor than I could ever be! You know what reminded me of Home Improvement? I recently got my home’s hardwood floors replaced with the ...
More About: Girl , Pearl , Earl

Unity in diversity on Blog Action Day!
2007-10-14 13:59:00
After reading Leo Babauta of ZenHabits on why bloggers WILL change the world and how we can help, I have to say, I felt motivated to do my bit and have been reading and educating myself on this issue. But, with thousands of web sites filled with information on what to do and what not to do to reduce the affects of global warming and save the environment, I feel kinda lost as far as writing something original! So, in order to get a better perspective on what the big deal about this devastating phenomenon is, and not bombarding you with Top 50 things to do to stop Global Warming or writing another Global Warming Survival Guide, which obviously are far superior than what I could come up with, I thought of sharing some thought provoking videos I came across, made by National Geography , AndrewEdwardRoss, and elephantologist respectively! note: this was supposed to be published at midnight, but guess my blog’s time needs to be fixed! but how?
More About: Action , Blog , Diversity , Unity , Dive

How do you build relationships with your blog visitors?
2007-10-13 17:42:00
When someone reads what we have written and takes the time to give their opinion on it, positive or negative, it becomes an extension of our thoughts as we think about their view, and respond with what we think and then someone else jumps in, and the conversation continues! These online interactions can be much more enriching and rewarding if we follow basic tenets of communication, with an intent to cultivate a relationship with our visitors, because communication, as we all know, is a two way process, of giving and receiving information. Whether it is that we are speaking to someone offline or online, if we are courteous and respectful of others, the experience will be much more enjoyable for all involved. So, what basic principles we should keep in mind to foster a good relationship with our site visitors? Show Humility This one I believe is the first and foremost to follow rule when interacting with anyone online. Getting more comments and more visitors can quickly st...
More About: Relationships , Blog , Visitors , Build , With You

Should we drop the paid text links or not ?
2007-10-11 14:50:00
This is our first Guest Post by Mayank Gupta who blogs at ReviewSaurus - The Techie Dino.     Well, as Pearl discussed in the last post that Google is acting hard on those web sites which are selling text-link ads and the advertisers are interested only in the page-rank and not the traffic.  Whole blogosphere is angry with Google and companies like Text -link-ads and LinkWorth or PayPerPost must be sweating really hard at this point of time. So, the question of the day is that whether one should drop the text link ads or not ?   Now, there can be two ways of looking at this particular situation and different webmasters should react differently in this kind of situation : 1. Those who mainly depend on the search engine traffic : There are web sites who don’t have much readership or strong community around their website and search engine traffic is their main source of traffic.  DROP THOSE LINKS RIGHT NOW!!!!!! 2. Those who drive traffic thr...
More About: Links , Paid , Drop

My desktop
2007-10-11 02:57:00
This post is inspired by the girl who is not only intelligent but also very passionate about different humanitarian causes that she believes in! Pelf’s dedication to whatever she believes in, shows in the way she throws herself completely into achieving her goals, may it be saving the environment or breast cancer awareness or stopping the child abuse! Most of us blogged with making just one post about The Blog Action Day but Pelf? She started a month long campaign at The Giving Hands where she brought many issues to forefront blogging about them the entire month. Pelf’s blog is definitely contagious and is aptly named! Pelf showed her desktop one day and asked everyone else to show theirs! And I have to say that I never really thought mushrooms were that gorgeous before seeing one on her desktop! very unique… So here is mine…;) My desktop background usually alternates between my avatar and Aurora Borealis. I LOVE the concept of Northern Lights (Auror...
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State of blogging and some
2007-10-10 08:00:00
Gosh.. The entire blogosphere seems to be pre-occupied with text-link ads issue and Google dropping page rank for some sites… but in the mean time what do the newer blogs do? The ones who weren’t fortunate to get any page rank in the first place? Well, I am still trying to understand the whole game of selling text links and page rank and in order to understand this whole phenomenon, what better place than to start off from Matt Cutts’ blog ? While searching for what exactly the issue is, I found an article Matt wrote on September 1st of 2005 about Text Links and PageRank, which is still getting commented on! And it is almost funny [not] that even after two years of complaining /commenting on the same issue and some 230+ comments, Google has not changed its position! The very first comment to this article was on September 2, 2005 by Jason Duke and it went like this Jason Duke Said, September 2, 2005 @ 1:22 am Matt, do you think it is within or beyond your...
More About: Blogging , State , Some

Get SEO Score for your site with Website Grader
2007-10-07 19:01:00
I am sure a lot of the people know about this tool and I came across it back in June when I was thinking of moving from Blogger to WordPress, at David Airey’s blog and bookmarked it to come back to it. Once moved to WordPress, I submitted my URL to the grader and it came back with a lousy grade of 49 out of a 100 with a whole lot of red flags! The most demeaning thing of the analysis was that it analyzed the writing of the site at a 5th or 6th grader’s level! Well, I was too embarrassed to make a post about it then but did think of coming back after a few weeks of blogging. And I did submit the URL a few times after that and each time it gave a better and better rank. Website Grader is a free SEO tool that provides an SEO score for your website with custom search engine optimization and marketing advice for your website. The tool will analyze just about any URL you want graded. You can also enter any of your keyword phrases about the marketing effectiveness of ...
More About: Site , Score

It is easy to achieve success!
2007-10-05 21:24:00
What is success?   Is it what I have or what has me? Probably neither! Perhaps it is not the concept of success that is the problem, its the way each of us defines it. Is it having lots of money or having a BMW (or two) in our garage or even reaching the top position in the organization, being recognized and getting noticed by the masses? If we start defining success by these beliefs, they soon may become dangerous to our psyche and eventually to health. If we define success as living each moment to its fullest, despite having money, prestige and possessions, we may even be happier. The difference is in attitude and in the beliefs behind that attitude. So, what should we do to attain a winning attitude? To achieve success? I think with some adjustments in the way we think might do the trick…. 1. Knowing what you want and setting goals to achieve that is the first step. If our goals are too broad and not very clear, we are likely to forget after a while what ...
More About: Success , Easy

ProBlogger Birthday Bash
2007-10-03 21:32:00
Sometime ago I asked if you are able to resist to the temptations or end up yielding to them and the last few days its been a real test! And it reminded me of some of the quotes from that post like “The only trouble with resisting temptation is that you may not get another chance” Well as you all must have heard by now, problogger is celebrating its 3rd birthday and to appreciate its sponsors, Darren is giving away 500 prizes worth some $55,000, for doing various things like writing a post on a blogging tip or merely commenting on the site. How could I resist this? I may not get another chance right? And this one is way too hard to resist for me… here is the explanation of this prize give away from Problogger itself: “Be one of the FIRST consumers to own not one, but TWO 20-inch FlatronWide L206WU USB-based monitors provided by DisplayLink! These LG monitors are one of the first USB monitors out in the market powered by DisplayLink technology. Display...
More About: Birthday , Bash

Do you have time to read through these?
2007-10-02 20:18:00
Listed below are the most practical time management tips and techniques that some of our fellow bloggers use to continue to manage excellent blogs along with their usual life responsibilities. These tips were submitted to the Time Management Group Writing Project hosted by our very own, bright and talented Vivien from InspirationBit last month. For me, the real dilemma begins now ‘coz I’ve got to find time to read through these tips. If you missed participating in the project because you didn’t have the time, these tips will certainly provide some benefit. All For Time and Time For All: The 10 Commandments of Time Management by Simonne Lessons in Time Management by Em Dy Guru Natalie weighs in on Time Management by Natalie 9 Reasons to Wake Up Early by Y.Graf Time Management For Bloggers and Photographers by Brian Manage time by sorting your blog comments in 6 ways by Bes My Troubles With Time Management by Ronald It’s URGENT, Urgent I say… but is ...
More About: Read

Prizes Galore
2007-10-02 01:30:00
Over $54,000 CASH give away in prizes!!   Is that insane or what?  Some people make that much in a year!  Yes, that’s true,  some people do!   And you know where that Grand Celebration is taking place right?  well, where else?   its our beloved problogger’s 3rd birthday celebration, where Darren is giving away prizes worth thousands of dollars for entering in Problogger Birthday Bash Competitions.   I am keeping my fingers crossed for winning something nice - yeah, I do need an ergonomic chair and a MAC - :)    Well, that’s being a bit too greedy, isn’t it?   but then who knows?   Until you participate, you won’t know!   Remember that $4000 give away contest?  I won a Bonus Prize of a site wide text link with the contest blogger!  Contest Blogger is the best place for exposure and I can’t wait to be there….   Wait, ...
More About: Prizes , Galore

E-books / E-Courses for Achieving Success at Blogging
2007-10-01 06:24:00
Ken wrote a post on e-books provided by some popular and successful bloggers where they share their secrets to blogging success. According to Ken, he has read “100s of books on blogging and Internet Marketing and how to make money online” and as much as I have known him, he is a hard worker and has all of the things that are necessary to grow one’s blog. I am no where close to claiming I have read that many books but below is a list of some of my favorites. I may have missed some that I have downloaded and read [or downloaded and have not read yet] and I will add them as they come to mind [or as I find them on my pc :)] But first, here are the e-books Ken listed: Yaro Starak’s Blog Profits Blueprint Aaron Wall’s SEObook John Chow’s Make Money Online Ebook Chitika’s Blog Bash -30 days 30 experts in April 2007 when 30 popular bloggers wrote on wide ranging blogging topics jack Humphrey’s Authority Black Book And here is my favorites list: Seth Go...
More About: Books , Blogging , Success , E-books

The Last Lecture
2007-09-28 15:50:00
“If you were to give one last lecture before you die, what would it be?” I am out of words for introducing this precious video. Do take 5 minutes to watch the video and listen to the touching words from Randy Pausch, Professor of Computer Science, Carnegie-Mellon University and then think of what you would do if you were in his shoes!
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Google is 9 years old today
2007-09-27 18:49:00
So what does the term Googl e mean?   I always wondered about it subconsciously but never took the time to find out…… and today their logo encircled in colorful candy made me  ’curious‘   The name ‘Google’ is a play on the word ‘googol,’ coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner. A ‘googol’ refers to the number represented by a 1 followed by 100 zeros. It’s a very large number. In fact, there isn’t a googol of anything in the universe — not stars, not dust particles, not atoms. Google’s use of the term reflects our mission to organize the world’s immense (seemingly infinite) amount of information and make it universally accessible and useful.   From Google itself “When is Google’s birthday? Google opened its doors in September 1998. The exact date when we celebrate our birthday has moved around over the years, dependi...
More About: Today , Years

Simple Tips for Managing Time
2007-09-27 06:44:00
Technorati tracks more than 100 million blogs for updates and there are tons of excellent blogs but we know that not all of these are authored by full time bloggers. People have many responsibilities, families to take care of, school, studies, jobs and other activities but they still manage to blog and fulfill other hobbies. I have felt overwhelmed at times and constantly struggle to ‘find’ time to do everything that I want to do. Many times I am successful at completing my obligations, and others I am not. Just like Vivien who is hosting a Group Writing Project at Inspiration Bit, I have often wondered why we couldn’t have more hours in the day, to finish everything we wanted to? But I am always experimenting different ways to come up with better means to organize my days and tasks. Even though I try my best, I know a lot of the time gets wasted with unimportant stuff that could be avoided. The chunk of my time (8 hours plus the commute time) gets spent ...
More About: Tips , Time , Simple