Friday, October 30, 2009

Google page rank updated

Speaking of the awesome power of Google: I noticed that Google has just updated page rank.

I have been waiting for this for a while since I've been building and promoting a new website. I was glad to see that the main page of that particular site is already PR 1. This confirms that I'm heading in the right direction with my content and link building efforts.

I know that it's easy to place too much importance on page rank and that ultimately it doesn't have a huge effect on traffic. Still, it is a valuable measure of how Google perceives your site and shouldn't be forgotten.

Google is the God of the internet

The more I learn about Google, the more awesome it becomes to me. It is pretty much omniscient when it comes to the internet. And it's starting to appear to be omnipotent, as well. It really is like the God of cyberspace. Not surprising, then, that it has its own church!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

More good article directories with decent PR

Article marketing is an effective way to increase your search engine traffic. Three of the best article directories are Ezine Articles, Article Dashboard and Go Articles, which all have a PR of 6. I've been using them consistently and they really do help.

Still, it's worth spreading your articles around, since the search engines do like variety. So I've found a few other ones with decent page rank. These are: Article Pool (PR5), Article Click (PR5), Easy Articles (PR4), U Publish (PR3), Article Rich (PR3), Article Buzz (PR3), 365 Articles (PR3) and Post Articles (PR3).

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Using blog comments to find blogs to comment on!

Just another thought on how to find good blogs to comment on: Google for some blogs in your niche. I find it helps if you include "keywordluv" or "commentluv" in your search because you know that you can leave your URL in the comment field. Also, a fair proportion of these will be dofollow. (Of course it's not vital that every blog you comment on is dofollow. In fact, you can get much greater benefits in the long run from good nofollow blogs, particularly if the blogger likes what you have written and links to one of your posts. That said, it's nice when a blog is dofollow, since you know that you are getting some direct search engine benefit from the post itself.)

Do this, and you're sure to find some good, busy blogs in your niche, with lots of comments. Isolate the ones with the most recent posts, then click on the individual posts. Logic dictates that the best commenters will also have the best blogs. So, just scroll down and look for the best comments. And click on their blogs!

Then do the same thing all over again with each quality, comment rich blog you find. If you get on a roll with this, it's possible to find dozens of new blogs this way without once having to return to Google to restart your search.

Weebly targets education market

Anyone who has used Weebly will know how simple and straightforward the drag and drop site builder and web host is to use. For anyone who isn't at all geeky it's a dream. It could be said that it's so easy even a child could do it!

I'm sure quite a few kids are already using it for this reason. Now millions more will be, too, as part of their schooling, because Weebly has very craftily targeted the education market in the USA.

This is a huge, untapped resource. I mean, which other web hosting providers have a product specifically designed for children? I'd say Weebly has pretty much cornered the market even before anyone else figured out it was there!

Very, very smart.

Monday, October 12, 2009

All-powerful Google satirized by Mad Magazine

The more you learn about the internet, the more you realize just how powerful Google is. The massive search engine knows all about pretty much everything that is online! It's close to omniscient.

And now, with Google Earth and other big projects, it's covering the real, offline world as well. It can make you seem a little bit paranoid if you think too much about it.

Here's a funny take on Google's immense power from Mad Magazine.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Duplicate content in comments can hurt SEO

There's a lot of confusion about duplicate content. For example, people worry that submitting the same article to a few different directories will have negative ramifications for the URL they're linking back to in the author bio-box.

But this is a false concern. The main thing to remember is that you should keep all the content on your domain unique. Then you should be fine.

And you should also keep an eye on comments posted to your blog. This is because if someone posts content that has been lifted verbatim from elsewhere on the web that's duplicate content, and it's now on your domain. This blogger had such a problem and it had a substantially negative effect on his search engine traffic.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Suicide notes on Facebook

Little Britain comedian Matt Lucas's ex-husband Kevin McGee recently hanged himself. Suicide is always sad, of course. But the fact that McGee wrote a note hinting at his intentions on Facebook makes it all the more tragic.

Clearly someone found it jarring enough to write: "That's a bit dark, Kevin." But neither he nor anyone else saw it for what it really was. If they had, maybe they could have stopped McGee from going through with his plans.

And this is not the only case of its kind. At the begining of this year an aspiring model and actor named Paul Zolezzi, also struggling with addiction, wrote a remarkably similar note on the popular social networking site.

It's likely others have done the same already. And we'll certainly be reading about more such tragedies in the future.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Goal setting and the internet

One common piece of advice for anyone seeking to achieve success in some area is to set goals. Then you have something very clear to aim for, and a way of measuring success or failure.

This is very useful in many pursuits. But it can be tricky when applied to internet promotion, particularly traffic building. This is because so much is dependent upon Google and other search engines. And while we can have a reasonable idea about what works and what doesn't, it's very difficult to know just how much work you'll need to do before you see the results you're hoping for.

For example, you might be getting 10 hits a day in October, and decide that you will get 30 hits a day by November. So you work your bum off building links and adding good content, as well as doing all the other SEO stuff that you know works. But your traffic doesn't triple, it only just doubles in that period. That can leave you feeling like you've failed.

That's why I think it's better to aim for high but comfortably achievable goals that you define, as opposed to specific outcomes that only the search engines can deliver. More realistic goals might involve reaching a hundred blog posts, or submitting a certain number of articles linking back to your site to the biggest, best article directories.

Approaching things this way will mean that your traffic will definitely increase - possibly very rapidly - but you won't be running yourself ragged in the process, or feeling frustrated because you didn't quite get what you hoped for.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Google Earth a blessing and a curse for criminals

Google Earth is an amazing tool. You can see just about any part of the entire surface of the Earth. It's almost as if you become god-like.

It really does boggle the mind, and users quickly come up with interesting applications for it. Not surprisingly, some of them think of unethical - even criminal uses.

Take Tom Berge. He knew how valuable lead was, so he used Google Earth to find roofs in London that had tiles made from it. He then set about stealing the material, continuing for 6 months before finally being caught.

But just as it can empower criminals, it can also empower law enforcement. Cops in Switzerland, for instance, detected a marijuana crop while using Google Earth in a drug investigation.