Nowadays, I have been seeing a lot of posts on different forums about DoFollow forums, blogs, directories and social bookmarking sites. You will see a lot of SEO blogs with some sort of collection of links of Dofollow websites where you can leave comments with your website's URL and thus get a backlink to improve your PageRank.
I am sure a lot of bloggers, use these types of lists to leave some comments there. As you already know, leaving useless and spammy comments will not get you anywhere and will only hurt your reputation. Keeping this in mind, you probably go out there and try your best to leave comments that the admins will like but when it is at midnight and you are extremely tired, you will definitely leave comments like "nice post". And this also happens when you are trying to leave comments on a number of blogs at the same time. You simply don't have the time and will to leave so many comments.
Leave Comments On Blogs You Like
Don't worry about DoFollow and NoFollow. If you like a blog post, then just leave a comment to appreciate the blogger's work. Let him know that you liked the post and also include some suggestions. A lot of popular blogs are not DoFollow but still there are some great posts on blogs like ProBlogger and if you like them then leave a comment. Remember, leaving comments should not be something that you HAVE to do. Leave comments only when you want to.
Are DoFollow Backlinks From Blogs, Directories and Forums Worth Much?
So you have heard from several SEO experts that getting DoFollow backlinks from blogs, directories, social bookmarking sites and forums is a good idea to boost your PageRank. I am sure I have said this before as well. But sometimes I think whether it is actually worth all the trouble (in terms of PageRank, not traffic). I mean forums and directories have thousands of outgoing links and thus backlinks hardly have any value there. However, doesn't every little thing matter? Yes it does but sometimes you have to be manage your time carefully. Posting all day on a DoFollow forum to get some backlinks is probably not a good idea when you can do other stuff to get backlinks and obtain better results.
Finally, I would just like to say that don't comment on blogs and other sites just to get backlinks. Stay up to date with some of your favorite blogs and subscribe to their RSS feeds. Read them regularly and comment on any posts that you like. Talk to the blogger through your comments and build a strong relationship.
Of course, don't forget about DoFollow blogs, forums etc. They are useful too but don't spend a lot of time leaving comments there.
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Useful Links:
Little things that matter - Gmail Blog
Search experiments, large and small - Google Blog
Make money on YouTube with Content ID - Google Blog
Empowering users to map their worlds - Google Blog
Read the rest of this entry >>
One of the best things about Blogger is that you can easily use Adsense with it. This is certainly not the case with WordPress. With easy set up, you can enable some Adsense ads on your blog and earn some money from them. However, with the old blogger you could only display text ads. There was no option to enable image ads from Adsense in Blogger.
A lot of webmasters did not like this because sometimes image ads are preferred more than the regular text ads. According to many, image ads are more attractive and get more clicks and thus are more profitable for webmasters.
Few days ago, Blogger had a little makeover and I am sure all of you probably noticed it. All the buttons look different, you can now hide your inactive blogs and only display the ones that you presently use. But a very important change is the ability to add image Adsense ads to your blog directly through blogger.
Before when I wanted to use image ads on my blog, I had to go to my Adsense account and get a unique code for an image ad but now I can directly do it through Blogger. Go to your Blogger dashboard, click on layout and then click on Add A Gadget. After that choose Adsense and then you can see on top that you can choose either Text and Image ads or Text Only ads.
I think this is a great update by Blogger since Image ads can be really beneficially sometimes. They can grab readers' attention within seconds. Blogger's new update will let you enable and update your image ads directly without logging into your Adsense account.
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Useful Links:
At a loss of words? - Google Blog
Election seasons in high gear - Google Blog
Bring the political process to life in your classroom - Google Blog
I feel the need...the need for feeds - Inside Adsense
See what Obama, McCain and leading political pundits are reading - Gmail Blog
Read the rest of this entry >>
Few days ago, I wrote a post called “Buying A Domain Name – Must For Bloggers?” to emphasize that in order to be considered as a reputed blogger, you do not need to have your own domain name and web hosting. However, there are several bloggers and webmasters who feel more comfortable having their own domain name and independent hosting.
Finding a web hosting service can be quite difficult if you are new to this. Searching online will not help you much since there are lots and lots of web hosting companies and most of them are ridiculous and unreliable. You have to choose a reliable and honest company to host your website.
ImHosted is such an ecommerce hosting company that provides web hosting services along with several other services to its customers. You can get great web hosting deals at very low prices. For example, you can have the benefits of Reseller Web Hosting for only $30/month. You will get 25 GB of hosting space, 4 TB bandwidth, unlimited domain hosting and several other features. You may also be interested in ImHosted’s mega web hosting deal that provides 2,500 GB web hosting space, 10,000 GB bandwidth and unlimited domain hosting for only $6.95 per month.
A major difference between good and poor web hosting companies is that good web hosting companies provide great customer service. ImHosted provides its customers with 24/7 Live Chat Support as well as Phone Support. If you have any problems with web hosting then just let them know and they will try their best to solve it.
ImHosted is a great website hosting service and you should definitely take a look at it if you are looking for a good web hosting company.
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Useful Links:
Bring the political process to life in your classroom - Google Blog
I feel the need...the need for feeds - Inside Adsense
See what Obama, McCain and leading political pundits are reading - Gmail Blog
Read the rest of this entry >>
Learning SEO and blogging is not something you can learn overnight or in few days. You have to keep learning it because the information keeps updating. And the best way to stay up to date is to read some blogs regularly on the topic. I read several other blogs such as Problogger and learn stuff from them all the time. Reading only one blog will do you no good. You need to read articles with different points of views.
One of the blogs that I regularly used to read was JackBook. I will be completely honest with you. I was a great fan of JackBook blog until recently. I used to visit it every other day and read all the posts by Jack because all the posts were of top quality and also interesting. I have learned so much about blogging from Jack and have discovered some really great blogger templates.
But lately, I have been noticing that Jack has been posting some irrelevant posts. A few of such posts is not a big concern but when the entire homepage is filled with such posts, things seem to be going in the wrong direction. Today (Aug 20) when I visited the blog, I saw links to 15 latest posts and not a single one of them was on topic and related to blogging in any way. There were posts on Warcraft, Olympics 2008, Playboy, television series etc.
JackBook was doing great till July but in August, the value of the posts has decreased incredibly. The funny thing is that Jack has published the most posts (61 posts) in August (and there are still 11 more days to go!). I think the downfall started when Jack came up with the subdomain idea for blogs. As most of you know, Jack has his own blog service now like blogger and wordpress. You can have your blog as XXXX.jackbook.com. However, I don't think many readers like the idea and simply ignored it.
JackBook's old look was not too attractive but it was still good enough. However, the latest brown layout is simply horrible and has Google Adsense ads all over the place. The banners are not placed in the right place and the blog looks like a disaster.
Finally, Jackbook has lost both comments and PageRank. Most of the recent posts have not gotten more than one comment while the old posts used to be flodded with comments. Looks like the readers don't like the new posts very much. Furthermore, as far as I can remember, JackBook used to have PageRank 6 but now it has PageRank 0. I wonder why that is. Could it be because Jack sells (dofollow) links and writes paid reviews?
Overall, I would just like to say that Jack is a great blogger and I am sure he has taught some great blogging tips to several bloggers. But suddenly, everything seems to be disappearing. He is losing his quality. I wish he would just be like the old Jack so that we could read some great new quality posts by him.
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Useful Links:
Bring the political process to life in your classroom - Google Blog
I feel the need...the need for feeds - Inside Adsense
See what Obama, McCain and leading political pundits are reading - Gmail Blog
Read the rest of this entry >>
One of the most common mistakes that webmasters and bloggers make is linking to link farms is due to lack of knowledge about what a link farm is and how to detect one. Adding a link to link farm on your website or blog can cost you a lot and thus you always have to be careful about which websites you link to. But what exactly is a link farm and how in the world can you detect one?
What is a link farm?
Link farms are websites that have tons of inbound links to increase their search rankings and PageRank. Such sites contain lots of links to unrelated websites. Sometimes there are also networks of link farm sites that link to each other.
Search engines are very strict to link farms. Most of them ban such sites completely from being indexed and displayed in search results. Furthermore, they will also lose their pagerank if they get banned by Google.
But that's not the worse part! Who cares if link farms get banned? The problem is that if your site links to link farms then it can get banned too or at least lose its PageRank! Yup that's right and that is why it is extremely important that you know what a link farm is and know how to properly identify one so that you do not link your website to it.
How to identify a link farm?
If you have not been serious about the sites that you link to then you really need to start doing so because they can have a great impact on your site's ranking. You must always review the site closely before adding a link to it. Here are some tips to help you identify a link farm:
Also remember that if a site seems like a link farm but has a good PageRank, then you should probably not link to it. Maybe the site just turned into a link farm and might lose its PageRank completely in the next update and also hurt your website's PageRank.
Remember, you never want your website to be linked to a bad neighborhood just like you don't want your kid to be playing in a bad neighborhood!
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Some Useful Links:
Video units more widely available - Inside Adsense
Get your Google Calendar in 38 languages - Gmail Blog
Model your campus in Mexico using SketchUp - Google Blog
Where is Georgia on Google Maps? - Google Blog
Translations on your iPhone - Google Blog
Spice Up Your Blog with Google Gadgets! - Blogger Buzz
Keeping tabs on spam and viruses - Google Blog
Read the rest of this entry >>
Hmmm...so you have seen people boast about getting tons of traffic from forums but have never understood how that was possible. You have even tried using forums but that didn't really help much. So how come others manage to get so much traffic to their blogs while you get nothing? The secret lies in your activities at forums and I am here to explain you what you need to do to get the most traffic from forums! Keep reading!
What are Forums?
For those who do not know, forums are places where you can have organized discussions about a variety of topics. However, most forums have a certain niche and thus, you can't talk about anything and everything. Furthermore, forums have categories to keep all the topics organized. Thus, you have to be careful where you start new threads (topics) or else you will get punished by the moderators.
Alright, now that we have the background info out of the way, lets get to some serious stuff. In order to get traffic from forums, you need to learn how to properly utilize forums. Here are some tips to do that.
1. Add a Signature
First of all, you need to place a link to your blog before anything else. If you don't place a link in your signature then no one is going to know where to find your blog. Signatures are the best place to out your links. Forums usually have a limit on how many links you can put but most allow around 4 links per user.
2. Keep Your Signature Attractive
Forums have lots and lots of posts by thousands of members and each post has a signature. Members are not going to click on links on each signature. You have to make your signature attractive so that it quickly grabs everyone's attention and stands out from the rest. However, don't use too many bright colors or smiles or else you will seem too desperate.
3. Stay Active
Once you have your signature set up, you need to make sure that others see it and that will only happen if you stay active. Go out there and post replies to threads. If someone replies to your previous comment then don't just ignore it, keep the discussion going. The more your signature appears in front of other members, the greater the chances that they will visit your blog.
4. Build Good Reputation
Most members will visit those links that you placed in your signature if you have a good reputation in the community/forum. Don't get in trouble with others for no reason. Respect everyone's views and try to post useful comments. This will help you make some friends and get traffic at the same time.
5. Start Useful Threads
It is highly important that you START some great useful threads that will attract members. You can also post the articles that you have written on your blog to show others the type of stuff you write on your blog. If the members like your articles, then they will visit your blog as well. Also, forums have a built-in reputation system. If someone likes your post then they will increase your reputation. And other members love to checkout blogs of members with good reputation.
6. Give Other Reputation
If you like someone else's thread/post, then don't just sit back and give them some reputation. This is a great way to say thank you for the work that they have put in. They will be notified of your act and they might even visit your profile and check out your links.
These were some of my tips to get the best traffic out of forums. Remember that in order to get regular traffic, it is important that you do not spam and send other members private messages asking them to visit your blog. These types of actions will only get you banned. Stay clean and active!
I am mostly on webmaster forums. Here are some of them:
Let me know if you liked this post and have benefited from it.
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Hot News from Google:
Tip: Customize your web clips - Gmail Blog
Reinventing the wheel - Google Blog
New enhancements on the Google content network - Google Blog
Defining invalid clicks and click fraud - Adsense Blog
Keeping up with the Summer Games - Google Blog
Read the rest of this entry >>
I have seen several debates on forums about buying a domain name. Several people seem to think that for bloggers to be successful, they need to have their own domain name first. Having a blog on free web hosting service or blogging service like Blogger and Wordpress is looked down upon by many and thus makes it intricate for quality bloggers to succeed. But is it really that important to have your own domain name? Does it really matter if my blog has its own domain name?
The idea for this post came from a thread started at WebCosmo Forums. As you can see from the replies, a lot of people seem to think that having your own blog domain is a good idea if you are a serious blogger.
Here are some of the advantages of having a domain name:
- Helps brand your blog
- Shows that you are a serious blogger
- Easier to remember
Branding
Sure, branding is very important these days but does having a free domain name is show poor branding? I agree that just having a proper domain name without any sub-domain is really great but I have seen several blogs with sub-domain names that get lots of great traffic because of good branding. Maybe I am sounding a bit crazy but I really don't think that branding heavily depends on having an own domain name.
Serious Blogger
A lot of people believe that having your own domain name shows that you are a serious blogger and you are passionate about what you do. That's completely ridiculous. There are thousands of blogs on the internet with trashy content. Just because a blogger decides to stay with a sub-domain name does not mean that he (let just say he is a guy) is not serious and does not write good articles. Don't judge a book by its cover and don't judge a blog by its domain name. The only thing that you should worry about is the content. Of course, other things like layout matter but content is the king!
Easy to remember
I don't really think that remember a domain name is a big problem nowadays when we have so many bookmarking services available. But still having a nice domain name that is easy to remember is very important. But www.seoforblogging.blogspot.com is just as easy to remember, in my opinion, than www.seoforblogging.com. Blogger's providews the subdomain "blogspot" which is extremely popular and thus is easy to remember for others.
Overall, yes it is true that having own domain name is important because it adds to your image. But I would just like to say that it is not a must for bloggers and domain name is definitely not more important than the content. So do not judge bloggers and their blogs by domain names. In my opinion, it's OK to start a blog with a sub-domain name and develop it. When you are satisfied and think that you would like to work more on the blog then you should go ahead and get a domain name.
Please remember that this is just my opinion and I would love to hear what you guys think about this issue. Is it a must to have own domain name for bloggers?
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Hot News from Google:
Defining invalid clicks and click fraud - Adsense Blog
Keeping up with the Summer Games - Google Blog Read the rest of this entry >>
Some of you might not know this but Google also give a PageRank value to inner pages besides the home page. For example, a popular site like Digg may have PageRank of 8 for its homepage but PageRank of its inner pages can vary a lot. Usually smaller sites and less popular blogs do not get PageRank values for their innerpages, but sometimes it can happen.
Having PageRank for inner pages is very important as it means that your website is doing very well. There is also a very high demand for links on inner pages and thus you can even sell links on such pages. However, how do you find those pages with PageRank if you have a lot of inner pages? You can't just check the PageRank value of each page individually because that can take hours.
Recently, I discovered a great SEO tool called Google PageRank Inspector which lets you see the PageRank of all your inner pages. All you have to do is enter the URL of your site/blog and wait for the tool to display the results. You can also choose to see the PR of the sites that have their link on your site.
Once all the pages have been analyzed and the results have been displayed, you can choose to download the entire report for later use.
I hope you liked this tool. If you still have not tried it then I strongly suggest that you do. Let me know what you think of it.
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Some Useful Links:
New enhancements on the Google content network - Google Blog
Tackling information overload, 10 million documents at a time - Google Blog
Seeing New Orleans through street view - Google Blog
Tip: Customize your web clips - Gmail blog
Search quality, continued - Google Blog
Read the rest of this entry >>
As you already know, Digg is one of the most popular social bookmarking site with millions of members and even more submissions. Members love Digg for all the interesting articles that get submitted and the discussions. But I think there is something else that keeps Digg users glued to the site. Is it the friendly community, web design, traffic benefits or something else?
It's the HOT ads that you see on Digg every time you log in and surf the site for popular items. Don't believe me? These are some of the ads that you see most on Digg. I have been seeing the regularly for quite some time and they do manage to get my attention every single time.
Snorg Tees
I love ads for this t-shirt companies with wierd labels and text written. But most importantly, the main attraction are the girls. I mean do you ever see any guy in those ads displayed on Digg? Here are some samples:
Stop.Stare.Flirt
Can you really ignore those big letters saying "Stop.Stare.Flirt"? For the most part, people just stop at STARE and keep staring. Here are some pictures:
Busted Tees
I don't see ads from Busteed Tees a lot but they seem very much like ads from Snorg Tees. Just look at this one.
Please note that this post is simply for fun and is not intended to be offensive in any sort of way. I love Digg and I think it is a great place to discover useful content.
I hope you like it. :)
Image Source: Images have been taken from Digg.
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Some Useful Links:
Seeing New Orleans through street view - Google Blog
Google in your language - Google Blog
You are not spam - Blogger Buzz
Tip: Customize your web clips - Gmail blog
Search quality, continued - Google Blog
More Transparency in Customized Search Results - Google Blog
A picture isn't always worth a thousand words - Inside Adsense
Read the rest of this entry >>
Most famous bloggers seems to have some sort of RSS feed and email subscription service available for their readers these days. Even the less famous blogs have it. But having RSS feed is really that important? Should you have it even if your blog just started and barely has any traffic currently? What are some main benefits of having RSS Feed and email subscription service? All these questions will be answered but lets first start with some background information.
What is RSS Feed?
RSS actually stands for Really Simple Syndication and RSS feed is simply a file that contains all the latest updated information that is formatted in such a specific way so that it can be read by feed readers and agregators. RSS is the most popular feed format followed by Atom.
What is email subscription service?
A lot of sites such as FeedBurner provide email subscription service to webmasters so that they can deliver their posts directly to readers' inbox. Basically, you are taking the latest feed and emailing it to your readers.
What are the benefits?
RSS Feed allows readers to display your content on self customized pages such as iGoogle, My Yahoo! and even on Vista's sidebar. Enabling this increases the chances of getting more traffic. Imagine having your latest posts displayed on other sites and pages. It may not guarentee your great results but it is definitely worth it because it takes only seconds to set up.
Email Subscription Service is even better since your are delivering your posts directly to your readers' inbox. Every time you will publish a post, they will be notified and thus you will get some permanent traffic. You can also add a small widget to show off the number of people that have subscribed to your mailing service. If you have a lot of people, then it will definitely add to your reputation.
So should you have it if your blog/website just started? The answer is yes! The earlier you get started with it, the better it is for you and your readers. Remember, you do not want to lose a single visitor that wants to subscribe to your service. So the earlier you set up everything, the better it is for you.
Furthermore, you can also use RSS feed on forums to display your latest posts to other members. Most forums display RSS feed nowadays. Using RSS feed on forums can get you some relevant traffic that you may have not gotten otherwise.
How do you get started?
Probably the most famous feed service online is Feedburner. It provides you with so many different options and really makes it easy for you to setup your own feed even if you have no experience. I use this service on all of my blogs and really recommend it to all of you.
I hope this post helped you understand the importance of having RSS feed and an email subscription service. If you would like to read more posts like this then please subscribe to my feed. Thanks.
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Some Useful Links:
Google in your language - Google Blog
You are not spam - Blogger Buzz
Search quality, continued - Google Blog
More Transparency in Customized Search Results - Google Blog
A picture isn't always worth a thousand words - Inside Adsense
Read the rest of this entry >>
Today, I found a great post on Digital Point (DP) Forums about some great link building techniques. The title quickly grabbed my attention and I decided to read the content. I was really delighted to read the entire post as it not just outlined but also explained in detail some great link building techniques. I quickly decided to share some of the most important points explained in the post with you.
First of all, as most of you know backlinks are very important if you want to get a good PageRank. Backlinks is probably the most important factor in determining PageRank. The more the amount of backlinks your website has, the greater your PageRank will be. But how do you get those backlinks? Those who have tried to get them know that is is certainly not an easy task.
Today, I will point out 10 most important link building techniques that will definitely help you get more backlinks if followed correctly.
1. Link Exchange
Exchanging liks is a common practice where webmasters exchange links to gain backlinks to their sites. Search Engines do not like this method but it is one of the most common ones. Remember that reciprocal link exchange (two way) may not be worth a lot sometimes but three way link exchange is a great idea to boost PageRank.
2. Paying for Links
There is always the option of buying links on high PageRank websites to get backlinks but you have to be careful about it. Google is always ready to penalize webmasters who buy links but still a lot of webmasters do it because it is an easy way to get high PageRank. The links are one way and thus hold a lot of value.
3. Social Bookmarking sites
Using social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Delicious, Stumble Upon and others is a great idea to not only get backlinks but also huge amount of traffic. You are basically sharing your website and content with others and thus it increases your chances of others linking their site to your site.
4. Submitting to Directories
This is a common way to get backlinks. Just submit your blog and sites to reputed directories and wait to get approved. However, just like forums, directories also have a lot of outgoing links and thus the backlinks are not worth much. Furthermore, most directories may have their hompage with high PageRank but the inner pages (where you link will be displayed) do not have any PR.
5. Commenting on Blogs
It is always a good idea to comment on relevant blogs and leave some useful and detailed comments. However, remember that most of the blogs have NoFollow attribute and thus will not boost your PageRank. However, there are a lot of lists on the Internet that can help you find some DoFollow blogs to leave a comment on. Make sure that your comments are relevant, helpful and not spammy.
6. Marketing your Articles
If you have written an interesting article then you should definitely submit it to article sites with a link to your own site. That way you will gain a lot of backlinks. Furthermore, if your article is really nice then other people will link to it as well and thus provide you with more backlinks and traffic!
7. Posting on Forums and Signatures
Posts and signatures on forums are a great way to backlinks but the problem is that due to a lot of outgoing links, value of backlinks is not significant. However, it is still a great way to get some valuable traffic and some backlinks.
8. Press Release
There are a lot of websites online where you can post press releases with a link to your own blog/website and gain backlinks. This is considered a great way to get backlinks by Google. However, the problem is that it is very hard to write posts about press releases and it is impossible to do for some niches.
9. Using Link Bait and Widgets
You may have seen several popular websites offer their own customized widgets that link to their own site. This a nice way to get a lot of backlinks but most of the times, your website has to be popular enough to convince other webmasters to place your widget on their blog/site. Link Bait is also another trick. Basically, it involves writing a "controverisal" or maybe offending article that may provoke response from others. But you have to be careful when writing such articles because it might damge your reputation.
10. Talking to Others
The simplest and least used way to get backlinks and gain popularity is to talk to others about your website. Just try to mention is every now and then to people who you think might be interested in visiting your website. However, be careful about it! You don't want to be talking to everyone about your website all the time. It may offend some people and other may find it annoying. :)
This is it guys. I hope you liked the post. I would also like to share with you the original post where you can find more detailed information about each of these link building techniques.
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Some useful links:
Google in your language - Google Blog
More Transparency in Customized Search Results - Google Blog
Back to school with more than 1 million users worldwide - Google Blog
Hello from A2 - Google Blog
We Knew The Web Was Big - Google Blog
Knol Is Open to Everyone - Google Blog
Updates and Fixes for July 18th - Blogger Buzz
Read the rest of this entry >>
