Category Archives: Feature

Understanding Search Engine Penalties

A friend of mine contacted me asking my opinion on why Google isn’t loving Celebrity Cowboy. Celebrity Cowboy is a celebrity blog that should be ranking well for a variety of terms is, for some reason, continually under-performing for its niche.

Celebrity Cowboy

I told him that I would take a look at it, and while my speciality isn’t really search engines, I did notice a few things right off the bat.

Code

Positioning
One of the first things I noticed about the xhtml generated by the theme used at Celebrity Cowboy is that the blogroll is near the top of the page, with more than twenty items linking out to other sites. While this is only on the front page of the site now, it wasn’t always like this and could have lead to a black mark for the site.

Then there is the content, and then the list of internal links to each one of the more than two dozen categories. Could Google be penalizing the site for having so many outbound links at the top of the page of code, and so many links near the bottom? Could they see this as an attempt to effect search engine rankings by stuffing links in a site?

Things like this have happened before and Google has always been harsh on such things. The flip side though is that all of these links are relevant. Google doesn’t penalize for relevant links, do they?

With Google’s war against paid links, I would be surprised if a few sites got caught in the crossfire, and with these links being site-wide, Google may have mistaken them as paid links.

No doubt they would like sites to make sure to no-follow their blogrolls and other external links that aren’t part of the normal daily content, despite being relative.

Validation
The theme that Celebrity Cowboy is using doesn’t validate. Google has proved time and time again that if you don’t work hard on making your code valid, you can cause yourself to drop in the rankings, and even sometimes to be marked as a “bad” site.

Sometimes sites get listed on stopbadware.org just because their JavaScript doesn’t work correctly, or advertising doesn’t load properly. I have seen this happen to more than a few sites.

Fixing up as many validation issues as possible, could help remove the penalty placed on the site, as Google’s indexing bots might then be able to index the content more efficiently, and without error.

One of the things I first noticed was that there is an ID used more than once, something that probably doesn’t effect the Google search bots, but something that is not correct in xhtml. Classes should be used for repeating items, not ID’s.

Correcting such things should also improve how various browsers render the site, which could have the side effect of increasing traffic, page views, and even links to the blog.

Just Plain Strange
There was one more thing about the coding of the site that really got me scratching my head. It seems that the header image is displayed via CSS, and so rather than showing an image with the proper hyperlink code around it, the coder chose to use JavaScript to make the div that the header is shown thanks to, into a clickable item that uses location.href to bring the visitor back to the index page.

To me this seems like a very bad way to do this effect, and probably not one that Google looks highly on. Continue reading

Originally posted on January 9, 2008 @ 9:36 am

15 Amazing Women in Blogging

A little while back someone said to me that blogging is a “man’s game”, and with people like John Chow, Darren Rowse and many other guys sitting in the upper echelons of blogging celebrity, at first I had to agree with her. I told her that the sex of the blogger had nothing to do with how successful or unsuccessful a blogger might be.

I then made it my mission to compile a list of some absolutely amazing women in blogging. Some of the following ladies blog for themselves, others blog for a network, and a few even run their own blog network. All in all, there are some amazingly talented women making their mark on the blogosphere.

While I may have numbered all of the following amazing ladies, this list is not in any order.

Continue reading

Originally posted on December 14, 2007 @ 10:30 am

Online Affiliate Referral Scum

So lately I have been getting more contacts through my contact page on this site, and they are all directed at me to try out this new cool system.

The first guy, Cam, sent me a link to try out but it was via the tinyURL service, so I told him I don’t click on such links, and he sent me a link that included an affiliate ID. Never click on tinyURL links or any odd looking links, unless you know who they come from.

His e-mail is [email protected], if you want to help sign the dirtbag up for spam.

The second person to contact me, Steve Walters, wanted me to sign up for a service as well, where I would make tiny bits of income on huge ad deals, that would most likely never happen, and in reality would only make the original ad company huge amounts of money.

His e-mail address is [email protected], again, feel free to sign him up for spam.

The third person was Curtis Fullmer, who didn’t even try to hide that the link he was sending was a referral link. Even worse, he didn’t send it correctly, meaning if I did click on it, he would not have gotten the referral from me.

He said how excited he was for this new program, and when I called him no being a spammer and sending me junk, he said sorry, and said he was new to the blogging world. Two seconds later on Google, what do I find?

Curtis Fullmer
Director of Affiliate Marketing
Fillnet
AIM – CJFullmer
646-442-5512

His e-mail addresses are [email protected] and [email protected]. He deserves some extra helpings of spam.

In his last e-mail to me, he said that he jumped to fast in e-mailing me, and I hope that this post, and any spam he receives will be a constant reminder for him.

None of these people tried to build relationships with me, they didn’t give me the option to sign up without using their referral ID, and they are just plain old spammers in my book.

Hopefully, none of you will be tricked by these people, and think twice before sending me any more of such spams. I am a friendly person, and I love new programs, but if you try to profit off me, and you aren’t a friend and disclosing that fact, then you shouldn’t be allowed on the Internet.

Originally posted on December 8, 2007 @ 10:54 pm

The Seven Best Blogs: Period

One of the things I am realizing more and more is that people want to find ways to cut through the crud in the blogosphere and get right to the creme of the crop, and it doesn’t matter what you are interested in, there are always blogs that get more attention than the rest, so I compiled a few of the best blogs out there that you should all be subscribed to, even if you aren’t a blogger.

Dosh Dosh

If you really want to understand blogging, there are very few bloggers that teach better than Dosh Dosh. Even blogs ranked higher than this blog aren’t nearly as helpful. His posts about social media, writing style, and advertising are second to none.

A few people noticed that I left this site out of my Make Money Online Blogs You Must Read list, and Maki, the writer of Dosh Dosh was one of them, but what he didn’t understand was that I think of Dosh Dosh as more than just a “make money online” blog, but rather a blog that teaches you how to blog effectively, not just to make money, but to create a business, raise your profile online, or just to have fun.

If you want to understand blogging, and want to be successful making money online, you have to subscribe to Dosh Dosh.

Alexa: 7,436
Technorati: 32

TechCrunch

Duncan Riley FTW! Now that I have got that bit of fanboyism out of the way, I can honestly say that TechCrunch is not only a blog that many bloggers dream about owning, with its six figure revenue, and its A-List bloggers, but it also serves a great purpose of letting everyone know about everything going on with web based applications, popular services, and major players online.

You might not think that Michael Arrington is the nicest, or best guy in the world, but you can’t deny that TechCrunch is an amazing blog and highly respected because of the high quality, interesting, and buzz-worthy content it continually produces.

If you want to know what your competitors are doing, or have a keen interest in the whole “Web 2.0” scene, check out TechCrunch.

Alexa: 689
Technorati: 3

TechDirt

TechDirt is one of the first blogs I read consistently online, and it has come a long way in both design and content. It isn’t as edgy as TechCrunch, and so I use this site as my “meat and potatoes” of online information, with the more sensationalist TechCrunch being the “dessert”.

Some of my favourite posts on this blog are in the (Mis)Uses of Technology category.

Another must subscribe to blog. You don’t want to miss a post here, as they cover some of the biggest legal implications in technology and the web.

Alexa: 19,401
Technorati: 215

LifeHacker

A Gawker blog, LifeHacker has always been well known as the place to optimize your life. The tips, tricks and articles will help you get through your day, as long as you don’t get sucked into just reading LifeHacker all day. I have been guilty of that a few times.

They cover men’s grooming, energy saving, investing, computer tips, and many more things that will just make your life easier and better.

This is the best lifestyle tips website out there and the inspiration for the now Bloggy Network owned LifeSpy which I started back a long while ago.

Alexa: 1,260
Technorati: 6

Copyblogger

Where Dosh Dosh will teach you to think different, and help you learn social media promotion, and other tips and tricks to do well online Brian Clark’s Copyblogger will make sure you understand the importance of a great headline, and writing your articles with style and finesse. This is the number one place to learn copywriting.

Don’t miss out on it or you will fall behind the nearly thirty thousand RSS readers that keep up with the site.

Alexa: 8,147
Technorati: 32

ReadWrite/Web

More “Web 2.0” information with Read/WriteWeb, but this one for me fits between TechCrunch and TechDirt. They don’t cover the legal stuff that TechDirt does, and they aren’t as sensationalist as TechCrunch, but they still run the gamut. It is a great site with plenty of amazing reviews, news, and opinions.

They even sometimes publish stories before TechCrunch, and being first, especially in the topics they cover, is important, and impressive. The other great things about this site, no “Tech” in the title, and they have some great opinions on society mixed in with their witty content.

Alexa: 4,755
Technorati: 15

Freelance Switch

Tired of working for “the man”? Freelance Switch has some great advice, resources, and a strong job board. The articles are detailed, and from a variety of people, making the site an amazing resource for anyone looking at starting out making their own mark in the world.

The Freelance Freedom comic alone makes this blog worth subscribing to.

I highly recommend bloggers looking to make a business out of writing online take the time to go through their archives and become an expert in the world of freelance.

Alexa: 12,300
Technorati: 357

Conclusion

If you want to cut through the junk blogs online, there is no real easy way to do that. I notice more and more that the best blogs aren’t always the ones with the highest rank, biggest following, or most money, but instead the ones that have new, interesting, and powerful opinions.

I am sure you all will have blogs that you would have loved to see as part of this list, and feel free to post yours, and let me know about them, but if you are missing any of these blogs in your RSS reader, be sure to subscribe to them now!

Originally posted on December 6, 2007 @ 8:00 am

Performancing Blog Awards: Vote Today!

So Performancing have opened up voting on their various categories, and it is shaping up to be a great list with some top tier blogs in pretty much every category. I look forward to seeing how things turn out for everyone, but right now, I wanted to give a quick plea to my readership. I am currently one of the options for best new blog of 2007, and I would love to come in first or second place, and so if you have some time, could you please give me a quick vote?

I know my competition is very stiff, but I’d like to think that I’ve done alright here.

Originally posted on January 4, 2008 @ 12:20 am