Hi all,

I just noticed that I had got my Google PageRank back. Well, not exactly back, but I’m now better off than 0. I had a PR of 4 before, until Google started penalizing blogs for displaying paid links which did not have the "nofollow" tags. I was advised by a Google contact of mine on what to do, and now I’ve got a PR of 2 - which I attribute to my inactivity.

Steps to recover your PageRank if you’ve been penalized by Google -

1. Remove the paid links
2. OPTIONAL : Append rel="nofollow" to all hyperlinks in your site to "shifty" webpages
   eg : <a href="http://the page here . html" title="Page here" rel="nofollow"> Link </a>
3. Go to Google Webmaster Central and sign up, if you haven’t already
4. Log in and click on "Request Reconsideration"
5. Select your site, check the checkbox, and explain in the text box truthfully about what happened, why it happened, how you got to know the Google guidelines only now, what actions you’ve taken, what all you’ve removed, and that your site now complies with all Google guidelines. After all this, hit the button which says "Request Reconsideration". You’re done!

Now wait for a couple of weeks (2-4 weeks). If your case is genuine, and you’ve been honest, you’ll get your Google PageRank back. Thats what happened to me, and many others. I wish you luck!

Technorati Tags: five steps, get back pagerank, google pagerank, google pr, google, pagerank, blog pr

Hello,

Many of us would have wanted to shift from Blogger to Wordpress. But you must be put off by the fact that you would have to start all over again - visitors, feeds, Google PR, advertisers and so on… I’ve seen very many posts on the technical details on how to make the shift. A week back, my friend Amit from Digital Inspiration posted a blog on how to make the shift from Blogger to Wordpress without lasting damage in terms of visitors, RSS readers, and so on.

I found it quite useful, but since I didn’t have any more Blogger blogs (atleast none with a huge visitor count and stats) I couldn’t test it… It might turn out to be very useful for you. I reccomend this article as a MUST READ for anyone planning to shift from Blogger to Wordpress.

Check out Digital Inspiration.

Cheers

Technorati Tags: blogger to wordpress, shifting, blogs

Hi,

I’m enjoying my 2nd day in BarCampBlog 5 in IIM Bangalore, and Nithya from Muziboo and she opines that Indian bloggers are reluctant to give out reviews. She says that she has approached very many bloggers in Bangalore for reviews about her representative site, Muzboo, which is like a music social networking site, and most of them side lined the request with a ’seemingly’ friendly "Let me see…" And they never respond…

Is this true? Nithya opines that Indian bloggers unlike western bloggers have a comparatively closed mindset. And this prevents Indian bloggers from a "social responsibility" of blogging as a medium to return something to the system from which we consume.

Well, I believe that this is not true. Blogging itself is a sort of contributing as well as consuming. If we’re talking about a ‘perfect’ world wherein every person is ready to help every other person out, well, I think thats more Utopian than Karl Marx’s world.

Now we all know that bloggers and people too (duh!) (no offence to bots!). We have our own moods and interests. If something recommended is not to our taste, well, why should we blog about it?

I think Nithya’s experience is a very unlucky and unfortunate one, wherein she contacted the wrong people at the wrong time.

What do you think?

Technorati Tags: indian, blogging, bloggers, mindset, muziboo, word of mouth, reluctant

Hi all,

This is the small minutes of the session with Mr Amit Aggarwal from Digital Inspiration. Here, Amit, spurred on by the 60 strong audience, talked about traffic, monetization, ethics, new ventures in blogging

• How to succeed in blogging : Blog about simple things which you enjoy blogging
• Methods to monetize : Adsense, Blog Ads, Chitika
• Methods NOT to monetize : Text Link Ads
• Monetization works best when your content and advertisement is integrated
• 125X125 buttons for brand building, not traffic
• Social Content Networking sites traffic tend to flame and are unreliable
• Digg, Del.icio.us are kind of useless in a longer frame of time
• Dont worry about Digg if you’re new to blogging, form a network

This is just news. Reviews and views coming up later today….

Technorati Tags: amit aggarwal, traffic, money, blog

Hi all,
    I found this EXCELLENT post on one of a fellow PPP Postie blogs named Everybody Go To (which is incidentially, a very good blog, and worth a check out). Titled “How to get more traffic on low traffic days” the post is on various sure-shot methods on getting more traffic to your blog.

    Most points, I agree with. Some points, I agree not with! I’ll post those “better” parts here

Technorati - No doubt the number 1 blog search engine out there. Technorati can send you quite a few hits to your blog if you happen to write about something that is in the news. It’s kind of tricky to know when is the best time to post  - while the news is developing or after it gets hot? That’s just a trial and error method, so give it a try and let me know what worked for you.

    Indeed, Technorati is very good. I find that I receive a lot of traffic from Technorati. They seem to stay to read a couple of posts too

    My tip(actually what I do on dull days) : Head over to Digg or del.icio.us and check out the *hot* posts. Immediately blog it. And lean back and watch the numbers plummel

    Well, Ali took it to his heart about proving his point, and immediately after his post, he posted the trailer to the movie Spider Man III. And he put in the Technorati tags “youtube” and “spider man”. I see that the post has “527″ views, opposed to the 8 or 7 his other posts have, but only 1 comment. Which implies, that he got most of his traffic from Technorati, and the people were those who searched for Spider Man II!

    Next, Ali talks about traffic exchanges - a point which I strongly do not agree with. Traffic exchanges are extremely useless and pointless! You might get a thousand hits per day, but none of those visitors linger to read, or even LOOK at your site. Its a waste of good bandwidth and time!

Socialize it - Write a really good post, short or long, and bookmark it across various sites like digg, del.icio.us, plugim etc…Browse the pligg forums to see what kind of digg type sites are set up and submit your site articles there. Sign up most probably required though. Remember I said really good post.

    Yes indeed, how very nice Ali, the point is, if one could come up with “really good posts”, then he/she wouldnt be reading this - he will have no lack of traffic or readers or commentors. OK, good advice for beginners, but the first thing I thought of when I read it was “duh!”.

    Digg is not bad for traffic I get a lot from Digg. Something like 100-200 per day. But then Blogging India is just a start up blog, with as little as 1 month of blogging, and that too, extremely irregular, owing to my extremely busy time schedule till April 21st… Once I’m in the mainstream (i.e. a bit of experience and a bunch or regular readers) then I expect to receive atleast 750+ visitors from digg every 2 days(thats when I do a really good post. I do a good post, and the next day, its all real boring dull stuff ).

PPC Campaigns - If you honestly expect to make all your traffic only via linkbacks and search engine results then chances are your traffic will never increase. This is only meant for those who are looking at monetizing their sites. You have to spend something {anything} to make something - universal law of economics.

    Well, kind of true. But I wouldnt count too much on it… It might turn out to be absolutely rubbish…

    I’ll add more of my own suggestions to PART II of this post, which I’ll post today, tomorrow, or the day after. Ali, if you’re reading this, great post dude! Thanks!

Technorati Tags: increase traffic, blogging tips, more traffic, less traffic days, blog traffic, traffic