Blogging India

Hi all,

I was a bit late to catch up on this news, but Google is planning to release a Wikipedia-Squidoo style social content website. Christened "Knol", Google calls this a "tool" which will "encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it".

In short, Google is trying to chase an area, in which Wikipedia currently rules the roost. With a big difference – Google will be commercializing Knol. Which means that a user can opt for an advertisement, Google Adsense of course, on his/her article pages, and he/she gets a "substantial share" of the revenue.

(click to enlarge)

Now the debate raging throughout the web is whether Google will give unfair advantage to pages from Knol on their search results.

Extract from the Official Google Blog

"Our job in Search Quality will be to rank the knols appropriately when they appear in Google search results. We are quite experienced with ranking web pages, and we feel confident that we will be up to the challenge. We are very excited by the potential to substantially increase the dissemination of knowledge.

I hope that Udi Manber, the writer of this post in the Google blog means what he said in a positive sense.

Anyway, experts argue that the Google brand will give value to these Knols, which will encourage users to link to Knols, and thus organically increase the ranking of Knols. This is again a far cry, since this same image and reputation exists even for Wikipedia. Ok, so Google is set to earn profit for Knol, unlike Wikipedia, but does that really matter?

Meanwhile, I’ve contacted a couple of my friends, well placed at Wikipedia, to try and get invites to Google Knol. Hopefully, they might succeed, and give me an insider review.

Now, bloggers are opining that Google is going a step too far with Knol. To be exact, Duncan Riley of TechCrunch. He’s given quite a comprehensive insight into how Google could do foul play with Knol, but then, Riley is known for his hopelessly ridiculous What-If posts (not that his intuitions are not accurate, but sometimes, when he plays with the "hot" of the moment, he gets carried away; otherwise, his reviews are excellent).

"He’s right. Google is moving away from simply indexing the worlds content to being a content provider itself. Of course Google in response would argue that it is simply facilitating user generated content (like with Blogger), that ultimately they are the host as opposed to the creator, but it still competes with existing content providers, many of whom rely on Google search results for their living. Which takes us to question of search results.

(TechCrunch)

Well, pretty true that Google is moving towards being a content provider, so what? So whats the big deal? If Google doesn’t cash in unethically, then why the big hue and cry?

Well, I guess we’ll wait and see…. And then we’ll decide to knol, or not to knol…

[tags]google knol, knol, knowledge, social content, wikipedia, squidoo, advertisements, make money, write articles[/tags]

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!

[tags]five steps, get back pagerank, google pagerank, google pr, google, pagerank, blog pr[/tags]

Hey,
    I just wanted to quickly share something with you. Something that might turn out to be pretty useful. SiteProNews has this excellent piece of advice in one of their articles. The advice is simple, but extremely practical and useful. Its about “Whom not to trust” when dealing with Search Engine Optimisation.

    There are some people who claim to know everything about SEO. They will infact tell you to read up their books, available from EBay. Or the famous newsletter authors, who know everything! Most of the people, sadly, fall for the tricks, and end up losing a lot of money. Thus, this piece of advice will help any beginner to identify a crook from a true helping hand.

According to SiteProNews, do not trust -

• The SEO Guru. You know you’ve seen them. The SEO guru is involved in forums, has a website that promises everyone that they can get to the top of the listings – regardless of how much competition you have for your chosen keywords. For that matter, you can sometimes find SEO gurus offering their services on eBay. The guru will give you the sense that their way is the only way, and that without their services you’re not going to get anywhere.
• The writer who promises that his or her book will tell you everything that you need to know about search engine optimization for your site. Because the ways that search engines work and because the big players change their methods from time to time, looking to a book – particularly one that was written years ago – is unlikely to give you the answers that you need.
• Of course, the number one person who you shouldn’t trust with search engine optimization for your site is someone whose own site isn’t exactly performing at its peak; think about it, if their site is on the fifth or sixth page of search engine results, how good can their tactics really be? I don’t mean the site they use to sell seo services. I mean ask them if they own a site that sells products or services other than Internet marketing that do well in the search engines and makes a profit.

    So the question appears – whom should we trust?
    Well, thats a tough question to answer. Its more of a feeling… A person who offers true SEO advice, will always offer it free. That is because, no one is an expert, no body knows everything. So in every experiment, even the most knowledgeable learn a lot. And the best way to experiment, is to let others do it for you. And ofcourse, they never offer it in the form of “Get into Google Page 1!”. They offer advice to guide you. They show you the door, but leave you to walk through it. If you fall, you learn, they learn, and they spread the news, and many others learn.

    Cheers

Hi all,
    There’s this revolutionary new service named mGinger available for Indians, or anybody on the Indian subcontinent, with a mobile phone. It might be made global later on… Whats the service? To keep it short and simple, you get paid to mobile…

    Thats right! You get paid to use your mobile!

    How does it work? You sign up at mGinger with your usual personal details, and mobile phone number. mGinger sends you SMSes from sponsors, which you read. For every SMS you read, you get paid. You can select your interests so as to restrict the advert SMSes to only of topics of your interest!

    Handy eh? Its been causing a WAVE of media attention all around India! They say that you get paid 20 Paise per SMS. i.e. 0.2 Rupees. Which is… Well… 41 Rupees make a dollar, so, $0.005 USD.  Yeah, half a penny. Half a penny per SMS.

    And you make 10 Paise per SMS read by your referrals, and so on. So, the typical teen/youth thinks “I can read 100s of SMSes per day! I can sure earn thousands!”

    Small problem. Theres a maximum limit of 10 SMSes per day. Thats the maximum. So you may receive from 0 to 10 SMSes per day. Imagine that you receive 10 SMSes per day, still, you make only Rp 2 per day! Which is like only Rs 60 ($1.5) per month! That is, IF YOU GET 10 SMSes per day!

    Honestly, why waste your time? Thousands have already signed up! Are they nuts?

    No, this post was NOT to encourage users to use mGinger. It was an honest to goodness review of the service. I’ve signed up for a day now, and I havn’t got a single sponsored SMS yet! At this rate, I’ll be stuck at something like a dollar (Rs 40) at the end of the year!

    Think twice before you sign up! Why waste your personal details, for something so little and measly? I can’t believe that the media has been rooting for this absolutely stupid service! I believe that this is all a scam. It proves how much India has to learn from the web! I do hope that people open their eyes before jumping in the next time!

[tags]mginger, get paid, paid SMS, SMS, get paid to mobile, paid mobile, get paid to read SMS, india, earn money india, mginger scam[/tags]

Ladies and gentlemen,
    Welcome to the Second article in the 3 part series, “The Alexa Code – understanding and influencing Alexa rankings“. It is strongly recommended that you read up(if you haven’t) the prequel to this issue, The Alexa Code Part I, which deals with the general information of how Alexa works, and what they are.

    In this issue, we’ll discuss the uses of Alexa, why its important, but why its baseless and doesn’t work.

    What’s wrong with Alexa? What is wrong is that Alexa takes into consideration a mere fraction of the total number of visitors, and the fraction which varies from site to site.

    To understand this, please read up The Alexa Code Part I. Alexa records hits from visitors using INTERNET EXPLORER who have installed the Alexa toolbar. The Alexa tool bar is not available for any other browsers (there is an addon for Firefox, but studies show that this addon does NOT send information to Alexa).

    75% of the total internet users use Internet Explorer. So that cuts down a lot of visits. Since most of the regular web users use Mozilla Firefox or Opera. Its only people lacking in proper education about security and web browsers OR hardcore Microsoft fans who use Internet Explorer(IE).

    Now consider the fact that only those people who have installed the Alexa tool bar can help in Alexa recordings. Like I said before, most IE users lack in proper web browser knowledge. Such users are very unlikely to install Alexa. All they want to do is browse the web, and wouldn’t be interested in added advantages.

    Thus, repeated studies indicate that only 1% to 1.5% of the total web users have the Alexa toolbar up and running. And according to the subject of the website, this percentage also varies, which makes this system quite unfair.

    For example, hardcore tech sites will receive close to 0% of Alexa hits, since most of the members will be using Firefox. Mediocre tech sites will receive the normal percentage, since a few members will be below average in tech knowledge, and would have installed Alexa tool bar. News websites will also receive the normal percentage due to the mixed population. Sports/philosophy sites will receive very little Alexa hits, due to inexperience of users, who will not have installed Alexa tool bar, though they use IE.

    Most Alexa users are of the impression that Alexa does not display traffic information, only percentages and comparisons. That is not true. Alexa displays a column called “Average Daily Page Views”, which is the average of all daily page views for a selected time (1 week, or 3 months). We can compare this average with our own statistics daily page view average to see the percentage of our visitors using Alexa tool bar.

(click to enlarge)

    I did the experiment for my websites for a few weeks. And here is what I found -

• BlogForPeace
  72% of total users use Internet Explorer
  .9% of the total hits were reported to Alexa
  Therefore, 1.25% of the Internet Explorer users have Alexa tool bar installed

  BlogForPeace fits into the Philosophy category. Mostly low experienced users. They use Internet Explorer, but aren’t experienced enough to use Alexa.

• BloggingIndia
  31% of the total users use Internet Explorer
  2.9% of total hits were reported to Alexa
  Therefore 9.3% of the Internet Explorer users have Alexa tool bar installed

  Blogging India fits into the Mediocre Tech category. Most visitors have Firefox installed(63%). But of the IE users, more than average are better tech educated. Thus, they have Alexa installed.

    I hope that the examples have proved my point. Alexa is unfair. Alexa is baseless. Alexa doesn’t work properly.

    But then why the heck does it exist and why is it so popular????? Alexa exists and survives because there is a serious lack of other established, trusty and fundamental ranking system for websites. Yes, there is Google Page Rank, but that is a very broad system, with no definite boundaries, which makes point ranking impossible.

    Is it useful? How? If it weren’t useful, would I be wasting my time writing all this up? It is useful for one, and only one, reason – monetizing. Yep.

    If you drift away from Cost Per Click (CPC), which is steadily decreasing in popularity in medium scale webmasters today, your options are limited. You can have sponsored links, or featured posts. For all this, advertisers utilize your Alexa ranks. The lower your Alexa rank, the better, the more money you get.

    Advertisers in sites like Text-Link-Ads (pays you to display links on your site) or the new PayPerPost (Consumer Generated Advertising – pays you to blog) select websites based on their Alexa rank. At PayPerPost, there are opportunities for $500 if you have an Alexa rank of something below 20,000!

    So, got the idea? Oh, and sometimes, in some time based popularity competitions, like blogging competitions or web design competitions, Alexa rank is considered to decide the winner.

    That about sums up the positives and negatives of Alexa. I hope that this has been informative.

    But wait for the REAL firecracker! Coming up tomorrow – Brilliant techniques to legally and crookedly increase (i.e. decrease) your Alexa rank Until then, adios amigos!

** upcoming **

PART III – How can I improve Alexa rankings? Alexa plays dirty, so can I play
dirty with Alexa? What are the “twisted” means to improve Alexa
rankings?

****

[tags]the alexa code, alexa code, cracking alexa, increase alexa rank, alexa rank, alexa rankings, alexa bad, negatives of alexa, alexa uses[/tags]

Hello all,
    Welcome to the first in the series, “The Alexa Code -understanding and influencing Alexa rankings“.

    Today, we deal with What is Alexa? What are Alexa rankings? How are the calculated?

    What is Alexa? Alexa is a search engine cum directory cum stats/rankings service, owned by Amazon Inc. For a little on Alexa’s history, read up our introductory post to the series. They released a browser toolbar, and all their further services were based on, or about, the toolbar.

    What are Alexa Rankings? Alexa Rankings is a system of grading for websites based on the number of daily Pageviews for the particular page as recorded by the Alexa Toolbar. Today, we are concerned about how our privacy is being intruded by different sources, and there was this big hype about MS Internet Explorer recording sites we visit. But no one’s noticed the fact that the Alexa toolbar submits information to the Alexa website about every site you visit, and your personal information, like computer stats and location.

    Actually, when a user who has the Alexa toolbar installed, visits a site, the toolbar records the website URL, the location of the user, and other details, and sends it to the Alexa databases. It is counted as ONE visit. Thus, the number of daily Pageviews is calculated by Alexa, and according to the number of Pageviews, each website is specified a rank, named Alexa Rank.

    The site with the highest number of Pageviews each day, gets No.1 spot. The No.1 spot is usually occupied by Yahoo! or Google or MSN.

    Thus, each website is given a rank. This rank is frequently referred to as a deciding factor for the popularity of the website, since a proper system of grading is absent, except for Google Page Rank, which is not very comprehensive.

    Only the first 10,000 sites are updated in rank daily. For all others, the 3 month average rank is calculated. [3 month average = (todays rank + rank 3 months ago)/2 ]. The 3 month average is updated every 3-4 days. So you can expect the same rank for 3 or 4 days at a time.

    But the Alexa Ranking technology is notoriously incorrect and unreliable. Consider the fact that ONLY those Internet Explorer users who have installed Alexa toolbar can help in Alexa rankings. That shortens the margin a lot. Read more on this in the next issue, of The Alexa Code.

** upcoming **

PART II – Why is Alexa biased, incorrect and baseless? But then why is it used? How will it help me?

PART III – How can I improve Alexa rankings? Alexa plays dirty, so can I play
dirty with Alexa? What are the “twisted” means to improve Alexa
rankings?

****

[tags]the alexa code, alexa code, cracking alexa, increase alexa rank, alexa rank, alexa rankings, alexa, alexa rankings explained[/tags]

Hi all,
    Alexa (www.alexa.com) is a search engine, website directory and rankings website powered by Amazon Inc. It was started in 1996 and it received favourable response, and held its state as one of the most used search engines, globally.

    But, in the last few years, Google grew to be the behemoth it is now. Google’s technology, power, speed and accuracy overshadowed all others. It put prominent search engines like MSN and Yahoo into developing mode. But Alexa, had neither the resources or the brains or the patience. So they simply shifted their focus, and tried to cash in on the next best thing. Ranking websites and providing stats, while being notoriously profit based.

    Controversy after controversy follows Alexa. But today, their rankings are used by advertisers and many others to define the quality of the website, fully knowing that Alexa is incorrect, and baseless.

    There aren’t many articles on the internet which provide you information on Alexa, and how to influence Alexa rankings. A few existing articles are notoriously incorrect, and is based on profit making, rather than service providing.

    Thus, I decided to feature a 3 post series on Alexa. Christened “The Alexa Code”, this 3 part series will help you to understand what is Alexa, why Alexa is incorrect and baseless, and methods to improve your Alexa rank in legal as well as twisted( ) methods.

    The articles will deal with the following topics(links will be added when the articles are published) -

1) What is Alexa? What are Alexa rankings? What are the rankings based on?
2) Why is Alexa biased, incorrect and baseless? But then why is it used? How will it help me?
3) How can I improve Alexa rankings? Alexa plays dirty, so can I play dirty with Alexa? What are the “twisted” means to improve Alexa rankings?

    You can expect these articles in the days to follow. By the time you’ve read all three articles, I expect you to be competent in Alexa technology, their rankings system, why they’re baseless, and how to efficiently “tweak” and manipulate the Alexa rankings.

    So watch out for PART I of the 3 part series… Coming soon…

[tags]alexa, rankings, the alexa code, improving alexa ranking[/tags]

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!
[tags]increase traffic, blogging tips, more traffic, less traffic days, blog traffic, traffic[/tags]

Hey all,
    I checked my mail today after a period of around 3 days. While sorting through the 116 various mails(yes, fortunately the mail torrents have been low for a while now), I came across one which said -

I was wondering if you could possibly explain how and what and how to
use: blogrolls, RSS feed, pagerank and dmoz to me. This is in reply to
your post about how to get more visitors to a weblog.

    Thus, I checked out my post at Blogging India, and saw that to a beginner, it would be absolutely useless. So I thought about explaining these terms to Eric, who sent me this mail…

BLOGROLLS
There are 4 basic points about a blogroll -

• You indicate what kind of blogs you like to read, and thus, people get to evaluate your interests with theirs
• You will get incoming readers from other blogs which have you in their blogroll
• Your Google Page Rank increases, thus giving you higher placing in Google Search and Google Blog Search
• Your Alexa ranking increases, which MIGHT bring you SOME traffic, but basically useless

    To maintain a blogroll is quite easy. There are many websites which offer you scripts to maintain a blogroll. For eg : Blog Rolling. In Blogger, you could add the links yourself, by editing the code. In Wordpress, theres the “Links” feature in built, just visit the Admin panel. In Typepad too, the Links feature is in built.

    So its quite easy to maintain a blogroll. Now how to get links, and how to link… Google for blogs with similar topics as your blog. Use Technorati, Wikipedia, Google Blog Search and other search services to find similar blogs. Send a mail to the author, or comment on the blog, get to know the author better, and then, ask him for a link exchange. Similarly, you can add links on YOUR website on sites which YOU read regularly.

    You could also review a good blog on your blog, and if the blogger you reviewed is somewhat sensible, he’ll see the back link, and link to your blog.

    Thats it about Blogrolls… In the coming days I’ll post more on RSS, PageRank and DMOZ.

    But in a nutshell, RSS is for people who like use software to check out updated content, or to read many articles using a single feed aggregator. Thus, RSS brings in more readers. So does blogrolls. PageRank is the Google technology for site priority during searches. The higher your PR, the better placed you are. Thus, Google PR gives you more traffic, as well as increase ratings for advertisers. DMOZ is a open directory project, which indexes all submitted sites. A listing in DMOZ will increase your overall site rankings, indirectly bringing in more traffic and money.

    More to come on these topics in the coming days… Until then, Aloha!
[tags]blogrolls, RSS, Pagerank, PR, DMOZ, significance, traffic, blogs[/tags]

Hi all,
    I just went through a few articles on trusty blogs which claimed to reveal how the Google Blog Search results worked. I read them up, and formulated a small theory on how to improve your Google Blog Search listings. Before my theories, I have put up a few paragraphs to educate newbies WHY Google Blog Search is important for bloggers.

    Oh, firstly, let me thank my sources -
    1) Google System
    2) Bloggers Blog

    Back to the topic at hand. Please note that all facts stated here ARE facts and were obtained by the Google System blog by painful (;)) reading of a patent sumbitted by Google. For those keyboard potatoes out there, scroll down to the bottom for the Dos and Donts.

Why do people use Google Blog Search?
    Google Blog Search made a revolution in the era of searching the net. People who wanted content rather than useless spam use Google Blog Search. Google Blog Search is useful for a company to review users opinions and posts about their product (especially if they use Consumer Generated Advertising techniques like PayPerPost)

So whats in it for bloggers like me?
    Put short and sweet, readers. Every site developer out there has an aim. Getting visitors to their site. Similarly every blogger has his/her own aim – to get real readers. Visitors are not the priority for bloggers. Bloggers look for READERS. Some people to read, comment, appreciate, criticize or debate what they write about. And “they” inculde bloggers like you and me.
   

    Google Blog Search, like all other blog searches, display results ONLY from blogs, thus eliminating all spam stuff and reference sites. Searchers READ through the blog content, not look through it. And if they like what they read, they might even bookmark your site, or subscribe its feed! And since its from Google, the name’s trusty, a lot many people use it, AND they have a superb algorithm.

    Searchers from Google Blog Search seem to linger on your site for longer than other searchers. For example, on my other blog BlogForPeace I get about 250 visitors per day. About 50 of them come from Google Search. Of that 50, about 40 linger only for about 10-30 seconds. Another 30-40  come from Google Blog Search. Of this, 10-15 stay for 5-8 minutes, and the rest(about 25-30) stay for atleast 20-30 minutes. See the difference? Blog searchers READ through your stuff, unlike conventional searchers.

Right. So Google Blog Search uses PR like Google, right?
    Wrong! Google Blog Search (GBS from now on) uses a unique algorithm which also considers Page Rank, but is not the final deciding factor. As clearly listed in Google System blog, GBS considers as positives -

• links from blogrolls (especially from high-quality blogrolls or blogrolls of “trusted bloggers”)
• links from other sources (mail, chats, blog directories, blogging communities like Technorati, Digg, Del.icio.us, MyBlogLog etc.)
• using tags to categorize a post
• PageRank
• the number of feed subscriptions (from feed readers)
• clicks in search results

And GBS considers as negatives -

• posts added at a predictable time
• different content between the site and the feed
• the amount of duplicate content
• using words/n-grams that appear frequently in spam blogs
• posts that have identical size
• linking to a single web page
• a large number of ads
• the location of ads (“the presence of ads in the recent posts part of a blog”)

To rank the search results, Google combines a quality score obtained by
mixing those signals with a relevance score (IR score) that depends on
the query. “The IR score may be determined based on the number of
occurrences of the search terms in the document. The IR score may be
determined based on where the search terms occur within the document
(e.g., title, content, etc.) or characteristics of the search terms
(e.g., font, size, color, etc.). A search term may be weighted
differently from another search term when multiple search terms are
present. The proximity of the search terms when multiple search terms
are present may influence the IR score.” (the quote was slightly
altered for clarity)

Uh, what does all that mean?
    It means that if you have a decent blog, with no sorts of wrong doings, and with good content updated regularly, and ofcourse, a well marketed feed, you’ll get more readers from GBS. Here’s a small image I formulated for better understanding -

Skip the chatter! Gimme the Dos and Donts!

• DO update your blog regularly with good quality content which you have written yourself.
• DONT update your blog if you havnt got quality content. i.e. Do not spam your blog.

• DO market your blog. Try to get links from high profile bloggers.
• DONT submit your blog to link farms etc. A good example of a link farm is Free For All pages.
• DO talk about your blog with your friends via emails and chat. Include your blog in your email signature, and other community signatures
• DONT use spam keywords for higher paid ads.
• DO use tags(see our previous post on Tags) to categorize your posts. Also display a prominant link to your feed. It might be a good idea to use Feedburner as well. Publicize your feeds by all possible methods and get readers to subscribe to your feed.
• DONT have duplicate feeds or posts. Also avoid editing your posts after publishing it, or configure feeds such that they quickly reflect edited posts. Conventionally feeds arent updated till the next post is submitted.
• DO try to get a good Google Page Rank. We will talk about methods to improve Page Rank in future issues.
• DONT link to poor quality spam websites which promise you return links.
• DO include relevant keywords in your META tags to improve conventional search engine results. Use optimal SEO techniques, but dont go over the edge. Please realize that your blog is for HUMANS and NOT for GOOGLE BOT. But do use these relevant keywords as tags as well in relevant posts. (for example, if your site is about Dogs, and a META keyword is “Dog Food”, use the tag “dog food” whenever you write about dog food. Some people may list “dog food” in META keywords and use post tags like “food for dogs” or “high quality canine food”, which wont harm you, but neither will it benefit you)
• DONT use spam keywords or use keywords which you think will elevate the ad value of your site (I’ve seen web hosting sites use the keyword “mesothelioma”(asbestos lung cancer) because it is a much higher paying keyword).
• DO put in a few relevant ads in places like your sidebar. Use tools like Text Link Ads which are very well paying, and gives you money for DISPLAYING the ad, not clicks.
• DONT put in too many ads or spam ads. DONT put in ads in your header area or in between post content. Put decent sized ads on your sidebar, or in the interval between posts, or below posts, or before posts.
• A final DONT : It seems (no conlusional proof yet available, but personal experiences quoted by many users and felt by me) that Google PR and Google Blog Search results are directly influenced by Google Adsense. i.e. If you’re a started blog with good content, and if you apply for Adsense and get accepted, you’ll see a boost in your PR and search engine listings and GBS listings. On the other hand, if you get declined, you’ll have to work extra hard, and will take more time and effort than usual, to get a better PR and to get decent search engine results. This same effect takes place if you’re banned from Adsense.

  So my advice is : DO NOT apply for Adsense if you’re a started blog. Once you are established with a PR of like 2, then you can apply IF AND ONLY IF your blog complies with ALL terms listed by Google. If you get accepted to Adsense, DO NOT employ cheating or other methods to produce false clicks (Google’s algorithm is damn good!) or do any other illegal activities which might get you banned from Adsense.

    Come to think of it, Adsense isnt very well paying unless you have a sound reader base of atleast 500 per day! But I’ll talk about Monetizing in future issues.

    I hope that you have got a general overview of what it takes for a good GBS ranking. Good luck! And if you have any doubts, or require any help, I can try to help you out with what little I know(time permitting). Just drop in a mail to

[tags]google blog search, google, search, blogs, improving, results, SEO, PR, ranking, page rank, dos, donts, adsense, advice, google system, algorithm[/tags]