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Blogs and RSS Boost Your Online Business, Rankings, Traffic and Sales.
Blogs for Advertising?
Yes! Blogs and RSS boost your online business, rankings, traffic and sales. We all sometimes ignore the trends in advertising on the internet until the masses are allready doing it. That is why I felt compelled to...
Can You Really Earn MONEY As An Affiliate?
Copyright 2005 Jugglingmum The answer is a most definite yes! After researching the topic of Affiliate Marketing for a few months (I like to be thorough!) I decided to run a little test and see if I could earn some real money not pennies. I used...
The 6 Top Reasons Marketers Should Blog
If there is a downside to blogging, I have yet to find it. The more you learn about blogging, the more there is to like.
In fact, here are 6 mouth-watering reasons why every marketer should be blogging:
1- Fast Search Engine Spidering and...
THE 7 Step 'Formula' For Writing POWERFUL Articles In Less Than An Hour
Copyright 2005 The IWE, LLC. All Rights Reserved. What I'm about to Reveal to you in this article is a easy to follow, "Step-By-Step" formula for writing Powerful articles in less than a hour. It might take you a few times to get the hang of it...
The Keyword is 'ARTICLES'
Why am I writing about articles?, well for one its my job and then its free, easy and boosts your site image. Yeah most of you have read about articles and the power they have to drive traffic to your site. Articles, if offered as free to...
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Should Bloggers be Helping Google Fix Their PageRank System?
By now, most bloggers have heard the announcement that the Big 3 search engines - Google, Yahoo, and MSN - have united in support of a new tag that will supposedly combat comment spam. The new tag is a nofollow attribute that can be added to links. When added to links in comment tags, the search engines will ignore them.
An excellent discussion of this new tag and how it works can be found at Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch:
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050118-204728
Google announced the new tag in a 1/18/2005 post to their own blog: http://www.google.com/googleblog/
And Microsoft added their support to the new tag in this post: http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/archive/2005/01/18/nofollow_tags.aspx
At first blush, anything that can help cut down the comment spam that most bloggers are daily subjected to would seem to be a good thing. It can be pretty upsetting to access your blog in the morning and find 50 junk comments with links to casino, adult, and pharmacy sites. If your blog has any PageRank, you can expect to find more of this garbage polluting your site every day. Fighting the spread of comment spam has become a necessity.
But after first cheering the proactiveness of the search engines, many bloggers have stepped back and taken a closer look and they don't like what they see. You can read a sampling of their thoughts at Search Engine Watch Forum:
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=3797
Brian Turner's incisive article "New Nofollow Tag Cheers Bloggers but Fails Blogs" discusses some of the potential abuses of the new nofollow tag:
http://www.platinax.co.uk/news/archives/2005/01/new_nofollow_ta.html
And Jim Pryke's article "Bloggers Cheer Google As Their Search Rankings Plummet" makes it very clear that not only will this NOT stop comment spam. But it will actually hurt bloggers as a community:
http://netinstitute.com/archives/2005/01/20/bloggers-cheer-google-as-their-search-rankings-plummet
For an hilarious take on the new tag and how it will get abused, be sure to take a look at Link Condom: http://www.linkcondom.com
I have to agree with these bloggers that the nofollow tag won't even put a dent in the problem of comment spam. You have to realize that the comment spammers who cause the most problems are the ones who use automated bots to spread their spam onto every blog they find. The fact that they find a blog using the nofollow tag won't stop the bot from posting. If you have a popular blog, you'll still wake up every morning to find 50 casino/pharmacy/adult ads on your blog. You'll still have to spend the time deleting those posts to clean up your blog.
You see, the problem to bloggers isn't that those comment links pass PR. It's the fact that those spam posts make your blog look like garbage. Whether the links pass PR or not isn't the big issue for bloggers. It's the time it takes to get rid of unwanted comments and the detraction to their sites. The nofollow tag won't do a thing about that problem. You'll still have the problems, even if you use the tag.
Think about this: how effective have email filters been in stopping email spam? As most of us know, they've hardly done any good at all. Email spam becomes a bigger problem every day. Spammers really don't care if some of their emails are blocked. They just send more of it to compensate. The same will be true of the automated comment spam bots.
The fact of the matter is, there are already much better tools in most blogging software to fight comment spam AND save the time and effort of the blogger at the same time. There are already a number of plugins for WordPress, Moveable Type, and other blogs. There will undoubtedly be more in the future. These tools are already more effective at fighting comment spam than this nofollow tag will ever be.
What is unfortunate is that the people the nofollow tag will really hurt is bloggers themselves. Traditionally, bloggers have read and commented in each other's blogs. And these
comments have added value. When I write an article for my blog, I love it when other bloggers take the time to add their insights on the topic I'm discussing. These comments add content to my site and continue the discussion. This is one of the reasons blogs are so easy to grow into topic-specific information-rich sites that are popular with readers. Unlike static sites, they offer two-way communication between reader and blogger. They become communities.
When someone adds this kind of value to my blog, I am more than happy to give them a link to their blog that passes PR. That will help them build the readership of their own blog, grow the community even larger, and add to the richness of the discussion. These are exactly the kinds of links that any webmaster should want on their site!
Adding a nofollow tag to comments can only quash this discussion. It can only discourage commenters with the most to contribute from taking the time to add to the discussion. After all, if the time I spend on another blog doesn't contribute to the growth of the blogging community as a whole or aid in the visibility of my own blog, am I going to spend as much time and effort doing it?
Anything that decreases the open flow of discussion currently enjoyed in the blogging community is a bad deal for bloggers.
The question that should be asked is this: why is comment spam so profitable? After all, if it weren't profitable, so many people wouldn't be going to such ridiculous lengths to do it.
The answer to this is obviously Google's link-heavy PageRank algorithm that forces webmasters to get every link they can to get their site's indexed and ranked. Most webmasters know that in order to get ranked in Google, they had better have a ton of links to their site.
That's the problem with PageRank as an algorithm. It encourages artificial linking between sites that no longer has any relevance whatsoever to the goal of providing good resources to visitors. Do we really believe that most reciprocal link directories provide a resource to our visitors? Not likely! If websites are real estate, reciprocal link directories are the slums, the seedy bars and tattoo parlors on the edges of polite society.
Whole businesses have sprung up as a reaction to PageRank. I'm talking about the link auction and link selling sites. Under the PageRank system, sites aren't being ranked by who provides the best content, but by who has the deepest pockets to buy the most links. Or, in the case of comment spammers, whoever wants to spread their bots all over the internet spamming blogs. This system has over time totally skewed the natural linking between sites that once dominated the internet - the very thing that Google's PageRank system is supposed to reward.
Ironically, blogs are one of the few places left on the web where linking is actually about providing good content to visitors and rewarding value provided on other sites. Bloggers as a group are the most likely to link to sites because of the content value to their visitors. Their links are very likely to be very topic specific. You don't find that on other sites. These are the kinds of links that I would assume Google would want to encourage through their PageRank system, not those junky reciprocal link directories or purchased links.
It would seem to me that the only effective way to cut down on comment spam and all the artificial linking techniques Google purportedly wants to thwart is not by making life harder for bloggers - the very people who link in the most relevant fashion. But at taking a second look at their own PageRank system and whether it is really serving the usefulness of their own search engine and the whole web in 2005.
About the author:
For more tips and ideas on how to make money blogging, be sure to visit my "Why Marketers Should Blog" weblog at (what else) http://www.WhyMarketersShouldBlog.com
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Liz Castro on HTML, XHTML, and CSS: Blogging CSS |
Blogging CSS. Oof, adapting this movable type blog to my new style is not easy. First, figuring out how their style sheet works and then trying to meld that ... |
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Weblogs | Blogging | CSS Mania |
CSSmania, the most updated css showcase all over the globe. |
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Tagging im Weblog - Chance, Perspektive oder nur Trend?: Blogging ... |
- [ Translate this page ]Mit dem Tagging ist es wie mit dem Bloggen. Wer es nicht selbst erlebt hat, kann nicht mitreden. Wer es ausprobiert hat im einfach persoenlich Weblog. |
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- [ Translate this page ]Faszinierende Artikel mit Substanz fallen sofort auf. Darren hat mich mit seinem Blog-Posting auf ProBlogger inspiriert im einfach persoenlich Weblog. |
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Blogmarks.net : Public marks with tags blogging & css |
tools blogging css software reference culture standards opensource development comparison architecture collaboration technology innovation productivity ... |
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javascript blogging css html xhtml web-design dhtml skins ajax web2.0 demos web-development ... web design blogging css webdesign blog php cms tutorials ... |
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This Is Smyrna, TN: September 2005 |
Plans are to meet once a month to discuss blogging, tools of blogging, css, podcasting and anything else of interest. ... |
thisissmyrnatn.blogspot.com |
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This Is Smyrna, TN: August 2005 |
Plans are to meet once a month to discuss blogging, tools of blogging, css, podcasting and anything else of interest. Email me at dailydiablogger@gmail.com ... |
thisissmyrnatn.blogspot.com |
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digg / KicktheDonkey / dugg |
170 Cheat Sheets about Ajax, Apache, Blogging,CSS, CVS, Firefox, Google, HTML/XHTML,JavaScript,Linux, MySQL, LaTeX, Oracle, Perl,PHP, Python, Photoshop Ruby ... |
digg.com |
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Search Community MX: Results for css |
Category: Blogs and Blogging,CSS,Dreamweaver,Music. Description: With back to back trips lately (an actual skiing vacation to Colorado), I've been more than ... |
www.communitymx.com |
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blogging - SWiK |
Firefox Computer blogging css google googlereader lifehacks style tools web
Nov 19 ... opensource FREE blogging css feeds javascript programming rss tools ... |
swik.net |
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Comments on: Blogging Challenge: WordPress Treasure Hunt |
Its even been picked up by MaxPower.ca Local Tags: access, Blogging, css, free, hosting, php, statistics, Themes, wordpress, wordpress com, wordpress org ... |
www.maxpower.ca |
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pytlik / css |
by pytlik 2006-06-16 02:33 tags: blogging · css. http://www.htmlhelp. com/reference/css/all-properties.html - similar - cached - mail it - history ... |
www.simpy.com |
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Articles - Interview: Cameron Moll | iStockphoto.com |
Blogging, CSS, and the standards movement have collaboratively produced an explosive wealth of benefits for websites and their users, but they have also ... |
istockphoto.com |
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Technorati Profile for chwats (Christian Watson) |
http://blog.myspace.com/christianwatson. Tagged: Blogging, CSS, Design, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Usability, web design, Web development. ... |
www.technorati.com |
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Russell Holliman: See what people are saying right now on Technorati |
Posted by Sebastian Prooth in weblog, wordpress, blogging, CSS, blogger, microsoft, bbc, theme, Robert... » Show details · What's Popular Most Popular ... |
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JeffCroft.com: Items tagged with movabletype |
Wednesday, June 29th 2005 at 5:07 a.m. (1 year, 5 months ago): Tags: ajax, blogging, css, javascript, movabletype, php, tutorial; 0 comments on Six Apart ... |
www2.jeffcroft.com |
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JeffCroft.com: Items tagged with php |
Wednesday, June 29th 2005 at 5:07 a.m. (1 year, 5 months ago): Tags: ajax, blogging, css, javascript, movabletype, php, tutorial; 0 comments on No more CSS ... |
www2.jeffcroft.com |
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lynx [dive into mark] |
Visually, the navigation bar is first, but structurally, this main text is first. (View [
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diveintomark.org |
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Brewster's Field Guide to Web 2.666 |
Instant Comment Preview blogging, css, javascript, meta, you-can-build-it-you-can-fly-it: Here's a really cheap, sleazy way to instantly preview blog ... |
kentbrewster.com |
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