I think Andy Beard may just be a genius. At the very least he’s got a very analytical mind and he’s put it to use in the ongoing situation of Google Page Rank Slapping. Andy came up with a method to block Paid Reviews from Google’s Spiders using Robots.txt, and now he’s filed an official reconsideration request with Google. This is a topic I think every blogger that has ever even considered posting paid reviews should be following closely.
Google’s PR bashing hit bloggers large and small alike, regardless of disclosure policys or quality of reviews in relation to site content and in that vein, I feel that they slighted all bloggers everywhere. I’m sure that in some cases there were blogs that were knocked down to a PR0 without ever posting a paid review or any other form of paid post. All it had to do was look like one to Google.
Other people have covered this topic, but in my opinion none has done so as well as Andy has up to this point. All I really have to say is “Keep Up The Good work, Mr. Beard!”
Jerry Blogging Blogging, Izea, PageRank, PayPerPost
On topic… No, but a conversation I had with my sister today got me thinking about the real estate market and my future home buying plans. As a military family, we really haven’t decided where we plan to end up after my wife’s career in the military is over (She’ll retire at 38, can you believe it!), but it does make me wonder how I’m going to go about looking once we’ve decided where we plan to live the rest of our lives.
As a completely rhetorical thought, say we decided that New York City was our destination of choice. (It won’t be. I don’t think my cowboy boots fit in all that well there…) assuming we’re stationed in California, how am I supposed to get valid and current information on Bronx Real Estate?
I’d use the Internet, of course. The problem then becomes; which one of the thousands of real estate sites am I going to use? For me the choice is pretty simple. If I’m looking for Homes for Sale, I’ll check RealEstateBook.com first. Why? Because I’ve used their magazine in the past to locate apartments and rentals. I’ve come to trust them, and I take a look there first, then pick a Realtor.
Just my two cents kiddies. I hope my sister’s house hunting goes well.
Jerry other articles, thanks! random thoughts
If you’ve ever wondered how some sites get to the front page of social media sites like Digg or Stumbleupon and wondered how you can get your content placed there as well then Dustin Brewer might have the answers you’re looking for. Dustin just penned a post on his blog titled Top 5 ways to create interesting content for social networks which details the methods that he feels will get your content moved from social networking obscurity to current buzz of the day.
While social networking sites will never get you the kind of traffic that good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will garner over time, they can be great for spikes in traffic of anywhere from 20 or 30 visitors to well over 1,000 in a single day. The hope with this surge in attention is that at least some of the people that stop by will sign up for your site feed or bookmark your blog for a later visit, but regardless of the long term results it is an exhilarating feeling to see your page views jump by hundreds or thousands for a day.
Jerry Blogging, writing for the web Blogging, social media
I’m working out the details of a project I’ve had planned for a very long time. This project will be using WordPress MU as the back end system, and I’m looking over requirements as I write this.
Out of the box, WordPress MU is a splogger’s paradise. The system does not allow the administrator to moderate what blogs are created, which means that any script kiddy or splogger bot can set up a blog, post two or three completely spammy posts, then disappear into the Internet ether, never to be heard from again. This was the main reason that I halted work on this project the last time I looked in to it. before I even had the chance to dive in to reworking MU to do what I needed it to do, I was faced with the task of deleting over 100 user accounts and splogs per day!
Looking over the WordPress MU help site has given me a bit of insight into the steps that need to be taken to prevent all of this from happening on the next round, so as a step in getting this project off the ground, I’ll be starting from scratch and recording the steps here. Hopefully my experiences with getting this thing installed and working correctly will help someone else in the future.
One of my primary goals is to use only plugins to get the system where I need it. A lot of solutions for modifying MU involve hacking core files. This is absolutely against my better senses, as it means that any upgrades would have to be modified as well. This is not only a time consuming process, but is a complete waste of administrative time, since upgrades are something that the users of the system will be more than happy to see as well.
In the next installment we’ll get down to brass tacks. Stay tuned!
Jerry Blogging, WordPress, WordPress MU WordPress, WordPress MU
If you have no idea what either of these terms mean, then the rest of this post is not for you. If you are among the growing number of bloggers and website owners that prefers the flexibility and power of owning their own virtual server, then you have probably used either telnet or ssh to connect to your server.
If your needs have grown to the point that you need to have multiple people maintaining your system, security starts to play a major roll in your plans. If this has become the case for your enterprise, be it fortune 500 or just a few people, you may want to look into the following Telnet solutions from Pragma Systems. Keeping your data secure is the first line of defense for any web based entity, and you are never to small to worry about it.
Jerry other articles, thanks! server communication, ssh, telnet, web tools
