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Buh-bye Akismet… Again

Vlad Zablotskyy — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:43:47 +0000

photo credit: permanently scatterbrainedSince moving to a new domain, I have become more and more frustrated with spam monkeys. So much so that I almost followed Scot’s lead in switching to “nofollow” again.

My frustration though was misplaced. There is no question that blogs from No-Nofollow Community are on many “must spam” list. But I think there is still a way to dofollow the comments while keeping the monkeys away.

Since moving to this domain, i have not bothered to install Spam Karma plugin until now. I just decided to go along with Akismet that comes by default with a new WordPress installation. I should have learned from the past and how this collective intelligence plugin had failed me in the past.

So today I have decided to say goodbye to Akismet once again, hopefully forever. Spam Karma is so much better solution for keeping the wrong people out and the right ones in. If you have installed Spam Karma on your blog but are not sure what is the best configuration for the plugin, take a look at Andy’s settings for SK2.Similar Posts:

Vanity, vanity , vanity…..

Vlad Zablotskyy — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 14:45:25 +0000

Since most of the US bloggers and affiliates are taking easy today, enjoin their roasted turkeys and preparing for tomorrow’s and Monday’s sale marathons, I have decided to take it easy as well. So today I was doing some vanity search and to my amazement Google is listing me #5 for my name.

Before experimenting with Googlebot, I was occupying 12th position for the term. It is true that my article on how I am planing to beat the “other Vlad” have generated few important links, however I do not believe they were sufficient enough to jump my website to #5 position, especially competing against Wikipedia.

So what happened? I think my entire experiment has caused some what of a confusion on Google’s data centers. But it is only my guess.

I do not know how long this phenomena will last, but it appears that my experiment, although it is over, continues to affect my blog. Not only I have improved position for my name search, I have dramatically improved on some other very competitive keywords in my niche, and I am observing increase in Google’s traffic. The question is how long will this last?

Happy Thanksgiving!Similar Posts:

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Tips To Keep Your PR Unblemished

Vlad Zablotskyy — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 18:19:36 +0000

My wife and I are going on a trip to North Carolina tomorrow- of course this will result in things being quiet around here. Before I take this vacation I wanted to post something here on the subject that shook (and shocked) many bloggers the Google PR Update. I am not sure if I am as excited about PR as I used to be, but since I am still writing about it, it must be important.

As most of you, I was wondering about a pattern of what took place. It is only one’s guess why and how penalties were implemented.

So to lighted up the situation I decided to find some fun practices which will keep your Page Rank untouched. Hopefully you can ad your own fun way to please the big G:

Link to pornographic websites as much as you can.
Kiss up to Google and never tell them they are stupid.
If you sell links or write paid reviews make sure to report and snitch on your fellow webmasters who do the same.
Yours next…….

Please share some fun ways to keep your websites PR high and untouched. I hope we can come up with a list of at least 10 best practices to do so. Help me out! Similar Posts:

Jason Calacanis- A Keynote Speaker At Affiliate Summint West?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:40:21 +0000

The reason I had put a question mark in the title of this post is that I was surprised to find out that Jason Calacanis was confirmed as keynote speaker at Affiliate Summit West.

The surprise factor of course was due to Jason’s view on affiliate marketing. At least on one occasion Jason placed spammers, SEOs and affiliate marketing under one roof- all contribute to pollute the search engine results. Or at least indicating that majority of affiliate websites in search results are bad.

While his intention to provide “unpolluted” search results on Mahalo, may be a noble one, there were however internet marketers that view Mahalo as Jason’s personal propaganda machine, far from being unbiased and far from providing quality and free from ads search results, while some think that Mahalo itself is a spam machine.

So what will Jason have to say to bunch of affiliate marketers? Will it be something like this “spammers”+”SEOs”+”affiliate marketers”=”same thing”?

So what is next? Will Jason begin writing for ReveNews on regular basis?

Update: Affiliate Summit – Jason CalacanisSimilar Posts:

Take Up Mike Levin On His Offer!

Vlad Zablotskyy — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 21:28:21 +0000

If you have never heard of Hittail you may know who Mike Levin is- the mastermind behind Hittail. If this is first time you ever hear about Hittial, it’s a service I highly recommend. Soon it will be a year since I have been using Hittail. I really have no idea how do they wok out the algorithms that produce “suggested” keywords, I know one thing- it works.

I have experienced benefits both as affiliate marketer and as a blogger. Bottom line is that Hittail provides you with hints for which keywords your website can rank on the top of search results. I have written a post “Hittail Results” – based on suggestion from Hittail. To this day my blog ranks #1 for the phrase “hittail results” on Google. But one of the best things about Hittail is that it provides me with tons of ideas for the future posts.

Today Mike has posted an “invitation to hittailers” to join the new website where “hittailers” like myself can showcase their websites. I have not signed up yet, but I will as soon as I am finished with this post.Similar Posts:

100 Top Blogs Script

Vlad Zablotskyy — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 18:24:10 +0000

Publishing his top 100 list, Mark from 45n5 evidently started a trend that may result in dozens of scripts with which you can create your own list for your own particular niche.

Today I have stumbled on one of such scripts, written by Gary from osWorld. If you are on the original list created by Mark, Gary is willing to give you the script for free if you link to his post.

Unlike the list at 45n5, Gary’s script populates only Google PR and Technorati rank (no Alexa rank). However Gary added an option for visitors to vote for their favorite blog. I am not in favor of the “voting” option and would prefer to see a script out there that would rely only on PR, Alexa and Technorati rankings in order to rank blogs or websites. (Mark are you reading this? ). Nevertheless I have asked Gary to let me try his script. Stay tuned for the follow up!Similar Posts:

BlogRush? Why not BlogExplosion?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 01:21:19 +0000

So do you think BlogRush is going to bring you traffic? I do not believe that it will.

The only reason I have chosen to join is to give it a try. I probably should place the widget some where above “the fold”. I may just get to it in a few days, if I am going to keep it on my blog.

I think the idea is ok, but it does sound familiar. Didn’t at least one of those traffic exchange websites tried to implement similar widget? Was it BlogExplosion?

The bright side of BlogRush is that it does not require you to visit other blogs to earn your “syndication credits”, unlike other traffic exchange websites. It also promises to bring you very targeted audience. Bottom line- there nothing to loose joining BlogRush but I do not expect my server to overload with traffic.Similar Posts:

Beware of Andy Beard’s Stumbles!

Vlad Zablotskyy — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 01:29:19 +0000

Not too many people are worried of servers crushing down from the “stumble effect”, but I got scarred yesterday when over 500 visitors came to my site in a span of 10 minutes. I guess it all depends who “stumbles” your posts. Thanks Andy! It did not continue but I think time will come that traffic from StumbleUpon can be as heavy as from Digg.

Similar Posts:

Contest: Entries Closed. Winner To Be Announced Monday

Vlad Zablotskyy — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 04:20:03 +0000

Just wanted to let every one know that I have just closed the comments/entry to my contest. Winner will be announced on Monday, so please stay tuned.

I have also collected some interesting data on the contest. I will attempt to publish it soon after the drawing is held, hopefully with some useful tips how to benefit from a contest on your blog. Good luck every one!Similar Posts:

Blog Contest: Rules Changed

Vlad Zablotskyy — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 17:07:18 +0000

The first and probably the last ever contest on my blog did not go as I ~~anticipated~~ wished for- only 62 comments were made so far and it will probably take few more months to get 38 more comments. Main reason was that as soon as I hit the “publish” button I realized that the rules I have implemented for the contest was flawed.

As you remember I was willing to give out to the author of comment #100 monetary reward of $100, and should the comment #100 have been trackback/pingback I would have rewarded the author with $200. I have received great feedback on how such a contest can be improved. Most of the feedback seams to indicate that a contest would be much more exciting if a winner would be chosen by a drawing. This also would prevent from some one taking and advantage of the former rules towards the end of the contest while the participants that commented early on, may have exhausted their options. I have
adjusted the rules in that regard.

Also a suggestion was made to maybe split $200 four ways and reward more readers. In my original rules there was a chance that I could have given out only $100. However since I have budgeted $200 for this content, I will give out $200 to one winner rather than splitting it four ways. And of course there is no longer a limit to how many times you can enter the contests. Of course this contest will have to end- August 31 will be your last chance to enter the contest.

I am not going to go into the details what was wrong with the rules, I will just simply change them. Please go to the original post to see the new rules and/or to participate in the contest.Similar Posts: