October Wrap-up
This is the wrap-up of this blog for October, 2007 [ "October 12 to October 31 ( 20 days )"].
1. Host and Blogging Software
- My blog is shifted to Dreamhost on 11st October, 2007. Luckily, I got a lot of discounts from them because they were celebrating 10th Birthday at that time.
- I started using the standalone WordPress from WordPress.org. ( The one that I used earlier is WordPress MU (WordPress Multi-User). )
2. Plugins
- WordPress.com Stats : This is a stats system that I’m using for more than 1 year. I still love this plugin so I use it here too. (But it doesn’t allow me to take my previous stats from my old blog. :( )
- Akismet : The greatest spam-fighter on the net.
- Feedburner FeedSmith : It will redirect your own site feed (i.e: http://michaelsync.net/feed/) to your feedburner’s feed (i.e: http://feeds.feedburner.com/michaelsync/).
- Google XML Sitemaps : It is just for Google Webmaster Tool.
- Subscribe to Comments : This is the best way to keep in touch with my readers.
- SyntaxHighlighter : This makes my sourcecode looks cool.
Which plugins are you using on your site?
3. Theme
Yeah. I’m using my modified version of “Unsleepable Widget-friendly” theme for now.
4. AdSense
This might be interesting topic for you all. I have started using the Adsense from the following service. I wanna share some of my experiences… I promise that I’m NOT going to use the most annoying ads in my blog. All ads will be placed on the sitebar or under the comment box . I hope that it would be okay for you. Frankly speaking, I’m not going to blog for money. I have no plan to make money with my blog.. Why ads here? Because as my blog is on self-host, there are some costs for it. I like to cover those things. And also, I would like to run some programming or blogging contests on my blog..
- Google AdSense : I think Google Ads is the best adsense service on the net. They pay for impression, clicks and actions.
- AuctionAds : This is also a nice ads service after Google Ads. I start using it last 10 or something.. I got 4703 impressions, 4 clicks and 1 referral. I got free $25 bucks for signing-up with them. I’m not very sure whether this promotion is still available or not. You may try here if you want.
- Chitika : I think that Chitika is “Pay-per-action” service that didn’t work well from me. So, I have removed it.
- BidVertiser : I signed-up on that site today. It allows you to sign-up as both advertiser and publisher.
If you are also using Ads on your blog, please share some information with me. Which Service are you using? How many impressions and clicks do you get for a day? How much have you earned? Thanks.
Stats
- PageViews : 17618 PageViews for 20 days ( it doesn’t include my own visits.)
- Technorati Rank : 32,510 ( My rank dropped too much this month. My rank was 25,703 on 1st October. :( )
- Google PageRank : 5 (I got it on 26th January this year. it has been nearly 1 year. I think the PR of my blog should has been dropped this time because this is fashion for now.. a lot of pro-bloggers are shouting about Google PR drops for their blogs.. )
- Technorati Authority: 182
- Bandwidth : 3.684 GB
Good to hear you’re going with AdSense – even just to pay for hosting.
Just be careful though about posting your earnings and reports. I believe this is against their Terms of Service and they can ban you. I’ve heard so many stories of this happening so you might want to look into that.
Good luck.
>>I believe this is against their Terms of Service and they can ban you
Thanks for informing me.. I have removed it.. Is this Google’s Terms of Service??
Congrats dude! :D
As for ads, I’m not using any but like Michael says [the other one] even I’ve heard about Google banning people for disclosing payment information and stuff. One ad service I’d like to recommend is Text Link Ads, they even have good tools for you to use. :)
Thanks, Ash.
Text Link Ads? I heard that Google slapped them, isn’t it? A lot of top pro-bloggers are shouting that their PR have been dropped because of paid link (maybe TextLink Ads)…
Hey Ash, your plugin “Welcome back” is nice one.. I’m gonna install it on my blog too….
btw, Are you able to comment twice in my blog?? I think that there is some problems with TextArea box… That textarea become disabled after posting one comment….
Yes, TLA was the reason most people’s blog rating dropped in google, but I wasn’t talking about the main ad thing, I was talking about the tools, like the advertising in your feed etc. Plus TLA is also the owner of I think AuctionAds or Bidvertiser, one of the two. I’m trying the feed advertising through feedburner with google adsense, since I don’t like ads on my blog, thought feeds would be the best. :)
Yeah, that WB plugin is wicked, it uses MyAvatars by the same guy [Andrea Micheloni] for the MyBlogLog avatars. I’ll try commenting again here to check about the double commenting. :)
Testing.
Testing “Mike” Testing. :P
Mike there seems to be a problem, it locks up and won’t let me post comments until I reload the page. Delete the above to comments because the first one did not have any AJAX effect [it reloaded the page like when you normally post a comment] so I did a second one and then the box locked up.
thanks a lot.. Ashish… I will look into this issue this weekend… i’m not sure whether it is cuz of theme or subscribed-to-comment plugin…. thanks.. buddy. :)
Akismet + WordPress = the happiest couple on the internet.
I’ve seen plenty of websites that disclosed this information in a graphic while blurring out their name and focusing only on the numbers. Whether this is against terms of service or not is beyond me, but I don’t see why it would be. That just doesn’t make any sense.
With any form of advertising, it’s always best to go with a product that you have enjoyed in the past, or are currently enjoying insstead of a rotation based on subject matter. Your readers are here to read your thoughts and opinions, so why wouldn’t they want referrals to products and services that you also enjoy?
As to the PR, a lot of pro-blogger crying fowl doesn’t really make sense – if you have an audience, they are going to come back no matter what the PR. 50 returning visitors will trump 5 new ones any day of the week.
If you get a new one, you could account that to anything from somebody randomly stumbling onto your website to just clicking a wrong link. If they return, that just means you’re doing something right.
Hi Matt,
Thanks for visting my blog, matt. :)
Yeah.. I’m using it here too..
The idea of writing this wrap-up is that I just wanna share what it ‘s happening in my blog (maybe.. behind the sense..)
There are a few bloggers who used to ask me about putting ads in their blog. So, I’m sharing some ads that I’m using and the pros and cons of using those ads service.. anyway, I have removed all ads except google ads from my blog…
Yeah.. As my blog is not for making money, PR or stats doesn’t really matter…
I must say I like your blog more now, it’s much more leaner and cleaner. Plus no need for using plugins for the social bookmarking, it’s built in! :D