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Posts filed under 'Writing'

The Almighty NoFollow Tag

Add comment May 28th, 2008

As bloggers we all become relatively aware of the nofollow tag. We might not know what it means or why we use it but we know about it. For most of us the nofollow attribute is automatically added to the links people post in our comments. This is to help us stop comment spamming. (I know you know what that is. What blogger hasn’t opened their admin to see a ton of nonsense and links to gambling, insurance or porn sites.)

Well, the rel=”nofollow” added to the html of a standard link tells a search engine not to follow that link. By not following the link they will not count that link towards that sites link popularity. Has this knowledge stopped the spammers? No. Does it hurt you or your blog? No. It does, however, hurt the people you would like to be linking to. Therefore I do not recommend using the nofollow tag in your posts if you wish to give that person some internet props and help out their link popularity and ultimately their page ranks.

It seems all the major search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) have agreed to honor this new tag. Although it appears that is not the case and it is largely ignored.

My advice to you is to make sure all your hard work in getting reciprocal links is not destroyed by those two little words. Be sure you request a link back to you that is does not contain that particular little snippet of coding. Why anyone seeking links or articles to drive traffic or exposure would choose to use that tag is beyond me.

Check out the Search Engine Journal’s article 13 Reasons Why NoFollow Tags Suck for a better explanation why you don’t want or need this tag clogging up your html code. But as a blogger the best defense against comment spamming is to moderate your comments carefully to keep that junk from even hitting your site. Your readers will appreciate being able to actually read the comments instead of all the ping backs and scrolling nonsense text.

Does Your Blog Have What It Takes

Add comment May 21st, 2008

Do you think you’ve got what it takes to impress the blogosphere? Well then prove it. Write your best post and then head on over to YearBlook.com.

Yearblook.com is a contest to find the best blog posts on the net. Each day a winner will be chosen. All the winners will then be compiled into a big book of blogs. Yes, an actual book will be published. That’s right your work will actually be published in the real world. Go figure.

As a blogger you can go over and submit your own posts or your friends can do it for you. Once you are nominated you’ll want to have all your online friends head over and vote for you.

Fear not you won’t be losing your rights to your own works. If you win they will contact you to work out the licensing for inclusion into the finished book.

Okay, so being in a book isn’t quite enough for you. How’s about money will that satisfy? Each month the winner for top blog that month has a chance to get $100. Not too shabby, huh?

Well there is one more reason to submit your blog. Free advertisement for you. That’s right drive traffic and increase your audience. Really, I am not seeing a negative to being a part of YearBlook.com.

Caught in Captcha Hell

Add comment May 20th, 2008

I completely understand sights requesting captcha verification when submitting comments and feed back in online forms. Heck, I have even considered it for my commenting system on this blog due to all the mechanical spam messages I keep getting in my comments. But after tonights little mishap on another blog I whink I will reconsider.

I was over at This Side of the Fence tyring to post a comment on a fellow bloggers article. But the captcha which was all numerical kept giving me a failed response. I kept trying to get my comment to go through always with the same outcome. I finally gave up. But not before grabbing screen shot so you can see i did indeed have the right numbers in the form and how badly the website was treating. Hopefully, the comments were all rejected and not sitting in their admin awaiting moderation. If that is the case they will have to delete like twenty of the same comment form me. Sorry.

Send A Little Piece of Yourself

Add comment May 20th, 2008

Sending cards and letters is getting to be a lost art. Why not revive it by creating and sending personalized photo cards. You can use any image and create your own text on the inside too. Use pictures of your family, friends, pets anything that makes it your own.

I know, I know. You are thinking that sending photo cards is only for Christmas. Well guess what? It isn’t. You can send out them out any time. Use a photo from your wedding to create anniversary invitations, use a baby shot to announce your newborn’s arrival, take a picture of your kids and pets to use for everyday note cards, the possibilities are endless.

Are you looking for that perfect thank you note but can’t seem to find it? Why not make it yourself. Wedding season is coming up right? So here is a good idea for all those thank you notes you will need to be sending out. Get a picture of yourself at your shower or hen party or use your engagment photo then create your own unique message on the inside and outside of the card. All you need to do is add a little personal note before mailing out your unique, one of a kind wedding thank you notes. It might just be the only thank you note that your friends and family may actually keep or add to their scrapbooks.

Really the possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

Surpisingly Good Morning After A Hellish Day

Add comment May 17th, 2008

As you can see I am up and posting this morning. This is a good thing trust me. In the past when I would get as upset as I did yesterday I would not have felt like doing anything for days. I would have spiraled down into a pit of depression so deep I would think there was no way out. And last night I really felt like that is where I was heading. Now I have a bit of hope.

I did get a fairly good night’s sleep although I did give myself a little medicated help. (I had to or I would have lain in bed all night long staring at the dark ceiling unable to quiet my mind.) I woke up this morning feeling a little better about things and surprisingly no headache (with my sinuses and the way I was crying all day yesterday that is a BIG surprise). I tried just lying there relaxing with my cats (they had all come up to say feed me), but I could not enjoy the morning. Once I was fully awake my mind kept returning to yesterday and how bad I felt and how awful going to work on Monday will be.

So I dragged myself out of bed, fed those darned pusses and here I am typing away. Perhaps if I can keep myself busy with other things today and tomorrow Monday won’t be such a hellish Monday after all. I hope.

Few Simple Pros and Cons on SocialSpark.com

Add comment May 13th, 2008

I have been a member of SocialSpark for two weeks now and I see many possibilities and a few drawbacks.

Of course the biggest plus is the chance to make money from your blog posts. That’s a no brainer. It’s really all about the networking; making connections. Increase your link popularity by taking the blog u back offers from other users.

What’s a blog u back offer you ask? Pretty self-explanatory really. You take someone up on their offer and write a post or review linking back to their blog and they will in turn do the same for you. It is a win-win situation.

The SocialSpark Code of Ethics is clear and concise. Making SocialSpark a pleasure to deal with and search engine friendly unlike other paid post opportunities out there.

So what are the drawbacks? As I mentioned before all the bells and whistles on the site do not allow for users with older browsers. So update your browser or forget it.

Even more annoying than that is the fact that the opportunities are generally not available and you need to wait for a slot. Not too bad as long as you can get to your email ASAP and write the post within the 12 hours allotted to you once they send you a reservation. In my case I get these emails at 12am Eastern Standard Time. Being on the east coast I lose 8 hours right off the bat and cannot always read my email or log into the website before lunch time so I miss out completely. Personally, I don’t think this is fair. They should send these reservations out later giving people 12 usable hours. (The only reason I was able to get this opportunity to write about them was because I just so happened to be up tonight when the email came in, but that is a rare thing for me.)

Then once you get a reservation what do you do with it? The email does not tell you how to proceed. There are no instructions on how to get to the opportunity nor is there a clear indication once you log in on what to do. I had to search to find the opportunity then take a wild stab at what to do next. They don’t seem to want to make this easy on a person do they?

Just Tell Me Why This Site Is So Addictive

Add comment May 11th, 2008

I just found a fun site where you can post your point of view on many topics in a very unique way. Just Tell Me Why offers up dichotomies to be solved by the general public (that’s me and you). There are lots of hot topics to choose from entertainment to politics.

Stop by JustTellMeWhy.com today to voice your opinion on The Simpson vs Family Guy or Coke vs Pepsi. They’ll even listen to your ideas too so if you don’t see a topic you’d like to talk about on the site just drop them a note and request it.

Believe me once you get started telling people why you might not be able to stop. This site is very addicting.

The Doggy Doo Dilemma

1 comment May 8th, 2008

Doggy poop is a huge problem, especially if you live next to my neighbors who do not pick up the poop out of their yard. It is horrible walking out to the car past that crap. I do not look forward to the summer months, not one bit. I was a good neighbor and instead of just complaining (or posting to my blog at the time), I bought them a really good pooper scooper last year one where they would never have to touch the doggy waste. I thought the gift would give them the hint that they needed to pick up after the dog every time she went potty not once a month or less. Well they not only did not get the hint they regifted the pooper scooper saying it was too small to pick up their dog’s poop. Not if you used it on a regular basis! Yeah it was too small to handle all that poop at once, but the idea was for you to use it daily people!

I came across Poop-Freeze (via the goat at backcountry.com) and thought at first what an idiotic idea. Then I remember my problem and thought on a hot summer day if the poop was frozen maybe the stench coming from the yard two feet away from me would not be so bad. (We cannot even have our living room window open in warm weather because of the smell from next door.) Even with that possible use Poop-Freeze really is a stupid idea (proven by the post on the company website that the company is insolvent, folks aren’t buying it).

TreeHugger.com touts the supposed environmentally friendly aspects of this product. There are no CFCs and it claims not to harm the grass but freezing it to 60 degrees below zero has to harm the grass. Really how environmentally responsible is it to offer a product that has no real use (how hard is it to pick up that poop any way)? You will still be left with a can to dispose of making even more waste. My guess is that TreeHugger is pointing out the un-treehugger-like properties of this particular product.

Now here is the only use for the product that even makes sense… (taken directly from the homepage of PoopFreeze.com) “POOP-FREEZE™ is an emergency pet product that every pet owner should have. Just keep it under the sink for those occasions in which your pet has diarrhea or loose stool.” While I would never refer to it as an emergency pet product it would be very helpful in picking up messes from a sick puppy.

Now if someone could come up with the product from the movie Envy (the Ben Stiller / Jack Black unfunny flick about jealousy). I believe that product was called Va-poo-rize. When that becomes available the pet industry will explode. I do believe that eventually someone some where will come up with something that works until that time you’ll just have to pick up that poop!

Relate Posts (there’s a lot of crap about poop):

What Are You Watching?

Add comment May 6th, 2008

Fellow blogger AlyCat posted a question asking what movies you watched over and over while growing up that wore out your VCR. Good question. Unfortunately, being a child of the seventies we did not have a VCR. In fact we did not have a VCR until I was almost out of High School and then it was because I bought it! It loaded VHS tapes in the front like the VCRs of today instead of a pop up top like some of the older styles. I’ll bet not too many of you out there remember those. Don’t get me wrong mine wasn’t overly modern as it still had a wired remote.

So my list of watched and rewatched movies while growing up is short as it was really only the films that were aired every year on regular TV like Sound of Music, Wizard of Oz, etc. Once I got the VCR my true tastes in films came out. I repeatedly watch horror and sci-fi movies like Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Aliens, Ghost Busters, Star Wars, ET, etc.

Now that I have onDemand and a DVR I find myself with repeated viewings of even more. Most recently I am stuck in a V for Vendetta phase.

What movies do you watch over and over?

Let SocialSpark Spark Your Imagination

Add comment May 6th, 2008

I signed up for this new service called SocialSpark about a week ago. To some degree it is a cross between MySpace and PayPerPost. You get to meet up with merchants and other bloggers on a more personal level. Signing up is easy and free.

Just know you either have to be using FireFox or MSIE 7 (I hate internet explorer 7) or you won’t be able to access the site at all, which is a big draw back since about 50-60 percent of the folks coming to my sites are still using MSIE 6. I assume you folks are like me and don’t like the way the new internet explorer handles webpages and how Microsoft appears to be pushing us all into redeveloping our previously working websites. Enough about them, back to SocialSpark.

Head on over and sign up. You’ll be able to find opportunities to make money with your posts (like PPP and other services), make new blogging buddies, find ideas and topics for you to write about and one of the best features get and request blog backs. That last one is so important in improving your page ranks that it alone is worth signing up. But I am sure you will find other reasons to stick with them.

While your there stop by whataslacker’s SocialSpark profile and give me some props, request to be my friend or just let me know you posted a blog about my site and I’ll be sure to do the same. I am always looking to increase those links back to my blog.

You can thank SocialSpark for this post.