Religious songs that are ambiguous by using generic words or generic names for God (such as “God”) can be used equally by any religion that calls their god “God”, and therefore such songs do not promote the faith they may have been written for.

A good example is the (Christian) song “Our God is an awesome God”.  The title alone could be equally used by Jews, Muslims, Catholics or Christians, and it would seem as true to each group.  One thinks of the Muslim phrase “Allah Akbar” (don’t know if I have the spelling right) and its translation “God is Great!” and it is certainly a very similar concept.

Looking deeper, at the lyrics, it doesn’t get any better:

Our God is an awesome God,
He reigns from heaven above,
With wisdom, power and love,
Our God is an awesome God.

Again, I am pretty sure each of the religions listed earlier could feel ownership of those words.  Each religion (which the world calls “Abrahamic” indicating only that each of them has Abraham as a patriach, not that there is actually any link or commonality between them (wow, there is a can of worms!)) has a god called “God” or some non-english translation of the same, who is in heaven, and has power, wisdom and love.

So what do songs like this do for a faith/religion, if adherrants to any religion could each equally faithfully sing these words to their own god?

My thoughts are - they don’t do much.  There is no specific focus on the ideals of any of the above listed religions.  It doesn’t provide the singer or the listener with a clear idea of what religion the song belongs to.  And though it does honour God, it could be used to honour any god called “God”, so the benefit is weakened.

Perhaps its a good song for “inter-faith dialogue” conventions!

My conclusion is that perhaps it is better to stick to songs that are focussed on the faith they are written for, so for me, that has to be songs that include Jesus Christ.

This post is from: AndrewMesser.com

However, I have recently thought that rather than do that, I would like to use it as a place to put my thoughts about my faith in Jesus as a Christian.

You see, on my about page, I have identified as a Christian, but it isn’t something I have given an important place in my self-description.  But in reality, it is an important part of my life.  In fact, it is the most important part.  I also know that there are some Christian readers of this blog.

So by writing some of those thoughts, perhaps those readers can get something out of it.  And also, perhaps those readers who don’t identify as Christians can get an idea of what my faith means to me.  I don’t know, but God does, and in time we shall see…

So before I start writing Christian topics on this blog, I thought I would clarify what my faith means to me.  Being a Christian does not just mean going to church on Sunday or reading the Bible.  I do those things too, but the core of my faith is my personal relationship with my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.  In fact, the word “Christian” means a follower of Christ.

Now, I can’t guarantee that having a good, specific topic to write about and around will make this blog a frequently updated affair, but as a Christian seeking to serve God, I am sure I will be able to write more interesting, thought provoking articles than ever before.

This post is from: AndrewMesser.com

• Becoming PageRanked is not impossible
• People are scared of linking schemes, or anything that looks like one
• Bloggers who use free blogging systems do not get scared of the above point because they don’t know any better
• Advertising helps
• Progress is slow
• A fair (or would that be unfair) proportion of the results collected thus far are influenced by web spiders (robots)

Let me explain more fully:

PageRank

Traffic Experiment achieved a PageRank of 1 (out of 10) in about 55 days.  I don’t know if that is fast or slow, but it is faster than any of my other sites.  I see that as a win.

Linking Schemes

I believe that my Traffic Experiment has not snowballed effectively because it is seen by many as a linking scheme (which it isn’t).  Yes it does involve links, from me to you and you to me, but it is not a linking scheme because linking is not mandatory on the users part, and is not guaranteed on the Experiments part.  Therefore participants may not give or receive links if they don’t desire to do so.

In any case, I think the fact that Google has not penalised that site or any of my other sites shows that it is not considered to be a linking scheme by them.  And that is the most important thing isn’t it?

Bloggers

Half of the registrants to Traffic Experiment are from blogspot.  This indicates to me that real webmasters have not generally considered the experiment beneficial or worthwhile.  I of course disagree, because its a chance at a free link from a PageRanked site, so that is good for everyone right?  Well, perhaps it isn’t if your site has a higher PageRank than mine.  That’s the trouble with starting out…

Advertising

I have run six campaigns through Project Wonderful, and each time I run one, I get an applicant or two.  Not a stellar return on investment, but capable of generating smooth growth.  I do consider these ads to have been a success.  And for the most part, they have been paid for by the PW ads on the Traffic Experiment site.

Itsy Bitsy Spiders

I have noticed a lot of repetitive traffic from specific IP groups.  So, the first countermeasure was to change the algorithm to only count unique visits every month.  This prevented any spamming of the experiment.  However, the repetitious traffic continued, so after investigating that I found that the IPs were of search engines.  I have since added code to allow me to block IP addresses or address ranges.  It is very handy, because if I detect spiders or robots, I can find out who they are (ie which company) and block the whole IP range that they use.  And I could also blacklist flagrant spammers, if need be…
So…

The Traffic Experiment continues - I want to see how far it can go.  It is becoming more and more refined as time goes by, and it is gradually snowballing.  Besides, it can only help the PageRank of my other sites, and that doesn’t hurt.  It could help your PR too, so sign up if you haven’t already…

This post is from: AndrewMesser.com

This came as a surprise to me for two reasons.  One, I haven’t been doing much blogging lately.  Two, until tonight, the Google Toolbar has always read as 0/10 .

The interesting thing is that my Traffic Experiment has also achieved a PageRank of 1.  This is an extra incentive to start participating in the Traffic Experiment, and in my opinion it is “proof of concept“.  This has proved that such an experiment can achieve a PageRank (it did so much quicker than this blog which has been online for 5 months).  It also proves to me that my justification of the Traffic Experiment as NOT being a link exchange scheme is quite valid.

(It is not a link exchange scheme for two reasons:

1. I do not provide any guarantee that participating will result in a link back; and,
2. Participants are not required to put a link to Traffic Experiment on their site (though not doing so will significantly reduce the chance of a link back).

So, not being a link exchange scheme, it should never be penalised.)

Anyway, if you have suggestions for this blog, I’d love to hear them.  If you would like to do a guest post that somewhat ties into the theme of the blog, I am ready to read it!  And if you want to get in on the Traffic Experiment while it is still young, then don’t delay, go and register!

Finally, if your Google Toolbar gives you a different PageRank (that is, not 3/10) when viewing AndrewMesser.com, please let me know, because I would love to know if it is completely consistent or not…

This post is from: AndrewMesser.com

That has made it hard to provide any kind of content for this blog, or to work on my other site Ah, Mr Bond! or to work on the Traffic Experiment.

However, despite the neglect, I have noticed an improvement in the registrations for Traffic Experiment.  I have previously noted that Traffic Experiment is now number two on google for the search term “traffic experiment”.  And for a little while, it earned some cents from Project Wonderful as well.

I can see a definite correlation between my small ad campaigns with Project Wonderful and the new registrations in the Traffic Experiment.

For that reason, I can suggest to you that Project Wonderful can indeed be a workable advertising medium - people really do click through the ads.  In fact, a side benefit of putting a new ad box on your website is that you get a bit of traffic from PW itself - which might also help you.

The reason this happens is that new ad boxes are listed in Project Wonderful, which creates a quick startup spike of interest in the box.

So I now have 10 sites registered in Traffic Experiment (which is up from 5 at the end of last month) so maybe next month it will go to twenty or more…  I hope it will.

To all my readers who operate websites - don’t be shy about getting into the Traffic Experiment!  It is not a link exchange scheme, and I don’t see any reason why it will ever be penalised by Google.  The fact that it is number two on Google (america) for a search, and has been for some weeks, indicates to me that Google is happy with it.  So give it a go!

This post is from: AndrewMesser.com

STOP POSTING!

But the funny thing is, not posting for a little while probably WON’T have a devastating effect on your blog.  In fact, it may have no effect.

I used to post three posts every night.  I spent all my spare time trying to grow and nurture this blog.  It didn’t grow very much at the time, and I found this disheartening.  More disheartening was the fact that it makes (essentially) no money.

Okay, I’ll wrap it up…

Since reducing my time on my blog, I have not seen a drop in traffic, visitors or RSS subscribers.  Over a month, I can only suggest that that means a blog will probably perform at a similar level with weekly updates as it will with daily or hourly updates!  Unless your blog is about the most current, up-to-date things, I reckon this is probably the case.

So, don’t feel afraid to change the level of commitment you have to your blog and to posting on it.

I have certainly found that blogging less has not harmed my blog.

Of course, it is possible that that is because my blog is so inconsequential that no-one cares whether I post or not, but I’d like to keep the rose-coloured glasses on and say that is not the case

This post is from: AndrewMesser.com

I must say that I am very pleased with that.  With a bit of luck, and a few more participants, I believe that the Traffic Experiment will start building PageRank, and that will make the links very attractive to the participants.

As with most things of this nature, you can benefit greatly by getting in early.  For example, if you were a blogger, with perhaps a readership of 50 readers, and you posted about the experiment (using the referral link you can get from the site), you would probably refer enough traffic to get to the top of the list straight away.

That would give you a FREE, permanent link back to your site.  That is something that will grow in value as the experiment snowballs, and more traffic sees your link and potentially uses it to access your site, and also as more participants link to the experiment and its PageRank increases.

In its first month of operation, it has been slow to generate participants, but I do believe that it will snowball gradually.  The main advantage of joining now is the relative ease of getting that prize of a free, permanent link to your website.

Have a go, sign up as a participant, and write a blog post, if you are a blogger.  You could get some permanent Internet exposure from a growing site, for free!

This post is from: AndrewMesser.com

I proposed to her on Friday the 4th of April and obviously she said yes.  We are so happy!

Anyway, that’s all the news at the moment, except to say I’ll probably get pretty busy with planning things so that will keep me from posting any more frequently than I already do.

This post is from: AndrewMesser.com

The time frame that defines an important characteristic of a medium really becomes the benchmark of that medium.  Months are a common unit in sales as well as in blogging, because they break time up into managable, usable, comparable chunks.  Very few places compare sales performance week by week or day by day.  To contrast that, a day-trading investor would use days as their chunks of time.

Anyway, as I said blogs flow in months, and this month has been disjointed.  I took a holiday, and grew very disillusioned with blogging, because it was taking a lot of time while bringing limited success.  So I came back and decided to scale it back.  But even after saying that several times, I haven’t lost subscribers.  It seems people are still interested, or have too much apathy to unsubscribe.

So anyway, I should give a monthly report and tell you how it has gone financially…

I have several websites, AndrewMesser.com, Ah, Mr Bond! and Traffic Experiment, and they each earn money differently. So instead of reviewing what AndrewMesser.com earned, I will tell you about all of them.

AndrewMesser.com

I advertise in three ways on AndrewMesser.com, and those are Google Adsense, Project Wonderful and AdToll.

The money spent on Project Wonderful was actually used to advertise the Traffic Experiment, not AndrewMesser.com.  So you can see why I got a bit disillusioned with the blog.  With a good reason, I have decided not to spend excessive time on the blog, or to try to be what I am not.  I will just be being me - after all it is MY blog for me and about me.  Primarily though, it will be about my various experiments on the Internet and how they are (or aren’t) successful.

Ah, Mr Bond!

I saw the BANS concept before I started this blog, and if you haven’t heard about it, you might want to check it out.  BANS stands for “Build A Niche Store” and it is a simple website creation tool that helps you create a niche store around the Ebay affiliate concept.

I started Ah, Mr Bond! as my first BANS page, and it was gradually developing when I got bitten by the blogging bug.  Because I hadn’t earned any money from it I didn’t keep developing it, which was selling the concept short - because it has now earned some money.  It has Google AdSense ads on it, but the main drive is the Ebay affiliate links.  These are administered through Commission Junction.  So here is why I am going to spend the time next month to finish off the site and get all of the content done:

You can see that Commission Junction and Ebay are now the most successful earner for me, and that they are the closest to actually sending a payout too - when you consider the different threshholds.  I know that I haven’t put the time and effort into Ah, Mr Bond! and that it could be a lot, lot better than it is.  I reckon that if I do put in the effort, the results will come.

You will see my progress here, friends!

Traffic Experiment

This is a new project, and go there to find out more.  Basically, it started up this month, and has now ads or other income, so there isn’t much to report there in regard to earnings.  However, I will probably throw Project Wonderful onto the site next month, and I might revise the algorithm and remove the “beta” label too.

I am proud to announce that there are 6 registered sites, which was achieved with very little advertising other than at this blog.  So it will snowball from there.  If you haven’t done so already, head over there now and register because you may be able to earn yourself a free, permanent link back to your site, from a potentially highly trafficked site.

So…

I have done marginally better on the Internet this month than before, and with very little effort seeing as I was away most of the month.  Having shown that, I am going to focus my efforts on the things that earn best, and I will help you all out by keeping you informed about what works best!

This post is from: AndrewMesser.com

But now I am back from Melbourne - so I’ll be back online.  Probably not as frequently as before, but I am still here.

I keep talking about my little traffic experiment - and it is going well, considering that I haven’t had the time to market it (I’ve been away, I haven’t touched the Internet in over a week!)

I have had my first registration over there on the experiment site since starting it up.  Now all I need is some of you readers to register and get involved and it will have a chance to take off!  It just needs a bit of healthy competition (competitiveness I mean ) between the participants…

Anyway, you will be hearing more from me, and about more different things, in the weeks to come.  It is good to be back (and thanks for sticking around while I’ve been gone!!)

This post is from: AndrewMesser.com