Internet News,Views,Tips,Tools for Webmasters | Kashifblog.com

Earning Profits as Amazon Affiliate

2009-06-24T13:48:00.004+06:00

I joined Amazon Associate program last year but only started promoting it this year in Feb. Most of the products that I have been promoting fall in the price range $20-$80. So depending upon Amazon commission structure, I can only get commission from 4% to 6.5% or if I am lucky and sell more than 111 items in a month, I can even get a 7% commission rate. Even 7% of a low price item is not enough and will not be worth the time to promote it.

This is the reason why many Amazon affiliates complain about the low commission rate. But if you are selling a high price item of value $1000 or above, your profit margins are high. You can get more $ for promoting a high price item instead of just a few bucks.

But things are not simple as they seem. Promoting a high price item always have some risks involved specially if you are investing heavily in advertising. Thorough research will save you a lot of time as well as money and at the same time will also give you better ROI.

This is exactly what I have planned for the coming months being an Amazon Associate. I am still in the research phase where I am hunting down the right niche (items) to promote. I consider researching 80% of the job as rest is all implementation which does not require much effort and time.

Best Canon Digital Camera

2009-06-23T11:08:00.010+06:00

Everybody wants to capture their memorable moments with the help of a camera but handling cameras correctly sometime become a tedious task because most of the cameras are not user friendly hence the output is not good enough. To resolve this problem canon has now introduced a user friendly camera, "Canon Powershot SD990IS", which is so far the best compact digital camera of highest 14.7 MP resolution that produces superfine images and videos. Some of the high-tech features of this camera are highlighted below.

DIGIC 4 Image Processor :

This new digital camera from canon is equipped with high-tech features and smart image processing due to the Digic 4 processor which

1. Efficiently manages the database of each picture in the memory: This canon camera shoots the picture or movie by pressing the shutter button twice, at first
when the button is pressed half way the green light flashes to indicate that the processor has managed the data of the shot and then pressing the shutter button fully the camera takes the picture according to the preset data.

2. Accurately adjusts the focusing faces: The processor is fast enough to automatically adjust the focusing faces specially when the self timer is ON.

3. Smartly detects and corrects red eye: Its smart processing sharply detects the red eye if and only if the red eye correction is selected. The menu of this option will then appear on the LCD and you can easily remove the red eye in your picture.

4. Intelligent contrast correction: Through this feature you can detect and correct the dark areas in an image without distorting the brightness of bright areas. This option is available in the main menu by the name of i-Contrast.

Highest Resolution of 14.7 MP :

Most prominent feature which makes it unique among the family of powershot camera is its resolution i.e, 14.7 Mega pixel which results in fine, smooth and clear image output. You can also adjust or minimize the resolution to five different levels available.

L (Large) : 15 M (4416 X 3312)
M1 (Medium 1) : 9 M (3456 X 2592)
M1 (Medium 2) : 5 M (2592 X 1944)
M1 (Medium 3) : 2 M (1600 X 1200)
S (Small) : 0.3 M (640 X 480)

Intelligent Image Stabilizer :

This is one of the best canon digital camera which will never produce blur image just because of intelligent image stabilizer which automatically adjusts, the zoom in image and counters the camera movement.The maximum zoom limit is different in different resolution i.e the digital zoom varies in limit according to resolution while the optical zoom 3.7x is same for all. However the given ranges of digital zoom are :

L stops zoom at 3.7x
M1 stops zoom at 4.7x
M2 stops zoom at 6.3x
M3 stops zoom at 10x
S stops zoom at 15x

Variety of Picture Modes :

The canon digital camera has two types of picture mode selection

1. By Selecting Shooting Modes:

There are five shooting modes which you can select by the mode dial on the upper right
corner. These modes include:

Auto: Camera adjust all the setting by it self.
Program: You can easily adjust or program the setting according to your requirement. Through this mode you may adjust brightness, flash, shot quality, resolution and many more.
Manual Mode: This mode can be set when the mode dial is at P/M mode then by move the main dial to select manual shoot mode in which you can manually adjust the aperture value and shutter speed by selecting the TV option.
Quick Shot: This mode allows you to take quick shot specially for moving object with accuracy and sharpness as you take the steady shot.
Standard Movie: This switches the camera to shoot movie

2. By Selecting Appropriate Scenes :

Through this option you can create sixteen different scenes in your picture which you can select by moving the main dial. These modes include; portrait, foliage, snow, under water, night mode, fireworks, kids & pets, indoor, aquarium, sunset, beach, ISO 3200, color accent, color swap, digital macro and stitch assist.

Besides these outstanding features the camera is also designed with number of other remarkable features which you can only be examined when you experience this great powershot camera. When you are going to buy this digital camera online you will go through some details of its accessories which are provided with or available separately. For your convenience here I have provided some details of its accessories so that you don't need to search more if you want to buy it you can easily buy digital camera online.

Digital Camera Accessories :

The camera comes out with:

Supplied memory of 32 MB along with two different memory of your own choice either 2GB or 8GB.
Wrist strap for safe handling
Rechargeable Battery pack with terminal cover (NB-5L)
batter charger (CB-2LX / available separately CB-2LXE)
Canon digital camera solution disk
AV cable (AVC-DC400) (available separately)
Interface cable (IFU-400PCU)
Power cord

Price and Availability :

This Canon SD990IS 14.7 MP digital camera is easily available at Amazon for online purchase and delivery. To see the updated price, Click here.

Garage Battery Charger : Dead Battery Companion

2009-06-13T00:23:00.009+06:00

One morning you decided to take out your vehicle that you haven't used for a couple of days. You packed your stuff load it in your car turn the keys and nothing happens. You do this a few more times and still nothing. This is when you realize that your car battery is almost dead and does not contain enough charge to start your vehicle. Now only if you had a battery charger in your garage then you will not have faced such a problem but even a battery charger will not be able to start your vehicle from a nearly dead battery. Not all except the Black and Decker smart battery charger has an amazing 75 AMPS jump start capability that will start almost any vehicle that has 12 V lead acid battery and does not start by its own battery.

This Black and Decker Smart Battery Charger can not only jump start a vehicle in emergency situations but it has also the ability to charge any 12 V lead acid battery at 25, 10 and even 2 amperes. Some of its useful feature are highlighted below:

Automatic Battery Charging :

This Black and Decker charger is fully automatic when it comes to charging a battery. You just have to clamp the cables on to the battery terminals, select the charging rate and that's it. It is a smart charger and will stop charging immediately when the battery has fully charged. This will be indicated on it LCD display. Plus it will also display how much current it is using to charge the battery and will also indicate any faults using the same LCD.

The 25 Amps charge setting is ideal for charging a dead battery in less than 2 hours. If you are not in a hurry then you can leave the battery over night at 10 amps rating. If you plan not to use your car from a few days to a couple of weeks then it is best to take out the battery and connect it with the charger and use the 2 amps tickle charging feature. This setting will ensure that the battery maintain its charge as long as it is connected to the charger. Not to mention that the 75 Amps engine start feature is a real man for emergency vehicle start ups.

Batteries Supported:

Technically speaking it is a battery charger that no only charges car batteries. In fact it has the ability to charge any 12V lead acid battery of RVs, lawn movers, ATVs, boats and many more. This shows how useful this 3 pounds charger can be and is a must have garage item.

Advanced Electronics:

Unlike others this charger is very light weight as it is not comprised of a heavy transformer instead it is equipped with a small transformer along with the rest of the electronics circuitry which makes this tool even more light weight and easy to move inside your garage.

Safety:

If battery charger is connected to the wrong terminals of a battery, it could result in damage to both the battery and the charger and in the worst case it can even harm the person standing close. But this is not the case with this battery charger as it has built in reverse hook-up as well as spark resistant protection which will not only indicate a fault status on its LCD display but will only begin charging the battery once its smart sensing technology assures that the battery has been properly connected.

Its automatic float mode monitoring also makes sure that the battery is not over charged and is immediately cut off (internally by displaying a FULL signal) from the charger.

Having all the above features plus the emergency jump start ability, this charger convinced me to place an order immediately as it is a must have garage battery charger specially if you have to deal with batteries or you do not drive on a regular basis.

Manufacturer : Black & Decker
Model : VEC1095ABD
Warranty : 2 years
In-Stock : Check availability

Looking for PC Backup Power to Prevent Data Loss

2009-06-10T19:25:00.011+06:00

Working on a PC loosing your unsaved data due to power outage or some other glitch in the power network is real pain specially if this happen quite frequently. Even backup generator take a few minutes to start and they also will not help to prevent your system from shutting down. For this purpose, uninterrupted power is required to be delivered to PCs and other electronic peripherals. These uninterrupted backup power comes in the form of uninterpretable power supply or simply UPS. A UPS is a backup power that continues to deliver electric power even in the case of complete blackout. They are equipped with backup batteries that are automatically charged when the power in up and will continue to provide backup power is case of a power outage.

The CyberPower CP1500AVRLCD is a similar UPS that works the same way as described above. It is specially designed for PC, printers, scanners, monitors, CD/DVD players etc. Some of its features are highlighted below:

Manufacturer : CyberPower
Backup Type : UPS ( Uninterpretable Power Supply )
Output : 120 V / 60 Hz
Backup Time : Up to 50 minutes
Warranty : 3 years
In-Stock : Check availability

LCD Display

This UPS has a diagnostic LCD display at its front panel which displays real time status of the backup power and output. 11 different parameters can be obtained from this LCD display including input/output voltage levels, battery capacity, estimated backup time remaining, fault condition, output frequency etc.

AVR Capability

AVR stands for automatic voltage regulation. This backup power has the ability to stabilize the voltage maintaining the voltage within acceptable operation ranges in case of certain rise or fall in the input voltages. This ensures that your connected devices are safe from electrical surges and it also prevents the backup battery from getting damaged due to those surges.

PC Software

The UPS comes with a PC software called PowerPanel PE Smart management Software. If there is a power outage, the PowerPanel PE automatically saves your PC files that are open and unsaved. It will then put your PC in Hibernation mode so that this reduces the power consumption and increase the backup time for your PC. This software can easily be installed on any windows based PC and it uses minimum resources and also provides visual status as shown above.

Other features include :

LCD status indicators in case of faults
Audible alarms
Resettable circuit breaker in case of trip due to overload
Ultra Quiet - Low Noise
Provides Shielding against electromagnetic and radio signals
GreenPower UPS - Low heat dissipation
Fits easily under the desk or even on a desktop.
Easy to follow installation instructions
Quick setup

Warranty

CyberPower stands firm behind their product and offer a remarkable 3 year warranty which includes complete professional technical support and a connected equipment guarantee of $500K.

Where to Buy ?

If you reside in the US then you can easily order this affordable backup power UPS online via Amazon without paying any shipping fee. Depending upon your location, the UPS will take 24-72 hrs to ship to your place.

Technical Specifications:

General
UPS Topology	Line-Interactive (AVR)
Energy Saving	Yes - GreenPower UPS™ Bypass Technology
Input
Voltage	90Vac - 140Vac
Frequency	60Hz +/- 3 Hz
Plug Type	NEMA 5-15P
Plug Style	Right angle
Cord Length	6'
Output
VA	1500
Watts	900
Automatic Voltage Regulation	Yes
On Battery Voltage	120Vac +/- 5%
On Battery Frequency	60Hz
On Battery Waveform	Simulated sine wave
Outlets - Total	8
Outlet Type	NEMA 5-15R
Outlets - Battery & Surge Protected	4
Outlets - Surge-Only Protected	4
Outlets - Widely Spaced	1
Overload Protection	Internal circuitry limiting / circuit breaker
Transfer Time	4ms
Battery
Runtime at Half Load (min)	11
Runtime at Full Load (min)	3
Battery Type	Sealed lead acid
Battery Size	12V/8.5AH
User Replaceable	Yes
Typical Recharge Time	16 Hours
Replacement Battery	BB Battery - HR1234W
Battery Quantity	2
Surge Protection and Filtering
Surge Suppression	1,500 Joules
Maximum Surge Current	36,000 Amps
Phone / Ethernet RJ11 / RJ45	1-In, 1-Out (Combo)
Coax Protection RG6	1-In, 1-Out
Management & Communications
Multifunction LCD Diagnostic Display	Toggle Status Display includes: Current/Load Level, Runtime, Battery Level, AVR In Use, Battery In Use, Input Voltage, Output Voltage, Output Frequency, Overload, Wiring Fault, Silent Mode
HID Compliant USB Port	Yes
Serial Port	Yes
LED Indicators	Power on, wiring fault
Audible Alarms	On battery, low battery, overload
Software	PowerPanel Personal Edition
Physical
Dimensions (WxHxD)	4" x 9.75" x 13.25"
Weight (lbs)	25
Environmental
Operating Temperature	32 °F to 95°F / 0°C to 40 °C
Operating Humidity	0% - 95% non condensing
Certifications
Certifications	UL1778, cUL, FCC DOC Class B
ROHS	ROHS Compliant
Warranty
Product Warranty	3 Years Limited
Connected Equipment Guarantee	Lifetime
CEG Amount	$500,000

Bing : Replacement for Live Search

2009-06-09T16:03:00.005+06:00

Formerly known as Live search, Msn search and Windows Live Search, is a replaced search engine by no other than Microsoft itself. Bing went live on 3rd June 2009 and the noticeable changes include:

Related searches
Search suggestions
Save and share search history

Bing is also considered to be the new and more organized form of Live search which is a lot more than just being a search engine.

So What you guys think about the new looks and name too ? Do share your opinions below.

1TB External Memory for Backup

2009-06-02T11:20:00.015+06:00

Product Name : Iomega Prestige 1 TB USB2.0 Desktop external hard drive

Type : External Backup memory

In-Stock : Check status

Storage Capacity :

This Iomega Prestige USB 2.0 supported external hard drive has a storage capacity of 1TB which is equals 1024 GB. This is some serious amount of space for PC users and is absolutely great for scheduled data backups. It gives you the ability to store up to 4 million photos, up to 18,500 hours of music and 1500 hours of high quality video file. This is more than enough unless you have been stocking movies for decades. Not to mention this sizable memory can store millions of computer document files and spreadsheets.

USB Plug-n-Play

The external memory drive supports USB 2.0 which mean it can be plugged in to any computer USB port and it does not require any driver installation and works well with both Mac and PC. With USB 2.0, this hard drive will be able to transfer data to and from your computer at a rate of 480 Mbps.

High Speed - No Waiting

This external drive has an internal or spindle speed of 7200 rpm with 8 MB or higher cache buffer. This is more than reasonable for keeping your browsing latency-free and will also not keep you waiting while accessing your hard drive via USB cable.

Cool and Quiet

A device that runs at 7200 rpm will generate a noticeable sound but its durable aluminum casing keeps it quite as compared to other external hard drives. Just like other hard drives, this drive also becomes hot when in operation so for keeping it within working temperature limited and for proper ventilation of heat, various pores are designed on the side of this drive which do a really great job in keeping this device cool. Also the aluminum case aids in dissipating heat and acting as a heat sink.

Appearance

This Iomega 1TB hard drive is enclosed in a stylish aluminum case which has a brushed metal finishing and it looks great when placed on a table next to your computer. This backup drive also comes with a stand which will enable the user to either place the drive horizontally for vertically.

Amazon Associate Program - Little Success

2009-05-12T11:28:00.003+06:00

Amazon associate program is just like any other affiliate network where you promote products and if your referred product result in sales then certain amount of that sale is given to the affiliate for promoting the product.

I joined Amazon Associate program about a year ago but never put in any effort to generate revenue. Recently I have been using/promoting Amazon products on one of my other sites. I was sending an average of 10-50 users each day to Amazon hoping that they would buy something and earn me some commission.

First 3 months of my promotion went without any sales. In fact for the past few day I was considering that it was not even worth the time and effort promoting Amazon as I was unable to make any money from it but since May'09, I am seeing some progress in my Affiliate stats. I have so far been able to sell products worth $450. This was something that had made me realize that if you promote the right product the right way then it is not very difficult to earn affiliate commission.

I will be closely monitoring my stats to see what kind of products get better conversion at Amazon and what exactly are the things people look for before they order any product online.

This is my first connection with any affiliate network so I am still in the process of learning and hopefully improving my affiliate stats.

April 2009 Google PageRank Update is Over

2009-04-05T13:28:00.005+05:00

At least for me it is over as I can see the new toolbar PageRank for my this and the rest of the sites. This update was expected to occur somewhere in the end of March 2009 but it started with the start of April 2009 when Google began updating PageRank of all pages in their database. So my prediction was close !

Not surprisingly, this blog dropped its PR by 1 and is now only PR 1. The reasons behind this drop in PR is what this post is all about.

I Didn't Trade Text Links

Yes, that is absolutely right as I have never ever been involved in any kind of text link trading either buying or selling and I hardly make any link on this blog "Do follow" i.e search engine friendly. This is also not the reason why I lost my PageRank.

I Didn't Do Sponsored Posts

Although I have thought of it several times but I have never seem to admire the idea of posting on my own blog on someone else's will just for the sake of money. This is also not the reason for the drop in PageRank.

I Didn't Post on This Blog Regularly

This can be one of the reasons as crawl rate decreases on sites that are not updated on regular basis. According to my posts archive, I have updated this blog only 12 times in the past 90 days which is way below the posting frequency that I had set for this blog i.e 1 post every 3rd day. But has the posting frequency got anything to do with PageRank ? I leave this question for those reading this post. Do comment below to share your thoughts.

I Almost Lost Over 1000 Back links

The main reason that resulted in the loss of PageRank is due to the removal huge number of incoming links to this blog. Those links were coming from a authority site (forum signature links) for a long time and I have removed them for the last 45 days which sent an alert to Google resulting in a lower PageRank.

What I have learned so far is that PageRank itself doesn't hold much value if you are not getting enough traffic to your site. So stop worrying about PageRank and try to post some useful stuff for others as content is one of the most important traffic driving force that you will need all the time.

What Happens When You Hit The Send Button : Gmail - Behind the Scenes

2009-03-27T15:20:00.004+05:00

This is a video made by combining the best out of 1000+ clips sent by Gmail fans from all over the world. This gives a pretty clean and clear cut idea about how securely your G-email is when in transit lol .

Google PageRank Update is coming...

2009-03-22T19:06:00.002+05:00

Google usually updates PageRank every two to three months. The most recent pagerank update took place last year on New Year's eve.

So it has been over two and a half months and I have a feeling that now is the time when Google will be updateing pageranks. So keep your eyes open.

The only advatage I find in having a high Google PagaRank is that higher PR pages get crawled more frequently and more deeply by search engines.

So are you anxiously waiting for this PR update or not ? Share with us in your comments.

Keyword Stuffing | Good or Bad !

2009-03-10T16:19:00.006+05:00

I was checking my email this afternoon when I came across a link exchange request from a webmaster. So I visited his/her website and not surprisingly could not digest the content for more than 10 seconds. The above screenshot I have posted is taken from the same site and is from its header section. This site is about "Making Money with Google Adsense" and just like most of the other link exchange requests I receive, this website also has nothing relevant to my website (Food related) for which he or she sent a link request. But the purpose of this article is not to highlight the factors involving successful link exchanges but it is about "keyword stuffing" which the owner of the above website has done to such an extent that it urged me to write about the importance or more specifically the consequences of keyword stuffing on web pages.

Keyword stuffing is adding repetitive, relevant or irrelevant keywords on a web page in such a manner that it does not result in any added value to the site or visitors to that site. It is only indented to gain higher rankings in search engines. But search engines have become smarter these days and do not take long to identify "black hat SEO" techniques such as the one being discussed. Search engines like Google not only ignore such websites but also remove them from their index and thus putting an end to that website by imposing a ban. A lesson to be learned is from Alex Chiu example who also adopted this SEO technique and his site was later penalized by Google.

Keyword Selection : Finding Your Competition

2009-02-25T13:00:00.007+05:00

Many starter SEOs and new webmasters make this mistake when selecting keywords for their websites. They start their keyword selection campaign by just typing their desired keyword into a search query and then analysing the results. Lets consider a little example by searching for the word puppy food in Google.

This keyword query returned over 5 milion results. Many webmasters will consider this number their exact competition for the keyword they typed in but this is partially true. The search results dislay all the pages that google has indexed in their database which have the keyword puppy food on their page in any order. It can be food for my puppy or I gave my puppy some food etc. For finding the exact competition for more specific keyword, we just have to enclose our keyword within " " and in our case it would be "puppy food".

As you can see from the above screen shot, that this mehod will show the exact number of pages that contains the word puppy food in the same order. This is the actual number of pages that you want to beat if you have to rank #1 for keyword puppy food.

Keyword selection by this method comes in handy specially when you want to estimate how much effort you would require to rank well for a prticular keyword. It is not that difficult to beat 10,000 pages as compared to 15,000,000 pages.

Feel free to share and comment.

Valentine Day Special : Spreading Link Love

2009-02-13T15:57:00.004+05:00

Every year on 14th Feb, people all over the world celebrate Valentines day by presenting their loved ones with special valentine flowers and gifts like chocolates, perfumes, jewelry, clothing etc. Although various other gifts can be considered for valentine gift ideas, but flowers are always given as they represent the existance of love, feelings and pass the message of the day very easily which any other gift can hardly deliver. Many celebrate this day but most of them still are not aware what is the history behind valentine's day. There are various stories associated with this day. I will not be going into them but if you have time you can see stories here.

Link Love :

Many of you reading this post might curse me for changing the theme of this post because the title of this post might be considered a bit misleading as this post is not entirely about Valentine day but it is about spreading link love by providing various useful links to all those reading this and those also who will be sharing this with others and thus returning back some link juice. This is very similar to what I did last new year day, by providing links to one way link directories. This time I will be adding more by providing links from other useful sources too.

Submit your Links to the following for improving your site's link popularity.

- 40 Free one way link directories [High ranked]

- Another list of high PR sites [ Sorted by PR8-3]

- List of blog directories [Huge list]

Feel free to share and comment.

Get Access to Millions of Old Photos

2009-02-02T17:31:00.013+05:00

Recently Google and LIFE together in a joint venture have compiled and published a huge database of millions of old and never to be found images. These images are availabe to public online via Google Image Search. The ability to search and find old photos of people, places, events, sports, culture etc makes this service unique, interesting and very useful specially for old image collectors.

How To Search Only Old Photos ?

Just add source:life at the end of your search term in Google Image Search and your search would only yield old images from LIFE Image archive. For example if I want to find old images related to baseball then you would have to enter baseball source:life to get old images related to baseball. Or you can visit Google LIFE image archive page to search only from LIFE archive photos. All the LIFE photos are hosted on Google.

LIFE archive of photos provide all kinds of photos (black and white as well as colored) that were taken centuries ago and were never published but now they have been degitized and made available to public. Pictures can be as old as from the 1970s and can be as recent as pictures taken to date. These photos are provided for free personal and non-commercial use only. When you click on a photo it opens in a new window along with some other interesting information about the photo. That information incliudes date the picture was taken, name of the photographer, actual size of the picture, related pictures and a short description about that picture.

Remember that not all the photos contain the above mentioned information but most of them do. If you happen to find a really old image that you have been looking for and consider it very valuable then you are also provided option to order a framed image of that photo for as low as $79.99 .

Track Clicks On Outgoing Links with Google Analytics

2009-01-27T14:58:00.008+05:00

Google analytics has been my one of the top website analysis tool that I often use to track not only my site(s) traffic but also find out how visitors are navigating through my content. I have been using it for over a year now and so far it has helped a lot in making my content placement even better. I can easily find out how many hits I get to a particluar page and various other stats.

This post is all about how you can easily track clicks on your site outbound links i.e the links placed on your site that point to other sites. These can be any links for example ,text links within your web page body, blog roll links in sidebars, image banner links etc. By default Google analytics does not povide number of clicks on outgoing links so we have to add a little piece of JavaScript to the links that we want to track so that whenever those links are clicks, analytics is notified and it tracks that link. For example we want to track click(s) on text link which has the HTML code :

<a href="http://www.outlink.com">OutLink</a>

After adding the tracking JavaScript code, the above link becomes this :

<a href="http://www.outlink.com" onClick="javascript:
pageTracker._trackPageview(’/Links/outlink.com’);">OutLink</a>

See the text ('/Links/yourlink.com') . This is your custom tracking text that you will later use to track the above link. For example the above link is in my blog roll so I make the text ('/Outgoing/Blogroll-Link.com'). If you have various different locations that you want to track make sure you assign them names that you can remember easily. Now that you have added the code log in to your Google analytics account and the left menu click Content>Top Content. This will open that stats of you your top conetent pages. Now go to the bottom where it says Find page as shown in the image below :

In the search box enter the text '/Outgoing/Blogroll-Link.com' and it will show you stats on all the links that you have added the JavaScript code. Remember that Google analytics does not show realtime stats and stats are updated after 24 hours so you will be able to see the click report after a day or two.

Adsense Ads Back On Blogger|Blogspot Blogs

2009-01-24T14:30:00.001+05:00

Yesterday when Blogger.com, one of the top free blogging service provider owened by Google, made some updates to their system it resulted in a temporary broken connection between Google Adsnese and Blogger. As a result of this glitch, almost all the blogs that were hosted on Blogger.com and have Adsense ads on them started showing only PSA(Public Service ADS) which unfortunately generates revenue neither for Google nor for Adsense publishers.

Immediately after this issue was spotted by publishers, they reported this in various forums and groups, including Official Adsense group, so that Adsense team could take immediate action and restore the ad serving to all Blogger blogs. And they did what was required. They fixed this problem and have now started serving Adsense ads back on all Blogger hosted blogs.

I just feel sorry for some bloggers who had lost some serious amount of revenue and were severly effected by this temperoray glicth.

Google Moving Feedburner Feeds to Google Feedburner

2009-01-19T10:35:00.006+05:00

You may now view and manage all of your feeds and their settings by visiting this address:

http://feedburner.google.com

You will no longer be able to sign in to feedburner.com, but that's okay: from now on, there is no reason to do so. Also, your old FeedBurner feeds, found at feeds.feedburner.com, will automatically redirect traffic to their new addresses on the feeds2.feedburner.com domain. You may still want to update any links or buttons on your website to use the new feeds2.feedburner.com address.

I got this message in my inbox after I initiated my feeds transfer from Feedburner account. Google had already acquired Feedburner long time ago on 1st June '07 , as announced on Feedburner blog. Now Google is moving all Feedburner feeds to its own server and by the end of Feb'09 if you do not manually initiate the feed transfer from your existing Feedburner account then you would be contacted by a Google guy (not Matt) who would request you to do so.

There will be a slight change in the feed URL but this is nothing to worry about as your previous feed will be automatically redirected to your new feed. After you have successfully completed the feed transfer you would receive a confirmation email message similar to the one that I got. You can then login to your new Google Feedburner account from Google.com>My Account where you will notice a new addtion to Google products.

So go ahead and transfer your Feedburner feeds to Google !

Make contact form with Google Docs

2009-01-17T17:04:00.004+05:00

With Google Docs you can not only upload or edit documents and spreadsheets but you can also make highly customizable forms that you can email or even embed in your website so that user can input data directly into the form which will them aulomatically be loaded and saved to a spreadsheet that can easily be accessed via http://docs.google.com. Embedding custom forms on websites and blogs is a nice idea specially if you are have a tough time fighting email spam. In this way you will not have to make yoour email address availably publically and special automatic email harvesters will not be able to steal you precious and personal email addresses.

This quick tutorial will show you how easy it is to create a form with Google Docs. First use the above link to login to your Google acount. If you do not have an account then create one as it will not cost you a penny. Now I assume that you have registered, logged in and opened your Google Docs page. From the menubar select New>Form. This will open a new window with an untitled form that can be cutomized easily at your will. You can add many data input fields from that window. The fields currently being offered are:

- Text

- Paragraph Text

- Multiple Choice

- Check Boxes

- Choose From a List

- Scale (1-n) - Used for rating

Here is a sample Form created just to let you know how would the form look like after you have saved it. All the fields in the form are customizable with the exception of 'Powered by Google Docs' and 'Google TOS' links. Feel free to comment and play with the sample form ;)

Extract URLs From WebPages in 1 Click

2009-01-10T19:10:00.008+05:00

'Selected Links' is simple yet very effective link extractor by Mikos. It is a free link extractor which has the ability to extract hyperlinks from a web page. Just select the desired section of the page with the help of your mouse cursor and this tool will display the URLs and their respective anchor texts. Besides the ability to extract text link, it can also be used to extract image URL.

I have only tested this tool on Microsoft Internet Explorer. Here is how it works. Install this tool and restart your IE browser. Then select the text link or the entire text with your mouse and make sure it stays selected and highlighted like the way shown in the image below.

Now goto Tools menu in IE and click 'Selected Links'. The following screen with all the links in the selected text and their respective anchor texts will appear.

Now you have all the URLs. You can copy individual link or click 'Copy All' to copy all the URLs to your computer by pasting them into a text file. You can also click 'Open All' which will open all the links that this tool has extracted. Though this is not a recommended action specially if it has lots of links to open. Your browser might slap you for doing that ;)

Why the need of Text Link Extractor ?

As a part time SEO (for myself only) I find my self in situations in which it is required to save hundreds of links from a webpage. Those URLs are in web directories that contains huge listings. So I found this tool very simple and effective for manual links extraction. Remeber that it is not an automated link extarctor and you have to select text link or entire text manually and then fetch their links.

Want to give this tool a try. Dowload Selected Links.

Character and Word Count Tool

2009-01-06T17:45:00.005+05:00

Word Count Plus is a free word counter add-on created by Mozdev that you can add/install to your FireFox browser and leave the counting to this tool. With this extension installed, you can count any number of words on a web page. No need to download any other word count software for this purpose or visit any of those free online word counters because you can count words simply by selecting them inside your browser.

Just select the text (words/lines/paragraphs/headings etc) with your mouse cursor and this tool does the following for you:

- Count words
- Count Characters (Hovering the cursor on counted words yield characters count)
- Add the counted words to other counts (Yes it will do the addition for you)

Words count is shown in the status bar of your browser just like the way shown in the image below:

Counting words and characters come in handy on lots of occasions specially when writing and checking specific length articles. This tool will also come in handy if you are an SEO because a lot of times you would be writing meta tags, page titles and other such tags in which length of words/characters is an important aspect.

New Year Greetings:2009

2008-12-31T16:19:00.005+05:00

Year 2008 is about to end tonight. So in case you are here I wish you all Happy New Year.

Now back to business lol. Just wanted to share with you that the last Google PageRank update which was about to happen at the of December 2008 was not noticed considerably. Although some people still claimed that their website PageRanks have changed but a full scale toolbar update will most probably take place in January 2009.

This delay in PageRank update is most likely because of X-Mas and New Year holidays and festivities.

So do not stop building links for your websites or blogs and keep improving your link popularity by building quality links that are relevant, highly ranked and if possible are one way links.

Uptil now I have posted a few dozen directories in this blog where you can seasily submit your websites and blogs and get free one way links. The submission process will take less than 5 minutes. So in case you missed those previous posts, see the list below for all the free one way link directories.

40 Free Link Directories

Free One Way Link Directories [1-10]

Free One Way Link Directories [11-20]

Free One Way Link Directories [21-30]

Free One Way Link Directories [31-40]

Feel free to share and comment.

How to Check Your Internet Connection Speed

2008-12-23T10:12:00.001+05:00

Have you ever tried to find out whether you are getting the same internet connection speed which your ISP (Internet Service Provider) has promised. The question arises how can you find out exact connection speed ? Usually a single internet connection is shared between multiple internet users due to which you might not be getting the same speed mentioned in your package.

There are many ways and online tools available for testing and checking any internet connection speed. The test results will indicate download and upload speeds of your internet connection. Download speed is the speed at which you can transfer data from a web server or simply internet to your computer. Like saving an online image or music file from a website to your hard drive. On the other hand upload speed is the speed at which data can be transferred from your computer to a web server or simply internet. Attaching anything to an email message is an example of uploading data from your computer to your web email service.

List of Free Online Internet Connection Speed Tests

Checking internet connection requires calculating its download and upload speeds. Below is a list of some reliable and widely used online tools where you can check and find out how fast your internet connection really is.

1. SpeedTest
2. Speak Easy Speed Test
3. Audit My PC Speed Test
4. Internet Frog Speed Test
5. Visualware Speed Test

Feel free to comment and share !

Back up Your Blogger|Blogspot Blogs on Hard Drive

2008-12-13T19:25:00.013+05:00

Blogger is a free blogging service provided by Google via Blogger.com. Recently Blogger team released this new Import/Export feature which also allows its users to make a back up copy of their entire blog on their hard drives. This feature is accessible via Settings> Basic> Blog Tools> Export blog.

When you use the export feature to download your blog to your computer, the blog is downloaded in a (.xml) file. This does not removes your blog from Blogger.com and your blog and all its posts remain live and online.

Why Should I Back Up My Blog ?

- Blog gets deleted : You or someone else accidentally deleted your blog and now all your blog posts are gone and you have to write them again which might take a lot of effort if you have an old blog.

- You want to recover deleted posts : In the past you deleted some of your blog posts that you thought were of no use at that time but now you require to recover that post.

- Just back up : Just to be on the safe side I recommend that you make backup copies of your blog(s) on routine basis. If you post on regular basis then weekly backups might as well be a nice option but if you do not post that often then you can plan to make a backup copy of your blog at least once each month.

Increasing Link Popularity : OFF-Page Optimization Strategy

2008-12-08T10:20:00.017+05:00

One of the most important ways to increase link popularity is to gain quality one way links and get a high Google PageRank. Once you stop your link building campaign, your link popularity will be lowered comparatively. When your site is ranking high on search engine result page (SERP), it gets more exposure and lots of targeted traffic for free.

For any website to appear high in search engine rankings, it is required that it has a decent tract of both ON-Page and OFF-Page website optimization in the eyes of search engines. Off page optimization is done by getting backward links or simply backlinks. The higher the quality and relevancy of those inward links, the better it is for higher ranking in search engines.

Below is a list of ten directories where you can submit your blogs, sites and get free one way links that will help you increase link popularity of your websites.

UPDATED : 10/4/09

(Copy - Paste URLs in Browser)

http://www.dramba.com/
http://www.indiabusinessdirectory.info/
http://www.rox3n.net/
http://www.doubledirectory.com/
http://litedirectory.com/
http://www.bahiacar.com/
http://www.gulqro.com
http://www.mercury-directory.info/
http://www.info-listings.com/
http://www.ilushkin.com/

The above web directories do not require you to link back to them so these will be genuine one way links for you. If you want your sites to be displayed in top of these listings, then you have to select the option of 'Sponsored links' or 'Premium Links'. These are paid listings and only select these when you are willing to pay for your site inclusion.

Entrecard is a Waste of Time

2008-12-03T12:08:00.010+05:00

This might sound a bit harsh but the fact is that I did not found Entrecard to be very effective. I joined their network in May'08 so for the past 7 months, I have got up to 700 hits from entrecard site with an average bounce rate of over 85% and according to my Google analytics stats, the average time these 700 visitor spent on this blog was not even 20 seconds. This is even worse than traffic from social bookmarking networks but when I went deep into the stats I found what was the real culprit behind this.

Entrecard was supposed to be an advertising network for bloggers which allows bloggers to advertise on other blogs and gain few extra traffic from other blogs but the only traffic one gets is from entrecard site and that also from other entrecard users having a quick look at your blog before sending an advertisement request.

One Day Advertising : Not Very Useful

This is the most sick part which I never liked about entrecard. The entrecard ad that is placed on other blogs is only displayed for one day and after your time is over the next ad in the queue will replace your ad so you have to send in another request to advertise on that blog. This requires your precious time in visiting entrecard website on regular basis and sending advertising requests to other blogs so that your ad can be spread across as many blogs as you want or at least that is what most of the entrecard users think.

What I Gained From Entrecard

In contrast to this bad experience with entrecard I gained some good relationships with very interesting and talented bloggers and I got the chance to view some really cool and exciting blogs for which I will definitely visit entrecard website in future.

Conclusion

If you have a very new blog that you just set up few day ago then Entrecard might benefit you a little for gaining some exposure but for a person like me that keeps evaluating services on regular basis, entrecard does not deserve to be on my blog anymore as the time I spent on Entrecard could have been used to further optimize my blog and focusing a bit more on increasing link popularity of this blog but I lost some valuable time and have learned my lesson. So good bye Entrecard !