Not Making Money Online

What is the PageRank of my site?

2007-05-10T21:47:00.000+10:00

Pagerank, a Google trademark, is related to the number of links to your site from other sites and is one of the factors determining your site's position on search engines. Ranking is between 0 and 10. This site has a ranking of 2, which means hardly anyone has linked to it & virtually no-one reads it, so you'd better rush away & read higher ranked sites like everyone else. After you've checked your pagerank, that is.

Check Page Rank of any web site pages instantly:

This free page rank checking tool is powered by Page Rank Checker service

How can I add a map with Google Page Creator?

2007-04-29T09:22:00.000+10:00

Maybe I'm no longer a complete novice! Can you believe I actually put a map on my Melbourne Advice blog last week? I chanced on a discussion group where people were spending pages describing the locations of Melbourne's University campuses and thought what they really needed was a good map. The problem was how to do it.

There's a google widget you can use to add a map to your webpage, but it wouldn't let me mark any of the campuses. I looked at the Google Maps API page & couldn't make any sense of it. In desperation I created a map on google's new mymap feature, and put a link on my blog. To be honest, I wasn't satisfied though, because the link isn't very obvious. In the end I found detailed instructions on Beta Blogger For Dummies. It took about ten hours to find the appropriate instructions, put the CSS and HTML code into my template, shift it around the blog page & sort out how to link to the map I'd created in mymap, which is where Google Page Creator came in.

I found out pretty early in this whole blogging experience that there are some things which Blogger just can't do. One of the more annoying things is that it can't host a file online. Google Page Creator appeared a few months ago and promptly disappeared into oblivion. Personally I couldn't really see the point of it. No pretty templates, no widgets, no nothing. But hidden in the link function is the ability to upload a file (say my map's data file) and host it online. I can call on the file from blogger, link to it. People can download it. I've called on a map file from within my blogger template to display the map using the new GGeoXml constructor. Building on the code from Beta Blogger For Dummies, I put the line
var geoXml = new GGeoXml("http://myaccount.googlepages.com/mymap.kml")
after the line
var map = new GMap2(document.getElementById("map")) and now the map I made in Google's mymap facility is now visible on my site!

Watch this space for more uses for Page Creator, but in the meantime, you can see from the map on melbournepricecheck.blogspot.com why there was so much confusion about campus locations.

How do I get my users to rate my posts?

2007-04-15T09:49:00.000+10:00

I'd like to set up a rating system so the jokes on jokevault.blogspot.com can be rated by my readers. I'd like a new reader to be able to go straight to the highlights & skip the bad jokes.

I found two options for blogger:

1. A star rating system which you have to add manually to each post on your blog at www.majikwidget.com . That's the one I've got on this post. Its great if you only have 25 posts or less to rate - its free - an you can put the widget on any post without changing your template.

2. Spotback have a widget which you can put in the template and the rating appears on all your posts. Its much less hassle than putting the code on every post & its free for any number of posts. I'm giving it a spin on jokevault.blogspot.com .

MyLot

2007-04-12T13:31:00.000+10:00

MyLot - another way of not earning anything while spending hours & hours online.

Here's how it works:
1) Discussions:
You earn 1-3 cents by responding to a topic or starting a new topic.

2) Photos: You get 1 cent for loading a photo into a discussion topic.

3) Referrals: You'll collect 25% of their earnings. Boost my earnings & pay my electricity bill by joining from myLot User Profile!

No? Well I suppose I'll go back to MyLot to build up the 500 discussions, replies and photos I'll need to get a $10 Paypal payment. Probably.

A Voucher from Valued Opinions

2007-03-27T20:12:00.000+10:00

Wow! I finally got a voucher from Valued Opinions! A real $20 voucher for Dymocks.

A response from Valued Opinions

2007-03-20T21:05:00.000+11:00

I sent the following email to Valued Opinions on the 17th of March:

My vouchers, ordered in December have still not arrived. Because of the long delay and lack of response from Valued Opinions, I have publicized the issue on my blog http://notearningmoneyonline.blogspot.com . When I receive vouchers to the value of $20 (any valid vouchers) I will change my Blog entry to reflect the fact. Howver, if I am not paid, the entry will continue on my Blog un- edited and will tell not only your members but also your customers about the fact that you are not paying as promised.

Today (20th March) I received the following reply:

Hi

Thanks for your email. I have arranged a replacement voucher for you.

Kind Regards

Panel Support

Has anyone actually received vouchers from Valued Opinions?

2007-03-03T12:06:00.000+11:00

Valued Opinions is an online survey company which offers $10 and $20 vouchers for doing market research surveys online, in your own time. I joined it last year, because I thought paid surveys would be a good way of making a little extra cash.

Back in November, I was looking forward to vouchers from Valued Opinions for my Christmas shopping. By December my balance was over $20 and I requested payment. When I hadn't received the vouchers by late January, I contacted Valued Opinions, who responded that they had a delay with my vouchers but they were now in the post. A couple of weeks ago I still hadn't received the vouchers and complained again. No response.

Do Valued Opinions actually put any value on our time or opinions?

Do all their vouchers get lost in the mail?

Links in a Blogger hack.

2007-01-19T18:32:00.000+11:00

The Bizarre Jokester (WOW!) left the following comment on my post "More Martian Jokes":

You have taken the hack from my blog Amazingly Bizarre.

I'm really honoured about that.

However, I feel that it is extremely unfair of you to remove the complimentary link at the bottom, as I requested very clearly on the page where you copied the code that 'Please do not remove the link at the bottom'.

Now once again, i request to you to put that link back up, since you ought to give credit (where it is due) in the way the owner of the hack wants it.

Thanks!

:)

My reply:
I liked all the little icons, which formed a neat line across the bottom of each post. I didn't link the look of the link so much though. It was in a larger font and didn't fit in line. I do understand why you would like to have a link to your blog from everywhere your icons are used, to advertise your hack and bring in traffic. On the other hand I think my readers may be distracted by so many advertisements for your blog. I will remove the hack as you wish & reconsider how to use it on my blogs.

How do I increase traffic on my blog?

2007-01-17T19:38:00.000+11:00

I've tried

linking from community websites like Orkut. It increases traffic, but the links keep disappearing & I had renew them.
increasing ranking on Technorati and other blog rating sites by getting links from other blogs
getting placement on my own search engine (say a Swicki)

Well, here's a new one I've just installed on jokewarehouse.blogspot.com and yourfunnyvideos

Give readers a prompt to rate your posts on social bookmarking sites like del.ic.ious. I've put in a blogger hack to put little icons at the bottom of each post. The method came from Amazinglybizarre.blogspot.com/new-blogger-hack

Links are good. Aren't they?

2007-01-02T16:08:00.000+11:00

All this time I've been trying to improve my sites' ranking on the search engines by improving content and keywords. I've brought traffic to my sites by putting in links from online communities. Apparently I've missed the point completely.

The point is PageRank & I can't believe I never noticed it before. I stumbled across it today while reviewing "PayPerPost". "PayPerPost" pay for product placements and advertorial on blogs. Quality blogs. This blog isn't good enough. I don't post often enough.

One of the advertisers stipulated only sites with a PageRank of at least 2. "What's PageRank"? The question flashed through my head a microsecond before I typed PageRank into Google. I now know that PageRank is actually a Google trademark, based on the number and quality of links to a page from other webpages. Scrolling down the list of explanations, I chanced on Webworkshop which explained that search engines avoid abuse of the PageRank system by assigning a PageRank of 0/10 to any sites which have too many links - known as link farms. Links to penalised sites can penalise your PageRank.

Didn't I just link to one of those last week? And didn't people stop coming to my sites afterwards? It was one little link which did that? I went to the first PageRank checker I could find and checked the link farm. It has a PageRank of 0. Not much point getting links from there, its not going to increase my ranking. In fact I'm better off linking from here.

How long does it take to get your blog listed on the search engines?

2006-12-09T16:34:00.000+11:00

Shaun asks:

"how long does it take to get your blog listed on the seach engines? You can send your answer to my new blog http://shaungymcycle.blogspot.com If you're wondering I picked this site at random. Thanks for any help. Shaun."

Well, I'm glad my blogs are listed on the random blog selectors. As for yours Shaun, you'll find that blogger takes a few weeks to list your blog in its search directory. If you've got Adsense putting Google ads on your blog will speed it up.

You could try notifying non-Google search engines directly. www.freewebsubmission.com or www.submitexpress.com will speed up the process.

Once you're listed to notify blog updates directly try http://pingomatic.com .

Hope this helps, Shaun!

Where to from here?

2006-11-13T18:15:00.000+11:00

I've been trying to make money online since April, with not much success at all.

The best survey site I've been using is Valued Opinions...with an $18 credit and $10.50 pending credit, I'll be able to walk away with $A30 in vouchers for my Christmas shopping.

Adsense has ended up best for advertising revenue on my blogs. Mainly because you can put it anywhere, and steadily reap the benefits. My current balance is $US18.21, pretty useless, considering I can't get the money until my balance reaches $US100. Its taken me six months to get this far, at this rate it will be another 2 years before I get paid!

So where to now? I've long since given up on getting traffic to my blogs from online communities like myspace and orkut. It was too time consuming, I got plenty of traffic, but no money. The next thing I tried was my own community search engines, Swickis like the one on this page. I've been getting a steady stream of traffic through them, but the income generated is still very low. I worked out I'd have to create 50 or more Swickis to get an Adsense cheque by next Christmas.

I'm heading for the job search sites. By my calculations they're a much better place to make some spare cash.

I Still Don't Get It.

2006-08-19T12:14:00.000+10:00

I still don't get it. I'm just not making money out of this online venture. Not from Adsense, from Swickis I've created or from banner advertising.

I should explain what a Swicki is. Swickis are community search engines - you can target the results of the searches to go to the best sites for your topics. Immediately I created my first Swicki - the Joke Swicki, people suddenly started using it. The only problem was they didn't go anywhere near the advertising.

I think most people making money from advertising on blogs are cheating. Getting all their friends to click on their pages. I've been asking my friends not to click, but I'm still getting clicks in the last half of each month and not the first half. Are people trying to increase revenue in the second half to get paid at the end of the month? What's going on?

International Bloggers Day

2006-06-17T00:08:00.000+10:00

Wednesday was International Bloggers Day.

To celebrate, I've decided to compile a list of my earnings to date.

1. Adsense. Current Balance $US2.65 . Google will pay only when the balance reaches $US100. Maybe I'll get a cheque in a few years.

2.
Clixgalore Affiliate Marketing. 40 Australian cents and 150 Indian Rupees.

3. Valued Opinions $AUS12.50 from three surveys. I can actually claim a $10 voucher!

4. Ciao surveys 1 survey @ about $4. Can't be claimed yet.

5. EmailCash 500 points, equivalent to about $AUS5. I need $31 to claim a reward. At this rate that would take a year. To be honest, EmailCash isn't really a survey site. Its a loyalty program. The best way of earning points from EmailCash is to buy things from their partner sites.

6. WhatDoYouThink 723 points, which can get me a $20 BBs coffee voucher. Otherwise I have to wait another year until I get above 1000 points for any other rewards. Anyone ever heard of BBs coffee?

And the winner so far is... Valued Opinions. What a pity they don't have an Affiliate program, so I can increase my revenue. Maybe its because they don't need one.

Making 12 cents with Adsense

2006-05-27T11:35:00.000+10:00

Adsense wouldn't advertise on this Blog, so I created a new one. JokeVault . As soon as I started posting to it, people started reading! My free counter from Bravenet started ticking, before I had even told anyone it existed. It turns out that whenever its advertised as updated on blogspot, people come to read it.
Good, I have some visitors, now for the revenue. I reapplied for Adsense and was accepted. Contextual ads started appearing. Great. Only problem is, its not making any money. My google adsense account is currently listing about 600 page impressions (thats 600 times the ad has been viewed) and I've only got 12 cents in my Adsense account. To earn $10 I would need 50000 page impressions. To earn $1000 I would need 5 million ad views. Is it just me, or is there a problem here?

Not advertising with Adsense

2006-05-04T19:43:00.000+10:00

Adsense is a wonderful scheme from Google for putting their advertisements all over everyone else's web sites at their advertisers' expense. Apparently the quickest and easiest way to get adsense is to set up a blog here on Blogger and apply from here first. I did, but Google refused on the grounds of "Page Type".

"Page type: We currently don't accept websites that offer incentives
(monetary or point-based) to users or third-party beneficiaries for
online activity including, but not limited to, clicking on ads or
links, performing searches, surfing websites, reading emails, or
completing surveys."

I changed the blog. Got rid of bits talking about exactly how much money you can make from resource-a-day. Got rid of a couple of other links. Applied again.
Same answer.
I give up. Google can keep their enormous adverising revenue away from this Blog.

A survey from Email Cash

2006-04-30T07:32:00.000+10:00

28 April 2006
Just checked my EmailCash points balance. I have 131 points and 6 exp. At this rate I will have enough points to play their online guessing game in 4 weeks. In a year, I might have enough points to convert into a small voucher.

30 April 2006
EmailCash actually sent me a survey. It took about 15 minutes, and earned me 200 points, equivalent to about $2! Its not going to make me rich, but it is REAL.

Paid Surveys

2006-04-28T20:04:00.000+10:00

Pinecone Research
A few years back I responded to an ad asking for women 18-35 for online surveys. It turned out to be with PineCone Research in the UK. They sent me a survey every month or thereabouts, I filled it in for 20 minutes and I got a whole lot of vouchers for free lunches.

It was a fine scheme, and I've been looking for something similar ever since.

**Pinecone Research don't take sign-ups from their web page.

What Do You Think?
I signed up to www.whatdoyouthink.com.au about a year ago, thinking they would send me enough surveys to get a voucher or two. My PC broke down a few weeks later and I missed the only survey invitation they ever sent me. A year later I am still reading all their email ads, but still haven't built up enough points to get any reward.

Surfing around for other surveys, I found www.valuedopinions.com.au a few weeks ago. So far I've had one survey request, but didn't qualify for the full survey and don't qualify for any reward.

Today I found and joined EmailCash. It's a survey site too, but with 400,000 members, I'm not sure I'm going to get any surveys. Still, they do have some good discounts for online shopping sites.

Resource-a-day

2006-04-25T19:44:00.000+10:00

Ever heard of resource-a-day? The creators of this scheme are making money out of people's lack of ability to add. In theory you are rewarded for receiving advertising, but when you look at the fine print, you discover that you have to sign up 40 active members to receive a single cheque. The 40 members have to remain active for 2 months. If you read the fine print on the newsletter it says you have to click on two advertisements to remain active. 2 ads a day?

On the up side, there are a few good links to basic internet marketing information.

My verdict: There's no way I'll last 2 months membership with resource-a-day.

Some Freebies From Referralware

2006-04-22T19:30:00.000+10:00

A week ago I got a pop-up which led to Referralware. They offered a 1 month free trial, so I gave it a try. I got some good freebies...a how to make money on ebay ebook, & a whole library of other ebooks, some business training, and a link to couple of free airfares on a site which doesn't exist.
What is Referralware? Google gave me a few links, including review, which says that the referralware business is just there to take your membership fees.
To continue with Referalware beyond the month I have to pay $50. Should I pay?

Paid survey sites for Australian residents

2006-03-05T18:53:00.000+11:00

Ciao surveys. For non-Australian residents, go to their international site.

EmailCash
It's a survey site with 400,000 members, but it does send real paying surveys.

www.whatdoyouthink.com.au
I must be in the wrong demographic for this site & never get any surveys.

www.valuedopinions.com.au

Paid Surveys for US Residents

2006-03-05T18:52:00.000+11:00

NeilsenNetPanel.com
Entries in a quarterly sweepstake. 50 winners each quarter. No payment per survey.

SurveyNetworks.com
Sweepstakes entries.

Ecnresearch.com
Open to US and Canadian residents. Sweepstakes, coupons, offers and discounts. Signup to other survey companies. Website has a strange layout with multiple front pages. I would be interested to hear whether this site is really offering paid surveys.

Greenfieldonline.com
Non-US residents are sent elsewhere when trying to register.
Paid surveys waiting to be completed in the members area at Greenfield.

Your2cents
Accepts US and Canadian residents over the age of 18.
Payment of between $1 and $5 per survey.

American consumer opinion
All registered members participate in a monthly drawing to win $250 in cash awards, just for being a member. If you participate in a survey (a longer questionnaire), you will always receive some type of incentive (a free product to test, cash, a check, or a gift). Incentives typically range in value from $4 to $50, per survey or focus group, depending upon the length of the questionnaire and the time it takes to complete it. Simply fill out surveys for money. Participants in online focus groups generally receive more than $25.

Discount Coupons:
www.microsite.coupons.com
Offers discount coupons for grocery items to members.
Current sweepstake for free groceries for a year.
An affiliate program for referals from high traffice websites.