The e-mail goes like this:

From: Google AdSense [mailto:adsense-adclicks-noreply@google.com]
Sent: June-17-09 7:31 AM
To: info@example.com (publisher prefers to remain anonymous)
Subject: Google AdSense Account Disabled

Hello,

While going through our records recently, we found that your AdSense
account has posed a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers. Since
keeping your account in our publisher network may financially damage our
advertisers in the future, we’ve decided to disable your account.

Please understand that we consider this a necessary step to protect the
interests of both our advertisers and our other AdSense publishers. We
realize the inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you in advance
for your understanding and cooperation.

If you have any questions about your account or the actions we’ve taken,
please do not reply to this email. You can find more information by
visiting
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

And then it goes to say: sorry, we are joking, we are not from Adsense, we are just promoting our (paid) service to prevent such thing happening to you.

Holy m%^&$f%cKi%^nof… How many people stopped reading after that  “Sincerely” and break…. And got scared sh%^&ess?

Is that the way to promote your service? By impersonating Google and scaring people? FU uniCliqs or whatever.

And you got the initial idea so right. Such  hosted service can be useful and needed.And the idea of making it into a guest posts is great. Even problogger picked it up initially, until he saw the details of your e-mail campaign.

It probably could have ended  on much more high profile blogs if you did it right.

But you decided to go the stupid way for a quick buck, by scaring people into subscription instead…

But the comment implementation in WordPress really sucks. Even numerous plugins for the comments area do not help much. Believe me I tried.

I had a vision of how my perfect comment area should look like. Threaded comments, ability to edit them, spell checking, links opening in a new page/tab, preview option before posting, avatar next to the post, subscription option, etc;

I tried to make all of this work for more then a week and failed. I was able to implement less then 50% of my wishes.

But there’s a hope. Soon we’ll have a new service that will be focused on making your comment area into a real discussion forum.

The service is called Disquss. This is what they have to say about themselves:

Disqus is about enhancing online discussion. We are starting with a better comment system for your blog, backed and synced with your own dedicated forum.

Discussion across blogs should be better and we’ll have some cool things to address this.

They are still in private beta and the only reason that I know about them is A VC blog that has been testing them for a while now.

What a simple and great idea. I was waiting for something like that for months.

Just split blog posts and comments into seprate but related areas…

I know WP is getting better and better thanks to Matt, Autommatic & the WP community. But there are tons of things to improve still…

And the comment area was really neglected.

Getting someone else to focus exclusively on comment area and making discussion better… Can’t wait for Disquss to go live.

The thing that really pissed me off, was the reduction of the toolbar pagerank for my main cellphone blog. I’ve got PR5 for it last July and it has been steadily there until April 2007 update.

Since this January, when I resumed my blogging activities, I at least doubled (maybe even tripled) the number of incoming links to this blog. And a lot of the links were from PR7-8 sites like Engadget, Gizmodo or CrunchGear.

So when I saw my PR start to fluctuate on various Google datacenters in the beginning of April, I was pretty sure that I’m getting a bump to PR6 for the cellphone blog. Only to find it brought down to PR4!

WTF?! How come my blog was worth PR5 when it had only half of the links it has today, and is reduced to PR4 when it doubles the link count?!

Oh well, Google giveth and Google taketh away…

I can sit here fuming and trying to think of the reasons of why Google punished me. I already have a couple.

• Paid links. I had only two paid links through Text Link Ads in January. Now I have 12 (10 though TLA and 2 from Text Link Brokers)
• robots.txt. I have restricted Googlebot access to my feed pages in robots.txt, to prevent duplicate content. So now my Google Webmaster Central tells me that there are 385 URLs restricted by robots.txt

But neither of them sound very credible.

The funniest thing is that my Google rankings are better then ever. I think I’m out of the sandbox, I’m starting to rank well for some pretty competitive terms and my Google traffic increased 30-50% in April. I may even start to like big tech show weeks soon.

So, other then pricking my ego balloon and shattering my $100 per TLA link dreams, this PR reduction did not have any marked impact on my online income. Even my Text Link Ads earnings for May did not go down.

I guess the best thing I can do now, is keep posting good content, getting new links, keep learning and be on constant lookout for the new opportunities.

Oh, and hope the next PR update in July will be better!

But I’d still like to hear your ideas of why Google reduces PR. Especially for the sites that did a good job adding new content and collecting backlinks.

To do that, I had to make a breakdown of all earnings per blog and check the traffic each blog was generating from the begining of this year. I have all the figures now, so the results tracking exercise should be much easier from now on.

Here are my online earnings results for April 2007:

Combined April traffic for my blogs was 137 605 page views from 110 201 unique visitors, which gets me something like $10 eCPM overall.

2 blogs - cellphone blog and computer blog - are responsible for something like 90% of my traffic and earnings.

The cellphone blog earns the most, has the highest traffic but a pretty low eCPM - $7.59 in April, $8.98 in March. Computer blog has 1/4 of traffic but a really great eCPM for the past two months - $30.36 for April and $27.66 for March.

The eCPM difference is mainly due to the affiliate sales. I have made over $200 in affiliate commissions both in March and April and all of that came from the computer sales.

I didn’t make a single affiliate sale through my cellphone blog. Mainly because I keep getting automatic rejections (probably due to “Lithuanian” registration in CJ and Linkshare) from all the affiliate programs that wireless carriers (e.g. Cingular, T-Mobile) or retailers like InPhonic (Wirefly) are offering. Even though these same carriers and retailers are buying links through TLA on my blog.

Oh well. I guess I’ll just have to keep trying.

While overall April results are pretty good and showed 10%+ increase over March online earnings, the CPC income from AdSense and Chitika actually went down. The day was saved by increased affiliate sales and Text Link Ads.

And I really don’t like that, especially since my traffic went up 20%+ during the same month. I noticed this trend in the mid April already and I think I found the culprit. I took some steps to improve the situation and will report when I’m sure about the results.

And now it’s time to get back to work. The last Page Rank update had a nasty surprise to me and I’ll have to do some thinking of how to proceed further.

On March 23, before my “Happy birthday John Chow dot Com” post, Staska.Net had 1 post, did not have any visitors, inbound links, Technorati or Alexa ranks.

Last 30 days results:

• No. of Posts: 24
• No. Comments (including trackbacks): 228
• No. of RSS subscribers: 52
• No. of unique visitors: 25 101
• No. Pageviews: 30 625
• daily visitors: ~200
• Alexa rank: 257 484
• Technorati rank: 17 383 (304 links from 220 blogs)
• Google Webmaster Central incoming links: 17 780
• Yahoo Site Explorer inlinks: 5172
• Income: $18.20

Not bad for one month. But if not for my Top 30 Wordpress Plugins post, they would have been much worse. This single post is responsible for 90% of my Technorati and Google backlinks and it still accounts for 75% of my daily traffic. It really shows the value of “killer content”.

I should probably make more posts like that. Problem is - the buggers are awfully time consuming. My Top Plugins post took 20 or even more hours to write.

And that brings me to the key problem with staska.net. Time. I have lots of ideas for what I think will make good posts and will help me grow readership pretty fast. I know I have a lot of fun posting here. The problem is, I am not ready to spend enough time needed to do it well, on regular basis.

When relaunching Staska.net on March 23 I set myself a goal: “for next month make at least 5 posts a week“. With 24 posts in a month, I managed to keep up with this goal on average. But quite a few of the posts were just a fillers, posted for the sake of posting and keeping up with the self imposed milestone.

I like writing for Staska.net. It’s actually more interesting then running my commercial blogs, which sometimes starts to feel like another job. Still, I want to get my commercial blogs to self sustaining level, where I will be able to afford to hire additional writers and turn these blogs from a job/solo enterprise into a small business. And that’s where my focus will be for the next few months.

So I will keep posting here, but I am not setting any posting frequency milestone. In fact, I am not setting any goals for staska.net right now.

I’ll keep working on “pillar” articles. (I actually managed to write 2 of them in March, when I was not obsessed with this 5 posts a week thing and none during April). I will post here whenever I have something to say and have time to do it. And I’ll provide my monthly earnings updates.

Just don’t expect any regularity for now. But that’s what the feed readers are for, after all. Just hit “Subscribe” button and you won’t have to keep checking in vain.

And when I have enough “pillar” articles, filler content and time, I’ll sit back again and decide how to proceed with staska.net further.

Mitch was one of the more interesting new entrants into (pro) blogging advice club with a novel and interesting idea of how to get to the top.

In addition to relying on good content, word of mouth and traditional promotion tactics, he decided to throw a pile of money at the problem, targeting top bloggers in his market segment for paid review of his blog.

Well, unlike many of us, Mitch is already successful online entrepreneur, so he could afford it. And his tactics appeared to be working. He had good content. He’s got a quite a few links from a number of highly respected bloggers.

All of which helped Mitch attract a bunch of subscribers to his feed and mailing list and get to the level of about 1000 visitors per day, in a few weeks. And his became one of more interesting daily feeds in my feedreader.

So it’s a pity to see Mitch go. If he is really going, that is.

Since the way he announced the sale of HarpzOn, looks more like an interesting marketing experiment. And after a month I wouldn’t be surprised to see announcement that due to the lack of bids, overwhelming response from readers, resolved time constraints or something similar, Mitch decided to stay

The price that Mitch has set for HarpzOn - starting bid at $5000, is waaaay too high. I can understand the wish to recoup several grand spent on promotion efforts. They might have been even worth it, if Mitch continued with the blog.

But there’s no way current blog metrics (No income, Technorati Rank 17 871, Alexa 65K+, 2160 linkbacks according to Yahoo) can justify the asking price for the blog .

And it gets worse. You aren’t even getting the blog. All you get is a domain HarpzOn.com. Mitch gets to keep his posts, mailing list, e-book and all other goodies.

So you are paying $5000+ for a brand new domain (registered on March 01, 2007) that will stay in Google Sandbox for at least several months, with a linkprofile that one well written and dugg post can achieve.

If you are considering shelling out five grand for such a domain, I have this map for buried treasure that migh be interesting for you too.

Or, I may be able to offer you a blog in the same field as HarpzOn.com, with better Technorati Rank (17 383 vs 17 871) and more backlinks according to Yahoo (3465 vs 2159) for the same price. And you get all the blog posts on this blog, as a bonus.

The name of the blog?

Well, Staska.Net, of course

• Find Long Tail (rarely used, uncompetitive) keywords through which new readers get to your blog in search engines.
• Write more posts using these keywords, to improve your rankings and get more readers

I may be missing something, but I really don’t understand how this can work/help?

Long tail keywords are called that way for a cause. Almost nobody uses them. And if nobody searches for them, how will they bring new readers to my blog?

OK, you may say. Just use a lot of them, post a lot and if each LT keyword will bring a reader a week, soon you’ll be looking at a steady stream of new visitors from search engines.

But I already do that with every post. And you do that too. Every post on every blog is filled with the combinations of words that someone somewhere looking for something might use someday.

So how would you advice me to blog consciously using good long tail keywords? And what exactly the phrase “good long tail keyword” means? If it is “good”, is it still a “long tail” keyword?

How will more posts, with long tail keywords through which readers already found my blog, improve my search engine rankings? If they found me, there’s a very good chance that I already rank well for the keyword. And if they had to dig to the tenth page in Google to get to me, will more blog posts with the same keyword help me get to the fifth?

I currently hold #1 spot in Google for “Chitika RPU” - real long tail keyword (899 Google search results, 3 visitors during last week). Will more posts on “Chitika RPU” get me 5 more places in Top 10 Google SERP?

Or I’m #5 for “adsense earnings down 04 2007″. Will a post on why AdSense earnings are down this April get me to the #1? Somehow I doubt it.

I actually plan to do a post on why your AdSense earnings can go down. But that’s because I think it’s an interesting topic, not because it’s a long tail keyword that I want to improve my rankings on.

So what’s the point of doing more posts with long tail keywords that you already rank for?

I can see how it can work for some websites - you find LT keyword that is easy to rank for. Make ten sites on 10 different domains and own first Google results page for that keyword. Rinse and repeat and soon your are looking at some nice traffic streams.

But  for a single blog? Am I missing something obvious here?

One of the monkeys saw the banana and started getting up the ladder to get it. The researcher turned on the fire hose and knocked him down from the ladder, hosing all other monkeys with cold water as well.

After a while, another monkey decided to get the banana. He started getting up the ladder and was knocked off it again. All other monkeys got their share of cold water from the fire hose.

After a number of such unsuccessful attempts and cold showers, the monkeys stopped trying to get the bananas.

Then one monkey was replaced with a new one.

The newcomer saw the bananas, the ladder and figured that he’ll like some.

The researchers didn’t even have to use the firehose. As soon as newcomer put the first feet on the ladder, the four oldtimers knocked him down. After a few unsuccessful attempts the newcomer stopped trying.

Then another oldtimer was replaced. He also went for banana and was knocked down by his four colleagues. After a while he stopped trying.

The experiment continued until the last oldtimer who could remember the firehose was replaced by the new monkey. The researchers even removed the firehose from the room.

Now the latest newcomer saw the bananas and started climbing the ladder. He was promptly knocked off it. Why? Go figure…

The bananas are there. The ladder is there. They want the bananas. None of the monkeys know that they may be sprayed by firehose. There is no firehose! But none will let the others get on the ladder. BECAUSE THIS IS THE WAY THINGS ARE DONE HERE !

Do you know why you blog the way do?

Inspired by Digital Common Sense. Unfortunately the link I had to the original post is not working anymore.

Then I have a secret for you. IT DOESN’T MATTER! It’s not about them and beating them. It’s about you and others like you and me.

Sure, the advice that the A Listers give us is great and there are tons of money making ideas there. But here’s the thing - the view from the top is very different then from the bottom.

They may think that they remember what’s it like at the start. And they may even remember many things correctly. But they also forgot a lot. The situation has changed strongly. And sometimes, the way they tell you about how they started and got there, can take you in the wrong direction. Don’t believe me?

Take a look at this recent post by Darren Rowse. See the casual mention of posting frequency on his way up? 20 blogs and 20-40 posts a day. Be sure to check comment section and all the “Wow! 20 blogs, 20-40 posts a day! Now I know what it takes to become Problogger” comments.

But do you know what most of these 20-40 posts a day looked like? Check out here and here. Can you see a lot of good original content? With 20+ posts a day, there’s little hope you’ll be able to do much better.

There might be some value in aggregating all these reviews and excerpts of various articles in one place. But today’s feed readers, Google News or even del.icio.us do a much better job at that. Aaron Wall almost called these blogs a spam already in 2005.

The “review/article quoting” techniques could sometimes have worked in 2004 and may even continue working on an old, trusted domains for some time. But even then a lot of the effort was a waste of time. Most of Darren’s earnings came from a very few blogs.

And it is a sure dead end for your brand new blog empire. You will just get buried by all the automated Made For AdSense sites/scripts churning out thousands regurgitated feed pages a day.

But how many know that? And how many get the dollar signs in their eyes after reading Six Figure Blogger post, find a perfect formula - 20 blogs x 20 posts a day = I’m rich in a few months, and get on their Problogging path? Maybe not much. But there are some.

I know. I was one of them. And still have more then 20 domains collecting dust in my Godaddy account, to prove it. With keywords ranging from erectile dysfunction drugs and personal finance to web conferencing and web 2.0.

Do you know, that your beginners account about how this 20 blogs/20 posts a day thing is not working, might have led me to find the profitable blogging strategy few months earlier?

So for me, your brand new blog about how you struggle to earn a million online may be as interesting and useful as any blog from Technorati 100. I may learn how to survive without AdSense income, I can empathize with your troubles in setting and achieving goals, or I can use your blog as a benchmark for my own progress.

It’s much more interesting to read about your experiences when you went and did it, then it is to read a nice tutorial by an accomplished blogger/entrepreneur/affiliate marketer.

Even if it’s a detailed, persuasive step by step guide how to start making money in 24 hours and less. You know when I read this particular guide? Almost two months ago. And I’m 99% sure it’s true and 99% sure I could do it. You know what I did with it? Nothing.

But reading your happy boast about how you took this advice and ran with it for some real $$$$$$, might be that kick in the a## that made ME do something about it. Even better will be your detailed account of how you got there. And if your story won’t push me over the edge, maybe the next ones from Jim, Jane or John will.

So don’t worry about being late in the game or the competition out there. If you are itching to start this new blog about your online money making ventures, just do it. If you already have one, keep on going.

After all, what do you have to lose? Regrets of 2010 that you did not start this thing in 2007? Envious look at the list of Biggest Google Whores of 2009 - Mark, Dave & Jay, Empress, Kumiko, Brendan, Rene, Chee, Jake&Kelly, Jake, Mitch, Mike, Nate and all these others that you could have started with? Or the dreadful amount of competition that will definitely spring up in a few years?

Actually one of the main reasons I unsubscribe from many blogs is because they do not offer full feed, so I have to click through to their site to read every post. What’s the point of feeds then?

And I made sure to offer full feed to the readers of staska.net from the beginning. Or so I thought

Yesterday I finally got to subscribing to my blog feed and saw that for the most of the posts on staska.net, only partial feed is available.

I always enable “Full Text” option in my blog administration panel. And it always was enough… Until Wordpress 2.1 came out.

Turns out that one nasty feature was introduced with the latest release of Wordpress. It now started truncating your feeds after the “more” tag. And since I often use this tag on my blog, all my longer posts were cut-off.

I know, WP 2.1 has a warning about this in their admin panel. But who reads these warnings after using software for more then a year?

Anyway, there seems to be an easy solution to this problem: Full Text Feed plugin that prevents WP2.1+ from adding “more” tag to the blog feed.

I installed it at once and hope it works as advertised.

If you are still getting partial feeds, be sure to tell me in comments.