Geeks & Nerds Online

How To Find Games For Your Linux OS

2012-07-08T17:51:00.000-07:00

If you are a gamer and want to play games in your Linux OS then it can be done with all legal steps that you must not have known before. Most of the people do not know about that how they can install and configure games for the Linux OS.

There is a methodology of doing that in an easy and legal way. You must only know the title of the game that you wish to play. So here are few good steps by which you can find games for your Linux OS:

1. There can be various many categories of the games that you would like to play on Linux OS. Some of them are developed to run on Linux while the others are meant for other OS. Other section is of browser based games. For each of the type, you have to follow a different approach.

2. Firstly, let’s talk about the games that are developed top run natively on Linux. This is a much easier section that you can try as there would be not much of problem when you will try to run them on Linux OS. You can find and get these games in the ways mentioned below:

Software repositories

The software repositories can be one place where you will find games with much easy installation process. For that you will only have to select the desired package and get it downloaded and installed. If you do not know about the specific game titles but you wish to have a large variety of game then you must search games. Software repositories help you a lot in this searching. Many distribution platforms show you the game ratings that are good to know about the quality of the games. The Popularity column tells you a lot about any specific game. Adding repositories also help you in your games quest.

Also Read - Perfect laptop for gamers

Manual downloads

Manually downloading and getting the games meant for Linux OS is another good way. These kinds of games will be found in either executable .DEB or .RPM packages and zipped archives. OpenArena is an example that must be cited here.

Also Read - Reducing lag during online games

Games sources

Many of the game sources are like Ubuntu Gamer Arena, Playdeb, Ubuntu forums, Gaming, Leisure section, Dedoimedo and Linux gaming section.

3. Secondly, we come to the Windows games. While some of the games will run smooth the others many not run at all. Though there is not 100% guarantee of your favorite Windows game running on Linux OS but you can surely try this method. There are tools that can help you in this regard. CrossOver, Cedega, WINE and Virtualization are some of the software tools that will let you to get Windows games for the Linux (not all of them though).

4. DOS games used to run on the Microsoft DOS and the previous versions of Windows. Though many of the companies have restricted/abandoned these games but these are loved by many and can be got onto the Linux OS by the utility known as DOSBox. The DOSBox is a good and powerful x86 PC emulator that is all complete with graphics, mouse, sound and modem. You can easily run old DOS games with its assistance which otherwise are not played my modern operating systems.

5. Browser games are only browser games and they are not at all Linux. They keep on running whenever or wherever the browser runs. As most of the browser games are based on the cross platforms like Java and Flash, therefore be it any browser or any of the operating systems; you can play these games anywhere.

6. Flash games capture a lot of market and interest amongst the gamers. There are sites that will offer you the best of flash games. Likewise the Java games are another good games to look out for.

7. Do disable Compiz when you are playing a certain game as it may clash with few of the games and then cause hiccups.

8. To get more of the Linux games visiting popular and interactive game forums is also a great idea. If you are having a problem regarding finding out any title of a game that you would like to play on Linux then these forums do help you a lot. You can even get good suggestions from these places.

9. Linux gaming can be made fun with all the above ways that has been mentioned before. To get some games you might also need to pay as well.

Author:

Nancy Rorie is a gadget freak who loves to buy new gadgets on wholesale prices.

The Page Rank Table - Value Of Each Page Rank

2012-07-08T00:12:00.001-07:00

Since we are almost near the next page rank update, I though I should give you guys an idea of what it takes to get a particular page rank, as in, how many links of a particular PR is required to get the page rank that you want.

The table below shows the number of links required to get different page ranks.This has been considered as universal, although there are several different factors that come into play while deciding page rank, which I will discuss in this blog post.

We have included the number of backlinks required to get PR3, PR4, PR5, PR6, PR7, PR8.We have not included PR1 and PR2 as they are very easy to achieve by practices such as forum posting, blog commenting etc.

PageRank Calculation

PR	Links	Links	Links	Links	Links	Links
	For PR3	For PR4	for PR5	for PR6	for PR7	for PR8

1	555	3,055	16,803	92,414	508,277	2,795,522
2	101	555	3,055	16,803	92,414	508,277
3	18.5	101	555	3,055	16,803	92,414
4	3.5	18.5	101	555	3,055	16,803
5	1	3.5	18.5	101	555	3,055
6	0.5	1	3.5	18.5	101	555
7	0.5	0.5	1	3.5	18.5	101
8	0.5	0.5	0.5	1	3.5	18.5
9	0.5	0.5	0.5	0.5	1	3.5
10	0.5	0.5	0.5	0.5	0.5	1

The above page rank calculation table is very accurate.You can see that the value of links increases exponentially with page rank, not linearly as many people think.

What Other Factors Decide The Value Of A Link, Other Than Page Rank?

You may get happy that you have acquired a link from a PR 6 website and feel that you will get at-least a PR 4 for your blog or website.This may not happen.There are several other factors which come into play when deciding the value of a link from a website.Here are some of them -

Always see the page rank of the web page linking to your site, not the page rank of the whole site.Usually, the page rank of the web page will be 2 or 3 ranks lesser than the homepage.
If a web page is linking to your site, but is also linking lots of other sites, then the value of the link goes down drastically.For best value, the page must not be linking out to more than 3 or 4 external websites.This is where link farms cheat people.
Domain authority also plays a big role in deciding the value of a link from a web page, if the domain has not penalties on it such as Panda penalty, then it will have more value.
Domain extensions also play a big role, if the links is from a sun-domain, then the value of the link will be lesser.If the domain is a TLD, then the value will be more.If the domain is a .edu or a .gov domain, then the value of the backlink is even more.
The domain linking to should be of the same niche as yours to get maximum value of the link.
Homepage links are always much more valuable than inner page links.
Only dofollow links add to the Page Rank of your site, nofollow links do not add any value.

I hope you guys understood how many links you will need to get a particular page rank and how to value these links properly.

Backlinks Vs Social Signal SEO - Matt Cutts' Thoughts

2012-07-06T23:17:00.000-07:00

Are you concentrating a lot on getting more +1's, Facebook shares, tweets etc? Well Matt Cutts seems to think that you need to concentrate on building backlinks more than you concentrate on improving your social signals.Matt says that for the foreseeable future, SEO will be bossed by backlinks, the more quality backlinks your site or blog gets, the more your rankings go up in search.Let us do some detailed study of this.

What are Social Signals?

Social signals are signals that tell Google search that this particular page is being shared a lot by people, so there must be some great content on it which needs to be pushed by the search results.Social signals are of many types, let me explain a few of them.Also Read - Floating Share Buttons

Facebook Shares: Whenever someone shares a blog post or an article of a website to Facebook, it gives the idea that, that person feels the content on the page is good enough to be shared.So if more and more people share the post to Facebook, it creates a general idea that the post is really good and needs to be promoted in search.

Twitter Tweets: Works the same way as Facebook shares.

Google +1's: This is an aspect of social sharing that is most important when compared to Facebook and Twitter shares.Google directly enhances search results of pages which receive a lot of +1's.There are several aspects to this.If a more influential person such as Amit Agarwal +1's a post, the post will appear higher when anyone of his 400000 followers on Facebook search for a matching term.

So basically social signals can get you more traffic, more backlinks and more search ratings, but it fails in comparison to the effect that quality and natural backlinks have on the search ratings of a page.

Here is what Matt Cutts had to say about social signals and SEO -

Matt Cutts seems to think that social signals are definitely not as important as backlinks, he says even in ten years this situation may not change.

Also Read - Matt Cutts On Page Load Speed

Why Backlinks are more important than Social Signals?

Backlinks are treated as more important than social signals for the simple fact that social signals can be easily manipulated using sites such as AddMeFast and YouLikeHits, which Google has no control over, nor can they detect the use of such sites.

You might say that backlinks can also be easily faked, by buying tons of backlinks.But this can be easily monitored by Google.This is actually why the updates such as Panda and Penguin have come up, to monitor fake backlinks.

So, I think you get the point why backlinks can be treated as more important than Social Signals.But the perfect combination would be to have good natural backlinks + tons of followers or various social networks so that the social signals get developed automatically.

Any comments are welcome, please let us know what you think is more important, backlinks or social signals?

Labnol Hacked - All Amit Agarwal's Sites Deleted

2012-07-05T21:26:00.001-07:00

If you are blogger, then you will know about Labnol and Amit Agarwal, the first professional blogger from India.He makes his living due to his blogs, websites and tools which he has developed.Shocking news came out when Amit Agarwal tweeted that his sites had all been deleted.Let me give the whole info on how this hacking of Labnol occurred and how the site came back live again.

How I Came To Know That Labnol Was Hacked?

As part of my regular day, I tried to visit labnol of June 30, but the site was just not responding.I felt this was quite odd as Amit takes really good care of his sites and hosting and would never allow this to happen, after all, he is the tech guru.

So I went on to twitter to see if Amit had posted anything about it and to my shock, I found out that Labnol had been hacked by some hackers.Here is the twitter pic of what Amit had to say about the hacking -

How Could Hackers Hack Labnol?

There are several ways in which hackers could have hacked into labnol.Here are some of my guesses.

They could have gotten some personal information regarding the site from Amit without Amit noticing, this might have helped them answer security questions.
They might have tried a combination of possible passwords, this is called "brute-forcing".
They may have hacked one of Amit's smaller sites or mail id's and if Amit uses the same password for all his online accounts, then they may have gained access to the main site of Amit agarwal, Labnol.
They may have capitalized on some vulnerable WordPress plugins that Amit uses on Labnol to trace his password.

How Did Labnol Come Back Live Again?

Labnol came back up live within 24 hours of the hacking, while some of his other sites such as digitalinspiration.com are still down.The reason behind this was that the hacker had left the databases of labnol alone, untouched.So Amit was able to restore the website quickly.May be the hacker felt too guilty to delete that as it is one of the most influential and useful tech blogs in the world.

What Did Amit Agarwal Have To Say About The Hacking?

Amit Agarwal posted a new post on labnol, in which he explained why he could not concentrate on his site much through the hacking due to some personal issues.You can read more about it here.

Here is what Amit had to say about the hacking -

I have been mostly offline for the last two weeks, trying to spend as much time with him as possible, and then another unfortunate event happened. Someone managed to hack into my websites during this time. I did try cleaning up but, because of reasons now known to you, it was impossible for me to focus on the website.

On July 1st, the hacker stepped on the gas and deleted every single file /website that was hosted on my web server. I do not know how this happened and I may have lost some of my previous work but there’s a good side to the story – this fellow was kind enough to spare my databases and hence the main site is at least up and running now.

This is a difficult period but am hopeful that things will be normal soon. Thank you for all the support and I will see you online in the coming weeks.

Hopefully Amit will be able to regain access to all his sites soon, let us hope that this happens.Leave a comment below about what you think about the hacking of labnol.

Tips For Getting Approved By BuySellAds

2012-07-05T05:23:00.001-07:00

BuySellAds is an online network of advertisers and publishers who are mutually supported.BuySellAds has long been the most successful of these kind of networks and has earned the trust of both publishers and advertisers alike.Getting approved for BuySellAds is very tough, in fact it is about a 100 times tougher than getting accepted into Adsense and yet many bloggers treat this as an adsense alternative.

BuySellAds can be a great source or revenue for a blogger if they have a blog with a decent amount of traffic on it.I personally feel that these kind of networks (BuySellAds, BlogAds etc) can earn more for a blogger than adsense.If making money online is your aim then you need to strive to get accepted into the BuySellAds network.

How to get accepted into BuySellAds?

The below stated points are those put forward by BuySellAds themselves to help the publishers, so they can be taken as information from the horses mouth.

Your blog must be getting a lot of traffic.Atleast 50000 page views a month to be able to enter the BuySellAds network as a publisher, without this much minimum traffic, they just won't accept your blog, unless you have another well established site already in BuySellAds.

Your blog must not be something that you made a few days back, it needs to have a lot of content and must have been established a while back.BuySellAds does not mention how old a blog must be before it gets approved, but the general notion is that a blog must be at-least 5 or 6 months old.

Your blog must have fresh content, unique and well written content.You cannot just copy something from other blogs (this can lead to a panda penalty).You need high quality content before even dreaming of getting into BuySellAds.

If your blog is non-english then you need to very high traffic to get accepted into the BuySellAds network.

Your blog must not have a lot of ads, especially untargeted ads, pop-ups etc.The homepage is recommended to be free of ads, read - making a better home page.

Your blog must have its own domain name, if you have a .blogspot.com or a .wordpress.com, it won't be accepted.

Now, let us look into some of the other requirements which have been observed by many bloggers including myself about the BuySellAds approval process.

You blog must have an Alexa Rank of below 100000 at-least.But this does not guarantee the inclusion of a site into BuySellAds.You have a more realistic chance of getting approved by BuySellAds if your Alexa rank is below 50000, if your Alexa Rank is below 10000 and your site is of decent quality then your blog will surely be accepted.Read - How To Increase Alexa Rank.
Your blog must have a page rank of at-least 3, although lower page rank websites do get accepted, page rank 3 and above are more likely to get accepted by BuySellAds.Look to build quality backlinks to increase your page rank.See when the next page rank update will occur.
At the time of applying, do not use rival ad networks such as BlogAds.
Your blog must have a very professional design and must have hundreds, if not thousands of followers from Facebook, Twitter and RSS.

So, if your blog fulfills all these needs, then you are pretty much sure to get added to the BuySellAds network.What do you guys think about BuySellAds? Please leave a comment below!

4Th Of July Logos From Google Yahoo! And Bing

2012-07-04T09:39:00.001-07:00

Its 4Th of July and that time of the year again for firecrackers and celebration in the US.The online community is also celebrating the 4th of July through logos and doodles.Google as usual has released a unique and never seen before logo, which says "This land was made for you and me".Here are the different logos from the big internet sites -

Google's doodle about the 4th of July, a fairly simple one compared to Yahoo!'s.Here it is -

Google

Yahoo!

A well done animated logo with a lot of fireworks showcasing the joyous mood on the fourth of July.

Bing

Bing has definitely not out done itself when it comes to the fourth of July specialties.A very simple and rather dull looking wall paper for Bing search.

So happy fourth of July from techgau.org, leave a comment and share this post with your friends and family!

How To Add Twitter To Google+?

2012-07-04T00:20:00.002-07:00

Would it not be nice to have a your twitter tweets right on your Google+ page? Would it not save your time? If you had your twitter tweets on G+, you would not have to log in to twitter and Google+ separately.Only logging in to Google+ would be enough as you would be able to see the tweets of all the people you follow on Google+ itself.The process of adding your twitter feed to your Google+ page is done by a simple application by MyTweetPlace.The simple application is useful if you use both twitter and Google+ a lot.

Once the application has been installed successfully, you should be able to see a Twitter button next to the regular tabs on Google+.By clicking on that twitter button which has been just added, you can do several things such as -

Read your Twitter feed live.
See what is trending on Twitter.
Post new tweets.
Check your twitter inbox.

These are the basic tasks on twitter and if that is made possible on Google+, then why log in to twitter anymore?

Here is what the twitter application for Google+ looks like -

Of course, you will still need to log-in to twitter through the application to use this integration feature.Also if you can see carefully, the application is allowed to show ads from adsense on Google+, this may annoy some people as they like their social networks ad-free, we have enough of ads on all the other sites right?

So how to install this twitter application for Google+?

First install this twitter app.
After installation, you need to restart your browser (works with all browsers)
As said before, you should see a Twitter button at the top, next to the usual Google+ tabs.Sign-in to Twitter through that and you are done!

So are you guys going to use this twitter integration tool? What do you think about it? Please let us know in the comments section.

Page Load Speed And SEO - Matt Cutts

2012-07-02T23:51:00.000-07:00

Any blogger or webmaster will know that Matt Cutts is one of the most reliable sources of information about SEO and how Google search engine works.We had recently discussed Matt Cutts tips on ranking number one on Google search and about how Google treats affiliate links, today I came across another SEO tip from Matt about page load time or page speed of a website and how it matters in the search algorithm.

Is Page Speed A Very Important SEO Factor?

Page speed is important as a search engine optimization factor, but it is not as important as relevancy and quality unique content.Matt says that page speed is important but the factors such as relevancy, backlinks are considered first and then if two sites have the same relevancy, then page speed is considered.The faster the page speed, the higher will be its ranking in Google search.

Having said this, the web pages or websites which have extremely low page load speeds like over 20 seconds might see a drop in their ranking according to the Panda Update (See if your blog has a Panda Penalty).

Why Page Speed Is Important?

Google's main goal is to make sure that people looking for search results have the best experience possible, they do not want to recommend sites to people which are very slow in loading and hence create an undesirable experience for readers.

Google believes in relevancy and an overall good experience to be the key.

What Can You Do To Improve Your Page Speed?

Google provides you the page speed tool to analyze your page speed and ways in which to improve it.Google provides you three types of categories in which you can improve your site speed.

High Priority
Medium Priority
Low Priority

They also provide you with detailed instructions to correct the page speed inhibitors and hence make your site faster.

I hope this post helped out bloggers who are worried about their page speed.If you have any doubts, please leave a comment.All comments are welcome!

Best WordPress SEO Plugins 2012

2012-07-02T21:37:00.000-07:00

WordPress is arguably the best blogging platform, with tons of free and premium themes, loads of fun plugin options to optimize a website as well as an easy user interface.Search engine optimization of a WordPress blog is much easier than the SEO of a blogger blog, this is due to the large number of SEO plugins available for the WordPress platform, which is not available in the Blogger platform.So which are the best WordPress SEO plugins? We have made a list of some of the best WordPress SEO plugins for your use, you do not need all these SEO plugins, you will need only a few of them to have the best SEO advantage for your blog.If you are interested to know more about SEO, then please read - SEO blogs for newbies. So let us begin -

Top WordPress SEO Plugins

Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin:

Yoast is one of the most popular plugins used for the search engine optimization of a WordPress blog, one of the cool things about the Yoast plugin is that it allows you to add site-wide robots.txt command or you can add it to individual posts.The Yoast plugin is better than any other free SEO plugin for WordPress.Yoast is the next generation of the all-in-one SEO plugin, which I will discuss in the next point.

Get The Plugin

All-In-One SEO Plugin:

The ll-in-one SEO plugin is like the predecessor to the Yoast Plugin, I wrote about the Yoast plugin first as I did not want you to waste your time on this one.This was one of the first plugins for SEO on a WordPress blog that was used extensively until better versions came out.This plugin helps you to add your blog meta description, title and keywords to individual blog posts.

Get The Plugin

SEO Smart Link WordPress Plugin:

This is a great SEO WordPress tool for better interlinking of blog posts, you can set a link to a keyword and the plugin automatically links the words to the blog posts, you can have as many keywords as you want.This tool is not only great for better interlinking and indexing of a site, it also saves a lot of time while writing blog posts.You do not need to manually link to other pages of your blog.

Get The Plugin

Easy WP SEO Plugin:

This is one of the most important SEO plugins for WordPress as it takes care of your on-page SEO settings, with this plugin, you can ensure that your blog post is optimized to the highest level possible.The plugin has features such as readability, LSI, keyword density (keywords/total words).But this is not a free plugin, you will need to pay a small amount of money to acquire this WordPress plugin.

Get The Plugin

Image ALT Optimization Plugin:

This plugin helps you easily add ALT attributes to an image, adding ALT attributes to images can bring you a lot of traffic for that keyword through Google Image Search.Although this WordPress plugin takes care of the ALT attributes, it does not help in naming your image, you will need to do it yourself while saving the image to your computer.It is best to save the image names as a keyword of your blog post.

Get The Plugin

Smart 404 Plugin:

This plugin allows you to alter any broken links and 404 pages on your blog, this tool is very important for SEO as Google does not like broken links and 404 pages.You can read more about this in the - Check Panda penalty on your blog.

Get The Plugin

So these are some of the best SEO plugins for WordPress that I recommend, if you know of any other good SEO plugins for WordPress, then please let us know in the comments section below!

Google Nexus 7 Tablet - Features - Price In India

2012-07-02T10:08:00.000-07:00

Let’s Have a Look at Great Google’s Tablet Nexus 7

Nexus 7 by Google is an amazing tablet that you can have for only $200, but it has been tightly integrated with the Google play and cannot even match the Amazon’s content selection as well as prices for the contending Kindle Fire. These were some of the initial reviews about the gadget which is running on Android OS 4.1, Jelly Bean version. Furthermore, it is more of a Google’s initial stab at a home-produced slate and has been admired a lot by the users, but it does come up short in different key areas.

Reviewing The Specs

The Nexus 7 was announced by Google in the last week and that was during Google’s annual conference that took place in San Francisco.

The gadget has been incorporated with a 7” display, with resolutions of 1280-by-800 at 216 pixels per inch, 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera, NFC, GPS, Bluetooth, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, 8GB or even 16GB storage capacity, 1 GB RAM, 12-core GeForce GPU, and a 1.2 GHz quad-core Tegra 3 processor. The gadget weighs approximately 0.75 pounds and is offered for only $200.

Google integrated the Jelly Bean version which happens to be a lot smoother and responsive as compared to the prior version of Android with a patch up which is known as ‘Project Butter.’ It has been agreed by most of the users that the Jelly Bean version on the Nexus 7 device happens to be a great improvement as compared to the prior Android incarnations. The applications on the device load briskly and quickly and the Tegra chipset provides stunning results to the users.
Designing
The gadget may be marked as another black gagdet in the long range of black tablets, but this one has a lot going for it on the front end. The Nexus 7 has a leather-like rubber casing on its back. Although it is the rubber but it has been nicely and properly textured. This makes the entire design of the device comfortable and appealing. The gadget is light in weight as compared to the Kindle Fire.
Display
Users have been admiring the 7-inches1280-by-800 display, which displays text clearly as well as the images and graphics appear good. However, some state that the colors are more of a washed out when weighed against the device. However, Nexus 7 does not support Retina display quality just as the iPad which is the third generation device.
Any Bummers?
Nexus 7 has an amazing screen, smooth navigation, zippy responsiveness, but there has been some bummers noticed about the gadget. Mostly people do not like the fact that Google itself is supporting the internal storage, without any microSD slot, which happens to be a standardized feature for most of the Android based gadgets. It also lacks HDMI support as people will not be able to put up the display on larger screens. Furthermore, the rear-facing camera happens to be a letdown and it has been configured for portrait view only as default, with no other options for the landscape mode if the gadget is turned.

The bummers are still there, but if you are considering an Android device within your budget then opting for Nexus 7 is not a bad idea!

The Google Nexus 7 will be priced at Rs 15000 in India.

Author: I am Nadine Myrick from Pass Certification; it gives 100% guaranteed success in your IT Certification Preparation exam. Let’s take benefit of CCDP Certification Preparation Exams material efficiently and get guaranteed success. Check out free demo of all certifications Exam.

How Google Treats Affiliate Links In Terms Of SEO

2012-07-02T09:21:00.000-07:00

Every blogger and webmaster has several ways in which he makes money online and affiliate links are one of them.Affiliate links are one of the best ways to make money from a site provided the website has a lot of traffic.Many of the new generation bloggers prefer to have affiliate ads rather than adsense ads as they feel there is more earning potential in affiliate ads rather than adsense or other ppc programs.Before we get into how Google treats affiliate links, let us discuss briefly what affiliate links are.

What Are Affiliate Links?

Affiliate links are those links which when clicked by a reader takes them to a landing page of a service or a product.If the reader buys said service or product, then the "referrer", which is you, get paid a commission from that.Obviously chances of this happening are lower than the chances of people clicking adsense ads, but usually affiliates pay out anywhere between 10-200$ in commissions which is why some bloggers prefer affiliate links.

Affiliate Link SEO - Matt Cutts

Here is what Matt Cutts had to say about the way in which Google treats affiliate links, in terms of passing on pagerank and SERP juice.

(PS: Take a look at those Penguin Dolls in front of Matt Cutts)

Let me breakdown what Matt Cutts had to say about the way in which Google handles Affiliate links.There are two types of affiliates -

Affiliates Recognized By Google
Unknown Affiliates

Affiliates Recognized By Google

There are several big affiliates such as HostGator, GoDaddy etc who are recognized by Google, so they can easily take care of the affiliate links going back to these affiliate networks.There is no doubt in Google's mind when it comes to these networks that they are affiliates.

Unknown Affiliates

These are affiliates who are not recognized by Google, they may be start up affiliates such as easywebcontent, which are not well known.For these kind of affiliates it may be better suited to add a rel="nofollow" code after the link as this will tell Google that you do not wish to pass on SERP juice to the link and hence proving it that it is not a paid link which is used to improve ratings, rather it behaves as an advertisement.

So this is probably all you need to know about how Google treats affiliate links in terms of SEO.If you have any information to add or have any suggestion to make, please leave a comment, all the comments are welcome!

Next Page Rank Update July 2012?

2012-07-02T05:06:00.002-07:00

Bloggers and webmasters are yet again eagerly waiting for the next Google Page Rank update which may increase or decrease the page rank of their website.The last page rank update happened a couple of months ago in May, May 3 2012 to be precise, so we are heading into the zone where the next Google page rank update may appear.I am positive that there will be an update the toolbar page rank at-least by the end of the month as it would be three months since the last page rank update.

What Can We Expect In The Next Page Rank Update?

The next Google page rank update may see the page rank of many websites such as updowner.com, which have been caught by the Google Panda Update for either selling links, hosting malware, producing content that have been copied from other sites, low quality content, or sites with low page load speed.

A really good example of this is seoroundtable.com, which has been penalized in terms of page rank reduction due to openly selling links to other websites from their homepage.You can see the proof of this, as Barry himself agrees that his site has had a penalty in terms of Page Rank reduction in this blog post.

If such big websites with huge amounts of followers and influence over the internet can be penalized, surely the smaller sites which do the same are not going to spared.Hence I feel that in the next page rank update, these websites will get a lower page rank than they already had.

How To Avoid The Page Rank Drop In The Next PR Update?

If your site is performing any of the activities as mentioned above, then you need to take some preventive measures to ensure that your page rank does not drop.The important thing is that you make these changes early enough to give Google sufficient time to ensure that you have made changes to your site, so that it falls back into the "good zone" of webmaster policies that Google has laid out.

Google may require a week or a couple of weeks to notice that your site has changed for the better, it may even take Google until the next Panda Refresh to see that your site is not breaking policies any more.So correct the mistakes as soon as possible.

See if your blog has a penalty from panda.

SEO Tips For Blogger Blogs | Blogspot SEO

2012-07-01T23:32:00.000-07:00

SEO is very important for any blog or website, let alone blogger blogs.There are many different practices you can follow to ensure that your blogger blog gets a good amount of traffic from search engines such Google, Bing, Yahoo! etc.Unfortunately great and well written content alone is not enough to rank high in search indexes, so you need to do certain other stuff so that you ensure that you get a good SERP ranking in all search indexes.Let us move on and discuss the best SEO practices for blogger or blogspot blogs.

You can get more blogging tips at iGau.

Why Is It Important to do SEO for Blogger Blogs?

Naturally, sub-domains such as .blogspot.com have a tendency to rank lower than top level domains such as .com .org etc.So you, as a blogger blog owner needs to put in some extra effort to ensure that your blogger blog comes to the top of the Google search results.Also, blogger blogs, being free domains have been extensively used for spamming in the past few years, due to which all the major search engines look at them cautiously, so you need to gain the trust of the search engines by practicing good SEO techniques.

Also, performing proper search engine optimization can lead to a lot of traffic, a well optimized site like This website can out perform other sites easily in the search engine rankings.

So, I think you have got a good understanding of why you need to perform SEO on your blogger blogs.

Good SEO Practices for Blogger/Blogspot Blogs

There are several different aspects to the SEO of a blogger blog, I have made an attempt to cover all the topics under the search engine optimization of a blogger blog.I have made of list of good SEO practices you need to follow to ensure that your blog hits the top ranks in Google search.

Great SEO begins with Great Content

No matter how many keywords you put in, or how well optimized your site is, if your content is not worth ranking high, then your blog will never get into the top of search results.A well written article or blog post full of quality can do 50% of your SEO job.Imagine if you did not have quality articles, you would miss out on 50% of search engine optimization.So before trying to do complex SEO tasks, you should first concentrate on making great content which covers all aspects of a topic and is spell-binding to the readers.So creating quality content is the basic SEO step for a website, SEO Cosmo is a good example of such a website.

Keywords

Keywords play an important role in enhancing your search rankings, but you need to be careful while using keywords, there is fine line between perfect optimization and over optimization.An ideal keyword percentage would be 4%.This means that you must try to attain about 4% ratio between your content and the number of keywords, anything more than 5% can be considered as spamming.

Also make sure that you include different varieties of your keyword, for example, if your keyword is "training dogs", then you must also include phrases such as "dog training" "how to train dogs" etc.

Do not try to stuff your blog post title with keywords, instead try to use all these keywords in the opening paragraph of your blog post, but make sure that you do not stuff keywords, let the writing be natural and written for the readers instead of the search engine bots.

Meta Tags

If you are an SEO newbie, then Meta Tags may seem daunting to you, but do not worry, blogger has an automatic meta tag feature that you can use without knowing any coding at all.While writing meta tags, you must ensure that you write for people reading the description in the search engines and not for the search bots.

Imagine if a person reads the description of your page on Google Search and sees this "Dog Training, Training Dogs, How To Train a dog.....etc" he is not going to like it, as it seems like a repetition of the title again.Instead try for a meta description tag like this "Learn some good and easy ways to train your faithful friend, your pet, a dog". People will be more inclined to click on the second option rather than the first.

The meta keyword tag is no longer used by any search engines, so do not waste your time on that.

Best Blog Post Title Pattern

Blogger blogs usually have this format of showing post titles in Google search - Blog Name | Page Title, which is not exactly good for SEO, you want your well written page title to appear in the beginning and not your blog name.So make sure that you change the blog post title format by following the steps shown below -

Go to "Edit HTML" of your blogger blog.

Search for the following piece of code -

Replace it with the following piece of coding.

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "index"'>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageName/> | <data:blog.title/></title>
</b:if>

Now you have the best optimized title format on your blogspot blog.

Permalink Structure For Blogger Blogs

Permalink is the text structure you see in the URL of each of your web pages, usually blogger just converts your title into your permalink structure, this may not always be the best permalink structure for SEO.So you need to change it a more optimized structure so that your blog scores further SEO points.

You can read everything about Permalink and how to change it on blogger blogs here - Custom Permalink For Blogger Blogs.

Backlinks

Backlinks are something that ought to be built naturally, do not really worry much about getting backlinks to your blog, if you have good content, backlinks will automatically follow.But there are certain things you can do to make sure you get a good number of quality backlinks to your blogger blog.

Writing Great Content
Asking Other Bloggers For Backlinks
Blog Commenting
Forum Posting
Directory Submission
Linking Back From Your Other Blogs

These are some of the natural link building methods.You may also want to look at this list of dofollow blogs where a comment earns you a backlink, remember, this blog too is a dofollow blog.

Internal Linking For Blogger Blogs

Blogger blogs do not have the greatest internal navigation structure (depends on which template you are using), so it is good to link your related pages with one another.Try to link as much as possible within sensible limits, if you feel another post would add more quality to a post, then link to it.Make sure that all the blog posts in your blogger blog has at-least one other post that is linking to it.

Sitemaps For Blogger Blogs

Generating a submitting a blogger sitemap to your webmaster tools account can help your blog pages to be indexed faster into Google search and also help the search bots find all your internal pages easily.Learn more about sitemaps for blogger blogs and how to generate it here - Add Sitemap To Blogger

Have A Sitemap Page

The previous point about Sitemaps was for search bots to use, now it is time to make a page where you can have a sitemap of all the posts in your blog based on the month in which they were published for humans to easily navigate through.The simplest form of this page would be to past the links to your month-wise posts such as -

yourblog.com/2012/06

yourblog.com/2012/07

You can take a look at a sitemap page we have created for techgau.org - Sitemap.

So these are all the basic Blogger blog SEO tips that a blog owner needs to top the Google search results.if you have any doubts or want to add a suggestion, you can do so in the comments section below.

Spam Links From UpDowner.com? What To Do?

2012-07-01T23:07:00.000-07:00

Google had publicly declared that the links coming back to a website or blog from the domain updowner.com were considered as spam links, Google had even gone to the extent of contacting many webmasters with warnings about spam links from updowner.com through webmaster tools.See what you can do about your webmaster tools warning.

Google has noticed tons of links going to websites from updowner.com and hence has classified the domain as a spam link farm and any links going out from that particular domain was not to be counted for any domain rankings.Presumably the ranking of updowner will fall drastically come the next Panda Update.

If you do not want to be a victim of this, then you must make sure that you do not have any links from them.You can try the new disavow tool from Bing Webmaster Tools to remove the backlinks.Google too is reportedly going to come up with a disavow tool to help webmasters and bloggers get rid of such spam links which can harm the ratings of their website.

Please leave comments below, if you have any new information about the spam links from UpDowner.com.

Get more info on the spam links from that domain here.

What is "Disavow" Links? What is its SEO Use?

2012-07-01T00:30:00.000-07:00

Google had recently announced that it will add a new feature that can help webmasters and bloggers to "disavow" links.This was the first of its kind tool and was eagerly looked forward to by all the bloggers and webmasters.But Bing created a shock in the world of SEO by releasing the "disavow" feature before Google did.Bing announced that they had released the "disavow" tool in the Bing Webmaster Tools and that the feature was operational now.

What is "Disavow"?

Disavowing links is a way to make pesky and spam links that may be pointing towards your website or blog.With the "disavow" links tool, you can now choose which of the backlinks your website has should count towards your SERP and Page Rank attribution.You can choose the links you trust to add to your SERP and disavow the other links which you think are bringing you down rather than pulling your search ratings up.

Why to Disavow Links?

Not all the links that point toward your site increase your SERP ratings, some links that are pointing towards your site can be considered as spam links set up by you or by some spammer, they can be considered as bought links or link-exchanges.These kinds of links do not increase the ratings of a website, rather they actually decrease the ratings of a website.Google Panda targets sites which have these kind of backlinks ( See if your blog has a Panda penalty).

By removing these links, you can prove to Bing and soon to Google as well that you are not involved in creating these spam links and hence you are not to be held responsible for them.

How to Disavow Links?

Disavowing links is now limited to Bing, but it will soon be out in Google Webmaster Tools as well.Here is how you can disavow links in Bing Webmaster Tools -

Log in to your webmaster tools account on Bing and proceed to Dashboard > Configure My Site > Disavow Links.Here you can choose which of your backlinks you want to disavow.

Things to remember while your are disavowing links

Although disavowing is a good option to remove unwanted backlinks, you must remember to carefully examine each link to check if it was a naturally developed back-link or an unnatural one.Disavow a link only if you are sure that removing that link would not drop your ratings and you are also sure that the particular link is a spam link.You do not want to lose out on good links by disavowing them.

Add Custom Permalink In Blogger Blogs

2012-06-30T11:56:00.000-07:00

As we all know Blogger is making a lot of changes to compete with WordPress.Blogger had long been known to be missing a lot of the WordPress SEO tools such as automatic meta tags, custom permalink, SEO plug-ins etc.

Blogger has managed to add the automatic meta tags and the custom permalink option to Blogger blogs, but they are yet to come out with Plug-In capabilities for Blogger, which we think will come out at some point of time.

What is a Permalink?

Permalink is the text you see in the URL of a web page, it is called a permalink as it is a permanent link address of a web page where you can find the web page.

Why Use Custom Permalink?

Custom permalink is useful as it can give a desired look to the link of a web page, it can be named so that it is easily remembered.Apart from this it is also very useful for SEO, a custom permalink with the right keywords can have a great impact on the search rankings of a web page or a blog post.Every successful SEO blog uses custom permalink to ensure that they have the right keywords in the link URL.

What Is The Right Permalink Structure?

We always prefer to use a keyword rich permalink, rather than those with a lot of "the" "how" and "what" kind of words, as you can see for this page we have included the three main keywords of this post in the custom permalink - "custom-permalink-blogger".This is rich in keywords and it has the phrase that most people would probably search for.This is the structure we usually use while creating a custom permalink in blogger.

So how to add custom permalink in Blogger?

Adding a custom permalink to blogger is very easy and can be done through the post settings option to the right of the "New Post" area in the new blogger design.

This option does not show up when you log in to Blogger.com, it shows up only when you log in to draft.blogger.com.

So make use of these Blogger SEO options to improve the SEO of your blogger blog and rank higher on Google search.

Google Panda Update - June 21 2012

2012-06-30T10:06:00.000-07:00

I began to see some changes in traffic patterns since the last week, I saw that some pages that were previously receiving a lot of traffic had reduced traffic and some other posts which were not receiving that much traffic got a hike in traffic since last week (last week of June 2012).Whether this was a major update or not is debatable, but there definitely was an update to the Google Panda on June 21 2012 with many webmasters on Webmaster Forums discussing the same.

This was probably one of the Google's "Panda Refreshes", which happens almost every month, to keep a check on websites that spam and are of low quality(Learn to make Google friendly sites).There have been several of these refreshes in the last few months.

These "Panda Refreshes" give bloggers and webmasters a chance to recover from the panda setbacks.

Even Seoroundtable referred to this Panda Update and they say that Google has denied that they had made a big change, but us webmasters think otherwise.

If you are concerned that your blog has been affected by the Panda updates, then read - Check For Panda Penalty

Check For Google Panda Penalty On Your Blog

2012-06-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

Google has releases several versions of the Panda Algorithm updates, starting from 2011 and now into 2012.These Algorithm changes have affected many blogs and websites, causing traffic to drop by more than 50% in a short space of time.This is actually a good initiative by Google as it drops the ranking of spam and useless sites that are stuffed with keywords and with little or no valuable information.This creates a need where webmasters and bloggers look to create better and more useful websites, improving the world of internet and increasing the quality of web pages.So what are some of the reasons why you have been affected by the Google Panda update?

High bounce rate
Low time on site
Low site speed (loading time)
Small content - Less that 200 words
Keyword stuffing - More than 5%
Selling links
Improper site structure
Lots of broken links
Bad site navigation
Low quality content
Too many ads
Pop-Up ads

These are just some of the reasons why a website might be affected by the Google Panda update.But how to be sure whether your blog is affected by Google Panda or not? Here are some ways in which you can check whether your blog or website is affected by Google Panda updates -

Google Webmaster Tools Warning

Sometimes Google issues warnings through the Google Webmaster Tools, so if you received any warning from the webmaster tools team then you can be 100% sure that there is something wrong with your website.Learn what to do about your webmaster warning?

Do A Simple Site Search

Do a simple site search in Google to see if all your pages are still indexed or if any of the posts have been removed from the search engine due to the panda update.Just go to Google search and type in "Site:yourdomain.com", for example - "Site:techgau.org".

If you see that the number of pages in Google that has been indexed is approximately equal to the number of posts you have created, then you probably have not been hit by a panda penalty.But if you see a massive difference in the number of posts made by you and the number of posts in the Google search index, then you have probably been hit by the Panda update.

Make sure that you correct your pages that have been de-indexed.Here are some things that you can do to ensure that you correct the de-indexed pages -

Make the content more informative and increase the quality
Remove unnecessary use of keywords
Remove links to bad neighborhoods, or at-least make them a "nofollow" link.
Link to relevant inner pages of your blog so that bounce rate reduces.

Check Page Speed

You can use the Google Page Insights tool to check whether your web pages load fast or not.If your web pages are slower than most other sites then you will probably get a penalty as Google does not like slow loading web pages.

Here are some tips to increase page speed -

Remove unnecessary Java Scripts
Remove unnecessary widgets and tools
Do not have too many images on your web pages
Do not have too much CSS coding

So these are some of the ways to Check Google Panda Penalty, if you know of any other methods, then please leave a comment below.We appreciate all your comments.

We recommend you read -

Making Google Penguin Friendly Sites

Above the Fold Algorithm

Ray William Johnson Height Weight And Ethnicity

2012-06-29T21:32:00.000-07:00

Ray William Johnson, is as we all know a superstar on YouTube.He is the number one YouTube celebrity at the moment, closely followed by the likes of NigaHiga and Kev Jumba.Ray William Johnson has had many controversies in the past, with the usage of others YouTube videos to make money, how the partnership program never seems to catch him etc.There has also been controversies regarding his ethnicity and physical attributes such as height and weight as he always seems to hide his height by not showing his full body on any of his hundreds of videos.

Also Read - Short Celebrities List

So, you guys must be wondering what Ray William Johnson's height, weight and ethnicity is, well, we are here to answer that question.

Ray William Johnson's Height

Ray William Johnson is believed to be a short man, who is about 5 feet 8 Inches Tall while barefoot.But Ray William Johnson is still tall compared to NigaHiga's Height.

Ray William Johnson's Weight

Ray William Johnson is also quite a sturdily built character, he has broad shoulders and could lose a few pounds.He is believed to be around a 179 Pounds, which is bit high considering his height.

Ray William Johnson's Ethnicity

Ray William Johnson was earlier believed to be from Samoa, but clearly he is not.He is your everyday American.Check out more such articles at TechGau

Blogging as a PR Tool

2012-06-29T03:12:00.000-07:00

Blogging as a PR Tool

Using a blog for PR can be very effective, if you know how to do it properly. However, there’s more to blogging then just typing out a random post once a week. The content needs to be relevant, interesting and engaging. It also needs to be useful and grab the attention of the audience. In order to do this, you need to know who you’re writing for. You should personalize the content for them and make them want to share it with their like-minded networks. Here are some more suggestions to help you blog better.

1. Make your posts news worthy
Traditionally, PR people would have to hound news people to get their press release into the mainstream media. The digital age has flipped this around. If you write strategically, you can bring the press straight to your client via your blog. According to Mashable.com, news media don’t only rely on traditional wires anymore. They’re constantly on the look out for new stories on the Internet and, if you play your cards right, a blog post can be considered news worthy. If written carefully, it can morph into a press release. A pre-published draft post, when shared with reporters under embargo, can even be considered a legitimate news source (Mashable.com). Interesting and well-written content, combined with short, punchy headlines (which can be easily shared via Twitter and the like) could effectively turn your blog into a news-wire.

2. Make your posts share worthy
Every digital PR dream is to go viral or, at the very least, get significant retweets. In order to achieve this, Mashable.com suggests that blog content should be less about the client’s product or business and more about the culture that surrounds it. In other words, it needs to be about what the client’s target audience is interested in. To get this right, you need a clear picture of exactly who will read the blog and what kinds of topics they will want to read.

Also Read - Floating Share Buttons For Blogs

You can get creative; post how-to advice, have experts in a related field guest post their wisdom or post links to interesting articles. If the target readers like what you’ve written, they’ll want to share it with their social networks. Mashable.com recommends that you have the appropriate sharing plug-ins on your blog pages. A Twitter and Facebook button is standard and if your content is aimed at a professional network, then a LinkedIn button is needed. If you want to go viral, Reddit or Digg could do the trick. However, you need to keep it simple; don’t have more than three share buttons.

3. Make your posts visual
Well-written content is gold, but an interesting video post can make your blog come alive. It can make it more personal and real, as video is often seen as more authoritative than text. These days, it’s easy to capture video: you can use a smartphone or a digital camera. You can also easily upload videos to YouTube via apps. Mashable.com suggests that your videos be between 30 and 60 seconds, so you need to keep to the point. You can encourage your client to be filmed while at events, or just around the office.

If you follow these suggestions, your blog can be a great PR tool. You can get a message across just as well (if not better) through video, so remember to incorporate some visual elements into your blog from time to time. Well-written and targeted content will bring the right people to you, and if you regularly write relevant and interesting posts, they will keep coming to your blog – and they’ll spread the word by sharing it.

Author: This post was written by Ang Lloyd, a freelance writer based in Cape Town, South Africa. Ang relishes the challenge of writing on a variety of topics, including the value of PR blogs.

YouTube as a Marketing Tool

2012-06-28T04:01:00.000-07:00

Video-sharing websites were virtually nonexistent until YouTube exploded onto the scenes in 2005. Ever since debuting, millions of users have started using the website to connect with family, friends, and more recently, customers, clients, and readers.

Nearly all big name companies have Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts that allow the company to better relate to their fan base while attracting new customers. For example, one of the most popular YouTube company channels is Home Depot. While the company itself sells home improvement and construction products, the YouTube channel serves as a 'How-To' tutorial to help better guide customers on the proper way to fix or remodel their homes.

Many non-customers take note of how simple the video instructions are, and see that Home Depot has all the products needed. Since the video has provided the potential customer with new knowledge, the individual is more likely to remember Home Depot at a later date when their services are needed. This helps to bring in even more customers, all by simply uploading a few short videos.

Increasing Traffic to Websites

The same tactics can be used for anyone who is looking to increase traffic to their website. Creating a video blog (vlog) means that new readers will stumble across the video. Website owners can then direct the viewer to their website by mentioning the name at the end of the video. If that isn't enough to bring in traffic, a link can also be added to the description of the video for easy access.

YouTube also offers a 'subscribe' option which viewers can use if they would like to follow the videos on a long-term basis. This option will alert subscribers too all future videos so they can remain up-to-date on the events regarding the website. Since all vlogs tell a story, users are far more likely to come back wanting more. This leads to long-term steady traffic.

AdSense Earnings

Also Read - How To Get Approved For Adsense

Once a YouTube video has earned enough views, website owners can begin making a passive income from their channel. This is done through a partnership with Google AdSense and YouTube. In order to qualify, a video must be a completely original production. This means that all vlogs qualify as long as no copyrighted music or other content is included.

If the user accepts the agreement, a small advertisement will be placed on the bottom of the YouTube video. These advertisements are usually related to the video, though in some cases they may be complete random. Each time that the advertisement is clicked, the video owner will be paid a small cut of the profit.

Each click the advertisements receive only pays a few cents, but if the YouTube channel is popular, this can add up significantly over time. There been several instances where a single video goes viral and the uploader receives several thousand dollars due to AdSense. While this isn't typical, a large fan base will provide a steady income over a long period of time. Since Google AdSense never expires, users will continue to earn money as long as their video is being viewed.

While YouTube is an enjoyable place to watch videos, it's also a unique marketing tool which can lead to long-term traffic and a steady income. Since uploading a video only takes a few minutes, all website owners who are looking to increase their fan base should create their own channel and start advertising.

Author: JR Olson write on behalf of accountant.org who can manage your business expenses while you reap the benefits of YouTube marketing.

More Techie People Prefer The iPad Mini

2012-06-27T09:54:00.000-07:00

Recent surveys state that more than 50 percent of people are more than interested to buy the rumored iPad Mini than any other tablet, surely the hype around this is due to the cheaper device offered by Apple, the iPad was a little expensive for my liking, the iPad mini is in the price range from 249USD to 300USD.

Although the iPad Mini is relatively cheaper compared to its bigger counterpart, consumers wish for it to have 3G network services and also would prefer a much smaller and thinner frame so that it looks premium and feels good.

Now when can we really expect the device to be officially released in the market? Since confirming rumors isn’t really one of the things that Apple do and they prefer keeping their release dates a secret, Apple fans should satisfy themselves with rumors in the meantime. Recent rumors however, suggest that Apple is preparing for the release of a total of 6 million iPad Minis for the 3rd quarter of this year, with prices ranging from 249USD to 300USD.

If these rumors are true and a 7.85-inch screen iPad Mini would be released in the market soon, where does this put Android Tablets? The iPad currently holds 68% of the market for tablets worldwide and with this in mind, is there still room for Android tablets in the already crowded tablet market? The surveys clearly show that cheaper and smaller tablets are more desirable for the consumers and the iPad Mini, which is definitely cheaper than other Apple products, would definitely put Apple in the dominant position.

The iPad mini would be going head to head with the Galaxy Tablet 2 and the Motorola Xoom..

The Android market share cannot be brought down by the Apple iPad mini is they price it high, while they can win over a lot of the market share if the iPad mini is priced in the same range as the Galaxy Tablet or the Xoom.

This article was written by Richard, who currently works as an editor at the cell phone recycling price comparison site, SellCell.com. The site acts as a way for people to sell ipad devices and smartphones by comparing prices, so they get the best deal.

General Guidelines for Selling Stock Photos

2012-06-27T09:37:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, anyone who has a passion for photography can make money selling stock photographs. The following are some tips for success in stock photography.

1. Understand the process
Microstock companies such as Depositphotos, Jupiter Images, Fotolia and iStock Photo sell inexpensive stock images, videos, animations and illustrations submitted by various amateur and professional artists. However, the membership and technical requirements vary from one company to another. Once you have signed up on any of these sites, you can then begin uploading your photos. The photos which are accepted will be included in the site’s stock inventory. If someone buys your photo, you are paid a commission.

Learn other ways of Making Money Online

Many people have the misconception that selling stock photos is a way of making easy money. However, it takes a lot of time and effort to create a significant portfolio of photos before you achieve any meaningful profits. In addition, payment systems vary from one company to another. Usually, it is either a low flat fee or a commission anytime your images are bought. You have the liberty to submit your photos to different agencies. If your work sells well, an agency might offer you an exclusive contract, meaning that you can only sell your images through that site.

2. Submit designer-friendly images
Take time to think about where your photo could eventually end up. It might be a marketing brochure, a website, a restaurant or a print publication. In many cases, your images will not be used as they appear. Buyers are likely to crop, manipulate or dissect images acquired from microstock agencies. You should therefore make sure your images are something which can be worked on by a designer.

Usually, designers look for photos which have lots of space which can be used to add text. You need to make sure that each of your photos has a minimal number of elements. Unless they are an important part of the image, things such as passers-by and vehicles should not appear in the background.

However, you need to remember that microstock buyers are not necessarily seeking fine art. The fact that an image is beautiful does not mean that it will sell well. Go for simple, utilitarian photos which are focused on a specific theme.

3. Do your homework
Find out what subjects the microstok company is interested in, what their technical requirements are, and what kind of images sell best. Since they receive numerous submissions on a regular basis, agencies are usually very selective about the images they accept. One of the best places to begin is the FAQ section.

However, since requirements are always changing, you might not get all the information there. To stay abreast of trends, observe the moods and styles of the current popular images. Regularly add relevant and fresh images to your portfolio so as to ensure a constant flow of income.

4. Take care of legal issues
Regardless of its quality, an image which is not 100 percent legal won’t be accepted by any agency. Make sure you sign model releases if there are people appearing in your photos. This applies to professional models, as well as your family and friends. In addition, you need to scan your photos for any trademark violations. You are not allowed to have trademarked symbols, logos, sculptures or paintings in your photo’s background. Easily recognizable landmarks and products should also be eliminated or avoided. If the problem is minor, it can be easily dealt with using Photoshop.

5. Learn to overcome rejection
When starting out, it is highly likely that very few of you photos will be accepted. This should not discourage you into giving up. Instead, find out what you need to improve in your images. Some agencies will immediately explain the reasons why your photo was not accepted. If they don’t, take the initiative to ask for feedback.

Also Read - Why Not To Use Generic Photos

Author: Charles Mburugu is a professional blogger who likes sharing tips for internet marketers. Currently, he is writing for a blog which offers Jupiter images promotion code and review for istockphoto. He also writes about social media and blogging tips.

Sony Xperia U - NXT Series Sony Smartphone

2012-06-27T06:03:00.002-07:00

The global sales of Sony smartphones have increased tremendously with the launch of their latest Xperia handsets: the Xperia U, S and P. Of them, the popular one which topped the smartphone chart is Xperia U. Its the latest Android powered next generation Sony smartphone to experience unlimited audio and video with an incredible 3D surround sound.

Compared to other Xperia smartphones, Xperia U is the smallest one having 3.5" TFT display. The handset comes in a bar-shape and is complimented by its slim and elegant design. This latest Android phone is clearly targeted for the younger generations, but its affordable price tag and decent hardware specifications make it a perfect choice for everyone.

Here, is a basic review on Sony Xperia U.

For:

Super fast and incredible Internet experience.

On-screen display looks perfect.

Dualcore Scorpion chip performance is top-notch.

Runs on Android 2.3.7 (Gingerbread).

Can be upgraded to Android 4 OS.

Can be customised with changeable bottom caps.

Against:

Can shoot videos at 720p only.

Supports only 4GB with no storage expansion.

Browser provided on Xperia U feels outdated.

Its rivals are even more slimmer.

Xperia U Look & Feel:

Xperia U is designed perfectly to fit into your pockets or bags. The interchangeable coloured caps and glowing transparent bar are a plus for Xperia U smartphone. The only concern for this handset is that it feels tiny in the hands, despite its good-looking build features.

Interface:

Xperia U has the same Sony interface that is commonly noticed on many Xperia series smartphones. Little modifications and tweaks are added to the lock screen, and it comes with 5 home screens to add your own icons and widgets. Xperia U even dedicates an entire home screen page to the social sites.

Display:

As a mini version of Xperia S, the Xperia U comes with a touch plastic with strange mixtures of sharp angles and curves. It has charming, intriguing design along with a nice strip that also lights for alerts and notifications. The capacitive touchscreen is responsive, and the display supports 16M colours. The device supports multi-touch, and the display is protected by Sony's scratch resistant glass.

Hardware:

Xperia U is a decent 3.5-inch smartphone that feels comfortable in the hands. The device has a thickness of 12mm, but it has a nice curve at the back that makes it feel like a thinner device. Xperia U is powered by Sony's custom dual-core NovaThor 1GHz processor and has 512MB of RAM. Its power button is located on the right side. This is annoying for some smartphone users who prefers it to be at the top of the device.

Camera:

One would expect 8 megapixel camera for a Xperia smartphone, but to their disappointment the latest Xperia U Android smartphone comes with a modest 5 MP (2592 x 1944 pixels) camera, along with a LED flash support. The camera is somewhat tricky to operate with its two buttons. The decent camera app delivers a quick response on time. Also, you get a pop-up preview to check your recent snaps. Xperia U camera supports Geo-tagging, 3D Panorama view, image stabiliser along with smile detection feature.

Media:

Music playback is one area where Sony performs much better than its rivals in the Android market. The player has a simple interface and supports many formats including SMF, MP3, Ogg and WAV. Efficient graphic equaliser is added to alter the output. This smartphone can handle Mpeg4 video files up to 720p resolution and doesn't support Xvid or DivX.

Battery:

Xperia U is powered by 1320 mAh powerful battery decent for many hours of entertainment playing your favourite music and videos. The handset lasts for about 472 hours when on standby and up to 5hrs when listening to music or playing games.

Final Words:

Xperia U is a good choice having bright screen with good pixel density, inspiring design, removable battery, and strong loudspeaker. This Sony smartphone just needs an improvement in the 5MP shooter camera department. Otherwise, it's a decent handset for the price.

Author Bio-
Sienna Williams is a techno junkie who loves to write articles and blogs on latest mobile phones. She also writes a lot of reviews and news on modern technology gadgets. Visit http://www.fonebank.com/ for more mobile related information.

Chitika Vs Adbrite - CPC CPM Earnings Comparison

2012-06-27T05:53:00.005-07:00

There are so many advertising networks these days and they are all in competition with each other and are hence striving to gain the upper-hand over others.So with this competition among the different ad networks, there is bound to exist some comparisons between them.So today we are comparing Chitika Vs Adbrite to see which one of them is the better paying ad network.We will also be seeing the other factors such as quality and variety of ads, ad-fill rate and payment process and ease of working.

Average CPC and Average CPM
Chitika - From my experience of using Chitika, I would say that for USA clicks, you get around 5 to 10 cents maximum.Avera CPM was usually around 15 or 20 cents.

Adbrite - From my experience of using Adbrite, I would say that for USA clicks, you get around 10 cents average, I have noticed a few clicks going up to 80 cents.Average CPM for PPC ads were around 40 cents but for Interstitial ads it was well over 2$.

Quality Of Ads
Chitika - Very Poor: They seem to be running a scheme where they display "Answered-Questions" ads, which is their own property and when someone clicks this, they go to a page with Adsense Ads.You can imagine what is going on here.

Adbrite - Okay: They have a large number of advertisers but extremely untargeted.There are a few big companies advertising with Adbrite but these are few and far between.

Ad-Fill Rate:
Chitika - Very Poor: They have very poor ad coverage, only USA and Canada traffic gets at-least 50% ad-fill, the Asian countries get almost next to zero ad-fill.

Adbrite - Poor: They have a decent ad coverage, but sometimes we end up seeing blank spaces and "Advertise Here" ads.These may be intentionally shown as they are free advertising for adbrite itself.

Payments:
Both Adbrite and Chitika are prompt in their Payment.They payout as they say.

Customer Service:
Chitika: Good.They reply quickly and try to solve the problems of the publishers and advertisers.

Adbrite: Poor.They are not very prompt in returning queries made by publishers and advertisers.

Overall I would rate Adbrite as a better ad network than Chitika, but this is just my experience of using both the ad networks, please share your experiences by commenting below!

Also Read -
Best CPC Ad Networks
Best CPM Ad Networks
Admaya Review
Adsense Alternatives

Geeks & Nerds Online

How To Find Games For Your Linux OS

Software repositories

Manual downloads

Games sources

The Page Rank Table - Value Of Each Page Rank

PageRank Calculation

What Other Factors Decide The Value Of A Link, Other Than Page Rank?

Backlinks Vs Social Signal SEO - Matt Cutts' Thoughts

What are Social Signals?

Here is what Matt Cutts had to say about social signals and SEO -

Why Backlinks are more important than Social Signals?

Labnol Hacked - All Amit Agarwal's Sites Deleted

How I Came To Know That Labnol Was Hacked?

How Could Hackers Hack Labnol?

How Did Labnol Come Back Live Again?

What Did Amit Agarwal Have To Say About The Hacking?

Tips For Getting Approved By BuySellAds

How to get accepted into BuySellAds?

4Th Of July Logos From Google Yahoo! And Bing

Google

Yahoo!

Bing

How To Add Twitter To Google+?

So how to install this twitter application for Google+?

Page Load Speed And SEO - Matt Cutts

Is Page Speed A Very Important SEO Factor?

Why Page Speed Is Important?

What Can You Do To Improve Your Page Speed?

Best WordPress SEO Plugins 2012

Top WordPress SEO Plugins

Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin:

All-In-One SEO Plugin:

SEO Smart Link WordPress Plugin:

Easy WP SEO Plugin:

Image ALT Optimization Plugin:

Smart 404 Plugin:

Google Nexus 7 Tablet - Features - Price In India

Reviewing The Specs

Designing

Display

Any Bummers?

How Google Treats Affiliate Links In Terms Of SEO

What Are Affiliate Links?

Affiliate Link SEO - Matt Cutts

Affiliates Recognized By Google

Unknown Affiliates

Next Page Rank Update July 2012?

What Can We Expect In The Next Page Rank Update?

How To Avoid The Page Rank Drop In The Next PR Update?

SEO Tips For Blogger Blogs | Blogspot SEO

Why Is It Important to do SEO for Blogger Blogs?

Good SEO Practices for Blogger/Blogspot Blogs

Great SEO begins with Great Content

Keywords

Meta Tags

Best Blog Post Title Pattern

Permalink Structure For Blogger Blogs

Backlinks

Internal Linking For Blogger Blogs

Sitemaps For Blogger Blogs

Have A Sitemap Page

Spam Links From UpDowner.com? What To Do?

What is "Disavow" Links? What is its SEO Use?

What is "Disavow"?

Why to Disavow Links?

How to Disavow Links?

Things to remember while your are disavowing links

Add Custom Permalink In Blogger Blogs

What is a Permalink?

Why Use Custom Permalink?

What Is The Right Permalink Structure?

So how to add custom permalink in Blogger?

Google Panda Update - June 21 2012

Check For Google Panda Penalty On Your Blog

Google Webmaster Tools Warning

Do A Simple Site Search

Check Page Speed

Ray William Johnson Height Weight And Ethnicity

Ray William Johnson's Height