BLOG TALK AREA

Pros and Cons of allowing a Guest Post in your Blog

2011-06-22T05:36:00.000-07:00

Articles are the real performers after a blog is ready. A well written, unique and SEO friendly articles are the secret of success that everyone today realize. So , Webmasters are always in search of good articles and always sort of new articles, no matter what.

So How about allowing Guest posts? You get good articles for free.

Pros ( Advantages ) of Allowing Guest post-

1. You get free article or content to publish on your blog.

2. Improves the authenticity and builds a Brand for your establishing blog.

3. Your relationship and popularity improves on Blog sphere.

4. You get extra traffic and returning visitors as well.

5. You get extra publicity as the Guest Writer will equally promote the article from his /her side.

6. You are likely to get good comments and feedback.

7. One Guest post opens the door for Dozen others.

Cons ( Disadvantages) of allowing Guest post-

1. If you are not resilient about Guest posting Policy, you may have to compromise the quality of your blog and sway from the actual blog theme.

2. You will require to provide backlinks, which at times may be very irrelevant. Eg. casino site links on Yoga blog.

3. Some people may be advertising on your blog free, in form of guest article.

This needs to be explained.

Suppose a website A wants to get backlinks from Site B or wants an article supporting its product to be published in it.

Lets say Arjun is the middle person ( Advertising firm) , So Arjun knows Site B accepts guest posts.
Arjun gets the Offer and decides to take the opportunity. So he contacts Site B offering them Guest post.
Site B team is happy and accepts the offer. Arjun Writes a short 400 word article with 2-3 genuine links and 1 Sponsored link linking to Site A. So if it gets published.
Arjun can keep the fortune all for himself. That may range in double figures to triple figure.

4. As explained above you may be losing the Advertising income opportunity as well.

But there is always some requirements for a blog to get Guest articles.

1. Your blog must have a high traffic

2. Your blog must have a good pagerank

Else , you will not get much guest post offers.

Even this suggest , most times Guest post is targeted for Pagerank and traffic.

But saying this we must not be fully Pessimistic and against the Guest post. There are wonderful writers around the internet who are looking for popularity and chance to get established in internet. Such writers may decorate your Blog with high quality articles.

Content Scrapers on the loose, Save your blog

2011-06-21T06:42:00.000-07:00

Have you been troubled by Automatic Content Scraping Blogs?
This has been a Big headache for Sincere webmasters and writers in the internet for last few years. Automatic content scapers that use your Website content , Feeds to copy and republish your articles on their Spam Blog ie SPlogs.
Frequently you can come across sites marketing such Splog Auto-blogs that offers you such scraping tools for as low as $60." And Is that what all your Hardwork is Worth?"

Common Nature of Splogs-
1. Usually a wordpress blog
2. Unmanaged template ( theme) with no contact information and About pages.
3. Mixture site that scrapes from >3 sites of different topics like health, entertainment, diet etc
4. Stuffing Adsense ads improperly over others content. That's the real purpose of such Splogs.
5. Often images pulled directly form the original website.
6. Links may reveal the original website.

7. Content are not managed.
8. Domain owners identity is often hidden or if found will be owing 10+ other domains.

How Spam Blogs can affect your Website?
1.Most painful scene is when a Spamblog ranks above you in searches for the same content that took you days of research and hours of editing to complete and publish.They will compete with you for the same Keywords without much hardwork.
2.Even if it doesn't rank well, it will affect your search ranking negatively as you'll have duplicate website of your site in the internet.
3.Hotlinking image from your site will suck up your Bandwidth.
4.Sometimes you'll need to Change your feed Publishing from Complete feed to Summary, that will affect your subscribers. This may be the last option when you need to protect your content from Feed scrapers.
5. You'll have to go through a Headache of filing a DMCA complain and other uninvited workloads.

What can you Do against Such Blogs? Read How to Report a Content theft

The Content Scrapers are on the loose in the Internet, like the Virus, like the Trojan and we're sorry to say it's very difficult to Deal with them. Since they have nothing to lose, we are at loss at most times.
If any site is republishing from your Feed the best thing you can do to Save Your Blog is to Change the Feed Publishing to FEED SUMMARY.

Create Free website or blog for $0

2011-06-20T07:13:00.000-07:00

Before investing on Domain and Webspace, you may wish to experience the taste of wordpress.org blogging with out investing a dime. And moreover you may not want to risk your investment on something you are not sure of. " But what if you got to experience real web-hosting at $0.00?"

What do you need to do to get free web-hosting ( you'll need basic webhosting knowledge )

1.Get a free domain name from co.cc. You can get a free domain name Here AT CO.CC, eg. free-web-design.co.cc.

2.Second thing you need, is a free Webspace to host your blog or website. Here is list of top 5 free webhosting sites that provides you webspace for free. I recommend you 000webhost as it is worth trying- 1.5 GB space, 100 GB bandwidth.

3.Use a free blogging platform. I recommend wordpress which is most popular these days. In paid hosting like Hostgator , cpanel provides an easy and swift hassle free way to install wordpress and create your database via Fantastico application. But 000webhost hasn't this facility for free users but you can rely on their stability. You can download latest wordpress free at www.wordpress.org and install it manually using FTP clients like Filezilla. You can download Filezilla free as well.

4.Integrate your domain name with your Nameserver.

5.Create a database through the control panel provided by your webhost.

6. Open your website using your domain name in address bar and follow the instructions to integrate your database to wordpress.

7.Log In your wordpress and make your first post. Your Free Website or Blog is ready.
You can install few plug-ins necessary http://www.blogtalkarea.com/2010/11/15-must-have-plugins-for-wordpress.html

Free Web-hosting may work well for you but will not meet your full expectations. When you are ready for the investment and confident as a webmaster, go for Payment schemes like shared hosting, VPS etc

Adbrite Works Better for Video and Gaming Blogs

2011-06-16T07:48:00.000-07:00

Adbrite which is a said Adsense alternative is better for sites with large number of impressions and less conversion.

Adbrite are now into the business for years but not much improvement has been seen both in terms ofpayement as well as progress. Bloggers still Grade it in "B", just an alternative for people banned fromadsense. In many aspects they are right. Adbrite could do much better if they can keep their
publishers happy.

One aspect where adbrite seems to work better is Video sites, Video channels , Joke sites, gaming sites ieSite that have not much conversion rate or CPC and rather have a pretty large page impressions.
As adbrite banners and full-page ads, pay on the basis of impressions rather than clicks, they perform better on these sites.

Example-
In Adsense:
You have a video site with 10,000 impressions per day, your CTR is low 0.1-0.3%, CPC is low as well 0.05-0.09
Your earning = 10000 X 0.2% X 0.07 ( all averages taken). = $1.4

Now Experiment with adbrite-
Currently , lets see here , adbite is making $0.08 per 300 views per adbanner on video site ( fact data)
ie In 10000 views- Earnings will be $2.66 ( As per estimation from data) per adbanner
So if you put 3 banners in your site Leaderboard, Large squares. You'll be making $8.00 per 30,000 ad impressions ie 10,000 page views( 3 ads per page in 10000 views = 30,000 impressions)

And this is the possiblility with Adbrite. For those who have failed to perform with CPC ads go for CPMads.
This is best for Small to medium scale blogs but giant sites have been using adbrite as well.

But If we see,
When you have huge traffic to you site-
There are better CPM adnetworks with lucrative payments like

TribalFusion
Technorati media
Value click
Burstmedia
Casalemedia etc.

So keep experimenting and try your luck.

How does Project wonderful work?

2011-06-12T06:13:00.000-07:00

For Bloggers who want some wonderful advertising as Projectwonderful says " We make advertising wonderful". Projectwonderful can be entertaining as well when you can see people bidding each other for your adspace. It is said that Projectwonderful lets you keep all you earn.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
Demonstration-
Suppose
You have set up 125 X125 adspace on your sidebar and set no minimum bid ie $0.0 for all traffic.
( Remember you can set bid values for US,Cananda, Europe and rest of the World traffic separately)

Ram comes and advertises his blog for free until he receives a competitors bid. Only then your ad space value will go up.

Lets say Ravan bids $0.05 on the adspace . Now Ram needs to Bid more to get back his ads.

Ram now bids $0.10 for the space and again Ravan pays $0.15 for the space.
( Note All these amount are for 1000 visitors or for 1 day, although it looks small amount if you get consistent bids the amount can be good in one month)

Now Sita is not worried about funds and she wants to have her ads on your blog. She doesn't want to be bothered by small bidders so she pays a good $0.40 per day. Then other bidders give up.

Now if Sita pays you consistently then you'll be earning $12 in a month.

You can then withdraw your earnings into your paypal after minimum amount $10 has been earned. each payment costs you $1, ie when you withdraw $10 you'll get $9.Unlike Adbrite and Adsense which have fixed time payment.
Else you can use the fund to bid on others site with your banner.

Advertising Formats
Images- no flash

Cost per Day (CPD)
Cost per Million (CPM)

What Ad sizes are available on PW?

Button 117 X 30
Square 125 X125
Half banner 234 X 60
Banner 468 X 60
Leaderboard 728 X 90
Rectangle 300 X 250
Sky scraper 160 X 600

Why use Projectwonderful?

1. Good for small blogs who do not get direct advertising offers

2. Fund you collect can be used to promote your blog using PW itself via advertising.

3. Playing with PW is fun.

4. Links can be made no follow and ads load fast.

5. Wide variety of ad sizes.

6. Minimum payment is $10

7. You get 100% of your earnings.

Why not to use Projectwonderful?

1. It can cheapen you ad space as most time you get low bids or nil for ad space.

2. You may lose potential advertisers to you blog. So not recommended for blogs that sale direct ads.

3. I recommend you to set minimum bid above $0.00 else you'll be advertising for free most of the time. But you may never get advertisers if you put up minimum bid.

4. Ads are low quality images and may ruin the looks of your site.

So Try PW only if it suits you.

How to buy NTC GSM recharge cards online via ESEWA

2011-06-11T02:09:00.000-07:00

Esewa is providing online recharge facility for NTC GSM and CDMA.If you have a Esewa account, there is no problem but if you don't have one you need to get it. And you'll need fund in your account, you can deposit money in your account via Esewa recharge Card or via Partner banks. Right now paypal has been disabled.

Steps to Buy Recharge Card for NTC GSM-
1. Log In your Esewa account
2.Check your available Balance at left top area
3.Go to Buy Recharge Cards >>> NTC GSM recharge cards
4.Select the amount you want to recharge eg. 100,200,500
5.Submit and Confirm

6. Your Recharge code will appear.
7. Use the same 411*recharge code# to recharge your number.
8. Incase you miss recharging at the moment, you can see your online recharge card in your email as well.

Esewa has made life easier in a way that now we don't need to rush to the shop when ever balance is low, just buy it via internet.

Buysellads : Review for Publishers and Advertisers

2011-04-10T03:16:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest broker in the advertising market is Buysellads.com . Allowing its publishers upto 75% of the money , Buysellads offers one of the highest percentage, than more than 68% of adsense . Another is CMFads which claims to offer publishers 100% income.

Buysellads basically focuses on leasing your Website’s adspace. It works on monthly flat rates or CMP rates. Now even Sponsored tweets are available at buysellads. Minimum purchase price for advertisers is $10 per month for a space.

Buysellads offers variety of banner sizes, ranging from 125 X 125 ads to Leatherboards of 728X 90. Publishers can even create custom banner sizes and allow banner+text advertisements.

Advantages for Advertisers-

1. You can invest flat rates as per your ad impressions per month. You know how much you are paying for advertisement. Eg. $100/month for leatherboard ads in the centerbottom area on a health site with 100K impressions per month.

2. You can choose variety of Banner sizes, buttons, text ads and even advertise on sofwares.
3. Sponsored tweet of your business is available as per twitter fans.
4. You can design your own attractive banner.
5. You get the real stastics, Click through and performance of your banner.
6. You can advertise on package instead on wasting time browsing through sites. Eg Entertainment package, Apple package etc.
7. Buysellads make sure than your ads are intact throughout the month.

Advantages for Publishers

1. Not all advertisers can easily trust smaller to medium websites and blogs. Buysellads offers them a good opportunity to get exposed and link to adverts.
2. You get flat-rates, you don’t have to worry about eCPM . You are sure how much you are earning.
3. Faster loading banners that doesn’t compromise siteload speed too much.
4. You get high 75% earning. 25% is the service charge of Buysellads.
5. Rotating banners can be used that will make site look cleaner with less ads.
6. You can use adsense side-by-side, so you’ll make a good earning.

Disadvantages-

1. Clickthroughs cannot be guarenteed for your investment in case of advertisers.
2. No referral earning system.
3. It’s hard to get accepted in buysellads for smaller publishers.
4. Larger trusted publishers will be losing money , as they will have to share with broker. OIO publisher is a good option for sites who want full control. Problogger uses OIOpublishers.

Payment-

You can get pain via Paypal, Check or Wiretransfer.

So, overall Buysellads is an efficient, trustworthy and simple means of advertising in the blogging world.

Beware of Scams : Read if you are planning to buy Cellphone or Ipad

2011-01-12T09:19:00.000-08:00

Ads are posted in this manner in Hamrobazar:

Are the Scams? Most Probably they are...

"We are BULK PRODUCTS LIMITED ® .strive to offer high-quality products at competitive prices. All of our products are brand new, never used, never rebuilt. We maintain multiple-supplier sources for our products as a means of being able to continually offer the best products at the best prices.

Apple iPhone 4 is the fourth-generation of iphone and comes with a new slimmer design and front-facing camera capable of video calling. apple also updated the display with a high-resolution screen that measures 960 x 640 pixels. It also features a 5 megapixel camera with an LED flash and HD video recording. The front facing camera uses an application called facetime to make video calls over wifi.

Package content:
* 1 Apple iPhone 4 Phone
* 1 Battery
* 1 Charger
* 1 Stereo Handsfree
* 1 User’s Guide

APPLE MOBILE PHONE:
Apple iphone 4G HD 32GB (Unlocked) - $300usd
Apple iphone 4G HD 16GB (Unlocked) - $280usd
Apple iPhone 3GS 32GB (Unlocked) — 250usd
Apple iPhone 3GS 16GB (Unlocked) — 200usd

APPLE IPAD:
Apple iPad Tablet PC 64GB Wifi + 3G (Unlocked) -- $350usd
Apple iPad Tablet PC 32GB Wifi + 3G (Unlocked) -- $300usd

BLACKBERRY MOBILE PHONE :
blackberry 8700g -- $300usd
blackberry 8800 --- $270usd
blackberry 9630 sprint -- $270usd
blackberry bold 2 9700 -- $250usd
blackberry bold 9000 --- $200usd

HTC MOBILE PHONE:
HTC Desire HD -- $300usd
HTC HD ---- $270usd
HTC HD 2 --- $300usd
HTC Legend -- $250usd
HTC Pro 2 --- $230usd

NOKIA MOBILE PHONE:
Nokia X6 32GB -- $300usd
Nokia N900 32GB -- $250usd
Nokia N97 32GB --- $230usd
Nokia x3 --- $150usd

SAMSUNG LED LCD 3D TELEVISION
Samsung 55" (140cm) Series 9 3D Full HD LED TV - UA55C9000 - Flagship Model --- $ 1,500USD
Samsung UA55C7000 55" 3D LED TV --- $900USD
Samsung UA40C7000 40" 3D LED TV --- $800USD
Samsung UA40C5000 40" LED TV --- $650USD
Samsung UA46C6900 46" Full HD LED TV --- $700USD
Samsung UA46C7000 46" 3D LED TV -- $720USD
Samsung UA65C8000 65" 3D LED TV --- $2,000USD
55" Series 7 LED TV UA55B7100WF --- $1,300USD
Samsung UA55C8000 55" 3D LED TV --- $ 1,300USD
Samsung UA55C6900 55" Full HD LED TV --- $1,250USD
Samsung UA55B6000 55" Full HD LED TV --- $1,200USD
Samsung UA55C9000 55" 3D LED TV --- $1,400USD
Samsung UA55B8000 55" LED LCD TV --- $1,250USD
Samsung UA46C8000 46" 3D LED TV --- $900USD

Contact details below... we await your mail

Buyer's Speak

Don't say payment should be online else u r FAKERS. the price is less than half of each cell i have ever known. So, this is not true. It might be Chinese replica though.

See more Reactions:

"online iphone kinnus bhanera add.. ayeko sabai fatah haru ho hai.........paisa magcha ani saman aaudaina....
mero pani paisa fasisakyo...
nepal ko online kinne system baneko nai chaina..
ani sachai ho bhanepani curior wala le curior garna mandaina pani
yo sabai online lutera haru hun......."

So BEWARE, think before you Buy online, specially if you are buying from unheard website or people.

Esewa Paypal service Down : Will it recover?

2011-01-12T09:02:00.000-08:00

One of the Nepals first online transaction and shopping site Esewa seems to have failed in its Beta version. Esewa was providing a good means of transaction to Nepalese. As paypal cannot receive payments in Nepal people could use Esewa to transfer funds to Nepal via Paypal to Esewa service.

But its been about a month now that the service is down and there is no any updates of it being re-established. I only hope that the transaction from paypal to esewa weren't carried out without Paypal's recognition. Else why would it fail now?

Whatever may be the cause , Nepalese have lost the touch with the online market. Blame this Government, this economy system and our Backwardness in 21st Century. Why is Paypal not able to receive payments in our Country?

On the facebook page of esewa, The moderator of the page has written

"eSewa-Nepal First Online Payment Gateway Sorry Tajim for late response. Currently, the service is blocked and we are looking for some stayble and reliable way to interact with paypal so the service is currently down. If we think the service is still not stayble then we may down it but will inform all our customers."

Hope they'll soon find a stable way else , Esewa may not be the same in the future.
We wish them Goodluck

Web Traffic dips during Christmas and Newyear

2010-12-29T18:11:00.001-08:00

Have you been paranoid about your recent fall in traffic? Have you checked your google listings, page rank, analytics, webmastertools for the same reason? Has your adsense earnings fallen to pennies?

If Yes, we recommend you to wait until the 2nd week on January. Your traffic should gradually come back to normalcy. According to web research, it is seen that the traffic to almost every site starts falling 1 week before the Christmas until 1 week after the new year as much as 30-50% with similar dip in advertisement earning. It is a "Holiday-effect" and according to our theory its time to take a short break from blogging and enjoy like everyone else.

Now you know where your visitors are?

Paradoxically, the sites like Amazon.com, Bestbuy.com, gift websites, travel websites have drastic boost in traffic. The reason is obvious.

Reason for Downfall of Blogcatalog : What might have happened?

2010-11-19T19:57:00.000-08:00

Blogcatalog is one of the most popular and recommended Blog directory and Blogger's Social Network on the internet. What actually made blogcatalog different from other blog directories? It's interactive discussion section with active discussions on both blogging and non-blogging related topics was the reason why people spent plenty of their time in the site and this determined its uniqueness. It mediated as a social site for the bloggers of different parts of the world and different niche.

I used blogcatalog as:

Social site
Blog Directory
Blogging Forum

Reasons for the downfall of Blogcatalog

I know money is important but the blogcatalog team didn't know it would cost this huge. They introduced
"Expose yourself" scheme and the messages that we recieved after every blog exposure that we got from the admins were equivalent to spams.

Nature of discussions
Blogging related discussions started getting less priority and many serious bloggers lost interest.

Theme change:
Blogcatalog changed itself completely from design to many of its features
The Discussion section is changed to "Connect" which is very much user unfriendly

Read these discussions: BC is dying and Is it just me

Statistics as an evidence:

Alexa:

Compete:

Old BlogCatalog:

How to add Breadcrumbs for Blogger Blogs?

2010-11-19T19:54:00.000-08:00

A breadcrumb trail is a navigation tool that allows a user to see where the current page is in relation to the Web site's hierarchy. It typically appears horizontally near the top of a Web page, providing links back to each previous page that the user navigates through in order to get to the current page. It is best when it appears just above your post body above the title of your post. While it makes navigation easy for your blog readers, it can also add SEO value to your blog.

Read more about Breadcrumbs : SEO and best practices @ Searchenginejournal

Blogtalksite features Breadcrumb navigation between "Featured Article" and "Post Body" section.

Breadcrumbs is one of the popular features of wordpress available readymade in themes or the plugins are available that automatically adds it. By, this time you must have already noticed that tweaking blogger is much of a manual work.

How to add breadcrumbs to blogger blogs?

1. Sign in to your blogger dashboard

2. Navigate to "Edit Html" under the "Design" tab
3. Click on "Expand widget templates" so that you can insert the code snippets between widgetized area of your blogger template
4. Copy this code snippet:<b:include data='posts' name='breadcrumb'/> and paste it just below <b:include data='top' name='status-message'/>.

5. Now replace the code line <b:includable id='main' var='top'> with the code given below

<b:includable id='breadcrumb' var='posts'> <b:if cond='data:blog.homepageUrl == data:blog.url'> <b:else/> <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'> <p class='breadcrumbs'> <span class='post-labels'> <a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl' rel='tag'>Home</a> <b:loop values='data:posts' var='post'> <b:if cond='data:post.labels'> <b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'> <b:if cond='data:label.isLast == "true"'> » <a expr:href='data:label.url' rel='tag'><data:label.name/></a> </b:if> </b:loop> <b:else/> »Unlabelled </b:if> » <span><data:post.title/></span> </b:loop> </span> </p> <b:else/> <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "archive"'> <p class='breadcrumbs'> <span class='post-labels'> <a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl'>Home</a> » Archives for <data:blog.pageName/> </span> </p> <b:else/> <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "index"'> <p class='breadcrumbs'> <span class='post-labels'> <b:if cond='data:blog.pageName == ""'> <a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl'>Home</a> » All posts <b:else/> <a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl'>Home</a> » Posts filed under <data:blog.pageName/> </b:if> </span> </p> </b:if> </b:if> </b:if> </b:if> </b:includable> <b:includable id='main' var='top'>

6. Now its time for styling your breadcrumb navigation using css:

.breadcrumbs {
background:#fff;-moz-border-radius-topleft:2px;-moz-border-radius-topright:2px;-webkit-border-top-left-radius:2px;-webkit-border-top-right-radius:2px;-moz-border-radius-bottomleft:2px;-moz-border-radius-bottomright:2px;-webkit-border-bottom-left-radius:2px;-webkit-border-bottom-right-radius:2px;
padding:5px 5px 5px 5px;
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
font-size:95%;
line-height: 1em;
}

Paste this css code just above the ]]></b:skin> tag.

Special thanks to bloggerplugins.org

Blogger : Know your post editor

2010-11-19T19:53:00.000-08:00

I had been using blogger for the past 3-4 years but its only about 6 months that I've identified and started using various elements and features of blogger post editor while posting the articles. I actually don't remember whether these features were provided by Google blogger before or not but I've been enjoying more posting in blogs since I noticed them as the posts looks nice and it adds SEO benefit as well.

If you take a look at the top-right of your post-editor just below the title area, there are 2 tabs:

1. Edit HTML:

Always try using this while posting articles when you are using blogger. Why to use "Edit HTML" for posting?

a. It doesn't take text formatting copied from different sources and Microsoft word

b. Image SEO : May be you haven't yet relaized how important is adding "Alt" and "Title" attribute to the images but believe me this is really important for image search engines to find the images for correct keyword.

2. Compose : WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What You Get mode)
However, posting becomes more easier, simpler and quicker when using this mode. As the icons are available in the sink and you can easily use them without having knowledge of few codes. But what I usually do is use "Edit HTML" to copy the text from sources and use "Compose" mode for styling the texts and adding images and revert back to "Edit HTML" to add "Alt" and "Title" attributes to the images.

Various Elements of blogger post editor:

Look at the kitchen sink of icons or buttons in your post editor from left to right:

1. Undo : Reverts the last change you made in the post : Shortcut Key (Ctrl+Z)

2. Redo : Redo the change that you reverted using "undo" function : Shortcut Key (Ctrl+Y)

3. Font : For changing the font family but I usually don't use this because I like the font from my template.
4. Font size: For changing the font size but I don't use this as well for the same reason except for the <h3></h3> tags and <h1></h1> tags which adds SEO advantages.

5. Bold: For making the lines bold in the post which is especially used for the subtitles in your post.

6. Italics: Slants the selected texts and makes your post's look nicer when used properly. I use it along with "Quote" which will be discussed later in this article.

7. Underline: Underlines your selected text.

8. Strikethrough: Strikethrough (also called strikeout) is a typographical presentation of words with a horizontal line through the center of them. But I have not been able to identify for what purpose this is actually used and useful. However you can use it your own way. eg. ~~Bloger~~ Blogger

9. Text color: Adds color styling to your selected text in the post. Using this feature unnecessarily in my early blogging years created blogging horror to me later when I had to change the template of my blog from black to white one. So, don't use it to color all the texts of your post but use it just to make it attractive (using it on titles, important points,etc.).

10. Text background color: This is similar to a highlighter. It highlights the selected text with the color you choose. I have been using this feature to highlight code snippets in tutorials.

11. Link: Adding links to the selected anchor text. However to add "dofollow" or "nofollow" tags in the link you need to edit it in "HTML editor"

12. Insert image: Uploading images in your picasa account and displaying images in your post but I suggest you to insert image using "Compose" mode first and then add "Alt" and "Title" tags later using HTML editor.

13. Insert a video: Uploads videos in Google videos and displaying it in your post.

14. Insert a Jump Break: Limits your post shown in homepage and adds a "Read More" tag. Html code for this feature is </div>

15. Alignment: For aligning the selected text to left, center or right.

16. Numbered list: Adds numbering to the lines of your post.

17. Bullet list: Adds Bullet to the lines. One of the features I love and I use it frequently in the posts.

18. Quote: Depends upon the template but it usually margins the selected template to the left, adds a background color and may change the font. I always try to use this function so that the post looks magnificient. eg. Watch the starting texts of this post.

19. Remove formatting: Wow, I realize this feature just now while writing this post. So, there is no need to paste your post to HTML editor. It can remove text formatting.

20. Check Spelling: Use this to check the incorrect spellings in the post at the end just before posting when your post is ready .

21. Transliterate words: Transliterate the words typed phonetically in English script

Just above the "Publish post" button there is a link "Post Options" which when clicked expands:

Reader comments : Allow and Don't allow (show existing or hide existing comments)
Post date and time : Automatic and Scheduled at (post with date of your choice)
Edit HTML Line Breaks
Compose settings : Interpret typed HTML and Show HTML literally (useful when posting html codes for tutorials or any other purpose)

Success with own domain name for a Blog .com domain

2010-11-19T19:51:00.000-08:00

Finding success with blogging takes time, effort and enthusiasm.
Why to go for an Own domain Name?

My Blogging Tips
My first Medical blog wasn’t a real success, with more than 120 posts. The blog actually had a handful of visitors but the number always fluctuated throughout the year. Sometimes reaching 180 visitors per day and sometimes averaging at 30 per day. Page views was always an issue. I never crossed a 2.0 mark.

The Blogging platform was Blogger.com. I could never beautify my blog and one thing blogger lacked was the ’register member’ option that I always wanted in my blog.

After 3 years of blogging, creating many blogs, I found out a .com domain really mattered. It authorizes your blog specially when you are recommending some products or referring users somewhere. If you show up who you are, the blog becomes a better trustworthy blog.

Pros of Blogger-

Absolutely Free.
Unlimited Bandwidth
1 GB blog space + 1 GB for image on Picasa web albums.
No Server load issues.
Anonymity
Easy to learn, use and modify
Many scripts available that does the functions

Cons of Blogger-
• Limited Design
• Limited Functions
• SEO issue
• Authority issue ( as it is usually anonymous)
• Traffic issue ( I have not seen many blogspot’s with real traffic)
• Fully dependent on search traffic- Not many direct Visits.

Later , I moved to a .com domain, this time on wordpress platform ( wordpress.org).
It actually fulfilled all my drawbacks. I had login box, register capability, members who can post, menubars and everything. Over all I had a .com name which gave me lots of returning visitor and a mighty authority in Technorati as well.
Now I had really genuine interested visitors, most of whom were not bloggers. I had a good CTR . For the first time it was really working.

Pros of a .com domain:-
1. Direct and returning traffic.
2. Better exposure of your articles , better search engine ranks.
3. Better authority- Getting pingbacks and comments
4. Better marketing ( Sale Products, Referrals)
5. Better CTR in Adsense

Cons-
1. Monetary issue ( Pay for .com , and/or webspace, Remember- Blogger space can be used for .com domain.
2. Server overload problem, and bandwidth problem on self -hosted blogs.
3. You are responsible for what you write.

Adsense PIN not arrived? Follow these Instructions

2010-11-19T19:48:00.000-08:00

After reaching $10 in Adsense account, Google sends you PIN or Personal Identification Number through Mail. It is one vital confirmation one must pass before Google sends you Check or Pays you. But in many countries, Bloggers are having problem in receiving PIN due to various circumstances. In countries like Nepal, Bangladesh,India, Pakistan, China,Sri Lanka, Bhutan , African nations bloggers are having such difficulties.

Q: When is PIN released from Google?
A: After reaching about $10.00 in your adsense account

Q: How much time does it take to arrive?
A: Depending upon the country you live, it will take 3-6 weeks.

Q: My PIN did not arrive or I did not receive my PIN?
A: You can Request another PIN after 3 weeks of your previous PIN release up to 2 more times. Try to provide accurate address this time.Try adding a Post Box. Almost a certain solution.

Q: How does the letter from Google look like?

Q: Setting Address correctly in Adsense account.
A: Address line 1 : 123 Streetname
Address line 2 : House or Apartment Number
City : Your city name
State : Your state name
ZIP or Postal Code: You can find it here
Country.

Eg. For Nepal use this format :
Samakhushi-4,Samakhusi Chowk
P.O.Box : 12345 ( Use your own)
Kathmandu 44600
Nepal.

Q: I did not receive PIN after 3 times.
A: You can contact google, tell them your problem and send them scan of your Official Document with your identity. It must be in english .

Q: Within how much time must PIN be Inserted?
A: Within 6 months of 1st PIN issue, else Your account will be terminated.
After 4 months of 1st PIN issue your site will start showing Public service ads or Blank spaces until you insert PIN.

Q: I have verified my account using PIN but my site is displaying PSA ?
A: It will take sometime: minutes to hours. Once adsense BOT crawls your site it will be activated. Also you may be missing Privacy Policy in your site. Add it.

Q: Hurray I received my PIN
A: Congratulations!!!

Top 5 Free Web Hosts You Can Trust

2010-11-09T06:28:00.000-08:00

Staring at the title of this post you may be thinking : why to pay for web hosting when it is available freely in internet? Before beginning the post, I would like to make you clear: there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. The sole advantages of being "free" is followed by several limitations that you'll get acquaintance on further reading. If you are looking to create or host a website seriously, free webhosting is not for you.

When to choose a free web hosting?

If you are looking to experience blogging in self hosted CMS and blogging scripts like wordpress, joomla, drupal,etc , forum scripts like phpbb, punbb, vbulletin, bbpress,etc and lots of other kinds of scripts. Hosting your blog in self hosted scripts will overcome all the limitations that you have with free blogging services provided by blogger.com, wordpress.com, etc. So, you can test these scripts, and decide whether to move for paid webhosting or not.
If you are already using a self hosted scripts, you can make experiments with different plugins because plugins that are incompatible can generate errors and your blog/site may not open. Use it to tweak themes, and after you get the correct design, then change it in your website.
It can be used to host images, scripts, files, etc. for free but there are better alternatives available.

Limitations of free web hostings:

Instability and high down time rate
No ownership
Poor customer support
Advertisements from web hosts may be present
File upload size limitation
Mysql account number limitation
No Guarantee
Poor customer support
Inactivation after being idle for certain period of time

Excluding very few exceptions, these limitations imply to all the free web hosts. Many of them in this huge crowd make promises of being reliable but believe me : in this case promises are meant to be broken for sure. So, here is the list of best 5 free web hosts:

000webhost

This is truly an exception to the free web hosts available and it is know for its good services. I've hosted my sites with these web hosts for a considerable period of time without any significant problems except very short down times which is quiet frequent. After your account is approved you can create multiple websites with these webhosts.

x10hosting

I will always remember x10hosting.com for the performance which is better than most of the paid webhostings. Before they had policy for account inactivation after 10 days of inactivity which was the major drawback but now they seem to have changed it. But, I have not tried it after my account got inactivated.

Orgfree

Orgfree is the other name for stability and trust. The websites I created long ago still exists regardless of the inactivity for a long period. The hosting is pretty slow and they run ads on your site but its the name you can trust.

Awardspace

Awardspace is always remembered as a webspace provider with several awards in their name. Of quality matters and not quantity this is your right choice. It has an easy, organized web interface/control panel with lots of features and options.and the servers have relatively good uptime record.

Byethost
Speaking truth, I haven't tried their service but they seem to be one of the best free web hosts afters reading reviews on lots of sites.

The floor is open for the comments. Please share your experience with free web hosts and suggest other names which you think is reliable.

How to prevent content theft : Blogging Secrets

2010-11-08T07:16:00.000-08:00

How to punish them?
You take hours to write an article, after days of research and months of learning writing skill. But Someone out there may take all the benefit and credit.
Watch out for content thief !!

Next to click fraud , the problem of content theft is blooming and has been a headache of webmasters and writers on the internet. It takes a big effort to write , but just a click or two to copy and steal the content. “Ctr + C” “Ctr+ V” called Copy and paste.

Content theft is very hard to deal with or to stop. But there are ways be can fight back and even take back our credit for writings and articles.

What to do if someone has stolen your content?

If its your original article it is your right to ask that author to delete the post. Tell him about the copyright and ask him to remove the content or you will take necessary action. Action implies- Reporting the webhost to reporting to google to blacklist the site for the crime. But it is not as easy to take action. Lot easier if the ‘Threat’ works.

Punishment- Write on his comment box, on his wall, mail him, call him, to anything you can.

How to Prevent Content theft?

As I told you it’s very difficult to deal with these people. There was a blog that copied my 38 articles including images. I ask him kindly, explained my copyright and even threatened him. But he wouldn’t respond. So what do I do . I tried to file DMCA report on google but that was hectic.

So I changed the image he pulled from my site ( It was pulled from my blog address). eg it was eclampsia.jpg showing a female with seizures, I changed the pic and put another image with same name but in it I wrote ” This site steals content from ____.com) . Later I blocked the imgae hotlink and made his site appear ugly with “no image found” all over my articles. He stopped copying , I swear. It worked for me.

Prevention

Put a Clear Copyright and copyright law link or banner in your blog which is just a warning but copycats tend to ignore them.
Use Copyscape and Copygator to track your copied articles and also put ” this site is protected by Copyscape” banner.
You can disable right click in your site. Many wouldn’t bother and try copying , because they are naturally lazy ones.
You can put attribute to your site provided by Tynt.com . It attaches to everything copied from your blog automatically and provides you backlinks and even visitors. You get your credit.

Who copies your content? Read here

Hope my tips will help you.
Feedback are most welcome.

How to Create A Post or a Page in Blogger without Sidebar ?

2010-11-07T09:28:00.000-08:00

How to display custom google search result on your own site when the minimum width required for search results is 795px and your post area is far too small? This question may have haunted you and thats probably the reason you are here.

Using this code, your power to customize the page is not just limited to just removing the sidebar from a specific page. A little understanding of the given code gives you the ability to remove any component from a specific post or page using css.

<b:if cond='data:blog.url== "url of the post or page"'><style type='text/css'>#sidebar {display:none !important}.post{width:150%;}</style></b:if>

The given code snippet removes the sidebar and expands your post area to 150% only in the page with url that replaces "url of the post or page" in the above code.

Insert the code given above between <head> and <b:skin>

Click to enlarge

Since, this code may not be applicable for all templates (because the div classes and ids used for various elements in your template may not be the same as mine) you may need to tweak this code a little. I recommend you to use "Firefox browser with firebug plugin" or "Google Chrome" browser to begin with the customization. Using "inspect element" property in these browsers which appears when you right click on any object of your blogger blog to detect the "div id" or "div class" of the elements. Then determine their property using css.

I've created this page: http://blogtalksite.blogspot.com/p/homepage.html using the code visible just below.

<b:if cond='data:blog.url== "http://blogtalksite.blogspot.com/p/homepage.html"'>
<style type='text/css'>#header {display:none !important} #topnavbar{display:none !important}#NavbarMenu{display:none !important;}#sidebar {display:none !important}#middlebox {display:none !important;}#page{background:#ffffff !important}#start_message{display:none !important;}.post{width:182%;}.entry1 h2{display:none !important}.tags{display:none !important}.info{display:none !important;}.blog-pager{display:none !important}.blog-feeds{display:none !important;}#front-popular{display:none !important;}</style></b:if>



 Using the code written above I was able to:

Remove Header, Top navigation bar, menu bar, sidebar, middle box (popular posts, recent comments, subscribe), featured article section, post title, social sharing buttons, post footer and blog footer and expand my posts area to 182% for the given page.

Best SEO tips and tricks for Blogger Blogs

2010-11-06T23:34:00.000-07:00

Google provides Blogging Platform but it doesn't provide good rankings in search results for granted. There are several SEO holes that you need to fill manually and other holes that you can't fill despite of your awareness due to the fact that you owe no proper control of your blog. Use the techniques listed below to improve the SERP of your blog.

Insert Meta Tags in Template

When you have a self hosted wordpress (wordpress.org), you can use various plugins one of which is All in one SEO plugin which automatically adds meta tags to each and every post and also inserts canonical url property in your theme but in blogger you need to do it manually.

Find this code in you template:

<head> <b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>

Copy the given code just below the code given above:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "index"'> <title><data:blog.pageName/></title> <meta expr:content='data:blog.pageName' name='description'/> <b:else/> <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title> <meta content='KEYWORDS' name='keywords'/> <meta content='DESCRIPTION OR TAGLINE' name='description'/> </b:if>

If you use most of the code provided over internet, it effectively adds metal tags and description for your blog home page but the same meta tags and description implies for all of your posts which I believe isn't good from SEO point of view. So, the code given above automatically adds the separate post titles as meta description for respective posts. And the keywords and description for your blog that you input in 'KEYWORDS' and 'DESCRIPTION' respectively adds meta for your homepage. However it is slightly difficult to add post labels as meta tags for the posts. It should be done by keeping the duplicate post-body above the <head> which tends to give lot of validation errors.

Post Title | Site Title

Find: <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title> in your template and replace it with:

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

The given code should usually be just above <b:skin>

Canonical Url

Canonicalization is the process of picking the best url when there are several choices, and it usually refers to home pages. Canonicalization helps to reduce duplicate content issues. eg.:
http://www.abc.com/xyz
http://abc.com/xyz
When both of your 'www' and 'non-www' urls are indexed, it creates duplicate content issues within your own blog.
The problem with canonical urls has now been solved by Google Blogger. Find this code in your template:



 <b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/&gt;

If you find this code, you don't need to do anything. If not, copy and paste this code just below:



<head>

Learn More about Url Canonicalization @ Matt Cutts Blog

Post and Repost

One of the most important factor that determines the position of your page in search results is your post title and its url. So, optimize your post url such that it becomes keyword rich and optimize. In wordpress, you can customize the post url yourslef but you need to think a little curved to do this in blogger.

Have you ever noticed that when you edit and repost the same post with different title, the post title changes but the url remains the same. So, use this property of blogger to optimize your post title and url. First post the article with title rich in keywords and then edit it and repost it with title desgined to entice the internet users. While doing this, try using important keywords at the beginning of the title when you are posting for the first time as the keywords at the ends of long urls tend to be ignored.

eg.:
When you post articles for the 1st time:
Title: Best SEO tips tricks Blogger Blogs
Url: http://blogurl/date/best-seo-tips-tricks-blogger-blogs

Edit the post and change the title:
Title: Top 10 SEO tips and tricks for Google Blogger Blogs (Make it more attractive)
Url: http://blogurl/date/best-seo-tips-tricks-blogger-blogs (This won't change)

Improve the speed of your blog

Google has listed down the speed of blog as one of the criteria that determines your Search engine ranking. While you can use advanced methods like cache and gzip methods with your self hosted wordpress blogs, there are fewer methods you can opt in blogger to improve the page speed. This article by Yahoo Network about: Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Website is a very handy as it is based on years and years expereince of Yahoo Developers. While all the methods listed in that article is not applicable for blogger. Consider performing atleast the following methods:

Css compression : For beginners it may be a really difficult task to recognize css in blogger template. The css part for your blogger template is all that extends between <b:skin><![CDATA[ and </b:skin>. Use any of the various online CSS compressors to compress the Css. I've been using CSS drive CSS compressor since long.
Reduce the number of posts displaying in your home page
Don't use unnecessary javascripts and widgets
Use small images

Besides these you can use some more difficult methods like:

CSS sprites : it is based on combining all the images into a single image and positioning the small images using css as per the need of template. I will be talking about this in the upcoming posts.
Minifying and combining javascripts

One-way or Non-reciprocal Backlinks

This can be done in 2 ways:

Submit your blog in qualitative web and rss directories that offers you free one-way backlink. eg.: DMOZ and you can also do this by investing some money on paid listings, advertisements, etc.
Write unique and high quality articles so that others link you back from their blog.

Reduce the number of links in page

I have seen many blogger users using Blog Archives in their sidebar as widget. Since, archives are collection of links and there are too many links in it, its always better to keep the archives separately in a separate page or remove it. I have separately kept my archives in the page named Sitemap to avoid excessive links that appear along with each and every posts and pages which is not good from SEO point of view.

Link exchanges must be done with relevant sites. The links from irrelevant sites doesn't add much value to SEO.

Dofollow only important links and add nofollow tags to less important links. When you add a follow link, you are giving some share of your pagerank to the linked page. But use nofollow tags wisely and don't add nofollow tags to every link as google punishes such behaviour.

You can add nofollow tags by editing the html of your link:
eg.: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://blogtalksite.blogspot.com">Blogtlaksite</a>

Title and Alternative tags for images

In self hosted wordpress, there are plugins like "SEO image" whcich automatically adds Alt tags to images using the image file name and title.

Always add alt attributes to images. Alt is mandatory for accessibility and for valid XHTML.
For images that play only a decorative role in the page, use an empty alt (i.e. alt="")

eg.:<img src="/xyz.jpg" alt="Text so that search engine identifies what the image is about" title="title for your image" />

Google Webmastertools

Use Google webmastertools to detect your top keywords, links from and to your blog, crawl errors, submitting sitemap,etc.

Spam Comments

With the increasing number of blogs and bloggers everyday, spam blogs and spam comments are increasing. Everyone wants to promote their blog and sites through the blog or site of others. Irrelevant comments to your post decreases the keyword density of the post and the theme of the post may appear vague to the search engines.

So, for blogger blogs, set comment moderation "always" under the "comments" of "settings" in dashboard. And approve only relevant comments when you are dealing with these comments. In both wordpress.com and wordpress.org, a plugin called akismet can be used to filter spam comments.

Post clean posts

Avoid use of unnecessary codes in posts that occurs usually due to pasting the posts which are typed in Microsoft word as it is not good from SEO point.

This can be prevented by following ways:

Type your posts in notepad
Type your posts directly in blogger
Type your post in Word and paste it in the "Edit HTML" tab located top-right of your post area in blogger dashboard.

Alexa Ranking is not accurate, easily manipulable

2010-11-05T20:28:00.000-07:00

Alexa is one of the leading Web statistics and comparison site in the Internet. It is accurate for the sites with High traffic but not for smaller or medium traffic sites. It can be easily influenced by a single person's use.
Alexa Ranking is taken as reference in Website worth, Website value calculation, Website ranking by Many other sites around the internet. But..

How is Alexa Ranking made? What is it Based on?
Alexa ranking system is based on data it collects from the millions of alexa tool bar users around the internet.
It calculated ranking based on Number of visitors using alexa toolbar, number of pageviews from them and time on site.
So if your website is getting a 10,000visitors but only 10-20 use alexa toolbar you are likely to lag behind in the ranking to a Blog that receives 200 visitors per day with 50-60 viewers using alexa toolbar.
So I think it's rather irrelevant system.
http://merabheja.com/alexa-ranking-methodexplained/

Still its the reference of Internet Market, as Alexa ranking determines you ad space value and text link values.Advertisement ie Market.

What kind of sites have better Alexa Ranking?

Alexa ranking is accurate enough for Sites getting High traffic. Like Google, facebook, Youtube,twitter,etc which is of common use to all.
Blogs that provide blogging tips and tricks will have better ranking benefits as most visitors are bloggers and they usually have Alexa tool bar installed.
Similarly sites where people spend more time like Blogger,Wordpress, Paypal,Social sites, Video sites will tend to have better ranking.

Other sites will lose the ranking of Genuine visitors if Alexa can't measure it.

Example:-

When my website ( not this one , another dotcom site) was under construction , I used Firefox with alexa tool bar. I spend a lot of hours in the site. when I was getting not more than 50 visitors per day, I was ranked within top 500 thousand in alexa. Soon with a month my rank jumped to 200K and less than that.

I reviewed my rank in Alexa and found my average Pageviews aroung 10 that's unusual for my site and time on site was 14 minutes that was totally out of the track. I think my use of alexa toolbar singly Influenced the rank. Now Imagine how much you can improve your rank if you have 50 computers with alexa toolbar under your control.

Now, when I'm getting 30,000 visitors per day and 45K + pageviews my alexa ranking is dropping constantly from 200K to 300K and to 400K+ and now heading towards 500K.
The cause I found was I am using Google Chrome to surf the net which cannot intergrate Any toolbars.So if experiment once again, today I'm leaving mysite online on Firefox with Alexa toolbar, will be doing this for a week.

I know my rank will jump back.

So I prefer not to say Alexa Traffic ranking.

Blogging Secrets: Top 20 Sites for Bloggers

2010-11-05T05:08:00.000-07:00

This is a list of top 20 sites (top 5 sites from 4 different categories) that has helped blogger to get to the level of being Professional bloggers. Blogging has become a way of life for many people in this decade. Like Facebook, like google, like myspace, like reading News, Blogging has become a part of Internet and more important, the internet users. The web has been virtually and enormously expanded by Blogging. Thanks to the effort of bloggers and to sites that have helped bloggers to become better.

For Traffic

1. Google.com
The ultimate search engine, and the search engine very friendly for bloggers. Submit your blog to google to get listed. Know everything about google and maintain harmony with this search engine.
Avoid backlinking spam or poor quality sites, avoid buying paid links to bypass pagerank, avoid violating copyright to keep google as your friend.

2. Facebook.com:
Many bloggers underestimate Facebook but it can bring good flow of traffic to your blog. You get to advertise your blog free by creating pages and groups. If you impress people they will Like your blog and read your articles. Remember interested visitors have higher chances on clicking on Ads.

3. Twitter.com:
Not had much success with twitter, but can’t deny that it can bring massive traffic if used skillfully. Get your articles twitted and you’ll see them come.

4. Blogcatalog.com:
Is a good blogging community. It has thousands of genuine people who are ready to read good articles. A good discussion board as well for bloggers.

5. Mybloglog.com:
Owned by yahoo, has a good community as well as good tracking system for your blog. Make friends and you’ll see the increase in visitors to your blog.

For Monetization

Adsense: Undeniably Adsense is the best and the only option for many bloggers. Other networks just don’t pay well. But adsense depends on clicks. So try your luck with adsense. It has made bloggers millionaires, just through their blogs.
Adbrite: Gives you various options: Full pageads, Banners, CPC ads, CPM ads. Use CPM ads if you have high traffic and pageview site. You get paid for displaying ads without clicks. Use inline ads as well.
Bidvertiser: Not much success with it. Has a lower pay per click . But you get paid by paypal.
Chitika: alternative to above sites.
Casalemedia

Advertising.com, Burstmedia.com are some CPM sites that are well trusted but you required high traffic to enter into. They work well with high traffic sites

For Blogging Support

Problogger.net: Darren Rowse, teaches the A-Z of Blogging. do visit to get tips for blogging.
Johnchow.com: another successful blogger . Learnt to earn from him. He makes money by telling people how to make money.
Dailyblogtips.com: Design, Monetize and promote your blog with tips from this site.
Webmasterforum.com: any thing you ask is already solved here
Bloggingtips.com and Blogohblog.com

For Analysis of Blog

Google analytics: Best in the area to analyze your web traffic
Searchenginegenie.com: hundreds of tools and utilities to analyze and monitor your blog.
Goingup.com: Get best information about any blog. Rank, Lisitngs, errors, traffic ranks etc.
Alexa.com: Monitor web traffic.
Quantcast.com and Compete.com: advertising and web traffic monitoring. Focuses on US traffic.

List of Blog and Web Directories of Nepal

2010-11-04T11:36:00.000-07:00

Submitting blog to important blog/web directories is one of the determinant factors of the search engine visibility i.e. it comes under a way of SEO or Search Engine Optimization. I was obliged to find lots of such directories for Nepalese based websites in internet. But then I realized that most of these online services are outdated i.e. many of them were created but the webmaster hadn't cared to update their sites lately.

Before going through the lists of Nepalese Web directories let me highlight some benefits of web directory submission:

Assists in quicker indexing of website by the search engines by gaining their attention
Assists you in improving the SERP of your website/blog
Gain a non reciprocal (one-way) quality backlinks
Opportunities for link exchanges with relevant sites

List of Completely Nepal Based Blog and Web Directories:

Publish Your Blogger Blog On A Custom Domain

2010-11-04T08:53:00.000-07:00

The flexibility that Blogger.com provides as a blogging platform is the key to its success in internet with over more than 60% bloggers using it to publish their blog. Although wordpress.com blogs possess SEO advantages over blogger.com, the features that blogger provides for free have always kept me away from wordpress.com. Blogger enbles you to brand your blogspot with a custom domain while wordpress.com charges some amount to provide this feature. Read more about the comparison here.

2 Options for Custom Domain:

Root level domain: eg.: abc.com
Sub-domain: eg.: xyz.abc.com

Advantages of Custom Domain Over Blogspot subdomain:

For the same content and position in search results for website with blogspot.com and .com, people prefer later one.
People tend to respect sites with custom domain (both root level and subdomain) more than those with blogspot.com.
Many of the settings like preferred domain setting and change of address setting in Google Webmaster Tools is applicable for root level domain only and is not applicable for blogspot subdomains.
Although the trade of blogger blogs is against the policy of Blogger.com, there is a trend of buying and selling blogger blogs. So, its better to have custom domain for such purposes.
You can use your own branded email address. eg.: user@abc.com
I use a lot of subdomains that maps to the blogger.com to produce branches of my main website. This helps me in saving my bandwidth. I've been using blogger as a gallery blog for my main website which contains huge pictures that would otherwise drain the bandwidth of my hosting.

Despite all these things, the success of your blog depends on the quality of its content as content remains the king.

Whats the best time to redirect your blogspot blog to a custom domain?

This should be done as early as possible before you start gaining good visibility in search results and getting lots of backlinks and subscribers for you blog.

How to publish a blogger blog on a custom domain?

Before you begin the process you need a domain or a subdomain under your control. Lets take an example of xyz.abc.com which is a subdomain in abc.com.

Blogger.com Settings:

Sign in to blogger dashboard
Navigate to "Settings" Menu
Navigate to "Publishing" Sub menu under the "Settings"
Click on "Switch to Advanced Settings" link at the right side of the page
Enter your domain name in the box that appears

Settings with your Domain:

Sign in to any interface through which you can change your domain settings and create subdomains, etc. It may be cPanel or anything similar.

Then for Adding the record:
Name: Subdomain or rootlevel domain
TTL: 3600
Type: CNAME
CNAME: ghs.google.com

It may take from few hours to a day for the domain to be pointed to your blogger blog.

You can use a co.cc domain which is available free of cost and can be renewed freely for personal use. The settings you make is the same as shown above.

How to Report Content Theft?

2010-11-03T12:44:00.000-07:00

You spend a lot of time and effort writing posts in your blog. May be you have placed a copyright information, terms of service, copyscape banner, copygator banner and whatsoever but you know that you are totally helpless against plagiarism. You can't protect your content from being copied by others. And now with the increasing number of spam auto-blogs its not surprising to find your whole website under different domain name. Like the god loves his creatures, you love your creations.

Lets come to the point. How do you punish such sites?

Lately I found out that almost every content including the pictures from one of my blogs had been copied by a spam blog under a category. That particular spam blog had 10-15 daily posts with different articles from blogs of different niche. So, I decided to inform the owner of that blog about the copyright policy asking him to remove all the posts copied from my blog. Even after a week, neither did he reply me neither did he bother to remove those posts. Then I came down to threatening him saying that I shall report his website to google, google adsense and his webhosting. This method had worked several times before but not this time.

So, now was the real time to file a spam report in Google against the spam site. After filing the report, within 2 days, the spam site got punished by Google. It worked like a charm. All the links of the site vanished from the Google search.

How do you file a Spam Report?

Log in to Webmaster Tools
Navigate to Spam Report Page
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Online Transaction Websites In Nepal

2010-11-03T00:13:00.000-07:00

Although "Paypal" rhymes with "Nepal" it has listed Nepal in "Send Only" country which means you can send money worldwide via paypal but you cannot recieve any. In Nepal many people are registering their account in paypal setting their country as the India, USA, UK, etc. The 2 online payment gateways (eSewa and PayNepal) claims to bridge this gap in online transaction for Nepalese. Developing and maintaining trust among Nepalese people would be one of their greatest challenges. But, lets hope to see these online services growing.

eSewa

"eSewa Nepal" powered by f1soft is a online payment gateway of Nepal that empowers you with the ability to send and receive money, pay utility bills, buy air tickets, buy recharge cards, pay school and college bills, pay internet bills, subscribe newspaper and magazines, pay credit card bills, buy domain names, etc. While it is still in the Beta Mode, it promises to continue and add more features and partners.

Bank Partners:

Laxmi Bank Limited
Kumari Bank Limited
Global Bank Limited
NIC Bank
NCC Bank
Bank of Kathmandu Limited
Bank Of Asia Nepal Limited
Sanima Bikas Bank Limited
ACE Development Bank Limited

Service Partners:

World Link
Buddha Air
Music Nepal
Nepal Telecom
Nepal Electricity Authority
Kathmandu Upatyaka Khaanepani Limited
i-talk
Muncha.com
Music Nepal
Net For Nepal
Thamel.com

How it Works?
One can recharge your eSewa account with:

eSewa Recharge cardss
Bank accounts
Paypal (with around 5% service charge)

One can withdraw the amount in account to the account in Partner Banks.

PayWay

"PayWay - Merchant Payment Gateway Nepal" powered by Young Minds allows anyone to pay in any way they prefer, including through credit cards, bank accounts, buyer credit or account balances, without sharing financial information. It is similar to eSewa and is available not only in Nepal but also in other countries. PayWay itself is not a e-commerce but a tool that enables global ecommerce by making payments possible across different locations, currencies. It claims to render online transaction safer and easier.

Partners:

Harilo.com
Muncha.com
Nepal Telecom
Ncell
UTL
Nepal Investment Bank Limited
Young Minds

PayBill

"PayBill" powered by Paymate is a mobile payment service that enables you to pay your utility bills, recharge mobile, shop online, buy movie and airline tickets, send gifts, subscribe newspapers and mangazines, pay school and college fees through SMS. It claims that it will help you to transform your cell phone into a wallet.

How it works?
Every transaction is verified by an "Alpha-code" followed by a "PIN Number" which is provided to every single user. The Mobile number is associated directly to the Bank Account where, the amount is debited from the customer's account automatically through a secured channel without human interference.

Partners:

Everest bank Limited
Nabil Bank
Rastriya Banijya Bank
Machhapuchre Bank Limited
Namaste (Nepal Telecom)
SkyPhone
Subisu Cable Net
Muncha.com
Guna Airlines
Music Nepal
Mero Shopping

PayNepal

Started in 2010, Pay Nepal lets anyone with an email address to easily and securely accept and send money online. It lets you shop online and even receive money.

Features:

Merchant Account Features

Credit Card Checkout
Manual Credit Card
Software / digital goods secure download
Cpanel / WHM integration
Subscriptions/Recurring Bills
Plug-and-play shopping cart
Auctions
Donations

Account Holders

Send money
Receive money
Request money
Escrow / Safe transfers
Deposit money
Withdraw money

Partners:

Laxmi Bank
Sabaiko Media Private Limited
NepBay.com