A recent Brazilian YouTube sex scandal threatened to close down every WordPress blog around the world.

Did you hear about it? It’s already called “YouTube Gate” — apparently a spicy sex scene was posted on YouTube and someone discussed it on a WordPress-hosted blog.

The problem is the Brazillian courts placed a ban on viewing the IP address of the entire WordPress website…

… And that means potentially thousands of bloggers can’t have their content shown in their country.

Even worse, this isn’t the first time a violation like this closed down an entire network of blogs.

But the bottom line is this should be a wakeup call for those who rely on hosted blogs (like WordPress) to tweak their strategy and avoid getting their own blogs banned.

The good news is the fix is simple… just host WordPress on your own server or a hosting provider (rather than hosting it on the WordPress site).

It’s no doubt that many have blogs have started to feel the tension from this block, the court in Brazil is going to review their verdict and try to reach a compromise.

I would like to thank Chris for taking time out of his day to reply to my questions. I know the book that he and Darren are putting out is going to be a huge success. If you would like to preorder ”ProBlogger Book — Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income“.  Just click the link and away you go. You can find more out about Chris Garret and all the services he offers at ChrisG.com

 1. If starting a new blog from scratch what would be your process for choosing a niche? (Does the book cover starting from scratch?)

We aimed to put in everything, so yeah it does cover selecting a niche. Broadly there are two ways, choose something you are passionate about or go where the money is. If you can get those to overlap then you are going to do even better.

Of course where the money is depends on how you will generate revenue, but it is worth checking what the adwords prices, affiliate opportunities and WordTracker traffic scores tell you.

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What that actually means is that there are people that visit this blog, and they have the Alexa tool bar installed. How does that work? Good question, let’s take a look at it.
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Today, I received an email from Darren Rowse (Problogger) answering some questions about his up coming book “ProBlogger Book — Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income”. 

As you would come to expect from a professional blogger his answers were packed full of great advise.

Q: The first question that is very near and dear to me is, What advise would you give to someone who is either thinking about or has started a blog from scratch, and do you address something like this in your book? 

There are so many things to consider in the early days of a blog (and the days leading up to a launch). Let me throw out just a few suggestions (and yes we cover each of these topics plus plenty more for new bloggers in the book):

1. Think about if a blog is really right for you. Some people throw up blogs as being the ultimate type of website and the answer to all problems - however a blog is not always the right option. It might sound odd having a guy who evangelizes blogs saying that but it’s better to think it through than to start one and then realize 3 months in that you should have started a forum or some other type of site.
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What has changed on your blog since the redesign besides the look? Who made it for you?

Good questions! Well the look as definitely changed, but if you will notice I have made boxes for the advertisements. This makes adding them quick and easy.

I have installed and configured OpenX. This will allow you to sell advertising, and let the client log-in to your OpenX client, and check their stats for the advertising campaign. They can generate customer reports, change the banners they display, and a few other nifty features thrown in. I would definitely check it out if you are going to offer advertising on your blog, or many blogs. The best part is that it’s open source software, and completely free!
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The final design is in place, with a couple of things that have not been implimented yet. Right now everything is coming together as planned, though a little slower than I expected. Everything should be in place by Friday.

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Update 2:

We have moved to the new design, and everything seems to be working. Everything is not completed just yet, but hopefully it will be by Friday.

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With sites like Site Meter, 103beez, Google Analytics, and WebTrends, you can literally spend hours upon hours analyzing every click into every part of your blog. You can track who has read your blog, what country they came from, and who referred them to you.

Now don’t get me wrong, these are all valid reasons to track your blogs performance, and can even help you in coming up with a new topic to discuss, but is this how you would really gauge the success of your blog?

For me blog success comes from having viewers that interact with me and others from around the world. People that leave comments, and ask genuine questions. The challenge me to write better content, and shed new light to topics that I would never have dreamt of discussing, much like the one I am writing about now. How do you measure a blogs success?

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Hopefully this will draw more attention to the ad block as you can scroll through them and find something interesting

 Jamey