Blog For Money - Make Money from Blogging

Google PageRank is obviously important to many webmasters, including me. Recently, when I go to different forums to buy high PR domain, I figure out that there are quite a lot of domains that "claim" to have high PR. In fact, the PR shown in Google Toolbar also indicates the claimed PR. But the truth is...

The victim of these scams are normally new webmasters who just jump into the domain market. They have spent several hundreds dollars to buy the new domains, but the truth is they are worthless. In light of that, I am going to discuss some easy ways how you can check a website/domain for a valid Google Page Rank or a fake page rank. So, how to check a fake/forged PageRank as well as a valid PageRank?

• Step :1 ) Check the Google Toolbar. Because many website just add fake PageRank button or image on their website. So, if you have a functional Google Toolbar, you will immediately figure out the fake PR.


• Step :2 ) Check to see if the page rank showed by Google tool bar is a temporary glitch or not. You may use iWebtool PageRank checker tool or checkpagerank.net to make sure all the Google data centers are showing the same page rank for a specific domain or webpage.


• Step :3 ) Check to see if the website or domain PageRank is suspicious or valid by widely used SEOlogs's fake PageRank detection SEO tool and PR checker. In addition, checkpagerank.net also offers immediate answers on whether the PR is valid or forged


• Step :4 ) The last step is to check few back links manually. You should type link:websitename.com in the Google search box. This step is very vital because, by following this step you can tell if the domain is using any redirection to achieve fake PageRank or not. Once Google shows all the backlinks in search results page (SERP), click on label "Cached" beside URL. It will show you the Google’s cache of that URL.

After you reach one of those Google's cached page, click to view the source code (Click View>"Source" or "Page Source" from your web browser's menu bar) of the webpage and search for the domain name you are trying to check for valid PR. If you do not find the domain name, try another URL from the search result page. If none of the URL shows the domain name in their source code, then you have to come to the conclusion that the domain or website you are checking valid PageRank for, used URL redirection to get fake PR.

I hope this post will help you to figure out a fake PageRank or a valid PageRank when you are going to buy a several hundreds domain names.

In order to get a higher PageRank (PR), you need to have a lot of backlinks. However, there are differences for the backlinks coming from different sites and domains. It was generally believed that the backlinks from .edu or .gov are important for Google PageRank. How would you build a lot of backlinks from .edu or .gov sites? One very good way to do so is to find some .edu or .gov blogs that do not have the no-follow attribute, and then leave comments to them.

In this post, I am going to reveal a very easy way to build links from .edu or .gov sites in a matter of minutes. The key is to search the .edu and .gov sites which contains the similar keywords as your site and allow to make comments. You can search in Google using the following search term: site:.edu in url:blog “comment” -”you must be logged in” -”posting closed” -”comment closed” “keyword”. Replace the keyword with anything related to your site will give you a list of .edu sites which you can make comments and get back links. You can do the same if you want to leave comments in .gov blogs.

But remember, many blogs have enabled the comment moderation, and so you should not leave any spam comments. Do make them interesting and constructive, and the moderator will thus approve your comment and your link will be shown.

I came across a good post from Digitalpoint, and I think that is a good post to explain the relationship between PR (PageRank) and SERP. So, let's enjoy it.

Does PR really matters? Is SERP is everything? Is PR only good for link selling? Is buying links right? Or is selling links wrong? Can I gain any advantage with PR against my competitor? Can PR actually help me with anything at all if I am not selling/buying links?

In my opinion it really.... depends on your own ethics and needs as a webmaster and your purpose for the site overall. As for me, I don't buy or sell links, never did and never will cause according to me it is unnecessary and I believe in my own capabilities to be linked to by others.

In my honest opinion:

a) PR does matter, and it matters quite a lot. Why would it matter? How can I prove that? It matters when you search for the most competitive terms and only the ones with good PR turns up in SERP's first page. PR matters when you want reputation of a site not only in SERP rankings but in other people's opinion. PR matters in terms of trust also, a visitor who has the slightest idea of PR will know the difference of a PR less site and one without it. Does it mean that a site without PR and sites just starting up doesn't have that capability? Definitely it has the capability. Everyone starts from the pit, the very bottom where PR is non existent. Building trust and writing/creating "quality" content will earn that trust even if you do not have a PR. With that being said, now imagine if the site also had PR beside that quality content and trust! Exactly, at least and even if you don't rank well in the search engine, the people (the savvy ones) who will visit your site will know its importance in terms of google's opinion to it all.... I mean, its safe to assume that PR is Google's opinion of you... say it isn't so?

Some say, backlinks are everything.... wrong! Backlinks are only part of the PR assessment... The correct term should be quality backlinks and the diversity of those back links.... With much less quality backlinks (I am not talking in terms of 50 backlinks of course... more!) than another site it is most possible to achieve a good PR similar, equal, more than that site. It is a proven fact!

b) So does it mean that PR can effect SERP rankings? Hell knows it can! Search for the term computer and check the PR of the sites of the first page... all have PR! Good PR! Now some sites with higher PR will rank lower in the search engine.... why? Because my good friend, PR is given to you after a certain period of time, rankings are much much much more dynamic and the "whole pie" of rankings is not ENTIRELY based on PR. It is based on number of links, people talking about it without links, the diversity of the links, and the authority of those links as a whole. SERP positions can vary everyday, every hour but PR (talking about Toolbar PR here which... we can find out right?) varies only after a certain period of time. To me, SERP is determined by much more complex stuffs than PR, but PR is a big chunk of its determination. Coming back to the "lower PR higher serp" issue we will see that the difference in terms of position is merely between a page, meaning, if the lower PR site is at number uno then the higher PR site is there within the first page. BUT, in the long term without quality contents, that lower PR site will surely fall and that is a fact. But, the factor of time depends on the niche itself. Some niches get new content every one second and some does within a week so definitely the niche you are in really does matter.

c) Those saying PR is only good for link selling is absolutely blind. There are enough non profit organizations and bloggers and personal sites out there which can prove it wrong and I am one of them. I don't brag about PR (Hell my site is down right now!! ) and I think there is nothing to brag about, cause PR does the talking itself. Link buying/selling for PR in my opinion is just ugh!!! But, if you are buying/selling it for traffic then its a whole different issue but we are not going into that.

d) PR is very useful for ranking well in the SERP engine and I hope searching for the term of computer proves that. Like, Dell's PR is 8/10 and Apple's PR is 9/10. So why exactly would DELL be up there over Apple in the rankings? Because, its a general fact that Dell is much more popular to people than Apple is. So Dell ranks better! So next question is why don't Google presents Dell with Apple's PR or better? Simple, cause in terms of web development (I am talking about internet and not designing) Apple is much more relevant and "giving to the community" than Dell is and Apple is gifted with that PR 9 (once again in my opinion). In this world's economy not always quality comes first, sometimes we will compromise on quality if it is of a lesser price and easier to implement and that is the case with RANKINGS. PR is what the VALUE of a site is, RANKINGS is the POPULARITY of a site as a whole. Blackhatters can manipulate rankings big time but not in the long term, NEVER! Google is quite supreme and end of the day Google's search engine is an user friendly search engine.... NOT a webmaster friendly and that is the way it should be.... cause unlike you and me, others are not webmasters! It is OUR duty to get used to that cause that is how it SHOULD BE.

Lastly, as an webmaster it is your duty and motivation to serve your visitors right? If that is the case, then there should not be any problem with anything cause visitors give you PR. Not all visitors, NO... visitors who are other webmasters or visitors who are friends of other webmasters and who will promote your site for free. That what gives you rankings, both in terms of SERP and PR. This is the very reason why non profit sites do so well in terms of SERP and PR both, cause they simply do not care about it well and goes for quality content and so should everyone!

Lastly, PR matters like hell... and it will always matter cause PR after all haven't got any drawbacks whatsoever. And if your ethics are right in terms of PR, its easier to get than to lose it.

I been looking for information to increase my blog's contextual advertising revenues and here is what I found:

1. Determine What Kind of Blogs are best for Contextual Advertising

Contextual advertising may not fit for all blogs. Some blogs do extremely well with it, earning 5-figures or more in a month while others earn mere pennies a month. What surprise me is that it's not about traffic as there are some blogs getting only 5,000 ad impression that earn more that those getting 50,00 impression monthly. So, what kinds of blogs do well on contextual ads?

Experiences and testimonies reveal that visitor's characteristics determine what blogs work well with contextual ads. These are:

* Blogs where visitors are in a buying mood
* Blogs where visitors are looking for information on specific products or services that interest them. These may be product, business opportunity, looking to buy tickets, and etc.
* Blogs where visitors are researching ways to spend money.
* Blogs where there is a high percentage of fresh unique visitors as regular visitors tend to ignore ads
* Blogs where visitors show an interest to ads, and not just the blog's offerings
is also what the technology will read to serve well-targeted ads.

So, if you are up to contextual advertising, the next time you create your next blog, be sure the kind of visitor will fall under the above categories. And if contextual advertising is not working for you as you expect, be sure to check out other forms to monetize your blog such as affiliate programs and CPM-based advertising.

2. Develop High Quality Content for Your Visitors

Looking at it from the advertisers' perspective, many prefer their ads to be shown on blogs with good content. Remember, content is what brings visitors to blog, and content is what makes them interested in the ad. In contextual advertising, content

3. Stick firmly to the Terms and Policy of Contextual Ad Networks

You don't want to lose a good revenue source that may be giving you as much as $2,000 a month just because you did not read the terms that you have supposedly agreed. Read and understand the terms of service. Its' purpose is to spells out the do's and don'ts that will guide you in your program participation.

4. Use and Analyze Data

As a participant in a contextual advertising program, you will be provided with reports that tell you how effective the program is working on your blog. The basic metrics will include page/ad impressions, number of clicks, click-through rate (CTR) and earnings. Some provide effective CPM, or the cost per thousand impressions. These metrics can help you analyze what is working well in your blog, and whether you can improve your revenues.

5. Repeated Experiments

Experiment and see what works best for your blog. If the revenue increases, then stick with it. If not, leave it and try something else.

You can manipulate 3 things to increase your contextual advertising revenues. These are ad impressions, number of clicks, and click-through rate. Even if your traffic is not growing as fast as you hope for, you can grow your revenues if you improve your click-through rate. And you can improve the performance of the contextual ads in your blog by experimenting on layout, colors, ad format, and number of ads.

6. Blog Promotion

This is one of the most difficult parts to do. Increasing the traffic to your blogs and continuously building your blog (like publishing new posts frequently) is always a good way to improve revenues, not just contextual advertising.

7. Keywords Diversity

Advertisers bid for keywords and the amount they are bidding affects your contextual advertising earnings. To protect your revenues from wild fluctuations, the best approach would be to diversify your keywords by developing content based on different topics.

8. Build an Empire of Blogs

This is similar to the tips I shared before in Make $500 a Month with Adsense. Remember, don't put all your eggs in one basket, as it may fails all of sudden. The more blogs you have the higher your contextual revenue expected. If one blog's contextual advertising dries up, you still have others to enjoy, right?

I hope you find the above information valuable. These are excellent ideas to follow to increase your blog's contextual revenues.

Good luck.

Further to my previous post on "Grab Links for Your Blog by Link Baiting", I would like to write more on this method, and give ten common techniques for link baiting activities.

1. Podcasting: Make a podcast that give useful tips, discusses hot topics or information within the industry your blog belongs to is a great baiting tool.

2. Interviews: Conducting interview to someone well known in the industry where your blog belong would certainly be worth linking to. In Adsense, these big guys include Darren Rowse, Joel Comm, John Chow etc. (when will I be the next one? LOL)

3. Award Search: Awards search are another way to bring in traffic and links where you let your participants post entries to their blogs with a link pointing to your blog.

4. Tools and games: Create a new tool or games that other bloggers may use to their blogs that contains a link to your blog. But that is not a easy task unless you know much about programming.

5. Content: Articles and blog posts are a great way to go about link baiting. You need to use your imagination to make your post linking compelling.

6. Video: Creating a funny or informative video can create quiet a buzz. Indeed, vblogs are getting more common in Web 2.0.

7. Giveaways and contests: These are great for a quick boost in traffic. Giveaways need to have an associated monetary value.

8. Blogs and forums: These are usually overlooked as a form of linking baiting, but they are one of the earliest forms of link baiting.

9. Guest bloggers: Let me post a post on your blog and you can post on mine for a cross promotion. It's a great way to get a link as well.

10. Lists: List are very popular because they are a list of something of value that people want, all in one place.

It took me several days to write this super long post, and so please enjoy.

Have you every found a method for other bloggers to link to your new blog? I'm sure you did. You probably were doing this by requesting exchange links. Yes, link exchange will work but aside that it's a time consuming activity, the number of links you gathered here is limited unless you want your blog to become a directory link for all other blogs.

My question now is - how are you going to get hundreds or thousands of natural links pointing to your blog? You may answer - have a high quality content post/blog. You are just partly correct. This may just give you a few extra links but not hundreds or thousands. You must not only create a high quality content post but high quality content with linkbaiting strategy mechanism. Yes - linkbaiting is the answer. This can deliver hundreds or thousands of natural links pointing to your blog quickly.

Successful bloggers often said, if you want to have a successful blog, make something worth linking to. Linkbaiting is recognized as the most effective way to build links for a site.

But, remember, linkbait is Not Just About Getting Links. Many people think linkbaiting is all about getting links, but that's not all. For the vast majority of web marketers, three unique elements define the goals of nearly every project - traffic, conversion and branding. When implemented properly, linkbait is a great strategy for achieving two of these three goals (traffic and branding) directly, and the other (conversion) indirectly.

The process of branding involves identifying successful ways to get in front of your industries airways, building some content and promoting it.

Tip (If you are a solo blogger, one good technique of branding is to make your name as your domain name like what Steve Pavlina did with stevepavlina.com. But if you plan to sell the domain one day, you will find it harder to sell if it's your name.)

How to Generate Link Baiting Ideas

Many people think that creating link baiting ideas is a tough job, but not at all. While it demand some creative thinking, many bloggers did it all alone. I will feature some of them below, how they generate linkbaiting ideas and their successes. For now, I will borrow the words of Scott who made a great post about generating link baiting ideas. His 4 four-stage approach include:

1. Write Down Everything. This is the mental hemorrhaging phase wherein we all just blurt out any and all ideas that come to mind. Don't censor or edit yourself during this phase; take down every idea no matter how bizarre, idiotic or far fetched it may sound.
2. Breakdown Your Ideas. Once you've squeezed every last drop of creative juice from your head, it's time filter everything out. It's a good idea to breakdown each idea (no censoring or editing yet) into its Concept and Content components. That is, what is the format (Concept) for the suggested LinkBait (tool, widget, top ten list, how to guide, blog post, etc.) versus what is the subject (Content) of the suggested LinkBait (Wii, iPod, PPC ads, pigs, celebrity weddings, etc.). Separate these into two lists.
3. Evaluate Content. Ignoring your Concept list, critically evaluate your Content list. Are there time-sensitive ideas? Are there some that can wait for a relevant piece of news to complement them? Are there ideas you'd really like to write about? Are there ideas that can go into storage for a dry-spell?
4. Mix and Match. Once you've prioritized the Content, you can now mix and match it with your Concept list. No story/content is beholden to the original format you brainstormed it in. Is your story something that might make Digg? Then consider the Concepts that do well there: top ten, how to, etc. Can it be interactive? Perhaps a tool or poll Concept would be effective. By marrying your priority Content to the most appropriate Concept, you can optimize the effectiveness, reach and novelty to your intended audience.


Hook Your Readers with Linkbait

Hook is an element that draws readers into your blog. And in order to bait a link, you need a hook. According to Nick Wilson, there are 5 popular varieties of hook. Together with the specific examples, these are:

1. News hook
* A genuine Scoop. Get to the news first
* A compilation of news, as above, its a resource aswell as a news hook.
* Expose a story for a fraud, or to be flawed. You really have to know your subject to do that, but links flow like water if you can debunk a popular meme

2. Contrary Hook
* Be the only one in your niche to find something to not like about a story, or like about a story/product.
* On the same theme, post "Why is WRONG about..."

3. Attack Hook - This works much the same as the contrary hook, you just get to be much, much ruder.

4. Resource Hook
* A comprehensive list of blogs in your niche - link out, and links will come in, i promise.
* A practical/useful or even fun tool related to your niche
* A How To based on your niche
* A compilation of news stories on a theme. Sprinkle a little analysis in there, and you're good to go.

5. Humour Hook - These kinds of hooks are just too easy.
* Search flickr, or photoshop a bizzare pic of your subject
* Post "10 thing i hate about..."
* Post "You know you're a when..."


How to Format Your Link Bait to Be Effective

Effective link bait comes with a certain format. You need to do things to make your link bait more effective such as:

* Make your link bait EASY to link at.
* Make your idea look polarized so you will get quality links from all angle.
* Make your link bait look comprehensive.
* Cite research, further reading, and link out to related resources from within your content. It makes your story look well researched and associates your work with other trusted names or brands in your field. You may even want to cite a few people that you want links from.
* Dress up your link bait using quality design and / or relevant


The Amazing Indirect Value of Linkbait

Link bait rarely makes much money or directly pays for itself from the direct traffic. However, it has amazing indirect value.

* People are hungry looking for high quality content. You can not only win several links but as well as increase in readership.
* You will gain mindshare and brand recognition amongst a group of people who have significant authority even if people do not link to your link bait right away.
* Links gain from linkbait are seen as votes or signs of trust by many search engines such as Google who uses authority centric relevancy algorithms.
* In Google, getting a link to any part of your site will help make all pages on your site more authoritative.


10 Linkbaiting Techniques

Here are 10 linkbaiting techniques that are commonly used:

1. Podcasting: Make a podcast that give tips, discusses news or information within the industry your blog belong is great baiting tool.
2. Interviews: Conducting interview to someone well known in the industry where your blog belong would certainly be worth linking to.
3. Award Search: Awards search are another way to bring in traffic and links where you let your participants post entries to their blogs with a link pointing to your blog
4. Tools and games: Create a new tool or games that other bloggers may use to their blogs that contains a link to your blog.
5. Content: Articles and blog posts are a great way to go about linkbaiting. You need to use your imagination to make your post linking compelling.
6. Video: Creating a funny or informative video can create quiet a buzz.
7. Giveaways and contests: These are great for a quick boost in traffic. Giveaways need to have an associated monetary value.
8. Blogs and forums: These are usually overlooked as a form of linking baiting, but they are one of the earliest forms of link baiting.
9. Guest bloggers: Let me post a post on your blog and you can post on mine for a cross promotion. It's a great way to get a link as well.
10. Lists: List are very popular because they are a list of something of value that people want, all in one place.


Tips for Linkbait Success

I'd like to borrow the words from Rand Fishkin in his post entitled Leveraging Linkbait. He outlined 7 tips of linkbait success. There are:

1. Find Appropriate Linkbait Portals. Identify those news outlets, blogs or social media sites that you're seeking to get a link from. In the areas of technology, Digg, TechCrunch and Slashdot are great candidates. For humor or offbeat news, Fark and Reddit may make better choices. Depending on your content, sites like the popular blog Boing Boing, Yahoo!'s Site of the Day or Netscape may make good choices.
2. Understand Your Audience. Normally, you’re building content targeted to your site’s visitors—people who want your products, services or content. But for linkbait, you need to also appeal to an entirely different audience—one that can help your site achieve mass appeal in the niche that you select. I advise reviewing the coverage you see for other links in your area; using del.icio.us tags and blog archives can help with this process.
3. Brainstorm Effectively. You want to find ideas that are so compelling, they blow you away. Imagine pitching your idea to a writer at the New York Times; would he or she be likely to write about it? If so, you've got a gem.
4. Build Beautiful Bait. The user experience, graphic design and usability of the content you build need to have the look and feel of success. A professional layout and tasteful headlines, graphics and embedded content will go a long way toward selling your audience on your content's worthiness.
5. Create a Reputation. Linkbait is difficult to launch the first few times if no one on the Web has heard of your brand. Once you've spent some time in the blogosphere and social media space, you may find that a lot of your content goes viral without any effort on your part. Thus, creating a reputation is an important part of making linkbait successful. If you need some help, try leveraging industry contacts that have pull with prominent bloggers and respected profiles at social sites.
6. Grab Their Attention. Writing the headlines and initial descriptions to submit to the social sites, emailing bloggers and appearing in search results is a critical part of linkbait. Many readers will see your headline, and in the early phase it's critical that they follow your link and help to spread your message. Check out Brian Clark's two posts on writing great headlines, here and here.
7. Don't Be Manipulative—and DON'T SPAM. You might have to try linkbaiting several times before you get good at the process; in the meantime, make sure that you don't burn bridges by spamming bloggers with email requests to cover your piece, or repeatedly tagging your own content at the social media sites from the same IP addresses.

I have used several days to write this post, and if you like it, please share it with your friends by linking us back, or digg/stumbleupon it. Thanks!

It is definitely a nightmare for me and you to receive the notification email saying that your site has been disabled. Among all the reasons, invalid clicks and impressions found in your sites is the most common reason suggested by Google. I am sure over 80% of this case, publishers are totally innocent and must get frustrated by this. Instead, most of the time your site was getting sabotage clicks/click fraud. Click fraud occurs when a person, automated script, or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a web browser generate any click on an ad. These clicks are done for the purpose of either to terminate one's Adsense account or increasing the financial burden of the advertisers.

To prevent Adsense click fraud and protect your Adsense business, you should install a more sophisticated Adsense tracking tool and monitoring software, such as Adlogger, Sitemeter, Addfreestats, Extremetracking, etc on your Adsense website. You should constantly monitoring your Adsense site using those Adsense tracking tool in conjunction with your Google Adsense channel.

Those information and features include:

* Which Ad has been clicked
* The details of PPC Ads
* The time and origins of each click.
* The browsing history of each IP on your site
* Block certain IP from click on your Adsense Ads
* Alert you and stop multiple clicks from the same IP

With a more complex tracking tools installed on your website, it would be easier for you to spot any unusual and suspicious click activities on your websites. Once you have discovered unusual or suspicious activities on your Adsense site, you can alert your PPC companies (in this case Google Adsense Support Team) about these activities immediately and let them investigate the problem. This will provide your Adsense business minimum protection against click fraud.

Some of those advanced tracking tools will give you extra tracking information and features which are not provided at your Adsense Channel. Since different trackers have different technology to trace, they have their own stats and behavior for your site. You should make your own judgment for which stats to rely on.