Is Google updating Page Rank (PR)?

It seems that Google has started to update the Page Rank again. I am not sure whether any one else has noticed the changes in the Page Rank. My search on Google did not really show any blogger writing about this. But, I noticed a drop in this blog’s Page Rank yesterday.

Yes, the Page Rank of this blog has dropped from PR4 to PR2. I was a bit disappointed when I saw the Google toolbar showing PR2 for my blog. To confirm, I did check the page rank of this blog using some of the google page rank checkers. Sites like prchecker and blogflux confirmed this. I tried MyPageRank.net to see the results on the various Google data centres. All the data centres consistently show a page rank of 2.

So, it is clear that this blog is penalized by Google by 2 page rank points. While that is not good news, I am just hoping that it is a temporary glitch in the Google PR update. How good it would it be to wake up with a PR5 or PR6 tomorrow? Not all dreams come true.

How about you? Do you see any change in your blog’s PR? Please subscribe to my feed if you like this post

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Free and Easy Blogging

Blogger, Wordpress, Xanga, Livejournal, TypePad … The list of blogging platforms extends beyond imagination. Each of the blogging platforms has their own advantages and disadvantages. It is up to the user to choose the blogging platform that suits his/ her requirements and fits into the budget.


In this discussion, I am going to introduce a new service called Thoughts.com that is still in its beta testing phase. Thoughts.com is a 100% free online blogging community.

What can you do at Thoughts?

• You can Create Blog and express yourself online
• You can upload high quality photos and organize them into categories/ folders
• You can upload and host videos on your blog
• You can upload, download, play and share your desired podcasts
• Other members are able to leave comments on your blog post, photo, video or podcast
• The user rating system allows you to rate each blog post, photo, video or podcast from 1 to 5 stars

Advantages of Thoughts
Sign-up Process: It is very simple. The sign-up process took less than a minute.

Posting: Within five minutes, I could publish my first post. The blog editor is very easy to use. The editor provides you with features like font, font size, font color, bold, italics, underline, left/ center/ right/ justified alignment, ordered/ unordered list and links.

E-mail: Thoughts.com has an in-built e-mail so that you need not clutter your personal e-mail.

Disadvantages of Thoughts
The disadvantage again is its simplicity. If you are an advanced user, it doesn’t provide many options. There are about 7 different themes for your blog and it doesn’t allow any further customization. You cannot add any third-party widgets. You do not have access to the HTML code behind your blog posting.

Conclusion
As a whole, I find that Thoughts.com is very simple and easy to use. Thoughts.com might help you to build your own community as it is strongly built as an online blogging community. It doesn’t require any knowledge of HTML, CSS or XML. It is a very good service for users who wants just pure blogging experience and does not want their feet dragged into the technical know-how behind.

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Get Traffic with Current Events

Bring in traffic! As Much As Possible! Every blogger aims to do this. Some succeed, Many Fail. Why? We are not very sure of the best ways to bring in traffic. We explore new paths along the way; drop those that did not work for us. I am going to share with you something that worked well for me recently. The case study has nothing to do with "Assess My Blog"(I have better traffic than what is shown below).

I have taken another blog from my network to explain the strategy. Most importantly, I did not spend any time or money in promoting the blog. All I did is to write the post and forget it. Here is a snapshot of the traffic chart for the last two weeks for the blog in discussion:



As you can notice in the chart, there were about 265 unique visitors and 385 page loads on 7th April. On the following day, the blog generated 95 visitors with 115 page loads. If you look at the two-week data, you could notice that the traffic on 7th April jumped about 50 times the average. How did it happen? Let me tell you, this traffic is not from StumbleUpon or Digg or any other social media sites. I do not have any traffic exchange program in this blog like Entrecard. The bulk of the traffic, I would say about 95%, came from search engines like Google and Yahoo.

How did I get the Traffic?
I happened to be in a train when an accident at another station delayed me for about two hours. I took some pictures of the chaos that followed the accident. When I reached home, I wrote a post with my personal experience and first-hand count of what happened. Within hours, I noticed that visitors were flowing in to read my post.

What is the Secret here?
The trick and the keyword here is Current Events. Write about something that people are crazy about. Do you know what people are searching for right now? Then, write about it. If you are writing about an established topic, there are hundreds/ thousands of blogs fighting for the front page of Google or Yahoo. So, you may not be able to compete with them. But, if you are writing about something that is new, then the search engines will propel your blog up the ladder.

What should you write about?
About an accident just happened in your vicinity, about the traffic jam in the expressway of your city, about the rainy climate in your town, the important points of the speech by the Prime Minister or whatever that is current.

Can I compete with Online Media?
Good question. How can I compete with BBC or CNN when it comes to current events and latest News? This is where the power of blogging comes. Try searching for a current topic and see how many times an unknown blog tops the search in Google. You would be surprised. The search engines' algorithm gives much more importance to blogs than conventional web sites. So, all you have to do is think a little bit before you write.

How should I write?
You have to write your content with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in mind. Your title should include the keywords that most people would search for. Write a detailed description with at least about 150 to 250 words. Repeat the keywords inside the post without spamming. Keyword density, the ratio of the keyword to the total number of words, is important for you to appear higher on the search engines. Ensure that the topic is relevant to the overall theme of your blog.

The positive side of this technique is it primarily targets search engines. As such, you get traffic without any promotion. More importantly, these are the visitors who click on your advertisements and help you make some money. Please subscribe to my feed if you like this post

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How To Choose Your Mobile Phone?

Mobile phones have become an essential part of our day-to-day life. I could not imagine how did I survive until few years ago without a mobile phone? In my younger days, we didn’t even have a land line phone at home. The only mode of communication would be letters sent through conventional postal system. Today, it is rare to see someone without a mobile phone.

The mobile phones are slowly becoming an all-in-one gadget. Today’s latest hand phones offer you digital music, digital camera, internet connection in addition to the basic necessity of making calls. So, with so much variety in offer, how do you choose your mobile phone?

You have famous brands like Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola, Apple and so on to choose from. The trend is to own the latest model as far as possible. I was happy with my first mobile phone, a Nokia bulky model, about 8 years ago. I could only call and send text messages with that model. The screen was so small and it offered just black and white. My current model, a Sony Ericsson W850i, has much more to offer. I have an excellent MP3 player with Mega Bass effects combined with an FM radio. The camera is good enough to take pictures at my work place. I could send multi-media messages. I could record voices and videos.

My model has many other features too which I normally do not use. That is what I wanted to stress here. You have to determine which mobile phone will provide you with the functions you need and not overload you with function you will never use. Choose a model based on your needs. You might be tempted to keep a model as a symbol of status. But, I would advise to choose a model that suits your requirements.

Some of the factors you may want to consider before purchasing a mobile phone:

• Battery life
• Size and Weight of the model
• Price of the model
• Radio
• MP3 player
• Camera and the associated resolution
• Internal memory
• Games
• GPRS
• Hands-free
• Accessories included
• Ringtones
• MMS
• WAP

As explained earlier, obtaining the best hand phone is often a difficult task with so many network providers and manufacturers to choose from. So, do your home work. Compare handset prices for the latest mobile phones on the market and choose between the best phone tariffs to suit your needs. You can visit imobileplaza.com to view the latest models of mobile phones and assess whether they suit your needs and budget.

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