Anchor Text:

Over the years, SEO people have written many articles about the importance of Anchor Text. If you not sure what it is, Anchor Text will be the hyperlinked text you see on a website page and when you click the text, you will be taken to another page. Example of Anchor Text is: Internet Marketing Company.

Well, is Anchor Text really important factor for SEO? Yes, it is since it will help be search engines to determine the rankings of website. For example, if you have a website about structured settlements and if you are providing tips regarding the purchase of structured settlements, then using the word “video Manchester united” as your Anchor text, will certainly increase your website rankings and authority.

Header Tags:

Header tags are nothing but that H1, H2, H3 tags you will see on a web page that will define the heading and subheading. But is it really important? Well, in my experience I haven’t seen any solid information which will suggest it’s important for search engine rankings. So, what I will suggest is, if you are using the Header Tags on your website just keep it there, otherwise just don’t worry about it.

Keyword Density:

A lot of people have asked this question to me: What is the right keyword density on a web page? Well the answer for this question is, there isn’t any. From my experience, Keyword density doesn’t play a significant role in Search Engine Optimization. If you focus on keywords while writing an article, you might end up creating a junk piece of content. So, it’s better to write naturally then just focusing on the keywords, because whatever we write on the web page will be read by the users not some bots from the search engines.

Meta Tags:

The usage of Meta Tags has been discussed many times over the web and the opinions were different. Well, from my point of view Meta tags were not important to SEO, as they were once before.  In simple words, usage of Meta tags won’t have any effects on your rankings. But if you want to use it, just go ahead but make sure you just don’t use the keyword stuffing black hat technique in it.

Nofollow Links:

If you think that Nofollow links doesn’t matter, then you are wrong. Google does count Nofollow links and if Google find a website has only Dofollow links and Nofollow links in their link profile, then it will get suspicious about the website and sometimes it will result in the loss of rankings. Well in simple words, Google prefers a good ratio of Dofollow and Nofollow links.

This may be contrary to what many people believe, but it’s a true fact. Having Nofollow links in your website link profile will certainly boost your overall search engines rankings, although you can’t rank for a certain keyword phrase.

I hope now you have clear about these popular SEO myths.

Internet Marketer

• Provides you with ad copy that works
• Displays the target audience and web site that advertisers are getting traffic from
• Usage of banners and ad copy, should you promote this same advertise through an ad network

Blogger

• Inspire new ways to promote your blog and/or bring in new readers
• Find new products and services to blog about
• See what type of advertisers are buying traffic on other blogs

Either way, if you are an affiliate, internet marketer, blogger or all of the above, you should be able to truly appreciate the value in what MixRank.com has to offer… and best of all, it’s free!

Let’s run through the web site and break down what they have to offer.

For this example, let’s say we are looking for ad campaigns of domains (competitors) that use them word “theme” in their domain name. Using the name “theme” because we are looking for wordpress theme related site. To start, you simply head over to MixRank.com and type in “theme”, or whatever word/url you are searching for. MixRank will then display a list of urls currently in there system and how many copies of ad creative they have for each. You can see this break down in the screen shot below.

Lets assume you then select themeforest.net with 12 ads, the next page will then display the text ad creatives, banners (if any), and traffic sources for all campaigns setup through the Google Adwords system. You can see this displayed in the screen shot below.

As you can see, the text creative for the ThemeForest ad campaigns are shown above, which also include some campaigns for independent theme owners who are looking to promote their themes on ThemeForest as well. You can also select from the menu tabs on the right side of the page for further information, which are ad reach, best performer, keywords and demographics.

For a full review on what MixRank has to offer, read my other review on my affiliate marketing blog, which also displays screen caps of the banner creatives and traffic sources for a popular coupon web site.

Try MixRank for Yourself

As I mentioned, MixRank is an amazing tool for research, and best of all it’s free! The purpose behind MixRank isn’t for you to try and copy ad campaigns and use them as your own, but to instead study the information and sources that system can weed out for you. Whether you are a blogger or internet marketer, MixRank is an excellent resource to add into your arsenal!

It seems that many of the standard (non-military) blogs are heavily advertising driven or with lots of cross-links, etc. I also noticed that many of the posts don’t seem to be really long in content. It wasn’t just me either as I have talked with many non-military bloggers at BWE and they were just amazed at what they saw in the milblog community.

Milbloggers for the most part write out of passion, not for money. Milbloggers don’t really make any money. A small handful may sell some ad space or pick up a few dollars off of CPM advertising, but they don’t make a living off of it. Milblogging is essentially a hobby, and for many of us it is almost a full-time hobby that burns up a lot of personal hours. So when I say it is out of passion, the passion is not typically for personal reasons but for unselfish reasons.

Many milbloggers I know, to include myself who started writing blogs while deployed in the War on Terror did it in order to document their deployment experience and have one place for family and friends to come and read about it. It is felt that it is easier to write the blogs on the web and let those who care come read it, rather than sending out mass emails. That is about the most personal gain that is achieved, or at least planned for. One other benefit that I have experienced as have others is the therapeutic nature of writing while in a highly-stressful combat environment. To be able to sit down and type out feelings, experiences, etc. is very good therapy for the mind from what I have found. It is a way of release to let out pent-up aggression, stress, anxieties in a slow and controlled manner.

There is not an official definition of a milblog, so writing a blog in a war-zone or while in the military is not the only type of blog. Milblogs are loosely defined as a blog that is written by military, ex-military, families of military and supporters of military about military related topics and to highlight the issues and concerns of military service. Many of the blogs that are considered milblogs are military spouse blogs, actual service members, and ex-service members. Also there are others written by those who have never served but dedicate a majority of their content to military related issues. These supporters write for no other reason other than that they care.

The BOUHAMMER Military Blog.

The one site that serves as the central collection of all milblogs is www.milblogging.com. The current stats listed on milblogging.com state that there are 3,038 milblogs written in 46 countries. Milblogging.com is a good starting point if you are looking for a specific type of milblog. One of the other things milblogging.com does is sponsor an annual recognition and award system called the “Milbloggies”. The Milbloggie is an award given to one blog per year in several different categories recognizing them as the best blog in that category based on votes from fans and the public.

Here I am pictured blogging from Afghanistan.

I am proud to announce that my blog, www.bouhammer.com has made it into the finals for the fourth year in a row to compete for a Milbloggie. Since I retired in 2009 from the Army, this is the first year my blog is competing in the Best US Veteran Category and not in the Best US Army Category like it had been in years past. I am honored to have my blog, “Bouhammer’s Afghan and Military Blog” to be in such great company as other phenomenal Veteran blogs. My blog has never won a Milbloggie but it has been fun to compete each year. Who knows, maybe this year will be it.

If you would like to check out all the milblogs in each category and even cast your vote in a very easy process, check out http://milblogconference.milblogging.com/2011-milbloggies/vote-now/. You can vote for one blog in each category, and of course if you are not sure to vote for in the Veteran’s category, I suggest Bouhammer’s Afghanistan & Military Blog.

This guest post was written by Troy, a military blogger at bouhammer.com.

Tell us a little about your background info about yourself. Where are you from? How old are you? How long have you been using the Internet?
I am from Wellington, Florida and I still live there now. I am an awesome 10 year old and my birthday is October 20th. I have been using the internet for 5 years now. I first started blogging with my blog cthen when I turned 9 I got into affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is one of the most important things I do to make money now next to blogging. My parents and I also run an infotainment paper called “Tidbits”. You might have heard of it.

What accomplishments so far are you most proud of?
The accomplishments I am most proud of is being a young 10 year old that makes over $5,000 a month. I am also proud of being invited to People To People International which is a organization that picks kids from all over the world and those kids get to go to different countries. I will be going to Ireland, England, Wales, and Scotland.

Your main website is BradleyIsCool.com. How cool are you and how did you get to be so cool?
I am awesomely cool and I got this cool because I have a cool blog. My cool blog helped me get really cool because my blog has cool blog posts.

How did you get to be so good at creating websites at such a young age?
Well it all started at “StarBucks”. My dad owned a company that created websites. I was really bored at Starbucks so I asked my dad if he could teach me how to make a website and he said yes. So from that day on he kept teaching me all kinds of stuff I couldn’t even understand. From that day on whenever we went to the bookstore I got either a HTML or CSS book that taught me everything I needed to know to make my website the best in the world.

How did you come to learn about affiliate marketing? Is this something you want to do when you grow up?
I learned about affiliate marketing when I was 8 1/2. My dad was an affiliate marketer when he was young and he taught me some affiliate marketing. Everyday after school he would teach me one part about affiliate marketing.

What do you think it takes to be successful as an affiliate?
To be a successful affiliate you have to be able to sell at least one product a day. You also have to be able to like being an affiliate.

What have been your biggest failures and frustrations with your websites and schoolwork?
My biggest failure was not listening to my parents for my science project. I had a different answer than they had and I was wrong and they were of course right. My biggest frustration I had with my website bradleyiscool was not posting in 3 weeks! I was on vacation and had no access to the net so I just had to deal with it.

What have you been up to recently? What projects are you working on?
I am creating a business that is going to make wordpress blogs for people. The name of the business is WildWebPro.

What are your greatest strengths?
My greatest strengths are meeting people and making friends.

What are your greatest weaknesses?
Milk is probably my greatest weakness. I can’t stand the look and taste of milk.

What motivates you?
Being invited to special groups pretty much is the only thing that motivates me.

What is the best advice you’ve been given and try to apply it to your life?
My dad teaching me how to blog is the best advice I ever got in my life pretty much.

Who has impacted you most in your life, and how?
My dad because if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be getting this interview right now.

Where do you want to be 10 years from now?
I would like to be living on Hibiscus Island in Miami and have a few high end cars like maybe a 7 series BMW and a few Lambo’s and Ferrari’s. I would also like to make a million dollars a day. I actually know someone that does make a million dollars a day.

How do you like to spend you free time? What do you do for fun?
I like to spend my free time sleeping. What I do for fun is blog. Blogging to me is my favorite thing to do. It is fun and is easy to do. I can tell my fans that I have been to disney world or I can tell them about affiliate marketing.

As you get older, what career choices do you think you will make?
I will probably have the same career choice as a blogger and being an affiliate marketer. I think I might own a multi-blillion dollar business.

Feel free to leave any questions you may have for Bradley, as I’m sure he will be active in the comments area. You can also visit Bradley’s blog at http://www.bradleyiscool.com.

The Thank You Economy

My good friend Gary Vaynerchuk just released his latest book called “The Thank You Economy“, which talks about how the business and interactive world is changing. Just like NetFlix and BlockBuster have battled it out, think about the impact you have everything you “Like” a product on Facebook, or “Tweet” about the latest movie you saw or food you ate. Companies are no longer solely responsible for their branding and advertising, as the customer now has a voice.

If this were 1923, this book would have been called “Why Radio Is Going to Change the Game” . . .

If it were 1995, it would be “Why Amazon Is Going to Take Over the Retailing World” . . .

Getting Personal with Gary Vaynerchuk

Over the years I’ve become a very close friend with Gary and I haven’t met anyone who is more passionate about what they do, and protecting their brand. Since first meeting Gary in Las Vegas at BlogWorld a few years back, he’s just exploded and has been everywhere… even on Conan O’Brian! Here is a video of Gary discussing his new book and what it’s all about.

Buy The Thank You Economy Book

Whether you are a fortune 500 company, a web business or even just a blogger, Gary always produces great content and I’m sure we can all benefit from his latest book. Even better, the book just launched on Amazon.com and is currently 47% off, which brings it to $13.13.

Order your copy of “The Thank You Economy” today.

The first social media conference I ever attended was Blog World Expo in 2007. I was there primarily for PostieCon, an IZEA event. However, attending Blog World Expo really changed things for me and made me even more excited to attend these kinds of events. The experience of being with a group of people who were as excited about blogging and Social Media (Web 2.0 back then) was infectious. I was hooked.

After Blog World Expo 2007 I attended BWE ’08 and ’09 and I plan on going to BWE ’10. I also attended IZEAFest ’08 and ’09 (What PostieCon became) as well as Affiliate Summit East ’09 and West ’10. So, I’ve been to a few of these events. Each event has provided me with not only great education but great contacts, memories and experiences.

Is the Value Received Worth the Expense?

Conferences can be expensive. Not only the cost to attend but additional expenses like transportation, lodging and not to mention food and entertainment. The expenses completely add up, even if you find a sponsor who’d send you to the event and pay much of the expense. You might be thinking that saving the money and watching the twitter feed or the live streaming sessions is a better option. For some it might be, but for me nothing replaces being there in the thick of it.

For the first few conferences I just attended and watched and learned. I spoke to many people, but it wasn’t until I attended a few conferences that I was comfortable to really get into it and speak with everyone. Then as I attended more conferences I began to meet people who would recognize me and who would be interested in spending time talking with me. Eventually I was even asked to speak. Would that have happened if I had stayed home and participated only through chat rooms and Twitter. Maybe, but I highly doubt it.

People do business with those they know, like and trust.

I’ve heard this over and over again and sort of just let it go, but it is the absolute truth. I’m all for Social Networking online and building relationships that certainly is beneficial and has its place. However, you just can’t duplicate sharing a meal together, suffering through a bad speaker together, singing karaoke to bad 80′s music together or slamming your face into a perfectly good cake together. Being there is worth so much more than just learning the latest techniques to make money. Being there is a chance to make a real connection with some fantastic people.

Putting my money where my mouth is.

As the conference season begins in earnest I’m gearing up to be flying all across the country. I can be found either attending or speaking at these conferences. (At this time I am not being sponsored for any trip and the only thing being comped would be conference tickets only if I am speaking.)

The Evolution of Women in Social Media – Speaking on a Daddy Blogger Panel

Affiliate Summit East 2010 – Speaking on a panel “How Bloggers Can Successfully Connect with Audiences”.

Modern Media Man Conference – I submitted a session to speak, waiting to hear.

Blog World and New Media Expo 2010 – I submitted a session to speak, waiting to hear.

If you are attending any of these events let me know, I’d love to meet you. And if you know of other conferences I should attend please let me know.

In the spring, it rains a lot but it usually doesn’t flood.
And in the winter, it snows, but we’re not snowed in.

That is, until the snows started about two weeks ago. The first night, it was kind of fun. It was a Friday night, so we all holed in with our beers, our movies and plenty of milk, bread and toilet paper to keep any families happy.

One foot of snow later, thousands of us were sitting in the dark. The rest of us didn’t have cable television that worked. We’re not hardy people here in Ohio, and we’ve got short attention spans. It doesn’t take long before we start getting bored — usually about a half hour after the lights go out, in fact. But that’s usually okay, because, again, we don’t have extreme weather patterns here. A weekend snow is plowed away by Monday, and life goes on as usual.Yeah, right.
It has not stopped snowing here in more than two weeks. The kids have only gone to school one day. I have two 100-pound Labs that normally love playing in the snow.
It’s up to their chests now. The thrill is gone.
Our parking lots have snow mountains in them. We actually had someone get in trouble with the law a couple of days ago for smacking someone with a snow shovel who had dared to take his dug-out on-street parking space.
And the fun goes on.
The latest Facebook rumor going on amongst my contacts and friends is that there is a mammoth snowstorm coming. The biggest snow in years! We’re getting 40 inches of snow in one night! Fifty inches! It won’t all melt until JULY, for heaven’s sake!
So being the kind of geeky computer blogging person I am, I decided that enough was enough of the rumors. I decided to go on an Internet search and find some of the more creative ways other people around the country are passing their snowbound days.
And now in addition to being bored, I’m impressed and intimidated by the sites and articles I’ve found. You folks have some great ways of passing your snowed-in days.
So here’s some funnies I’ve found so far:

http://www.snowpanic.com/ This blog’s owners say they’ve been tracking the  “Snowpocalypse” since 2009, and freely invite visitors to send in some of the best examples of panic and dismay brought about because of the ongoing snow falls. There’s photos of bread aisles where the bread’s all been sold, tales of neighborhood people threatening plow drivers with bodily harm, and many more all-too-funny examples of the ways these snow storms are causing panic in even the more seasoned weather watchers. Pretty funny stuff!

http://vondrook.com OK, I love a good zombie movie. So when I came across this very creative snow post, “In Preparation of Snowstorm, Citizens Go Out for Eggs, Cannibalism,” I naturally had to stop to enjoy it.  After all, how can you pass up an article that starts out “As a major winter storm was heading towards the east coast, citizens ventured to their nearest grocery stores in hopes of stocking up on foodstuffs, which typically turned into violent bloodshed and cannibalism … The lines were long, sure, but at least everyone was patient; that is, until, the Weather Service declared a ‘Winter Storm Watch.’ After that, it was every man, woman, and child for themselves.” Very funny stuff! And so descriptive of the lines I see at the local grocery store every time the forecasters get too excited.

And if you think you’re safe from ridicule, you’re not, as long as so many people have cell phones with cameras on them. Don’t believe me? Check out this slice of life photograph of snow panic at the grocery store.

What’s really great about all these blogs and bloggers? They’ve taken what the rest of us only sit around and complain about, and made something entertaining out of it.  Those blogs might not make their owners a lot of money, but they are entertaining, they get lots of traffic, and best of all, they’re good examples of what blogging is really all about — using the Internet to communicate the goings-on of the day.

Seen any good winter blogs lately? We’d love to hear about them!

The following snapshots are taken from various reputed blogs and websites. The copyright year(s) in all of them are outdated. The aim of publishing this is fun and humour and not sarcasm. All snapshots were taken on 12 February 11 AM IST.

Google blogs do not update copyright year(s) in the footer. The main Google sites however have the latest update but not the blogs.

The official Google blog is dated 2009

The Gmail blog is dated 2008

The Google Chrome blog says 2009

The Google student blog is dated 2008

The Google Analytics blog is dated 2009

The Google Website Optimizer blog is dated2008

Gator Crossing, the HostGator blog is dated 2009.

The Twitter blog is dated 2009

The Softlayer blog is dated 2008

Who is hosting this dot com (both the homepage and blog) is dated 2007-2009

However, last weekend when I strolled through Times Square I realized just how much technology and blogging have changed the world.  Looking up I saw one of the massive billboards and saw a job opportunity for a blogger.  That’s right a Charmin is offering high end public restrooms for the holiday season and they need 5 Charmin Brand Ambassadors who will “greet, entertain and blog about their experience.”  That’s right, Times Square, once home to porn shops and peep shows will now have public restrooms where you will be encouraged to take photos and people will be blogging about what goes on in the Charmin Restrooms.

If you don’t believe me, check out this video to get a sneak pee peek.  Unfortunately, the auditions have already been held – so you, like me, have missed your opportunity to become the ultimate “bathroom blogger” and perhaps one of the best paid bloggers.

Just that morning I had read that the American Eagle store in Times Square was about to announce plans to turn the 25-story electronic billboard above its flagship store (once the home to a Howard Johnson’s restaurant) into a social-media message board.  Starting on November 19th, anyone who buys something in the American Eagle store, even just a pair of socks, will have the opportunity to have their photo and a message posted on the billboard.  So, what was once one of the ultimate signs of success, can now be bought for just $6.50 – the price of the cheapest item in the American Eagle store.

As I walked through Times Square I wondered what these changes really mean.  Can this be interpreted as a powerful sign that companies are realizing the value of social media?  Or is this another sign that privacy in our world is dwindling to all time lows?

Is this a sign that no longer is the media elitist with just a few having a voice, having a billboard in Times Square?  Or is this a sign that blogging and technology have gone too far – that things that were once unique and special are just becoming common run of the mill events?

If you make it to New York City this winter – then you know now where to stop when the “need” hits you.  If you aren’t traveling to the Big Apple, just keep an eye out for the upcoming blog enjoythego.com.  In the interim – join the conversation – are social media, technology and blogging taking us to new heights or new lows?

Just don’t forget to flush when you are done thinking!

Your blog, site, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, or any other networking site will reflect who you are, but this isn’t always a good thing. It’s always a good idea to separate business from pleasure, and the same goes for your web presence.

One of the ways that you can keep your Friday night personal is to have different accounts for the different parts of your life. Famous writers have Facebook and MySpace pages dedicated to their writing so that readers can become fans. They use these usernames for anyone who might know them, but they themselves do not know the person in question. When you have a separate account on social networking sites for your personal life, you will limit the access the world has to your indiscretions. You can do the same thing for Twitter and only allow people you know to gain access to the photos of one too many margaritas.

When it comes to blogging and your site, or the site that you work for, it’s important to clarify your goals. Are you writing because you want to or because you’re getting paid and someone expects you do do something a certain way by a certain time?

If you’re writing because you want to write, then you can write whatever you want right? Wrong. Even though you may have a fun site with a silly blog that talks about weird nonsensical ideas, that doesn’t mean that you should divulge important information about yourself. Sure, let your readers know who you are, let them see the fun side, but know the boundaries. Know when you’re going too far when expressing yourself because one wrong post can send you to blogging purgatory. Just kidding. But if you say something that you shouldn’t have said, and the wrong person finds out, your site and blog will suffer.

If you’re writing for a site or keeping a blog because someone is paying you for it, then don’t talk about the best sandwich in the world and why unless that’s what you’re supposed to be writing about. You need to think about this: is your opinion really important? Does it matter what YOU think, or does your boss just want you to write something and keep you quiet about everything else? Most of the time when we write for people, we need to be very professional. This doesn’t mean that we can’t have fun writing, blogging, or commenting on the web, it just means that there is a time and a place for everything and with the digital age, many of us have forgotten about this.

To be on the safe side so your boss doesn’t see that photo of you drinking out of the toilet, separate your business web presence and personal web presence.

In either case, this ban affects blogs hosted on the *blogspot.com subdomain (approximately 275 million) and also those who use a custom domain for their Blogger blogs (statistics of which are very difficult to gather). Here are the results of accessibility tests from WebsitePulse which show whether sites are accessible from within China:

According to logs from Herdict Web, Blogger powered sites have been blocked from around the 16th of May onwards; even today, there are dozens of references via Twitter from those in China who are unable to publish to their blogs or access websites they wish to visit:

What can we do to work around this ban, ensuring those in China can publish their blogs and access the sites they want to read?

For bloggers in China who want to publish new posts

Bloggers in China are unable to access their Blogger dashboard by regular means. However, there are other services which can still be accessed that can publish to Blogger on your behalf.

Post by email

Blogger has offered the “Mail to Blogger” service for quite some time, enabling bloggers to publish new posts while on the move. This enables us to write an email to our secret “Mail to Blogger” address which is then automatically published on our sites.

The only downside to this is that the Mail to Blogger address must be set up from within the Blogger dashboard, so this service is only possible for China-based bloggers who have already set up their email address.

A possible alternative is Posterous, which you can set up as a third party “Mail to Blogger” client using your blog’s unique ID number (which can also be found in the source code of your blog’s feed).

Auto-post via Facebook or Ping.fm

BlogIt is an app for Facebook which enables you to update multiple blogs and status feeds from your Facebook profile. Once you have installed this app in your Facebook profile, you will need to authorize use of your Blogger account (through Google hosted pages), after which you can update your blog via Facebook any time you like.

Ping.fm is another alternative, offering a simple solution to update your Blogger blog (and other social profiles) from a single application. Using Ping.fm you can update via the web, IM, email and other third party applications. It is advisable to use Ping.fm for short posts only as no formatting options are enabled.

To read Blogger powered blogs from within China

For those wishing to read their favourite Blogger powered blogs from within China, here are a couple of possible solutions:

Translate Blogger blogs

Using Google Translate or Babelfish, you can circumvent the restrictions by viewing Blogger blogs in a translated page. This ensures that the URL of the site you are reading is based on a different server.

Choose to translate from Chinese to English (or whichever translation you prefer) and paste the complete URL of the blog you wish to read. The blog will then be accessible for you to browse recent posts or archives with ease:

Unfortunately this does not appear to work when attempting to access the Blogger home page, so this workaround will not enable you to post from the Blogger dashboard.

Subscribe to “banned” blogs using an RSS reader

It is also possible to read updates from your favourite sites by reading in an RSS reader. Sign up to use Google Reader, BlogLines or Newsgator (none of which appear to be banned in China) and add the URL of the default feed for the Blogger blog you wish to read. This will be in the following format: http://your-favourite-blog.blogspot.com/atom.xml.

You will then be able to read the latest updates from your favourite blogs, though unfortunately it may be impossible to comment on these posts since this requires access to Blogger servers.

Digital Inspiration also offers some interesting techniques to access banned sites from within China in this post.

How to find out if your blog is banned in China

The simplest way to discover if your blog (or website) is inaccessible from within China is to use this free tool from WebSitePulse. Paste the URL of your blog in the window and hit enter. After a few moments, you will be presented with results which show if your blog can be accessed from China and comparitively with other servers from different continents.

How to find out if your ISP is blocking Blogger blogs

To discover if you will be able to access Blogger powered blogs through your internet service provider, it is advisable to ping blogspot.com using your computer’s DOS ping tool.

If you use Windows, you can do this by clicking the “Start” button and choosing the “run” command. Type “cmd” into the box and hit “enter”. Then type ping blogspot.com into the black box followed by enter.

For unrestricted access to blogspot.com through your ISP, you will see something like this on your screen:

Pinging blogspot.blogger.com [208.73.210.121] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 208.73.210.121: bytes=32 time=329ms TTL=239

Ping statistics for 208.73.210.121:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 294ms, Maximum = 337ms, Average = 323ms

In cases where the URL is blocked, you will likely receive a message like “Ping request could not find the host. Please check and try again.

Final thoughts

It seems unlikely that Blogger powered sites will be accessible from within China in the close future, though as we have seen before, such restrictions are usually lifted after a period of time.

I hope the information and tips in this article assist those who need to post to their blogs or read Blogger powered sites from within China. Please feel free to offer your own suggestions and comments below.

On Tuesday John got taken into Hospital because he had gallblabber stones. Incase any readers doubted that he was blogging from his sick bed, he posted again a few hours later to prove that he really was blogging from hospital.

John was able to do this by using his 3G iPhone as a router so that he could connect his Mac Air to the internet. I was more surprised that the hospital let patients use their laptop and mobile in the hospital. At my local hospital you have to switch off your mobile phone incase it conflicts with any of the machines (though many people don’t!).

This is a great example of how dedicated some high profile bloggers are. I think that a lot of new bloggers see the flashy lifestyle of travelling, hotels and fast cars that successful bloggers lead and assume that the blogger got lucky.

Nothing could be further from the truth. All the high profile bloggers I know of got there through hard work, networking and dedication, and it took them years to get to the position they are in. Something which I think we all have to remember.

Anyways, here’s a video of John from his hospital bed explaining the situation. Enjoy

Apparently the blog was setup for a school assessment. A part of me is encouraged by a kid so young getting into blogging though a big part of me thinks that the kid should be out in the playground playing with other kids instead of being stuck inside working on a computer. Perhaps I am wrong to make this assumption.

Anyways, here’s the news clip from NBC

Link : The world’s next great sage: A 7-year-old blogger (via Gypsy Bandito)

The Usual Suspects

• Problogger
• ShoeMoney
• Chris Brogan
• DoshDosh
• Lorelle on WordPress

Some You May Not Have Heard About (Yet)

• Big Satchurday: Liz is a web developer who works from home. She specialises in enabling small business owners to do more for themselves on the internet, providing encouragement, a sympathetic ear, but most importantly, training.
• Blogger Buster: BloggingTips.com’s own writer, Amanda, runs this site. Blogger Buster is a resource blog for bloggers, offering hints, hacks, tips and tricks to help enhance your blogging experience.
• Blogging Basics 101: This is one of my blogs where I write tips and instructions for beginning bloggers.
• Blogthority: Authority Blogging Concepts and Services.
• Webgrrls: Insight, Information and Inspiration on women’s careers, business, technology and the Industry.
• The Edublogger: Discussion of emerging technologies on edublogs.

Writing Blogs

• Confident Writing: A blog site full of writing tips and virtual coaching from Joanna Young. It’s a site not just for writers but for anyone who wants or needs to write with confidence.
• Copyblogger: Copywriting tips for online marketing success.
• Plagiarism Today: This site covers content theft, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.
• The Writer’s Technology Companion: Tools, tips, and technology for productive writers.
• Write to Done: The craft and art of writing.

Tung built up WPDesigner into one of the most popular WordPress design blogs on the net but earlier this year he decided to go travelling for a while and decided to sell up. He got a good price for his blog but unfortunately, the new owner has not touched the site in the last 6 months.

A month or so before he sold up Tung started a themes club. For a $5 yearly fee you were supposed to get access to at least 12 premium themes but because he sold the site shortly after launching the club there was only ever 4 themes available. However, Michael Castilla today reported that Tung has refunded his $5 fee and will be refunding who signed up for the themes club.

This is the right thing to do. Tung was under no obligation to do this as it was the new owners fault for not updating the site so kudos to the Small Potato for this gesture.

If you paid to be a member of the themes club and you haven’t received a refund as yet, please leave a comment here. If you still haven’t received one after a week or so I’ll do my best to look into it for you guys.

Link : Small Potato Refunds ThemeClub Members

* This news story was found via Jeffro’s Blog. Thanks Jeff