$10 More for Reader Blog Critique of ToMuse.com

[VizionQuest]

Hi,
My name is Kevin and I own the blog (ToMuse) that is being featured currently for the Reader Blog Critique. http://www.bloggingtips.com/2008/11/25/reader-blog-critique-tomusecom/

Unfortunately I haven't received any constructive feedback on my blog. I would appreciate it if you could review it and leave your comments at the Blogging Tips link above.

In addition to the $10 that Blogging Tips is paying, and as added incentive, I will pay an additional $10 (via PayPal) to the most helpful and constructive commenter.

Thanks for your time and help, it is greatly appreciated!

[Rarst]

I am sorry to see slow week for your critique, probably holidays in US and such.

Of course I will post my entry this evening because I don't miss a single one. Hope more people will join. Maybe Kevin (local one :) ) should add few days to it?

[navjotjsingh]

To the Kevin of BloggingTips and not of Tomuse...pls close this post. The FeedCount is fake. Feedcount image url is : http://tomuse.com/wp-content/themes/Vestique/images/feedsburn.gif and FeedCount is disabled for the actual feed at: http://feedproxy.google.com/~fc/ToMuseBlog?bg=00A2FF&fg=444444&anim=0 - This will say feed count disabled.

And for a blog who has only 12 pages of posts and alexa traffic not even under 100,000 ... its impossible to has 30000 approx RSS Subscribers! I even don't have 200 even with less than 100,000 alexa traffic.

I won't review his blog and pls Kevin, don't waste your $10 over a blog which is cheating its visitors.

[Kevin]

I don't place any value on alexa traffic but I am surprised that the feedcount is fake. ToMuse, can you please show your true feedcount to readers.

[athlon24]

wow. That was a big shock. Can anyone really fake the feedburner count.. hmmm... I was just about to make some critic but.. :(

[VizionQuest]

I am actually trying this theme out and that feed count is the default. I didn't realize everyone took that for an actual feed count.

I will remove it ASAP. Thanks!

[Rarst]

If you bash something at least do a thorough check. :) Image obviously points to theme directory and it takes few seconds to google theme and see it there as well http://themesdemo.wpthemesplugin.com/

Not everything that looks bad is cheating, can be other things like no attention to details.

[Kevin]

yeah the default theme does seem to link to the fake feedcount image. It is a little misleading though.

[VizionQuest]

Thanks for the tip, I just removed the default rss image.

[navjotjsingh]

I may have sounded harsh...but I hate when people forget that what that count leads us to thinking. Though it now seems the image was supplied as a part of theme package...but it was your duty to remove that too. Also I was a bit shocked when you had feed count disabled at http://feedproxy.google.com/~fc/ToMuseBlog which led me to come to conclusion that it may had been intentional even.

[VizionQuest]

I may have sounded harsh...but I hate when people forget that what that count leads us to thinking. Though it now seems the image was supplied as a part of theme package...but it was your duty to remove that too. Also I was a bit shocked when you had feed count disabled at http://feedproxy.google.com/~fc/ToMuseBlog which led me to come to conclusion that it may had been intentional even.

Navjot:
The Feed Count feature in Feedburner is disabled by default. But thanks for the constructive criticism and your grace once again.:)

[Donace]

General

Firstly I love the category javascript expansion etc. its great! though clicking it to much breaks it :p If you think its possible go for css alternative.

I also noticed you have a fair bit of ad's plastered everywhere....I counted more than 3...remember google only allows 3 per page. but generally try and keep it to a minimum.

for 'http://tomuse.com/submit-news/' prehaps add a form there so people can fill it out and submit stuff...cforms is brilliant for this.

you have 'top posts' page (http://tomuse.com/top-posts/) and a popular post widget...perhaps keep only one?

I personally did not like the amazon widget and would axe that.

I also noticed you require to eb logged in to comment...I would recommend doing something like blogginh tips has here.

Speed

Dupe scripts: http://adsyndication.msn.com/delivery/getads.js gets called 9 times on the front page....so im assuming 9 adds are present...tying in with the earlier point...perhaps reduce this.

minify minify minify!

the following JS are not optimised for size:

(124.1K) http://tomuse.com/wp-includes/js/prototype.js?ver=1.6
(2.6K) http://tomuse.com/wp-includes/js/scriptaculous/scriptaculous.js?ver=1.8.0
(4.7K) http://tomuse.com/wp-includes/js/scriptaculous/builder.js
(38.9K) http://tomuse.com/wp-includes/js/scriptaculous/effects.js
(31.6K) http://tomuse.com/wp-includes/js/scriptaculous/dragdrop.js
(34.9K) http://tomuse.com/wp-includes/js/scriptaculous/controls.js
(10.2K) http://tomuse.com/wp-includes/js/scriptaculous/slider.js
(1.9K) http://tomuse.com/wp-includes/js/scriptaculous/sound.js
(38.9K) http://tomuse.com/wp-includes/js/scriptaculous/effects.js?ver=1.8.0
(31.4K) http://tomuse.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery.form.js?ver=2.02
(3.1K) http://tomuse.com/wp-content/plugins/contact-form-7/contact-form-7.js
(4.9K) http://w.sharethis.com/widget/?tabs=post%2Cweb%2Cemail&charset=utf-8&style=default&publisher=b5537f1[snip]
(1.0K) http://tomuse.com/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-tweaks/tweaks.php?js=targetblank
(4.5K) http://tomuse.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-dtree-30/dtree.php?witheff=true&eff=grow&effdur=0.5&trunc=20
(18.8K) http://widget.odiogo.com/odiogo_js.php?feed_id=104848&platform=wp&version=2.5.6
(0.3K) http://www.google.com/coop/cse/brand?form=cse-search-box<=en
(0.3K) http://tomuse.com/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-tweaks/tweaks.php?js=post_targetblank

using something like http://www.xtreeme.com/javascript-optimizer/ can shave of a good % and save time and bandwith.

HTTP requests

A quick check showed you were calling from the following domains:

* tomuse.com
* ws.amazon.com
* w.sharethis.com
* adsyndication.msn.com
* widget.odiogo.com
* www.google.com
* static.getclicky.com
* www.google-analytics.com
* www.statcounter.com
* s3.odiogo.com
* farm4.static.flickr.com
* www.feedburner.com
* www.tomuse.com

This adds a small lag...try using less off-site lookups

I also notice you are using share this.. I found that it lagged a lot and would recommend changing to socialious. (it also leaks a bit of pr as yahoo buzz is do-follow).

SEO

while over all it seems good...there are one 2 things.

The js for the cats. inevitably is 'do-follow' and your losing a bit of juice there..keep that in mind.

The 'pages' ie http://tomuse.com/page/2/ etc are also do-follow ideally you want them no-follow so to prevent juice flowing to them as apposed to the posts themselves.

Again on http://tomuse.com/about/ the links are also do-follow... linking out is not bad but just keep that in mind.

You categories are again do-follow..this is your own preference here I may self keep then no-follow so to keep the post ranking and not the category though each has its own pros and cons.

Again re no-follow I would suggest you do it to you 'login' (http://tomuse.com/wp-login.php?redirect_to=http://tomuse.com/5-top-productivity-applications-gtd-tmobile-g1/) and previous and next buttons.

archives I noticed were also do-follow...hit them with no index and no-follow to prevent dupes.

lastly consider moving from allinoneseo to platinum seo as allinone is no longer supported while platinum is,

[VizionQuest]

Wow, thanks so much for your awesome review and attention to detail! I just became a lifetime subscriber of The Nexus :)

[sarahG]

The js for the cats. inevitably is 'do-follow' and your losing a bit of juice there..keep that in mind.

The 'pages' ie http://tomuse.com/page/2/ etc are also do-follow ideally you want them no-follow so to prevent juice flowing to them as apposed to the posts themselves.

Again on http://tomuse.com/about/ the links are also do-follow... linking out is not bad but just keep that in mind.

You categories are again do-follow..this is your own preference here I may self keep then no-follow so to keep the post ranking and not the category though each has its own pros and cons.

Again re no-follow I would suggest you do it to you 'login' (http://tomuse.com/wp-login.php?redirect_to=http://tomuse.com/5-top-productivity-applications-gtd-tmobile-g1/) and previous and next buttons.

archives I noticed were also do-follow...hit them with no index and no-follow to prevent dupes.

That's not the point of 'nofollow'. nofollow was created to allow site owners to alert search engines that they couldn't vouch for the link by adding rel="nofollow" on it. So adding this to your pages within your own site is a complete abuse of the attribute and kills the linking throughout the site.

Use appropriate methods and not just hacks to do the job. You certainly shouldn't 'nofollow' your page links! Your front page links to a page, that page links back to the front page. If you're that concerned over PR then it will 'flow' in both directions.

Use nofollow for what it was designed for, and that's not for SEO purposes.

[Donace]

@ sarah..well those are MY recommendations since my theme change I haven't had time to implement all my tweaks and will be doing that to my links as well.

My main aim by no-indexing ... is that you help prevent dupe-content and by no-following you keep the PR in the posts themselves...and this in my opinion is vital as it is THOSE that you want to help rank.Not your 'Page 2' etc that is dynamic.

The main reason I no-follow unessential is to attempt to 'sculpt' PR in an attempt to boost rankings in that sense and for all extent and purposes it seems to work...all my key posts have PR now and those that dont by directing links to the sitemap i'm assuming will help push the 'juice' and 'breed' interlinking..this interlinking made more so by using related/popular posts and seo smartlinks for keyword targeted links.

Again I will say then to Kevin and to all these are just MY suggestion for things that I have found to work well for me.

(Incidentally I would also recommend using robot.txt to block any 'tag' crawling.)

Now your point about 'abuse' of no-follow ... it may well be in the originally construed sense of the purpose of the tag...but in my experience (meagre that it is) I have not seen yahoo/ask/msn adhere to much to 'no-follow' just google....and If it is possible to use this to highlight the main content on your site then Isay let us use it to do that.

[VizionQuest]

Nevermind, found it. Thanks.