Webtalks Pagerank 5

Greetings.Google today, rolled out the snapshot of current pagerank.This blog is getting a PR of 5 this time.This is a good jump from PR 3 which had been there for quite long.Surprisingly, this time there was no BackLink export, but who cares? Its party time here as I have over taken some top-notch blogs like john chow(4) and dosh dosh(4).


This update is accompanied by the feed chicklet getting into 3 digits.Currently, it is showing 101 readers.Thank you for subscribing to the feed and if you haven't yet, please do so:they are fast and ad free

The secret
Nothing.Avoid too many links on home page.Get relevant quality backlinks.Focus on content quality more than on PR and last but not the least follow Google Webmaster guidelines.

The Webtalks Effect
I'm not going to talk about traffic.Its about a single site wide link on my blog which linked to the domain(ashtech.info), I bought few months back.The result? Its now Pagerank 4.You can check, its not even indexed by Yahoo!

See how powerful my link is?

Widgetbucks outperforms AdSense

WidgetBucks, a newly launched monetizing service is these days gaining popularity as a worthy AdSense alternative.Officially, you can call it that WidgetBucks features pay-per-click shopping widgets that help their customers make money fast. They instantly display the most popular products based on buying trends of 100 million shoppers. Thus they are highly engaging, which means instant dollars for our customers.

I was keen to know how it performs on my blog.I implemented a skyscraper few days back, and the results, well, it outperformed AdSense who had that spot before.The 25$ sign up bonus adds spice to the whole program.

The Ads had a visitor attracting animation but unfortunately, the loading of this blog got double.I wasn't alone in this problem.Soon they announced fast loading widgets.Though, its better now but still below perfect.Soon, they came up with a new format, 300 x 150 which perfectly flushes in my sidebar.The loading time is now half of what it used to be earlier.The new format is more compact and a visitor magnet and the results say speak of it.

I don't think so that running Widgetbucks widget alongside AdSense should have any problems but you can confirm so by the AdSense support.I have already shot them an email but I don't know why, they take about a month(sometimes even more) to reply.

Lets draw a fair bit of Conclusion
Likes

1. I like their animation,visitor appeal
2. 25$ sign up bonus.
3. Payments by Paypal
4. Active support
5. Referrals embedded in normal ads
6. High eCPM

Dislikes

1. Loading time.Though they have worked upon it, still it needs improvement.
2. Limited Formats
3. Payments are sent 45 days after you cross minimum payout,i.e 50$
4. Referral program.You don't have an estimate how much can you make by referring a blogger

Google does their bit of part
Google axed Widgetbucks from their normal indexes, though they still show up in the sponsored links section.Probably, because earlier Widgetbucks widget, when running without Javascript used to have a hidden link to the Widgetbucks homepage.But Bidvertiser has the same kind of referral tools and they have never been penalized.

So, has a fire broken out at the Googleplex?

Lets prove Google we are promising publishers

I was a bit sleepy today.I used to check my AdSense earnings on every odd day since I was in the nervous nineties. today, when I logged in, I felt happy that my gross earnings are now in 3 digits( for some of you, you can do so in a day) but for me its a good experience to be there for the first time.

Now, as I have crossed the minimum payout limit, I want to be nice with them.Earlier I was a naughty chap creating hundreds of channels and changing ad placement almost daily.I want to prove that this blog is visited by a high quality traffic.The best way to do so is to put up referral Ad units instead of the normal AdSense for Content Ad units.

I'll be going for non-Google referral 2.0 Ad units.Recently they implied a limitation on first few successful conversions done by a publisher.So far I have done one only one successful conversion.They will be probably remove the limitation once I do 5 more to to enable me full payments.

I'll be replacing the most visible Ad unit, the post inline one with a referral 2.0 Ad . If I don't receive any successful conversion till 31st October, I will opt out.If I do, I'll publish a report about it in this month's site report.

What others are saying?
Problogger Amit Agarwal revealed that Referral 2.0 Ads are doing a good job for him.But Amit, then why did you remove those ads from your entire network?

Should you Digg or Sphinn it?

The Digg effect, everyone's familiar with it.Just in case you don't know, being brief, it will bring just around 30,000 hits if you somehow get on the first page.But with millions of blogs out there looking for the same, your chances are low unless you are blogging live or have a got an ultra creative post up on your blog.

Sphinn on other hand is a quite new social site out there.Their about page defines it as

A social site for search and interactive marketers. It's designed to allow you to share and discover news stories, read and take part in discussions, discover events of interest and network with others.

In short a BINGO for make money online blogs like Webtalks

Sphinn uses almost the same scripts as digg and has nothing new as a social site but it's biggest advantage is its topics.For digg, if I have to submit a article about Google AdSense, I dump it in the Tech Industry News section.Fortunately, Sphinn has a special directory dedicated to AdSense itself.

Sphinn doesn't receive much traffic as digg does but you can take it to your advantage.A post I submitted 28 hours before still is in the upcoming section page #2.If it would have been digg, my post was nowhere to be found after a day even in the deepest directory's upcoming page.

To get into the homepage of digg, you need around 800 + diggs but for Sphinn , 40 Sphinns will do the job

I tried submitting the most popular post on Webtalks so far, the New Blogger Templates one, to both the sites.The results are:
I got 10 hits from digg and 3 diggs
I got 13 hits from Sphinn and 4 Sphinns plus the story is still on the second upcoming page so I expect more.
The post is live on Sphinn here and on Digg here.So its your turn to digg or give it a Sphinn

For me, I'll chose Sphinn most of the time along with Stumbleupon[My Profile] but I won't forget to digg if I've got an extraordinary story.

Anything new?

Quite a few things have been happening in the blogosphere.I'll just sum them up.

Today's Blog Action Day when bloggers write to promote environment.My contribution is today I wrote a poem on a chart for my class soft board on Nature title "leisure" by William Henry Davies.Its a good one.

AdSense team has blogged about a quality control over the inventory by placing a restriction for publishers monetizing Displaying non-Google referrals.In this case, you'll just earn a little less than the price you get for a successful conversion for the first few times, after which you'll earn normally.If you don't display Google AdSense referral 2.0 ads, its out of your business.This happened just a few hours after I received my first successful conversion :)

Webtalks has been experiencing a poor posting frequency over th past few days.The reason is here.I was busy with the launch of another Tech Blog, And now I'm proud to announce that we just launched the Ashtech Blog (Go grab the RSS).Reason, Wordpress is a much better blogging platform for tech-savvy bloggers like me.While Webtalks will continue its normal routine on the same *.blogspot subdomain , I will be joined by my classmate, Harshyt Goel at the Ashtech Blog.Harhsyt has got some writing skills.He previously used to blog at the Review Blog.Check out the Blog now!

Google Pagerank gave a so called teaser trailer on 13 October.All sites reporting changes have got a low pagerank than their previous ones while some are complaining about their non-involvement in link business.Webtalks remained unaffected with this partial update.It looks like Google are really after it.Some folks are saying about a new algorithm change, When I searched for it, I concluded it was the Orion algorithm which Google bought a 17 months before from an Australian Scholar.Going by the data, I think the Quarter 4 export should happen by the end of October but this time its not going to be exciting as Google have tested our patience upto an extent from where no excitement about the next export is left.This teaser update was a big enough news to get a Sticky Post on DP forums.

Remember Top 100 Make Money Online list by 45n5.com? Jason Blanton a has made a list of feeds of all top 100 blogs right in one post.It must have been a painful task.You can also check out The Webtalks feed there somewhere in the middle.Advertisers maybe this is a good opportunity for you.

Make Money Online with Tnx

With Google reducing pagerank of sites selling links (Eg .Stanford Daily) the Link business has a got a big threat from it. If you don’t know what I am talking about, Google is strictly against paid links or in Google terms “selling PR” .Probably, this is the reason why the Pagerank export hasn’t happened for over a five months now. But the subject of our today’s post is about another Web service called TNX which lets advertisers buy links and thus improve search engine rankings and publisher generate revenue from his site by selling links, but in a different manner with a mission to

• Assist website owners in attracting targeted visitors and clients from search engines and relevant websites.
  
• Reduce the dependence on search engines.
  
• Improve quality of the search results for those websites that join TNX system.
  
• Increase the income of every webmaster who joins TNX system.
  The working

TNX combines the benefits of Contextual Advertising, Text Link Brokers and Relevant Exchange of permanent non-reciprocal text links.
It’s a bit easy to speak these lines but the folks at Tnx have done their best to give the desired results. Search Engines like Google want high quality relevant back links for higher Search engine ratings.

TNX allowes publishers to sell links from each page on their website, and for advertisers it allowes to buy millions of links from other sites in few clicks. TNX is a convenient tool that allowes publishers and advertisers to save time, efforts and money: in just a few minutes you can have thousands of links from hundreds of high quality relevant sites linking to yours.

All links are direct, they are located on main pages and inside pages that are also very important. Ads are displayed mostly on well-noticeable spots so they can attract visitors.
The system can be used to promote main page of the advertiser's site as well as inside pages.
Site publishers can not only use TNX.net to earn money, they can also use it to promote own websites by taking advantage of our system as an advertiser (balance in the system is unified).

The point system
TNX is probably the first monetizing web site using the point system.Its a very complex , so I tried sorting out a bit.
If you are an advertiser, you can buy 20,000 points with 20$ (1,000points = 1$)
With these 20,000 points you can buy static links for a month on (subject to availability)
- 20 000 different PR0 pages from different websites (1point/link)
- 400 different PR1 pages from different websites (50points/link)
- 200 different PR2 pages from different websites (100 points/link)
- 100 different PR3 pages from different websites (200points/link)
- 40 different PR4 pages from different websites (500points/link)
- 20 different PR5 pages from different websites (1,000points/link)

Lets take, you have a got a PR 3 blog and Want to sell 5 of its links. Selling it directly to advertisers would require a lot of effort and luck too.Instead,you will get 1000 points /month in your account . Then you have got a choice, buy targeted links from other sites with the points you earned or sell the points to Tnx itself. The price for 1000 points is 0.63 $ currently but it has an weekly inflation of 2 % .So far you earned only 0.63 $ for the links but here, the key lies here:

The Bonuses
For whatever site you sign up and get approved, you’ll get 7000 points as a bonus if you signup now.Now, head off to the DP forums post, paste your ID and get 2,000 more points in your account.Note:Offer for a limited period.

Which makes the tally:1,000 + 7,000 + 2,000 = 10,000 points = 6.3 $
An Impressive 6.3 dollars by no extra efforts

A newly launched affiliate program is just as interesting...
When you bring a new webmaster to the system, you will receive 13.3% of all "TNX-points", he/she will earn in the future (a reward for referring an advertiser is also available). This amounts to almost half of the system's commission! Interest is paid for the lifetime.

Example: When you refer a webmaster to TNX and advertiser pays 100 TNX-Points for a link on your referral's website, your referral (webmaster) gets 75 points and you get 10 points which is 13.3% of his income.No bans , no restrictions, No over changes makes this program a stand out.Text Link Ads referral is a high paying one but how many advertisers/publishers get approved in it to bring you the commission? For me, 1 out of 100* referrals of Text Link Ads gets approved.Google AdSense has some restrictions over promoting the referral products.This program has much scope from the referral point of view for bloggers which doesn't has a wide influential audience.

Its good that they have worked on the minimum site requirements page so that Webmasters can come to know how to increase their chances of getting approved.

In addition to the criteria (number of visitors, PR) we also look at the following:

- site’s idea. There is a huge number of sites in the Internet, and each of them was created for a certain purpose. We want the sites participating in our network to be created for people and not for search bots.

- design, navigation simplicity. We would rather accept a site with plain white background without any graphics rather than a site with irritating composition of sharp colors, blinking banners and dozens of buttons on pages.

- actual and unique content – is the main criteria for an Internet project’s success. Without it the site will become invisible for search engines that might decide that it’s just a mirror of another site.

- domain name. The best names are resonant and short, easily rememberable. We prefer second level domains COM, NET etc.

- site’s theme. We do not welcome entertainment-erotic sites, sites about earnings, pyramids, etc.

- lack of forbidden methods of promotion of site in search engines (for example, link bank, because search engines can delete such sites at any time as soon as they find a violation).

Security:This site wins it here.Google is strictly against paid reviews, and if you perform a quick site search on Google with ReviewMe.com for lets take John Chow Dot Com, you'll see the inventory right in the search results.Once you are caught by a Googler, you are the next John chow.TNX doesn't reveal all details of the link selling site to the advertisers , so now the Webmasters can sleep freely

Tip for TNX owners:Give ready made widgets that are compatible with most of the blogging platforms as of current Php, only supported by Wordpress is mandatory.

Conclusion:TNX system has tried to innovate the Link Buying /Selling market.A service newly launched and has got 27,646 users already.If you want to earn some bucks by selling links, are lazy, fear of Google, don't get direct advertisers then TNX is the right choice for your blog

Sign up for TNX

Is Google facing Hacking Threat?

The big G seems to have landed under trouble.My newspaper daily, Times Of India reported that Picasa, Gmail, Blogger and the search engine itself are vulnerable.Indian Computer Emergency Response team has warned users against a virus called "googbot"

It has been observed that a mass-mailing worm named Googbot is circulating in the wild. It propagates by exploiting software vulnerabilities.

The worm has its own SMTP engine to send mass e-mails. It harvests the e-mail addresses from the infected system and sends malicious e-mails to the collected addresses. The e-mail body contains a malicious link which entice the users to click upon using social engineering technique.

The e-mail contains the following :

Subject : (any of the following)

• Someone has sent you a Private Message!
• You have just recieved a NEW message!
• You have (1) NEW messages!

Body : (any of the following)

• You have just recieved a new Google Message!
• You can view your message here: http://www.google.com/gmsgid=4289472
• Note: If you do not already have Google Message Viewer installed, you will be prompted to install it.

Sounds interesting doesn't it? But they have a valid reason .I use Gmail,Blogger and Adsense daily and if these services are hacked, I'm gone!
And to add Google AdSense website has gone down at around 10:30am GMT today.Neither the AdSense blog nor the Official Google Blog has any detail of it

Thanks Amit for a great post on How to backup your blogger blog which has helped me to deal with this situation

How many jackpots does your inbox win everyday?

They are OK in the SPAM section but what will you do if you win millions or maybe even more than that twice or thrice a day.As a normal blogger, I've left my email address at countless places causing automated messages to be sent directly into the inbox.You cannot do anything instead of reporting as Spam but that won't be much effective as such SPAMMERS can riddle the basic algorithm

Basic Characteristics of Such Emails

• Text would be bold and capitalized
  
• Urgent Claim required
• Fake Email IDs
• Reply to different email address than the one which actually sent that message
• Your information such as Name,Address,Age,Contact Number,Age,Occupation,Nationality required

What next?
I took up the challenge and did as directed.Not to mention, I gave all false information.Then their Email came saying that my money is in ***** Bank with **** Account number.As a security, they would be requiring some money (they asked for 4,000$) for smooth transaction.Their intentions were clear.They had just found a fish in a trap but I was smart enough to deal with the situation.I said, I first wanted to meet them somewhere in my country where I will give all cash.They haven't replied yet nor I'm expecting it.

A fooled fish
In my daily newspaper,Times Of India, I read about person who assumed that he had one a million $ lottery and did as directed.He also deposited the amount required in the bank.But he never received his lottery.

Fortunately, he acted at the right time and involved the judiciary in it and the Spammer who is a Nigerian is behind the bars now.

The best option when you receive such emails is to simple ignore them and remember at no cost give them your private info.(I wonder how these many people are running after money blindly)

Hold on, I just won 170,000$, how about a trip to space? :)

Site Report For September

Its the first month after holidays, but with a day less.So here's my site report

Statistics

We got 10,486 pageviews according to analytics by 7,289 visitors.Interestingly Adsense Dashboard says we got 11,140 pageviews while statcounter says we got 9,000 pageviews!


Google Organic Search continues to dominate the referring source while most visitors were from United States and were after Templates!

We have done pretty well in Technorati as we currently rank #400

Blog Income Report
Adsense :31$
Test Link Ads :25$
Template business :20$
Kontera :1$ (lolz)

Which adds upto 77$.Ther has been a certain dip from the previous income report reason being I have removed 2 Adsense Ad units.Adsense has displayed consistence performance while I managed to refer one advertiser to the TLA network.I have done 2 design makeovers 15$ and 5$ respectively.While Kontera has been a poor perfomer.

I am thinking of removing Kontera from this site, its making the things confusing.I have temporarily removed the Advertiseing Link for I think it requires some proper attention.

New Feature : Last night, I added a new feature called as Table Of Contents in which you'll see all posts published on this weblog on simply clicking a link.Its using API so the list would be listed on the same page.You can also toggle between Post Date,Labels and Post Title.The Table Of contents Link is visible in the right sidebar.