Embarrassingly it's been a year since my original experiment in blogging was updated. In fairness, I now edit two other sites and this mixture of tests, comment and even analysis has fallen behind in terms of priority.
The site still gets a regular stream of traffic from some of the better pieces in terms of content and SEO practice, so rather than kill it off I'm going to remind Google and co that it still exists.
I may well continue to do the odd update from time to time on topics outside of my current web publishing interests, so keep subscribed to the RSS feed and hopefully good things will come to those that wait.
Showing posts with label blogger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogger. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Friday, June 15, 2007
Time to update the blogger templates
This blog has had the same template for a couple of years now, after I decided to take it out of the pre-2000 design phase and bring it up-to-date. As ever, internet design moves fast and it's already looking dated.
So, I decided to check out the available blogger templates having expectations of at least some of the open-source creativity you get with Wordpress. However, the templates were lacking in number and excitement so I'll stick with this for now.
Time to create a few more?
So, I decided to check out the available blogger templates having expectations of at least some of the open-source creativity you get with Wordpress. However, the templates were lacking in number and excitement so I'll stick with this for now.
Time to create a few more?
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Computer says no
Maybe because I haven't updated the blog for a couple of months while working on other blogging projects, but it looks like Technorati is starting to write Netcoms dot com out of the blogosphere history.
Despite links from several different blogs, it now states that this blog has no inbound links from other blogs, nor is it recording my blogroll's links to other blogs.
No fair. So, in the interests of experimentation, I'll update the blog with this post and see if Technorati finds it in its heart to reinstate this venerable veteran of several years and over a hundred posts back into the blogosphere fold.
Update: Some of that link love has been restored it seems, thanks to an update and a ping - now it says that 5 blogs link here, but doesn't list them. Make your mind up!
Despite links from several different blogs, it now states that this blog has no inbound links from other blogs, nor is it recording my blogroll's links to other blogs.
No fair. So, in the interests of experimentation, I'll update the blog with this post and see if Technorati finds it in its heart to reinstate this venerable veteran of several years and over a hundred posts back into the blogosphere fold.
Update: Some of that link love has been restored it seems, thanks to an update and a ping - now it says that 5 blogs link here, but doesn't list them. Make your mind up!
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Sigh - Blogger.com plays up again
More hassle from Blogger.com after last week it refused for the best part of a day to publish my thoughts on the transient web and valuable advice from Blogger.com-owner, Google, on avoiding RSI. (I'm not aware of any automated editing algorithm as yet...)
Today it is again refusing to play ball, first resulting in an error page when trying to access the site, then taking an eternity to load not only the CMS, but the Netcoms Dot Com blog itself. There is a worrying note at the bottom of the screen 'Could not connect to Blogger.com. Saving and publishing may fail'. At least the recover post functionalty works.
Some vague sense of loyalty after 2 years of service is keeping me from switching to WordPress, but, Blogger.com, you have been warned!
Today it is again refusing to play ball, first resulting in an error page when trying to access the site, then taking an eternity to load not only the CMS, but the Netcoms Dot Com blog itself. There is a worrying note at the bottom of the screen 'Could not connect to Blogger.com. Saving and publishing may fail'. At least the recover post functionalty works.
Some vague sense of loyalty after 2 years of service is keeping me from switching to WordPress, but, Blogger.com, you have been warned!
Friday, October 14, 2005
Perhaps I could be a contender after all
After my not so recent post on helping this site to reach 'contender' status on Marketleap's link popularity checker, the site's number of incoming links has continued to grow unabated. Despite a shameful absence of recent posts, the site has now gone over the 'magic' 2,000 links mark.
This has resulted in a noticable increase in traffic and no doubt readers concluding that the blogger has gone AWOL (ahem). Of particular fascination to my recent visitors has been the traffic banker that is Janet Jackson's breasts, despite this being one of my oldest and silliest posts.
While concluding that writing less posts has resulted in more traffic is really not healthy to the continued existance of this blog, it has been interesting to see how existing links proliferate over time. Much of this is due to this blog appearing on the blogroll of several long suffering bloggers. As they continue to post at a comparatively prolific rate, so the number of links has increased. No doubt this post will return the favour somewhat to those regulars on my blogroll.
This has resulted in a noticable increase in traffic and no doubt readers concluding that the blogger has gone AWOL (ahem). Of particular fascination to my recent visitors has been the traffic banker that is Janet Jackson's breasts, despite this being one of my oldest and silliest posts.
While concluding that writing less posts has resulted in more traffic is really not healthy to the continued existance of this blog, it has been interesting to see how existing links proliferate over time. Much of this is due to this blog appearing on the blogroll of several long suffering bloggers. As they continue to post at a comparatively prolific rate, so the number of links has increased. No doubt this post will return the favour somewhat to those regulars on my blogroll.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Spam bloggers
Blogger has a handy feature for exploring other blogs in the blogosphere. On the top right of the blogger navigation bar is a 'Next blog' function (see above).
I'm not aware of how scientific Blogger is in terms of whether the next blog is related or random. Certainly it looks random as you jump from business blogs to personnal blogs to the inevitable spam blogs.
Netcoms dot com truth no. 1: Wherever there is a communications tool, there is a spammer.
If you want to see what I'm talking about, a few clicks of 'Next blog' will reveal a spam blog stuffed to the gills with keywords. I fail to understand how the spammers believe this will yield them results. Judging by the pure repetition, many of the blogs look auto generated and are certain to set the search engines alarm bells ringing. The scale of keyword stuffing will most likely lead to an automatic ban and certainly to a manual ban if spotted.
Tellingly, I have yet to come across a spam blog in the search engines and have only stumbled across them through the random 'Next blog' function. A quick analysis of a couple of the spam blogs I found revealed no inbound links on the first and one inbound link on another from, guess what, another spam blog - talk about a bad neighbourhood (more SEO alarm bells).
Even if they manage to get someone to stumble across the spam blog, they are so obviously gibberish that any visitor would be very unlikely to click on a link and earn them some affiliate revenue.
So why bother? Please stop (I wish).
I'm not aware of how scientific Blogger is in terms of whether the next blog is related or random. Certainly it looks random as you jump from business blogs to personnal blogs to the inevitable spam blogs.
Netcoms dot com truth no. 1: Wherever there is a communications tool, there is a spammer.
If you want to see what I'm talking about, a few clicks of 'Next blog' will reveal a spam blog stuffed to the gills with keywords. I fail to understand how the spammers believe this will yield them results. Judging by the pure repetition, many of the blogs look auto generated and are certain to set the search engines alarm bells ringing. The scale of keyword stuffing will most likely lead to an automatic ban and certainly to a manual ban if spotted.
Tellingly, I have yet to come across a spam blog in the search engines and have only stumbled across them through the random 'Next blog' function. A quick analysis of a couple of the spam blogs I found revealed no inbound links on the first and one inbound link on another from, guess what, another spam blog - talk about a bad neighbourhood (more SEO alarm bells).
Even if they manage to get someone to stumble across the spam blog, they are so obviously gibberish that any visitor would be very unlikely to click on a link and earn them some affiliate revenue.
So why bother? Please stop (I wish).
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
"I coulda been a contender"
Cyberspace can be a big and lonely place, particularly for the humble blogger. This humble blog has been in existance for just over two years and started out as a tiny blip on an unknown server with not a single link to its name.
Links are the lifeblood of websites and a good source of traffic both direct and in terms of increasing search engine ranking.
Among the ways to investigate the number of links through to your site is Marketleap's link popularity checker (one more link for them then) which divides sites into broad categories based on the number of inbound links.
- Limted presence: 0-1,000
- Average: 1,001-5,000
- Above average: 5,001-20,000
- Contender: 20,001-100,000
- Player: 100,001-500,000
- 900lb Gorilla: 500,001 and up
Netcoms dot com has this year moved into the 'Average' category with around 1,500 links and rising. Much of these are through blog directories which I suspect carry little weight in terms of PageRank, but gradually over time, this blog has made it onto blogrolls, niche websites and the odd traffic-busting appearance on Fark.com which have been having a noticable effect on traffic.
The rise in links has led to a rise in search engine traffic on terms from the logical Netcoms to the bizarre Janet Jackson's breasts. This has also coincided with a steady rise in PageRank from the white bar of anonymity to a respectably green varying 4-5/10.
Feel free to link to this article at the usual address and help me reach Contender status!
Links are the lifeblood of websites and a good source of traffic both direct and in terms of increasing search engine ranking.
Among the ways to investigate the number of links through to your site is Marketleap's link popularity checker (one more link for them then) which divides sites into broad categories based on the number of inbound links.
- Limted presence: 0-1,000
- Average: 1,001-5,000
- Above average: 5,001-20,000
- Contender: 20,001-100,000
- Player: 100,001-500,000
- 900lb Gorilla: 500,001 and up
Netcoms dot com has this year moved into the 'Average' category with around 1,500 links and rising. Much of these are through blog directories which I suspect carry little weight in terms of PageRank, but gradually over time, this blog has made it onto blogrolls, niche websites and the odd traffic-busting appearance on Fark.com which have been having a noticable effect on traffic.
The rise in links has led to a rise in search engine traffic on terms from the logical Netcoms to the bizarre Janet Jackson's breasts. This has also coincided with a steady rise in PageRank from the white bar of anonymity to a respectably green varying 4-5/10.
Feel free to link to this article at the usual address and help me reach Contender status!
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
No follow, no fair!
If I am discussing a point raised in another blog, I will try and be a good netizen and set up a trackback. These are by no means automatic for a Blogger.com user and require you to make the effort to perform a manual ping from the Haloscan website.
If blogs do indeed drive 'global conversation', then a blogger should use the tools available to them, such as enabling comments, trackbacks and maintaining a blogroll.
I have also noticed that depending on the calibre of the site you are linking to, trackbacks provide reasonable levels of quality visitors who generally contribute more than the average search engine visitor.
However, on a recent link popularity check of my inbound links, I was surprised to see that the trackbacks do not appear, even though the direct link to my blog appears in the source code.
A quick search of the source code on some of my blogroll revealed that the majority of trackbacks (including those on this site) contain a 'nofollow' tag which will prevent the search engines from following that link. Clearly, this is done to prevent people abusing the system to obtain 'free' links from high PageRank websites.
Trackbacks are a diluted form of link exchange and the 'nofollow' barrier doesn't exactly encourage you to link to others. The problem is that setting up a trackback whitelist would be more trouble than it's worth and the hassle of comment spam is worse than the joys of interlinking.
Perhaps it is better to give than to receive.
If blogs do indeed drive 'global conversation', then a blogger should use the tools available to them, such as enabling comments, trackbacks and maintaining a blogroll.
I have also noticed that depending on the calibre of the site you are linking to, trackbacks provide reasonable levels of quality visitors who generally contribute more than the average search engine visitor.
However, on a recent link popularity check of my inbound links, I was surprised to see that the trackbacks do not appear, even though the direct link to my blog appears in the source code.
A quick search of the source code on some of my blogroll revealed that the majority of trackbacks (including those on this site) contain a 'nofollow' tag which will prevent the search engines from following that link. Clearly, this is done to prevent people abusing the system to obtain 'free' links from high PageRank websites.
Trackbacks are a diluted form of link exchange and the 'nofollow' barrier doesn't exactly encourage you to link to others. The problem is that setting up a trackback whitelist would be more trouble than it's worth and the hassle of comment spam is worse than the joys of interlinking.
Perhaps it is better to give than to receive.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
It's what you do with it that counts
Interesting statistics on Steve Rubel's blog about how many of those with a blog actually blog. These are the blogs that are not just for Christmas with figures from Technorati showing 800-900k daily posts and BlogPulse between 350-450k - quite a discrepancy and indicative of the need of more coordinated metrics (as well as their differing measurement methodology).
Irony aside given the recent squirrel posts, I would argue that it's not that you blog, it's what you do with it that counts (I'm looking forward to seeing the searches I get through on that phrase).
The real metrics of interest are those of conversation - both talking and listening: trackbacks, comments, RSS subscribers and, let's face it, recognition from the offline world. Now there's a combined metric I'd like to see...
Irony aside given the recent squirrel posts, I would argue that it's not that you blog, it's what you do with it that counts (I'm looking forward to seeing the searches I get through on that phrase).
The real metrics of interest are those of conversation - both talking and listening: trackbacks, comments, RSS subscribers and, let's face it, recognition from the offline world. Now there's a combined metric I'd like to see...
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Squirrels - have I really gone nuts?
Yes, OK, the previous squirrel post was a very strange one, particularly after such a long time since my previous post. Time to come clean...
Statcounter has been revealing some weird keyword searches through to this blog. Who'd have thought that of the millions of websites out there, this blog would be site of choice for terms such as 'Google dot com', 'Janet Jackson's breasts' and most suprisingly 'Britney virginity'.
As a blog that primarily writes about online communications, with the odd celeb mention along the way, I'm sure there are better sites out there to provide the kind of details and imagery that I imagine those searching are looking for.
My view is that these kinds of visits are a result of the search engines' love of blog results. Think about it - regular content, keyword rich urls, inter-linking paradise and the kind of opinions that makes the web interesting. If you can add to this a decent PageRank, or equivalent, then this is one of the reasons that the humble blog can reach such elevated search status.
I will of course be keeping an eye out for squirrel-related visits after my previous post and if the number of visits starts to add up, I will be sure to keep my readers up-to-date with all of the latest squirrel news.
Statcounter has been revealing some weird keyword searches through to this blog. Who'd have thought that of the millions of websites out there, this blog would be site of choice for terms such as 'Google dot com', 'Janet Jackson's breasts' and most suprisingly 'Britney virginity'.
As a blog that primarily writes about online communications, with the odd celeb mention along the way, I'm sure there are better sites out there to provide the kind of details and imagery that I imagine those searching are looking for.
My view is that these kinds of visits are a result of the search engines' love of blog results. Think about it - regular content, keyword rich urls, inter-linking paradise and the kind of opinions that makes the web interesting. If you can add to this a decent PageRank, or equivalent, then this is one of the reasons that the humble blog can reach such elevated search status.
I will of course be keeping an eye out for squirrel-related visits after my previous post and if the number of visits starts to add up, I will be sure to keep my readers up-to-date with all of the latest squirrel news.
Squirrels on the line
No, not another rant about commuting into London, but instead it seems the Rail companies have been passing on some of their more dubious excuses onto a certain BT engineer. The 'squirrel problem' has resurfaced with the furry-tailed pranksters gnawing through phone lines and cutting off this blog's readers.
As a BT Broadband subscriber, with a garden full of squirrels, perhaps I shouldn't be tempting fate by covering this 'story'. However, according to Silicon.com, the culprit is an over-creative BT engineer and the rodents will be relieved to hear that they have been cleared of any wrong doing by head office and I can keep my fingers crossed that my current problem-free service will continue.
No, not another rant about commuting into London, but instead it seems the Rail companies have been passing on some of their more dubious excuses onto a certain BT engineer. The 'squirrel problem' has resurfaced with the furry-tailed pranksters gnawing through phone lines and cutting off this blog's readers.
As a BT Broadband subscriber, with a garden full of squirrels, perhaps I shouldn't be tempting fate by covering this 'story'. However, according to Silicon.com, the culprit is an over-creative BT engineer and the rodents will be relieved to hear that they have been cleared of any wrong doing by head office and I can keep my fingers crossed that my current problem-free service will continue.
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Blogger My Doom outage
If you can't scroll down properly to see all of July's posts, bear in mind that Blogger owner Google (who power this blog) had a pretty rough day yesterday when the search engine got hit my My Doom, so hopefully all will be back to normal soon...
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