All posts by The Artist

Alexa Above 200,000!!!!!!! GAH!!!!!!!!

Today, I woke up to a higher Alexa number. Ptui! It was broken for almost one week and that week was an Alexa-worry-free week! No longer did we have to keep checking if our Alexa qualifies for something or not.

And when it stood at 18x,xxx recently, I had to take screen shots of my ranking when I take up opportunities from the marketplace in case of dispute because I know that by the time one month is up my rank will probably go above 199,999 where the cut off rank is. And now, because of this, I would be locked out of many high paying opportunities ON TOP of being segmented out due to geographical location.

And there has been an upward revision of some of my other blogs as well. It is strange that the drop could be so sudden and steep when I do not see a drop in visitors. Were their visits not being recorded when Alexa was down last week? That could be a reason.

BOOOOOO!!!!

Win Free Domain & 12 Months Hosting

There has long been a debate about hosting our blog on our own paid domain. Many people have the impression that people who use free hosting are not serious about blogging, but as a blogger with my own hosted blogs and blogs hosted by Blogger, I can say that I prefer free blog over paid hosting only because of the technical support. I guess I can say so for Blogger, but I am not sure about the other free blog services.

Today, I had the opportunity to check out the web hosting plans of Top Hosting Center. As I have two hosting packages myself, I can say that what are being offered by Top Hosting Center are competitively priced. The package that costs $3.95 is ideal for new bloggers who do not yet have much traffic while small enterprises could take advantage of the low price of Top Host Special Package that costs $4.95 per month to host their website. Of course, bloggers could take up this package as well, after all, the difference in price is slight but Top Host Special Package comes with so many more features.

If you are still unwilling to take the plunge to into paid hosting, the good news is that you can win yourself a year of Top Host Special Package and a free domain name. What you have to do is blog about why owning your own blog hosted by yourself is important.

This competition closes on 15th November, 2007 and Top Hosting Center has already lined up two judges to judge the entries. The top three entries that are adjudged the best will win prizes in the form of hosting packages. First prize will be a year of Top Host Special hosting and a free domain name as mentioned earlier while the second and third placed bloggers will win a year of Mega Plan 1 hosting that costs $3.95 per month.

What I like bout these prizes is that you are free to cancel your hosting at any time within the first twelve months. If you like the service you can then extend your hosting with Top Hosting Center after the twelfth month. There is absolutely no obligation for you to continue because you did not pay any advance or provide them with your credit card details.

If you do not yet have your own hosting, why not give this a shot? I already paid for my hosting just a month ago, but I too may try this if I have the time. I could always do with a new domain and hosting package!

The Domino Effect

Since the Google Page Rank earlier this month when most websites and blogs have been demoted, including my own blog, I noticed that many bloggers have been evaluating where they have “gone wrong” to deserve a lower ranking. Some people I know have lost one rank but some got it worse by losing THREE rankings.

Now, what I see is that many such affect bloggers have started to remove things from their blogs that they deemed have caused this demotion like leaking of link juice from blog rolls and such.

By doing so, they are causing a domino effect on the rest of the blogs that they have been linking to, most of them reciprocal links.

Can you imagine that if I remove the list of blogs on my sidebar, I would be turning these into ONE SIDED link to my site when it was a reciprocal link. This mean that my own blog would have an advantage over other blogs in the next Google Page Rank update when those who are still linking to me would have lost a link to their site (from me because I removed them).

I think that if Google has demoted your site, there is no need to punish all the innocent people that have been sharing their link juice with you. And yes, I noticed that some bloggers have already removed ME from their blog roll. This would cause my link weight to drop.

Let’s see what I should do… HHMMMmm

Should She Get Teak Wood Furniture?

My sister told me to check out an online store that sells teak garden furniture and told me that she has been planning to put together some money to buy them for her garden. I find that she is rather weird because she has been spending way too much money on her house, doing home improvement projects and adding things like fixtures and furniture, and this time, she is telling me she wants those teak tables for her yard and also some matching teak benches.

She said that she saw these on the website Teak Wood Patio Furniture. Go take a look. Do you think that my sister should get them? This is considering that she hardly has time to laze around at home when most of her waking hours are spent at work. Just like me in fact!

Although I may tell her not to get it and she may agree, I know that my sister will quietly buy them and then send me pictures to show me her new purchases and what a good job she has done decorating her home and garden.

I Can Blog About Anything Except ……

There was a dry spell of paid posting over last weekend and I was so bored out of my mind looking for something to blog about so I logged into this marketplace. I remember that I only had ten miserable items on my list and the first one that caught my eye was for a post on alternative plastic surgery.

Suffice to say, after checking out the website of the advertiser, I nearly threw up my dinner and could not bring myself to blog about it.

After one year in this, I thought that I could blog about anything with eyes closed. I’ve talked about boob jobs, nose jobs, liposculpture, “Viagra” and visited just about any website and I hope I did a good job with each and every post that I wrote and given the sponsors due value and exposure but to write about plastic surgery down south, I could not do it, besides the fact that I do not have an appropriate blog for that no matter how I spin it.

And to think that I could not write it although I am a girl when I see so many other people, GUYS no less, who happily wrote about this topic without feeling anything.

Brochure Printing Online

I saw supposed to help my friend look for cheap Brochure Printing and I suggested that he does it online. He is going to start his little business selling mobile phones and accessories in a local mall and we have asked around local printers and their prices are exorbitant!!

I told my friend that what he needs is a printer who could deliver his brochures in a timely manner, cheap, reliable and of good standard and quality. He agrees and it is very important to be able to get everything ready for his launch! I am very excited about it and it isn’t even my own business! Haha 😀 But it is a very important occasion so everything has to be “perfect”!

Anyway, since it is his first launch, he would surely need high quality brochures to give out and introduce people to his new store. A mutual friend recommends 4 color Brochure Printing from PS Print. Well, we don’t know much about printing brochures but this friend said that PS Print has reasonable prices as we could double check with the online instant quote.

My friend said that if he likes the quality of the brochures, he would be ordering more products from PSPrint.com! I believe that PS Print will not let him down!

Mailbox To Mark Your Home

If you have been following my blog, you would know that my sister has a new home. She told me that homes in her neighborhood do not have fencing and sent me some phone to view. That would be rather odd for me.

From her photos, each house has a post mounted mailbox out front before going into the driveway. My sister says it is very convenient for the postman to deliver mail this way without coming up the driveway of every house.

According to my sister, Gaines Mailboxes are very popular among her neighbors because of the design, workmanship and finishing. My sister told me that she went to the website of Gaines and from their vast collection of mailboxes, what she wants to buy is the Signature Keystone Mailbox. However, her boyfriend would rather have the Gaines Classic Mailbox.

I think they better come to an early decision because Gaines is having a sale where they would be able to save up to 20% off market price and they would even get free shipping!