The other day, I read a blog post asking this question and the author says that it is STILL relevant. In fact, it is more relevant than ever. This question arose after Goo-gle dinged thousands, perhaps millions of websites and blogs in their page rank one round after another since early October this year, for violating some sort of terms of use.

Well, we have to know that link exchange has happened since the first two websites were launched and it is the nature of webmasters to indulge in link building to create exposure for their sites or blogs. Sure, Goo-gle may scorn on sites that build backlinks in hopes of getting up in the search engines results page (SERP) but when a competition is set up like that, it is human nature to be competitive and everyone wants to get as high up as possible in searches.

Also, I was told that Goo-gle does not want us to sell or buy text links BUT remember, Goo-gle is ONLY relevant TODAY. The internet is so promising that there will always be another service that will surpass its supremacy. There are still so many different search engines that we have to climb.

My blogs, like most that have been victimized by Goo-gle, have also been dinged, and friends have asked if I will abandon them. Why should I? Losing page rank does not make my blogs less valuable IN MY EYES. Like I said, Goo-gle is only relevant TODAY but my blogs will be live as long as I am able to maintain them. Therefore, I will continue to build my blogs not only in terms of traffic and readership but also in backlinks. I was told that one way backlinks are more valuable than reciprocal backlinks and links from higher ranked websites and blogs will carry more weight.

For webmasters who are not able to spare time to build links naturally, there are companies that offer link exchange services for a small fee. What do you think of paying $24.95 per month for more than seven hundred links pointing to your site? If search engine placement was important to me, I would willingly pay the price. Not only will I be receiving all those backlinks, but it also saves me time from begging webmasters to link to my sites and to ensure that the links stay live monthly.

This morning, I logged on to my Gmail [YES, I am still using G-oogle products BAH!!!] and came across this page about sharing our Gmail stories. Frankly, it never crossed my mind that Gmail would have stories different from the stories that we have using Windows Live or Yahoo! Mail. By the way, I have accounts with all three and I do not think that one is superior over the other.

Apparently, though, there are people with good stories to share about using Gmail. Isn’t that weird or made up or whatever, I don’t know.

However, Gmail has invited users to submit their Gmail stories via video by uploading it to YouTube [yerrrr another G. product *sigh*] but they never say if it’s a contest or if there are prizes to be won. Err…. need to show face ah? But can email also. Don’t want lah… not as if I have any good stories to share also!!

I wrote previously about friends who run more than ten blogs and I wonder how they could keep churning out article after article. Today, I got to know of a database of free website content where blog or website publishers could access those free articles and publish them on their own blog. I wonder if my friends are using services like this? Of course, I do not think there is anything wrong with that since these articles come with reprint permission.

People who can write original articles could also submit their articles to this database for others to use as content on their own sites. I don’t know how this would work out to benefit both the writer and publisher but I am sure both will gain from targeted organic search traffic!