Quick Fun with Google

Posted on 21st July 2008 by Bushie in Internet - Tags: , ,

You’ve got to try this.

Go to the Google homepage.

Type in “find Chuck Norris”.

Click the “I’m feeling lucky” button. (more…)

If cats could talk, they probably wouldn’t

Posted on 11th July 2008 by Bushie in Internet - Tags: , , , , ,

If cats could talk

If cats could talk, they probably wouldn’t. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.

I tend to think that if they could talk, they would mostly be saying the following

  • Food. Now.
  • Let me sleep.
  • Open the door
  • I demand your full attention
  • Fool. That’s what you are.
  • I have changed my mind.

And yet, there are countless blogs out there that claim to be written by cats. And what’s more, these cats seem to have the ability to say more than the half a dozen things I listed above.

Yes, I realise they aren’t actually cats that are blogging, but doting owners who want to share their love for their kitty over the internet. And some of them are actually quite good reads if you’re only looking for a bit of fun. Even though it does seem a bit strange to be blogging as your cat rather than about your cat.

Theseblogs do seem to generate quite a big following. This just goes to show that the internet can never get enough of cute cat photos.

So if you’re languishing for comments on your blog, consider harassinf your cat with your camera and posting some photos. I’m willing to bet that cat photo posts always generate comments.

When is Pagerank Worth it?

Posted on 3rd July 2008 by Bushie in Internet - Tags: , , ,

Go to any forum. Ask about attanting pagerank. Brace yourself for a slew of answers about how a Google Pagerank is ‘worthless’ and links to their own personal blog posts on the subject. Most of these people have lost Pagerank in the past, and are bitter about it. Perhaps they think that if they can convince enough people that Pageranks are worthless it will validate their own tiny rebellion against Google.

It’s childish and petty. Not one of them would freely give up their pagerank if they could, they are simply following the philosophy of “I don’t have it so I’ll claim I didn’t want it anyway”.

That’s not to say that a Pagerank is everything. It’s nice, and it’s not worthless. It’s nice to have if you do, for many reasons.

  1. Pagerank shows your site is here for the long run. It is an indication that it has been there for a few months, and that you’ve put effort in to linking it around the internet. You can’t fake a pagerank in a google toolbar.
  2. It shows that Google has noticed you.
  3. It’s a fast way for advertisers to assure themselves that your website is of reasonable quality.
  4. Some people and services value your links based on pagerank.

#4 has been a big issue in the pastm especially as Google stripped ranks from sites that appeared to be selling links. People are increasing looking to other ways to assess a website’s value, so whether you choose to place a large or small value on Pagerank is up to you.

Just grow up and don’t proclaim it to be worthless if you don’t have one.

Be Helpful and Be Remembered.

Posted on 27th June 2008 by Bushie in Internet - Tags: , ,

Have you ever tried using Yahoo Answers? To be honest, it can be a tough place to get a real, helpful answer when you need one. It’s full of people with the following tendancies:

  • Strongly oppinionated but dont’ know anything about the actual topic
  • Don’t read the question so don’t give you a useful answer
  • Insult you because they can
  • Copy passages from wikipedia that aren’t helpful
  • Answer with “I don’t know.”
  • Give you a sentance teaser, and then a link to their website.

So if you actually DO come across a good, helpful answer, they are like gold. Not to mention a boon for webmasters seeking targeted traffic.

You see, so many people focus on Google and Google alone when trying to build up their space in the internet, that they forget about Yahoo. Yes, people still use Yahoo. And people still type questions into search engines when they don’t know where else to look, and Yahoo questions often pop up on page one of the SE results.

Yahoo! Answers is a boon for webmasters is particular niches, such as automotive, beauty, food, health, pets or science, because you have a multitude of potential visitors all looking for information. Information that your website just might be able to provide.

There are a few tricks to gaining that traffic, but they are quite simple.

  1. Actually be helpful. Nobody is going to click the link you dropped if you haven’t given any information.
  2. Don’t drop links all the time, and don’t link exclusively to your websites. It’s spam.
  3. Use a username which relates to the website you are trying to promote, and mention the website in your profile. I have noticed an increase in yahoo search results for nich website names using this method, rather than direct traffic from dropped links.
  4. Don’t copy text. Write out each answer individually. Few things will earn you more thumbs-down than copy-pasting a wikipedia article
  5. Vote for your answers. A lot of the time a ‘best answer’ will not be chosen by the person who asked the question, but is instead chosen by hte most votes it gets after the question is closed. You have nothing ot lose by voting for your own answer, so why not do it? Best answers get more exposure!

The point to all this, of course, is being helpfull. The internet has enough junk on it already, stand out by helping someone.

More Entrecard Spam

Posted on 13th June 2008 by Bushie in Internet - Tags: ,

I just have no tolerance for Spammers. Not long after receiving the previous spam comment, in the last post, I got this one:

You are cordially invited to be my guest blogger.Basically,you can write the post which is related to “Make Money Online and Blogging resources” and you are allowed to post 2 posts per week.Readers will vote your post and if you receive the most votes,you will be Top guest blogger of the month and you will have more readers to your blog eventually.

Feel free to visit my blog to find out more information.

Some nice words there, ‘cordially’ sounds very rich, but that doesn’t make the spam any better.

You might read that and think it’s a decent invitation, but this Entrecarder is just fishing for posters, and any poster will do. It’s a copy and paste message, he didn’t even address me by blog name. Not to mention he hadn’t even dropped a card on me that day, which if he had he would have noticed that I do not tolerate spam.

How do I define whether something is spam or not? Simple: If it is unwanted and possible to send the same message to multiple people with minimal change. This qualifies and earned itself a report.

Oh, and this blogger uses the word ‘cum’ instead of ‘come’. I wonder if he knows what it means?