What's with Stumbleupon?

I used to have great results from Stumbleupon on BHT for a very long time; I'd bookmark a URL and voila! 200 immediate visitors come rolling in.

Not any more. It's like the Stumbleupon traffic gates just closed on my site. I wonder why. Is it time to stop bookmarking and start socializing? I hate socializing.

LinkWithin is so cool!

One great little service for Blogger as well as Wordpress blogs is LinkWithin.

LinkWithin is a widget that allows you to show those "You might also like" links below your posts, linking to your other related posts. It is free and works well with text or image posts.

Probably the most useful widget ever, my visitors love it!

Now Trying Chitika!

So, my adventures in advertising continue. After trying BidVertiser and a very short and useless stint with Clicksor, I'm now trying out Chitika on BHT.

Chitika sounds great in theory, but I fear it will lack the kind of ads that suit my niche. Will wait and see, I guess.

Bidvertiser is a Scam

An update on the Bidvertizer front: This company is a total scam.

In the two weeks I tried them, they haven't registered a single click, not even the test clicks that I clicked myself. When confronted with that in a support ticket, they replied that there's nothing wrong with my account. I've removed it now, and am looking for greener pastures.

To sum it up, Bidvertizer is a SCAM, don't use them!

Is BidVertiser Any Good?

This blog isn't my main site. My main site is Bad Hebrew Tattoos, and the experiments and experiences told here relate to it.

Well, today I've decided to drop good old Adsense and give Bidvertizer a try. Adsense prices my clicks really low, so Bidvertizer sounds promising, what with its ability to filter ads and the $10 payout to Paypal. On the other hand, it has some bad forum reviews, even referred to as a "scam" sometimes. We'll see.

So, for the month of August I'd be testing out Bidvertizer on BHT. At the end of August I'll post the results here.

Why So Slow?

Living in the age of the internet, you expect everything to happen right away. You want your page to load fast, you want your comment to be approved fast and you expect a directory or a service to review your site quickly.

There are some directories and listings that just take their sweet time though. Today we'll review two of them.

DMOZ - It's the directory everyone wants into, as Google itself composes its directory results from the DMOZ listings. Getting listed in DMOZ gives you a definite edge over the competition. Unfortunately, its run by a bunch of overworked (and sometimes lazy) volunteer editors, who list sites at their own discretion and take their sweet time doing so. I should know, I used to be one. Getting your site listed is next to impossible.

Technorati - Claiming your blog on Technorati seems to be the thing to do. It's supposed to give you extra exposure or some such. I haven't been able to confirm those wonder benefits, though, as my blog is currently stuck somewhere in the review queue, has been there for about two months now. Slooooow!

Above The Fold Ads - It Really Does Help

I've previously written about my problem with the none existent clickthrough. It's been a month since, and I found that placing ads above the fold improved matters dramatically.

Not much to be said really. Above the fold works, below the fold - does not.

On Comment Stealing

I wasn't always happy with Blogspot's prevention of comment editing, but I'm starting to see why this might actually be a positive idea.

I've seen Wordpress blog owners use and abuse their comment editing privileges. Some bloggers seem to think that it's okay to strip links from a comment on a whim. Well, it is not okay!

Stripping a comment from its link as a punishment of sorts, just because the expressed opinion is not isn your favor - it's childish and stupid. It's stealing. There is an unspoken arrangement, comments for links, and you're violating it.

If you don't like an opinion - don't publish the comment, it's as simple as that. Blogspot got it right.

Why Can't Comments be Edited?

I'm really bugged by my inability ot edit visitor comments in my Blogspot blog. It's so annoying. You can only publish or delete them, that's it.

A Googling quest shows that you could hack the comments once upon a time, but no more. That option was blocked by Blogspot way back in 2007. I hate this.

Writing HTML/XML in Blogspot

Sometimes you need to write code, but Blogspot doesn't make it easy on you, as it interprets your HTML/XML instead of displaying it. This is what you shall do:

Replace all the < in your code with &lt;
Replace all the > in your code with &gt;

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<note>
    <to>Tove</to>
    <from>Jani</from>
    <heading>Reminder</heading>
    <body>Don't forget me this weekend!</body>
</note>

Perfectly formatted code, just the way you wanted it!

Playing Around with Ad Locations

On my other site, I have Google Adsense ads. The ads were there since the beginning. Last three months I've finally been having a fair amount of quality traffic, a fair share of impressions... and not a single click.

I can only hope that's because those ads are located below the fold, rather than the other option - that my audience isn't interested in what those ads serve.

Experiment time! I'm going to place the ads (one skyscraper unit), above the fold. Keep it there for another 3 months, then report back. Still no clicks? Then the Adsense will have to go.

Setting Up a Custom Blogspot Domain with Namecheap.com

If you're a newbie to DNS management, setting up your custom domain that was registered on namecheap.com might seem like a pain. It's actually quite easy:

Getting there:

1. Log in into your Namecheap account
2. Choose the "Manage Domains" tab and click on the domain name which you want to connect with your Blogspot blog
3. On the left sidebar choose "All Host Records"

Configure your settings.

Important: If there are some default settings already set, change them to what you need, don't keep them as is.

Create a CNAME record. Use the following settings:

• HOST NAME : www
• IP ADDRESS/ URL: ghs.google.com
• RECORD TYPE: CNAME

Create four A records. Use the following settings:

• HOST NAME : @
• IP ADDRESS/ URL: 216.239.32.21
• RECORD TYPE: A

• HOST NAME : @
• IP ADDRESS/ URL: 216.239.34.21
• RECORD TYPE: A

• HOST NAME : @
• IP ADDRESS/ URL: 216.239.36.21
• RECORD TYPE: A

• HOST NAME : @
• IP ADDRESS/ URL: 216.239.38.21
• RECORD TYPE: A

After saving the changes, your screen should look like this:


Set up your Blogspot settings:

1. Go to Settings -> Publishing -> Custom Domain -> Switch to advanced settings
2. Enter your domain name into the "Your Domain" field
3. Save Settings

That's it, you're done. Normally you can see your site on its new address within minutes, but it can possibly take up to 48 hours to properly appear on the internet.