Disqus - Latest Comments for Dane Morgan

Re: Using Google’s Own Tools to create Adsense / E-Commerce Success

Dane Morgan — Mon, 29 May 2006 13:57:24 -0000

Here's a tool that will let you copy paste those results by returning them as text. I've taken the liberty of suggesting your first search already.

http://www.webrankinfo.com/english/tools/google...

Re: Welcome to NoahFleming.com Online

Dane Morgan — Wed, 10 May 2006 20:15:46 -0000

Cool beans, Noah. Looking forward to reading this. It's bookmarked in my daily read folder.

Re: Wordpress Trademark Scammers?

Dane Morgan — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 18:20:43 -0000

Just a quick thought for folks. All Matt wants is the domains not to contain "wordpress".

Given all the references to newbies in this thread it seems to me the reason he might want that would be more obvious. To some number of newbies, the un-initiated, the presence of "wordpress" in the domains on these sites could stand as ownership or at least relationship between wordpress.org and the sites in question.

That said, Matt, it isn't real cool calling these guys spammy or scammy when you seem not to really even know what their product is in the first place. Neither of these guys sells automation software on these sites, they sell tutorials for people who can't understand what they find at the codex and or the forum.

Re: Wordpress Trademark Scammers?

Dane Morgan — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 18:20:43 -0000

Re: Disclosure Policy Generator

Dane Morgan — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 08:09:09 -0000

Hi Andy,

I really enjoyed this post. Not so much for the generator, as for the last couple paragraphs. So many people have such a limiting view of just what is possible with WordPress using custom template pages.

I'm astounded how many people have just an index.php template to run all post display pages and don't even cover the basics like single.php and category.php. And I'm not just talking about end users here, I'm talking about designers with dozens or even hundreds of themes under their belts. And they still provide just an index.php with their themes. Amazing.

And don't even get me started on how simple and how ignored it is that you can now even add your own functions to WP by simply droping a functions.php file into your theme folder.

Any WP function that does not work just like you would like, you can rewrite with a slightly different name (I use DAM_original_func_name()) and alter how WP works without actually changing the core files and without having to worry about upgrades breaking it.

No one is talking about this stuff, Andy, kudos.

Re: Disclosure Policy Generator

Dane Morgan — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 08:09:09 -0000

Re: International Blogging with Babelfish

Dane Morgan — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 16:24:37 -0000

Hey Andy,

Nice idea. I had thought about using babel to translate my page, and have the multiligual thingamabobbie from a recent fire sale on my to look over list, but had not really thought of using Bable to read and thus get in on foriegn blog conversations. I'll have to give this a go next time I land on one.

Re: International Blogging with Babelfish

Dane Morgan — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 16:24:37 -0000

Re: The Top Copywriting Blog is…

Dane Morgan — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 20:53:06 -0000

Maybe it's more of the top copywriting blog -will be-. The names involved suggest that there will be a LOT of great info flying around that blog and a LOT of irresistable pitches too. ;)

But for now, having surfed through a few pages on each I cast my vote the other way. I do reserve the right to alter my vote at a later date though.

Re: The Top Copywriting Blog is…

Dane Morgan — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 20:53:06 -0000

Re: NoFollow and Pink Boxes

Dane Morgan — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 10:07:56 -0000

Nice. Somewhere along the way I installed something that puts the pink boxes around nofollow links, but I wasn't sure what the pink boxes were about. Just knew i saw them here and there. Nice to know what the deal is now.

Also this goes to show that you can't just assume anything. I had been using another plugin that created javascript links to the bookmarking sites, and assumed that sociable did the same thing, so I just loaded up on them. My blog must be a veritable wonderland of what not to do for seo for you, Andy.

Re: NoFollow and Pink Boxes

Dane Morgan — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 10:07:56 -0000

Re: NoFollow and Pink Boxes

Dane Morgan — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 08:43:35 -0000

Yeah, related posts is on my list of things to do, but I have to rip it all apart and reinstall it first. Right now the only thing UTW does is create the tag page links in the posts. Everything else is handled by the internal categories code from WP, and the tag cloaud is actually a category heat map plugin modified to point to category pages, modified to seem like tag pages.

What a tangled web. ;)

Back when I started using UTW it didn't do nearly what it does now, and there was no way to make local tag pages, so I hacked away at things to get it to do it anyways, but I had to go to a completely tag formay and turn the categories into tags to make it work. Now, as a result, using some of the other features are unpredictable and quixotic.

Re: NoFollow and Pink Boxes

Dane Morgan — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 08:43:35 -0000

Re: Nofollow | SEO & Dynamic Linking | Disclosure

Dane Morgan — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 09:05:34 -0000

Hey Andy,

I'm still not sure I'm real interested in disclosure policies. I don't do any PPP, but I do promote affiliate programs from my blogs. I've thought about it to some extent, and I'm not sure I feel obligated to disclose which link is going to a program I make money for, and which I don't. Since I wouldn't post about a product just for the money, there is really no difference between the two to me. I post about what I want to post about, and check to see if there's an affiliate program before I make the post.

That said, if I did feel the need to do disclosure, wouldn't the easiest way be to have a disclosure page that stated a general policy at the top and allowed for specific relationships to be inserted below.

Re: Nofollow | SEO & Dynamic Linking | Disclosure

Dane Morgan — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 09:05:34 -0000

Re: FTC | Word of Mouth and Affiliates

Dane Morgan — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 18:51:15 -0000

I'm suddenly a little more interested in this topic, though very begrudgingly so.

But what constitutes disclosure in a legal sense? Is the link-text (aff) thing good enough? Do I have to have six paragraphs of legal jargon adjacent to every affiliated/monetized link?

And too, compensation. Compensation does not strictly mean money. Will we see silly things like
http://linktoacoolsitethatlinksback.com (DISCLOSURE: This link earns me a link back that results in lots of traffic). Never overestimate the US Federal Governments ability to be stupid.

And what is prominently placed. Can I have a disclosure page? Or must the discloser reside on every page? Or must it be adjacent to the link itself?

There is much shaking out to be seen yet before there is any thing real here. I'll be downloading the plugin, Andy and playing with it. Though I'm still of a mind to have a disclosure page with a nofollow link in the footer of the blog and the feed.

Re: FTC | Word of Mouth and Affiliates

Dane Morgan — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 18:51:15 -0000

Re: Wikipedia NoFollow Plugin? WikiDigg?

Dane Morgan — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 22:21:40 -0000

OpenID?

I have both Akismet (my original first choice of anti-spam plugins) and SpamKarma deployed on various blogs. One of my planned projects is converting all of my blogs to SpamKarma. I just like the ability to pesonally adjust it, really.

Several of us at HowToCorp Forum conducted expiriments with NoFollow back when Amy released her comment spam software, and the result was that Yahoo completely ignores the attribute, that Google complies, and that MSN was all over the board.

A recent expiriment I conducted myself **suggests** that Google **may** be ignoring it in some very specific cases. (Think Technorati). Because Google is so lousy about reporting back links I can't be absolutely certain that they did not follow from some source unknown to me, but it sure **seems** like I was visited as a direct result of a NoFollow link.

Re: Wikipedia NoFollow Plugin? WikiDigg?

Dane Morgan — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 22:21:40 -0000

Re: Does Brute Force Article Marketing Still Work?

Dane Morgan — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 15:12:46 -0000

[quote]
It takes longer to publish articles to 500 article directories than to write 4 new articles, and publish them to the top 10 article directories that do give you traffic. This only really applies if you are submitting by hand or software.
[/quote]

Care to share your top ten list? ;)

Re: Does Brute Force Article Marketing Still Work?

Dane Morgan — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 15:12:46 -0000

Re: Adwords Keyword Tool

Dane Morgan — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 01:21:24 -0000

Nice Andy,

Too many people gum these kinds of tools up with all kinds of exteraneous junk that make them slow and unwieldy. I like that you stayed focused, clean and sharp on yours.

But for the love of God, can you take down the snoflakes! ;)

Re: Adwords Keyword Tool

Dane Morgan — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 01:21:24 -0000

Re: Adwords Keyword Tool

Dane Morgan — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 01:42:45 -0000

Actually, yes, I'd be interested in those. I read your posts about them at the time, but since I was using a core hack of my own to turn categories into tags, I didn't really look at them. But I'm migrating over to UTW now that it has all the features I wanted.

Re: Adwords Keyword Tool

Dane Morgan — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 01:42:45 -0000

Re: Feed Styling Alternative and some Traffic Analysis

Dane Morgan — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 14:02:55 -0000

I don't know that I would call myself a purist, but one thing that hits me right off is that I use my own style sheets for reading feeds. I'd prefer to read them my way, and come to the blog if I want your styling (you and your in the general sense of course). Though I doubt it's enough of an issue to get me very worked up at all over it.

...On the mention of thinking about prociding subscriber only information on your blog...

Here is the dead simple and highly effective way to do so.
Mark Edwards created a simple little plugin called hidethis. using the plugin anything you place between  and  will only be displayed to registered, logged in readers. You can find the plugin at:
http://edwards.org/2006/03/12/hidethis-v10-plug...

Additionally I rewrote the plugin to do the opposite; Show anything between  and  only to readers that are NOT currently logged in. Obviously this allows you to tellthem that there is hidden content, and they need to log in or register to see it, without having to display the notice to your logged in readers.

This is a nice way to offer subscriber only content without turning your blog, or sections of your blog into a membership type site. Just pop the content in where it makes sense and wrap it in show or hide tags.

http://danemorgan.com/plaintext/showthis.php

Re: Feed Styling Alternative and some Traffic Analysis

Dane Morgan — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 14:02:55 -0000

Re: Security: Is MyBlogLog a Parasite?

Dane Morgan — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 20:37:14 -0000

Thanks for the mention and the kind words Andy. And for the record, I want to be sure to state that I am pro MyBlogLog as well. I don't use the tracking features myself, I'm interested in the community tools it offers.

Until such time as someone can put hard evidence in my face that Yahoo or MBL are doing anything unethical with the data they collect I tend to believe they are benign and they do offer a great service to many bloggers who need it.

Re: Security: Is MyBlogLog a Parasite?

Dane Morgan — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 20:37:14 -0000

Re: The Tale of Little Linkalot and Some Blogging Thoughts

Dane Morgan — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 10:49:23 -0000

"I don't like the idea of "speed linking" as I have previously discussed."

Link and elaborate please.

I'm actually just setting up a link blog on WP.c that will contain 4-6 related links each with my own chosen anchor text and a sentence or two of commentary. This is as a test, but if you have some data for me to consider going in, I'd absolutely love to read it.

PS. I see a notify me of comments via email box on this form now. I thought you had decided not to do that.

Re: The Tale of Little Linkalot and Some Blogging Thoughts

Dane Morgan — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 10:49:23 -0000

Re: The Tale of Little Linkalot and Some Blogging Thoughts

Dane Morgan — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 11:07:54 -0000

Heh, I commented before I read the whole post. Sorry. That will teach me to finish reading the post before I ask silly questions. I don't know. I think I would have stuck with your original position on this one. Suppose some clever male enhancement pill spammer figures a way past the gate keeper and the pill ad lands in all of your readers inboxes. Most will be reasonable enough to realize what happened, but what about the one time reader who forgets he even checked the box? Or the brand new reader who gets it as one of his first emails from your system.

I know it's a rare possibility, but a possibility none the less, and you work hard for your reputation, Andy.

Re: The Tale of Little Linkalot and Some Blogging Thoughts

Dane Morgan — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 11:07:54 -0000

Re: How Timing of Link Attribution Affects Syndication and Search Results

Dane Morgan — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 18:06:01 -0000

I'm interested in that plugin, Andy.

I've long thought that there is too much emphasis on SERPs position. I understand the reasoning and the rationality behind it, but it's sort of like making the bible so important you forget about god, to use a religious metaphor.

It is also important to note that the almost manic emphasis we have on SERPs flies in the face of most basic marketing principles such as "People don't want drills, they want holes". Really, if all we wanted were SERPs then optimizing out pages for "kjadsfhbdakjghsdf" would be an excellent strategy.

However the point is that when we say we want SERPs what we really want is traffic (and that could go through this process a couple more times at least). So when we step back and look at things a little more closely, most of the time we are going to see that popular sites outranking us in the SERPs actually will bring us much more traffic than we would ever have gotten having the SERPs to ourselves; Provided that these sites link to us as the source.

For one of my recent posts no fewer than three social networks and your blog were outranking me for a search on the title of the post. However, I can't find a single keyword tool that suggests anyone has ever searched for that title, and I've received traffic from all of these sources that outrank me. Trafic I would not have received from that SERP.

As I said before, and will happily say again, They can have the SERP every time if it means a net increase in traffic (and targeted traffic at that, and targeted, referred traffic to boot) for me.

Now the one caveat to all of this, as you pointed out, the site that's outranking you must be pointing to you as the source for all of this to work out.

I'm getting ready to launch a new internet marketing related blog. One of the things I will be doing with that blog is releasing my content under a Creative Commons "Attribute" license. Which means that people can take the content from that blog and repost it, alter it, make it theirs, repackage and sell it, whatever they want, with the single requirement that they attribute the blog post as the original source. I'll be adding some language to the license to control the method and text of the attributions, but it should foster reuse and lead to a lot of deep back links from sources that I fully hope out rank me in the SERPs.

This comment is getting nearly as long as the original post, but one final thought I have for people who might be concerned about this "problem". I saw BUMPzee in the serps in a few searches I had done, but it was not until I saw a reference to them from a trusted source that I signed up. If that trusted source had out ranked them on some of those searches i might have visited and registered sooner.

Re: How Timing of Link Attribution Affects Syndication and Search Results

Dane Morgan — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 18:06:01 -0000

Re: How Timing of Link Attribution Affects Syndication and Search Results

Dane Morgan — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 08:32:59 -0000

I've just recently installed the stumble extension in firefoax and started playing with it. I haven't really gotten a feel for it yet since so far the community seems to be completely hidden behind the toolbar.

Re: How Timing of Link Attribution Affects Syndication and Search Results

Dane Morgan — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 08:32:59 -0000

Re: Related Posts in Feeds With UTW – How to Encourage RSS Subscribers to Visit Your Blog

Dane Morgan — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 22:09:19 -0000

I'm going to guess that you're not real surprised that I read you in a feed. I don't think the plugin will increase me clicking through to older content, but then I have you set up in a Google search too because sometimes I go looking for older information on your blog and that's the quickest easiest way to it.

As you know, my approach to feeds is different, supplying only the excerpt and making people click through if they want the full story. Actually the thing I'd like in a feed plug in is a second set of "feed" permalinks that lead to a counter and 301 redirect so i can track links from my feeds automatically.

Re: Related Posts in Feeds With UTW – How to Encourage RSS Subscribers to Visit Your Blog

Dane Morgan — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 22:09:19 -0000

Re: Shoemoney Nofollow Plugin

Dane Morgan — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 08:50:02 -0000

You know I think a lot of you Andy, but i got to call you on this one. Why make a plug in specific to Shoemoney when you've already made one specific to wikipedia. At this point you know there will be others, and you would get more bang from your buck with a plug in that let people add URIs in the dashboard rather than having to install a new plug in for every site you want to black box.

I think maybe there is a -little- of your distaste for Shoemoney behind this plug in, but I also don't think that's automatically a bad thing.

I'm not as concerned as you with the Shoemoney issue, but then I'm not as invested in MBL either, and for a couple years there I made a career of linking to bad neighborhoods... Ones that make Shoemoney look like a Sunday School Picnic.

I'd love to see you develop your plug in into something that people can adapt to their own linking philosophies, rather than a string of one offs. Heck if you mixed in some code to let people define other relationships, and targets and whatnot, there would be a killer bit of linkbait.

Re: Shoemoney Nofollow Plugin

Dane Morgan — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 08:50:02 -0000

Re: A Totally Legitimate Way To Pick and Choose Backlinks

Dane Morgan — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 09:12:02 -0000

Without having visited the PR-web page in question, from my recollection they do not have trackback links published.

This is the difference between trackback and pingback.

With trackback the author of the post intentionally includes the rdf link to actively notify the linked page that there is a new reference.

With ping back you simply link to the page, then if someone clicks through, or it shows up somewhere like Technorati, the link back is automatically generated just like the author had sent a trackback with the post.

As I recall, PR-web uses pingback, but not trackback.

Re: A Totally Legitimate Way To Pick and Choose Backlinks

Dane Morgan — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 09:12:02 -0000

Re: Shoemoney Nofollow Plugin

Dane Morgan — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 23:52:45 -0000

Cool. But you have to know that naming it the way you did attaches an idea is some peoples thoughts that you probably don't intend if it's just a clinical TOS issue for you.

Look at how many people still read these nofollow posts and really don't even know what the issues are. And now you've attached nofollow, which is getting a lot of bad publicity to Shoemoney's name.

Some people who aren't as savvy (I hate that word...) are going to take conclusions from that that aren't justified. I'm not sure he cares, since he seems to think it's humorous. But you are usually more careful than that. I mean this is different that the wikipedia thing. That was fire on fire. Action for action.

Maybe I'm reading more into it than it is too, since as I said Shoemoney doesn't seem concerned at all.

As for people removing their tracking abilities with the MBL plugin, I'm not sure I see that as a bad thing. There are other solutions for tracking, and I'm convincing myself more and more that we need to keep our tracking tools separate from our community building tools.

Community building tools shouldn't collect any more information from our readers than our readers choose to offer, and tracking tools should be in house, or contracted to a trusted provider who has a vested interest in keeping that data safe for our use only, through contractual obligations.

I realize there are implications in that statement for people who can't afford to pay for it, or don't have the skills to install it, but as of now, that's where I'm at.

Re: Shoemoney Nofollow Plugin

Dane Morgan — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 23:52:45 -0000

Re: Shoemoney Nofollow Plugin

Dane Morgan — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 06:58:28 -0000

At least a good first step would be to look for a company who's stated purpose isn't demographics and marketing. Another good first or second step would be a fiduciary relationship between the company providing the tracking and the webmasters needing it, though that already exists with MBL, so it may not be that effective, since they miss the first criteria.

There isn't necessarily an on / off switch here, but at least an awareness of the potential and a movement away from trading our readers privacy for our statistics.

Re: Shoemoney Nofollow Plugin

Dane Morgan — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 06:58:28 -0000

Re: Don't Be An Idiot

Dane Morgan — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:17:48 -0000

It's my God given right as an American to be an idiot, Andy. ;)

"It is actually funny that many of the same bloggers who harp on about not needing any form of "code of conduct" are the exact same people who think that bloggers who do paid posts should be required to have disclosure in the first line of every article."

At least I'm consistent. I think an attempt at a "code of conduct" for bloggers is about as pointless an exercise in futility as ever was, and I think disclosures are 90% like labels on lawnmowers telling people not to pick them up when they are running. If this ain't obvious to them, I think we should have stopped protecting them from themselves long long ago. For the good of everybody.

Re: Don't Be An Idiot

Dane Morgan — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:17:48 -0000

Re: Blogcatalog – Does Onclick Pass PageRank?

Dane Morgan — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:40:02 -0000

The harm, and the thing that Brian seems to have been hitting on was that these links were in a paid "blogroll". Even if one believes that onclick tracking automatically means no passing, and even if there were no onclick tracking in these links Google would have sought to blog PR passing from them.

It's okay to sell links, but only for those on Google's short list, and it would seem that, at least a year ago, the Post wasn't on that list.

Re: Blogcatalog – Does Onclick Pass PageRank?

Dane Morgan — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:40:02 -0000

Re: Blogcatalog – Does Onclick Pass PageRank?

Dane Morgan — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 00:12:19 -0000

"Do not assume just because you see a backlink that itâ€™s carrying weight."

When he says this he is speaking about the webmaster tool, not the link: operator. When asked if this same advice applies to the link: operator he does not reply.

So while it is *possible* that this could relate to the link: operator, such a conclusion can not be drawn from this data.

Since the webmaster tool includes nofollowed links where the link: operator does not we do know there are differences and it is not unreasonable to consider that this might be one of them.

Re: Blogcatalog – Does Onclick Pass PageRank?

Dane Morgan — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 00:12:19 -0000

Re: Blogcatalog – Does Onclick Pass PageRank?

Dane Morgan — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 07:08:37 -0000

As evidenced by the number of times I've had to assure people that there is nothing "wrong" if their search does not return a result.

And It is my research, not Andy's. My methods are mine.

Re: Blogcatalog – Does Onclick Pass PageRank?

Dane Morgan — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 07:08:37 -0000

As evidenced by the number of times I've had to assure people that there is nothing "wrong" if their search does not return a result.

And It is my research, not Andy's. My methods are mine.

Re: Blogcatalog – Does Onclick Pass PageRank?

Dane Morgan — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:36:46 -0000

Can you link to that?

Re: Blogcatalog – Does Onclick Pass PageRank?

Dane Morgan — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:36:46 -0000

Can you link to that?

Re: Blogcatalog – Does Onclick Pass PageRank?

Dane Morgan — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:56:34 -0000

Actually, I just read it at the sphinn discussion.

Am I entirely alone, or does the fact that he took the time to make that post and STILL did not address the topic of the discussion say something?

Re: Blogcatalog – Does Onclick Pass PageRank?

Dane Morgan — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:56:34 -0000

Actually, I just read it at the sphinn discussion.

Am I entirely alone, or does the fact that he took the time to make that post and STILL did not address the topic of the discussion say something?

Re: Blogcatalog – Does Onclick Pass PageRank?

Dane Morgan — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:05:27 -0000

Have you received any emails from your own directory members about the redirect links you use that pass no PR or link pop?

Re: Blogcatalog – Does Onclick Pass PageRank?

Dane Morgan — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:05:27 -0000

Have you received any emails from your own directory members about the redirect links you use that pass no PR or link pop?

Re: Blogcatalog – Does Onclick Pass PageRank?

Dane Morgan — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:09:52 -0000

Also, while the links do not prove that pagerank is being passed, this is not the same as the links do not prove anything.

Re: Blogcatalog – Does Onclick Pass PageRank?

Dane Morgan — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:09:52 -0000

Also, while the links do not prove that pagerank is being passed, this is not the same as the links do not prove anything.

Re: Blogcatalog – Does Onclick Pass PageRank?

Dane Morgan — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 17:12:39 -0000

Hey Andy, are you blocking co comments on your blog somehow? I don't get the tracking tool, and it's not picking up the comments here after I commented.

Re: Blogcatalog – Does Onclick Pass PageRank?

Dane Morgan — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 17:12:39 -0000

Hey Andy, are you blocking co comments on your blog somehow? I don't get the tracking tool, and it's not picking up the comments here after I commented.

Re: Blogrush – 7 Critical Mistakes

Dane Morgan — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 07:36:09 -0000

Well, I signed up through your link on day one. For now I'm reserving any judgment. I came in not expecting much of anything really. But I'm willing to give it a fair run.

Re: Blogrush – 7 Critical Mistakes

Dane Morgan — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 07:36:09 -0000

Well, I signed up through your link on day one. For now I'm reserving any judgment. I came in not expecting much of anything really. But I'm willing to give it a fair run.

Re: Traffic Or Topical Community – What Comes First?

Dane Morgan — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 19:44:22 -0000

I'm not sure that Blog Rush can really be discussed along side the others here in a meaningful way. There isn't the opportunity for the social interaction at Blog Rush, and the clicks are completely driven by 'ad' displays on other blogs.

Lacking a central traffic "clearing house" such as MBL, BC and Bz have, the opportunity to send the same user to multiple blogs from an off blog source would also tend to leave BlogRush closer to a zero sum game in which some Blogs almost have to send more traffic than they receive for others to receive more than they send.

This is possibly mitigated to some extent by the opening of a new window for the clicks, but I wonder how many clicks are lost to MSIE/WinXP pop up suppression and whether this attenuates the possible (though probably slight) mitigating effect.

These thoughts are really all pre-publish thinking. I have the basics of what I've said here stored for a post, but I'm not quite done thinking it through.

The concept that a traffic exchange device needs a central distribution center separate from the participants to be able to send more (new) traffic than is received on a sustainable basis, seems to make sense to me, but I have a feeling there might be factors I haven't sussed out and accounted for quite yet.

If you can poke any holes in this thought, please let me know.

Re: Traffic Or Topical Community – What Comes First?

Dane Morgan — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 19:44:22 -0000

Re: Traffic Or Topical Community – What Comes First?

Dane Morgan — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 22:14:02 -0000

This is what I mean by approaching a zero sum game. It's unlikely that any workable solution could provide equity between Blog Strokes and problogger.

Possibly valuing credits on a currency exchange system could bring Andy Beard and Blog Strokes into some parity. Something on the order of 50-60 Blog Strokes credits to and Andy Beard credit. But then the other variables enter into play. Your readers might be more likely to visit a WordPress blog than Mine to visit a Niche Marketing Blog.

I suspect that even fiddling with the credits we would see a disparity develop that would cheat you and rape Darren and leave me sitting like a thief.

Now, I don't have a major problem with this when it's applied to a blogger to blogger situation. You know when you link to me I'm going to take more traffic than I give and you make the decision to do so anyways. And probably don't lose much in the process because most of the traffic you send me is not one off visitors. It's regular readers following a recommended link.

That dynamic is altered when it's part of a larger traffic distribution network.

My thinking is that the simple addition of a central exchange location can alter this effect by normalizing exposure between all of the blogs in the network.

Your blog is going to receive more exposure on Bz, for example than mine because by virtue of more frequent comments and posts you are going to show up more frequently in the discussion area. Also you will receive more bumps (as few as that may be) and show up more often in the widget.

In this way it is the readers directly driving the distribution somewhat democratically. I guess what I'm saying is that incentivizing user interaction on a central distribution point should serve to direct not only a more realistic distribution, but can serve as a perpetual motion machine returning more energy (views/clicks) than the sum of the input. While I perceive the straight widget to widget model as a standard loss involved energy transfer. not only will there be less output than the sum of the input, but because of the nature of the variable, it will be in-equably distributed.

Even if this inequity does favor the smaller participants, and I agree with you that this is the case, how many people signing up understand everything in play here? Even among the bigger players?

Re: Traffic Or Topical Community – What Comes First?

Dane Morgan — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 22:14:02 -0000

Re: Traffic Or Topical Community – What Comes First?

Dane Morgan — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 22:23:29 -0000

I'm headed over to find and join that group after I post this ;)

I like these ideas. But I still think that adding the element of the central distribution point is necessary. BUMPzee handles this idea well with it's on blog discussion section, it's recent posts sections for each community (I'd love to see community specific recent on blog discussion sections added), and it's widget shows popular discussions based on calculations that include user bumps.

This removes the straight traffic for traffic inequities, though it does not remove traffic completely as a factor.

Since Bz can track comments (as can co.comments) it's not a big leap to mix in the elements you are describing either.

Thanks for the thoughts (yes I know this isn't my blog but still, thanks for the thoughts).

Re: Traffic Or Topical Community – What Comes First?

Dane Morgan — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 22:23:29 -0000

Re: Traffic Or Topical Community – What Comes First?

Dane Morgan — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 23:30:37 -0000

Hey Antony,

I can't find a widget group. Could you link me?

Re: Traffic Or Topical Community – What Comes First?

Dane Morgan — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 23:30:37 -0000

Hey Antony,

I can't find a widget group. Could you link me?

Re: Traffic Or Topical Community – What Comes First?

Dane Morgan — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 01:02:06 -0000

Scott has this pretty high up on his todo list for this fall from my understanding, Vlad.

Re: Traffic Or Topical Community – What Comes First?

Dane Morgan — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 01:02:06 -0000

Scott has this pretty high up on his todo list for this fall from my understanding, Vlad.

Re: How Would You Improve Your Blog Or Blogging?

Dane Morgan — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 22:45:32 -0000

Hey, thanks for joining in on this Andy. I'll be anticipating the email subscription part and hope to see some good stuff there.

I'd probably go the route of using custom fields for the headline trick myself, and am actually working with using a custom field for displaying a subhead on one blog, and plan to implement it on Dane Morgan and Blog Strokes soon.

Server loads and page speed were the primary motivations for my single loop experiment. I've been looking at ways to reduce queries, especially repetitive ones without resorting to a cache, because I'm intending to increase the amount of dynamic information on my pages with some of it taking frequent updates.

Re: How Would You Improve Your Blog Or Blogging?

Dane Morgan — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 22:45:32 -0000

Re: How Would You Improve Your Blog Or Blogging?

Dane Morgan — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 20:36:33 -0000

With WordPress, if the reader will register, then yes. You can put you loop into two separate files one template that is served when the reader is not logged in and another when the user is logged in.

Just use an oldest first sort for non logged in users and let long time readers skip right to the new stuff automatically.

Re: How Would You Improve Your Blog Or Blogging?

Dane Morgan — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 20:36:33 -0000

Re: SocialRank The Next Quechup? – Stinking Splog Or Long Tail Meme Tracker?

Dane Morgan — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 22:35:19 -0000

"Don't Use Pingback / Trackback When Syndicating / Splogging My Content"

Spooky. I just ranted the same thing in a BlogCatalog thread on spamments. This really annoys me. My readers don't need a link to read the fist paragraph of the post they've just read.

Re: SocialRank The Next Quechup? – Stinking Splog Or Long Tail Meme Tracker?

Dane Morgan — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 22:35:19 -0000

Re: Real or Fake PageRank Update In Progress (round 3)

Dane Morgan — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 08:32:54 -0000

Has this resulted in any effect on your SERPs or traffic, Andy?

Re: Real or Fake PageRank Update In Progress (round 3)

Dane Morgan — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 08:32:54 -0000

Has this resulted in any effect on your SERPs or traffic, Andy?

Re: Google Dictating Nofollow For ALL Links From Compensated Content

Dane Morgan — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 21:28:57 -0000

I rather thought Google's customers were advertisers. Webmasters and searchers are the product.

Re: Google Dictating Nofollow For ALL Links From Compensated Content

Dane Morgan — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 21:28:57 -0000

I rather thought Google's customers were advertisers. Webmasters and searchers are the product.

Re: Beware of Andy Beard’s Stumbles!

Dane Morgan — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 21:06:50 -0000

Too funny. I posted to the BUMPzee thread before I clicked though and what I sad was that "Vlad the Affiliate" can throw some weight around over there too. At BlogStrokes.com the largest traffic source to date is Your Stumbles.

Dane

Re: Beware of Andy Beard’s Stumbles!

Dane Morgan — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 23:08:14 -0000

I just gotta figure out how to write something the stumblers like enough to stick around for more than 50 seconds. ;)

Re: Improving My Blog and Blogging In General.

Dane Morgan — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 21:15:39 -0000

Hey Vlad,

Thanks for participating in this. I'd agree that focus is an important thing and keeping to my proposed topic is, to me, a sort of contract with my readers, not to mention strengthening the over all theme of the blog.

One thing I'm really going to do with this meme is try to use it as a device to help me with my desire to increase my post frequency, I hope most of those that participate will see it in the same light, as I think that really adds value over just a "five things you didn't know about me" type meme. Not that I think those are bad, but I'd like to see more memes that address something we can all use to improve ourselves.

BTW. This meme makes me open season now. I'll try very hard to participate in any meme which doesn't seem like it could derail my blog or violate my personal sense of what's proper.

Re: One Of My WordPress Sites Was Hacked- And I Thought It Would Never Happen To Me

Dane Morgan — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:48:08 -0000

I feel you pain. I was hacked earlier this year, and actually they got into several of my niche blogs and converted them into phishing sites. I lost a LOT of hard work and some significant income.

WordPress suffers from the same main security flaw as Internet Explorer. The flaw is market share dominance. Sure you could spend time writing code to compromise Safari or Opera, or TypePad or dBlogger, but there aren't that many people using them in comparison. The best bang for the buck, and them most likely you are to get a lot of blogs (or browsers) and to have a lot of them still using the insecure older versions after updates are left is to target the ones with the most market share.

That is why it's so important that you stay on top of upgrades. And not just to WP itself, but to plugins you are using. plugins can be compromised and if not updated, they leave security holes into your blog.

Re: One Of My WordPress Sites Was Hacked- And I Thought It Would Never Happen To Me

Dane Morgan — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:57:30 -0000

Well, I've kind of put theme development on a back burner. I've got five or so nearly completed themes but haven't made the time to polish them. I've been working on my niche marketing membership blog mostly of late, trying to get the value I want into it without the workload it's turning into on me.

But I could probably whip something up for you if you gave me an idea what you were looking for.

It's really a shame that a theme ever "breaks". Template tags are deprecated for several versions before they are removed, so it isn't like it was a surprise to anyone that tags they were using were going away.

"yes you need an arsenal of plugins to get things the way you want them'

You know, I used to have loads and loads of plugins, but as time goes by, I'm selecting them with more critical thought. I'm using fewer and fewer of them. I've probably eliminated over 75% of the number of plugins I was using a year ago. When you consider how many more there are now, that's something. I really ask myself if a plugin will actually add traffic, conversion or user value to my blog before I even consider trying it these days. i'm getting really minimalist about it, and honestly, it's early days for some of the changes I'm making, but it seems to be making things better at the start.

Re: Do Yourself A Favor-Stop Advertising Your Plugins To The Whole World

Dane Morgan — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:23:32 -0000

I'm not sure how much value this will specifically bring to your security. Most attackers aren't going to bother checking to see if you have a compromised plugin installed. They simply amass domain listings of WP installs and use robots to launch the attack against each blog on the list.

That said, I can think of other good reasons to do this anyways, and not only in the plugins folder, but every folder that does not have an explicit index.php file already in it (root & admin).

Also as I like to say, site security is a lot like car alarms. Nothing you do that leaves your site usable can tottaly prevent someone who really wants in from getting in. But there are lots of little things you can do to make it easier to just hit someone else.

@ lucia. Back when I did porn I actually created fake Apach directory list pages. All of the listed images were of course links to rev share programs. ;)

Re: Give Your RSS Feed A Huge Hug!

Dane Morgan — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 22:42:00 -0000

Hey Vlad, I like the simple clean design you've got here now! :)

Re: Beware of Andy Beard’s Stumbles!

Dane Morgan — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 21:06:50 -0000

Re: Beware of Andy Beard’s Stumbles!

Dane Morgan — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 23:08:14 -0000

I just gotta figure out how to write something the stumblers like enough to stick around for more than 50 seconds. ;)

Re: Improving My Blog and Blogging In General.

Dane Morgan — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 21:15:39 -0000

Re: One Of My WordPress Sites Was Hacked- And I Thought It Would Never Happen To Me

Dane Morgan — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:48:08 -0000

Re: One Of My WordPress Sites Was Hacked- And I Thought It Would Never Happen To Me

Dane Morgan — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:57:30 -0000

Re: Do Yourself A Favor-Stop Advertising Your Plugins To The Whole World

Dane Morgan — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:23:32 -0000

Re: The Big Brown Box Project Is Coming

Dane Morgan — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 00:28:38 -0000

Two words. U-haul. Or is that one word?

Re: Do Not Fuck With Blogrush! Hackers Beware!

Dane Morgan — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 21:53:54 -0000

What really struck me was the sense of an utter and complete disconnect from the realities of the web today. Simply stated if you run a program which offers to give you "credits" that can lead to "traffic" and the method you give people to "earn" these credits can be automated, it will be.

The email left me with the strong feeling that it never occurred to anyone working on this project that people would attempt to automate the generation of credits, reduce the possibility of any traffic loss and attempt to exploit and mathematic or programatic opportunities presented. Not that I think people should do this, just that I know they will, and was struck by the sense that John and Crew did not.

Re: No Fear Blogging

Dane Morgan — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 15:44:50 -0000

RE#1 - I like using an outliner to allow me to categorize notes. match the categories to common blog cats, and project ideas. I use http://treepad.com for this.

RE#6 - Added bonus is that an incomplete thought can even lead to more comments and, ultimately, a better post as other share their ideas than a more complete original post would have!

RE#10 - Just be sure to make the break points logical steps for the series, and at the end (or before if you will keep it updated) add a page that links to each post in the series with a brief sentence or two about each post.

Nice checklist here, man. Stumbled it.

Re: 2008/07/10/entitlement-of-free-needs-to-go-away/

Dane Morgan — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:05:17 -0000

I think a lot of people are missing the point. Steven didn't say free should go away, he said the sense of entitlement that surrounds it needs to go away. A company that offers free services and a paid upgrade service is not betraying it's free service users. They are receiving value, and providing value to the extent that their activities help add value to the site for those who are paying for the upgrade and thus also paying for the free users as well.

Re: 2008/07/10/entitlement-of-free-needs-to-go-away/

Dane Morgan — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:02:08 -0000

This would definite change the demographics of the users, but not necessarily lead to profitability.

And it depends on how you phrase the question. I wouldn't pay $10 a month for Twitter if I were there to see "what my friends were up too", but I wouldn't hesitate to pay for the service to keep tabs on what some people using it are up to, and more importantly, the casual and instant access it can provide to those people.

The atmosphere at twitter is such that some people can suddenly actually grab the attention of some people they never would have been able to otherwise.

Re: 2008/07/12/bloggers-dilemma/

Dane Morgan — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 11:58:44 -0000

"These problems plague only bloggers that have been around for a while; a young aspiring blogger wonâ€™t care about them because he doesnâ€™t remember this bloggersâ€™ age of innocence"

To some extent the new blogger still lives in this age of innocence as well. A new blogger with 10,20, 100 regular readers is like the local band having drinks with the fans between sets.

A big blogger who wants that feeling back could always start a new blog under a pen name. carefully not getting into the race to publish could even sustain that for him.

Re: 3 mantras for social media peeps

Dane Morgan — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:05:51 -0000

Not a bad set of mantras if you're going to adopt just a small set from the sea of otherwise ignored wisdom! I can't remember not knowing the second two, but the first "You cannot outperform a market if you adhere to its conventions" is new to me, and I thank you for sharing it!

Re: Twitter the Social Powerhouse That is NOT Stupid

Dane Morgan — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:32:40 -0000

I was pretty firmly convinced that twitter was stupid for quite a while. I actually signed up over a year ago, made one tweet, read a few tweets and quit.

Sam Freedom and Andy Beard both indirectly convinced me to have a second look at it, and I made my second post a little more than a year after the first. I've found several great articles through tweets from people I'm following and found something to tweet just about every day since, and several tweets on a few days.

I don't think I'm following you, but I'll remedy that right after I post this and then look for when that alert comes in. ;)

Re: Make Money Online Blogging

Dane Morgan — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:09:30 -0000

I didn't used to be a John Cow fan at all. But times are changing smart people stay open to change. This is probably one of the best ebooks I've yet read on blogging for profit, and I've read a lot of them. And nearly every cent I've made online has been made from little niche blogs.

The release of this book was a little piece of synchronicity for me, because I've been working on changing the way I do things. I've realised some time ago that what I had on line was not a business, but an internet job of sorts, and when a hacker took down my network and replaced it with phishing sites, it took me out. There was nothing of value left without the pages, because I had never actualy created a business, just a transient income.

The John Cow team addresses a lot of stuff in this book that I've been puzzling out for myself over the past few months, and they make it crystal clear. What I like best is that they provide real life examples of the things they say.

A couple of the key takeaways for me is the niche research method described. I'm expirimenting with it now, but I have to say that as good as my method already was I think this is better. I had messed around with CB as a niche generating resource a few times, but never worked out just how to use it that way, this book cleared that up for me instantly, and while I may not follow the exact method the John Cow team does, I'll be incorporating their ideas into my method and it's going to be much improved because of that.

There are also a lot of little things that get the attention they need in this book. Things like turning off notifications while you prep a blog for publication. I've been doing that fopr a while, but I was very impressed to see it directly mentioned here. It's one of those details that most ebooks skip over, and a lot of new niche bloggers suffer for that oversight.

The two things that might have made this book even better would be more discussion of and resources for creating link bait and including a generous helping of bookmarks in the PDF file. Since I see myself reading certain sections several times as a working guide line, it would be nice to be able to just click to the section of the book I'm interested in at the moment.

But still, this is a blogging ebook that I can easily and happily recommend, and I already have to a number of online friends an in a couple of forums I frequent. Thanks John Cow.

Dane Morgans last blog post..Are They Forgotten?

Re: Make Money Online Blogging

Dane Morgan — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:16:46 -0000

Question:
When you say that you don't look at products under $15 commissions when doing research, can you clarify the scope of that statement? Did you specifically mean clickbank products? Do you set a different threshold for physical products since they typically have a lower affiliate payout?

Dane Morgans last blog post..Are They Forgotten?

Re: Build a Mini Net in 2008

Dane Morgan — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:03:05 -0000

I loved that book, and Andy Williams' similar ebook on using the same principles on a single site.

I've done this myself, but on a limited scale, and I haven't 'gotten around' to doing the tracking I need to do to really get the information I need to make it better. I really need to get that done.

Dane Morgans last blog post..Are They Forgotten?

Re: A Look Back at the Cowpetition

Dane Morgan — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:41:09 -0000

Isn't it one of the great mysteries about people that we tend to resent those who give us things?

Hey it was a cool competition with some great real world take aways. Actually nice to see the processes behind an ebook unfolding.

Kudos from me for whatever they might be worth.

Dane Morgans last blog post..Are They Forgotten?

Re: Do You Want to Know Who John Cow is?

Dane Morgan — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:00:55 -0000

Well, I had been thinking Jason Potash, but he's in MI (I think), not TX, so now I'm completely lost on who the new John Cow is.

Dane Morgans last blog post..Are They Forgotten?

Re: Brand New FREE Keyword Corral Tool by John Cow dot Com

Dane Morgan — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:09:56 -0000

As far as the competition data. Is the tool collecting it using any search operators like allintitle: or allinurl:. Or just using exact matching with quotes?

Re: How To Do It: Indirect Marketing

Dane Morgan — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 10:22:49 -0000

I'd like some examples of using this in blogging in a purely digital sense. Or is this limited to an offline technique?

Dane Morgan | Niche Bloggers last blog post..How about some demos?

Re: Noise Reduction

Dane Morgan — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 10:10:16 -0000

I ignored social media for a loooooong time while my betters were telling me I really needed to get into this. As a blogger, I was doing fine with content, ping, listings and comments on other blogs. But on the web if you aren't moving forward, you are moving backward, and I feel it now.

I'm moving toward social media, but approaching it cautiously as I've seen folks burn them selves with it.

I'm also looking beyond the social web to the semantic web, because I don't want to catch the tail of the next wave.

Re: WordPress, Trademarks And Apologies

Dane Morgan — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 08:55:26 -0000

Hi Michael,

Good post. I commented on Andy Beards blog that it just seemed obvious to me that largely Matt wanted to prevent anyone seeing a relationship between WP and these sites based on the "wordpress" being contained in the domian names. No one really would think that Microsoft wrote the "Idiot's Guide to Microsoft Excel" or "Microsoft Word for Dummies", but there is a real probability that some will think wordpress.org or wordpress.com (though they may not think atomattic by extension) owns or at least endorses wordpresstutorials.com based on the domain names.

It seems from reading that Matt further thinks these sites contribute to the autobuilding, autoposting, commentblasting type genre of "blog" software. I'm not sure what he bases this misperception on, but he also at one point says that BAP is just the kind of tool he has a problem with. But he seems not to realize that Olga made great efforts to make that software powerful for bloggers, but less useful for blog spammers.

Finally I'd like to drop the suggestion here that perhaps the reason that these two sites have received letters whil 165 others, some potentially actual offenders, have not could be the result of these two sites being owned by high calibre marketers who know how to get the word out and the traffic in. It is very plausible to me that Matt has simply never seen most of these sites on his radar because the owners are less adept at marketing their sites.