While talking to my good friend Breakaway from Link Building Bible about social media optimization and StumbleUpon, I came across a startling and obviously enormous theory that will change the way everyone will think about Stumbleupon. Forever.

Well, kinda.

STUMBLEUPON KNOWS
Not about that time you accidentally used the wrong bathroom, but about whether your Stumbles are organic or not. That means that if you get a bunch of your friends to thumbs up a page in an attempt to boost its initial traffic, a red alert goes off at the SU headquarters and your page gets blacklisted or at least denied some traffic. I know from experience that even though some of my articles have had 5+ stumbles within two minutes from friends, they never got any visits. In short, inorganic thumbs up that occur within a set period of time after you submit your site probably have a small effect, if any.

ORGANIC VISITS = WIN
StumbleUpon most likely checks whether or not it referred you to the page or if you came there through different means. If you were sent there through http://www.stumbleupon.com/refer.php?url=”pageurl” then all is well and your thumbs up have power. On the other hand, if you aren’t, they devalue your thumbs up/review. This makes it even harder to game and furthers the fact that the only people that can make an article popular are the actual social media users. Generic make money online blogs aren’t going to be happy about this one!

Posted by Max Miroff | 16 Comments »

On one of my latest posts about getting a free backlink with your favicon, an interesting conversation topic was brought up: anti-SEO. We all know that Google can penalize you for having your site show up on link farms and other shady sites, but just how much? Would it be enough to knock your SERP’s down a notch?

If so, then companies dedicated to destroying the ranks of competitor websites are bound to soon appear (if they don’t exist already). These shady tactics probably go further than blackhat (but what should they be called; is there a color blacker than black? Note to self: must investigate) – surely this kind of stuff is illegal. I’m far too lazy I currently don’t have the resources to properly investigate this claim, but I suppose it’d fall under the legal categories of “defamation” and “being a total asshat(there’s the term I was looking for!)”

DESTROY YOUR COMPETITION – LITERALLY!
Think about it: instead of spending all your time building backlinks and carefully creating quality content, you could just submit your competitors websites to link farms, porn sites, and other such distasteful web venues. Google will (theoretically) devalue aforementioned websites and as they move down in rank, you will indirectly move up! Sounds like a solid plan, eh? While your competitors wonder why they are getting hits from Viagra websites, you’ll be raking in the search engine traffic like there’s no tommorow!

BUT THERE WILL BE NO TOMMOROW FOR ANTI-SEO
Destroying your competitors rankings might sound like a solid plan, but unless you’re competing against legally blind monkeys (which some of us are, I’m sure) they’re bound to notice and file some sort of complaint. This stuff would have to happen manually, though, creating a painful process for both site owners and search engine employees, because I doubt even Google algorithms are smart enough to sort links depending on intent. Take that, robots!

OR WILL THERE?
If you dig deep enough into the online underworld, you’re bound to find some people offering this kind of service. It’s probably not very effective and is as safe as getting a heart transplant from a shady back-alley surgeon, but at least it’s something. Will this type of anti-SEO ever have a large effect on search engines? In short, no – gaming search engines isn’t that easy, but it’s pretty interesting to think about.

QUICK UPDATE: The stuff I was referring to in this post is called Googlebowling.

Posted by Max Miroff | 10 Comments »

Commenting on DoFollow blogs is one of the best ways of getting backlinks to your blog, but it’s often hard to find high-PR blog pages to comment on. Luckily, I’ve got a foolproof method to get as many high PR backlinks as you want – for free! That’s right, all the quality dofollow high pagerank blog comments you’d ever want without paying a dime!

THE STEP-BY-STEP METHOD
1. Find a few DoFollow blogs with high homepage PR (I’ve seen a correlation between high homepage PR and high post PR). A good place to look is this list of 100 blogs using the CommentLuv plugin as well as this DoFollow search engine.

2. Download the “Google Pagerank Checker” tool on SEO Junkie. It lets you plug in a website URL and gives you the PR of all of its pages. Note: it seems to be a bit buggy as of now. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Still, it’s the only tool of its kind that I’ve found. OR: Internal Pagerank Checker OR Internal Pagerank Checker – both are still great alternatives for checking internal pagerank.

3. Insert a blog URL inside of the program and wait for it to finish its checking. Then, click the PR button to organize by high PR. Voila – you’ve got a bunch of quality dofollow backlinks to use for your link building purposes.

4. Make quality blog comments. That’s the key word here – quality. No one wants to read stuff like “gr8 post m8″ or “lol” or “click here for free medication.” In short, don’t be a comment whore.

And there you go – the easy way to comment on high PR blogs for backlinks. There’s even a way to make money off of it, but I think I’ll share this with you in a different post. If you’re clever enough, though, you’ll probably figure it out yourself .

By the way, props to Breakaway for inspiring me on this great idea.

UPDATE: Here is how to make money online with dofollow blog comments. Hope you enjoy it!

Posted by Max Miroff | 349 Comments »

Quick tip for today: get a free backlink with your favicon on Pimp My Favicon. They probably won’t be worth anything considering the page they’re on looks like a link farm, but why not? Mass links are always fun! Just enter your blogs URL and you get a free bonafide backlink!

Posted by Max Miroff | 14 Comments »

After a Russian blogger decided to take inspiration from my post about marketing with homeless people and make his own inspired counter-post, I decided to check out his

blog and the Russian MMO niche as a whole.

FIRST THOUGHTS
Wait – Russians making money online? Are they allowed to do that? Don’t they distribute it equally amongst their comrades or something? Hopefully the KGB won’t come for me due to my comments (don’t worry, the fact that I’m Russian makes my blatant stereotyping okay).

Anywho:

LOTS OF RUSSIANS WANT TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE
ProfitHunter has ~1700 RSS subscribers which puts it at about the level of a B-list American MMO blog – not bad. In fact, after following a few links, I noticed there were many blogs with thousands more subsribers and fairly high Alexa rankings (though they seem to be judged unfairly, as my rank of 128,000 was the highest out of all of the Russian blogs I found, even though I’m quite sure I get less traffic). I still couldn’t find the “John Chow” of Russian MMO blogs, though.

YANDEX IS THE RUSSIAN GOOGLE. AND SO IS GOOGLE.
The posts I noticed covered statistics in both Yandex, Russia’s major search engine, as well as Google.

WORDPRESS IS THE WINNER
Plenty of Russian blogs seemed to be using WordPress. Eat that, Blogger!

RUSSIAN MMO BLOGS AREN’T ALL THAT DIFFERENT FROM ENGLISH ONES
They have similar pillar posts: “Ten Habits Of A Successful Blogger,” “Making Money With [Insert Program Name Here],” “Five Innovative Ways To Market Your Site,” etc.

RUSSIAN COMMENTERS ARE CONSTRUCTIVE
Most people that comment on Russian posts add humour and fresh ideas. For example, my aforementioned post on using homeless people to advertise your website had the humorous suggestions of:

1. Using old people that are on pensions and need money to help market websites
2. Give small animals and dogs shirts with your blog URL on them – someone had already tried this, in fact.

They were far more amusing than most of the comments I see on American blogs.

FINAL REVIEW
I’m going to have to give these blogs another look: they’re quite interesting. If you want to experience a bit of culture, check out some Russian blogs! A word of warning, though – Babelfish is an awful translator. I tried it for kicks and here’s what I got:

“Cries
Also good, true, not safest method. People can think that person, who yells “you go to [Vebmun] point RU and learn as to earn the money of on-line! ”, simply it descended from the mind “

Posted by Max Miroff | 10 Comments »

StumbleUpon is a fickle beast – it can either lead to salvation (thousands of visitors) or the banhammer (ouch). You see, apparently you CAN’T thumbs up every single post you make: shocker, I know. Blog Badly learned this the hard way; on a scale of one to ten, my level of traffic from SU for the past month was about a none. I can only assume this is because I, uh, *ahem* perhaps reviewed one my own posts? I didn’t even get any traffic from about three other posts with no reviews whatsoever by me! One of them had 15+ thumbs up yet only received about 20 visitors.

But now, it seems that my bad karma has been lifted. After being a diligent user and stumbling/reviewing other sites, Blog Badly started getting hits from StumbleUpon again. I can only assume this was because I stopped stumbling Blog Badly and just decided to let it stew for a bit. Yesterday, I got 300+ visits from StumbleUpon on my latest post. That means that getting “unbanned” from StumbleUpon is as easy as being an active user with stuff other than site promotion on your mind. After all, those pictures of cats are pretty funny!

Does this mean I’ll stop thumbs upping my own site? Of course not! I’ll think about it. Still, it’s a relief to have such a good traffic source back with me again.

Posted by Max Miroff | 38 Comments »

There often comes a time in your blog’s life where you simply abandon it. Whole essays can be written on why you leave your blog for dead, but I’ll sum it up for you in a few key words: boredom, laziness, lack of achievement, Grand Theft Auto IV. It is often sad to see a blog become abandoned, and your readers will generally hate you for it. You surely wouldn’t want these people that you’ve never met to be angry, right? Exactly.

And that’s why you should bring your blog back from the dead. Can’t think of a way to do it? No problem! Here are four ways to come back blogging strong.

The Angsty/Apologetic/Generally-Boring-Unless-You-Won-The
-Lottery-Or-Something Re-Introductory Post (now with gratuitous hyphen-usage!)
In this post, you simply lie explain to your readers that you’re very sorry for not posting, will now post regularly, had other commitments, blah blah blah, please re-subscribe to my feed, et cetera. This post is generally hated by all people unless you are in the blog-about-my-life niche. Is anyone even still doing that? Hello?
Effectiveness Level: Trying to eat soup with a fork.
The Biggest Mistake You Can Make With This Post: Actually following through with this idea.
Your Readership Will… reluctantly accept the post while bitterly muttering to themselves.

The Normal Post
Pretend you never left your blog (if you don’t think about it, it never happened). Your readers will settle back into the norm and will hopefully dismiss your absence. After all, if you continue doing what you do best, what could go wrong?
Effectiveness Level: Killing a fly with a fly-swatter.
The Biggest Mistake You Can Make With This Post: Not proofreading your post. Your writing skills may have gotten a bit rusty during your absence.
Your Readership Will… be as content as they were before.

The Blog Rebirth
Change can be scary, and this rings true the most with this option. In short, this is when you go all-out and perform a switcharoo on your blog. Make a new custom design, develop a new writing style, and refocus. This is the riskiest option of all and it can win you some new readers while alienating some loyal fans. It’s important to weigh your possible benefits before following through with this: writing fun factor, niche popularity, and your knowledge on the topic are important to think about. If you have a good understanding of your readership and know how to strike the right chords with them, this option can be the best thing that can happen to your blog.
Effectiveness Level: Shooting at at a bullseye on an archery target.
The Biggest Mistake You Can Make With This Post: Too many to list – but don’t let that discourage you!
Your Readership Will… either go the way of the Hindenburg or skyrocket.

Do Nothing
This isn’t really a post idea – it’s the antithesis of one. Just don’t do anything. Leave your helpless blog alone, stranded in the vast expanse of the Internet, you awful person.
Effectiveness Level: Fighting a grizzly bear whilst blindfolded and hogtied.
The Biggest Mistake You Can Make With This Post: It’s not even a post. You’re dooming yourself by doing this.
Your Readership Will… leave you forever.

Can you guess which one I did?

Posted by Max Miroff | 7 Comments »

1. CAPITALIZING RANDOM WORDS
Do you know how annoying it is when you write like this: “learn how to make money online by Using This free Guide”? No? It makes it seem as though you’re a first grader just learning to write.
Annoyance Factor: Red Alert!
Most Commonly Found… on splash sales pages.

2. NOT CAPITALIZING ANYTHING
writing like this is for angsty emo kids on myspace. i really hate this style and so does pretty much everyone else.
Annoyance Factor: As annoying as an angsty emo kid
Most Commonly Found… on Myspace and blogs written by “rebels who don’t follow the rules.”

3. HUGE CHUNKS OF ITALICS
Why would anyone want to read a huge block of italics? Making your words all slanty may seem cool at first, but eventually you’ll have your readers start suing you for the neck injuries caused by tilting their heads.
Annoyance Factor: That biker that cut you off at the intersection
Most Commonly Found… used for long quotations.

4. VARYING FONT SIZES
Some people think that using ten different font sizes in one paragraph adds flair and emphasis. It doesn’t.
Annoyance Factor: Not finding your favorite cereal at the grocery store
Most Commonly Found… on splash sales pages.

5. NO SPACE BETWEEN IMAGE AND TEXT
Not as much of a writing as a formatting thing. Your image and text should not overlap – unlike chocolate and peanut butter combining to create delicious Reese’s, pictures and words don’t flow together to create a commercial candy masterpiece.
Annoyance Factor: The ticking of your clock at night.
Most Commonly Found… on the blogs of ignorant WordPress users.

6. ASKING TOO MANY QUESTIONS
Two questions per post is okay, you know what I mean? When you start to exceed that number, you’re just starting to sound annoying.
Annoyance Factor: Not being able to think of a blog post
Most Commonly Found.. on philosophical blogs.

Posted by Max Miroff | 22 Comments »

Ever wondered what price you could scam some poor sucker into buying your blog? If you like money, you’ve surely investigated at least a few site value calculators and have most likely found them to be horrendously undervalued. After all, your .blogspot domain with two visitors per day is definitely worth more than ten bucks. Here’s a comparitive look at some popular site value calculators so that you can see just how much your blog is(n’t) worth!

SITE VALUE QUICK LINKS (FIRST IS BEST, LAST IS WORST)

1. CyberWyre
2. Estibot
3. DNScoop
4. Your Website Value
5. SmartPageRank
6. Site Value Calculator
7. Website Value Calculator
8. Business Opportunities Site Value Calculator

THE DETAILED SITE VALUE ANALYSIS (FROM HIGHEST PRICE TO LOWEST)
Business Opportunities Site Value Calculator
Blog Badly Was Worth… $29,920.62
Those with low self esteem should start with this absolutely useless site value calculator. It grossly overprices your blog. If you can honestly find a seller that will buy your website for this amount, you’re the greatest marketing genius in the world. Seriously.

Estibot
Blog Badly Was Worth… $5,700
Now we’re talking! Still a bit overpriced, in my opinion, and it showed my estimated daily traffic as being 1,000+ (it’s really not that high). Another self esteem booster.

CyberWyre
Blog Badly Was Worth… $5,181
Another search, another overpriced calculator. CyberWyre bases value purely on backlinks, PR, and Alexa.

DNScoop
Blog Badly Was Worth… $900
The price range where I think Blog Badly belongs – at least $3000 – was skipped entirely in favor of a much lower value. At least it’s got some fancy graphics along with it along with accurate backlink statistics.

Your Website Value
Blog Badly Was Worth… $563

Much too low. It bases its stats on weird stuff like “Depth Potential” and “Friendliness.” How can a robot know how friendly I am? For any site valuation bots viewing Blog Badly, I have but one message for you: Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto. That’s an extra $1500 right there.

SmartPageRank
Blog Badly was worth… $311
I’m doubting the intelligence of SmartPageRank. Their one redeeming quality is fancy graphics, much like DNScoop.

Site Value Calculator
Blog Badly was worth… $299
This is pretty much an exact copy of SmartPageRank, except it undervalues my website even more. Curses!

Website Value Calculator
Blog Badly was worth… $103
I’m pretty sure someone is playing a joke on me. There’s no way Blog Badly is this cheap – it made more than that last month.

The Average Price Of Blog Badly… $5,372.20

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU?
Blog value calculators generally suck. Still, they’re pretty fun to play with

Posted by Max Miroff | 29 Comments »

Alexa rankings were once fickle things – changing on a whim. 50,000 visitors with no toolbar on one day? Your rankings tanked. 100 visitors with the toolbar? Hello, Top 100k!

Sadly, this mildly amusing fluctuation has been replaced with a more reliable system. That’s right: new Alexa rankings.

“We listened to your suggestions, and we believe that our new rankings system is much closer to what you asked for. We now aggregate data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users.

You gave us many other suggestions as well, and we are working hard to implement them. We won’t tell any secrets just yet, but you can expect to see new features rolled out over the coming weeks and months.”

What does this change mean for you? It means that blogs and websites with high percentages of web-savvy Alexa toolbar users will follow the route of the Hindenburg (you know, the zeppelin?) whilst sites with high quantities of traffic will actually get the rankings they deserve. The big question on everyones mind is namely the following: “will it work?” Blog Badly’s ranking shot down 100,000 points after the update, so I’m not complaining. Still, there’s sure to be ripples around the net either shocked/amused/scared/happy/outraged about these changes. For example, John Chow’s ranking went up 14,000 points while John Cow went up over 80,000 points.

Is Alexa ranking still mostly meaningless? Yes, but now it’s slightly better – and at least they’re trying to make their rankings fairer. Of course, you have to forget all the things your first grade soccer coach told you: effort isn’t all that matters. Webmasters want fair rankings and people want reliable knowledge. Lets hope Alexa can shape up and provide both.

Posted by Max Miroff | 12 Comments »