fresh clean & simple Wordpress themes and ideas

Top 5 Blogging Blunders

Filed under: Blogging Blunders — admin @ 12:08 am November 28, 2008

I stumbled across these videos from Andy Wibbel on YouTube. I thought they were were worth remembering, so I’m sharing them here.

Blunder #1: Not owning your own domain name

Blunder #2: Not having a tightly focused niche.

Blunder #3: Too much crap in your columns

Blunder #4: Not measuring traffic and statistics

Blunder #5: Not having email alerts

WordPress 2.6.5 Upgrade: The Easy Way

Filed under: Wordpress Upgrades — admin @ 2:17 am November 26, 2008

There is an easier way to upgrade from WordPress 2.6.3 to WordPress 2.6.5. Note that WordPress skipped version 2.6.4 because there was a fake 2.6.4 floating around out there.

From the new WordPress 2.6.5, you can just upload and replace the following files to fix the security issue:

wp-includes/feed.php
wp-includes/version.php

Top Press Release Sites: The Mega List

Filed under: Press Releases,SEO — admin @ 1:49 am

Sending out press releases is a great way to get picked up by news sites and blogs. If you choose sites that link back to you, you can also increase your rankings in Google. But which press release sites should you use? My goal was to separate the contenders from the pretenders.

I combined the Mashable press release distribution list, plus a bunch of other lists, and then did my own Google searches to put together a definitive list of press release distribution sites. Then I checked every site to see that it was actually a press release distribution site. I cut out the sites that were closed down or taken over by spam sites. Here is the mega list.

The sites are ranked by Google Page Rank (higher is better), Compete.com unique monthly users (more is better), and Alexa rank (lower number is better). Please leave a comment if this list was useful, or if you find something that I missed.

URL PageRank Compete Alexa
prnewswire.com 7 889924 7442
prweb.com 7 852266 9082
businesswire.com 8 618286 13363
betanews.com 7 426250 3117
free-press-release.com 5 371917 4038
pr.com 5 318042 27946
prlog.org 5 317049 12434
PR-Inside.com 4 213970 19564
marketwire.com 7 212979 23099
geek.com 5 203488 14692
1888pressrelease.com 5 108564 52478
24-7pressrelease.com 4 104261 17789
prleap.com 6 101296 56060
express-press-release.com 4 50635 48974
pr-usa.net 5 40223 62852
NewswireToday.com 5 37252 44901
i-newswire.com 3 31800 69321
eReleases.com 5 31038 89090
PressBox.co.uk 5 28732 47297
openpr.com 5 26588 40531
theopenpress.com 4 20886 58283
downloadjunction.com 5 20798 92504
pressreleasepoint.com 4 20268 49718
free-news-release.com 4 18503 49814
free-press-release-center.info 4 17493 48955
pr9.net 4 16720 60862
BizEurope.com 6 16474 70257
eworldwire.com 5 15985 142631
pr-gb.com 4 15378 100726
przoom.com 5 13127 84277
IndiaPRWire.com 6 13016 18613
live-pr.com 3 12187 46473
clickpress.com 5 10856 42290
freshnews.com 5 10773 175872
eCommWire.com 3 10723 91254
prunderground.com 3 10533 206741
MassMediaDistribution.com 5 10127 167695
PRCompass.com 3 10005 64957
bignews.biz 4 9660 62307
PRurgent.com 3 9613 70393
prfree.com 4 9324 181769
caymanmama.com 2 8859 143924
PressRelease365.com 4 8408 181769
mediasyndicate.com 3 8270 98541
pressexposure.com 2 7841 79066
newsalbum.com 2 6707 226727
prbuzz.com 3 6618 193986
prarticle.com 3 6519 129618
pressabout.com 4 6089 83803
sbwire.com 6 5795 129095
pressreleasecirculation.com 2 5191 158905
freepressreleases.co.uk 3 5117 49316
MyPRGenie.com 0 4907 311001
efytimes.com 6 4733 62044
AddPR.com 3 4506 149782
pressreleasespider.com 4 4292 66276
usprwire.com 4 4029 173749
pressmethod.com 4 3900 57678
malebits.com 4 3613 101990
pressbox.com 0 3533 419110
pressreleaseforum.com 0 3451 225127
information-online.com 4 3209 159547
pressmediawire.com 4 2987 275700
myfreepr.com 3 2713 98374
businessportal24.com 0 2545 42643
FreePressIndex.com 3 2531 93356
clicnews.com 3 2524 335777
prfocus.com 3 2466 112759
seenation.com 2 2200 105832
FreePressRelease.co.cc 0 2142 319
webnewswire.com 3 1917 294631
TechPRSpider.com 3 1890 190521
pressbooth.org 0 1840 592299
afreego.com 4 1644 117921
press-world.com 4 1518 529699
newsblaster.com 3 1470 178098
afly.com 2 1422 132720
PageRelease.com 2 1404 204161
epicpr.com 0 1347 306974
pressreleasemonkey.com 0 1183 513400
exactrelease.com 0 1167 119142
epressreleases.org 3 1105 487928
speedypr.com 1 0 151953
prwindow.com 2 0 172024
postafreepressrelease.com 3 0 263729
PressFlow.co.uk 0 0 269904
pr2work.com 1 0 276300
prfriend.com 1 0 359509
newsreleaser.com 2 0 397281
press-network.com 1 0 412968
media-press-release.com 2 0 569148
your-story.org 3 0 1790950
MrRelease.com 1 0 4369528

40 Top Article Submission Sites, with PageRank, Alexa Rank, Compete.com Unique Users, and Google Keyword Tool

Filed under: Article Submission,SEO — admin @ 12:04 am November 25, 2008


Writing and syndicating original articles is one of the best ways to increase your search standings on Google. Not all article submission sites are equal, however. Here are the top 40 article submission sites. I did the work so you don’t have to.

The article submission sites are listed and ranked by Google PageRank, Alexa rank, monthly unique users on Compete.com, and search volume for phrases containing the domain name as determined by the Google keyword tool in Adwords.

I looked through every decent book on Search Engine Optimization, including Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, and a number of the leading sites including SEOmoz.com and SEOBook.com, and a number of articles listing the top article submission sites.

All the lists I could find were terribly out of date. Many of the sites listed on the top SEO sites went to spammy sites that wanted to sell you an ebook or training course. Most of the sites listed in Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, published just a year ago, were simply out of business.

Many blogs and ezines pick up content from the top article sites and republish it. One common question about syndicating your content through article submission sites is the following: Doesn’t this duplicate the article all over the web and thereby reduce search standing?

Syndicating articles does create lots of duplicate content, but if you craft your articles with carefully keyworded links back to your page, then the net effect is that your page should rank higher, and you should gain lots of new backlinks and exposure on the web.

Maybe I will try it with this article and see what happens. First, I will make sure Google indexes the article here on http://blogsimplified.com.

Hopefully this list is useful. Please leave a comment if you find any good sites that I missed.

Article Submission Site Page Rank Alexa Compete Search Vol
EzineArticles.com 6 260 7557963 27100
ArticlesBase.com 5 2041 1072945 2400
Buzzle.com 5 2723 1645086 8100
SearchWarp.com 4 8413 475296 1600
SelfGrowth.com 6 16390 280488 2400
ArticleAlley.com 5 24241 176964 880
ArticleSphere.com 2 26822 26761 210
GoArticles.com 6 27935 205592 4400
PromotionWorld.com 4 32025 95128 480
BusinessKnowHow.com 5 34456 109440 480
ArticleDashboard.com 5 34712 157745 2400
Amazines.com 5 34712 157659 1600
Web-Source.net 5 35509 107039 590
1888Articles.com 2 39211 10638 320
ArticlesFactory.com 4 39486 18547 260
IdeaMarketers.com 3 42063 144619 880
iSnare.com 5 44693 150514 2900
Article99.com 3 51413 20635 210
ArticleTrader.com 3 55749 17721 3600
ExcellentGuide.com 0 55957 10187 880
ArticleGeek.com 4 58591 9276 91
ArticleCity.com 5 58955 66054 1300
AfroArticles.com 3 59939 9373 110
WebWorldIndex.com 3 63648 27907 320
ArticleBiz.com 4 77242 50618 320
ContentDesk.com 3 96635 23528 140
EzinesArticle.com 2 98096 1118 73
ArticleCube.com 5 99133 21783 480
FreeSticky.com 5 123742 8076 140
SmartAds.info 4 135062 6174 73
ArticleMark.org 1 135492 730 22
Articles3000.com 5 166746 15064 140
ArticleInsider.com 5 198269 32619 140
BPubs.com 6 223259 5932 170
NewEzineArticles.com 1 225725 1422 n/a
Certificate.net 3 243223 5225 720
SimplySearch4it.com 0 309146 2139 170
Ezine-Articles-Exchange.com 3 371760 1581 n/a
ConnectionTeam.com 3 530666 1286 16
KnowledgeBed.com 4 1387793 218 n/a

How To Blog – Let’s Count The Ways

Filed under: Blogging,How to — admin @ 10:24 pm November 17, 2008

I found this presentation covering 25 distinct styles of blogging to be insightful and helpful, both in understanding the blogs I come across and also in helping me think about the point of my own blog.

ShareThis: Easily Post a URL on Social Bookmarking Sites, Ranked Here By Traffic

Filed under: Social Bookmarking — admin @ 5:12 pm November 5, 2008

By embedding the ShareThis button from ShareThis.com, you can easily allow your users to post a link to your website on 43 different services, all from one link.

This can be a great way to promote your site, and ShareThis makes it easy. I looked up the list of 43 social sites from ShareThis that allow you to post content. They are not all equal!

If the reason you want to share a link is to generate traffic, I thought it might be helpful to know which sharing sites actually have the most traffic. The list below is a ranking of the sites that you can share to using the ShareThis button. I have ranked the sites by monthly unique users as measured by Compete.com.

I put the sites into three categories: social, blog, and news/mark. Social is for social networks like Facebook and Myspace. Blog is for blogging sites like WordPress and Blogger. News/mark is a combination of social news sites and social bookmarking sites, because these two categories are pretty much the same thing these days.

These are not precise categories because there has been a lot of convergence. Every social networking site allows you to share news and bookmarks. Every bookmarking site wants to generate conversation and become a social network. And every blog allows you to post bookmarks and start a discussion.

Since many of the sites are up and coming, I also included the growth rate. If you thought this list was useful, try sharing it with ShareThis by clicking on the ShareThis icon above.

Category Site URL Compete 9/2008 Year Growth
news/mark Google Bookmarks google.com/bookmarks 132,730,431* 6.6%
news/mark Yahoo My Web myweb.yahoo.com 129,409,582* -0.5%
news/mark Windows Live Spaces spaces.live.com 78,759,900* 10.6%
social MySpace myspace.com 56,531,630 -15.7%
social Facebook facebook.com 41,242,676 70.3%
news/mark Digg digg.com 26,615,929 44.6%
blog Blogger blogger.com 24,935,103 -8.6%
blog WordPress wordpress.com 20,913,642 106.3%
blog TypePad typepad.com 9,303,349 35.7%
blog LiveJournal livejournal.com 3,774,886 3.1%
news/mark Reddit reddit.com 3,300,327 105.3%
microblog Twitter twitter.com 3,096,738 589.0%
news/mark Technorati technorati.com 2,992,902 13.9%
social Hi5 hi5.com 2,253,861 -22.2%
news/mark StumbleUpon stumbleupon.com 2,115,168 53.6%
news/mark Propeller propeller.com 1,895,419 198.5%
blog Xanga xanga.com 1,664,721 -32.2%
social Friendster friendster.com 1,339,083 -3.8%
news/mark Current current.com 1,266,123 2300.1%
news/mark Newsvine newsvine.com 1,172,632 262.4%
news/mark Slashdot slashdot.org 1,040,703 31.5%
news/mark Care2 care2.com 974,446 25.9%
news/mark Mixx mixx.com 731,776 2748.4%
news/mark del.icio.us delicious.com 580,925 -73.2%
microblog FriendFeed friendfeed.com 519,627 n/a
social Orkut orkut.com 437,530 -11.7%
news/mark Sphinn sphinn.com 385,567 85.4%
news/mark Faves faves.com 194,996 42568.7%
news/mark Furl furl.net 177,966 31.8%
news/mark Oknotizie.alice.it oknotizie.alice.it 157,319 -8.1%
news/mark N4G n4g.com 155,506 57.8%
news/mark Blinklist blinklist.com 128,519 -38.3%
news/mark Diigo diigo.com 114,951 64.1%
news/mark ma.gnolia ma.gnolia.com 109,041 3.6%
news/mark Mister Wong mister-wong.com 105,121 117.0%
news/mark Simpy simpy.com 57,480 -15.8%
news/mark Kirtsy kirtsy.com 55,130 n/a
news/mark Blogmarks blogmarks.net 38,096 -11.3%
news/mark Hugg hugg.com 37,031 123.5%
news/mark Meneame meneame.net 20,573 -22.8%
news/mark Funp funp.com 13,641 766.6%
news/mark Fresqui fresqui.com 11,227 57.2%
news/mark Yigg yigg.de 8,435 -18.2%

*Note that Compete.com does not generate results for links within the domain, but only for the entire domain. Traffic from portals like Yahoo, Live, Google, and Ask are not just for the bookmarking sites but are for the entire portal.

Where the Hell is Matt? With New Deep Linking into YouTube Videos, He is in Chakachino, Zambia!

Filed under: Tips & Tricks — admin @ 10:59 am

YouTube now allows deep linking to videos, or linking to a spot deep within a YouTube video so that when launched, the video starts at the minute and second that you ask it to, rather than at the beginning.

Here is how it works: Simply add #t=1m19s to the end of the YouTube video URL to start the video 1 minute and 19 seconds into the video.

Launch the “Where the Hell is Matt” video at the beginning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY

Launch the “Where the Hell is Matt” video in Zambia, one minute and 19 seconds into it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY#t=1m19s

I tried it a bunch of things but it does not seem to work yet for embedded videos from YouTube.

I did, however, figure out how to change the YouTube Embed Code so that it will produce valid XHTML:

YouTube Embed Code Before Changes to Valid XHTML

YouTube Embed Code Before Changes to Valid XHTML

YouTube Embed Code Before Changes to Valid XHTML

This produces invalid XHTML:

YouTube Standard Embed Code Produces Invalid XHTML

YouTube Standard Embed Code Produces Invalid XHTML

YouTube Embed Code After Changes to Valid XHTML

YouTube Embed Code After Changes to Valid XHTML

YouTube Embed Code After Changes to Valid XHTML

Now the Validator passes the test:

Modified YouTube Embed Code Produces Valid XHTML

Modified YouTube Embed Code Produces Valid XHTML

Search Engine Optimization is a Discipline Every Blogger Should Practice

Filed under: SEO — admin @ 12:39 pm November 2, 2008

Here is Scott Gledhill’s excellent presentation, “Is SEO Evil?” from Web Directions South 2007, in Sydney, Australia. With this thought provoking title, Scott Gledhill takes us through the basic ideas of SEO and why it is not an evil black hat method of getting traffic, but rather a basic discipline that every blogger should consciously incorporate into daily practice.



(more…)