Updating Google PageRank in Ratified Australia

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Having an amazing day at home

Craig just shared some tips on how to have an amazing day. Being here in Findon for the past two months, staying at home, to take care of the family, often sparks a question from friends - if I get lonely.

Being able to take care of your family and do a lot of things for the first time can really get you busy. At the same time, if you choose to be productive at home by also looking forward to accomplish things that helps meet your overall goals can make everyday simply amazing.

Google PageRank Slap - Is this War or Victory?

(I hope you can digg this blog post if you like it)

Snoskred and Darren gave interesting observations with the slap that Google made lately to various blogs' and websites' PageRank. This hasn't reach my websites yet so I'm partly still in a wait and see mode.

On the plus side, some may say that this development can lead to:

• Better ranking of sites as those that do not engage in keyword-based advertising may rank better.
• Provide authentic search results to users as those who place keyword-based ads will have less power in manipulating search engine results.
  
• More advertising revenue for Google AdWords
• More site owners to join Google AdSense as they should minimize selling links to avoid further PageRank penalty.

On the minus side, some may say that this development can lead to:

• Blog and site marketers need to revise their criteria if Google PageRank influences the rates charged to advertisers.
  
• Lose advertisers who have preferences on where their advertisement appear on site's with certain PageRank score.
  
• Lose membership in ad networks who eligibility is influenced by a one's PageRank.
  
• New sites will have to bear having PageRank 0 for a longer time.
• Lower ranking in directories if it uses PageRank as a criteria on site popularity and influence.
• Google get sued for anti-trust or unfair competition as it penalizes sites who engages in link marketing and yet embraces context sensitive advertising based on keywords. Proving that sites who participates in these programs don't get any benefit in its ranking is wanting.
• Google get sued by consumer advocacy groups by showing sponsored links to influence choices. (as shared by Snoskred, Google already has a case in Australia)

It will be interesting to see if:

• Google stock prices shall benefit or be harmed by this.
  
• Google AdWords revenue shall increase.
• AdSense payout shall increase.
  
• New and competitor search engines will overturn Google.
  
• Perception about Google will be towards good or bad guy on the block.
  

On another note, congratulations to PK for the launch of the The BibliOdyssey Book. This is another interesting from blog-to-book journey.

October 28: Let's Meet Up and free text ads in Ratified Australia

I have to escort my daughter this October 28 for the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) meet-up 2 pm at Pancake House (Gilbert Place in Adelaide).

If any of you folks are free at that time, let us meet up!

I also would like to announce that we are raffling off 3 one-month text link ad in Ratified Australia. In order to qualify, just add the Ratified button that shows your rank in your blog. I will make a blog post linking to blogs that have added the Ratified button - citing them as qualified to be part of the raffle. Winners shall be announced on November 9!

Problogger takes #1 rank in Ratified Australia

When Ratified Australia started, one of the things that amazed me was to see Lifehack holding the #1 spot in our list. Lifehack's Feedburner subscriber base was something that most of us can only dream of.

After updating the Ratified ranking prior to this post, I was not surprised to see ProBlogger and Digital Photography School finally taking the #1 and #2 spot in Ratified. The Problogger.net's birthday celebration that gave away lots of prizes has surely contributed to the shoot up of Darren's fresh link love and growth in its Feedburner subscriber base.

For the Digital Photography School, the only campaign that I saw so far was the flyer that was distributed in Facebook (and which I passed on as well I think), I'm not sure if that was the sole factor that contributed to the growth of the site's Feedburner subscriber base.

Regardless, Darren has indeed shown us ways in tapping our existing networks to create a far more stronger community for our blog. Congratulations Darren!

Doing things for the first time

My second month in Adelaide is all about becoming comfortable and a bit experimental. It has been awhile since I've been able to do things for the first time, no matter how simple they are like playing Sudoku, Warbook, create an autobiography, and accept payments through Paypal. I also got my first link love from Craig Harper. (Many thanks Craig!)

I got hold of the following books and look forward in learning:

• Google in Education
• Programming Collective Intelligence
• Dynamic Learning Flash CS3 Professional
• Designing Web Navigation
• High Performance Web Sites
• SOA in Practice
• Software Testing Practice: Test Management
• Ruby by Example: Concepts and Code
  

I'm experimenting as well with ashopfor that promotes the concept of making money with friends. Through it, I got lured to sign-up with Avon to prepare for holiday Christmas shopping.

Next month, I'll be in Manila to do my regular workshop for club members and will be teaching software project scoping and planning at that time. I will be campaigning as well for the Philippine Schools Cyberfair 2008, Blogging and 2010 Elections Forum, and pick the winners of the Filipina Writing Project.

Upon return, one of the things I am considering is to get some work experience here and will see how will that go.

Many thanks to the owners of the following blogs that were submitted and added in Ratified.org Australia in the last four weeks:

• http://alyndabear.com
• http://www.smallofficeaustralia.com
• http://typingisnotactivism.wordpress.com
• http://seo-sydney.blogspot.com
• http://sueblimelybt.blogspot.com
• http://www.tmsound.com.au/blog
• http://www.kotaku.com.au/
• http://justanother24hours.wordpress.com
• http://disabilitycarework.blogspot.com/
• http://australian.blogspot.com/
• http://www.thehealthylivinglounge.com
• http://barebonesgardening.blogspot.com/

We now have a Ratified Australia Facebook group and I encourage you to join, introduce your blogs, and post some developments that you may want to share.

Some of the following items worth noting in the blogosphere:

• I agree with Nick that we should use our names as brands wisely. For that reason, I had a hard time deciding whether I want to have a blog to represent it. Nevertheless, one should take the effort of protecting it by immediately registering its domain name.
• I'm intrigued with the developments happening in Digg as a social networking site. One can only likely to succeed if your submission reflect the interest of the crowd in it. I had a submission lately which brought good traffic to my blog but does not necessarily merit a vote.
• Through Shai's blog, also discovered this SEO IQ Quiz that got me pretty excited to try.
• If not for applications like Warbook (which have been a traffic contributor to my other blog lately), I will likely be a very inactive user of Facebook too.
• One thing that amazed me since I got here in Australia was how popular sports can be to the point that it hugs the limelight and headlines more than your usual politics. I guess that is why there's so much funding invested. But sometimes, it can be too much as shared by Tim.
• In a blogchain, Gillian shared that what and how we eat reflects who we are. I agree that eating can be a mindful meditation. Whenever I have friends just learning how to cook, I usually tell them not to take the things they eat for granted. Feel it and have a sense on how it was prepared. What was in it that made it exciting and delicious?