Pinging Includes Submitting Your URL

If you have not yet done so, you need to go to the following sites to submit your weblogs or websites.

What is the benefit?

When you go to Ping-O-Matic or Pingoat (immediately after you post) you're sure that your sites get maximum coverage, or that you get more out of your ping.

Theoretically, this adds traffic flow to your site(s).

Here are a list of the sites (among others) to which you need to submit your URL. Note: Some of the other sites you need to post your URL on are listed when you use www.pingoat.com to ping. When the list processes the sites that have been pinged, keep the list and methodically add your URL to each of those sites for most coverage.

dmoz.org click here
note: they are partners with AOL and this is the only way I've found to submit my site to AOL.

AltaVista click here
note: go to the bottom directory on the main page...click on "submit site" and then do a "Basic Submit" (this is after you have already been registered at Yahoo) or the other submission areas can be costly.

Clusty click here
note: Click on "Add Your Site" on the left margin menu and look at the bulleted items.
If you try the first one, it redirects you to dmoz.org.
The MSN bullet works great, so submit your site there.
The Gigablast bullet works great, so submit your site there.
The WiseNut bullet redirects you to "Look Smart", which is another affiliate/advertising site.
Read the remainder of what Clusty has to say under the bullets




LYCOS click here
note: This is supposed to be one of the places you should submit your site to, however, I only found a way to put their logo or link on my site, which I didn't because I don't know enough about them. However, it is interesting to use their "retriever". I used it (along with its "hotbot" to look up my own name and it came up with places that others had submitted my articles. This allowed me to visit their sites and add them to my networks on places, such as StumbleUpon and Reddit.

Google is another site that is suggested for submitting your site to for their directory. When you click to submit a site on Google, it directs you to dmoz.org, which we have already discussed.

Each time you post, don't forget to ping.

Sources:
www.pingoat.com
Ping-O-Matic
www.dmoz.org
AOL
www.altavista.com
clusty.com
MSN
Gigablast
WiseNut
LYCOS

Office or No Office. No Question!

This is why I enjoy blogging...

A Cubicle Conundrum: The Downside of Working in a Cube
Author: The Idiot Aug 13, 2007

* Being told to "Think Outside the Box" when I'm in the darn box all day!

* Not being able to check E-mail attachments without first seeing who is behind me.

$16 OFF Instant! XFX Geforce 8800 GT 512mb DDR3 PCI-E Graphics Card Now $263

* Fabric cubicle walls do not offer much protection from any kind of gun fire.

* That nagging feeling that if I just press the right button, I will get a piece of cheese.

* Lack of roof rafters for the noose.

* My walls are too close together for my hammock to work right.

* 23 power cords, 1 outlet.

* Prison cells are not only bigger, they have beds.

* When tours come through, I get lots of peanuts thrown at me.

* Can't slam the door when you quit and walk out.

* If you talk to yourself it causes all the surrounding cubicle inhabitants to pop their heads over the wall and say "What? I didn't hear you."

* If your boss calls you and asks you to come into his office for a minute the walk there is like a funeral march... people hand you tissues as you pass and refuse to make eye contact.

* You always have the feeling that someone is watching you, but by the time you turn to look they're gone.


For more humor click here

What is a "Ping"? Just Make Sure You Do It!

Stating upfront that Digg is my networking site of choice, here are a couple of other sites that are good as well.

Adding the StumbleUpon toolbar, makes it easy to submit articles and add to my profile (to keep articles on-file) that I have interest in. That's a pretty cool feature. However, word-to-the-wise when you're adding the toolbar...be sure that you don't have any tabs up that you are in need of keeping track of because you'll lose those as your Internet will re-boot (not your complete computer system...just the Internet, i.e., Internet Explorer).

del.icio.us seems, thus far, to be fairly easy to use. Interaction with my del.icio.us network seems to be the most difficult part. Posting items on their site is fairly easy. Adding people to your network is fairly easy.

Networking is a necessity in marketing your blog, increasing its traffic and attractiveness to advertisers. Additionally, there is not a "one-size-fits-all" networking site. Try a few sites to feel out which one(s) work best for your blog topic and traffic. It may take time to analyze which site(s) will be most beneficial and therefore I recommend using Google Analytics or Feedburner to analyze where your traffic is coming from.




What is the definition of "Ping (Blogging)"? This comes from Wikipedia...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping_blog

"Many blog authoring tools automatically ping one or more servers each time the blogger creates a new post (or updates an old one.) That is, the tool sends an XML-RPC signal to one or more "ping servers," which can then generate a list of blogs that have new material.

Open ping servers, like VeriSign's Weblogs.com and Yahoo!'s blo.gs, let other web-services subscribe to a list of blogs that have recently pinged them.

Blog search engines can provide fresh results very quickly by polling only the newly-updated blogs. Similarly, aggregators use results from ping servers to tell subscribers which items on their subscription lists have fresh material. A few of the blog aggregators that can be pinged directly include:

BulkFeeds, FeedBurner, Google Blog Search, IceRocket, Technorati, and Yahoo

In addition to open ping servers, there are an increasing number of proprietary ping servers that gather information only for their own applications. Most of the major blog search engines operate such ping servers.

There is a conflict of interest here between the blogger--who wants his new post to get the widest possible publicity as fast as possible--and the web-service owner--who wants his search engine or aggregator to have new blog posts long before anyone else. As a result, bloggers have turned to services such as Ping-o-matic, which pings multiple proprietary ping servers. As the blogosphere has grown, other ping "services" have cropped up, such as Pingoat and BlogFlux Pinger."

Each time you post a new article, be sure to use at least one of the ping sites to register your new post. This will drive traffic to your site and increase your rating on Technorati and Alexa.

Sources:
www.technorati.com
www.alexa.com
www.del.icio.us.com
www.stumbleupon.com
www.digg.com
www.feedburner.com
www.google.com/analytics/
en.wikipedia.org

Just Digg It!

When using Digg, you may decide to check-out its crystal balls, or the sites that may companion you along your Digging journey.

One companion site DuggTrends: mirror. "Duggtrends is not another clone but it complements diggTM. Our main goal is to provide more insight of what & how we are voting. All the stories listed in this site are from digg.com. diggTM is a trademark of digg.com; this site (duggtrends) is neither affiliated with nor would have existed without digg.com. DuggMirror is a site that allows users of the popular news site Digg.com to see popular links that may have gone offline or slowed down due to the so-called "Digg Effect.""

From this site you can learn important trends such as the right time of day to submit your article on Digg, what day of the week works best for the topic you are submitting, and what topics are so saturated on Digg that they are less likely to get to the front page. The stats regarding the trends are older, however still may be effective.

On DuggTrends "Forcasted Stories" tab it states, "We are working on an algorithm to predict stories which has best chances to make it to front page. If you are someone who is curious to know interesting stories in advance, this is your page." It would be interesting if they could figure this out, especially since most everyone using Digg cannot even figure out the regular algorithm. Digg's page on "How Digg Works" states, "Once a submission has earned a critical mass of Diggs, it becomes “popular” and jumps to the homepage in its category. If it becomes one of the most popular, it qualifies as a “Top 10”. If a submission doesn't receive enough Diggs within a certain time period, it eventually falls out of the “Upcoming” section." Exactly how many diggs is enough and exactly how many buries is enough...that is the mystery. Further, in their "Frequently Asked Questions" they state, "The promotion and burying of stories is managed by an algorithm developed by Digg. There is no hard number of Diggs/buries to promote or remove a story. It's based on a sliding scale that takes several factors into consideration, such as number of Diggs, reports, time of day, topic submitted to, Digging/burying diversity, etc."

Additionally included on DuggTrends is a "Missed" tab. To describe how this section works they state, "Daily thousand's of stories are being submitted; but only a few are promoted to frontpage, many interesting stories just miss frontpage and we feel it might be worth taking a look at them."

One of my favorite tabs is the "Buried Stories" tab. To describe this section they state, "If you have not noticed yet, but there are many "controversial" stories which make it to frontpage but then get buried. If you have missed them, this page tracks them up for you." It seems there are a few on Digg that are quick with the "Bury" finger. Here is your solution to enable viewing all of those stories. You can also log onto your account on Digg and click in the search box. Once you are in "Search", enter the URL of the buried story. It will pull up all stories for that URL if you click in the box to include buried stories and the URL is a general one, such as "http://www.johnchow.com".

Within DuggTrends there is supposed to be a way to enter a URL from Digg and have it plot a stats graph. I attempted with three different topics, all fairly new stories, to discover the use of this application. However, with each try I was unsuccessful, ending with an error message stating "digg.com url is not found in our database. please try another". In other words, I am not sure that function is in working order at this time, and with the lack of updating on the site, unfortunately may not be in working order anytime in the future. It would be a nice feature if it was in working order.

The word-to-the-wise on this site is that the blog has not been updated since January of 2007. What does that mean? Not much except that the development may have ceased at some point due to lack of funds. Please note the blogging about Adsense and the lack of ability to make money, along with the fact that no ads are currently running on the site.

Regarding Adsense, however, be sure to check out the article they have posted on their site as a link. Here is the link for your convenience. "Now, I really wonder how much money does digg.com, myspace.com and youtube.com make through google adsense. Recently there was a story about “Biggest Google Whores” on digg." I bypassed the digg link and went straight to the source for your convenience. If you wish to visit the digg link, here it is LINK.

Here is one more option when it comes to a companion to Digg. http://diggcomments.headzoo.com. They call themselves "The Digg Comment Stalker", and it is for real. If you enter the person's user name from Digg (their name on your "Network"), all you have to do is click on "Show Comments" and it shows a drop down list of ALL of their comments. Additionally, Digg Comment Stalker shows how many diggs or buries a person has made. It brilliantly reveals each of these based on each article title. This is a great tool for Diggers who are debating whether to add or delete someone from their network. Note: This site is VERY MUCH NOT affiliated with Digg.

A site recently presented by TechCrunch as "a service launched last year that allows you to see the the number of buries on a Digg story by the time of each bury" is called Ajaxonomy Bury Recorder. Here is the article from TechCrunch that caused them to check into buried articles on Digg "Digg Has Super Users Or Hates Ron Paul". Not only can you enter and track a story's URL, but you can also click on "Top Buried Stories" and you have a complete drop down list. A very interesting site, indeed.

As social networking has grown and more sites have hit the scene and flourished, Digg's Alexa ratings have begun to drop. Please see the first graph from Alexa above.

However, comparing a few other networking sites along side Digg, including Reddit, Technorati, Slashdot, and StumbleUpon, the Digg networking rating is quite good. Please see second Alexa graph above.

Essentially, Digg must be doing something right. I digg it!

Sources:
www.digg.com
http://duggtrends.com/duggmirror.aspx
www.johnchow.com
www.adsense.com
http://diggcomments.headzoo.com
www.techcrunch.com
www.alexa.com
www.ajaxonomy.com/buryrecorder

More Blog Traffic Wanted!

Here are some of my favorite articles found on Digg from this week that relate directly to blogging, technology, widgets, etc. and that benefit us all with regard to our progress in this blogging/technology industry.

I could pretend that I wrote all of this information and just re-write it to make myself look smart. However, why reinvent the wheel. These folks did all of the work and deserve the credit.

Here they are...

How 30 Minutes a Day Can Result in 250 Inbound Links
Digg Link Here
Article Link Directly Here

5 Surefire Ways to Get More Links to Your Blog
Digg Link Here
Article Link Directly Here

5 Blog Traffic Articles You Should Read
Digg Link Here
Article Link Directly Here




Increase search engine traffic to your WordPress blog with one night's work
Digg Link Here
Article Link Directly Here

What People Search For - Most Popular Keywords
Digg Link Here
Article Directly Linked Here

10 Ways to Attract New Readers to Your Blog
Digg Link Here
Article Directly Linked Here

As you can see, there is a theme within these articles and their content. The common theme is increasing the traffic to our blogs.

I think that everyone struggles with this issue. How much do you network on the social networking sites? How much to you comment on like-content blogs? What other tricks work?

For me, I will be trying any number of the items listed in these very informative articles. If they have worked for someone else, maybe they will work for me as well. Tell me your thoughts on this issue. Do you struggle with traffic to your blog location?

Star Wars - Boba Fett First Introduced (1978 Animated Holiday Special)

Boba Fett Cartoon
Uploaded by TheWalkingDude

$16 OFF Instant! XFX Geforce 8800 GT 512mb DDR3 PCI-E Graphics Card Now $263