Blog Basics-Increase your site traffic

Anybody to continue this blog

2008-03-07T00:19:00.000-08:00

Hi! I have been publishing this blog http://increaseyoursitetraffic.blogspot.com for few months. But these days due to several commitments (and i preferred to give my limited free time with my older blog http://lovelybabes.blogspot.com) I have been unable to continue. This blog I started for those who are not getting enough readers to read. I used to post articles about what to do and how to increase traffic. But I have been unable to post any new article because I have not been able to give time to do some research and study on internet. Because almost all of the articles I used to prepare were based upon my study, experience and research. So is there anybody else who will love to continue what I started. I don't want to delete that blog because I have invested lots of time and effort for that. I have built more than 400 external links in less than a year for this blog. So anybody who is really serious about continuing this blog, please post comment here http://increaseyoursitetraffic.blogspot.com/2007/07/your-comments.html . You can give out your email so that I can contact you. I do comment moderation so there is no fear about getting your email leaked out. I would love to prefer a person with having similar blog at present and continue to support whatever I can.

Link Exchange - Build Your Link Popularity

2007-12-03T22:38:00.000-08:00

Link Popularity and Link Exchange are two different terms but totally interrelated to each other. Link Popularity of a web site means the total number of web sites linking to it. It is a measure that search engines use to determine how popular and relevant a particular site is. Link popularity plays an important role in the visibility of your Web site and driving a fair amount of site traffic to your site. Whereas Link Exchange is a part of Link Popularity and this article mainly focuses on this part of Link Popularity building process.

Link exchange is basically a process of swapping the links between two websites. It involves exchanging text links or banner links between websites directly or indirectly. You can do it either directly contacting webmasters of other websites (either popular one with higher PR Rank or sites relevant to yours) or indirectly by participating on any of available Link Exchange sites.

Generally Link Exchange is done to improve traffic through numerous inbound links so that some (or most) of the visitors who visits the site with whom you have exchanged links come to visit yours. It is normally a free process unless you decide to use a paid link exchange programs. By linking to relevant sites, you stand better chances at obtaining targeted traffic. Link Exchange also helps in improving your positions in the Search Engine Result Pages.

Though, the link exchanging is very popular among webmasters these days, there is a bad practice of linking whatever sites agree to trade links just to increase quantity of inbound links. Because of this kind of practice in existence, experts say that these days search engines gives lower emphasis to two way links. Putting links in places that are not relevant to your content may not be effective. Link exchanges between relevant sites is important. Linking your website(s) with irrelevant websites can negatively affect your site's placement in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

Link Exchange Methods

There are basically two methods of Link Exchange
1. Joining Link Exchange Programs and
2. Contacting Webmasters of Other Websites

Joining Link Exchange Programs

There are sites which facilitates links to the webmasters who are interested in link exchange. You can join such sites which connect you with other member webmasters. This type of link exchange is indirect because you don't have to contact webmasters of the sites directly with whom you want to exchange links. This method is an easy and fast way to develop lots of links to your website but is not quite effective in comparison to another method. Your task is quite simple. Only thing you have to do in this type of link exchange process is search for the prospective partner in the category of your interest and offer to exchange links or wait for the offers others make to you.

It is better to join Link Exchange Programs which categorizes member sites. In such programs you can find sites similar to yours and hence enhance the quality link exchange. The more the categories are specific, the better. Almost all of the Link Exchange sites offer both paid and free programs. You don't have to pay on free link exchange programs but you are required to manually add each website on your own. The major benefit of free link exchange program is the complete control you possess over links offers which you can reject or accept at your will. But it takes some time to complete the exchange process. Whereas in paid link exchange program is easier and usually require software to be placed on the website to assist with the link exchange process.

The main drawback of this type of link exchange is that you don't know when the link partner with whom you have traded links remove yours while link pointing to their site is still intact in your site. Better Link Exchange sites periodically verify that the links that are exchanged between webmasters are honestly maintained. Such programs notify the webmaster whose partner has removed his link so that he/she may contact the concerned webmaster requesting for rethinking of link exchange or simply remove his/her link.

Some Link Exchange Sites

Backlinks
Build Reciprocal Links
Gotlinks
Link Exchange
Link2me
Link Market
Link Vault
Links Exchanged
Links4trade
Link Survey
LRSxpress
Links To You
Receive Links

Please revisit this post for further developemnt

Blog Traffic Exchange-Promote your blog

2007-11-16T23:26:00.001-08:00

If you have followed my previous post on Traffic Exchange Programs then you must have now some idea about traffic exchange programs. If you haven't and are interested to have a go at it then Click Here. In my previous post about Traffic Exchange Programs, I have written about some general traffic exchange programs. If you have already participated in such programs then you must have surfed more general websites and lesser blogs. General in term that they include both general sites and blogs. But this post totally focusses on some good blog specific traffic exchange programs available, which are there completely for bloggers and not for general websites.

Unless you are willing to spend fair amount of money on advertisements and online promotions, its always better to participate in blog traffic exchange programs to promote your blogs. (Blog) Traffic Exchange Programs are very helpful for new blogs to get noticed. It also helps medium sized blogs to get more readers. In most cases, a typical blogger would work hard and spent hours (and hours) authoring or searching for contents for their blog(s). But worst thing of all is to realize that visitors dropping by to their Blogs are very sparse and few.

How do these programs work?

The most basic principle of the Blog Traffic Exchange Programs is very simple - "You view other member's Blogs and in return other members view your Blog". You need to earn credits in order to get blog traffic exposure. You will gain these credits by visiting the blogs of other community members. When you have enough credits your blog will be placed for rotation and your credits will get reduced each time other members visit your blog.

There is 1:1 or 2:1 surf ratio, meaning that for each blog (1:1) or each two blogs (2:1) you visit provides you a visitor for your blog. Minimum surfing time for a blog ranges 20-30 seconds. After that you have to click on matching numbers or image to move on to next blog. Most of Blog Traffic Exchange Programs also allow you to buy credits from other members and also run paid programs. These schemes are for those who don't have enough time to surf other members blogs and are willing to spend some money for visitors in return.

Requirements

Registration is totally free. You don't have to pay anything. The most basic requirement is that you own a blog and all you have to do is create your account and submit your blog for approval. Some Blog Traffic Exchange Programs require you to initially surf member blogs and reach a certain credit limit before your blog is approved or placed for rotation.

Top Blog Exchange Programs

Here are some top Blog Exchange Programs available and working well at present in the order of their Alexa Ranking. Click on the Alexa Ranking next to the Traffic Exchange Site listed below to check its Alexa Ranking while you are reading this post. While I was preparing this article a well known Blog Traffic Exchange program Blogazoo was not available and another Blog-clicker was also not quite working. So I have not included them here.

Blog Explosion
Alexa Ranking as of 11/17/2007 : 23,215 Blogexplosion is like a web traffic generator for your blog. It is a blogging community where people can find and read your blog, get your blog reviewed or even chat with other bloggers all around the world! You visit other peoples blogs and in return they visit yours hence increasing site traffic to your blog. You are required to wait for a minimum of 30 secs to surf a member blog in order to earn a surf credit. After that time you will then need to click on a matching number and then you'll be taken to another blog. The surf ratio is 2:1. They have multiple features useful for bloggers. You can add multiple blogs. You can find a blogmark option for you to bookmark good blogs as favourite to view anytime later. They provide useful Blog Explosion stats on how well your blog doing within their network. You can get your blog reviewed by other members . You can add banners to promote your blog with clickthrough reporting! It also runs interesting Contests and Games. You can earn daily Mystery Credits (bonus credits) while you are surfing. You can participate on monthly contests to win thousands of free visitors to your blog plus Monthly Traffic Lottery. Battle of the Blogs contest is interesting. If you have some extra money to spend, buy traffic credits for a low price. There are even more things to do. You can specify certain categories you would like to see or else don't like to see. You can even block blogs that you don't want to see next time. May be you will love to chat with other bloggers on the site with the "BlogExplosion Shoutbox!" For this, all you have to do is sign up and get your blog listed. You will have to wait for 48 - 72 hours before your blog gets approved. After you have successfully created your account you can start surfing right away, before your blog(s) get approved, and accumulate credits. *Sign Up Now*
Blogmad
Alexa Ranking as of 11/17/2007 : 45,958 They say BlogMad.net is a blogger's fun site. It is relatively a newcomer. It has had a real successful marketing effort that has driven up its traffic quickly. Many of the users are very passionate and surf seriously resulting a great deal of hits generated every day. Bloggers earn credits by surfing other member's blogs and are rewarded with credits. The credits are then used to get traffic back to their own blogs or to play different games on the site. Bloggers can use various features of blogmad to boost traffic to their blogs. The site is full of games and other funny things. It allows upto 4 blogs per account. This has a 1:1 ratio. The surf timer is 25 seconds. After 25 seconds you have to click on the matching number to visit another blog. And the process continues. You get a signup bonus of 25 credits for signing up plus 1 credit for every referral you get to sign up through your referral code. There is also bonus for every surfer level you reach and random bonuses which appear while you are surfing. You can exchange credits for banners to be displayed on these sites and get even more readers from a different spectrum altogether. Getting your blog approved in blogmad is relatively fast even if your blog is only a few days old. *Sign Up Now*
Blog Soldiers
Alexa Ranking as of 11/17/2007 : 138,961 Blog Soldiers is a Manual Traffic Exchange designed to generate visitors to your blog(s) for free by viewing other members blogs in return for credits. There are several ways to earn credits. The easiest way to do so is start surfing after you log in and view other members websites. Each visit earns 0.5 credit to your account which can be applied towards showing your blog(s), showing your banner(s) or showing your text link(s). While surfing you earn letters which spell out the name of the next rank. When you earn all the letters for the rank you are promoted and you will earn Credits, Banner Impressions and Text Links. BlogSoldiers now offers 50 bonus credits for new members, massive new incentives for referrals. You can only have one membership but can earn from referrals 5 levels deep by encouraging new members in signing up. Minimum surf time per blog is 20 seconds. After 20 seconds you have to click on the matching image to view another blog. It is 2:1 ratio traffic exchange and conducts regular surfing contests where the top ten surfers win 500 to 100 credits each. Plus a bonus system that kicks in as you are surfing sites. *Sign Up Now*
Blog Advance
Alexa Ranking as of 11/17/2007 : 263,575 BlogAdvance is a community built by bloggers for bloggers. They claims of having a tireless and friendly support team and provide you 100% satisfaction. You earn credits or cash (if enabled) by Manual Surfing, visiting Paid To Click Ads, referring others to the site with your Referral URL, or playing the Jackpot Slots. Random rewards are also given each day when you login to your Member Area. They offer a wide range of services for those looking to make some money as well. You can buy ad space and generate a hefty revenue for yourself. They offer free banner advertisements for those members who join the forum as well. The surf ratio is 1:1 and like a few other programs, they give you free bonuses points when you log in or surf. Initially they only gave 0.5 credits for one blog viewed but now you will get 1 credit per blog viewed. Minimum surf time required per blog is 20 seconds. After 20 seconds you have to click on matching number to view another blog. Like Blog Soldiers it is relatively small Blog Traffic Exchange Programs at present. *Sign Up Now*

Conclusion

Blog traffic exchange programs are good way to get traffic to your blogs. But if you were surfing other sites just to get your credits, don't you think that other surfers do the same? Most of the members surf for credits and are more interested on accumulating credits. Which means they don't stay long on a particular blog with some exceptions.

Like everything these programs too have positive and negative aspects. It is upto you which one you want to agree with. There has been lots of debate on the technical issues of these programs. Almost all of the blog traffic exchange programs have flaws in technical side. They even take long time then expected to approve your blog or answer your simple queries. Some of the programs have less member blogs and poor rotation system. So after surfing few blogs you come up against the same blog(s) you have previously surfed. Manual surfing is also time consuming and tedious.

So I would like to suggest you not to spend all of your time trying to earn credits after each and every posts just to let other pass by your blog. Instead use these programs occasionally and only after posting a quality content, which you think can make a impression on others at first sight. Which in turn increase your reader base and returning site visitors.

Traffic Exchange Programs - easy way to get site traffic

2007-11-06T03:29:00.000-08:00

Traffic Exchange Programs are services that webmasters or bloggers join to promote their sites or blogs and increase their site traffic. The idea behind Traffic Exhange programs is very simple. After setting up your account with any of such program, you have to browse (or manually surf) other member's sites in order to earn credits to enable your sites to be viewed by other members through the system. The more you surf others' site the more site traffic you will get for yourself. If your site/blog is new, traffic exchange may do wonders in sending visitors to your site. But for more wider exposure there are other tasks to be done too such as submitting your site/blog to search engines, open directories and blog directores, making a press release and so on.

Almost all traffic exchange programs are free and encourage users to build their own referral networks, which in turn increases the referrers' amount of credits. Many of them also have paid scheme and offer some special features to paid members and offer credits for purchase. You can purchase credits from others in very low price. Most programs have a 2:1 or 3:2 conversion rate (some even have 1:1 ) which means that each 1 1/2 or 2 pages you see from other members, yours site is shown 1 time. There are lots of ways you can promote your site such as Pay Per Click, Banner Exchanges and Impressions, Start Page programs.

Surfing Process

Depending on the program, you will get between 0.5 to 1.0 credit for every site you visit. There is a timer at the top or bottom frame of the page to compel you to remain at the site for a certain period of time which ranges from 10 to 30 seconds. You are then required to click one of the corresponding images, numbers or mentioned button in order to proceed to the next random site (some like LinkReferral are exceptions). This is to prevent autosurf cheating. You can assign the credits earned among your sites ( in case you have multiple Urls listed) as you desire. You can also find auto assign feature but you have to allot certain percentage (or credits) of your earned credits among your sites. For every visitor you get to your site/blog, 1 credit is deducted until all of your credits are spent.

How much time you will need?

There is no certain time limit. Some of these programs requires 30-45 minutes to complete daily allotment. But it doesn't mean that you have to complete that every day. It depends upon you, how long you want to surf on members' sites in order to accumulate more and more credits. Remember "the more you surf others' sites the more you get site traffic for yourself".

Some tips on joining traffic exchanges and getting most of it:

Try to get involved in 3-5 good traffic exchanges only. It is difficult and time consuming to keep up with large numbers of programs. Check the list below.
Before joining any Traffic Exchange Programs it is good to check it's Traffic Ranks (to check traffic ranks visit http://www.alexa.com) and Google Page Ranks. But it doesn't mean that joining only high ranked programs provide you huge traffic. You can also find some of emerging Traffic Exchange Programs promising too.
If you love to get targeted traffic then join programs with categories available similar to your sites or blogs.
For those who want most targeted traffic from USA, analyzing the Traffic Exchange site on http://www.quantcast.com prior to signing up gives you an idea about the site's latest statistics based on online users from USA.
Use multi-tab browser such as Mozilla Firefox. This will help you to open several websites in different tabs remaining within a single window.
Even if you joined a Traffic Exchange Programs you don't have to surf daily. But it is also necessary to build your credits. So make it a habit of surfing for fun. Surf whenever you feel like surfing.
Some Traffic Exchange Programs allow you to use 3-5 website Urls. If you only have single website or blog you can provide additional webpages which you think will have tremendous impact at the first sight.
Some of Traffic Exchange Programs offer credits for making it your home page or everytime your referral start page loads. If it doesn't bother you it is an easy way to accumulate some credits. You can even have your friends or family members do it for you.
Building downlines is additional bonus for you in Traffic Exchange Programs. Encourage friends, family members and others to create account with your referral. Every account created with your referral is entitled to certain amount of credits for you. But their account should be active and should have some activities after creating their account.

Some Traffic Exchange Programs I recommend

There are many Traffic Exchange Programs available these days. New Traffic Exchange sites are created almost everyday. And the number is still growing day by day. I have listed some such programs (most of which have high Alexa Ranking) which I have been using and getting appreciating amount of traffic.

Traffic Swarm
Alexa Ranking as of 11/06/2007 is : 1,892

Traffic Swarm is one of my favourite programs.It provides Start Page and targeted ads. It is a fully automated traffic-generation system that can send 1000s of targeted visitors to your website, every single day. A must join Traffic Exchange Program.
Sign up now!

Link Referral
Alexa Ranking as of 11/06/2007 is : 5,429

It not only provide you site traffic but also lets you know others' view on your site/blog. By joining, you will be included in the members directory which is visited by the community of over 100,000 members, and thousands of outside visitors on a daily basis. You'll have the opportunity to earn a ranking at the top of your category, absolutely free! Receive valuable feedback from visitors of your website, network with your peers, and give your opinion on other websites in the directory. The more you participate, the more you get in return! You can also benefit with its ad program. I simply love it.
Sign up now!

Start Xchange
Alexa Ranking as of 11/06/2007 is : 8, 747

StartXchange has been around since 2001. With over 6 years of exchanging traffic under it's belt, you can rest assured it'll be here for years to come. By joining StartXchange you'll be joining the fun filled world of traffic exchanges. So create a free account, and get ready for a fun ride of advertising your website! StartXchange has a 3:1 ratio, has a 15 second timer, has 1 referral level, does allow rotators, does not require you to login to surf, has an Alexa rank of 8,747(as of 11/05/2007), and has had 265,744 hits tracked on the last 6 week report. Allows you to build your downline in two ways. Six people are placed in each of two levels below you. The more active you are, the more active the users below you are.
Sign up now!

Webbizinsider
Alexa Ranking as of 05/12/2007: 9286

Webbizinsider is probably the only one traffic exchange programs which don't need you to log in to surf for credits. It has an email feature which helps you to earn credits normally upto 50 credits and sometimes even more. You just have to follow the links it provides on the email sent to you. With simple layout and easy navigation webbizinsider is one of the oldest traffic exchange sites, one of the widely participated and one of the best traffic exchange programs I have ever known. You get 1 credit for every memeber site you visit and instantly a visitor is sent to your site. It only allows one site per member but you can rotate your sites if you have more than one. You can even email your downline weekly with your business opportunities. To receive a credit, you must stay on the page for 15 seconds until the NEXT SITE text appears. Click on NEXT SITE to view the next page and receive additional credits. You will also be given additional bonus credits after you surf every 25, 50... sites in a day. Every new member who you refer to WebBizInsider earns you 100 bonus credits. A great program indeed.
Sign up now!

TrafficG
Alexa Ranking as of 11/06/2007 is : 12,410

It has ratio of 1:1 and the longer surf time of 30 seconds means that you might get more quality traffic, people who browse your site/blog contents.
Sign up now!

Traffic Pods
Alexa Ranking as of 11/06/2007 is : 16, 151

The basic concept is that every new member will begin surfing at the first pod in the trafficpods ladder. Each traffic pod in this ladder is made up of 10 websites selected at random from the currently active campaigns in the network. After surfing 10 websites, you will go on to the next pod. After surfing 10 of these traffic pods, you will be given the opportunity to surf a bonus pod. The bonus pod gives you the chance to get a lot of extra rewards but does carry some risk. You will get the opportunity to surf a bonus pod after every 10 traffic pods.
Sign up now!

Easy Hits 4U
Alexa Ranking as of 11/06/2007 is : 28,789

EasyHits4u is a 1:1 ratio traffic exchange site. It has a 30-second timer giving viewers a lot of time to view the sites. It has 5 referal levels. It allow rotators. Its seems to have more commercial sites registered with them than blogs. The thing that stands out is that they pay you cash for active surfing ($0.50 for 1000 sites viewed)
Sign up now!

Free Viral
Alexa Ranking as of 11/06/2007 is :38, 267

FreeViral.com is ranked by Alexa as being in the top 1% of all trafficked websites in the world (and that's out of 40 million sites!) Now you can get in on this incredible traffic explosion, Free!

When someone signs up from your site, they must first click on your classified ad which will open a new window leading to your main website. They will have to wait a few seconds for the code to appear on a separate frame at the top of the screen.
Sign up now!

Hit Pulse
Alexa Ranking as of 11/06/2007 is : 100, 278

HitPulse has a 2:1 ratio. It has a 15 second timer and 1 referal level.
Sign up now!

Traffic Echoes
Alexa Ranking as of 11/06/2007 is : 273, 548

When I checked its ranking I was in dilemma whether to join or not. But after a week when I checked my incoming traffic sources, I was totally surprised. Because it provided me the most traffic among the Traffic Exchange Programs that week.
Sign up now!

In conclusion, the Traffic Exchange Programs are a great free way to build traffic for your website. It is probably one of the easiest way to get some amount of traffic for new sites and blogs. It is quite helpful in advertising your sites for those who can't pay for the paid advertising programs. It is totally free. There is another possibility of encountering some good sites full of informations you have been thinking of for so long. But there are some disadvantages too. Members of the network who surf your sites (just for credits) may not be looking at your sites honestly. You may feel bored with looking at the same sites/blogs time and time again. And more importantly, there is a hot rumour about the Google Adsense program not allowing its account holders to participate in such programs.

Listed above are not blog-specific Traffic Exchange sites. There are some such sites which are totally dedicated to blogs only. In my next post you will get information about those sites.

Meta Tags for better search results

2007-10-24T05:22:00.000-07:00

Meta Tags are HTML tags that provide information that describes the content of the web pages that the visitor will be viewing. Meta tags are used to provide structured metadata about a web page. Such elements must be placed as tags in the head section (i.e. between "<head>" and "</head>" tags) of an HTML or XHTML document. Meta elements can be used to specify page description, keywords and any other metadata not provided through the other head elements and attributes.

Meta's name attribute provides a property name while the content attribute gives the corresponding value. The value inside content attribute may contain text and entities, but no HTML tags.

Statistics show that only few search enginse use Meta tags. However using these tags can give your site an fair advantage over lots of other sites with which your site is competing against. Meta tags enable most visitors to initially find your site through the search engines.

Major search engine robots are more likely to analyze various factors such as the volume of incoming links from related websites, quantity and quality of content, technical precision of source code, spelling, functional vs. broken hyperlinks, page views, revisits, click-throughs, uniqueness, relevance, language and so on. But still Meta-tags are considered as an important tool for successful search engine promotion.

Placement of the Meta Tags

They should be placed in between the <head> and </head> tags in your html page. Generally its placed below or next to<title>......</title> inside head tags.

Types of Meta Tags

There is no standard list of Meta tag types so far but here are some of the Meta tags which are in existence.

Keywords Tag* Keywords are the words people will type in to a search engine.
Tag format: <meta name="keywords" content="put your keywords separated by commas or space here" />
eg. <meta name="keywords" content="increase site traffic,boomarking sites,social networking, traffic exchange" />
Description Tag*
It is a short summary of the content of the page.
Tag format: <meta name="description" content="describe your website here" />
eg. <meta name="description" content="This site provides lots of articles on how to increase your site traffic" />
Robots Tag*
The robots attribute is used to control whether search engine spiders are allowed to index a page, or not, and whether they should follow links from a page, or not.
Tags: <meta name="robots" content="all" />
<meta name="robots" content="none" />
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow" />
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow" /> etc.
Content-Language
This tag lets you to declare the primary language(s) of your webpages which helps search engines to categorize by language.
Tag format: <meta name="content-language" content="set your primary language" />
eg. <meta name="content-language" content="en-US" />
Content-Type
This is a typical use of the meta element which is used to specify the document type so that a client (browser or otherwise) knows what content type it is expected to render.
Tags: <meta name="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html" /> etc.
Refresh Tag
This tag lets your page automatically refresh itself to the most current version, or change to another page or alternative url entirely after a set number of seconds.
Tag format: <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5; url=newurl.html" />
eg. <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5; url=increaseyoursitetraffic.blogspot.com" />
The page refreshes after 5 seconds if the location of the url & web page is same or redirects to the location of specified url if it is different.
Expires Tag
This tag lets search engines know that the particular page or site no longer exist after the mentioned date and should not be indexed or made available after that date.
Tag format: <meta name="expires" content="set the deadline" />
eg. <meta name="expires" content="28 Dec 2007 11:59:59 GMT" />
Author Tag
It is used to provide the name of the author.
Tag format : <Meta name="author" content="put author's name here" />
eg. <Meta name="author" content="Raul Shrestha" /gt;
Copyright Tag
It is used to provide copyright statement.
Tag format: <Meta name="copyright" content="© put individual/company holding the rights" />
eg. <Meta name="copyright" content="© 2007 Raul Shrestha" />

* Read more on this tag under Some Important Tags topic.
** "http-equiv" attribute can be used in place of "name" attribute to indicate that the property should be treated as an HTTP header.
*** Just change the italic words inside inverted commas following "content=" without altering rest between less than(<) and greater than sign.(>) Forward slash(/) before greater than (>) at the end is not compulsory but since the Meta tag doesn't have closing Meta tag ending with "/" is recommended. Those blogging in ".blogspot" domain are not allowed to end Meta tag without "/" before greater than sign.

Some Important Meta Tags

Even though there are several type of Meta tags, all of them are not so important. You don't have to use all of the Meta tags listed above. Those Meta tags which are most important has been discussed below.

The keywords tag

The keywords attribute was initially popularized by search engines such as Infoseek and AltaVista and its popularity quickly grew until it became one of the most commonly used meta elements. However, search engine providers later realized that information stored in meta elements was often unreliable and misleading and are mostly used to draw users into spam sites. These days most of the search engines have stopped using the information within Meta Keywords tag. But still some of the experts think its use is beneficial and does no harm.It is still a matter of a debate whether or not the keywords attribute has any impact on ranking at any of the major search engine today. It is speculated that it does, if the keywords used in the meta can also be found in the page copy itself. During the selection of keywords for the meta-tag keywords attribute, you should select keywords that accurately reflect the content of the Web page. If a word appears in your keyword meta-tags that does not appear in your main body content, then your Web page will very likely be penalized from the search engines for spamming or even possibly get your Web site permanently removed from the search engine databases.

Example:

Tag format:<meta name="keywords" content="put your keywords here" />
Tag sample: <meta name="keywords" content="increase site traffic,boomarking sites,social networking, traffic exchange" />

Things to remember while building keyword meta tags

Each search engine has its own limit to the number of words/characters in keyword list. You can put as many words as you want but it is better not to exceed 25-30 words. Because many search engines regard excessive keywords as spam and delete the webpage from their indexes.
It makes no difference to the search engines that you use commas or spaces to separate your keywords and keyword phrases. Although it is not necessary to separate your keywords by commas, using commas to separate important phrases is highly recommended. Uses of key phrases instead of single words such as use of "social bookmarking" instead of separating "social" and "bookmarking" increases your chances because it reduces the volume of websites you are competing against.
You should not repeat a particular keyword many times. Two or three repetitions are sometimes (remember only sometimes) acceptable but excessive repetitions is regarded as spam. And you can be penalized by the search engines.
Some words (can end up as your keywords) are misspelled commonly and you might be thinking to put such words in your keyword meta-tags. But if such word does not happen to appear in your main body text, its totally useless. Further it can be considered as spam.
If your site is completely new in the race then you should use some key phrases (totally related to your page) which other sites has ignored so far. It can guarantee you a top spot in the search and hence you get some decent traffic.
Selection of keywords is very important. Think of those words which you could have used if you were looking for a page similar to yours.

Remember that you should target those who you think are your genuine audience. Spamming can bring you more visitors but it ends up in a blind alley. Another best way to increase your site popularity is people referring your site to others if they like it. And it is not surely going to happen if you just focus on search engines instead of focusing on your own target audience. The people who come to your page but doesn't find what they are looking for in your page feels like you have tricked them and leave instantly. That kind of visitor is worthless.

Description tag

The description tag is a short summary of the content of your web page. It should be written in such way that it will show what your website is all about. Write short and clear sentences of less than 200 characters. This allows the webpage authors to give a more meaningful description for listings than might be displayed if the search engine was to automatically create its own description based on the page content. The information inside the description tag is supported by most of the major search engines available today.Search engines that support Meta tags will often display the Description Meta tag along with your title in their results so it can impact click-through rates. Don't mess up your Description Meta tag with putting all the keywords you used in the Keywords Meta tag instead of providing a concise explanation of your web page's conent.

Example:

Tag format: <meta name="description" content="describe your website here" /> Tag sample: <meta name="description" content="This site provides lots of articles on how to increase your site traffic" />

Robots tag

Most search engines by default assume that you want your web page to be indexed. But the content of the Robots Meta tag helps you to control whether search engine spiders are allowed to index a page, or not, and whether they should follow links from a page, or not. Robots Meta tag is supported by most of the search engines. Search engines like Google, Yahoo!, MSN also have some additional values such as NOARCHIVE, NOSNIPPET, NOODP, NOYDIR. Eventhough you use Robots Meta tag, if you are also using robots.txt search engines first considers robots.txt values and then only Robots Meta tag.

Example:

Tag format & some samples:<meta name="robots" content="all" /> <meta name="robots" content="index,nofollow" /> <meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow" /> <meta name="robots" content="none" />

Index: search engine robots should include this page.
Follow: robots should follow links from this page to other pages.
NoIndex: links can be explored, although the page is not indexed.
NoFollow: the page can be indexed, but no links are explored.
None: robots can ignore the page.
Index, Follow - The search engine robots will start crawling your website from the main/index page and then will continue to the rest of the pages.
Index, NoFollow - The search engine robots will start crawling your website from the main/index page and then will NOT continue to the rest of the pages.
NoIndex, Follow - The search engine robots will skip the main/index page, but will crawl the rest of the pages.
NoIndex, NoFollow - None of your pages will be crawled by the robot and your website will not be indexes by the search engines.

Check your meta tags

Here are sites where you can analyze your meta tags and receive tips on how to improve your Meta Tags. Submit Express Meta Checker

Generate meta tags for your site

If you still don't have any idea about how to build meta tags for your site then here are few sites which can do it for you. Put required information and it will generate the meta tags. You just have to copy and paste it at the right place in your webpage. Add Me Submit Corner Submit Express Vancouver-Webpages

For further reading

Google Search Engine Positioning Tips http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/google.shtml

Alta Vista Search Engine Placement Tips http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/altavistaranking.shtml

Death Of A Meta Tag SearchEngineWatch.com

Meta Tag Meta element from Wikipedia

A Dictionary of HTML META Tags http://vancouver-webpages.com

Free Site Submission to Search Engines

2007-09-29T04:40:00.000-07:00

Site submission is the process of suggesting a site to a search engine. It is the search engines that finally bring your website to the notice of the prospective visitors. Search engines use computer programs called Robots to automatically go from page to page through the web, reading content, and adding it to their databases. To speed up the process of getting your site indexed, they usually have a way for you to submit your site for indexing. You usually only have to tell a Search Engine the URL (address) of your site and it takes care of the rest. When you submit your website pages to a search engine by completing their required submission page, the search engine spider will index your entire site. A ‘spider’ is an automated program that is run by the search engine system. Spider visits a web site, read the content on the actual site, the site's Meta tags and also follow the links that the site connects. The spider then returns all that information back to a central depository, where the data is indexed. It will visit each link you have on your website and index those sites as well. Some spiders will only index a certain number of pages.

Most people confuses crawler-based search engines with human-based search engines. Crawler-based search engine uses a program that searches documents for specified keywords and returns the list of documents i.e. webpages. You are not required to submit your site to such spider-based search engines. They can find your site on even if you don't submit your site. Whereas search engine such as Yahoo! are human based search engines and you are required to submit your site so that they can index your site. Human-based search engines are based on people listings.

If you are interested to know more about what is site submission, search optimization and much more please do visit www.searchengines.com. It is a great site to know about search engines, search optimization and much more. There are lots of articles which you will surely love to read.

There are some sites such as FreeWebsubmission, AddMe, SubmitExpress which can do bulk site submission to various search engines as they claim. But how far can we trust them is far to unanswered.

Below is the list of some search engines where you can manually add your site and be satisfied.

Major Search Engines

Google - Submit site to Google Some popular search engines which are powered by Google includes Netscape, AOL Search, Alexa, IWon

MSN Search - Submit site to MSN

Yahoo! - Submit site to Yahoo! (Requires yahoo account log in) Some popular search engines which are powered by Yahoo includes AllTheWeb, AltaVista,

NB: Many Search Engines these days also depends upon Open Directory Project such as DMoz. ( Submit to DMoz )

Other Search Engines

Aesop - Submit site to Aesop
Amfibi - Submit site to Amfibi
AXXAsearch - Submit site to AXXAsearch
BigFinder - Submit site to BigFinder
Cipinet - Submit site to Cipinet
ExactSeek - Submit site to ExactSeek
Find Once - Submit site to Find Once
Gigablast - Submit site to Gigablast
InfoTiger - Submit site to InfoTiger
MixCat - Submit site to MixCat
NetWhat Search - Submit site to NetWhat Search (only one site per day allowed)
Scrub The Web - Submit site to Scrub The Web
SearchIt - Submit site to SearchIt
Splat Search - Submit site to Splat Search
Subjex - Submit site to Subjex
Surfgopher - Submit site to Surfgopher (requires reciprocal link)
TrueSearch - Submit site to TrueSearch
What U Seek - Submit site to What U Seek

Blog Search Engines

Blog Search Engine - Submit site to Blog Search Engine

Blogarama - Submit site to Blogarama
Icerocket - Submit site to Icerocket
Blogdigger - Submit site to Blogdigger
Bloogz - Submit site to Bloogz
Technorati - Submit site to Technorati

There are other blog search engines too where you can submit your sites if you are publishing blogs. I will keep on adding those places in coming days.

List of Ping Services

2007-09-22T01:38:00.000-07:00

Ping services allow you to automatically notify blog directories and search engines that your blog has been updated. This let people know about your blog post in return you can get lots of quality traffic and valuable links. What we have to do is just ping these pinging services as make a new post each time on our blog. It takes few seconds to few minutes to complete the process

For Bloggers

Blogger doesn't provide automatic ping updating as wordpress till date. So you have to rely on manual pinging. Pinging service like Autopinger, Pingoat & Ping-O-Matic pings multiple proprietary ping servers and doesn't require an account. Whereas ping service such as Blog Flux requires registration and you your blog should be listed.

For Wordpress Users

Modifying ping list for Wordpress Users

1. Log onto Control Panel
2. Click on the Options tab
3. Then Writing tab where you can see Update Services box at the bottom.
You can add all the pinging services' ping URL to it. By default, Ping-O-Matic's ping services is already there. The more the ping list, chances are there that you receive more & more traffic from those sources.

http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogbot.dk/io/xml-rpc.php
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://mod-pubsub.org/knapps/blogchatt
http://ping.amagle.com
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger
http://rpc.britblog.com
http://rpc.feedsky.com/ping
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.qwikping.com
http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://thingamablog.sourceforge.net/ping.php
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping
http://www.blogoon.net/ping
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/knapps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping

If you have any additional services that you ping, let me know! I'd love to include this into a big listing of all ping services. And ofcourse, don't forget to notify if one or two services from the above list doesn't work.

Make Money Through Your Blog

2007-09-15T00:58:00.000-07:00

The following is a list of few reliable ad networks and affiliate programs you can use to make money online and increase your site traffic as well. I have recently been using all the following networks at one time or another and can highly recommend them. They have proven to provide good service/support and most importantly, on time payments.

Kontera ContentLink

Kontera ContentLink allows you to make money from advertising without giving up any current advertising spots. Their technology reads your post and turns certain words into an ad. The highlighted words are double underline and an ad pops up when you hover over it. Normally Kontera requires a site having a minimum 500,000 page views per month before being accepted into the program. However, it also provides a partnership that will allows smaller blogs to use their ContentLink service.

Sign up for Kontera

Text Link Ads

Text Link Ads offer advertisers traffic and search engine benefits and readers don’t seem to mind them at all because they are not intrusive. Your link price is set by Text Link Ads and is based on Alexa, Google PageRank, number of RSS subscribers, and other factors.

Sign up for Text Link Ads

Google AdSense

If you are not aware of Google AdSense then one will certainly ask you where have you been living all these years?. Large share of websites that exists these days are using this to make money. This is pretty much a must if you want to make money from a blog. Google display simple text and image ads on your blog that are targeted to what you’re writing about.

Sign up for Google AdSense Account

Bidvertiser

Bidvertiser, a CPC ad network that competes with Google AdSense. It main advantage over AdSense is its low $10 payout. You only need to make $10 in order to be paid. Big publishers wouldn’t care about this but for many small blogs that are still waiting to hit that magic $100 Google payout level, getting pay at a lower level is quite attractive.

Sign up for Bidvertiser Make money from your Website or Blog with BidVertiser

AzoogleAds

AzoogleAds is one of the largest performance-based online advertising networks in the world. They offers some of the best and highest paying affiliate deals in the industry. No matter what topic your blog covers, you can find a deal that matches your site. The payout range from $1 to over $100 per action.

Sign up for AzoogleAds

AuctionAds

AuctionAds is one big eBay affiliate. What AuctionAds does is put all their publishers into one big collective to go after the higher revenue share. Publishers can leverage AuctionAds’ creative delivery of eBay’s auctions and AuctionAds’ ability to achieve the higher performance incentive tiers with the aggregate volume of traffic to make more money than they could with their own eBay affiliate relationship. Right now, affiliates will get 100% of any money they make from the system. As the collective moves up the eBay revenue share tiers, AuctionAds will start to take a cut of revenues. The goal is for you to make more with AuctionAds than directly with eBay’s affiliate program, which will be the case as the network increases its volume.

Sign up for AuctionAds

ReviewMe

ReviewMe allows advertisers to buy sponsored reviews on your blog. Review prices are based on your blog’s Alexa, Technorati and estimated RSS numbers. Publishers can set their own pricing if they don’t like the price ReviewMe set. Reviews can be positive or negative. The only requirement is the post must be at least 200 words long.

Sign up for ReviewMe Get Reviewed At ReviewMe!

AGLOCO

AGLOCO offers a toolbar that display advertising. If you run the toolbar, they will give you a share of the ad money. They also pay you if you refer other people to use the toolbar. The more people you refer, the more you can potentially make. Since the cost of entry is zero, you can’t lose anything for signing up. AGLOCO is also the only network here that doesn’t require you to have a site.

Sign up for AGLOCO

FeedBurner Ad Network

FeedBurner provides CPM ads for both site and RSS feeds. The CPM rate can be get as high as $10 and publishers get 70% of the money. However, the fill rate is pretty low. If you’re looking to monetize your RSS feed, then FeedBurner is probably the best of the RSS ad networks. To join the FeedBurner Ad Network, you must first have FeedBurner power your RSS feed.

Sign up for Feedburner

Resources for Finding Content for Your Blogs

2007-09-01T04:38:00.000-07:00

There are two aspects of finding content for your blog. First, it is to find the inspiration that generates original content on your blog. This can come from a variety of sources. Basically, it can be a news story, fellow blogger's post, an interesting web page you stumbled across, something a friend said, or anything that interests you enough to research and write about it.

The second aspect is to find links. A lot of bloggers seem to specialize in finding interesting content and providing a link and maybe a few words to recommend to their readers that they check out the original content on someone else's blog or site. While this isn't so much about finding original content for your blog, it is about finding information and resources that is helpful to your readers.

Here is a list of content resources for you to peruse and investigate for possible blog content. It certainly isn't a list of all the content, resources, and information out there.

Research: Reading What Other People Wrote

There is so much being written on the web, it can be overwhelming. Yet, one of the most important ways of finding something to write about is to find out what other people are writing about. This goes beyond news or most popular stories. It is the monitoring and reading of what other people are writing about to help inspire you to write.

Inspiration comes in many ways from reading. It begins by reading about what people are writing about in your industry. If they wrote it wonderfully, then you can cite them on your blog with a comment or two to encourage your readers to visit their site and read the article. If you want to talk about what they wrote, you can cite their post and include a blockquote or two from the article, and then say what you want to say. If you like what they wrote, but you think you can write it better, use their article as inspiration to write your own. Reading what other people also write helps you to keep up with what is going on around you, the trends and the news.

You never know where a bit of inspiration will come from, so keep your mind open to all possiblities. The following includes a wide range of resources for finding articles and archived articles. I've also included a list of some aggregators, sites that display content from other sites to help you keep track of what is going on through blog feeds. Some of these you can personalize and customize, while others are just lists to read through.

Mag Portal for online magazines and research information
Comment Content - part of Creative Commons
LookSmart - Find Articles
Bloglines (Aggregator/Feeds)
FeedDemon (Aggregator/Feeds)
Feedreader (Aggregator/Feeds)
Findory (Aggregator/Feeds)
NetNewsWire (Aggregator/Feeds - MAC)
NewsGator (Aggregator/Feeds)
Radio UserLand (Aggregator/Feeds)
Crayon - Create Your Own Customizable Online Newspaper
PR Web (Press Releases)
US National Archives
About.com - About Everything
News Lab
US News Archives - Newspaper Archives
University of Toronto - Internet Resources and Metasites
Ask a Librarian
The Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database
Librarian's Internet Index
The Gateway to 21st Century Skills in Education (US Gov)
High Beam Library Research for News, Images, and Statistics
H2O Playlist - Intellectual Content and Reading Lists
Poynter Online - Journalist Links and Resources
CyberJournalist Super Search Tools
Power Reporting - Free Research Tools for Journalists
PR News Wire
News Trove - Search News by Viewpoint
Yahoo Directory of RSS Formats and Aggregators
Time Magazine Archives
Bloghop - Connects Readers with Blogs
Assignment Editor - Newsroom Home Page
E-How - How Things Work
How Stuff Works
Journalism Net - Massive Research Resources and Links
Internet Public Library
National Press Club - Library and Research Links and Resources
The Refdesk
Bartleby References and Quotes
Journalist Express - One Stop Links and Resources for Journalists
Monitor This - Create Custom RSS Search Feeds
Voice of the Shuttle

Tracking Stories

Sometimes you want to be the first blogger on your block to cover a particular story. Then there are times when everyone else has covered the story but you want to know what has happened to the story now, after the news has turned their headlights away. There are also times when the headline news doesn't tell the whole story and you want to tell more. This is when it is time to start tracking the story beyond the headline news.

While there are a variety of sites that track stories and news, there are three methods for story tracking services and sites. First, there are sites whose goal is to simply to list blog or site content or press releases from subscribers or whatever resources they monitor. They are glorified information lists. Some showcase odds and ends, while others specialize in a specific industry. These work well for general interest subjects you are researching or investigating.

The second method is known as 'website trackers', software, online services, or utlities that will notify you if there has been a change in a specific website or blog. If a new post is published, you get an alert via your browser, email, or when you visit the website tracking page, showing you which blogs or sites have new content.

The third method is to use search engines and feed services as well as tagging and social bookmarking services to track stories. Search the story subject, title, or keywords to generate potential sources. Check these to see if they allow you to create a feed from your search results so you can track the story. See the lists above for those services.

Industry News and Resources

If you are blogging about a specific subject or industry, monitor the news stories coming out of that industry. There are many industries to choose from, and they are not always all encompassing. For example, if you are interested in the blogging industry, not all the information on blogging might be of interest to you. You might only be interested in bloggers blogging in Japan or China, not the whole world. So your need for news resources covers a very wide industry but narrows to a specific focus.

Tag and Social Bookmarking Services

Tags and social bookmarking services are similar but different. Social bookmarking actually is the term that refers to users recommending which topics are most popular with them. This is done through votes and by tags. A site or software tool that collects and stores your recommended or 'bookmarked' sites is called a Social Bookmarking Manager. Some Social Bookmarking Managers are private, but the ones that will usually serve you better are the public ones, which show the world what you think is important information, and asks others to 'vote' for your recommendations as you vote on theirs, and the winners rise to the top.

Tags are mini-categories for blog content, tagged by the blog owner or visitor. Used in combination with social bookmarking, you can search through tag services for the most popular posts within a specific tag category based upon traffic, voting, or other recommendations. Tags and social bookmarking help Internet users talk to each other, sharing favorite posts and articles. They also help let you, the blogger, get a feel for what topics are popular at the moment. If it is popular enough, you may want to blog about it. By monitoring these 'most popular' lists, whether by overall category or tags specific to your interests, you can keep a finger on the pulse of public opinion.

Technorati
IceRocket
Daypop
BlogPulse
Blodex - Top Blogged Stories
Blogsearch.com
Blogs of the Day
180n (Top Sited News Stories)
Gada - Graphic Meta Search Engine
Furl.net - Latest Headline Entries
CodeCubed - Tree Map (based on Del.icio.us)
Newzingo - Google Tag Map
Flickr
BlinkList
Connotea - Scientific Tags
De.lirio.us (Del.icio.us clone)
Digg
Furl
Blogmarks
KB Cafe Tag Search
Shadows - Social Bookmarking Service
Bloghop
Simpy
Oishii - Most Popular Bookmarks
Citeulike - Free Citation Service
Common Times - Reader Controlled News
Wists - Social Shopping
Spurl
Scuttle
LookMarks
Frassle
GiveALink - Donate Bookmarks
Netvous
Memeorandum
Ask Jeeves (now uses tags)
LinkFilter
Hyperlinkomatic
FeedMarker
BackFlip
Yummy.printfu - PDF Social Bookmarking
Diigo
Quimble - Poll on Favorite Social Bookmarking Manager
StumbleUpon
Filangy
Riffs - Social Recommender
RawSugar
Linkagogo
Gibeo.net
Linkroll
OpenBM - (Open Bookmarks)
SearchFox
Bloogz
Findory
Wink
Blog Top Sites
Indiza - Europe and International Social Bookmarking

Most Popular/High Traffic

There are many lists online that list the 'most popular' websites, blogs, topics, news, products, services, and more. By monitoring these sites, you can stay on top of what is attracting the most attention. Most popular lists are based upon a variety of criteria. For a few, it is just what is most popular to them, the individual or group, as they see it, often with their own criteria. For most 'most popular lists', though, popularity is solely based upon measurable data such as actual purchases or highest visitor traffic.

For high traffic sites or blogs, there is a lot to learn as well as be inspired by. What are they talking about? How are they talking about the subjects? Where are they getting their information and resources? Should you be following their lead? Use high traffic and most popular sites and blogs as resources for possible content and ideas. If you don't see a specific 'most popular' topic of interest to you, in a search engine type in 'most popular' with a keyword for your interest, like WordPress, and the search results will include the most popular WordPress Themes, plugins, tips, techniques, blogs, and other WordPress related most popular items. From here, you can find sites to monitor for the 'most popular' topics for your blog.

Top Search Results

Another method of finding content is to find out what people are searching for. Search engines and other search engine monitoring resources are always keeping an eye on what topics are most popular by counting up the top search keywords and phrases.

There are several different types of reports for tracking top search results. Old style but useful lists include top search keywords and phrases from seardh engines. More modern style top search results show you live, as-it-happens search action, which may or may not reflect the most popular searches but shows you what people are searching for in the moment. Which ever method attracts you, there is a lot of information and inspiration that can be gleaned.

Webcrawler Search Spy - Live Viewing of Search Keywords (Adult and Filtered Views)
MetaSpy - Live Viewing of Search Keywords (Adult and Filtered Views)
LiveMarks - Live Del.icio.us Feed
Digg Spy - Live View of Diggs
LiveMarks - Top Ranking from Del.icio.us
Kanoodle Search Spy - Live Search Preview
Meta Eureka - Voyeur (Manual Refresh)
Joe Ant - Top Search Keywords Live
AOL Hot Searches
Dogpile - Search Spy Live Search Preview (Adult and Filtered Views)
Search Words
Search Hippo
Search King - Top 25 Search Words
Eurekster - Advertising and Keyword Search
Fravia - Web Searchlore (Keyword and Search Tips, Techniques, and Methods
Analogx - Top Search Keywords
MSN Insider - Top Searches
DWoz - Top Keywords and Search Phrases
Yahoo Buzz - Top Searches
Google Zeitgeist Global - Top Search Results Globally
Google Zeitgeist - Top Search Results
Google News Top Searches for 2005
Lycos Top Searches for 2005
Yahoo Top Searches for 2005
Search.com Top Searches for 2005
Ask (aka Ask Jeeves) Top Searches for 2005
AOL Top Searches for 2005
Dogpile.com via Infospace - metasearch engine searches Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, and others for 2005
A9â€™s Top Search Words with 9 Letters for 2005
Search Engine Watch - Google and Yahoo Make Dogpileâ€™s Top Searches Of 2005 List
Yahoo! Canada 2005 Year in Review Top Searches
London Free Press - Janet Jackson top pick for Google searches
The Manila Bulletin - Top IT Stories for 2005
BBC News - Google Taps Into Search Patterns
Search Engine Watch - 5th Annual Search Engine Awards (from earlier this year)
Year in Review: Year of Heroes and Weasels
CodeCubed - Tree Map (based on Del.icio.us)
Newzingo - Google News Tag Map

Search Engines, Search Blogs and Search Feeds

There are times when the most popular, highest traffic, or top stories just don't give you the material you need for creative composition, or you need more collaborating evidence and research for the topic you are working on. That's when you turn to searching.

Sometimes just putting in a few words that sum up your industry or a topic that interests you can bring up interesting story angles and perspectives that you haven't thought of before. Sometimes, just typing in a word and hitting the 'Surprise Me' button that some search engines have will take you to new places you never thought to look before. Either way, search engines offer tremendous information, resources, and inspiration if you just start looking.

Everyone has their favorite search engines, but this list also includes a variety of search services that might get you more specialized results on your topic. Among these more specialized searches, you can also search just blogs, feeds, or specific topics.

Facts and Statistics

There comes a time when you just need the facts. Or, you stumble upon some facts that so amaze you, you want to check them out so you can write about them. There are so many facts and statistics out there, but here are some of the more popular resources for facts and figures for the US and World.

Internet Traffic, Web Trends, and Page Rank

Whether you blog about the Internet, the web, or blogging, you are still working within the Internet industry by being a blogger. No matter what your blog topic is, it helps to understand your Internet audience, where they are coming from, how they blog, and how they search. If you have advertising on your blog, then it is important to understand what is going on in the blog business in order to help you blog better and make more money. It also helps to keep an eye on the top web hosts and traffic in general so you know what is going on around you in the Internet world.

By watching which blogs or websites are top of the charts for traffic, you can pretty much guage which topics are popular with most Internet users. Here are some resources for lists of the most popular websites and blogs online, as well as tracking web trends and traffic.

75 Ways to Increase Your Site's Traffic

2007-08-25T16:17:00.000-07:00

This article is originally published in Superbloggingtips. You can find other similar articles in http://superbloggingtips.com. I found it very helpful to all the bloggers and so it is here at it is.

If you’re a normal blogger or website owner, you’re going to want more traffic. You might even search all over the web for great ways to generate or increase your traffic. I have compiled a list of 75 ways to increase your site’s traffic. This list is different from others because it contains simple, original ideas and off-the-wall, unique ideas. If you’re looking for more people to see your website or your blog, then you’re at the right article! Out of all these 75 tips, I can assure you that most of them will work for your site or blog.

Write more content. If you want traffic, you’ve got to write content. People will not visit your site if you don’t write a decent amount of good quality content, and new visitors definitely won’t come back. So keep writing great posts!
Have a good design and layout. If your site or blog’s design is messy, sloppy, hard to navigate, a rainbow of colors that don’t match or are hard on the eye, or full of errors, you will instantly go down the drain.
Get your own domain. I promise that if you have your domain, you will get more traffic. You will linked to more and people will more easily remember your URL. Try to get your own domain and have it from the start.
Start using StumbleUpon. I have had a HUGE success with StumbleUpon. When the right article from your blog meets StumbleUpon, expect a lot of people to rate your post a thumbs up, and then even more people "stumbling upon" your blog.
Guest blog. Offer to write a post on someone else’s site. Even better, have the post already written up and then let the blogger know you have a post ready to guest blog on their site, if it’s okay with them. When you write your guest blog post, find a post on your own blog that’s related and link to in your guest blog post. A link for you on their blog, and more traffic.
Begin tagging your images. When you have an image in your post, it should always be tagged properly. Make sure the width and height are clearly defined. But most importantly, fill out the alt and title tags with the image’s keywords. To learn further and learn how this helps, click here.
Respond to your comments and email. People love a blog whose owner is interactive and thoughtful, an owner who gets back quickly with response to their comments and emails. If you can do this, except more loyal readers who will love you. Then expect more traffic and more linkage.
Use MyBlogLog. Make sure you have an eye-catching avatar. Then join all the MyBlogLog communities you can (daily limit of 15). In no time your avatar will be all over all the MyBlogLog blog and community pages, and you’ll see more and more visitors coming to you.
Don’t waste your time. Don’t waste your time with crazy "money earners" such as those that pay you to click, pay you to read, pay you to surf, pay you to search, or anything like that. Those aren’t worth anything. Instead, spend your time writing quality content and the traffic will follow.
Pay attention to your stats. Pay attention to your stats and Google Analytics. See what keywords are getting you the most traffic and what posts your readers like and don’t like. Use this knowledge to keep writing more popular posts filled with great keywords.
Link to other posts. When you link to posts on other blogs, that creates a trackback, or pingback. When you link to another blogger’s post, if they have trackbacks turned on, you will receive a link back as well in the comments section of the post of which you linked.
In your posts, ask your readers questions. Readers like to feel important and a lot of them like to talk. The next time you write a post, ask them a question or their opinion on something. You’ll receive a lot more comments and many of the visitors will be more likely to come back.
Make a lens on Squidoo. On Squidoo, you can make your own lenses, aka, pages, on their site. Make a lens that is relative to your blog or site’s topic, and then be sure to link to your blog on the lens! Did I mention you can also make money on Squidoo? Click here to read more.
Comment on other blogs. When you comment on other blog’s 99.9% of the time there is a box you can write in your own site’s address. Then from there, when people view your comment, they can click through to your blog or website! Comment on as many different blog’s as you can. Maybe even set aside a day of the week for commenting. The more comments you leave, the more you are noticed, and the more traffic you get.
Write list posts. Everybody loves list posts. This post is a list post. Examples are "Top 10 Blog Themes", "25 Uses for Vinegar", and "5 Helpful Website Tools". List posts are usually linked to a lot more and get a lot more traffic than normal posts.
Submit your blog to search engines. Most people get the majority of their traffic from search engines. When people search for your keyword and find your site or blog, there’s more traffic! Click here to submit your blog to be indexed in Google if it hasn’t been already, and remember to keep writing fresh content for the engines to chew on!
Establish relationships with fellow bloggers. Develop relationships with all kinds of bloggers, especially those also in your niche. Comment on their blogs, have conversations, link to them, make friendships. And before you know it, they’ll be linking to you too and maybe sending some traffic your way.
Use traffic exchanges. I’m not quite sure if you can be penalized for using traffic exchanges, but they can bring you loyal readers if your blog is good enough, besides the continuous traffic. See my post on the BlogMad traffic exchange.
Link to your other posts as often as you can. Link internally to posts on your own blog. This helps your rankings and also helps your traffic. If people who come to your your blog have nothing else to see, they will leave. When you link to your other articles, they will most likely choose to go read those as well before leaving, and will stay on your blog longer.
Sign up on Yahoo! Answers. On Yahoo! Answers you are able to answer other people’s questions, help them, and give answers. There is a box where you can write the source of where you got your answer. Answer questions in your field and link to your blog posts as the source!
Sign your blog up on blog top lists. A blog top list is a chart of all the blogs that are in it. The list is numbered and your blog can go higher on the list when it has more traffic, more votes, more incoming visitors, etc. They’re very simple and easy to join. Plus, they can rake in the traffic! Click here to see some top lists you can join and learn more.
Submit to site directories. Some directories list hundreds of sites, some list thousands. The backlinks are great, but the traffic from the directories will be less than a trickle, most likely nothing. However, submit with your site’s name using your keywords, and then you could be ranked more highly on Google for those keywords, which means more traffic!
Don’t use link trains. This does not directly related to traffic but it’s still good advice. I made the mistake of joining in on the ViraLink and ViralTags, and you should never do that! Besides, your readers will appreciate it and they’ll stick around longer.
Reread, edit, and go over your posts. No one wants to link to a post that is poor quality. Even if the post is a brilliant idea, if it’s full of spelling and grammatical errors, it won’t be linked to. And no links means no traffic.
Submit your posts to blog carnivals. Go to the Blog Carnival website and submit as many of your articles to as many carnivals related to your niche as you can. When the carnival edition you submitted to is posted, not only will you have linkbacks, but you’ll have more visits to your blog. If you don’t understand what a blog carnival is, read about it here.
Hold your own blog carnival. I think blog carnivals are very fun to hold. People submit their articles to your carnival. When you publish your carnival, almost all of those people go to the carnival edition to view their link there. And you carnival can also be featured on the Blog Carnival website homepage.
Link exchange with other people in your field. Whether the link exchange is on a sidebar on every page of the site, on one page of the site, or in a post on the site, it’s up to you. But link exchanging with others who have related blogs can be a big help. And when their sites grow, an even bigger help!
Use Feedburner for people to subscribe to your blog. When people subscribe to you via RSS or get your blog updates in email, they’ll see your posts whenever you make a new one. This is vital for keeping people in touch with your blog and getting them to come back.
Use Youtube. Make an account on Youtube, and then on your profile you can list your website address. List your site or blog’s link there. Then start making videos and when people view your profile, some of them might click through to your website!
Ask the bigger blogs for a link.I can’t stress enough that you’ve got to do this right or not at all. You need to be polite and not beg. Start building your conversation with the A-lister and developing the relationship before you ask for anything. Make sure you give to them, link to them in your posts. Before you do anything, read Kumiko’s post on this. I know if I got such a polite email as this instead of a begging spammer, I would have to say yes. And if you do get your link, not only will this help your page rank, but you should get a very decent amount of traffic.
Use Technorati tags. Getting into more categories in Technorati will get you a lot more exposure, which means more traffic. If you don’t know what Technorati tags are, read Court’s post.
Write a post about a celebrity. No matter what your niche is, you can find some way to relate your topic to a celebrity. For example, 6 Lessons Britney Spears Can Teach You About Blogging. People search for celebrities all the time and love the dirt on them. Quadruple your traffic when you right a post about a celebrity right after a big event in the celebrity’s life. For example, the shaving of their head, the birth of their child, their marriage, or their death, to name a few.
Encourage others to Digg your articles. Digg is a site that lets people vote on articles, on whether people like them or not. Your blogger friends will most likely Digg your work for you if you politely ask, or even better, add a Digg button at the bottom of all your posts. Make sure your best articles get Dugg and started in the right direction, and if the post is good enough, it can generate thousands of visitors a day.
Get a plugin for the social bookmarking sites. At the bottom of this post you will see a line of buttons that lets people submit and vote my articles to social bookmarking sites (Digg, Reddit, Netscape, and others included). I’m using the AntiSocial plugin. If you have this plugin implemented you are WAY more likely to be submitted to social bookmarking sites, which in turn means a lot more traffic.
Link to the A-listers. This ties in a little with asking the A-listers for a link, or sort of pushing them in the direction of giving you one, but this is much for subtle and much more nice. The more you link to the A-listers and probloggers in your niche, the more they will probably notice you. Then they might link to one of your posts as well, which could send huge amounts of traffic your way!
Write a pillar post. This is not only a list post, but a pillar post as well. It is written in hopes of becoming one of the top post’s for this blog. This post is a long, authoritative, instructional post. Pillar posts should take a long time, hours, to write. You should link to your pillar posts often in your blog, and make sure they get top exposure. Pillar posts will get linked to and receive decent amounts of traffic.
When a major holiday rolls around, write about it. When Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, or another big holiday comes, make a post about it a month beforehand. Give yourself time to be indexed and linked to. When the holiday comes, it will be searched for a lot and your site could be found!
Use smart URLs on Wordpress. If you’re using Wordpress and are using their messy URLs, you’d better get this plugin to switch to the URLs that include the date and post name in the link. Using that plugin will not make you lose your search engine stats or anything, it is a redirect.
Make your readers feel at home. If you are rude, never give back, don’t answer your comments or emails, don’t help other bloggers, or are always uptight and don’t make your readers feel at home, chances are they might stop visiting your blog. When you make your readers feel at home, you get more traffic.
Be a human, not a robot. If in all your posts you sound extremely business-like, never mention yourself, only talk about the same thing all the time, or are 100% perfect, it could actually send people away. I’m not telling you to be sloppy, talk about yourself all the time, stray from your topic, or make a lot of mistakes. But let your readers know you’re like them too and that you have some things in common. Don’t make your site be boring.
Take the ads off your site. To increase your traffic remove your ads. When you have no way of making money on your website, you seem a lot more serious and devoted. Most likely you will get more traffic and loyal readers. And then maybe in the future, you can ad the ads again to start making some money!
Start your own blog directory. This is something I tried once but failed at miserably. However, I’m sure if I tried again I could do it right, and you could too! When you make your directory at first, make all the links completely free and just have a link submit form where the submissions are emailed to you. You can do a weekly/daily roundup of all the links sent to you, or you can assign the links to their proper categories. When your site gets even bigger, you can ask for a reciprocal link. Then have a "featured site" table, and link to your main website in it. I’m not sure how this would work for everyone but it’s worth a shot.
Post about A-listers in your field. For me this would be people like Darren Rowse and John Chow. You can write about them as a person or a blogger or you can write about how they’re running and doing things. You can post your thoughts on something they’ve said or extend on one of their posts and then leave a comment saying you’ve done so.
Interview other bloggers. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time but never got around to. Interviews of other bloggers usually generate a few links, including a link from the blogger you interviewed. And links mean traffic!
Write link love posts. I try to write link love posts every couple of weeks where it is just one big post linking to articles in the blogosphere or on the web that I like, mostly ones related to my niche. Not only does this get you trackbacks, but it also gives you the higher chance of getting linked to in return, which then means traffic.
Have a contest or giveaway! This is a great idea. Hold a contest or a giveaway for a very awesome prize, and people will flock to your site in hopes of winning it. If you give away something really cool, the news will spread like wildfire. Beforehand though, make sure your blog is already receiving a fairly decent amount of traffic with some loyal readers.
Pretend to sell your blog. This is something you can do to get traffic but I do NOT recommend it. This idea has sprung up lately but in my opinion it’s not a good one. You can pay forty dollars to list your blog in a marketplace, and get a huge spike of traffic from potential buyers. Then, you take down the offer and keep your blog. NONE of that traffic will ever come back. It’s not targeted and it is a waste of money. But if you want to get traffic this way, go for it.
Be a comedian. Make people laugh. For a lot of you out there, this shouldn’t be hard. When you make people laugh they will feel a connection to your site or blog and want to tell others and come back.
Help bloggers that need you. If a beginner, newbie blogger leaves you a comment or email that is at least polite, don’t brush them off because of their lack of experience. Help them! You never know, they could become big one day and remember your kindness and assistance.
Have polls on your blog. If you’re using Wordpress, get the Wordpress polls plugin. People like voting in polls and like seeing what the outcome of a poll was. Polls are popular, and popular means traffic.
Start more blogs. Think you can handle it? They can be free blogs, or they can have their own domain. Whatever you want. Work on traffic for all of your blogs, and then have all your blogs link to each other (especially the smaller blogs linking to your main one). Then whoever reads one of your blogs can also be introduced to the other ones.
Create or hack a Wordpress plugin. Okay, this one might be for the smart computer geeks out there, because I couldn’t do it. But if you can, then expect to get lots of links and traffic from all over the place from all the people that use your plugin.
Create a blog theme (Wordpress, Blogspot, whatever). Same goes as for creating a plugin. I could probably do this one more easily than I could make a plugin, though. If you think you can, give it a shot! The traffic will pour in, as will the links.
Make graphics that are useful to others. If you make some free graphics people can use on their website or blog, you’ll get more traffic from this as well, and it’s not nearly as hard. If you’re a professional at making graphics, even try charging a little bit to get money on top of it!
Make graphics for social networking sites as well. People who use Myspace, Facebook, and all those types of sites love using graphics. Colorful banners. Animated, blinking images. If you can make awesome things like that, then they’ll use it. It’s worth a shot for some traffic and links.
Make a Myspace and get a lot of friends. Make a Myspace and work on getting a lot of friends. This doesn’t mean adding the bands or celebrities that automatically accept you. This means the real people. Just go around adding people. Go to "Browse" and add people. Once you have hundreds of friends, link to your site or blog in bulletins and on your profile and everywhere you can. It could draw in some traffic if you do it correctly.
Answer questions you get through comments or email in a post. If someone comments or emails you with a question, and you could give them a very long, drawn out answer, write a post instead. You won’t be wasting your time and then to answer that person, just give them a link to the post you’ve written!
Work on search engine optimization. The better you rank and do in the search engines, the more visitors they will send you. Do your research and homework on search engine optimization and get started right away!
Start an awards series. Spend some time making a little trophy or banner for an award. Make sure your award has a theme and a name, for example, "The Kind Blogger Award". Then link to five kind bloggers. In the rules, get each of them to link and pass the award to five more bloggers that they think are kind. Many will link back to you as the creator of this award series and you will receive traffic for it.
Buy ads using Google Adwords. Something I haven’t done but might prove very helpful if you’ve got the money. Sign up for Google Adwords and buy advertising. People will click on ads and get to your site. Some could become loyal readers but many will not. A good way of getting traffic.
Order reviews through ReviewMe. If you order reviews on other blogs using ReviewMe or even PayPerPost, you can create a buzz on your site or blog. Reviews are probably the best form of advertising and the best way to get more loyal visitors.
Use ReviewBack to get reviewed for free. Most likely your free reviews will be on small blogs, and you also have to return the favor, but you could still get some nice traffic from it. Something to consider. Check out ReviewBack.
Write a press release. Click here to read how and what to do.
Get on the most favorited list on Technorati. The Technorati top 100 favorited list can be viewed here. It will be very hard to get on to and require a few hundred favorites (a few thousand if you want to be at the top of the list). But you will surely get a lot of traffic if you make it on this list.
Join forums and message boards. Join forums and message boards related to niche. If it is permitted, link to your site or blog when/where you can. Other people on the forum are very likely to check out your site.
Add your link to your forum signature. Another idea, but also only if this one is permitted. Add your site or blog’s link to your forum signature and get active in the community. The link will show up under all of your posts. You can get a nice little amount of traffic if the forum has a lot of members.
Write catchy post titles with keywords. First of all, posts with catchy titles receive more traffic than those with bland, unoriginal titles. Secondly, add some keywords to your catchy titles! You will get ranked better in the search engines. Also, when people link to your post with its keywords, you’ll get ranked even better, with even more traffic from Google, Yahoo, etc.
Use images in your posts. This is something I need to work on more. Use images in your posts. When a post is full of just text, it can get boring. However, (and this depends on your niche), I would recommend using only one image. You don’t want to get too cluttered.
Write a review. If you write a really good honest review of a new product or brand, it could get a lot of attention from people who are interested in purchasing the product.
On high traffic days, write more great quality posts. Let’s say you’ve just written a linkbait (on purpose or by accident) that hit the front page of Digg or did awesome StumbleUpon. That same day and the next couple of days, post more great content. Let the people who’ve came across your site know they should stick around because of your quality content. Keep the traffic going!
Post about important events in your niche. If something important is going to happen in your niche, post about it a couple months, one month, or a few weeks before it happens. Give yourself time to be linked to and indexed by the search engines for that post. When the event rolls around, you will get a lot of traffic if you played your cards right!
Share one of your secrets. Whether it be a huge secret about your success or a personal secret about your life, nobody can resist.
Do something unique. Build a brand and do something original that no one else has done. You will receive a lot of links and traffic for it and the name will stick around for a long time, if not forever. Come up with a new concept that no one else has done before.
Keep improving your blog. People will keep coming back to a blog or site that is constantly worked on and improved. Set aside daily time to plow down and tweak your blog. Also try to write that daily content.
Be yourself. The internet is a great place to be anonymous, but if you are, no one will feel a connection to you and want to keep visiting your blog. Just be yourself, don’t pretend to be someone you’re not, and people will love you for it. I promise.

source:http://superbloggingtips.com/2007/07/75-ways-to-increase-your-sites-traffic/

Top Social Bookmarking Sites

2007-08-13T13:27:00.000-07:00

The popularity of Social Bookmarking websites are growing day by day. They not only allow you to save bookmarks online but also tag or categorize them with keywords instead of saving them as bookmarks in the favorite list of your browser. Sites listed below are few of those Social Bookmarking websites which are being used extensively. Visit some or all the sites as you would like. Create your own account. Then start bookmarking interesting and useful sites in the areas of your interest or expertise. By doing so you create a useful Feed. Once you’ve done that you intermittently or regularly add useful and interesting items (and ofcourse links from your blogs) which could give you possible exposure.
You can share your blog(s), links to your informational/resource sites etc. When you share links to other’s resources, you’re also effectively promoting their as well as your contents.

BlogMarks
Social Bookmarking with thumbnails. Atom enabled.

Blauer Bote Bookmarks
Bookmarak Manager in German and English

LQ Bookmarks
Social Bookmarking, tagging and annotating all things Linux and Open Source.

de.lirio.us
Social Bookmarking, Tagging, Blogging & Notes. Mmmmmm, Notes.

del.icio.us
Currently the most used software application.

digg
Digg is a technology news website that combines social bookmarking, blogging, RSS, and non-hierarchical editorial control. With digg, users submit stories for review, but rather than allow an editor to decide which stories go on the homepage, the users do.

feedmarker
A free, Web based RSS/ATOM aggregator and bookmarks manager.

frassle
Frassle helps you read and publish weblogs, track bookmarks, and find relevant content organized your way.

linkroll
Linkroll is a free link blogging service. At a personal level you can bookmark, categorize and comment on all the great web pages/links you find. All your bookmarks are then sortable and searchable by category and date. All bookmarks are also accessible, by category and/or user, in the form of RSS feed (for your news aggregator), or JavaScript (for syndication on your own web site)

loom
Collaborative bookmarking application written in PHP.

MyProgs
Social bookmarking for programs you use.

Yahoo Search myweb2 beta
A social search engine integrating social bookmarking with search.

NEWNOOZE
Social Bookmarking on just about every subject. A Digg.com clone site. Beta Stage.

openBM
It's just linking cool sites together. openBM is a little tool for everybody. openBM just keep's your bookmarks and provides them for other people on the web.

Reader²
Share the list of books you read or recommend, find new books by tags/authors. Multilanguage.

reddit
Social bookmarking where your votes affect your karma points.

scuttle.org
amongst others are based on the scuttle software.

Scuttle
Another open source clone of del.icio.us.

unalog
Open source bookmarking software written in the Python programming.

aworldofhelp
Users submit and rate links in numerous categories. The highest rated make the front page.

beanrocket
Beanrocket.com is a community and a news reader.

BlinkList
Social bookmarking with slick interface and new ways for organizing tags.

CiteULike
Social bookmarking for academic papers.

commontimes
Provides community-based media distribution services and solutions along with BitTorrent hosting and consulting for individuals and organizations of all sizes.

Connectedy
This service allows the establishment of pseudonymous online link libraries. Users may impose arbitrary categorical hierarchies on their links and choose which categories and links to make public and which ones to keep private. The Connectedy site has par SEO properties.

Connotea
Social bookmarking for scientists.

dinnerbuzz
Dinnerbuzz is a social guide to restaurants, bars, and coffee shops. It's designed to make it easier for you to find a place for dinner or drinks anywhere in the world.

Wiklink
Tools to synchronize bookmarks with your browser.

FeedMeLinks
Social Bookmarking since 2002.

FlipSkipper
social bookmarking manager that allows users to pull concurrent searches from Yahoo!, Google News, and del.icio.us when surfing.

Furl
Similar to del.icio.us: stores copies of the pages saved, automates finding users with similar interests, archives can be exported in MPLA or APA citation format.

GiveALink
Donate your bookmarks for academic research.

IndiaGram
Allows social bookmarking. Aim is to develop a community that shares information about websites on diverse topics.

jots
Jots is a collaborative bookmarking system that allows you to Store, Share and Discover relevant links. Store your own links and choose whether to share them with the world, with a select group of people or just for yourself to use. Discover new links based on specific users or topics of interest.

leze.de and
German Internet Bookmarking Service

LibraryThing
Deli.cio.us for books. Cataloging based on some 30+ libraries using the Z39.50 protocol.

linkblog
Portuguese

linkfilter
linkfilter.net is just what the name implies, a link filter. All links are posted and moderated by users. Links can be ranked on several levels: clicks, votes, age, or a combination of all three called points.

Lookmarks (beta)
Search and share your bookmarks

memestreams
"Don't hate the media, become the media!" - Biafra

Netvouz
Social bookmarking using either categories or tags. Share your bookmarks online or keep them private. RSS feeds for all bookmarks. Add2Netvouz button for easily bookmarking new sites, import/export, automatic link validation and lots of other features.

Network Menus
Social Bookmarking (or /wiki/Collaborative_Bookmarking title=Collaborative Bookmarking Collaborative Bookmarking) within a web browser toolbar.

O Y A X
A fast and quick social categorized bookmarking service with groups.

RawSugar
Socially enhanced web search based on hierarchal tagging of bookmarks and favorites. Include s multi-word categories, mechanism to define and rename categories, and hierarchy.

Shadows
Social bookmarking with tags, comments and ratings. Shadows' toolbar puts users one click away from a discussion forum for any page on the web.

Simpy
Social bookmarking with tagging and full-text searching.

sitetagger
SiteTagger.com is a bookmark/favorite organizer. You can bookmark websites you find on the internet via a simple button/favlet/bookmarklet that you can add to your browser link bar. This button makes it as simple as a click to bookmark a website page that you are visiting. The true power comes from the tags.

Spurl
Similar to del.icio.us: stores copies of the pages saved.

StumbleUpon
Bookmarking, social networking, friends-network, random browsing within interest-groups.

Sync2It's BookmarkSync
Effortless social bookmarking, millions of hand-picked sites, real-time RSS feeds, public & private collections. Features automatic clustering technology.

taghop
Taghop is a collaborative thoughtblog. A thoughtblog is a combination of some of the existing ideas behind blogs, with some ideas of its own. It is a web site, search engine, wiki, blogging system, social network and community site all rolled into one - or at least the best parts of those! They have been inspired by the great work from sites such as Google, Flickr, del.icio.us, 43things, etc

Tagza.com
A very young Social Book marking web site mostly being used by Indian and Pakistani web masters.

Textnotes.de
Social notes manager. Easy integration of references to books, news and articles.

TheThingsIWant
Universal wishlist service with Social Bookmarking and RSS feeds.

URLex
Personal/Friends/Community bookmarking and rss feeds.

Wazima
Coupons clipped by robots. Wazima scours the web and shows you the deals you are most interested in.

Web Feeds
Web Feeds is a social bookmark site with a difference, users moderate and decide which items make it to the home page.

Wists
Visual bookmarks, wishlists, photoblogs.

wURLdBook
Share webreferences and rss feeds with others and more.

Yoono
Social Bookmarking based on browser bookmarks (no tags needed), includes a search engine, an RSS Reader, web monitoring and sharing functions. Windows application and firefox extension.

Complete List of Directories-9

2007-07-27T03:11:00.000-07:00

Continued from the previous post

Complete List of Directories-8

2007-07-20T03:08:00.000-07:00

Continued from the previous post

Continued

Complete List of Directories-7

2007-07-14T03:01:00.000-07:00

Continued from the previous post

Continued

Links

2007-07-07T19:45:00.000-07:00

Beautiful Babes
Wallpapers of your favourite celebrities updated on a regular basis. Perhaps you have not seen all at one place.

Link2Me Link Exchange Directory - The Best Link Exchange for SEO Professionals
Quality directory of webmasters actively seeking link exchange. Improve your search engine rankings and link popularity the easy way. Work clever not hard.

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About the natural Earth Answers to all your questions about the natural Earth
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Drivers, Service Manuals, User Guides, Recovery CDs, Diagnostics Boot Disks Drivers, user guides, service manuals, owners manuals, recovery cd, restore disks and boot disk for all manufacturers of PC desktop, for windows vista, windows xp,windows 98
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Quality Free Website Traffic 4ProfitHits.com Is a manual traffic exchange service that serves as a marketing tool used to promote your website and bring to it Quality website traffic from other members using our exchange. You can promote with banners and text links also
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Information and Software Products EBooksAtoZ - eBooks, Audio, Video, Templates, Scripts and Software programs.
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Traffic Exchange SurfCash Is A Unique System For Site Owners Wanting High Exposure. We have combined a Traffic Exchange, Banner Exchange and a Text Ad Exchange, all on the same credit system. Software free-Softee.net Softee.net is biggest base of free software, freeware. Rate the software, give your comments and suggestions. Join us now by submitting program.
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thedownloadswebstore- Ebooks, Software, Scripts, Graphics, Turnkey Websites. Ebooks, Software, Scripts, Graphics, Turnkey Websites, All At The Lowest Prices With Instant Download And Full Resell Rights.
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Website Template design, Flash Templates, osCommerce, and other free Design Tutorials CitraTemplate offers professional Website Templates, Flash Templates, Flash Intro, osCommerce Template Themes, WordPress Themes, Design tutorials and other free clipart which are ready for Downloading.
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Your Comments

2007-07-07T03:10:00.000-07:00

It may seems a little bit odd. But I think I've got reason for that. It's been just a short time that I have turned in this new online Phenomenon called "Blogging". And in this short period I have found the most boring part (may be it's not for you) of the blogs is scrolling down much more than expected to read through the whole part of blogs or you may say to reach the end of the page. That's why I adapted this idea to create a single comment page where viewers like you can express your views on what you think about this blog, anything else that comes to mind.

Your suggestions which will help to improve quality of contents of this blog. And will give me ideas to go to the right direction in the future ahead. Your every words are valuable for me. I will appreciate all of your comments and suggestions.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Listed Blog Directories

2007-07-07T02:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.blogarama.com http://www.blogdir.co.uk http://www.goblogz.com http://www.aveblogs.com http://www.eblogzilla.com http://www.lsblogs.com http://www.blogscollection.com http://www.submitblogs.com http://www.bloglisting.net http://www.wilsdomain.com http://www.blogrankings.com	Blogarama BlogDir Go BlogZ Ave Blogs eBlogzilla LS Blogs Blogs Collection Submit Blogs Blog Listings Weblog Directory BlogRankings.com
http://www.blogdirectory.in http://www.blogoozle.com http://www.Bloghub.com http://www.spillbean.com http://www.blogdup.com http://www.blogdirs.com http://okayblog.net/directory http://www.blogs-collection.com http://www.bidforpos.com http://zopso.com	Blog Directory Blog Directory Blog Directory Blog Directory Blog Directory Blog Directory Blog Directory Blogs Directory Bid For Position Zopso.com
http://www.thebloggernation.com http://www.allfreethings.com http://www.misohoni.com/bba http://www.theblogresource.com http://www.getblogs.com http://www.quickblogdirectory.com http://forum.easywordpress.com http://www.freewebsitedirectory.com http://www.blog-directory-submit http://www.weblogalot.com	The Blogger Nation All Free Things Best Blogs in Asia The Blog Resource Superblog Directory The Blog Directory Quick Blog Directory Easy Wordpress Forum Free Website Directory Blog Directory Submit Free Web Log Directory
http://www.blogfolders.com http://www.all-blogs.net http://www.bloggertalk.net http://www.2SearchBlogs.com http://www.4ppl.com http://www.nubbit.com http://www.myblog2u.com http://www.geekyspeaky.com http://www.thevital.net	Blog Folders Blog Directory All-Blogs.net directory Blogger Talk Blog Community 2SearchBlogs Web Directory 4ppl Online Dating Personals Nubbit.com Blog Directory MyBlog2u.com - Blog Directory GeekySpeaky: Submit Your Site! Blog search-blog directory
http://www.findingblog.com http://www.feeds4all.com http://www.Bloggernity.com http://www.blogpoint.com http://www.blogoriffic.com http://www.blogcatalog.com http://www.Bloghub.com http://www.blogdigger.com http://www.blogdumps.com	FindingBlog - Blog Directory Webfeed (RSS/ATOM/RDF) Blog search directory Blogpoint Blogoriffic.com BlogCatalog Blog Directory Blog Directory & Search engine Blogdigger Blog Search Engine Blogdumps.com
http://blogintro.com http://www.weblog-index.com http://www.kookkoo.com http://www.blogskinny.com http://www.2-review.com http://www.plazoo.com http://www.manhattanservice.com http://www.altablog.com http://www.pagerank10.co.uk http://www.getblogs.com http://www.phpblogmanager.com	Blogintro Weblog-index Kookkoo blog directory Blogskinny Blog Review Plazoo Website Promotion AltaBlog Blog Directory Pagerank10 Getblogs Phpblogmanager

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2007-07-06T02:57:00.000-07:00

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2007-07-01T02:54:00.000-07:00

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Complete List of Directories-4

2007-06-25T02:48:00.000-07:00

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Complete List of Directories-3

2007-06-20T02:45:00.000-07:00

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Complete List of Directories-2

2007-06-15T02:40:00.000-07:00

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Complete List of Directories-1

2007-06-10T02:32:00.000-07:00

Most of you must have listed your blogs/sites to various site/blog directories but still not getting visitors as much as you have hoped. Perhaps you might have done this in few sites. Hence, for those who want to enlist their sites/blogs to as much as they want, here are more than 800 such sites. Few of the included sites only lists specific type of blogs/sites. Some of these sites are pay directories, some demand reciprocal link to approve your site/blog listing.

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List of RSS Blog Directories

2007-06-05T03:53:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the easy way to get more & more site traffic is to get your blog/site listed to RSS and Blog directories. Submitting your RSS to such directories lets people know what you have recently updated. Here is a list of some of the submission urls for RSS and blog directories that you can submit your blog or RSS feed to.

2Rss	http://www.2rss.com/index.php
About.com	http://weblogs.about.com/library/nosearch/blsubmit.htm
All-Blogs.net	http://www.all-blogs.net/submit.php
Answers	http://www.answers.com/main/new_blogger.jsp
BOTW Blog Directory	http://blogs.botw.org/helpcenter/submitblog.aspx
Blawg	http://blawg.org/modules.php?name=Web_Links&l_op=AddLink
Blogcode	http://www.blogcode.com/signup.php
Blogarama	http://www.blogarama.com/add-a-site/
Blogbib	http://www.blogbib.com/submit.php
Blogbunch	http://www.blogbunch.com/suggest/
BlogCatalog	http://www.blogcatalog.com/blogs/submit_blog.html
Blogdigger	http://blogdigger.com/add.jsp
Blogflux	http://www.blogflux.com/add.php
Bloggernity	http://www.bloggernity.com/cgi-bin/add.cgi
Bloghop	http://www.bloghop.com/account/index.htm
Bloghub	http://www.bloghub.com/cgi-bin/add.cgi
Blogintro	http://blogintro.com/?page_id=925
Bloglisting	http://www.bloglisting.com/addablog.html
BlogMap	http://www.csthota.com/blogmap/submit.aspx
BlogOrama	http://www.blogarama.com/index.php?show=add
BlogPulse	http://www.blogpulse.com/submit.html
Blog-search	http://www.blog-search.com/blog-submission.html
Blogtopsites	http://www.blogtopsites.com/register.php
Bloguniverse	http://www.bloguniverse.com/radlinks/
Blogz	http://www.sarthak.net/blogz/add.php
Bloogz	http://www.bloogz.com/man_en/add_your_url.php
BoingBoing	http://boingboing.net/suggest.html
Bulletize	http://www.bulletize.com/add.php?sid=0
ContentsMatter	http://www.contentsmatter.com/add.php
Crayon	http://www.crayon.net/using/suggest.html
DayPop	http://www.daypop.com/info/submit.htm
Diarist	http://www.diarist.net/
EastonWeb	http://portal.eatonweb.com/add.php
Fastbuzz	http://www.fastbuzz.com/main.jsp
Feed-Directory	http://www.feed-directory.com/addfeed
Feeds4all	http://www.feeds4all.com/AddRSS.aspx
Feedage	http://www.feedage.com/submit.php
FeedsFarm	http://www.feedsfarm.com/a.html
FindingBlog	http://findingblog.com/add_blog.php?cat=
Findory	http://www.findory.com/submit-blog
FlybySearch	http://www.fybersearch.com/add-url.php
Geckotribe	http://chordata.geckotribe.com/suggest.php
GeekPhilisopher	http://geekphilosopher.com/MainPage/gpBlogLinkAdd.php
Globeofblogs	http://www.globeofblogs.com/register.php
Gobignetwork	https://www.gobignetwork.com/blog/AddBlog.aspx
iBlog Business Directory	http://www.iblogbusiness.com/add.html
Icerocket	http://www.icerocket.com/c?p=addblog
Industry-blogs	http://www.industry-blogs.com/submit.php
Kiosken	http://www.esperanto.se/kiosk/engindex.html
LSBlogs	http://www.lsblogs.com/howtosubmit.php
NewsXS	http://www.newsxs.com/en/sources
NewsGator	http://www.newsgator.com/ngs/subscriber/Folksonomy.aspx
Only Feeds	http://www.feedboy.com/
Plazoo	http://www.plazoo.com/en/addrss.asp
Portal.eatonweb	http://portal.eatonweb.com/add.php
Postami	http://www.postami.com/rss.finder/submit_feed.php
Pressradar	http://www.pressradar.com/suggest
Rateitall	http://www.rateitall.com/suggest.aspx?WL=0&TopicID=20004
ReadAblog	http://www.readablog.com/AddFeed.aspx
Redtram	http://www.redtram.com/pages/addsource/
RocketInfo	http://reader.rocketinfo.com/desktop/AddRSSFeed.jsp
Search4Rss	http://www.search4rss.com
Small Business Blog Directory	http://blogsforsmallbusiness.com/directory/add.html
SmallBusiness.com	http://smallbusiness.com/wiki/Weblog_directory_company_blogs
Sphere	http://www.sphere/com
SynBlog	http://www.synblog.com/addblog.html
Strategic Board	http://strategicboard.com/?s=h:addblog
Syndic8	http://www.syndic8.com/suggest_start.php
Tailrank	http://www.tailrank.com/import
Technorati	http://www.technorati.com/ping.html
Topix	http://www.topix.net/member/register
TruthLaidBear	http://www.truthlaidbear.com/addtoscan.php
Wilsdomain	http://www.wilsdomain.com/blogs/wilsdomain9b.php?op=newsubmit
Yahoo.com	http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/my/cgi_rss_submission

Some tips to Increase Site Visitors

2007-05-27T01:23:00.000-07:00

You must be searching ways to increase your site visitors. You have been trying many ways to let things happen. Unfortunately nothing working. Don't get discouraged. Perhaps you have done many things but they might not be the right things to achieve your goals. Here are few tips which I am sure will be much more helpful to you then what you have done before. It is not only helpful to those who write blogs but also to those who are running websites of their own.

And of course let me know if it worked for you. I will appreciate your comments.

Optimize your site (SEO)
Win on the search engines when people search for keyword phrases related to your products or services.

Get your site listed in directories
Submit your site to all of the major web directories. This will generate traffic directly from the directories themselves and will also help to improve your link popularity. That helps you win on Google! I have listed most of the web directories available in my previous post.

Get listed in search engines.
Submit your site to all of the major search engines. But don't rest. Most of the search engines don't list your site instantly. Be sure to check it after few days or weeks.

Get links to your site
Get people with complimentary sites to link to yours. Another way might be offering rental kayaks on the beach, asking the local restaurant owners to link to you, and offering link to them, asking the local tour guides, the real estate agents, the night clubs, and everyone else. Links lead to clicks onto your website and help to improve your search engine rankings.

Buy links to your site
Buying text links on other websites also helps to increase site visitors. More spiders stops by and more people clicks through which finally improves your search engine rankings.

Buy banner ads
Buying banner ads on other websites also helps to build your brand recognition.

Participate in a banner exchange program
Participating in a banner excange program won't cost you anything but leads to a few extra visitors. On the other hand you're spreading your brand all over the place.

Participate in a WebRing
Connect your site with other sites in your niche.

Pay for clicks to your site
If you can spend few then pay for clicks or inclusion on the search engines so that people will see your site in the sponsored links section of the search results when they search for keyword phrases related to your products or services.

Set up an affiliate marketing program
With affiliate marketing, you can either pay per click or pay per customer acquired.

Use smart public relations
Get news coverage of your business and your site. Approach online and traditional media. This will often lead to others placing links pointing to your website, which leads to more clicks and also to improved search engine rankings.

Use E-mail marketing
Using E-mail marketing may be irritating to those who receive it but for you it is effective for the cost. Blast out your special offers, but be nice about it and don't spam much.

Use off-line marketing
Promote your site. Put your url on all your license plates. Paint it on your car. Buy newspaper and yellow pages ads with your url. Put up flyers and stickers. Sponsor a little league team. Do anything and everything to spread the word about your website around your city.

Run regular promotions
Stage regular giveaways and spread the word about it.

Get published
Write articles for publication on other websites. The author profile will link to your site. The article will show that you're an expert.

Publish yourself
Write articles for your own site regularly. This will help you to win on the search engines and gives your visitors a reason to come back over and over.

Ask for reviews
Ask for reviews of your self-published articles on other webmasters' websites. Ask for reviews of your website, your products, your software, your services. These will usually include links to your articles.

Write briefs
Write daily or weekly news briefs focusing in on your industry or specialty area. This keeps your site "fresh" in the eyes of the major search engines and helps you to spread a wide net when fishing for top search engine positions.

Create a newsletter
Ask your visitors to sign up for your newsletter, and encourage them to send it along to people they know. Send a newsletter regularly with teasers or lead-ins to your in-depth new articles or with special offers and the latest products.

Post in chat rooms
Become active in bulletin boards and chat rooms focusing on your industry. Leave inciteful comments, and people will click on your profile, then visit your site.

Give away free stuff
Offer something people want at your site. Give them a reason to come back and get more. Offer free downloads and update them regularly. Offer coupons or discounts. Content content content.

Give awards for excellent sites in your niche
This builds more links back to your site and establishes you as a credible reviewer, an expert in your space.

Run a contest and promote it
Photo contests, essay contests, goofy contests, random drawings, anything. Example: Messiest Garage in America contest on OfftheFloor.com.

Join your local business organizations
Chambers of Commerce and other organizations will often add your site to their member directory. That's an added advantage over the obvious business-building and networking opportunities.

Create an RSS feed
Creating RSS feed of your content gives people another way to interact with your content.

Be accessible
Build your site so that it is accessible to all browsers and to PocketPC and Palm Pilot users. Don't forget, people with disabilities buy things too. Make your site Section 508 complaint. Your competition probably hasn't.

List of Free Article Directories

2007-05-20T01:18:00.000-07:00

Publishing your articles in free internet article directories can be helpful to everyone who loves to write articles and alongside get popularity. Here is the list of some free article directories which lets you publish your articles for free. One or two such sites don't provide priveleges to publish articles but they are free to read.

If there is any other sites which is not included in this list and you happen to know that I will love to include them as well. Just let me know.

List of Blog Directories-Submit your blog

2007-05-15T01:28:00.000-07:00

I have compiled a list of Blog Directories. Check out the one (or every) you like and submit your blog to those sites. It will help you to get exposure to others bloggers and blog interested

*The sites are listed in alphabetical order. **Some of the sites may not work due to maintenance or due to other problems.

Increase Traffic To Your Website - Get Linked To Social Bookmarking Sites

2007-05-11T00:27:00.000-07:00

A good way to increase traffic to your website and improve your page rankings is to get your blog / website linked to Social Bookmarking Sites. These websites are highly ranked by Google and submitting your blog to these sites is just like submitting your blog to different directories. You even do not need to submit your sites to search engines, since robots of different search engines come and index listed on these sites. By adding your blog on these sites, you also get backlinks that helps in improving your page ranks.

If you would like a quick and easy way to submit the latest entry in your blog, then social bookmarking sites are a good place to start. Here is a list of some social bookmarking websites that you can submit your blog to and share with the world.. The simple way to start is to first register with these sites and then submit your blog to them.

Well, if you are hardworking enough, submit each and every of your posts to all the site below and I am sure you will get lots of new reader.

So don't you think its time to start the right thing.....Right Now!!!

Well I am keen to keep on updating the new sites as and when I come across others. In case you happen to find some new sites which hasn't been listed above, please post a comment below with the name of the site. Your comment will be appreciated always and anytime.

*The sites are listed in alphabetical order. **Some of the sites may not work due to maintenance or due to other problems.

Blog Basics-Increase your site traffic

Anybody to continue this blog

Link Exchange - Build Your Link Popularity

Link Exchange Methods

Joining Link Exchange Programs

Some Link Exchange Sites

Please revisit this post for further developemnt

Blog Traffic Exchange-Promote your blog

How do these programs work?

Requirements

Top Blog Exchange Programs

Conclusion

See Also

Traffic Exchange Programs - easy way to get site traffic

Surfing Process

How much time you will need?

Some tips on joining traffic exchanges and getting most of it:

Some Traffic Exchange Programs I recommend

Meta Tags for better search results

Placement of the Meta Tags

Types of Meta Tags

Some Important Meta Tags

The keywords tag

Example:

Things to remember while building keyword meta tags

Description tag

Example:

Robots tag

Example:

Check your meta tags

Generate meta tags for your site

For further reading

Free Site Submission to Search Engines

Major Search Engines

Other Search Engines

List of Ping Services

For Bloggers

For Wordpress Users

Modifying ping list for Wordpress Users

Make Money Through Your Blog

Resources for Finding Content for Your Blogs

Top News Stories

Research: Reading What Other People Wrote

Tracking Stories

Industry News and Resources

Tag and Social Bookmarking Services

Most Popular/High Traffic

Top Search Results

Search Engines, Search Blogs and Search Feeds

Facts and Statistics

Internet Traffic, Web Trends, and Page Rank

75 Ways to Increase Your Site's Traffic

Top Social Bookmarking Sites

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Links

Your Comments

Listed Blog Directories

Complete List of Directories-6

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Complete List of Directories-5

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Complete List of Directories-4

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Complete List of Directories-2

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Complete List of Directories-1

List of RSS Blog Directories

Some tips to Increase Site Visitors

List of Free Article Directories

List of Blog Directories-Submit your blog

Increase Traffic To Your Website - Get Linked To Social Bookmarking Sites