New Blog Takes A Shot At Me

Okay the other day I posted about the free premium UBD Moneymaker wordpress theme. In that article I mentioned a blog that was using the theme and linked to it. The blog was En Fuego Blogger dot com the article was I Didn't Start El Fuego, I Just Got Burned. Well I noticed yesterday evening a link back from that blog and stopped by to check it out. Well the guy takes a shot at me. I get knocked for my long URL, I know but what can I say, and questioned whether or not I actually earned close to $1500 in January. Well the long URL will most likely stay for the time being and yes I actually did earn that amount of money.

Anyway...Like I said the blog looks very new, only 3 articles. The theme looks great but something just doesn't seem quite right on the lower part of the sidebar. I read through the article that mentioned me and En Fuego blogger talks about the purpose of the blog. He is looking to put into practice what the meta-bloggers say will make a successful blog. I like his line about "I tried making money online and all I got was this stupid t-shirt." Very funny. He is wanting to judge based on results whether or not all the advice floating around is actually worth diddly. Well I must say I wish him the best, and thank him for the link and constructive criticism. Check out the blog and let me know, and him as well, whether or not you think the blog will really be as his name states, En Fuego? Or will it simply be a wisp of smoke from the ash heap of failed blogs?

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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Web Hosting Reviews

Are you looking to move your blog from a free blog to one hosted on your own domain? Are you just unhappy with your current host and wanting to change? Whatever your reason you should check out Webhosting Geeks dot com. They have a nice reviews of many of the top hosts, including my favorite BlueHost. The nice thing about how the site is set up is that you readers can review the host that they are using. I did a review of BlueHost because that is who I use.

In addition to the reviews they have a ton of great information related to hosting. If you are just starting to learn about hosting your own blog or site then you should check out all of the great articles they have on the subject. There is information on everything from beginner instructions all the way to advanced information.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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Free Premium UBD MoneyMaker Theme From Unique Blog Designs

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up on an awesome and free Wordpress theme from the great team over at Unique Blog Designs. Here is the information I received from Nate Whitehill. Check out the theme in action by visiting a new "on fire" blog I found. It looks like the blog is still in the development stages but it is one of the few blogs other than the live demo blog that is running the new theme.

the UBD Moneymaker Theme is now available to download - for free! The theme was designed by Phillip van Coller in conjunction with UBD. The UBD Moneymaker Wordpress Theme is not just any ordinary theme - it has special functionality that you tend to only see in premium Wordpress themes.

For example, the UBD Block Ad Plugin is built-in - you do not need to install it separately. This is also true for the social bookmarking functionality and several other sidebar plugins.
Maximum ease of use - enhance your theme without touching a single line of source code! Not comfortable editing your theme’s source code? Fear not! The theme also features a built-in “Theme Options” panel which allows you to integrate Feedburner, MyBlogLog Recent Readers, and the 468×60 in post banner ad. You can edit all of this stuff without ever touching a single line of code! How is that for ease of use?

A Theme Options panel makes theme enhancement much easier for people not comfortable editing source code. We are happy to announce that all future UBD Designs and Wordpress Themes will feature the Theme Options panel for maximum ease of use.

UBD Moneymaker Theme Features & Benefits

• Fully Widget Compatible (drag and drop your preferred selection of sidebar elements)
• Built-in UBD Block Ad Plugin (manage and automatically rotate your 125×125 banner ads)
• Additional ad management for the in-post 468×60 advertising banner
• Theme Options panel allows you to integrate Feedburner and MyBlogLog recent readers code - all without touching a single line of source code
• Built-in social bookmarking functionality
• Search Engine Optimized and cross-browser compatible
• Wordpress 2.5.1 compatible
• Free to use on as many sites as you would like!

Need Theme Customization? If you are interested in having us professionally customize your UBD Moneymaker Theme, including color changes and/or logo integration, please contact us for a price quote.

Usage Agreement This theme is free to download and use on as many sites as you would like. That being said, we would sincerely appreciate if you left the credits in the footer. Thank you. We hope you enjoy the theme! Let us know what you think by leaving a comment on our blog.

Best regards,

The UBD Team (Josh Mullineaux, Matt Blancarte and Nate Whitehill)

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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PPC Advertising For Lazy Bloggers

Okay...It isn't just for lazy bloggers...

How many of you have wanted to run a PPC advertising campaign for your blog or other online or offline venture, but you didn't know how to begin? Were you afraid of sinking a lot of money into an ad campaign with limited return? Well there is a company that offers a solution. You can connect your blog or any other business with readers and customers looking for your information, products, and services.

A company called NetworkSolutions has a new program called PerformanceClicks! It is basically a one-stop website promotion solution for any small business from blogging to landscaping. They will do all the work for you. They will research keywords, analyze your website, create your ad copy, purchase keywords and report on your campaign.

You can choose from two types of affordable, fully-managed pay per click marketing plans based on your budget and needs. They have pre-packaged plans that start from $125 a month all the way up to fully customized packages that include custom landing pages, daily monitoring to maximize your return, local business ads on google maps and more.

The pre-packaged Performance Clicks - Guaranteed option is designed to send traffic to your site and to allow you to try out PPC advertising without laying out huge up front expenses. You purchase just the amount of clicks you want to send to your Web site on a monthly basis and the traffic is guaranteed. Now just to note so there is no confusion that guarantee is after 3 months. Which if you ever have run a ppc campaign makes sense. It does take a bit of time to refine and maximize a campaign.

They do offer the fully customizable packages that start at $400. These aren't a bad option for mid level blogs which already have a decent following but are looking to take it up a notch. The $400 might seem a bit steep but if you are monetizing your blog you should see a pretty good return. Overall I think the packages are a pretty good option for those of you looking to get your feet wet in the ocean of PPC advertising.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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Smorty Keeping Up With The IZEA?

I have used Smorty in the past for a few posts on some of my various blogs and really liked the payment setup as well as how they handled the posting requirements. The biggest drawback for me at the time was the community was small and the opps were limited. Because of this I gravitated to PPP and other mediums for earnings through posting and links.

During this time PayPerPost became IZEA and they have just recently launched SocialSpark. Well Smorty is not just standing around being passed by SocialSpark and PayPerPost. They have launched a new option for Smorty members. Smorty has a new Post Exchange Program is for the Smorty community to become stronger by helping each other. It simply aims to build a strong and ongoing inbound link structure and increase your online traffic. It is completely free to use and all approved blogs can participate. Post exchange works on a point based system. For every post you write, a different blogger can write a post for you in return. Exchange as many posts as you can until you have used up your chosen category of bloggers. For every post you write, a post will be written for you by a different blogger, one for one.

This is very similar to the sparks on SocialSpark. You don't get paid for the post but you do get to help out a fellow blogger in the process. If you haven't had a chance to check out Smorty you should stop over and give them a shot.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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SocialSpark - The Online Earnings Community For Bloggers

SocialSpark is a new site by IZEA the folks behind PayPerPost, Blogger's Choice, and Zookoda. SocialSpark is a Social Marketing Network that connects advertisers and bloggers through an online advertising marketplace. Advertisers are able to target blogs based on conversational topics and make cash sponsorship offers to the bloggers who publish them. Bloggers can make money by either placing display advertisements on their blog or by writing sponsored content. The sponsorships offered through the SocialSpark marketplace allow advertisers to build buzz, generate traffic and maximize social media exposure.

I know what you are probably thinking, "What is the big difference between PayPerPost and SocialSpark?" Or maybe your question is, "After all of the google pagerank problems with PayPerPost why should we even consider SocialSpark?" Well let me try and answer those questions for you.

1. All links are no-follow, fully search engine compliant and must carry in-post disclosure.
2. SocialSpark offers display ads as well as Sponsored Posts.
3. Greatly expanded reporting capabilities and blog analytics.
4. Ability to have bloggers or advertisers initiate a transaction.
5. Social networking tools to foster communities and conversation.

I am really just getting into the meat of the site and starting to take advantage of the offers. I actually really love the "Spark" side of the site. You can take a spark, there are no earnings involved, and blog about whatever the spark creator is wanting and then they will reciprocate in some specified way. It is a great way to help out fellow bloggers and to get a feel for how the SocialSpark system works. Look for some of my upcoming series of posts The Saturday Spark!

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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If You're A Blogger Or Affiliate Marketer You MUST Protect Your Identity

While I have never had a true identity theft episode in all of my years on the internet I have had one issue with Paypal and chargebacks and my bank account. It was a big mess that took weeks to sort out, and in that time I was out around $2000. It was not fun and tons of work for me.

I have spoken with several people, one in just the last severl days, that have had identity theft episodes where a credit card or in one case a very large home loan was taken out in their name using their social security number and other personal information. In all cases trying to sort the mess out has cost a lot of time and money

Because I do so much work online and have quite a few different places that have my personal information, I have taken steps to protect myself against identity theft. If you are looking to make money online many places will require your personal information for 1099 purposes. If you are not protecting your identity you are taking a huge risk.

The company I use is called Lifelock. I am an affiliate with them. Yes I have run campaigns for lifelock, but no that is is not affiliate link. I am not looking for affiliate sales with this article. I started doing affiliate marketing for them after I was already using their services.

You may recognize the name Lifelock because they have done quite a bit of advertising lately. Their commercials are the ones where Todd Davis, their CEO, gives out his actual social security number over the radio. At Lifelock, not only do they secure your identity and guarantee your good name, they ensure it with their $1 Million Service Guarantee. Lifelock has the credit bureaus to set fraud alerts on your behalf. That is all they credit bureaus offer when they talk about ID theft. Lifelock goes beyond that though. Unless your circumstances change and you tell them not to, every 90 days or so they will ask the credit bureaus to do it again. Most people could do this manually but you know that you probably wouldn't and neither would most. Next they request that your name be removed from pre-approved credit card and junk mail lists and they keep making the requests as they expire. This is huge and reduces the amount of junk mail drastically. That isn't all they do. They also order your free credit reports on your behalf from the major credit bureaus and they are sent directly to you. This is done every year.

They also have what they call WalletLock. If ever your wallet goes missing, just give Lifelock a call - anytime, anywhere - and a WalletLock specialist will help you contact each credit card, bank or document issuing company, cancel your affected accounts and complete the paperwork and steps necessary to replace your lost documents, including your credit/debit cards, driver's license, social security card, insurance cards, checkbook - even travelers checks - at no additional cost.

And of coure there is that guarantee. If your Identity is stolen while you are a member of LifeLock, they will do whatever it takes to help you recover your good name and will spend up to $1,000,000 to do it. If you are not taking steps to protect your identity I urge you to do so. Blog safely folks :).

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Clustered Web Hosting For Your Small Business

Concentric Business Solutions, a leading provider small business hosting, has a unique solution to the typical shared hosting. They offer what they call Clustered Hosting. It is a patented hosting platform designed to eliminate many of the problems inherent with typical shared web hosting. Instead of your site being hosted on a single shared server with clustered hosting you are not limited to one server. You access the processing power of many servers and your applications are distributed in real-time. All web traffic is dynamically load-balanced across many servers by Clustered Hosting as well, so the impact of an increased load is diluted. Instead of a single server handling the traffic for multiple shared sites, clustering ensures that Web servers are available to handle huge spikes in traffic.

You can get domain name registration services and email hosting for your small business web sites. They offer the typical free domain name with every hosting account. With each account you get web hosting, email hosting, and domain hosting registration services--including Private Domain Registration--for small businesses with our dedicated and shared clustered web site hosting provider services. They offer free spam filters as well as built in virus protection.

Their prices are very competitive with other hosting providers. With their patented Clustered hosting it is a great hosting solution at a great price. The even offer a free 30 day trial. They have monthly, yearly, and multi-year hosting options depending on your budget and needs. If you are looking for an affordable, scalable, and reliable web host you should consider Concentric and their Clustered Hosting options.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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Diamonds Are A Man's Best Friend

I know I changed that saying up a bit, but think about it. When a man has no idea what to get for his wife or girlfriend he can always get a diamond. When a man screws up and needs to apologize, other than a sincere about face, nothing says I'm sorry like a few sparkling carats. As Valentine's Day approaches there will be thousands of guys racking their brains trying to come up with a gift idea. Quick tip, give up and buy her a diamond ring, necklace, ear rings, bracelet, something with a real diamond sparkley thingy in it. That way you can just chill out, relax, and enjoy the Super Bowl...

I have bought quite a few pieces of diamond jewelry online and have been extremely happy with my purchases. The key really is buying from a well known reputable place. I wouldn't recommend swindley-diamond-store.freewebs.com. A brand name or well known established site is probably your best bet. Just a tip though so take it or leave it.

I was introduced to a new online diamond retailer today Ciara Diamonds. I hadn't heard of them before so I stopped by the website to check them out. Ciara Diamonds is not yet open for business. I still poked around the site for a bit to see what information I could glean about them.

At first glance the site doesn't look too bad. The layout is very user friendly and the color scheme and graphics are nice. According to the site they are dedicated to customer satisfaction. A good thing to be dedicated to but their customer service page still points to a contact us page that still has the "lorum ipsum" filler text and nothing else. I'm sure though once they are completely live that will be taken care of. Their also aren't yet any diamonds to look at, but once open, they assured me that there will be a huge selection of expertly cut diamonds and a search tool with a variety of search options. They are only going to sell certified diamonds which is a plus for the consumer. They also are going to offer free shipping and free returns.

The thing that caught my attention was their guarantee. They offer a Three-year Diamond Insurance Guarantee. They say that within three years of purchase, you may return the ring for any reason. The diamond you return within three years will be valued at the price you paid for it. That is an innovative idea to the diamond industry and if upheld would allow customers to always shop with risk-free confidence. The only drawback I see is that with the relatively new nature of the site and company people might be a bit leery and think that if it is too good to be true it probably is.

My overall first impression is that the site is going to be very well presented and offer a great selection of high quality certified diamonds with free shipping. They are going to offer a phenomenal Three-year Diamond Insurance Guarantee with free returns in the event you need it. I think that given a bit of time to establish their reputation Ciara Diamonds will be an online diamond retailer to be reckoned with.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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IZEA Realrank Is Now Live

For those of you familiar with PayPerPost you have known about RealRank for quite some time. For those of you that aren't RealRank is a new Blog ranking system from Izea the site - IzeaRank.com. I got the email today letting me know the site was live. I stopped by registered my blog and checked everything out. Understand this is a ranking system for blogs and nothing else. In fact they allow users to flag sights that aren't blogs. The downside I see right away is the opt-in facet of the system. There will be sights that choose not to participate because of it's association on some level with PayPerPost, or some other reason.

RealRank according to the site is a "blog ranking system that uses real data to calculate which blogs are getting the most traffic and have the most influence on the web. IZEARanks ranks the top blogs in the blogosphere via actual site statistics, not an extrapolation of estimates." There is a very nice graphical chart somewhat remeniscent of Alexa's comparison graphs. You can chart and compare multiple blogs based on RealRank, pageviews, and unique visitors. One nice thing is that a blogger can choose whether or not they want their stats public or private. This doesn't apply to the actual RealRank only to the pageviews and unique vistors stats. I think this will help attract some bloggers that are looking for a bit more privacy.

With the relative ease of gaming Alexa and all the Google PR crap of late it will be nice to see a blog ranking system that actually means something and that is actually based on traffic and visitors and not like PR that Google can just decide to change on a whim because they happen to decide paid links are a bad thing.

I would love to see RealRank rise to the top of blog ranking and really take out Google PR, Alexa, and Technorati. The only way this is going to happen though is for bloggers like you and me to use the RealRank system. I encourage all of my readers to head over to IzeaRanks.com and register your blog today.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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Don't Worry Be Happy

How many of you have read the book The Secret? Well a featured teacher from the mega-bestseller The Secret, Marci Shimoff, has written a new book about why she loves The Sedona Method and is urging people to use this release technique to let go of negative thoughts and feelings in her new book, Happy For No Reason.

The Sedona Method is a simple and powerful technique that will show you how to uncover your natural ability to let go of painful or unwanted feelings. The Sedona Method consists of a series of questions you ask yourself that lead you to self-awareness of what you are feeling and guides you into the experience of letting go and really being happy.

Hale Dowskin another 24 Teachers from the movie The Secret and author of the New York Times Best Seller, The Sedona Method, is offering a Free DVD and CD when you visit Sedona.com sign up for the free Sedona Method Success newsletter. If you are fan of The Secret and the Sedona Method you should stop by the site. There a lot of great articles from previous newsletters dealing with all sorts of personal well being topics from addiction to financial issues. Take a peek and you just might Learn how The Sedona Method is the secret to mastering The Secret.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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Advertise Using Fundraising

How many parents just jump for joy when your child brings home a fundraising packet? I know I certainly don't. Traditional fundraising is really very annoying. Little kids and even adults running around selling everything from candy bars and fruit to exorbitantly overpriced wrapping paper and stationary sets. In recent years many other fundraising options have come available. Many large national and regional retailers have programs where a group can sign up and a portion of sales generated by that group's constituents.

Well there is a new site Shoutback.com that has a new idea in fundraising. It combines the new group-buy-percentage concept with online sponsorship and affiliate advertising. A group signs up with shoutback and then invites it's members using their own contacts from your existing email address book. The more members that join, the more money that is generated for your group. With my father being a pastor I can see how this could be a nice fundraising tool for a group like a church or church school. It would be a nice alternative to the traditional sales type fundraiser.

Once a group signs up and has members those members then can benefit your cause just by shopping, selling, and saving through the Shoutback.com website. They can also take advantage of special business offers, deals, and auctions. This is where you as an advertiser comes in. You can sign up with Shoutback as an advertiser and then you can choose groups to sponsor and set up a budget. This will put your ad in front of the group members. The more groups you sponsor the more people see your ad. This also gives you a bit of ad targeting power as you can pick groups in a particular location and with a certain type of members. This is pretty much PPC advertising so that is what your budget is for.

I think this could be a nice addition to an advertising portfolio. Being able to target geographically and to a point demographically is a great option. You would also be helping out local groups looking to raise funds. You can advertise, and possibly make some money yourself all while helping groups you choose raise some money. Seems like a win-win for both groups and advertisers alike.


later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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Isn't Online Gambling Dead?

Isn't online gambling dead? I was under the impression the US government shut down online gambling? WBoy was I wrong! Online gambling, albiet without real mone is alive and well across the states. I guess there are over 3000 online casinos. It seems that there are still tons of people playing poker, craps, blackjack, and more. The big name sites are still sponsoring entrants into the World Series Of Poker tournament and the other large tournaments. I personally don't gamble but know a lot of folks that do on occasion for entertainment. I make it to a casino, and there are actually quite a few in the Chicago area, about twice a year.

For those of you that do gamble there is an interesting site I came across in my web advebrowsing over the last several days. The site is Pro360.com and it is an online casino review site. I honestly never thought there was anything close to 3000 online casinos. Well there are and Pro360 helps the player by provided in-depth reviews and ratings. Their charts provide their editor ratings, a trust score, player ratings, bonus information, certificates, and more for each casino. So if you are a player of the games of chance and are looking for some gambling action onine stop by Pro360.com before visiting any online gambling site.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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DelightfulDeliveries.com - Hot 100 Website

If you have been poking around the site for a bit you probably know that I love gourmet foods. On top of that many of my most successful affiliate campaigns have been in that category. Well today I just wanted to share with you a great Gourmet Gifts site that I love. They have just recently been named one of The Hot 100 Retail Websites by leading industry magazine, Internet Retailer.

DelightfulDeliveries.com Recognized as Hot 100 Retail Website

Internet Retailer Ranks Website Among Best in Nation for 2008

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--DelightfulDeliveries.com, the premiere Internet Gift Retailer and America’s #1 Gift Basket Website, today announced it has been named one of The Hot 100 Retail Websites for 2008 by leading industry magazine, Internet Retailer. The Hot 100 list represents the best of what retailers are doing online, highlighting innovation and setting the standards in online for what the rest of the industry should be doing.

DelightfulDeliveries.com, a privately-held company, with one of the largest and most unique selections of gourmet gifts, ranked alongside larger sites such as Dell, Nike and Amazon.com, by building its award-winning site on selection, functionality, speed and the complete customer experience. A recent re-design has improved the customer’s shopping experience to make holiday gift-giving easy and enjoyable, including rating and reviews, behavioral recommendations and free shipping offers.

“We are extremely honored to be recognized as a pacesetter in online retailing,” said Eric Lituchy, Founder and CEO of DelightfulDeliveries.com. “We pride ourselves on using the latest technology to make gift-giving fun and easy. Being named among the best in the nation validates we are succeeding in our efforts to deliver the best possible customer experience.”

In addition to making Internet Retailer’s The Hot 100 list for 2008, DelightfulDeliveries.com was recently recognized by Inc. Magazine as part of its Inc. 5000, which highlights the fastest growing private companies.

DelightfulDeliveries.com offers over 2000 unique and delicious gifts from America’s best brands to the finest boutique shops. Consumers can easily shop the site by gift or food category, occasion, type and best-seller. Corporate gift-givers can choose from hundreds of customized gourmet treats.

For additional information, and to see a complete selection of gifts available, visit www.DelightfulDeliveries.com.

About Delightful Deliveries

DelightfulDeliveries.com is an award-winning website that began in 1998 and quickly established itself as one of the premier Internet gift retailers. Its mission is to bring great products to gift-givers, while providing world-class service. The company selects its offerings from a broad variety of fine food gift products for consumers and for corporate gifts, and gathers them in one place to make the selection process quick and simple.


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Smorty - Better Than PayPerPost

Well in most opinions probably not but there are some advantages. If after all the Google pagerank issues of the past month you are still doing paid links and paid posting then let me point you to another good paid posting site. The site is Smorty. What Smorty stands for or means I have no idea. What Smorty is is a PayPerPost type of a site with a few added benefits. So if you are looking for another revenue stream in your making money online ventures you might want to check out Smorty.

My first impression of the user control panel and account management front end is that it is quite a bit less robust than that of PayPerPost. That being said, the opportunities available pay very well and there are a decent amount of them. There aren't as many as you might get from the big boy but enough to be a nice supplement to other paid posting sources.

One advantage that Smorty has over PayPerPost is that they pay weekly. With PPP you have to wait about 30 days for payment for a post. With Smorty all posts approved, usually within 5 days of submission, within the week are paid that week. This is a great way to supplement income to your blog and get paid weekly.

Another plus is that the posting requirements aren't quite as restrictive as PPP. There isn't a tracking image which is nice. Overall I really like Smorty and really think it would make a great addition to your online get paid for blogging ventures.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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Announcing 45n5 Top Blogs Review Series

Almost 2 months ago now Mark over at 45n5 published a list of the top 100 "make money online" type blogs. The list hit big on digg and got lots of link love and mentions from many of the top blogs he put on the list. The obvious blogs top the list: ProBlogger, ShoeMoney, & JohnChow. The list is based on a combination of PR, Technorati, and Alexa stats.

They also have a widget you can add, a banner, that will display your rank on the list. You can see mine in the sidebar. There is also another great feature called MoneyLinks. MoneyLinks is a feed of all the new posts of the blogs on the list. So this post will be on there shortly. This is a big plus for the blogs featured on the list as it gives them some good exposure.

I debuted on the list at #157 and really haven't went anywhere. I have moved this blog to it's own domain and lost quite a bit of "juice" so I guess still sitting @ 158 I shouldn't complain. I actually have better stats than quite a few blogs above me but alas I must be patient for the numbers to catch the new domain.

Anyway I have decided to start a bi-weekly series of reviews based off of this list. The list includes more than 100 sites and I will choosing my blogs from those that are 125 or lower. I will do a full review of the site. It will not be sponsored nor solicited. Although I will contact the author to let them know I am running the review. I will give an honest critique of each site. I hope the reviews will help you find some great blogs, and also help the author find some great new readers. I am writing the fist review and it will be published by the end of the week depending on post schedules, so stay tuned.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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TNX.net Link Ads - Review

In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages. (Source: Google).

In light of the recent Google PR brouhaha about sponsored links being penalized and all I thought now would be a good time to bring you a review of TNX.net. I wanted to focus for just a bit on how TNX.net, in my opinion, is better than TLA and how TNX relates to the Google PR issue. I also want to give you a brief overview of the program. Also coming from an affiliate marketing background I will touch on their affiliate program and how it could benefit you and how it relates to the TLA program.

For Advertisers

TNX has a very well designed and organized Ad Campaign wizard. Creating an ad campaign is easy and straight forward. You are going to
buy links and you can set the parameters for the sites you want your ads on. You can set the website categories, geo-location, number of Yahoo Backlinks and Google PR. TNX makes it possible to combine different types of targeting and compare the efficiency with different setups.

For Publishers

You can very easily access the code from the sidebar, add sites, view your site list, and sell your TNX points for cash. Currently the set price from TNX is $.66 per 1000 points. There are some daily limits on selling points but they are reasonable. You can also sell your points to other users at whatever price you can agree to.

Text Links and Google PR

First the Google issue. TNX.net sets up it's links in such a way so that search engines cannot track its links. The TNX-Code you install on your website is only getting links from static text files that are located on our servers. The installed code is not loading any scripts, databases etc. TLA on the other hand requires webmasters to upload any XML files onto servers which may be easily tracked by search engines and as we all know now can lead to penalties. Also, TNX.net keeps its inventory private while TLA’s inventory is somewhat public (you get screenshots and site name but not URL). TNX.net helps publishers and advertisers both webmasters don’t have to worry about being penalized by Google for selling links and advertisers can have confidence that their links are being counted by Google. TNX only charges its members just 12.5%, compared to 50% from TLA, both, advertiser and webmaster.

Affiliate Program

Well first of all the TNX.net affiliate program gets higher marks than TLA because TLA uses a really screwy code for it's links and they don't load on blogger blogs very well if at all. TNX.net banner and links work great with no problems. I wouldn't have thought this would be an issue but I have contacted TLA many times over the last several months and they keep responding they are working on it. Great thanks how can it be that hard? I am moving to TNX.net you took to long. The affiliate program pays a 13.3% lifetime commission for the publishers you refer.

Summary

Overall I am pretty impressed with the TNX program and personally like it better over TLA. This is due to the paid link/PR issue and also to some extent the affiliate program. There is however one thing I don't like initially and that is the point system. I would have preferred straight cash. The points may grown on me though. I would recommend this program over TLA and believe it is a great way to earn some money with your site and to build links without being penalized.



later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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HostMonster - Unlimited Domains At No Additional Charge

For those of you who haven't noticed I just recently moved this blog to it's own domain. For those of you out there looking to do the same or are looking for an inexpensive way to host landing pages and multiple domains you might want to consider HostMonster. Let me give you a quick Hostmonster Review and let you know some features.

Hostmonster uses a graphical web-based web-hosting control panel called CPanel, designed to make administration of websites easy. The control panel handles all aspects of website administration in its interface in it's Windows XP alike theme. CPanel is probably the best web-based control panel out there. This is a great feature.

Order for at least one year and get your new domain FREE FOR LIFE. This is a pretty good little option. If you stay for seveal years you pretty much pay for the service just by eliminating the domain registration fees.

There are some drawbacks though and I would be remiss If I didn't point them out. They only offer one plan that is it. Depending on your term the monthly pricing is different. The longer your term the lower the monthly price. The one plan is a 300GB Disk Space and 3000GB Badwidth + unlimited Add-on domain plan. The drawback is that the 300GB and 3000GB are for all your hosted domains.

Overall though I think it would be worth you checking it out as a low cost alternative. It certainly has it's advantages in certain areas.

later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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The Logic of Spock - The Search For Darren Rowse

Several days ago I came across a new, online since April, niche search engine. Spock is a people search application. You can search for family, friends, celebrities, really just about anyone. Spock combines two very powerful forces. First, it organizes web content about people into easily understood search results. Information is gleaned from bio pages, social networks, news sites, blogs, directories ...pretty much every place imaginable on the Internet. Second, the Spock community contributes information to help enhance the search experience. Members can add tags, pictures, and web links or simply vote on existing information to increase its relevance. Anyone can join to help make search better for everyone. This is not a social network. They are not trying to be a social network. Spock is a people search application - once you find who you are looking for, go ahead and click through to see where they are on the web. The way it appears to me and a good way for you to picture how it works is to compare it with Technorati only with people. The setup, to me at least, is very similar only you are searching for a person or information on that person instead of a blog or blog article.

Now one thing that I really like about the search engine is that, like Technorati, you can claim your search result. The best way to do this is to register and then log in to your account. You can claim results by entering in additional email addresses you have, social networking accounts, etc.. When you do a search the results are linked to external sources such as social networks and email addresses. By entering your information you claim these results, which will give you maximum control over your Spock identity. Once your account is setup you can then change and edit what is shown for your results, including contact information. You really can shape what information people see. Plus, when there is new information about you on the Internet they send an alert so you are always up to date. To me this is crucial as at first I really had an issue with privacy.

I registered with Spock and then did a couple of searches to get a feel for how it worked. Then decided to see what would come up when searching for prominent bloggers such as Darren Rowse. I decided to feature him to show you a bit more how exactly the search engine works. I typed in Darren Rowse hit search, and was given a list of results. Now a really cool feature is that you can generate a widget for the results. Here is the widget for my search of Darren Rowse. The url for the search results is http://www.spock.com/q/darren-rowse. For some reason though the results aren't showing up until you hit the more results link.


To give you another quick example here is the widget for when I searched for my name. I think this might be a bit of a better example of how the widget works. None of these are me, but was pretty cool to see how many Johnathan Longs there are floating around.



Now not only can you create a widget of the broad search results you can also create a widget for single entries. After searching for Darren Rowse, and browsing through the list of results I clicked on the first one to see the information for that result. Once you do that you can create a widget for that single entry. Here is the single entry widget on Darren Rowse.


Now you can also search for characteristics such as vegetarian, blue eyes, or blonde hair, or a combination such as short fat ugly. I did several combinations similar and was somewhat amused by the results. Although I don't know that the people that came up after I searched for some things would be too thrilled.

Head on over to Spock.com and check out the search engine. Type in your own name and see what comes up. Did you find yourself? Register and then log in and begin the process of shaping the information that will be seen when you are searched for. Do you think there are any privacy issues raised by a free search engine like this?


later all and have a profitable and productive blogging day

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