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Archives for September 2008

To Date Or Not To Date

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Our own Ryan Caldwell in the Performancing Hive introduced an interesting question. Should he continue to display date information on his blog posts or should it be removed?

For the most part, users have responded that date information is important in determining if the information presented within the post is relevant or old. In my own experience, articles which don’t have a date published end up frustrating me as I can’t determine how old the information is. Also, I look pretty foolish when I come across an article and end up sharing it to everyone I know, only to find out that the post or subject matter is three years old.

I think the argument between which one bloggers should do is pretty simple. If the information you publish is not time sensitive, then you can probably do away with the timestamp. However, if you are a blog which publishes news or discusses recent events, the time stamp can serve as an important tool for not only your readers, but for search engines as well.

Let me know what you think in the comments. With regards to your feedback, I’d like to know your point of view from both sides. First as a reader, then as a blogger.

What To Expect In WordPress 2.7

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WordPress 2.7, (Tentatively) scheduled for a November release looks like it is going to blow the pants off of us. Recently, I took the opportunity to download a developmental version of 2.7 and although it is very early in development, I really like what I’ve seen thus far. Some highlights worth noting:

The developmental version of WordPress 2.7 should not be used on a live blog as it is not considered stable.

Redesigned back end: Although 2.5 introduced a brand new administration panel for WordPress, 2.7 is going to include a new user interface which I believe many people will enjoy. I liken it to the WordPress 2.3 backend with the style of 2.5.

Revamped Write Panel: One of the biggest complaints from users in WordPress 2.5 was the inability to move things around in the Write panel. Thankfully, this is coming back with a few additions tacked on.

Browsing And Installing Plugins From The Back End: WordPress 2.7 has tied the plugin repository into the back end of WordPress. This means you’ll be able to search, download and install plugins right from your installation of WordPress. How cool is that?

There are many other features which may or may not make it into the next version but so far, I have really enjoyed working with the new user interface. The navigational column on the left hand side of the page threw me for a loop for a little while but I have since come to enjoy the lack of vertical scrolling thanks to this column.

If you really want to get a detailed overview as to the changes found within 2.7 thus far, I suggest reading this post entitled (First Look At WordPress 2.7).

Tell me something, are you looking forward to 2.7?

Performancing Hive Testimonials

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I’m a huge fan of Performancing Hive. It’s the only place online where I’ve found a deep, long lasting community of friends who not only share amazingly helpful tips, but who are also willing to listen and provide moral support.

Sure we all care about getting those secret tips that will make us better. But to highlight the depth and strength of community found at The Hive, let me tell you something you may not know about me. I struggle on a daily basis with depression. And the one online community where I’ve found people concerned enough and willing to listen and show support is the Hive. The community is that strong.

That’s how I feel about The Hive. Let’s see what others say:

Peformancing Hive allows me to network and brainstorm with my favorite bloggers without being spammed with links to smarmy affiliate programs and ebooks. We share traffic and monetization strategies, promote blogs and posts, and offer tips for better, more productive blogging. Plus, the Hivers are darn nice people.

– Deborah Ng, Freelance Writing Jobs

Early on in my blogging career I realized that being part of a good community and having a knowledgeable network of business buddies would be very influential to my success. I didn’t quite realize how much though

I invested some time in trying to meet and get to know other bloggers, webmasters and marketers online. I found popular webmaster forums to be a good start but they were filled with too many people who didn’t really understand the business and spread information. Learning and networking with these people can do more damage than good.

Then one day it all changed I was introduced to Ryan Caldwell of Performancing.com who told me about Hive. I immediately joined and found myself surrounded by serious bloggers and internet marketers.

While I was already making good headway with my own little blogging empire this little network has given me further leverage when you are surrounded by knowledgeable people that knowledge will rub off as long as you are ready to absorb it.

I have learned a lot from the many successful and talented bloggers and by getting to know them it has opened up a wealth of opportunities. I’ve got to know top diggers, top marketers and very successful bloggers that would have previously seemed out of reach.

You learn little nuggets here and there that all add up to something very valuable. More recently I jumped in and tried out PMetrics (a performancing creation) after it was recommended by a Hive member and it’s the best stats program I’ve ever seen.

Right now I’m looking at the live traffic spy feature to see visitors arriving from Reddit and hoping that any minute a flood of Digg traffic will come. Finger crossed.

– Chris Tew, Web TV Hub

You could read the 10 best blogs on online business every morning and live in a state of awe at what some people can accomplish.

Or you could be a part of a down-to-earth, no-nonsense community that helps you get things done.

Are you day-dreaming, or are you building your business? See you at the Hive.

– Ahmed Bilal, Soccerlens

Besides being the place to meet and mingle with some of the best bloggers, Hive offers a place where your opinions feel valuable and you learn from every thread started.

Thanks to being a member of Hive, I have learned a ton of new tips and tricks to reach a different level of successful blogging and have also picked up some custom web design projects.

– Katy from imbloggingthat.com

During a dry spell between jobs, my contacts on Performancing Hive are where I was able to find the work that I needed. They are always there to help me with my writing, finding new opportunities, and continue to be a great source of information. Members definitely live up to the name of the site, as they act in the collective interest of the members, which in my experience, is something of a rarity in forums these days.

– David Peralty (xfep.com)

Being able to mingle with some of the greatest brains in the industry is an amazing opportunity. Because of this, the Hive has became an incubator for many powerful and successful ideas.

– Andrew McCloud, Programmer

I have been learning valuable lessons about blogging since the first time I logged into the Hive. The networking and social media marketing opportunities are well worth joining for. I am always confident that I can ask questions, seek advice or begin a discussion in the knowledge that responses will be quick, well thought out, supportive and often humorous as well! It’s great to be part of such a professional online community.

– Tracey Grady

Performancing Hive is an excellent place to network with and learn from devoted professionals, as well as a cosy place to just hang around. I’m happy to be a part of Hive, sharing my experience when I can. The fact that it is a pay service is actually making it stronger and more manageable, which is a good thing for the Hive community and its members.

– Thord Daniel Hedengren

HIVE Performancing forum shows up in my group start list everytime I open a new browser window .. and I read the “what’s new” posts before I even check my adsense or gmail! I have a great respect for everybody in the forum who participates, and hope that I have earned a little respect back with my own contributions and random ramblings (well, I try ). There are not too many forums out there that you can honestly say “Today I learned something new” but, it’s true.

It’s like hanging out at the water cooler at work. If you hang out and talk to people who are successful (online) and doing the same thing you are doing (trying to become successful online) .. it’s only natural that you will pick up a few things that you will not find at, say your local cafe internet shop or Tim Hortons! At HIVE .. it is like we are all in this game together .. we are all trying to succeed online and with the help of friends it just seems a little easier.

– HART from PetLvr.com

Thanks to the Hive, I now know another side of blogging that I didn’t know existed. The business side of blogging is an entirely different world when compared with blogging as a hobby. The hive has helped me realize what it takes to become a successful blogger in terms of monetization. The hive has also served as an awesome think tank for bloggers as a number of post ideas have come from the forum. All in all, a tight knit community of bloggers who core focus is centered on succeeding. The hive is just what the doctor ordered.

– Jeff from Jeffro2pt0.com

Of all my current online activities, my membership in the Hive is one that I consider to be among the most valuable and the best use of my time. All the colleagues I have come to know through the Hive are genuinely helpful and interested in contributing to the success of fellow members. Not only have I made valuable contacts and gotten some great design gigs, I have also learned a great deal from hanging out in the Hive. I highly recommend joining to anyone who is serious about being a successful blogger.

– Randa Clay

Besides having a cool name, Hive is a great place to network, ask questions, and learn from other bloggers in a wide variety of niches – including food, web design, and celebrity.

Also, freelance workers can benefit too. At first, I only knew a few people but one of them introduced me to another Hive member. That referral got me one of my highest paying contracts.

– NetMoneyJournal

The So-Called Sandbox is Page-Level NOT Site-Level

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For those of you who do not know, the Google Sandbox is widely thought of as a probationary period for new websites during which time your site has to really struggle to show up in Google’s search results. Many people deny that the Google Sandbox even exists.

I’d like to argue that the Sandbox, defined as a probationary period for new sites, does not exist. However, I do think that there is a buffering algorithm put in place by modern search engines. In my experience, this buffering algorithm is applied on a page-by-page basis, and even old websites, with plenty of backlinks, can suddenly find many of their pages diminished in the search results, simply due to a loss of page-level authority.

What’s my evidence?

I have several websites that have between 20 and 50 total pages. These websites are not under any obvious manual penalty. However, of the 20 to 50 pages, only 1 or 2 of the pages gets search traffic.

You might suggest that this is accidental. But there is a common pattern. The 1 or 2 pages were each promoted as linkbait. They each received numerous natural links (ranging from 3 to 141). And 6-9 months after being promoted as linkbait, they still draw in dozens of searches each day. The other articles on the site receive ZERO searches each day.

Possible counter evidence

On some of my websites, a new article will show up high in the search results within minutes of first publishing the article. This seems to indicate that modern search engines bias towards sites that meet an authority criteria and bias against sites that fail to meet that criteria. In other words, Sandboxing takes place at a domain level.

I think this is wrong. Instead, you should think of strength/authority as being a page level value. The homepage of any website has a certain strength/authority value and it is often the strongest of any page on the site. When a new article is posted on a homepage with high strength/authority, that strength gets transferred to the new article.

If a site has a very weak homepage, then you will not see the transfer of authority from the homepage to the new article. In fact, if you’ve done some linkbait articles, it could turn out that your linkbait articles have more authority than your homepage. Keep in mind that some of the authority from your linkbait articles will leak into your homepage, so the more linkbait you do, the better it is for your homepage. But if you’ve only done a few, it’s still quite possible that your homepage is weak.

More counter evidence

I’ve had websites whose articles showed up high in the serps, and then accidentally the home page lost thousands backlinks. Within a month, almost all search referrals stopped… it was almost like a retro-sandbox … except the search referrals coming into linkbait articles. You see, the linkbait articles had independent authority that wasn’t fully removed when the homepage lost it’s authority.

Conclusion

If you like the Sandboxing metaphor for understanding the way search engines list your articles in their results, the most important thing to remember is that Sandboxing analysis takes place for each page on your site… including your homepage. By building up the natural backlinks to articles on your site, you transfer authority throughout your site, including to your homepage. The more authority coming into your site from a variety of angles (articles, category pages, homepage) the stronger your index pages will be, and the stronger your index pages, the more quickly new articles will show up high in the search results.

Using Information Architecture To Plan A New Website

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Most people start a blog and only later start confronting the organizational structure. Obviously, content is king… so it definitely is important to create content.

But I want to suggest that your content will be a lot more effective, and flow more easily, if you take the time up front to organize your site’s conceptual structure and match it to navigational structure. This is called information architecture.

When you create “sections” of your site, you also create editorial expectations. Let’s say that you have a “How-To” section. Simply having a major section of your site titled “How To” will serve as an encouragement and reminder to produce how-to articles.

Over at the SeaWaves blog I wrote an article describing a specific instance of information architecture. It’s worth a look for a concrete example.

But here, I’d just like to describe the basic process of Information Architecture.

Step 1: Define the broad topic of your site

Step 2: Define 5-10 general categories that are collectively comprehensive enough to cover any topic you might write about. These will serve as the major sections of your site.

Step 3: For each general category, define one level of sub-categories

Step 4: Define relationships between information in the various general categories (some categories will have stronger relationships than others)

Step 5: Define relationships between information in the various sub-categories (intra and inter)

Step 6: Populate each category with content so that you can test the relationships you’ve defined

Questions To Ask Yourself When Planning A New Site/strong>

A) How will I highlight content throughout my site?
B) How will I show readers additional relevant information?
C) How can I make the categories on my site more than just content aggregators?
D) How can I present information to readers in the most captivating way possible?
E) How can I make navigation between sections as natural and smooth as possible?
F) How can I algorithmically relate information between categories in a useful way?

Backlinks Or Spam?

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The fine folks over at CatsWhoCode.com have put together a list of around 250 different blogs who have DoFollow links as well as blogs that use the CommentLuv plugin and the Top Commentators widget. The purpose of their article was to compile this list for those out their who are looking to gain backlinks.

I must give these guys credit. They did mention within their article about spamming blogs using their lists.

So, if you want to create a real visibility for your blog and not being called a spammer, always leave relevant comments when you have something to say.
Please do not use this list for spamming.

I use DoFollow on my own personal blog as well as CommentLuv as a means of rewarding individuals who contribute to the conversations that take place on the blog. I will admit, it seems like these two avenues have opened up even more flood gates in terms of the amount of spam comments I receive. Worst yet, the list of DoFollow blogs were compiled using software called Fast Blog Finder. So not only do I as a blog owner have to deal with automated spam, I now have to deal with human beings looking for backlinks through means of leaving comments.

You know, if you want to generate backlinks, do it the old fashioned way. Create a kick ass article. Create something that is link bait. It may not be as easy as commenting on a bunch of blogs but at least you’ll decrease the risk of your future comments being flagged as spam automatically from services such as Akismet. If you’re not sure on how to create link bait, check out the following articles from Performancing.