SEOMoz.org recently published their list of the 500 most linked-to domains/pages on the web. The top 10 is as follows:
Just for giggles, Microsoft.com comes in at number 11. Are you lucky enough to own or operate a domain in the top 500? If so, let us know what the domain is in the comments.
It took us a couple of months to get things kicked off, but we’re pleased to tell everyone that we’re getting into high gear with the reboot. Perhaps it’s best I referred to Ahmed’s outline in doing the first Performancing reboot a couple of years back, and let me quote:
Part 1: Performancing.com – what’s the point?
Part 2: Content is NOT King.
Part 3: If it Ain’t Broke, Break It.
Part 4: How can Performancing Make Money?
Part 5: 3 Keys to Blog Promotion
Part 6: Wrapping up the Performancing Reboot
And, of course, I cite my more basic (or generic) premise of getting rid of the bad stuff and focusing on the good.
We’ve actually started with part #3, which is breaking it. In a way, it is broken. The current Perf infrastructure has made it difficult to produce content, and to establish lively discussions. And so that’s one reason we decided to go for a change in software.
In terms of visuals, we’ve commissioned Randa Clay to do a major design overhaul, and this is in the final stages. We’re trying to improve the site not only in terms of visual appeal, but also in terms of the user interface. What good is content when it’s not accessible, right? (This brings us to part #2, partly.)
What’s important to discuss and disclose, though, is part #1: what’s the point? I know Performancing has launched with stellar content, with a stellar cast and crew (if you can call it that), and with an excellent community. Somewhere along the way, things have changed. The energy has changed and the people have changed. But our focus has still remained faithful to our helping bloggers succeed motto.
But then this has made me think. Could it be time for a drastic shift in our focus, as well? It’s sure great to talk about blogging, and getting to help fellow bloggers along the way. But to some extent, blogging about blogging has become more and more difficult over the years, partly because the metablogging scene has become crowded, and partly because blogging has evolved, along with other new media. I think there is room to grow, and Performancing should not only cater to bloggers and blogging.
At least in practice, we’ve been catering to the rest of the social media crowd. We have been involved in non-blogging activities for some time, and this includes our various services, the Perfcast, social media push, dabbling in lifestreaming, and the like. It’s no longer confined to blogging. But the challenge here is being flexible but still knowing our limits, so we don’t spread ourselves too thin in the myriad of topics and niches that social media encompasses.
I guess focusing on content, sharing information and ideas and all that has resulted in community taking a backseat. From what Jeff and I have been discussing, we feel that it’s best to let the Perf community take a more active role, to the point of leading the way, with us editors just acting as guides and moderators.
The community is a rich resource of knowledge and connections. Take for instance the Hive–it was originally envisioned as a closed set of movers and shakers in the blogging scene, and the place to be when you wanted to get into the minds of these thinkers and doers. Performancing.com as a whole should be a bigger community much like the Hive. It’s a bigger ship to steer, but that should make it all the more interesting.
Performancing is one of our stronger brands at Splashpress Media. In some ways, though, the strength of its brand has been attributed to the people that have been involved. And this can sometimes be a brand’s weak point, particularly if different people take turns at the helm, so to speak. What of continuity? What of focus? What of the contacts?
The purpose of this reboot is to reestablish Performancing as a place–the place–where people go to to talk about social media as an empowering tool, and actually get to practice what is being talked about.
Now on to the details and the actual execution! We will keep you posted.
Blogsecurity has released a new version of their WordPress vulnerability scanner. The new version has been rewritten from the ground up. Not only has it been ported to PHP, but it’s now implemented into WordPress for future expansion.
A cool new feature implemented in this version is XML driven tests. This means that anyone can write an XML based test and submit it to Blogsecurity to have it included into the scanning engine.
To give this new version a try as well as directions on how to install and configure the plugin, take a look at the WordPress Scanner Information Page.
Our apologies to folks who use pMetrics to track and analyze traffic. Due to a growing userbase, we recently added a new server to increase the capacity of the service. But due to some technical glitches along the way, pMetrics is currently offline and is displaying a 403 error.
We’re doing our best to resolve this problem as soon as possible. It would require just a few adjustments on our end, but as things go, it might take up to a full day for things to resolve (as DNS caches around the world refresh, and all that). Please bear with us.
phpBB.com, the home of the popular open source bulletin board software phpBB has gone offline today due to a hack. The hack was a result of a 0-day-exploit in their PHPList installation which was responsible for sending out release notices. It is important to note that their have been no vulnerabilities found within the phpBB software itself. However, the hacker has gained access to the user accounts stored in the database for the main phpBB forum.
The attacker gained entry through the PHPList application and was able to dump a complete backup of the emails on file. He then used the same exploit to access the phpBB.com database. Both the email list from PHPlist and a copy of the phpBB.com users table were then posted publicly.
For more information regarding the attack, please see this article on the area51 website. If you think you are affected by this hack, you are highly encouraged to start changing your passwords around if you use the same one on more than just the phpBB.com forum.
Rohit Bhargava blogs on Mr. Tweet about the five stages of Twitter acceptance. These five are, from his view, different levels of how a user actually uses Twitter. This ranges from just signing up for the sake of having an account to engaging in meaningful conversations with other users.
I can say I’ve been having a mix of #4 and #5. But what I can perhaps highlight from my personal experience is not the where in these stages, but rather the how much aspect of it.
I’ve been a user since practically the service started. And I’d become so much of an avid Twitter user that my account even turned into something akin to an instant messaging client at one point. But lately, I’ve found myself only logging in to check for updates once or twice a day (or even less). And most of the time I lurk and listen, rather than contribute. I’m on the lookout for interesting things that other users might link to or say, which makes for good tips on what to write about. And then there are the occasional bursts of being #3–that is, posting links about the latest goings on in the network, which includes Performancing.com and our various services, new and old.
Because of this I feel I may not be maximizing my use of Twitter, if only for lack of the time spent actually connecting and communicating. But then, however rare this may be, I can still say that I probably fall under the new category (#6), too, which is Collaborating: Actual, meaningful relationships and collaborations have occurred out of my usage of Twitter. A lot of my colleagues, clients and service providers are on Twitter and we do sometimes discuss projects over a few tweets.
Which category do you fall under?
This week, David and I continue our blogging series by discussing Content Generation and search engine optimization. We highligh a number of topics such as DoFollow or NoFollow, Social Media, and a whole lot more. Plus, at the end of the show we provide a great list of resources for you to check out if you’re into SEO.
Content Generation
Coming up with ideas
Building a voice
Staying Fresh
Tracking News
Inspiration
Commentary on news, social commentary, posting about something written by a competitor
SEO Concerns
What is SEO?
What are factored into deciding the SEO of a site?
How important is SEO?
DoFollow or NoFollow?
What is Pinging?
Do I need a Sitemap?
How much time should be spent on SEO?
How can you maximize SEO in a blog post?
WordPress Plugins for Maximizing SEO?
Social Media
Building Links Naturally
Site Optimization
About Page
Microformats
SEO Resources
WebCEO – Checking server headers can be a problem, but it’s an essential element to ensure authority is being correctly passed between pages. This tool lets you check your pages and route out those 302 redirects.
SEOBook Keyword Tool – One of the best free keyword research tools available online, this allows you to see search volumes for keywords and suggests alternate key terms.
Compete: There’s both a free and paid version of this onlin tool, which checkjs visitor level and keywords driving traffic to a website. A great way to gain insight.
Site map Generator for Windows – Make XML site maps with a free tool from Google to help get your wevbsute indexed by major search engines
136 SEO Tools – Wide range of tools that covers just about everything you’d need to know regarding your website from an SEO perspective.
Link Analyser – This free tool shows the strength of inbound linkls, the anchor text and how many links to your site users follow
LISTENER FEEDBACK – You can give us your feedback by shooting us an email at, [email protected] or leave a comment on this blog post.
LENGTH OF EPISODE – 1 Hour 10 Minutes
NEXT EPISODE – February 12th, 2009 at 7 P.M. EST
ITUNES – Click here to subscribe to the show via iTunes
DOWNLOAD THE SHOW: PerfcastEpisode23.mp3
LISTEN TO EPISODE 23 OF PERFCAST:
One of my favorite regular reads is Joel Spolsky’s popular blog, Joel on Software. I think it’s a site not only useful for those in the field of software development, but also to anyone interested in insights on productivity and getting things done. One of the things Joel often highlights is how great the work environment is for the developers at his company, Fog Creek. He has high regard for his developers and the company does its best to keep its staff happy and productive: private offices (with doors!), free meals, books galore, and top of the line hardware. Not only that, they try to keep their environment as conducive to creativity as possible.
There’s more to the physical workspace than private offices. When a candidate comes to your company for the day of interviews, they’re going to look around at where people are working, and try to imagine themselves working there. If the office space is pleasant, if it’s bright, if it’s in a nice neighborhood, if everything is new and clean: they’ll have happy thoughts. If the office space is crowded, if the carpets are ratty and the walls haven’t been painted and there are posters up with pictures of rowing teams and the word TEAMWORK in large print, they’re going to have Dilbert thoughts.
When it comes to blogging, I couldn’t agree more.
When I worked at the IT scene about four years back, it was a far cry from what Joel would consider a productive environment. I can practically hear Dilbert thoughts abound in my cubicle jungle of a workplace. I think I even remember seeing a picture of rowing teams captioned teamwork somewhere! Productivity took a backseat to cost savings. And looking back, this was partly a reason why I decided to take a bold step and start writing for a living. I thought that with more control over my environment, my creative juices would flow more freely, and I would be more productive.
I had some difficulty the first few months. Having no office space or desk at home, I often found myself working at the dinner table. This also necessitated my working mostly nights rather than during the day, so I could get some peace and quiet. At times I was able to go out and get a breath of fresh air, working at cafes and just about anywhere I could connect wirelessly. This was a welcome change.
Over time, I was able to move my family to a bigger place, and I converted one of the bedrooms into my own office. Since then, my home office has been a work in progress. Some additions over the past couple years include a new desk (due for an upgrade soon, methinks), bigger LCD screens and faster computers, air conditioning, a mini component, and even a small library. More equipment meant more clutter, though! And so, my next project in my to-do list is how to reorganize my workspace, and even perhaps add a little touch of art–paintings, decor or even a lava lamp would be nice.
All this for better productivity? I think it’s well worth it. I’ve always been the type of blogger–or writer, for that matter–who best works when I could really focus on what I’m doing. Not much of a multitasker, I usually need to devote considerable time, energy and thought to each piece I’m working on. It’s no different when I’m faced with the more technical aspects of blogging, like tweaking software, touching up designs, and doing marketing and optimization. Having too many inputs crowding my senses often leads to menta overload. But once I’m in the zone, so to speak, I could work wonders. And being able to manipulate space to my liking plays a big part in that.
How far would you go to achieve that ideal work environment? Would you spend much for better tools and for a better place to work? Or do you make do with what you have? It could be that your laptop computer on the dinner table is just the same as a deskful of LCD screens, as long as you can get into the groove of writing. But for me, the feeling of being in control and being in focus is calming. That makes me a more productive person.