Sep
4
RankNoodle.com
Filed Under Search Engine Updates | Leave a Comment
Just about everyone who is computer literate has heard of the 3 major search engines - Yahoo, Google and MSN. Now there is a new search engine called RankNoodle.com that has joined the ranks of the other big daddies on the block and is becoming increasingly popular.
One of the main reasons for RankNoodle.com’s rise to the top is due to it’s time saving, easy on the eyes and organized interface. This search engine displays all web results for your search phase on one page, saving you from having to search different pages for images, news, related articles, web pages, and other related media.
RankNoodle.com is the New User Friendly Search Engine!
RankNoodle.com is a user friendly search engine that provides easily available search results, which is exactly what users want out of a search tool. It holds its own as a reliable online search tool, providing users with accurate and to the point information.
When testing the site, I did a search for online dating and was very pleased with the results. I did another search on cell phones for my daughter and was not diappointed.
As a professional writer and Internet blogger, I am constantly researching topics all day long. Therefore, I need a quick and reliable search tool to speed up my research time.
RankNoodle.com is a great search engine and I recommend it to other professionals who spend a lot of their time in search and research mode.
Once you check out RankNoodle.com for yourself and see how efficient, convenient and time saving it is, you will want to set it as your browser homepage.
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
If you would prefer to receive updates of this blog through your email, click here to subscribe to email updates.
Sep
4
As Internet marketing experts ourselves, we’re always on the look out for other Internet marketing companies that utilize innovative and cutting edge strategies to successfully drive qualified traffic to business websites.
Relativity Syndication Co-op is one of those companies. They have a smart and progressive model of producing high quality content along with a diligent syndication routine. They understand well that in these tenuous and uncertain economic times, businesses must employ new and sustainable marketing strategies that are competitive on a global scale, which means utilizing the power that only professional Internet marketing can offer.
Relativity Syndication Co-op Works For You!
Relativity Syndication Co-op offers businesses the opportunity to recession proof their business as well as increase their market share globally by connecting with other businesses using their cooperative model. You’ll be able to stretch your marketing dollars with less effort and less time, and for a very small investment for your connection to the marketplace. The reason for the successes that Relativity Syndication CO-OP has garnered is due to their high quality content driven approach as well as their understanding and utilization of syndication and social network marketing. The CO-OP’s proven traffic driving techniques will drive traffic to your business site(s) from
- Multiple referring sites
- Major search engines
- Blogs and Blogging
- Major Social Networking Sites
- Numerous other Sources
Jul
17
WordPress White Screen of Death
Filed Under WordPress SEO | 4 Comments
We have all heard of the Windows “blue screen of death”, but when it comes to webmasters and marketers the most feared problem is the WordPress White Screen of Death. This happens usually after you upgrade a plugin or make a change within the WordPress design manager and all of a sudden your screen goes white! Another symptom is if FireFox asks you to either open the php file or save it to disk rather than just let you work on the damn file!
Why Does WordPress Have White Screens Or Ask You To Open Or Save a PHP File
This isn’t a WordPress problem, but really a MySQL - PHP function or rather failure. When a PHP page is loading or trying to load and either an error occurs or a script can’t load, it just dies rather than blowing out bad code. Within the backend of WordPress this causes the WordPress White Screen of Death.
Even though your website will still be displaying content to visitors, you have no access to the backend which is about as bad as it gets next to your site being down. Most of my themes rely on a plugin called Limit Posts and if that isn’t activated, my sites look down right wrong and incomplete. So what do you do when this happens?
Well the first thing is to ascertain where the problem is. If you just installed a plugin and all of a sudden your system is no longer working then it is pretty easy to figure out that the problem is the plugin you just installed! When you are upgrading either your entire WordPress system or a single plugin, the game plan is the same. Always activate our plugins ONE AT A TIME. If you are using the automatic plugin updater, deactivate the plugin prior to updating it.
I can’t stress enough how important it is to follow those rules. Again:
- Deactivate the plugin that you are upgrading first - if you use the WordPress auto-upgrader, deactivate the plugin before updating.
- Activate plugins one at a time - after you activate a plugin after a WordPress upgrade, go to settings or mange and hit a couple of links to make sure that your system hasn’t crashed. The problem is if you log out and log back in after a plugin upgrade, you might get the WordPress white screen of death and not be able to see your backend. If that happens, you will have to remove the plugin from your plugin directory. Another reason to activate your plugins one at a time is so you know which plugin is causing the problem. You can delete it from your plugin directory then you can log back in and see your backend.
I know I am repeating myself here, but I can’t stress enough how important it is to follow those rules. I manage over 17 systems for myself and my clients and have a lot of experience with screwing up, so trust me when I tell you these things, I have messed up every aspect of WordPress at one time or another! Fortunately I am able to learn from my mistakes and pass that on to all of you.
WordPress Problems That Involve Widgets Or Theme Editor Design Changes
Other than plugins, the next most common issues involve failures with WordPress after you change a file within the Theme Editor, or you have added or changed a widget within the sidebar. If you change something and the screen goes white or you try to access a file and it offers to save it to disk or open it with your default program, you have a php issue.
The question is which PHP function has failed? There are a few methods to check errors and most of them are technical. If you are on a shared hosting like GoDaddy you have to look in the log with c-panel or on other hosting solutions that use plesk you have to view the apache logs. If you have access to the server at a root level they are by default in the /var/logs/. If you set up sites within your home folder, then they might be anywhere. The best thing is to contact tech support at your hosting company and ask where the apache logs are for your site.
When you get the latest log after an error it will look like a bunch of code like this:
PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function
force_mod… in /home/mstankard/web/getfoundnow_com/wp-settings.php on
line 160 referer: http://www.getfoundnow.com/internetmarketing/wp-admin/comment.php?action=approve; etc.
Yours will look a lot different since I had to change a couple of things for security, but this shows the problem was in a comment approval that went bad. I was able to remove the recent comments plugin and everything worked fine. The trick is to identify where the issue is and act upon it.
Another problem I had was with a video display plugin which I was able to troubleshoot with FireFox by viewing source of the error page:
I loaded up the following URL after logging in to my blog’s management console:
http://www.getfoundnow.com/internetmarketing/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=flv-embed.php
There was a section in the page where the player was supposed to be loaded, but it was not appearing. I turned on the error console feature in Firefox to view the Javascript errors and found the following:
SWFObject is not defined
http://www.getfoundnow.com/internetmarketing/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=flv-embed.php
I used the “View Source” function in Firefox to view the source of the plugin management page and found the link to the swfobject.js file. It was pointing to the following URL:
http://www.getfoundnow.com/internetmarketing/wp-content/plugins/flv-embed/swfobject.js
This showed it was looking for code in a different place than before since I removed a plugin that white-screened me, but was able to recreate the directory and copy the file in and it worked.
I am going to continue to update this post
If you are having WordPress 2.6 Upgrade Login Problems go there and read that post.
If you like killer WordPress themes you could go to that link as well!
Jul
16
WordPress 2.6 Upgrade Login Problems
Filed Under WordPress SEO | 8 Comments
If you are planning to upgrade your WordPress system to 2.6, there are a few things that you need to prepare. There is a weird thing that happens after you upgrade: you can’t log in or reset your password. I had a freaking heart attack after upgrading and all of a sudden I couldn’t log back in!
Fortunately, there was already support info on WordPress’ blog. You have to clear out your cookies to log back in. So, what can you do to prepare for the install without getting freaked out or dealing with problems installing multiple systems as I have to do?
First of all, it’s easier to use Firefox to do all this since it has an easy way to clear your cookies, just hit control, shift and delete at the same time and a box will pop up. Make sure the “cookies” box and “authenticated sessions” box is checked and hit “Clear Private Data. You can also reach this in FireFox by going to tools > Clear Private Data.
So the process to upgrade is basically the same as always except that after you do the upgrade, and are asked to log back in, clear your cookies, THEN try to log in. On 3 installs I had to have the password reset, but I didn’t have to on 2 others so I can’t explain the difference. The key is to be prepared for any bad things that could happen.
WordPress 2.6 Upgrade Checklist To Fix Login Failure Problems
Just know that if you are getting ready to upgrade to WordPress 2.6 have the following stuff ready:
- Backup your database! - this is more important than ever since there are a lot of reported bugs with version 2.6.
- Make sure you have your user information - Have the logins, emails and passwords for all administrator accounts. I don’t use the admin account to post articles so all my blogs have at least 2 administrator accounts. You might want to upgrade an account to administrator while doing the upgrade.
- Make sure your WordPress system is sending emails - you will be screwed if your WordPress system can’t send you the password if you need to reset it. Test that your system is sending emails and that you know and have access to the administrator accounts.
- Upgrade WordPress - go ahead and deactivate your plugins and run the upgrade script.
- Clear your cookies! you can use the Ctrl - Shift - Delete keys on your keyboard to launch the cookie clearer in Firefox, or go to Tools - Clear Private Data in Firefox or go to Tools - Delete Browsing History if you must use Internet Explorer.
- Log into your WordPress system as an administrator - once your cookies are cleared you can try to log in as an admin ad start activating your plugins.
- Activate Plugins One At A Time! - do not activate your plugins in bulk mode! If there is a problem with a plugin you will screw your entire system up if you don’t activate your plugins one at a time. If you have a problem with a plugin, but can’t access your plugin page anymore after the run-once screen pops up, you will have use a FTP client to delete the plugin or add a 1 to the extension. Make sure that if you use the automatic upgrade feature for plugins that the plugin that you are upgrading is deactivated before automatically upgrading it.
That should get you through the process of upgrading to WordPress 2.6 and deal with the login problem. Tomorrow I am going to post a tutorial on how to troubleshoot “WordPress White Screen of Death” problems. Remember to back up everything!
If you want to check out the best WordPress thems visit Revolution Themes, they are what I use for all my clients sites.
Jun
25
Making Money Online
Filed Under Make Money Online | Leave a Comment
Everybody wants to know how to make money online these days. They want to work from home and have a care-free lifestyle. There are many ways to make money online. I have been researching quite a bit about companies that I can partner with and put their products on my websites.
Making Money Online - Practical Applications
There is no such thing as a free lunch - we all know that. My business model is a service model. That means that my website is set up and optimized for people to call me and request bids on my SEO services, social network marketing services and other online marketing and web development services.
This model sucks! I have been reading some books about the millionaire mind and what separates millionaires from the rest of us. I certainly have a great lifestyle and have had a lot of success.
The problem is I am working way too hard and I spend all my work time MAKING OTHER PEOPLE MONEY! This is what I am changing. I am turning this website into a product based business model. With the Internet and a good website, it is like having a trained staff online 24 hours a day - 7 days a week. My store is always open. The big difference between me and millionaires is in the bottom line. I have a lot of capital but also a lot of credit. Millionaires don’t use credit and they don’t have debt. These are things that I am working on to increase my bottom line and eliminate some debt.
So, the first thing that you need to make money online, is a website, and a game-plan on what that website is going to sell. Personally I have high standards on what I am choosing to sell here. The products have to work, they have to be priced fairly and they have to be products that I can write unique and relevant content about. You see, the key to success in the search engines is in content.
You’ve all heard that in real estate it’s LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. Well, Internet real estate is certainly important, but in reality the secret to success online is CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT.
The platform that you use is also important. I use WordPress. In fact, the main site here, getfoundnow.com is being changed to a WordPress system. The reason for this is simple. WordPress does a second-to-none job at communicating with search engines and directories. As long as you have good content and set WordPress up correctly, you are guaranteed results in the SERPS. I am going to be creating an e-book and video package that includes everything that I use in setting up WordPress, including the plugins and themes.
You see, I am now going to sell my knowledge (of which I have quite a bit of in this field), instead of renting it out to the highest bidder. I am no longer going to MAKE OTHER PEOPLE MONEY! I got started with a great video series on how to monetize WordPress which has paid for itself many times over.
Making Money Online - The Nuts and Bolts
Once you have your website planned, the next thing that you need to consider is how the money is going to get into your bank account. I use E Junkie to process online payments. It works with E Bay, PayPal, Trial Pay, Google Checkout, basically everything that you could possibly need to process payments. There is a link at the bottom of the page (the orange and black graphic) that will take you to e-junkie.com. if you click on that from my website, I will make a few bucks when you sign up for E Junkie’s services. That is an example of how to make money online. I am referring my visitors to my service of choice to process payments.
The important thing is that I am 100% sure that E Junkie works, it is safe and secure and I have had a good experience with them. While Click Bank is also good and highly regarded, they only deal with virtual products. At this time I am not actually shipping products, I am producing a DVD package called SEO By You that will require shipping. If you are not going to need shipping services and are only doing virtual products Click Bank will work fine for you. That link is a Click Bank “hop” link that will pay me a few bucks if you sign up for their services through my site. Yet another example of how to make money online.
OK, so we have talked about the basic needs, a plan for what you are going to offer, a website domain name that has the keywords you want placement for in the domain and finally a good system to create and promote the content that will get you placed well in organic searches. There are certain techniques that you can use right out of the gate to get your website what it needs to make you money.
That, of course, is TRAFFIC. The thing is, just any traffic won’t cut the mustard - you need quality traffic. Quality traffic, or qualified traffic, or targeted traffic are the people that are looking for the goods that your site is selling. A solid foundation of SEO and continued creation of unique content will get you into the search engine ranks, thus sending your site targeted traffic.
To get the ball rolling, start with using Google AdWords. There are specific ways to use Google Ads and I recommend that you check out AdWords Miracles - a proven system to profit from and properly set up AdWords. These guys actually answer the phone, which is one of the criteria I use when choosing partners. I MUST be able to contact a live person instantly. I also highly recommend that any partners you choose have contact numbers or answer their email IN PERSON and RIGHT AWAY.
My next article is going to focus on the more technical aspects of Making Money Online.
May
23
Everyone is talking about the new buzzword of the year “The Google Everflux”. What is it? Google used to roll out updates to their index slowly, over a week or so, which would cause many webmasters heartburn. This phenomenon was coined “The Google Dance” by the SEO pundits out there. The index was in flux, updating the SERP’s seemingly at random.
That is now replaced by what seams to be DAILY UPDATES! Google’s index is changing constantly now, causing many of us to need daily reporting on search engine placement. It’s almost as if Google got some steroids from BALCO and injected Googlebot with them.
How To Take Advantage Of Google Everflux
With Googlebot speeding around the Internet and indexing faster than ever, what is a webmaster to do? The answer is in Web 2.0 applications that provide your site with fresh and unique content on a daily basis. Of course having the systems in place are only the first step. You have to write all that content, and that can be quite a challenge to site owners that don’t have writing skills.
If you don’t have a blog attached to your website… GET ONE NOW.
If you have a small website, say under 25 pages, that is static, convert it to a WordPress system. If you don’t know how to do this yourself, give Get Found Now a call at 813-907-7688.
Apr
29
Blog Plagiarism and Scraping of Content
Filed Under Basic Blogging | 1 Comment
According to Dictionary.com, plagiarism is “the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work.” The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines THEFT as: the act of stealing; specifically: the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it.
“Scraping” refers to copying off another site that’s not personally owned by the party doing the scraping. Not referencing information sources and claiming that information as your own is plagiarism and content scraping. Spammer and ad-only blogs are chalked with scraped content stolen from other sites.
Plagiarism in the blogosphere is an extremely frustrating problem that is rabid on the web. In truth, anyone can steal your content and publish it on their site. After scrubbing it here and there, it now becomes “theirs.” It is extremely disheartening to see your hard work, laborious topic research and precious time cheaply ripped off.
This is precisely why I love Copyscape so much. It’s an indispensable blogging tool that uncovers plagiarism of your content. It’s also a free service. You simply type in the URL of your original page of content and Copyscape will pull up and expose any content that matches yours. It could be a sentence, a phrase, a snip-it or even an entire page of your content.
Copyscape also has a service called Copysentry that searches the web for any copiers of your content and then emails you if any is detected. As a deterrent, you can also display plagiarism warning banners from Copyscape on your site.
If you discover that your original content is now sitting on someone else’s website, time is of the essence. See the Guide to Responding To Plagiarism for the best actions to take to get your content removed as quickly as possible.
Plagiarism/scraping is a dirty problem that most professional bloggers are unfortunately, very aware of. Plagiarism Today is a blog entirely dedicated to the subject of plagiarism, packed with insightful articles and informative tips.
Apr
24
How is it that an ad-only site with no original content can get in the top 20 of Google SERP’s for keywords that are $10.00 a click? There are ad-only sites that have scraped content and Google AdSense ads that exceed the limit in their terms and conditions. Sites in the paid ad section that are both Google Ads publishers and advertisers are getting juice from Google. These sites have little or no PR and are less than 2 years old, yet they are placing above real websites from real companies.
We have all heard about the Google Sandbox effect. New sites are often kept in a limbo of SERP’s until they have been around for a year or so. If this is the case, how are ad-only sites getting into the top 20? Before I continue, lets look at that term: ad-only site. An ad-only site is a website or web page that has no unique content, it is serving either the maximum amount of ads allowed by Google, or in some cases is spoofing the AdSense spider using scripts that allow for more ad boxes.
Unfortunately there is nothing that we can do except to provide quality content that other sites will want to link to. Hopefully Google will do something about these weak sites that offer nothing to their visitors.
Apr
20
Yahoo Unleashes Slurp 3.0
Filed Under Yahoo Updates | Leave a Comment
Yahoo has taken another step to shorten the gap between them and Google by upgrading their primary searchbot Slurp. Slurp is the evolution of the Inktomi spider that Yahoo purchased a few years ago. While nowhere near as impartial as Googlebot, Slurp is still behind Google and ASK, but about equal now to the new Live search from Microsoft.
Is there anything that you need to know as far as SEO goes? Not really. It is the same old story with Yahoo, no real new developments. There is no way they will ever be able to compete with Google unless they let Microsoft’s purchase of Yahoo to go through. The fact is Google has made strides with Universal Search, and Yahoo answered with “Search Assist” a pretty lame response. In fact you have to dig deep to find blog posts in Yahoo’s index.
I did a search for “Data Recovery Services From DTI” the title of a post I wrote a week ago. It is #1 on Google’s blog search, but nowhere in Yahoo. This shows that Yahoo is way behind in new media searches.
If Yahoo is ever going to make a dent in Google’s search empire, they better start paying attention to blogs and other Web 2.0 type sites.
There are some changes that you might have to make to track Slurp’s activities on your site. Visit Yahoo’s search blog for more info. Finally, if your robots.txt file makes specific reference to Slurp you should modify that as well. Read my post SEO robots.txt validation to learn more about that important file.
Feb
24
There have been many articles written about the myriad of privacy issues surrounding Google and their policies. I haven’t had any serious issues with Google’s privacy policies until last week when my son typed our phone number into Google and not only did my name come up, but also a map to my house! This is a big problem!
I think it is imperative that everybody knows just how much information about you can be found through Google. Also make sure that your kids know NOT to ever give out their phone number to anybody over the Internet especially through chat rooms.
Why You Should Never Give Out Your Phone Number Over the Internet
If you do a search for my old phone number 727-856-4695 the results come up as follows:
By clicking on the map, anybody can drive right over to my house! This is a huge security problem since a sex offender or other type of weirdo can easily find where my kids live if they have our phone number. I strongly urge you to get the message across to your kids to not give out their phone number online. I am making all our phone numbers private!