John Cow rejects $30K

Just read that the bloggers at John Cow turned down an offer of $30,000 (approx. £15200) for their site. That's more than my total annual scholarship. Someone once offered to buy my blog along with the domain name and asked me to name the price. I asked him to make an offer but he never got back.

I don't even make a fraction of what the guys at John Cow makes and I am really wondering what amount would make me part with my blog. They have given a list of few things we take into consideration while deciding the value of a blog, namely Online Reputation, Networking Opportunities and Building Content.

It didn't help much to tell me how much my blog is worth.

I got to think about this seriously.

Google PR updates and my blogs

Some of my regular visitors might recall an earlier post of mine where I had asked "Is Google going to get rid of page rank?"

Just realised that Google has finally gone ahead with the page rank updates. Regarding my blogs, I have had mixed results.

My oldest blog, ah ok lah, has finally gone back to PR 5, thus gaining entry to my list of "High ranked Blogspot blogs". The SEO Expert blog has also moved up and is now PR 3.

My other blogs which have seen an increase in PR are:

• On Entertainment. Now PR 2 (from PR 0)
• UK Student Corner. PR 2 as well (from PR1) and
  
• On Sale Online. PR 1 (from PR 0)

However, two of my old blogs slipped down a bit. Both my Freebies and Auto lah blogs are now PR 2 (down from PR 3). I guess it's partly my fault as I have been neglecting them (with regards to SEO), for quite sometime. I guess I will have to see whether this will have any effect on my revenue from the above mentioned blogs.

Some blog trivia

The word “Blog” is derived from “Weblog”. It was Jorn Barger, who first coined the term weblog, on 17 December 1997.

In April or May of 1999, Peter Merholz, came up with the word “blog” after breaking the word weblog into the phrase “we blog” in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com

I obtained this information from DrWeb's Domain.

Though some authors argue that the word is not a portmanteau of the words 'web' and 'log,' the terms ‘blog’, ‘weblog’ and ‘web log’ are often used interchangeably.

There are several definitions of the word blog and most refer to it as a “personal online journal”. However, this may not be correct considering the fact that blogs are “public” and interactive in nature. Lot of blogs are collaborative and we must also consider the fact that corporate blogs are all the rage now.

So what would be the most appropriate definition of a "Blog"?

WAHMs leading the blogging brigade

Blogging is a movement, a phenomenon, a revolution or a combination of all. A good example of something that has resulted in paradigm shifts or the way we think. It has changed and is still in the process of changing how everything works. No institution has remained untouched - families, communities, the press, businesses and even governments. They all had to figure out how to adopt and adapt to this new "thing". A few years ago people used to exchange telephone number. Then it was emails and now it's blog urls. Best of all you don't need to be a very tech savvy person in order to join in this new wave.

In fact, I can say that it has been very empowering to the common people - to you and me. I don't need to write to a newspaper to complain about a bad service or product any more . I can do it right here on my blog. Governments cannot suppress unfavourable news any more. Among the most empowered have been the "Work at home mums" or WAHM. Many creative and talented women who gave up their careers to care for a family (voluntarily or otherwise) have finally found their voice again.

I may be wrong but according to feedback from several lady bloggers, even though it was initially the social networking that motivated them, now it is the opportunity to make money online through their blogs, that has become a stronger motivating force. Of course money has always been a good motivator and with the rise of the importance of consumer generated advertising, money is pouring into this new medium.

Two main reasons make blogs an ideal medium for advertising. First of all, it is consumer generated and as we know word-of-mouth is the best advertising of all. Blogging is an advanced version of the 'word of mouth' transmission of information. Next, it an interactive medium where everyone can participate and discuss - where not only the blogger but visitors to their blogs as well, can voice their opinion (to some extent).

I cannot fully explain why, but women have taken to blogging for money in a big way. Just take a look at the top earners at PayPerPost, all of them are women and almost all are WAHMs. There are some "Work at home dad" bloggers as well (including myself) but we are outnumbered by the ladies.

Some say that it's effectiveness as an advertising medium is not proven as yet. However, many companies are slowly but steadily embracing the fact that consumer generated advertising through blogs may be actually the next big thing. Maybe it already is but people just don't realise it.

Heroes fan site

I once read about this popular TV show called Heroes on the net and wondering what it was all about. I first time I caught the show, it was actually the fourth episode and that was it - I was hooked. In case you are not aware, Heroes is the NBC science fiction TV series created by Tim Kring, which follow the lives of people who suddenly discover that they have super powers.

I recently got to know about one of the show's fan sites called "The Real Heroes". The blogger who goes by the alias of Rubixcubeman aims to "find real people with real Hero stories".

He is using the Blogger Minima Dark template and even though I am not a fan of dark backgrounds, I realize that it is a matter of choice. Rubixcubeman should definitely customize the template to make it "his own". A slightly bigger font size would be welcome for those with bad eye sight. It would also be nice to have more than one post on the front page so that we could just scroll down to read older posts instead of clicking the links on the side bar.

Unlike other fan sites, the blog has some great original posts. I now make it a point to read what Rubixcubema has written after every episode of Heroes. If you are a fan of Heroes, you should definitely visit this blog.

High ranked Blogspot blogs

updated: 17, Nov. 2007
Made numerous changes to the list. Had to drop a number of blogs from the PR 5 list. This includes among others, Paula Neal Mooney's blog which is now a PR3.

My Blog ah ok lah is now in the list.
................................................

Right after I wrote my post "Don't ignore blogspot blogs", I went over to the PayPerPost boards to see what other fellow posties and advertises thought about it. I was really surprised at the response. Almost everyone who replied to the thread were against it. Not surprising as almost all posties who replied were NOT Blogspot users. I know that a lot of posties are Blogspot users and I expected them come out in support of my campaign but they didn't.

It seemed like most of those who replied had decided that Blogger (Google) banning blogs that carried paid or sponsored posts in the future, is inevitable.

One advertiser even asked:

If you're on a free host, how seriously do you take your blog?

What do you think?

Would love to hear your views on this issue. In the meantime, here are some high ranking Blogspot blogs (with PR 5 and above).

PR 5

• ah ok lah
  
• Baby Care
• Don to Earth
• My Mum's Blog by Thoroughly Modern Millie (From PR 6)
  
• Pi's Twist
  
• RantingsbyMM
• rocky's bru

PR 6

• Digital Inspiration Thanks for the link Paula.
• Dummies' Guide to Blogger (from PR 5)
  
• Echidne of the Snakes
• Ikea Hacker
• Paleo-Future (from PR 5)
• Pedram's stream of consciousness (from PR 7)
• PostSecret (from PR 7)

PR 7

• continuations
  
• Dr. Razavi's Good to Know Info
• Ego Food (from PR 6)
• grokster
• Peter Fleischer: Privacy...? (from PR 5)
• Piaw's Blog
• So Many Games...
• The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs (from PR6)
  
• Stevey's Blog Rants
• Technical Revenue

PR 9

• 
  

Tell me if your's is missing from or you know of others missing from the list.

I Do Follow

I am not sure whether you noticed but there is a revolution silently under way in the Blogosphere. It is called the "I follow Movement". It was started by a Lady called Randa Clay who blogs at Randa Clay Design. But more about that later.

A lot of bloggers, mostly newbies to blogging, have been asking me about ways to increase their Google Page Rank or PR. My reply has always been the same. I too am in the same boat and I am trying to get this blog a respectable PR befitting it's name. Of course, you all know by now that my target is to get a PR 10.

However, getting bloggers to link back to your blog from their high PR blogs can be a formidable task as many of us have found out.

The fact is that most people are selfish and won't link to you unless you are a net celebrity. This then becomes a chicken and egg question. How are you going to become a web celebrity unless a lot people link back to you?

I forgot to mention that you can also beg your friends and family members to link back to you and they might do so out of pity.

However, there may be a way to help ourselves after all. You notice this button below:

This indicates that I have removed the rel="nofollow" attribute from my blog comments. Wordpress powered blogs just need a plugin to turn off the rel=”nofollow” code but we poor bloggers at Blogger have to manually remove this code ourselves.

This means that comments on my site will be indexed by search engines thus improving your blog's pr, that is, if you have left a link to your blog in your comment.

So what are you waiting for?

Leave your comments on ALL MY BLOGS and any other blog that has the "Do follow "sign on them.

Tags: do follow nofollow randa clay

Join other quality bloggers

If you think you have a good quality blog and want to share you posts with other quality bloggers, you might want to join BlogaboutyourBlog.com, a collaborative blog.


Besides sharing your articles and ideas with other bloggers, this site can help increase web site traffic. You can contribute on the blog (which is PR 4 when I last checked) and build links to your site.

Even if you aren't interested in contributing articles to the blog, you can participate in other ways. There are competitions with great prizes like a mini fridge. Every Friday, one lucky blogger is chosen who wins a free link back to their site.

There were some really interesting posts like the latest "Don’t be shy when promoting your blog" by Ed. I would have loved it if there were some images though. The whole site could do with a bit of colour but that's just me.

PR 0 to 1 in 3 months

My first real post on this blog was on the 10th of Feb 2007.

So far I have written 17 posts (excluding this one) and my Google PR has jumped to 1.

Not bad if I may say so. I will try to get it up to PR 3 by August this year.

Update: The Google PR for this blog is now 2 (5 May 2007).

T-shirt contest

My regular readers will recall that I ran a t-shirt contest on my auto blog sometime back but it was not very successful. Anyway, there's another contest. You stand to win a flippingrich t-shirt sponsored by TheBlogWorld .

All you have to do is write a blog post about this contest on your blog and then leave a comment on the flippingrich blog so that they know you have entered. It's that easy.

BTW, if you are new to blogging or want to monetize your site, you should visit TheBlogWorld.

Win a t-shirt

I am holding a competition on my auto lah blog. Winners stand the chance to win cool t-shirts. Check out this link for more details.

I plan to have other competitions in the future.

Ways to make money online

Came across this blog called Dumb Little Man via esofthub's web finds.

He has compiled a list of 40+ ways to make money from the Internet. I thought I knew a lot but I learnt that actually I have a lot more to learn.

i really found it interesting. So what do you think?

Are you a blurker

Blurker comes from the combination of the words "blogs" and "lurker". It refers to someone one who lurks around blogs but doesn’t leave comments.

Got this word from Larry Hnetka's blog who inturn got it from the Blogging Terms Glossary: Blog Terminology. by Rose Desrochers.

I guess I am a bit of a blurker sometimes but it's not possible to leave comments on the possibly hundreds of blogs I visits every day.

Read somewhere that leaving comments on blogs, especially the highly popular ones can help increase your blog's PR. After trying it out, I think it's true.

About the SEO Expert

Welcome to AdamOk.net

My name is Adam Dilip Mutum and I am a blogger.

Have been blogging since September 2003 on my blog Ah ok lah. Initially it was just a hobby but later it became a passion. I started blogging professionally late 2006. This was after I left my comfy Government job in Malaysia and moved to the UK, where I presently reside.

I have BSc and MSc degrees in Forestry from Dr. Y. S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Himachal Pradesh, India and a MBA from the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Presently, I am working towards a PhD in the Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, UK.

I am also on Myspace, Friendster, Flickr and Facebook.

Feel free to contact me at


About Adamok.net

This blog discusses topics related to Search Engine Optimization(SEO), Page rank, Google Adsense, online marketing, gadgets and technology in general.