Are you a blogger? If you are then you must be using feedburner to track your subscriber count. This free service is great, and it was bought by google in Summer 2007. But now Google has started to implicit their own rules. You are mandatory to move from Feedburner Account to your Google Account.

You Don’t Have A Choice!!!

That’s right. I read the FAQ page and found:

We are currently planning to have all accounts transferred by February 28, 2009. At that time if your account has not been updated, you will no longer be able to access your account at http://www.feedburner.com, and your feeds will either begin returning a “404 Not Found” response or a “301 Moved” response back to your source feed.

Why the heck is Google doing this?

Personally I think they are retarded for doing this because it takes up my time because of all the things that I had to change. Well the real reason for them doing this is they have more things planned. Eventually, you will be getting more features with Feedburner, and you will be able to put your adsense in your feeds. All to all the stats will be more accurate! (Seriously Google, it wasn’t accurate before?) Ah well just follow along.

Process of Moving

Pretty darn simple as google would like to call it. Well you login to your feedburner account. You will see a move link toward the top. Click on it. Choose the feeds you want to move. I am hoping you will move all of them unless you don’t care about one of your feeds. Give it 5 minutes, and it is all done. Hah thats when google’s part is done. Ofcourse their part was easy. Your part will be a living hell. Your Feedburner url is now changed.

So from http://feeds.feedburner.com/balkhis the url has now become http://feeds2.feedburner.com/balkhis

Next thing is that the email code is changed. And by default it was disabled for my feed. I enabled it right away. Then put the new code in my website.

So make sure you make the template changes, and change all your prior posts which have the link to your feeds.

Earlier You Move, The Less You Will Lose

You are probably wondering why I put that in title. Well it is true. Due to the transfer, you will lose a good number of your subscribers for a few days. Well at least google won’t record it. So my subscriber count from 1900s it went down to almost 1340s which pissed me off. But I made the change last week. Now it has gotten back up to the normal amount. So the sooner you are over with, the better it is. You don’t want to start a new month, with your subscriber going down. Better to do it while the month is about to end.

Next thing was that I had to make template changes. Which wasn’t a big deal because you change one file thats all. But to change all posts that I have embedded my email box. That was a Pain in the ***. I think google should’ve kept the feedburner way and add the new way on top. To make our life a bit easier, but they are not very considerate. Any ways nothing in life is free. You have to pay some what a price. And this is the price you pay for feedburner.

I hope you guys move, and hopefully you can do it safely. If you get stuck, feel free to comment below, and I will try to assist you.

So recently, I have seen a tremendous increase in my search engine traffic. Specifically to some of my posts. I was always wondering what was going on. Until today, Amanda Roberts found that Balkhis has obtained an “authority status” in google. In other words balkhis have site links in google.

What is Authority Status?

Authority Status is just a term given by webmasters to those sites which have obtained site-links in google. Sites get this status because they have received a significant amount of natural backlinks, total number of daily searches, and link backs from high quality websites (that often have higher Pagerank), over a long period of time. If you notice that Balkhis is about to be one year old in 4 days, so it does take time to prove to google that you are a credible source and an authority figure for the designated keyword.

Authority listings appear as the first for the keyword. It also have other important links to your website which makes navigation easy for users.

What are the requirements to be an authority status?

This is a highly debated question in the webmaster world. Google have never shared their algorithm or methods they use to avoid manipulation. I have found a few things common in all websites that have received sitelinks or authority status.

• Site ranks first for the keyword(s) that generate the Sitelinks listing
• Structured navigation making it easily spiderable.
• High natural search traffic
• High click through rates from the search results page
• Natural/Useful outbound links
• Inbound links from high quality sites
• Site age is several years or older

Now these methods might not be the exact ones that google use, but these are few things that are common in most sites that achieve this status.

What can you do to improve your chances?

• Improve your on page SEO by refining your Web Semantics. Make sure you use good titles for your post, and useful meta description. Don’t try to spam your description or title with keywords. Put the keywords in it, but put them moderately. Use Search Engine Friendly URLS for wordpress because they are easy to follow and makes your site more spiderable.
• Structure your site – Make sure that users can get around the site well. A good way of that would be having a path. I discussed how this plugin helped me increase my search engine traffic by 258% in a month. You can see this plugin in use below my post titles on post page and it shows you which category this post is from and so on. It is caleld Breadcrumb NAVXT. Downlaod it and use it. I think this would help your ranking. Keep your navigation simple. Don’t crowd too many links on the homepage.
• Brand the site – I am always for brandable domains rather than keywords stuffed domain. The reason for that is keyword stuffed domains have a real hard time ranking for the top. You must be freaking good and established well before everyone else in the industry to achieve this status. I used Balkhis because I am the only one. Maybe there are a few others, but I am the one who is dominant apparently. So it was easier for me to rank for this keyword and therefore get sitelinks. It is important for a business to do this because it increase your credibility. So try to start business on brandable names rather than keywords.
• Write useful content – I can’t emphasize this point anymore. If you don’t write good content, you won’t get natural backlinks. You won’t get links from high quality websites either, so your chances are doomed. Improve your content quality and you are good.

What does this mean for the future?

Reputation is everything in an online business. Authority status in google increase your credibility. Now my new users who find me through some community, and they search my name. They would most likely join me on my blog and subscribe. Same with any other person who wants to check my credibility in the industry. The next thing it means that another person who wants to rank high for Balkhis would have a really hard time doing so now.

Ok another monday is here. This week is a tough one. I have some exams and a paper due. It just feels like I was done with the finals few weeks before and they are back again. This week not a lot is going on in my life, so I will just put some of the useful reads that I came around and found it interesting.

30 Useful Open Source Apps for Web Designers

22 Most Used Free Fonts used by Professional Designers – Balkhis logo font is there. Cicle, I think should rank really high because I use it a lot.

10 Ways to Increase your Twitter Followers – Don’t think this article is just another wannabe blogger trying to get some readers. This is from Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg who right now have 88,000 followers on twitter. Which is the second highest following after President Obama.

250,000 People Showed up at my blog – Darren Rowse got a big hit day, and see what he says about his experience.

Top 15 Countries with Internet Population – With Internet population passing one billion check out the top 15 countries and see where your audience relies.

That is all for this week. Have a nice week and keep a lookout for my latest post.

Well last night, I was going through my spam folder which was about 340 some comments. I came across a few known names. Well these names were my regular readers specially those who are in my top commentator’s list. So without noticing, I de-spammed those comments. Usually what I do is, I de-spam the comment if it sounds genuine, and then when I go to the comment page, I try to reply to them.

The reason why I marked them not spam was because I know these were my regular readers. They each had a new website, so I thought they just started a new website and want to promote that. Since I was going through 340 comments, I was sort of rushing. So I didn’t check which IP address this comment was from.

Now here we are talking about multiple comments about 12 that were from my regular readers, or so I thought. Silvia, Ann Harbor Web Design, and Nicole Price. If you notice they are actually in my top commentator list. They are ranked among the top 3.

Well after I marked them not spam along with a lot others, I came back to reply to them. These comments were so genuine, but they were all on one post. So the spammer basically replied about my recent posts, on one of my very high ranked / good PR post with different links. Now since the comments were about recent posts, I didn’t think it was spam.

But when I saw all 12 comments were on that one post, I realized I was caught in a spam trap. Anyways, I had to mark those comments as spam again.

I did notice that they were all from the same IP, just different emails after the fact. So I eneded up disallowing that IP Address.

But that was a clever technique whoever tried. It got me for a few minutes, but than I realized, so next time try harder.

I thought I should let you guys know if you get something like this, so you know what to do.

When you start a business, you need a business plan. Similar process works with blogs. You start a blog, you need to have plans. Short-term and Long-term. One of the crucial decisions that you would be making in this plan is which blog platform you should choose. Well in this post I will guide you through this process, so you can make the right decision. First you need to have questions that you want answered. Lets start with the one below:

Which Blog Platform should I choose?
Should I use one of the free services, or get my own domain name?
What are the pros and cons of the free services and self-hosted blogs?
Which Platform is the best?
Should I start small (free), and then upgrade when I find necessary?

There is no absolute Blog Platform. There is a reason why all services like Blogger, Wordpress.com, Typepad are still in business and it is a very competitive industry. Choosing a Blog Platform depends on your goals. So what are your goals with your blog? Now I understand that I am writing this post for starters. Some starters might not even know what their goals really are. So let me point you in the right direction. Answer the questions below with the best of your ability.

What will be the main topic of my blog?
Am I blogging for hobby, or do I have other professional reasons in mind?
Do I see myself doing this on a long term basis?

Am I technologically savvy?

This plays a major role in your decision. Do you have any prior knowledge of dealing with a website, such as html, ftp etc? Maybe your personality depends on it too. There are blog platforms for different skills level (When I say this I am not saying the easier one is always a bad choice). If you are not a techie person, then there are some blog platforms that suits you better than others. Unless you want to spend time learning.

You can also hire a web developer like myself or someone else. Maybe you can get one of your friends to do it. The best thing about blogging platforms are that it is a competitive industry. So there is support available for each. Thousands of people are using different blogging platforms, so you can get support on their forums. So it is easy to learn.

What is my Budget?

There are some cost-related issues with choosing a blog platform. So what is your budget? There are multiple options available and the cost vary in each. Some of the common expenses are:

Blog Hosting (I recommend Blue Host)
Domain Name (I recommend Domainsite)
Maybe the Platform itself also.

So now cost may vary on the above as you choose the platform. You can choose Blogger.com, or Wordpress.com which gives you free platform, free hosting, and free sub-domain. Where as others like Wordpress.org offer you free platform, but you have to get your own hosting and domain name. There are others like Moveable Type that charge you per license. Depend on whether it is professional, non-profit use etc. They also have a free version, but you have to deal with your own hosting etc.

Other costs that may associate with this are:

Design – Most platforms have free templates, but to get a professional edge over others in your industry people get custom designs. Costs may vary. If you need services contact Uzzz Productions. Or you may get premium themes.

Tools / Plugins – You buy paid plugins like OIO Publisher and other services like Aweber. So you have to know your budget.

Do I want to make money off my blog by putting ads on it, and selling reviews etc.?

If you do want to put ads on your blog then Wordpress.com (Don’t confuse it with Wordpress.org) is not the service for you. They do not allow smaller blogs to put ads on their website. So this option is out of your reach if you want to make money with your blog.

Hosted vs. Stand Alone Blogs

Lets see what are the pros and cons of each. And which one you should choose.

Hosted Blog Platform

A lot of bloggers start out with this type because it is free. A popular service would be like Blogger.com or Wordpress.com. They use their own platforms. But when they host you they give you a sub-domain. So it would be like balkhis.wordpress.com if I were to be a member at Wordpress.com. People who just want a blog and don’t really care about money and such use this option.

Pros

• Free to Run – Most of these hosted blogs are free otherwise they are very cheap.
• Easy Setup – These services are very easy to set up. You just sign up for an account, and fill in a few fields. You pick one of their default designs. There you go, you have a blog. They are very easy to run as well.
• Automatic Upgrades – Since wordpress.com runs on a wordpress platform. If wordpress upgrades, your blog will upgrade automatically. That is one of the good part if you are not technologically savvy.
• Good Search Engine Ranking – Since you have a sub-domain under a very highly ranked domain, you will have good Search Engine Ranking. You write a little good articles, and you will get a good Pagerank as well.

Cons

• Less Control – You have limited features. You don’t have any control over your blog. You have to follow their guidelines.
• Default Design Limitations – You can’t really change design a whole lot. You have to stick with what they have.
• Generic Links – I don’t think it shows professionalism to be hosted on a sub-domain of a platform. Not saying that there are not successful blogs that are hosted under wordpress.com.
• Upgrade is a Pain – If you are not techie, then upgrading to Stand-alone can be hard for you. You might be spending more money to move and make sure everything works.

Stand Alone Blogs

Stand Alone Blogs are usually used by professionals who are looking for more than just a blog. These blogs are hosted by yourself on your own domain using one of the platforms. I use this on my blog. I am using Wordpress.org Platform. There are others out there as well that you would have to search. Some are B2Evolution, Expression Engine, and Textpattern.

Pros

- Free Platform – there are some hosting fees, and domain fees, but you have the free platform. There are tons of open source platforms. So you don’t have to pay for licensed platforms.

- More Control – You have more control over your site. More features, your own url etc. You can put ads, or do whatever you please.

- Design – As I am a designer, I consider this very important. You actually get to choose your own designs etc.

Cons

- Cost – Well since the set up is complicated and hosting and others cost fees. This can cost some money. If you are not tech savvy then you would also be paying another person to deal with the matters until you learn.

- Updates – Not something if you are a tech savvy person you want to do. You would have to upgrade the platform on your own.

- Hosting Issues – Sometimes hosts have issues. Lets say your host decided to bail out on you, and you have to transfer. This is something that you have to be ready for.

Bottom Line

The bottom line of this post is use these pros and cons to make the right decision from the start. I have laid out everything that I could think of. If you have more questions, suggestions than feel free to post it in the comment section.