PureBlogging

I wanted to wait a while before upgrading to Wordpress 2.2 but with the news that it is a mandatory update I decided to go ahead with the upgrade. I would suggest that all other Wordpress 2.1.x users upgrade as well. If you don’t upgrade, your blog may be vulnerable to malicious hackers because no security updates will be released for the 2.1.x branch in the future.

Other than having to update a few plugins my upgrade went pretty well and as far as I can tell, everything is working as it should. If you spot anything that looks broken or out of place please let me know.

Last week, I decided to offer guest bloggers an opportunity to contribute to PureBlogging. Since that post I have received many more requests than expected so I felt it was necessary to develop a few guidelines for guest bloggers to follow.

First of all, guest bloggers will start out as contributors so that all posts can be reviewed for quality before publication. Once I am reasonably sure of what I can expect from a guest blogger, full author rights will be granted. A select few may even be granted editor or administrator rights in the future.

I also plan to limit the number of posts on PureBlogging to approximately 3 to 5 per day. Any more than that and I think we risk overloading readers with too much information. I also want to avoid a situation where there are 10 posts one day and none the next. In the beginning that will be easy because I will be reviewing each article submitted and can schedule them as I see fit. I will work on something to simply things in the future.

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Just a quick note to let everyone know that I have deactivated the MyAvatars plugin because the images no longer display. In case you are not familiar with MyAvatars, it is a Wordpress plugin that allows you display avatars from MyBlogLog in your comments.

There have been reports that changes are on the way for MyBlogLog and maybe this is a sign that they are indeed moving forward. I hate that MyAvatars is no longer working but I’m excited to see what MyBlogLog has up it’s sleeve.

UPDATE: As of now, everything seems to be working again and I have reactivated the plugin. Thanks goes to Napolux for letting me know!

Over the last few days, I’ve started to get requests from bloggers who would like to submit articles for inclusion here at PureBlogging. While it’s not something that I had really considered, I have to admit it is an intriguing possibility. Additional authors could offer differing points of view and expand the appeal of this blog. So, I have decided to extend an offer to the PureBlogging Community.

If you have a passion for blogging, enjoy writing about it, and want to earn a little extra money, I would love to hear from you. I’m not looking for the next great novelist, but I would like to find a few people who can put together interesting and engaging content.

Here are a few reasons you should consider writing for PureBlogging:

• Get free exposure for your blog or website.
• Improve your writing and research skills through daily usage.
• Establish your reputation as an expert in your field.
• Be part of a growing community.
• Earn more money!

Each post will link to the author’s profile page and can include a short blurb about the author and their blog or website. A list of authors will be displayed in the sidebar on every page of Pureblogging with a link to the author’s profile page. The profile page can include a link to their website, contact information, biographical information, and a list of all articles written for PureBlogging.

Authors will also earn 75% of all AdSense revenue generated by their posts and can post as frequently as they want but I would like to see at least two posts per month.

Possible Topics (Other topics may be considered):

• Blogging
• Website Promotion
• Search Engine Optimization
• Affiliate Marketing
• Website Design & Development
• CSS

Basically, I’m looking for creative people who really get blogging, enjoy sharing their opinions, and want to be part of a growing community of like minded people. If this appeals to you then I’d love to hear from you.

I had planned to write about the importance of your Alexa rank and discuss a few things that I am going to do to try and increase my rank. As I did my research for this post, I came across a post by Maki over at Dosh Dosh called “20 Quick Ways to Increase Your Alexa Rank“ and quickly realized that I could never top that post. So instead of reinventing the wheel, I will touch on few high points and send you over there to get the full story.

We all know that the Alexa ranking process has it’s limitations. It measures the traffic each website receives by keeping up with the number of people who visit a website with the Alexa toolbar installed. As a result, the Alexa rankings are biased towards websites which have a large webmaster/tech audience because this demographic is much more likely to have the Alexa toolbar installed.

Even though Alexa is a very poor way to judge a website’s traffic level, several ad networks, including ReviewMe, Text Link Ads and Sponsored Reviews, use your Alexa rank as a way to determine the potential value of a relationship with your site.

The following is a list of 10 ways to increase your Alexa rank:

1. Install the Alexa toolbar or Firefox’s SearchStatus extension and set your blog as your homepage.
2. Put an Alexa rank widget on your website.
3. Encourage others to use the Alexa toolbar.
4. Write or Blog about Alexa. Webmaster and bloggers love to hear about ways to increase their Alexa rank.
5. Post in webmaster forums and include your URL in your signature.
6. Write content that is related to webmasters.
7. Use Alexa redirects on your website URL.
8. Create a webmaster tools section on your website.
9. Get Dugg or Stumbled.
10. Create an Alexa category on your blog and use it to include any articles or news about Alexa.

For detailed explanations of each of these techniques and many more ideas for increasing your Alexa rank be sure to check out Maki’s post at Dosh Dosh.