After repairing all my other websites (following the hacking of my server and insertion of malware links), I decided to standardize all the plugins across the sites, and only install themes and plugins that were available from the official WordPress repository. This makes keeping them up to date a lot easier (and semi-automatic) and should any new hacks take place, the clean up job will be quicker. In the last few days, I also finally re-instated the Amazon links; when these sites were not built around WordPress, I’d had Amazon.co.uk books related to each topic displayed, but didn’t see a single sale. I went through my AWStats information, and nineteen out of twenty sites had the most traffic from America. (Actually Russia figured quite heavily as well, but a) Russian visitors aren’t famous for click on adverts and buying products and b) Amazon don’t have a .RU specific site, oh and c) A lot of the Russian visitors were actually spam bots, once again not known for earning web masters money 🙂 ) So, discovering that I had already set up an affiliate account there, I went ahead and inserted Amazon.com adverts on each site. I’m hoping that the sites will start to earn a bit money than the last year’s income, though I know that with summer coming there will be the usual dip in visitor numbers and corresponding income. The grill (BBQ) tips site might just be the exception, I suppose 🙂
Mar 14 2009
Saturday Afternoon Update
Aunty Jean and Uncle Pete are here, the Wales vs. Italy rugby match is on, and I’ve finally finished adding the required privacy pages to around twenty sites that are currently displaying Google’s AdSense adverts. I hope to post a few links by Tuesday, that have been sitting around waiting to be published. I still need to find the photos for the Jimi wallet review (left my wallet in Tescos yesterday, returned after an hour or so to still find it sitting on the side of the till!), take and post more photos of Anna, and try to at least finish posting the 2008 Amsterdam photos.
Comments Off on Saturday Afternoon Update
Oct 02 2008
PageRank Finally Climbing Again
As you may remember from last year (around this time actually), this blog’s Google PageRank changed from four. Unfortunately, it didn’t go in the direction I was expecting, but instead plummeted to zero. This was due to Google deciding that sponsored links that were not part of their AdSense system were a problem, and that bloggers who placed these links or reviews should be punished. Well, one year later the recovery has started. Whether this is because less links here are placed per month, or more incoming links to ChrisMerriman.com have negated the penalty, I’m not sure, but this site now has a PR of 2.
Also, by tomorrow this site should have seen 2^16 visitors since it was started – yep the completely arbitrary number of 65,536 has almost been met 🙂 I would eventually like to see the site’s Alexa rank back below 300,000 , as it briefly was last year, but I’ve been very happy to see an increase in comments from people who arrived here after discovering the site through Google and Yahoo-based searches.
Comments Off on PageRank Finally Climbing Again
Oct 28 2007
Google Strike Again
Yep, just over a week after Google dropped this blog’s PageRank from a 4 to a 3, they struck again. Unless the data centres are having some bizarre little jittery dance, and the PR goes back up again, www.ChrisMerriman.com is now back to a PR of just 2 🙁
This was it’s rank back in early April.
So what changed? Well pretty obviously I now make commercial posts on here, which Google have decided is bad. Links that are paid for pollute the internet. Unless you pay (AdWords) Google for them. Then they are OK. Obviously…
In the last 6 and a bit months, I have received a lot more links from other people, and before any know it alls jump into the comments with obvious statements, a lot of these links were from people outside of the PayPerPost et al scene. A couple of PR6 links, a few PR5s, and a lot of PR4s all made me think I may even get to a PageRank of 5 myself this time Google updated their stats. Not this time…
Combined with Google’s AdSense account banning last December, I am not feeling a lot of love for them.
Comments Off on Google Strike Again