March 10th, 2009
Even if you’re new to blogging, you’ve may have already come across the term Alexa rank a few times. It’s one of the many ranking systems that can be used to measure a blog’s popularity. In this post, I’ll be explaining just what an Alexa rank is and how it works.
What is an Alexa Ranking?
Your alexa rank is a number that is assigned to your site or blog that is based on the number of users visiting your blog. It can range anywhere from number 1 (the best) to in the millions. It can be fairly accurate in measuring one site’s renown over another’s. However, it there are a few problems with the way it works that stops it from being a definite measure of your site’s success.
How does the Alexa rank work?
Alexa collects data through the use of the Alexa toolbar. Only people who have the toolbar affect the site’s rankings. Your rank is based on the number of unique visitors that visit your site who have the alexa toolbar as well as the number of pageviews your site receives from those with the alexa toolbar. The rank is for your site as a whole, so different pages and subdomains will have the same alexa ranking.
Why isn’t my Alexa Rank accurate?
The problem with Alexa lies within the way it works. Your blog’s visitors must have the alexa toolbar for your rankings to go up.Therefore, many of the technology blogs will rank highly in Alexa as their readers are more likely to have the toolbar. If your blog is not related to technology, chances are most of your users won’t even know what Alexa is, let alone have the toolbar.
Tags: alexa, alexa ranking, blog, toolbar, what is alexa
Posted in Blogging Basics | 3 Comments »
March 9th, 2009
Have you ever searched to see if a domain is available on a popular registrar’s website, only to come back a few days later to find that the domain is taken? It’s not just bad luck, that registrar probably just stole your domain idea and registered it for themselves. So how do you protect yourself from those evil domain stealers? In this post I’m going to go over a useful service called Instant Domain Search, and why it’s a must for researching domains.
Instant Domain Search is a site that lets you check to see if a domain is available immediately. There is no clicking buttons, no new pages to redirect to, or multiple forms to fill out. Just type in the domain you want, and it will show you if the domain is available as you type. It’s the fastest and easiest way to check domains. It’s a huge time saver when it comes to researching domains, as you get results instantly.
Ease of use is nice, but there’s another reason I prefer using Instant Domain Search. It doesn’t record your searches. This means that domain stealing is virtually nonexistant. So far, while I’ve had domains stolen using other services, Instant Domain Search hasn’t failed me yet. If you want an added measure of protection for your domain research, you can choose to encrypt your results. There’s even a handy link to popular registrars for you to go register your new domain. Check it out, and stop getting your domains stolen.
Tags: domain research, domain stealer, instant domain search, instantdomainsearch, registrars, stolen domains, stop domain stealing
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
March 5th, 2009
Selecting a domain is an important part of creating your blog. You want a domain that is short and easy to remember, yet is also optimized for search engines. However, there’s one faction of a domain that you may not have known about. That factor is your domain’s age.
It may seem unimportant to you, but your domains age is a very substantial factor of how your site appears in the big search engines. You see, search engines like Google have millions of sites to crawl through and list in their searches. It’s a tough job sorting through all the junk sites to display the quality sites that are relevant to the search. One of the ways Google will do this is by placing an emphasis on your domain’s age.
Since many new sites that pop up on the internet tend to contain spam or irrelevant content, search engines want to make sure that the site they are showing their users has good content. Many sites that are older tend to be more established and have already built up a sort of trust with Google that they are not spam. The point of this post is, don’t wait until you’re ready to start blogging to purchase a domain name. Buy it as soon as you have the idea for your blog so that once you’re ready to carry it out, it will already have some age to it.
Tags: age, domain age, Domains, google. blogs, search engines, seo
Posted in Domains | 1 Comment »
March 2nd, 2009
Hi and welcome to Big Blog Tips. This blog is dedicated to providing you the information and tips you need for your blog to expand and grow. You can expect new articles and news regarding blogging to appear shortly. Until then, be patient as the site is set up and content is added.
Tags: big blog tips, blogging, welcome
Posted in Site News | No Comments »
WP-SpamFree Plugin Review
March 2nd, 2009Do you spend hours a day pouring over the comments on your blog finding and delete the spam? I used to do that on one of my blogs, and it killed my productivity. It got to the point where I was spending almost as much time editing comment spam as I was writing posts. Then I found WP-SpamFree. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: anti-spam, block spam, blog, comment spam, contact form, plugin, review, wordpress, wp-spamfree
Posted in Plugins | No Comments »