Picking up the right web host

Do you host a website or a blog on your own? If yes, you should have gone through the confusing stage of choosing a web host. It could be very difficult to decide which one to choose due to the number of hosts and the number of plans that each one provide.

However, it is really important that you make sure the plan you choose will meet your requirements. Comparing the plans based on just the price, web space and bandwidth may not serve your needs. For example, if you want to host a WordPress blog, you need to make sure the plans you compare include PHP and MySQL. If you are going to use Google Apps, you need to make sure you will have control over your DNS management. If you are going to use ASP, ASP .Net, M$ SQL Server, M$ Access Database, you have to check your web host is going to provide these facilities.

These are just a few of the parameters. Comparing innumerable such parameters could get tedious. Web hosting choice provides an advanced web hosting search that makes it easier to search for a web host matching your requirements. Just select the features you need and click Search for Hosts and voila! You have a list of hundreds of plans from various web hosts that you can choose from. » Continue reading

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Darren answers my questions on blogging and podcasting

When I woke up this morning to a pleasant weather, little did I know about the surprise lined up for me today.

As I signed in to my email inbox, I received this comment from Shypy, a new reader who informed me that my blog was featured on ProBlogger. Without any further delay, I hit ProBlogger and saw that Darren had answered some questions which I had posted on ProBlogger in response to his invitation for reader questions in February.

You might ask why is it so important for my questions to be answered on ProBlogger. The answer is ProBlogger is an A-list blog and, in order to improve one's blog or website ranking on Google and other search engines, it is necessary to get it linked from other A-list (top ranking) blogs and websites. Not only that! The visitors or readers of that site or blog are also directed towards your blog or website. Read my earlier post on How to grab the attention of A-list bloggers for some creative ideas.

Darren has not only answered my questions but he has linked to my blog, sending over lots of precious readers from his blog and also helping me improve my blog ranking. Thanks Darren! I just love you for that.

Sometimes your hard work doesn't really pay off immediately, but it surely does at some point of time in the future, as you can see it has been over 3 months since I posted those questions on ProBlogger. The comment has really paid off in terms of more visitors and readers directed towards HashOut from ProBlogger and hopefully improving my blog ranking in the long run.

So go ahead on a commenting spree. Find opportunities to comment. Comment when you feel that you can add some value to the conversation and you're sure to hit the Jack Pot. » Continue reading

Read more on AdSense, Blogging, Making Money Online, Podcasting, Search engine optimization (SEO), Webmastering

The secret to improving your Google PR and Technorati Ranking

These days almost everybody in the blogosphere seems to dream about becoming a dot com mogul. One such soul is Cheewee Ng. And if that was really tongue twisting then you could simply call him Betshopboy. For a detailed explanation of why he's called Betshopboy, read his profile.

Betshopboy was the third to submit his review of HashOut as part of the Review My Blog campaign.

If you've ever been to John Chow's blog then the first thing you'll notice on Cheewee Ng's blog is that he has got a similar bottom line for his blog.

At first sight the blog seemed to be very amateurish, but as I sifted through the blog posts I was quite astounded to see that the blog which ranked in the region of 1.8 million on technorati at the end of March, ranks under 52k and has a Google PR (Page Rank) of 2 out of 10 as on date. All this within a month and just a meager 56 posts on the blog!

So how did Cheewee Ng achieve this feat? Yes, you got it right! The link love that he received through his "review exchange and link swap" campaign skyrocketed his Google and Technorati rankings. This once again asserts the importance of building links to your blog and review exchanges are a much better alternative to link exchanges as it serves three purposes. Firstly you get links back to your blog, secondly the person who reviews your blog gets involved with your blog and may become your thick friend and a loyal reader of your blog and finally your blog gets more readers through the reviewer's blog.

However, Cheewee Ng's review exchange program is a little different from what I've seen at several other blogs. In that, he has reversed the roles. He reviews your blog first and in turn asks you to link back to his blog with the anchor text "make money online" and also to link back to his "free blog review" post. Seems pretty simple, even for a layman to understand. » Continue reading

Read more on Blogging, Review My Blog, Webmastering

How to exclude your own visits from StatCounter when you have a dynamic IP address

Vic Grace would like to exclude her visits from the StatCounter reports of her blog but does not have a static IP address. What can she do?

StatCounter provides facility to exclude visitors from reports based on a single IP address and now also by giving a range of IP addresses. This feature blocks the IP address or the whole range of IP addresses from all the projects with just one click. However, it is sometimes difficult to find out the range of IP addresses that your Internet Service Provider has been allotted. So what does one do in such a situation?

You can use a blocking cookie provided by StatCounter itself. However, you will need to have cookies enabled in your browser and also have the new StatCounter code (as of the 1st Nov 2003) installed on your website for this to work. Once you've ensured that cookies are enabled for your browser and the latest code installed on your website/blog, follow the procedure below:

1. Sign in to StatCounter
   
2. Click the spanner/wrench icon () beside one of your projects
   
3. Click Create blocking cookie
   
4. Click Stop Logging My Visits. You're done!
   

Follow the above procedure for each of the browsers that you use to view your blog/website.

You also need to follow this procedure for each of the projects individually. » Continue reading

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StatCounter adds facility to label IP addresses

Did you notice the new "[Label IP Address]" next to the IP address in your "Recent Visitor Activity", "Recent Pageload Activity", "Visitor Paths" and the "Recent Visitor Map" reports? According to StatCounter this new feature lets you name IP addresses so that you can:

1. Identify click fraudsters
   
2. See when "the competition" has visited your site
   
3. Identify recurring visitors
   
4. See just how many times your mom has been admiring your site...
   

Apart from that you might have your own idea of using this feature to your benefit which you can share here.

But wait... most of us use dynamic IP addresses. So how is this going to help?

For those of you who don't yet know what's StatCounter... It is a free invisible web tracker, hit counter and real-time detailed web stats provider that lets you analyse and monitor visitors to your website in real-time by inserting a piece of code on your web page(s). » Continue reading

Read more on Blogging, Webmastering