Postcards from the Funny Farm

This post is another (I hope the last) rant about Google so feel free to jump ship before you go one. I don’t usually like to whine about stuff, I like to change things or shut up generally. After this post I plan to pretty much shut up about Google PageRank but I will respond to comments of course ;)

I’ve been setting goals for my blog and recording them here since December of 2007. It has been gratifying in almost every respect but I still am not where I’d like to be in other ranking systems such as Google and Technorati. Instead of getting frustrated or trying to game the system, I’ve decided to make my own ranking system based on the things that I value in my blog. I’m calling it the CAN. system My hope is that you, the regular reader, and anyone else who wants to will follow my progress and learn that serious writers can make legitimate money on their blogs without PageRank. My goal since December of 2006 has been to create, innovate, and intergrate quality content. I haven’t lost this goal, I’ve simply defined it more clearly and added “money” as a goal element. This blog does NOT deserve to have a zero PageRank.

Google seems to be highly puritanical when it comes to paid-links on a blog. It’s actually worse than “highly puritanical ” it’s near obscenely puritanical … it makes no rational sense. Who are they serving really? Do you care if a helpful blog post was paid or not? I know I don’t.

I have examined Google’s criteria for PageRank and frankly, I don’t think they even know what they are doing with it. Nonetheless, we have to suck it up as bloggers. It’s the industry guideline that advertisers and publishers use when hiring and taking blogs seriously. Thank goodness many influential bloggers are starting to come out against Google. IZEA is leading an effort against PageRank “.... As for me, watch for my first CAN. update in August. You can see my goals for July here. Maybe it will give you something you’ll find engaging to read by your espresso machines.

One thing, I will give away right now as I close: To make my logo and button for the CAN, Rank System was to use a tutorial for Photoshop. If you’d like to try something similar, it’s a lot of fun. The Google logo itself contains a font that costs $99. But this tutorial shows you how to make it with Ti.... It is cool. There are also tutorials there for companies like Hooters and O’Reilly … a lot more fun stuff. Enjoy and remember in whatever it is you blog about you CAN.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe via -or-

I’m published today in a post at the official FuelMyBlog Blog. The topic there is one you might do well to check out. It could be the cornerstone issue in the future of blogging. Here are some responses to that post on defining blog value over at the the FuelMyBlog Blog:

sylvied said: “You are totally right here we can rate our own blogs and add value to it.”

KevinD said: “I think a new wave of blogger is coming, the realists …”

Claire said: “I find this intriguing as my site visitor stats are actually quite low although feed subscribers stats are 6 times as high. As most of the requests are for text tag links, I’m assuming the attraction is ‘google juice’ rather than reaching my subscribers or readers …”

belinha said about my quote: “To define your own value is to declare independence from parent companies like Google that thrive by assigning value as they see it.”
Very good point!

If you get enough money through blogging, you can take amazing vacations (among other luxuries)  wouldn’t learning about those be more valuable than “bearing your soull” in a diary no one reads?  I am already looking into my favorite vacation fantasies:

The myrtle beach vacation packages are cheap and almost as good as san diego vacation packages. Still they are not the vacation packages that get sold the most. The most selling ones are the cancun vacation packages and the caribbean vacation packages.

These are great comments. Some really smart people hang out over there. Maybe one day we can all take one of these vacations together, sort of a blogfest!  I have a method that includes money tracking that seems to be improving my ability to buy things.  If you want to know about this self-made method for testing a blog’s value, check out my post (series of posts) called V.A.L.U.E.
It’s not perfect but it’s a start.

Now for your take on all this: Google thinks they know the value of a blog, and the world listens. Knowing how to measure your blog’s value can mean the difference between a shack and one of those Hilton Head rentals. What do you have to say about defining blog value?