Postcards from the Funny Farm

If you wonder how I keep all the postcards flying with no more than a teacher’s paycheck and a hungry family of 5 taking most of it, here’s one way.

With my recent posts on PageRank and Making Money online being out there I thought I’d take one step beyond and mention a blog advertising company I recently started working with. It appears to be very lucrative. It’s called Buy Blog Reviews and it’s sort of an auctioneer between blogging writers and advertisers. It’s like PayPerPost but the difference is that you bid back and forth for jobs.

To the layman out there this means I will peruse a list of open ad offers. Then, if I find one that fits my blog niche and I like the idea of making a post out if it, I will make an offer. This format can be really cool because if the advertiser accepts you know they’ve seen your blog and she/he is ready to pay you based on the merits of your site.  There are even sorts of opportunities where the advertiser contacts you directly and “orders” a blog review from you.  I’ve had one of those so far and it made me feel that “warm fuzzy feeling” inside :)

I think some of the paid blogging companies just give the advertiser a general idea of the blogs they will be paying. In that respect, I like BuyBlogReviews better. I’ll be reporting how much work I get through them as well as the quality in my monthly updates but for now the work looks steady and promising. It should bring some unique topics to the blog as well since the advertising pool is highly eclectic.

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There’s been a lot of buzz about Google PageRank on the internet lately. Many people have had their “currency” (I say that tongue in cheek but that IS what it is for those who seek advertisers favor for a living) taken from a 5 or 6 sometimes (or more) to a 0 overnight. I wrote about how my page rank was set from 4 to 0 and it was a real bummer let me tell you. I was angry.

Then some time passed. I was once the wild horse on this subject that Google has finally broken. I want my pagerank back if I can swing it.

I decided that it is possible Google is trying to do something right (I didn’t say probable). I can’t question their motives. So I started searching the web for examples of bloggers who had restored their Page Rank and the stuff I found wasn’t too promising. The first 3 that came up in a Google search with the search terms: “How I Got my PageRank back,” had some good advice, but when I by chance checked their pageranks, they were ALL STILL ZERO! My experience was that there were two waves in Google smackdown: 1) An initial and then a restoration of many and then a more resolute “spank” as IZEA calls it. (see button up top.)

Then I found a promising one. You can read it here. It’s where I got all the ideas I have engaged to try and get my page rank back. First, I went through and for every sponsored post link and/or commercial paid link, I added this inside: rel=”nofollow”

It took me a long time because I had two pages of PayPerPost links and quite a few PayU2Blog links I had to put rel=”nofollow” in. the rel=”nofollow” keeps the search engines from crawling links you add it to. This process took me 4 days to complete. I can’t imagine how hard this would be for someone who made their living at sponsored posts. You’d almost be better off just starting new. As for me, I’ve only done them for several months.

Next, as indicated in the article, I requested reconsideration from Google. (see below) Now I just wait. Google says it “may take a while.”

Hello. This is my second request for reconsideration to have my Page Rank restored. I believe the reason it was removed was because I did not identify paid links with a rel=”nofollow” tag. I took some out altogether and then requested reconsideration but I didn’t understand how to insert the rel=”nofollow” until recently.

I have spent the better part of 4 days going through all my posts and adding rel=”nofollow” to any commercial or paid links. I feel 100% confident that my site is worthy of page rank and that it will not follow paid or commercial links ever again in the future. I also know that now it does not have any paid links that are not kept from the search engine crawler by rel=”nofollow”

I average 80 visitors a day and I value the Google Pagr Rank system in letting readers know my content is trustworthy. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

To close I just want it to go on record with my readers that I still think Google is purposely sabotaging people who use paid links. I find their way in this to be at best anal-retentive and at worst crooked but I can’t deny the power pagerank has over advertisers. I am hopeful it will change but for now, I’m takin’ what their givin’ … well, you know the rest. To Google I say this: “My hands are held up high.”

So I’ve started this series and I will keep you posted what I have done and what result there is good or bad. I hope it helps out those in my shoes: Content-filled bloggers that are being penalized by Google for making money with their work.

I need your input. I write sponsored posts on this blog primarily for PayPerPost and PayU2Blog (a few times each month). Do they bother you? I would like to know your honest opinion when you have a moment:

I ran across this great contest and I want to spread some buzz about it. It’s run by Renuzit, you know those fancy shmancy thingies that make your house smell really good? Anyway, they put a $20,000 home makeover with Tayna Memme out there in the form of a prize. They are looking for the best video about why a house should get the bucks to do some renovating. I’ve been watching the vids for the past 45 minutes or so and interchanging feelings between laughter and tears. There is one that is so touching about a couple that were apart while their child was born due to an Iraq deployment (that was the sad one) and then there was one that just cracked me up.

The one about the triplets is the best in my opinion. I put a screenshot up so you could get an idea. If you click on the screenshot it will take you to the finalists’ “homemade” videos. I think the triplets one is great because they got the older sister (who is about 4) to recite the poem someone in the family wrote. Plus I have three kids so I give mega props to anybody who has triplets and makes the time to have some fun making family fun videos. I think they really deserve the $20,000 home makeover with Tayna Memme.

I want to encourage you guys to visit the semi-finalist gallery and vote for your favorite submission with up to one vote per day through June 7.

Are you a Howie Mandel fan? Is this staged? See what you think. I figure it could go either way. It could be real if they had a Buy.com van there pre-stocked with like every gaming system available to pull from. I don’t know, but if it was staged, the guy on the street is sure a good actor.

I really like Howie on Deal or no Deal. He’s at the top of his game right now so it’s likely that Buy.com paid him top dollar for this footage. Will we see it on a commercial someday? Maybe so. I’m sure the sponsors of this video would appreciate your NO KEYWORD COMMENT ON YOUTUBE VIDEO. Mine’s already over there So go make some buzz.

Dave Sharp has been my guitar hero since I was a kid. If you’ve read this blog for an extended period of time, you probably know that. One summer I got to actually meet and play guitar with the guy. It was such an amazing summer vacation for me. I traveled down to where he was and we would play coffee houses and bars in between recording my music. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to top that summer vacation … but never say never right? This post is about a company called DialaFlight that can make these sorts of trips happen … for less! Check it out:

For years I have read on the Dave Sharp forums about music festivals and pow-wows with other fans in places from Salford, UK to Toronto and wanted forlornly to get myself over there. Usually it’s the money that holds me back, but unfortunately I come up with a motherlode of other excuses. Very soon I plan to finally go to an event like this. When I do I will use a company I found called Dialaflight that offers the cheapest flights to Toronto.

Their consultants take all your info over the phone and create an itenerary for you that is top notch and highly competitive price-wise. If you are looking for a great travel agency that does it all for you in the UK, Alaska, Toronto regions, check these guys out.

For at least 2 months now my blog was reduced to a PR0 from a PR4. I don’t know the reason why exactly but I did petition for them to reconsider a while back. I have sponsored posts on my blog and disclose that publicly here. I also have some duplicate content out there, not much but some.

Anyway, after pretty much giving up on Google, it appears they have given my blog a new chance and started me at a PR2 this morning. I am glad they did this it shows they can listen to some reason though I have no idea why I am not at my old PR4 or higher. My backlinks and stats are considerably higher than then.

I guess I will take what I can get from the almighty Google.

I am glad it happened though because as I tried to boycott all things Google over the past two months, I learned that Yahoo! Mail is much better as are many services offered by other companies. One I couldn’t break away from unfortunately was Google Analytics. Based on what I have seen out there, there is nothing as helpful as that. So I still use it. Besides that I no longer use Google Reader and a variety of Google services I used to think were the best, or the “holy of holies.” I think sometimes you need to get pissed off to get out there and see how great the competition is. I have my Technorati rank along with my Feedburner feed stats in my header to indicate to my readers how popular this blog is. I find that more accurate than PageRank anyway. If my PageRank gets back up to its previous 4 maybe I’ll put a badge up for it as well, but for now I’m “once bitten, twice shy” with Google. I’ll be curious to see if my PR grows, stays static or disappears again. Oh and I fully plan on continuing to use PayPerPost and IZEA services in case anyone was wondering.