October 29, 2007
Free Blogging Advice Guidelines and Pawan Agrawal Interview Script
During this interview we tried to cover some of the very crucial issues about blogging, especially the issue of NOT getting blocked for ping spam, because it turned out that many bloggers are on the verge of crossing the line which can be considered by some ping services as PING SPAM.
The script of the interview is published below.
It will be easier for you to read and grasp it with some explanations of how it was recorded. On the first stage we sent Pawan our questions and the questions of or subscribers - he sent us an email with answers. Then, we plugged into the chat and discussed some of the issues and answers in details.
That is why this interview is published in the format of:
• our major questions
• Pawan's answers
• inserted details about each of the questions that we came to during the chat (under Excerpt from Live Chat titles in the script below)
(1) Problems with pinging.
1.1. What exactly routine actions that we do daily with our blogs can cause problems with ping services.
Pawan:
Here 2 examples for wordpress blog:
Example 1:
You publish a blog post and later look it in your blog. You find that you have made some minor mistakes so you edit it again and click on "save". This will fire a ping unncessarily for the old posts which have been pinged already.
Later again you find another minor mistake in the same post. You click on edit again but this time instead of clicking "save" you click on "Save and Continue Editing" to make sure everything is alright. You spot another thing needed to add in your post in the preview window. Now you again edit it and click on "Save and Continue Editing".
Do you know every time you click on "Save and Continue Editing" will actually ping your blog unnecesarily? Too many pings will appear as ping spam to the ping services and may ban your blog for ping spamming.
Note: This problem has NOT been fixed yet in the latest version of WordPress.
Example 2:
Suppose you are going for one week holiday and you want to make sure that your blog gets automatically updated with new content on your absent. You pre-write 12 blog posts for 7 days and schedule them to publish later in the span of 7 days.
If you do that your blog will ping 12 times on the same day but it won't send any ping in the span of 7 days when the blog post will actually appear.
Imagine what will happen if you plan to schedule 100 posts in the same day? You will be sending 100 pings without any reason and can be the next target to be banned by the ping services.
Note: This ping after time stamping has been fixed since the WordPress version 2.1.
Excerpt from Live Chat:
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: My first question would be about the news you shared about ping spam…
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: you pointed out several things that can result in ping spam:
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: Clicking "Save" too much
Pawan Agrawal: ya
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: Clicking "Save and Continue Editing" too much
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: using TimeStamp for the old vesions of WordPress
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: Am I correct?
Pawan Agrawal: ya… these all will result in unnecessary over pinging
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: You also mentioned…
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: that even though "Save" and "TimeStamp" seem to be solved in the current version of WordPress, "Save and Continue Editing" is still a danger, correct?
Pawan Agrawal: The only TimeStamp problem has been fixed
Pawan Agrawal: The wordpress blog will ping if you edit an already plublished post and click on "Save" or "Save and Continue Edititng"
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: just to double check - even the latest WP has only "TimeStamp" solved?
Pawan Agrawal: ya
Pawan Agrawal: The only TimeStamp problem has been fixed
1.2. Is it possible to track that this danger is real? How?
Pawan:
The simplest way to see if you get banned from such service is when such services stop indexing your blog posts.
You'll notice that your new blog posts don't appear as usual in those services.
Another method is to look at the ping response of such services. If they return error message while you ping your blog but successfully accepts other blog's ping then they might have banned your blog.
Some services act normal and don't even give you a clue that your blog has been banned.
Excerpt from Live Chat:
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: Ok, then another crucial tip that you are sharing about ping spam…
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: is how to track if you crossed the line with ping spam…
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: 2 ways you say - (1) see if your new posts are no longer updated and published on the ping service (e.g in Technorati list of your blog) and (2) read your ping service messages. Correct?
Pawan Agrawal: ya
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: Let's have one example…
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: If Technorati used to ping my posts at least every 24 hours and publishing them, and now - for some reason for 2-3 days quits to publish the new posts from my blog. Can this be a possible sign of a problem with ping spam?
Pawan Agrawal: it can be a possible sign but you can't be 100% sure if its the result of over pinging
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: sure - I understand
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: but still - a gap of 2-3 days is one of the possible signs?
Pawan Agrawal: ya it can be a possible signs
Pawan Agrawal: I think technorati uses other criteria like your blog's past history, authority etc… while tagging it as spam
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: very interesting, and this is the example of quite an advanced ping service - simpler ping services can even miss these issues
Pawan Agrawal: ya, if you see the past history many smaller services get down all because of huge ping spamming
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: as far as I understand, this is not the only problem of WordPress - it is quite possible that many other blog platforms have the same problems?
Pawan Agrawal: ya, may be
Pawan Agrawal: but I haven't studied any other blog platform so deeply
1.3. How to make sure that blog user does not get into this kind of trouble? Ways out…
Pawan:
For solving this pinging problem I have created a plugin called "Post Schedule Ping Optimizer". This is free to download from here: http://www.maxblogpress.com/a/go.php?c=pspo_nk
After installing it, your blog won't send ping when you schedule future posts by editing time stamp. It will ping only when your future posts appear in your blog.
Also, now you can edit your posts as many time as you like without worrying of sending unnecessary pings while clicking on "save" or "save and continue editing" buttons.
I am making some huge changes in this plugin which will include details stats of ping log which will show what's happening in the background.
I'll release it with the name: "MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer".
Excerpt from Live Chat:
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer - solves all 3 types of ping spam problems - Save, Save and Continue Editing, and TimeStamp?
Pawan Agrawal: ya, it can solve all those 3 problems
Pawan Agrawal: in addition of that you can see a log what is actually happening in the background
Pawan Agrawal: so that you can pin point the useless ping server and remove from your list
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: wow
Pawan Agrawal: as well as find out when your blog actually pinged and for which post
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: About useless ping services…
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: is there any way that you give your ping services' list that you are using for your blogs to the members of our blog, surely under some your affiliate link
Pawan Agrawal: i simply use either pingoat or pingomatic
Pawan Agrawal: if you are going to use a ping list then you must make sure to you remove the duplicate entry from the list
Pawan Agrawal: for example: if you are going to use pingomatic
Pawan Agrawal: then you shouldn't put technorati, weblogs etc…
Pawan Agrawal: in the same list and pingomatic will automatically ping to those services
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: is pingomatic enough from your experience?
Pawan Agrawal: it covers most of the major ping services
Pawan Agrawal: if you want more pingoat.com is another nice alternative
Pawan Agrawal: most of other not covered are not that much worthy
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: thanks for the value tips, 2 more tiny questions to finish with pinging
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: 1. When the blog is 100% fresh and you start posting and pinging (without any other ads) how much traffic is normal to have in average from just posting and pinging?
Pawan Agrawal: you can't have much traffic by just posting and pinging
Pawan Agrawal: if you do research well and choose tags which have its own high traffic page
Pawan Agrawal: then you might get quite nice bit of traffic
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: how about averagely 10 unique visitors per one ping? is this realistic?
Pawan Agrawal: it can be realistic if you have choosed good tags
Pawan Agrawal: and can land on such high traffic tag pages of technorati
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: thanks. and question 2 - can you say that pinging helps getting better positions in search engines?
Pawan Agrawal: ya it can help
Pawan Agrawal: because when you ping your blog will get indexed on those ping service websites
Pawan Agrawal: which means you'll get numerous one way back links just because of pings
Pawan Agrawal: but as you know it don't work that well these days like that of "Blog and Ping" days
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: Sure
Pawan Agrawal: but it surely gives you additional boost to your SERP
1.4. Is the latest platform of WordPress reported to have these problems?
Pawan:
Since WordPress 2.1 the problem of future posts has been solved. You can now schedule posts using time stamp and the wordpress will ping only when the post gets appeared in your blog.
But one serious problem with pinging has not been fixed yet. WordPress still pings when you edit and save a post. We all edit and save our posts too much often due to which our blog will send too many unnecessary pings.
You can fix this problem by installing the "Post Schedule Ping Optimizer" plugin.
1.5. How much pinging is too much?
Pawan:
There's no specific guideline that this much pinging is safe and this much is a risk.
If you do blogging as normal then you can be sure that you are acting below the spam radar of ping services.
For example:
You make 1 blog posts a day but when you see some hot news then you may even make blog posts every 10 minutes.
That's normal and occasional posting of too many new posts in short span of time is quite safe.
But, if you start pinging every 5 minutes, day and night non-stop then that's a real problem.
(2) Ways to get traffic.
2.1. Where are you getting your traffic from? (positions in search engines, RSS feeds, article marketing, press release marketing, just posting)
Pawan:
I get traffic from diverse sources:
Search Engine
Forum Posting and Commenting
Tell A Friend Referral
Words of Mouth (Many of my visitors tell me that their friends told them about my website)
Free distribution of plugins
Social bookmarking
RSS feeds (quite few traffic from this source)
From my newsletter broadcast (This can make a huge impact in the success of your blog. Most of the bloggers never capture their visitors' email. They should put huge emphasis on building list for having reliable source of repeat traffic)
2.2. Traffic sharing systems like BlogRush Maximizer Plugin - advantages and disadvantages.
Although BlogRush is in its infant stage, I have a big hope for it. The way John Reese is working on it, it will surely be a standard form of free advertising for most of the blog.
The main advantage of such service is that you can just put it on your blog and forget about it. It can bring passive traffic for you without much work on your part.
I have heard some people saying that it just take away my traffic but don't give much in return. The reality is you'll get as much as you spend. It means if you are not getting much traffic in return then it also means that the blogrush widget in your website also is not eating up that much traffic from your website. The CTR rate across the network will be quite similar.
You can have additional advantage over other if you act smart. You can boost up the click through rate on your links by tweaking it a little bit.
That's the reason I developed "BlogRush Click Maximizer" plugin.
Using it you can control which blog post to show in the blogrush network as well as you can write alternate catchy title just for BlogRush.
You can get more info about it and download it for free from here: http://www.maxblogpress.com/a/go.php?c=bcm_nk
Excerpt from Live Chat:
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: about BlogRush Maximizer Plugin - what exactly makes it a better use of BlogRush - just in few short details if you don't mind
Pawan Agrawal: the purpose of this plugin is to make your AD so much enticing that people will click on it , leaving other ads
Pawan Agrawal: first thing you can do is, you can remove all the unrelated posts from the blogrush so you don't waste your blogrush credit in showing unrelated ads
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: good
Pawan Agrawal: second thing is: you can enhance your existing title by writing alternative short and catchy title just for blogrush
Pawan Agrawal: you can have one title for your blog and another title just for blogrush
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: and traditional BlogRush takes the info by default, yes?
Pawan Agrawal: this plugin will give you a custom rss feed
Pawan Agrawal: you must have to put that custom rss feed in your blogrush setting
Pawan Agrawal: This is a one time task only. After that blogrush will take the posts from the custom feed automatically
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: the content inside the Blog Rush when published on your blog - is it seen to search engines as a text or just script?
Pawan Agrawal: search engine will not see any of the link published by blogrush
Pawan Agrawal: as it is all fetched by java script
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: understand
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: I can tell that your plugin definitely gives *aces into the sleeves* compared to simple BlogRush users
Pawan Agrawal: ya it can
(3) Blog monetization.
3.1. What have you tried in blog monetization? What was a success? And what was not?
Pawan:
I have tried:
Adsense
Adbrite
Kontera
Affiliate products
From revenue point Adsense's return is far better than Adbrite and kontera's link.
3.2. What can help a blog (from its end) to increase the success from monetization?
Pawan:
It depends upon the kind of blog you are running and in which phase you are.
For example:
If you are just starting and there's not much visitors coming to your website then it's the waste of time to start monetizing your blog. The best option is to put some adsense ads and then focus just on gaining more traffic. Later after having traffic you can think of more ways to monetize your blog.
Affiliate products will always bring you more money than adsense but it's not that easy. If you can figure out what your visitors want and provide a good converting prodcut then you can make many times more than your adsense income.
I have seen many people put entirely unrelated ads in their blog which don't co-relate with the topic of their blog. That's a big NO NO. They should ask themselves a question: "Do my blog visitors are really interested in that product or service?"
3.3. How many blogs do you manage in full or partial scale now?
Pawan:
I am managing 3 blogs. But they are not the real blogs in practice. I use WordPress as a CMS and take advantage of numerous benefits of having blog like structure.
Excerpt from Live Chat:
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: and what is your current average traffic to a blog (one of your blogs)?
Pawan Agrawal: one gets around 3K unique visitors
Pawan Agrawal: another about 1K unique visitors
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: per day or month?
Pawan Agrawal: per day
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: very good
Excerpt from Live Chat:
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: If there is a choice between - a multi-niche blog (covering different aspects with the philosophy of directory, but in post) and a one-niche blog. Which is better to get more traffic and profits?
Pawan Agrawal: if the blog is going to be handled by one person only then
Pawan Agrawal: one niche blog will be far better to get more traffic and profits
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: and if the team of people, will the part of the pie be worth having more people engaged into multi-niche blog
Pawan Agrawal: if you see many blog networks
Pawan Agrawal: they are similar to multi niche blogs
Pawan Agrawal: there are many people working on different blog with its own topic
Pawan Agrawal: and the overall traffic of the network helps the starter to get traffic from very start
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: I see the point
Bonus Question:
If you would be selling your all business, how much money would be a wise compensation for it for you?
Pawan:
Hmm… I have not really think on this part yet.
Excerpt from Live Chat:
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: Ok, these seem to be all questions I and the folks from my community had.
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: It's been a real pleasure to hear interesting info from you.
Pawan Agrawal: it's nice to have a talk with you too Dim.
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: I will work with the materials and will send you the copy of the interview before publishing it on the blog.
Pawan Agrawal: sure Dim.. will look forward for it
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: Ok, good luck, success in business!
Pawan Agrawal: Thank you!
Pawan Agrawal: have a nice day and best of lucky for your project!
Pawan Agrawal: *luck
B-L-O-G-G-E-R.com: Thanks, bye-bye.
Most Important Trends of this Interview
Coming Shortly
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