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Category — Blog Tools/Addons/Services

Google problems

After a recent communication from google where they indicated a problem on my adsense account, it appears there *may*, and I repeat MAY in my opinion (and that of others on the net by the looks of it) be a problem with using blog traffic exchange sites (not lsblogs, but blog traffic exchange sites) if you use adsense.

I have asked google for clarification on this matter, but they refuse to state any details other than

“It is against our programme policies for website publishers to click on
the ads on their own web pages or to encourage others to do so. Note that
some programmes including, but not limited to, auto-surf, pay-to-surf,
pay-to-read or pay-to-click services may provide incentives for generating traffic resulting in invalid clicks or impressions”

Now as I dont click my own ads, or offer incentives, nor pay people to click then the only thing left is traffic exchanges targetted to blogs, it appears this may be where the problem lies.
I asked them specifically if it was, but they wont tell me if it is, I guess they think people are capable of reading there minds.

I am writing to let you know that you should review your adsense policies, if you are using adsense on your blog and also a member of blog traffic sites. As far as I know I was not aware there was any problem, and cannot yet get google to comment on this matter.

Hopefully in time, we will find out the true situation, but if anyone else gets problems like this, I would appreciate it if you post in the forum so we can see the extent of the issue.

I cant see why google should have a problem, as any traffic on a blog exchange is targetted, but time will tell. In the meantime, I have disabled my blogs on the exchange I normally use to avoid further problems with google.

If anyone out there finds out more information, please let us know!

January 31, 2007   No Comments

Google expands its analytics services - by purchasing another service just for bloggers

Google Acquires Blog Tracking Software, Measure Map

Found this today, whilst watching the feeds being updated..

Google already has it’s Google Analytics service, but now it has a one specific to bloggers.

I have not tried it yet, so I cant say what its like, but Im guessing its a ’simplified’ easier to understand version of Analytics, that presents
data in a easier to understand format for bloggers.

Read more over at SearchEngineWatch

February 16, 2006   No Comments

Useful Quick Tip for Adsense Users

Many bloggers use adsense, those little google ads on their blogs.

For those of you that use them, you may be aware that the summary page does not include a “all time” option, you can only view today, yesterday, last 7 days, last month and this month.

The only way to see your full earnings for all time, is to go to the advanced reports page and view it. This can be a pain, especially if you have used adsense for a long time, as the all time report can be HUGE!

Another problem, with not having a all time option on the summary reports is you cant see your referall stats for a period longer than 1 month - and also that information is not shown on the advanced report, so you have no idea how many referalls and conversions you have in total….

Well, if you use this little trick below, you can have a all time option, and see this information. Its quite handy, and very easy to do.

Simple change the last parameter in your url in the address bar so instead of reading

https://www.google.com/adsense/report/overview?timePeriod=today

it becomes

https://www.google.com/adsense/report/overview?timePeriod=alltime

Thats it. You now have all time stats available on the summary page, which can save you
scrolling down a long, long report on the advanced page, and will save google some bandwidth in the process!

Obviously, you use this at your own risk!
Personally I can’t see any harm in using it, as it is just showing you your stats..
Its not trying to cheat the system in any way, and I cant see any rules against it in the terms and conditions, but Im not a lawyer, so you need to decide for yourself.

January 5, 2006   1 Comment

Add LS Blogs to your personalised google homepage.

Many of you may be aware that you can personalise (I spell it with a S as I am English, in case any americans were wondering) your google homepage.

I have added a module that you can add to your google homepage, should you wish to do so, that displays a random blog from the LS Blogs blog directory each time the page is shown.

You can personalise your homepage by visiting google.com/ig and select from the standard modules which ones you want, or you can add one of the many custom modules.

To add the Random Blog module, you need to click the “Add Content” content link at the top, then on the left you will see

Create a Section

Search by topic or feed URL:
e.g. fitness, Time Magazine, or engadget.com/rss.xml

You need to enter

http://lsblogs.com/gmodule_random_blog.xml

and hit the go button.

It is my first module, and if it proves popular, I may expand its features, and add more modules in the future.
 
Hope you like it, if you do, feel free to blog about it so others know, after all if your blog is listed in the directory, your blog could be the one that pops up randomly on someone elses google home page. Note, blogs in the adult category are not shown by the random blog module, only the blogs in the non-adult categories.
Obviously some blogs may contain some material that is not work or child safe, so as always, its at your discretion whether to allow use of the tool

January 2, 2006   No Comments

Checking out your sites rankings and status

Whilst checking one of the recently added blogs (Blog Rootz, see more details here)
which has a great selection of tools and blog related sites, I spotted something interesting.

UrlTrends is a site that lets you get a whole host of information about your site, and how it is fairing in the major search engines.


For example, it brought up the following information for LS Blogs,

Current Rankings:
PageRank: 7/10
Alexa Rank: 60,885

Incoming Google Links: 15,500
Incoming Yahoo Links: 251,000
Incoming MSN Links: 259,376
Incoming Alexa Links: 0
Overall Incoming Links: 525,876 (Overlap is possible - Estimated 457,283 unique links)

But it does not stop there, it shows a whole set of interesting, and useful graphs from the ranking in search engines, page rank, alexa rank even how many people have you bookmarked in social bookmarking tools like furl and del.icio.us

One thing that caught my eye, was it didnt just show the current status of the site, it showed graphs over a period of time. Now, its highly likely that many sites may not have been monitored previously by the site, so not everyone will get a history showing, but for those that do, its quite interesting to view.

Another useful feature, is the ability to compare trends for several sites, so if you want to see how your site fares against another, you can do so easily.

December 28, 2005   No Comments

Performancing for Firefox

Im actually writing these posts using a nifty tool called Performancing for Firefox.

You can find out more, and download it here

Basically, its like having a word processor in your browser, that integrates directly with your blog.
It works, and it works very well - very impresssive, and something I can see myself using for quite some time to come.

I highly recommend a look, its well worth a visit………….

December 28, 2005   No Comments

Button Maker - the new featured site.

At present, the featured blog / site on LS Blogs, isnt a blog, but a tool that is useful to many bloggers out there in the blogosphere.

You have problably seen many blogs with those dinky little buttons on, such as the listed in lsblogs button.
They are not everyone’s cup of tea, but many people love them.

Until now, the only way to get a button, was to either use an official one, or learn how to use a graphics package.

The button maker is a simple to use tool, that lets you create those dinky little buttons without messing around with a graphics package.

A little example, straight from the site itself is shown below, that illustrates what the site
can produce.

Example website buttons

The following buttons were produced using the Enhanced Website Button Maker:

So now you can create any button you want, even joke ones :)

View this sites more details page.

December 28, 2005   2 Comments