LS Blogs, the blog directory and search engines very own blog.

The move to the new server has gone well,  the site is running a lot faster now

Today, I updated the server with newer versions of apache, mysql and php, the upgrade went smoothly, but there are a few teething problems.

One of those is the search facility, its not showing any results, I am going to look into it later today, as it looks like I need to tweak a couple of things for use with the newer version of php.

As for blogs, I have got the queue down by a few hundred blogs (still over 9.5 thousand to go!) and also managed to weed out rather a lot of ‘dead’ blogs.

I will continue to weed out blogs that have died, or are redirecting to non-blog sites in order to keep the listings as useful and accurate as possible.

My first priority in the short term is to sort out any teething problems with the latest update, then its back to getting that queue down!

Thanks for your patience!

Sorry for the delays in approving blogs, been extremely busy recently, lots of things getting in the road of checking the site,

but Im back on it now, the queue is over 10 THOUSAND blogs, so I am going to be rather busy!

Now some good news, Im trying out some better hosting, its more expensive, but hopefully will be a lot faster.

Im slowly migrating the site over to it, starting today with the database - lets see how it goes!

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!

Despite the large amount of blogs accepted, the queue is now around the four thousand blog mark, so it will take some time for new blogs to be accepted.

Thankfully (in one sense) many submissions will be rejected, as spam, so not all the blogs need checking fully.

The forum also suffered from spam recently, so I have mass deleted hundreds of posts and upgraded the software whilst doing so. I *may* upgrade again soon, so holding back on tidying up the forum until I decide.

I have been quite busy accepting/rejecting blogs recently, trying to get the queue down to a reasonable size, its currently down to just under a couple of thousand blogs waiting to be checked. Apologies for it taking longer than normal for blogs to be accepted, but the queue is very large. Your turn will come in time.

I have been unable to check the change requests for a while, but will be back on top of that when I get the queue down a bit more, so it looks like there is plenty of fresh content guaranteed for quite some time.

I have managed to get back up to speed with the submission queue, lots of new blogs have been accepted, although there are still several hundred waiting patiently in the queue. If yours is one of them, dont worry I will be getting around to it soon.

As lsblogs gets more popular the amount of spam submissions also grows, you would not believe (well perhaps you would) how many non-blogs get submitted, I dont know why they bother, as they just get deleted, and often a ban applied.

Finally, we moved servers again recently, this time back to godaddy, as the beta program we were on ended before schedule due to unexpected issues. The move went smoothly, apart from a few hours downtime, but all is back up and running again. I have not decided where to keep the site, I may move to another server if I experience problems on godaddy. One plus point is the major problem I had with godaddy not being able to open remote files (the site started of on godaddy) is now no longer an issue. Only downtime and speed are concerns now, I will give them a spin and see how they go, if they are up to it, then I will stay, if not, another move will be in the pipeline.

For those that noticed a little downtime the other day, its due to the fact that lsblogs is currently hosted on a server that is in beta test, and a little glitch occured, which was fixed quite quickly.

Some may notice a slight slow down in the number of new blogs being approved each day, dont worry, any sites that have been submitted are still in the (ever growing!) queue, I am just spending a little less time accepting blogs for a short while, as I am developing another site. LS Blogs is still my main priority, and updates will pick be back up to speed shortly, I just prefer to slow down a little to get some time to work on the other site whilst it is in its early stages.

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

Said it before, but I will say it again, It cracks me up when someone who has a SEO (search engine optimisation) blog, who claims to be a expert on SEO, cant even get the URL correct for their own site when submitting to a directory.

If they cant get it right for their own site, what chance do their clients have, who pay good money for their services?

Needless to say, the submission went in the bin, along with any others they did.

Just a quick post to remind people we have a toolbar available for download, its free and has some useful features. My favourite one is the “random blog” button which picks a random blog from the directory each time you press it.

Its a great way to find blogs that you would probably never see, as its random!

I use it all the time, to do random spot checks for dead sites, and the good news is there are very few in the directory, I can surf for quite some time before hitting the occasional unavoidable dead site (and most of the time its just a temporary problem with the site in question, not actually a permanent failure).

You can download the I.E and Firefox compatible toolbar here