It’s Up, It’s Down… What’s Going on Here?

There’s a lot of noise around the ‘Net about Google’s update. No matter how many people say “Oh well, Google doesn’t matter…” you still can’t avoid the “The update is REAL now!”. I would be completely remiss if I didn’t jump on the bandwagon.

Actually, that’s not true. I’m not doing it because I want to be on the bandwagon. I’m writing about it because two of my blogs jumped in pagerank. One of the went from 0 to 3. Of course, I get no money from that blog, but that is not the point. This blog has gone from N/A to 2. I’m not really certain what all those datacenters are and which ones are important, but mostly I’ve got a 2 here and I’m happy with that.

Of course, reading about everything that’s been going on has made me think about what Google’s doing and what its motives are. Then I catch myself and wonder “Why do I care?” The simple fact is that it’s incredibly interesting to see all of the theories going about on the ’sphere. All the SEO guys and gals have decided that this is happening because of paid links or because of links that aren’t relevant to topic or because of really long blogrolls. I’m not so sure about that. The paid links I can get, but the links on blogrolls and to sites that aren’t completely relevant… Hmmmm.

So I did some surfing and did some completely unscientific analysis. Jon Swift has a very popular political blog and he links to anyone that links to him (to an extent: no porn or spammers). Some of his links aren’t relevant at all. And his links list is unbelievably long. Yet, his PR went up. My own political blog doesn’t have any paid links, but the links list is long (so long that I’ve split it in two categories) and that blog just got a Google juice injection- from 0 to 3. I link out a lot to other sites, as well. For instance, if I come across a quiz or article I find fascinating I’ll link to the site where I found it (as “H/T”: Hat Tip). I don’t worry about anchor text a whole lot over there because the sites I frequent from there don’t care about anchor text. I’ve seen other blogs (that I have on my other blogroll) go up in PR, too. None of them sell links, but they all link out frequently. As a matter of fact, it’s polite on that side of the blogosphere to use “H/T” or “Via” when something interesting is found through or on another blog (this is why I think it’s strange that this end of the ’sphere doesn’t do that). And that side of the blogosphere- the side that doesn’t use specific anchor text to link, though they do link heavily- doesn’t seem the least bit effected by the Google Smack.

I think this has everything to do with using keywords and phrases as anchor text. I mentioned on the forum today that I believe Google doesn’t care if I link “Check this out” but would care if I linked “the best mesothelioma site on the net”. See what the anchor text is in those examples? I think that Google is getting sick of seeing that kind of keyword rigging. Not so much the linkage, which doesn’t matter to some SEO experts, but the anchor text.

I haven’t really been all over the blogosphere looking to see if anyone shares my theory. I have seen a lot of thought about paid links and how to make them not look like paid links (by inserting “nofollow”, mostly). I haven’t seen anything linking the anchor text to the Smack Felt ‘Round the ‘Sphere™ and that kind of confuses me. I could get paid to write “This is the best site ever!” with a link to where ever. How would Google know it was paid? They wouldn’t, because the anchor text for that link is “This”. Now, if I wrote “Gambling Made Easy is the best site ever!”, well, Google’s going to raise an eyebrow and even, maybe, check that anchor text against other sites. And WHAMMO! Smack to the back of the head.

Perhaps someone needs to reconsider the importance of keyword anchor text as well as PR. I mean, if anyone is worried. Personally, I’m just going to keep on with whatever I’m doing. I’m still more concerned with PVs than PR. So, it’s all good in my world.

P.S.

I’m so over the drama. Good grief, I’m going back to politics. With politics the drama makes a lot more sense.

What to do in Ohio’s Amish Country

I wrote an article a while back about Ohio’s Amish Country. Recently I was having a discussion with an online friend who lives in California. She mentioned the Amish and then we somehow started discussing Weird Al’s "Amish Paradise" and the conversation evolved into something completely different. This, of course, has nothing to do with my article except that I thought I would share part of it here. It’s just an excerpt, but you can visit AC to read the rest if you’re interested. *nudge, wink*

Ohio’s Amish Country encompasses Ashland, Coshocton, Holmes, Knox, Tuscarawas, Richland, Stark and Wayne Counties. It is a huge tourist destination in this part of Ohio. People from all over the country come to see Ohio’s Amish community, because it is unique among American sub-cultures and offers a glimpse of what life was like a century ago. The Amish in Ohio don’t use cars; instead they travel by horse drawn buggy. They don’t use electricity or telephone service, either. The women wear long dresses, which are pastel for unmarried and dark for married women, and cover their coiled hair with a starched white bonnet. The men where dark shirts under blue jean overalls and straw hats to shade them from the shade. Only married men wear beards. The Amish wear neither jewelry- of any kind- or zippers. They live on homesteads, where grown children will often build houses right on the same land as their parents, and work together in groups. They have tried to maintain the same lifestyle they had when they came to Ohio in the early 1800’s. The men have a reputation of being wonderful craftsmen and the women of sewing glorious quilts and making fine food. Many thousands of people come every year to see the Amish and to purchase goods made by them.

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Working from Home- Finally

For some time I’ve been seeing post after post about people making money writing for payperpost, so I decided to go check them out. Now some people have worried about the credibility of a blogger who does paid posts could be compromised. How could they tell which post was advertisements and which wasn’t? Well, payperpost requires that bloggers disclose that they get paid to endorse some products, services, and/or websites, so there won’t be that kind of confusions.  That really inspired me. So, I signed up. And waited. Finally, I got the email. I was approved!

I have a couple of very specific short term goals right now. One is for Christmas to be spectacular this year. Another is to take a trip to Fort Meyers, Florida in the spring. We’re not a poor family by any means, but every little bit helps, and we’re not really budgeted for big gifts and coast to coast traveling. So, far I’ve made enough through the site to just about clear my Christmas goal, even with a zero PR blog. That just rocks my socks! Seriously, it’s like a big weight has been lifted, especially because of my disability. I can’t work outside of the home, so this supplemental income really comes in handy.

I have no problem fitting my paid posts in with my regular content, either. I make sure that I can somehow benefit from what I’m writing about. It’s important to me to provide pertinent information to my readers and to learn things myself. Payperpost gives me the option of picking or overlooking an opportunity based on how I think it will fit on my blog. I’ve been able to do the paid posts without hurting my credibility, I think, and that’s important.

I’m really excited, too, because they’re rolling out a new system, Argus, soon that will make PR less important in the marketplace. I can work on building organic traffic, do the networking, and not worry that my PR just doesn’t cut it out there. That gives me a lot to look forward to.

Things are really looking up in my neck of the woods. Like my tagline says, I’m not famous and don’t wanna be, but it’s nice to be able to not worry about the bills for once.