I just read it on John Chow that he is no longer ranking number one for “make money online”. I checked it with an US IP and it’s true. Even Problogger is not in the top anymore, but on the seventh position. However, I see Bidvertiser managed to stay in top (thy are #1). John Chow ranks for ‘make money online’ on pages from 2 to5, and I remember he was very happy after his blog got a PR6 because he used to be number one.

Why do you think this happened? Could it be because John Chow did the “review me for a link back?” and he upset the big Google? He started this kind of link love back in March and it looks like it worked for 3 months but now something changed. Did Google found an algorithm to get those that offer incentives for links or for those that use programs like ReviewMe and PayPerPost? I don’t think so, but something is definitely going on, over there. My biggest concern is if’s for a short term or if it’s going to last!

One last thing that I would be curious about: how much traffic did they lose because of that?

Tonight has been the second time I’ve played Nintendo Wii. First I did it at CERF 2007 which is the Romanian Computer Exhibition with my partner (he writes in Romanian) and a few hours ago we played with Bobby Voicu and his cousin. It was so fun. Boxing and tennis are the games we enjoyed the most. After 3 rounds of boxing I was feeling like running the treadmill for 25 minutes.

The break was very productive because I know have a very nice business idea!

A few days ago I took a few hours to think why am I productive and why am I not? I ended up with a list of things that I shouldn’t do in order to be much more productive.

The first thing when working on the internet is to be focused. We’re living in the world of Skype, GTalk, Yahoo! or MSN Messenger and any other chat or voice programs that you may think of. All these are going to distract you, so either don’t use them, or stay invisible. Only contact the people that you need in order to get the job done. You can also include e-mailing in this category. It’s another form of talking, more or less important things, that can keep you behind work.

The second thing is comfort. Make sure you have a good chair that supports your lower back. This is a good thing to fight muscle fatigue and future back problems. Another thing you should consider is what you’re wearing. Don’t wear tight jeans unless you really feel comfortable. Also consider Air Conditioning in the summer because at 35C (95F) outside, it’s not fun anymore. Keep the things like water, phone or anything that you use frequently near you.

The third thing is, in fact, your laptop or PC. If you have software or hardware issues, that will draw you back. Why get mad when you can buy additional 512 MB of RAM, if this is what you need? Why not pay for the Microsoft Windows license and for you antivirus key if that’s what keeps your data safe? You need your machine to be almost perfect. Don’t forget security. If you don’t have it now, buy it asap!

The fourth thing is not to become an workaholic. If you tend to only write and write and work and work you are going to forget how to live your life. After all we work to make money so that we can spend on vacations, yachts, games, cars or women/men! Take breaks: mini-breaks during the day to take your eyes of the monitor (no TV during this time) so they can relax, and weekends or small trips for your mind (will help a lot when you come back). It happened to me numerous times. Went on a trip and came back with a business idea that is still very successful.

The fifth thing is to set daily tasks. It keeps you focused to get it done during the day. Rate your work when you’re done. If you have completed the task, you will feel great and feeling great helps. Make sure you set up real tasks that you can fulfill.

The sixth thing is your health. I know I mentioned something related when talking about your comfort but health is much more than that. You need to get an average of 8 hours of sleep each night, and when you wake up you should have breakfast. Don’t skip it because that’s your energy provider to start your day properly. Also you may think of exercising if not every morning, then consider going to the gym at least 2 times a week. Don’t forget you ARE allowed to have sex if you have the proper age. One last thing: drink plenty of water. Experts say that you need to drink on average 2liters of water each day and many of them advise a tea after waking up.

I need to be honest, I am not doing all the things I wrote here but I try to, and that is because it’s one step closer to what I should become.

biggest mistake I am doing: cannot refuse those nice girls contacting me on Y!M to talk about … life …

I am almost ready to declare 2007 the year of blogging though it’s not yet 31st December. The reason is that I can almost bet the statistics will say that 2007 was the year with the most blog launches. I can see blogs related to blogging or blogs related to making money online that launch each day. It’s my case, too, but after so many years in this business I don’t need other’s ideas and write them on SocialPacks.com. However these kind of blogs continue to offer the same content all over again, so the question is “isn’t there anything new we can blog about?”. Guess it’s not only about new things, when the same new things can be presented in a different way. It’s the personal approach that will get you readers.

Take my advice. Blog as a hobby. Don’t start a blog thinking that you need to get cash from it. If tennis is your passion then go ahead and create your blog. Keeping a blog won’t cost you much, at least not at the beginning:

- domain: $10
- hosting : $10
- time : priceless!

If anyone asks me what will happen to the world of blogging I can tell you just that this year and maybe the next year will be years of consolidation. Years that will be decisive to the world of blogging because I think people will get bored to blog. Many of those that want money and cannot succeed will abandon the cause, not as many new blogs will launch, the top blogs will remain top blogs that everyone will read, so if the trend was up until now, it’s now consolidating and will decrease from the middle of 2008.

These are just my opinions and if anyone feels different I would be more than glad to see what you think.

I know I have talked about being on Digg or not, therefore I’ve visited Digg more than I usually do for the last week. I found some interesting things the most important being that I don’t think it’s just me that thinks Digg is getting more and more baiting content.What does it mean to bait the Digg users? Writing content that will trigger the little monsters inside. You incite them with something. Articles starting with “5 reasons to …” or “Eleven ways to …” are going to attract the Digg user and will get your story dugg. That is because the human being is always much more interested in getting the information from someone else rather than making their own judgement that will create the same or probably a better analysis. Why should I make a list of my top preferred gadgets launched in the first quarter of 2007, when someone can do that for me? For me this is what Made For Digg (MFD) websites mean.

Write for your audience. If it’s Digg they want, give it to them.

However though it may seem like I presented you the whole situation in a negative way this is not fully correct. Creating Digg content is not bad because this is what web2.0 means. To make the user act with it’s feelings, passions and opinions. The comments on the story are, for me, much more important than the story itself. You get to see what people think. Muhammad Saleem wrote a post at CopyBlogger a few days ago and it looks like he is going to give tips on writing for the social bookmarking websites from now on over there.

So for those that wait for the “MFD sites : good or bad” answer I am saying it can be good but it can also be bad. Whenever you launch a website you need to decide who will you be writing for? What kind of people? Also need to see what kind of articles you are going to create. Because if you plan to target RSS readers but once in a while you write MFD content they may not like it. Problogger says that many bloggers are tricked by thousands and thousands of visitors and they start to blog about stuff which is not really a good part of their community. Use Digg to “expand your horizons and grow your audience - but keep your core readers right in your focus” he said.

My audience is not Digg therefore I don’t have a Digg button right now. You think it’s worth it? I bet you can do it manually.

I know it for at least one week now that Google plans to ban those arbitrage publisher accounts and the made for Adsense (MFA) websites. The emails that Google sent so far, mention the date 1st of June.

I have a very good relation with someone that does black hat (BH) SEO and tries some kind of arbitrage. Yesterday (sorry for not posting anything but I stayed too much in the sun, and of course, sunburned), the guy got the e-mail:

Our specialists regularly review partners participating in the AdSense
network. After a thorough review of your account, our specialists found
that your business model is not a good fit for the AdSense program.

As we’re no longer able to partner with you, your AdSense account will
be disabled on June 1st, and ad-serving will cease at that time.

Please rest assured that you will receive payment for all outstanding
earnings in accordance with the standard AdSense payment schedule.
However, you are not eligible for further participation in the AdSense
program.

So this is not happening only to MFA or Arbitrage Publisher Accounts but to those black hatters out there. Wonder if they mailed the big ones, because they sent emails to people making more than $10,000 a month with arbitrage. So if we think that many of the 1-2-3-4-5 cents ads where from those guys I guess we should see an increased CPC starting 1st of June?

For those of you that already have some knowledge regarding blogging software you should know that Wordpress is the most common. They’ve recently hit the 1 million users on wordpress.com

However by the way Wordpress is designed, many of your pages or archives will end up in the supplemental results. I remember Matt Cutts saying that supplemental results are not a way of penalizing a website. The hell, they aren’t! They are not the place for bad pages, so if you have some articles in supplemental, doesn’t mean you’re out of the big pot.

However seeing that 90% of your indexed pages in Google are supplemental will not make you feel happy. This is where David Pitlyuk pops in. He designed He told John Chow that SeoLogs designed a Wordpress plugin called the Duplicate Content Cure Plugin. This will keep the search engine bots away from indexing pages that have duplicate content (pages, archives, categories or the articles usually have snippets that are the same and are considered duplicate).

Keep in mind that you still need to cover the robots.txt issue when using Wordpress, but having this plugin to add meta tags on the problematical pages will make your life easier.

There are many people that have a day job and think of getting online because they see Adsense checks with thousands of dollars per month, or they see how much a blog is making each and every month. They usually get the idea that working online is fun and doesn’t involve work. Mistake: it is fun, but almost all the time, involves lots and lots of work.

I’ve seen it many times on the DigitalPoint forums that people are ready to file their resignation and enter the world of online money. The decision should be taken after thorough analysis because, most likely, you will not earn from your site/s in the first 6 months, and you need money for monthly expenses. This is why I advise people to check their financial lifeline. What does it mean? See for how many months you have money to live. For example if you have $15,000 in your bank account, and your monthly expenses are $3,000 then your financial lifeline is 5 months. However as I said, do not expect money in the first semester, or at least not anything serious. A financial lifeline of 15 months is what you should have, before quiting your job and moving online.

Now that we have that one sorted out and you are on your way to making millions on the internet, let’s talk about financial freedom and what it means. I have a bachelor degree on finance and banks so I can tell you what I know. Being financial free means that no matter what will happen to your day job you will earn enough passive income to pay for what you spend each month. Sources can be : dividends, rents, bank deposits or anything like that, that will bring cash monthly. However, one that is financial free today, may not be tomorrow. Why? The bank goes bankrupt, the company you’re getting dividends files for bankruptcy or the house you’re renting collapses. This doesn’t mean you lose your money (insurance) but you no longer get a check every month for doing nothing. However these kind of activities are considered to bring you financial freedom.

Thinking that the internet is a source of becoming financial free is wrong, because no matter what website you start, you need to promote, optimize, update the content and so on. You’re active. In my opinion there is nothing that we can call 100% passive income, because no matter what, be it one time a year, you get interested and you act. Active again.

I like what John Chow said about getting truly rich by becoming financial free:

A job was never designed to make you rich. It was design to make you exist and make the business owner rich. This is not to say you should quit your job. Far from it – you still have to exist.

That’s true, but make sure you’re not missing opportunities, because you can be the next business owner to hire people and becoming rich. Put all the pros and cons in one bag, see what your financial lifeline is, and then if you think you can get it done, enter the online world.

This guest post is written by Mihnea Boiangiu.

Google empire is going to add one more company. Probably you have heard the rumors about FeedBurner. But the rumors from yesterday are the reality from today. The business went official and Google will buy the RSS management company - FeedBurner.

I remembered about the fictional future company called Googlezon from the Epic’s movie which you can watch below:

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=I_v15VV226s[/youtube]

Fortunately, this movie is fictional. At least the most part of it! The question is “Where we are going to…?”, because Google tends to become a monopolistic company. This year they have bought the DoubleClick company and FeedBurner is becoming the second acquisition in 2007. What should we expect next?

In this way, we will assist to the battle of the giants. Microsoft starts loosing terrain in front of Google. They should purchase something sooner, if they don’t want to lose the battle. In my opinion the Internet will become a battlefield between the big players. The regular Internet users will become part of the system and they will need to obey the rules. For example, check up the new Google rules about link exchange and paid links. Google won’t accept the publishers who sell links and their sites will be removed from the search engine. And that would be enough to close your business. Something should be done to stop this companies to monopolize the Internet until is not too late.

We live in web2.0 right, so it’s users that will create content, for our websites because we give them, as webmasters, the chance for dialogue. There are many users out there that never heard of social bookmarking sites and they usually search Google or are just devoted to their local websites for news.

I had my experience with Digg and StumbleUpon, hell even with Reddit and I am now ready to answer two logical questions: should my website get Dugg, and if so, should I only concentrate on getting that kind of visits or should I look for referral readers (other than social bookmarking websites)?

I bet you can imagine what the answer for the first question is. Of course, it’s great to get on those social bookmarking websites, not only for the huge amount of traffic you get for about 48 hours, but for getting exposure. Do not expect to make any sales, get any Adsense or other advertisements clicks because you won’t. The profile of those visitors (or at least most of them) is ad-blind, which means they ignore your ads no matter how flashy they are. However, Digg traffic is not useless. First of all you made it to the front page, which means you had great content, right? Then you are worth reading, right? Second of all, you could get a few RSS subscribers which may become regular readers.

Now comes the second question. Should you focus on getting first pages with your every article and count only on that kind of traffic? Definitely not, because these visitors don’t usually read your whole website and they don’t stay for a small chat. They will not contribute much to your articles, they will not leave comments on your site but on the original site they came from, and they will not stay long. As an example, average visitor on Gizmodo stays 3 minutes and you can see where they come from, here. Isn’t that nice?

So do not ignore social bookmarking websites, but never neglect getting a little exposure on other websites/blogs, because this is what will bring added value.