My suggestions to Entrecard change

In the second part of my last post,I had told you the reasons why most people are resisting the change.There has been more than enough resistance to the change.Here are some reasons why the recent change is in fact a good news for your blog.

1.Private ads in EC Widget.
EC makes money and will buy your ECs back from you-Another good money making opportunity for bloggers.Most bloggers are for here for making money.For the others,consider running private ads as 'service charge' for entrecard.

2.Less clicks and less exposure
One of the important clicks received is by bloggers who drop by clicking the ad and continue dropping(A small percentage use this method,alternate to EC toolbar)A good tip to overcome this short coming is by adding the text"EC"(similar to the small buy/free/ badges)I am at present working on my EC widget to do this.

3.Banning of entrecard on Today.com
Sadly, this has happened.Today.com has asked to remove the EC widget within 2 weeks.

4.The fee to reject ads has been dropped.No need to pay anything to reject paid ads.

5.'Above the fold' rule changed to 'One Page down rule'.

My Suggestion:

Entrecard is really a great site/tool for bloggers.The following are my sole personal suggestions.They do not represent Entrecard's action in anyway.My suggestion regarding this change of Entrecard is

1.Reducing the maximum limit of 50% impressions for paid ads to 20%

2.No paid ads in Today.com and Today.com blogs won't receive credits for the droppings they receive.However,the dropper will receive 1 EC per drop.

3.Users can opt out of the paid ads by becoming a 'Special Member' which can be like yearly subscriptions for a small amount.

4.No fee(ECs) for rejecting paid ads if proper reason is given for declining.

The above is just my *suggestion*,and does not represent the views of Entrecard.

As for the future posts,I am thinking of introducing useful websites/free softwares from the web.I must thank Liane of Better Blogging for Bloggers for the beautiful 'I Comment Back' images,which I would be updating soon in that post.

Feel free to air your views in comments.What do you think of the change in Entrecard?What is your suggestion?

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Two major updates

I have two important updates to share with you all.One is the google adsense requirement of having a privacy policy for blogs.This has become a requirement as adsense has decided to give more importance to the type of sites that the users have visited earlier,thus providing a more appealing and relevant advertising.Users can of course opt out of this if they don't like it.

All bloggers can easily create their own privacy policy using this free online tool,and its better to add the following lines beneath it,thanks to Michael :)

We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you.

Google’s use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to you based on your visit to this site and other sites on the Internet. You may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.

Another major update which I would like to share is that Entrecard is going to buy all your Entrecard credits for money in a week.For this and also to account for the server costs,Entrecard has decided to implement the usage of 3rd party advertising on EC widget 50% of the time.Of the money got from this,75% will be used to buy ECs from users,and the rest 25% for server costs.

This sharp change in Entrecard has come with some strong criticisms from bloggers,due to reasons like

1. Entrecard is using your adspace to make money,and you probably won't get any money for the 3rd part advertisements.
2. Less exposure to blogs who advertise,as their ads are shown only 50% of the time.
3. Some are afraid that this may result in banning of entrecard on Today.com as they don't allow other 3rd party advertisements to be shown.
4. Entrecarders will have to spend credits(exact amount not known) if they wish not to show any 3rd party advertisements.Update:This has been removed as requested by most people :)
   
5. EC widget above the fold rule was initially implemented,but was subsequently withdrawn(nearly) after some requests.

I can understand why bloggers won't like this change.Many bloggers felt Entrecard as their personal site friend and not as any other monetizing for blogs,and they don't want it to become one.Many bloggers are already thinking of dropping out of Entrecard.I think its really not justifiable to reject the change outright.I think monetizing on 15%,instead of a drastic change of 50% would have been a more feasible and smooth change.What do you think?

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Beware of dropped domains with fake PR

Domaining,in simple words,is buying and reselling of domain names,and its lot like a real estate market,you can't guess all the frauds that can happen and some domain names would go for high xxx $,and a better one(according to you) will not find any takers.

The price of a domain is just relative.You can't put a fixed price on any domain.The price basically depends on the potential and competitors.Coming back to the point,I was thinking of having a go at domaining by buying a couple of 'good' domains.Needless to say,all potentially worth domains were registered.Domaining has a lot of potential and there are tons of people who spend a lot of time on it.For example,Business.com went for a staggering US $ 345 million.

I was quite shocked when I saw that some of the dropped domains(the ones which weren't renewed) had PRs of 2 and 3.This was quite surprising as there are thousands of domainers checking the dropped domains,and it was even more surprising when I found that those domains had very less number of backlinks.So,beware of such fake pr dropped domains.

Not all page rank checkers detect fake page ranks.Check page ranking not only detects the fake page rank but also provides results for both www and non-www.

Some domains may be banned by google and/or adsense.The simplest way to check is by google searching the site link(www.yoursite.com).If search results appear for the site,then the site is not banned.If search results doesn't appear,its either new or may be banned.However,you can file a reconsideration request to unban it from google.

If you thinking of registering a domain,I would strongly recommend to go for a dot com.If you are thinking of registering a domain name for your blog,feel free to ask my suggestion on it.

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Why do blogs die?

I have seen a lot of dead blogs-blogs that are not updated for more than 6 months,and its highly unlikely that the blog will be updated ever again.As time moves on,even the blog owner forgets the URL of the dead blog.Most of the dead blogs I have seen are between 1-5 months active.

So,what made the blog owner to forget his blog?Here are some main reasons why blogs die.

1. Over expectation - Most bloggers set themselves highly unrealistic goals,and when the results are not encouraging,they feel depressed and leave the blog.
2. Monetizing the blog - Although its not bad to earn some pocket money from your blog,many turn to blogging expecting to earn lots of money.Come on,not every body can become John Chow!
3. Over enthusiastic - Many new bloggers are over enthusiastic in the beginning and gradually lose interest in blogging.
4. Over analyzing - Trying to analyze and know about all blogging tips and tricks,and some blogs die even before they are started.(I escaped from being an example to this narrowly :D )
5. Topics to post - Some start a blog about something they know little,mainly due to the reason that it has a wider market and someone had done better in that.Obviously,they run out of topics,and finally they give up.
6. Sudden Shocks - Many leave blogging due to the shocks they receive like deindexed by google,losing Page Rank,adsense account suspended and so on.
   
7. Lack of time - Many start 3 or 4 blogs in a single go, and they find it difficult to update the blogs due to time constraint.
8. No Readers - Some bloggers feel that no one is reading their posts and feel depressed when they see that their hard written post(s) have 0 comments.

Some good tips for blogging are

1. Don't be elated when you get a higher page rank,and deflated when you have lesser page rank.Yes,page rank is imporant for blogs.Just don't give them over importance.
2. Start a single blog initially and try to post consistently.
3. Start a blog on a topic which you know about and that should also interest you.
4. Do blogging as a hobby,and not as a chore.
5. Don't start a blog with the sole aim of making money from it.
6. As to the getting readers for your blog,join in social groups,actively participate in forums,and join Entrecard.Post replies as soon as possible to the questions asked by readers in the comments.Increase interactiveness.

I will try to update this list as and when I get new points.Finally to conclude,blogging can be very much enjoyable if you do it as a hobby,and not as a chore with over expectation. Blogging should be a pleasure,not a strain for you.

So,what else do you think causes the blog to die?What other tips would you like to give for effective blogging?Do you have a blog which you no longer attend?

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