Google Using ToolBar Data To Find New Sites
Posted on May 12, 2008
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I’ve read a lot recently that Google is relying more and more on ToolBar data for determining SERPS, site quality, etc - as a matter of fact, Jeremy Shoemaker mentioned it just the other day in his post titled SEO Has No Future. So far though, the theory that Google is using this data is just that - theory. It makes sense. Why else would Google pay $1 for Firefox with Google Toolbar conversions? But as usual with Google, nobody knows for sure (until now?)
Proof That Google Is Using ToolBar Data:
Maybe this is already known by others, but it’s new to me so I’m writing about it because I think you can use it to your advantage - Especially if you create a lot of new sites and you want Google to get them indexed quickly.
A week or so ago, Mubin Ahmed was having trouble with his server. I offered to help and created an account for him on my dedicated server and imported his WordPress blog. He ended up getting another server so his account was only active on my box for a few hours. The only two people that knew the custom URL to the test-blog were Mubin and myself. I don’t think Mubin even visited the test-site, but I visited it several times using Firefox with the ToolBar installed. Once we got Mubin up and running on his own server, I deleted his test blog from my server and deleted the account - remember - total time online only a few hours.
Today while perusing my server logs I noticed something very odd: Several attempted hits to unique URLs that belonged to Mubin’s test-blog. All of those hits were from the Google Bot. The only way that Google could have known that those unique URLs existed is if they were captured while I was visiting those pages. This test-blog had no links from anywhere, and it was only online for a short time. To me this is proof that Google used the data collected via the Toolbar when I visited those pages to add them to the index.
So if you want your new sites found and indexed quickly, it looks like all you have to do is visit it a few times with your toolbar installed - getting a few of your friends to do the same thing might help too.
No biggie - but I thought I would share.
Filed Under Google | 8 CommentsWhat Is Your ‘SR’ (Spam Rank) ?
Posted on May 8, 2008
With all the hubub about Google’s recent PR update I thought it was a good idea to mention the real measure of how popular your blog or website is.. The way to judge how popular your blog or site is based on a real-world measurement instead of some mystial/made-up number from Google that nobody can explain or quantify. I’m talking about your SR or SPAM RANK.
When I first moved the blog from Blogger.com to Wordpress and setup my Akismet Plugin I was disappointed after the first few months because it seemed like the spammers didn’t care about me or my blog - Akismet would only get 1 or 2 spam comments per week. I was really starting to feel unloved.
Now that’s all changed. Sure, Google has changed the Page Rank 
of the blog from a PR3 to a PR4, but I don’t care about that - I care about what really matters, my SpamRank of over 20,000! Now not a day goes by that I don’t get 5-10 worthless, lame, “trying to look real” spam comments caught by Akismet every day! I’m finally someone!
What’s your Spam-Rank?
Filed Under Blogging | 8 CommentsEarnings UP - Life Without PayPal Is Good
Posted on May 4, 2008
Last month I posted about how sometimes being a webmaster sucks - I complained about Adsense earnings being down, getting banned from Paypal, having trouble with website members, and several other things that were pissing me off.
When I wrote those posts I was ready to throw in the towel because it seemed that nothing was going right.
Fast forward to now, several weeks later and things are getting back to normal. Adsense earnings are back on track, Kontera earnings are right up there with (and sometimes better than) Adsense, I won 2nd Place in Kontera’s Video Contest, members are back under control at the website, PayPal gave me back my money, and best of all, April 2008 was a record month for earnings, coming in at just a hair over $14,000.
I knew April would be a good month because of being forced to change subscription members from low-priced monthly fees (via PayPal) to a single, higher-priced flat-fee via Google Checkout. But what has been surprising to me is that the new Premium Member sign-up rate has remained almost constant even with the higher (one time) fee. Although I highly doubt that we will break our April earnings record it looks like May ‘08 will be another very good month - the best part is that I can say fuckyou PayPal, GoogleCheckout is more than happy to take my transaction fees (and Google Checkout fees are lower!) .. Although as usual i’ll be under the gun to make sure that Premium Members are getting value for their money. I’m working on a new contest as well as some site-upgrades so hopefully we can keep everyone happy.
I guess the old saying about making lemon aid when all you have is lemons is true.
Filed Under Earnings | 3 CommentsHottest New Blogger Video
Posted on April 28, 2008
Starring Shoemoney, John Chow and Darren Rowse.
..sometimes it’s sad the when you think about how much free-time I have..
