Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
I spent today trying to find a new oven online. My oven has decided to have a mind of its own. Sometimes it is twenty five degrees below what I set it; sometimes it is twenty five over. The thing can’t make up its mind, and it is getting increasingly more difficult to cook. What does this have to do with Izea?
The Rankspank
Well, several months ago, many bloggers who get paid to write posts were RankSpanked. What this means is that we once had PR, and we no longer do. PR is the holy grail to most bloggers who do any sort of paid work. The higher your PR, the more money you were able to charge. You’ll even see this badge on a lot of sites out there:
PR and other measures
Up until recently, there really wasn’t a good measure of a blogs worth. PR wasn’t even all that great. Yes, blogs with PR had backlinks, but you never really knew what kind of traffic they were getting. Alexa is another service out there. Your traffic with them only counted if you visitor had the Alexa toolbar, so that was not too good of a measure either.
At this point, Google seems to be changing the rules as they go. It is getting to the point you need a degree online to figure out how they are designing their algorithm. You use to need lots of backlinks to get PR. Now, it is anyone’s guess. At this time, you can have all the backlinks in the world, and if Google thinks you are doing any sort of blogging for pay, they will knock you to zero. They have knocked down sites that don’t do it. I have seen a lot of guilty by acquaintance. You mention one of your other blogs on a rankspanked blog — that new blog won’t get PR either. I know that because I have two sites that should have gotten some PR and didn’t. I’ll be honest, I hadn’t planned on including my cooking blog at all in any sort of blogging for pay. However, since I am not going to get PR anyway, I figured why not! Every so often you hear that people got their PR back and did nothing different to get it back. I wish I was one of those people. However, I am not.
How can you know what to do with the rules constantly changing and you have no idea what the rules really are?
The Answer
The answer to my stove problem is the thermostat. We either need to replace that or buy a new stove. The answer to the PR problem is that we either need to replace part of it or come up with a whole new ranking system. Since we have no control over Google, the best bet out there is the new measure IzeaRanks. IzeaRanks allows you to measure your RealRank, your pageviews, and your uniques. Something I have learned about bloggers is the last couple of years or so is that we are all stat junkies. We love to have multiple places to see where we rank.
How do I get it?
Getting it is super simple. You just go to IzeaRanks and fill out some information about your blog. You then are given a code to put into your footer. Now, you don’t have to do any sort blogging for pay to be involved in this. I think the majority of the blogs listed aren’t part of any service. To get your real rank, the system weights blogs 70% on daily unique visitors, 20% by daily active inbound links and 10% by daily page views. Here’s sneak peak of what the graphs look like:
Now, you will see 4 different lines on there. I used my 4 blogs to make the graph. You can use your blogs or any blogs in the system to compare stats. You can also graph pageviews and uniques too. Finally, a true measure of where you are at.
This is free to use, so you have nothing to lose trying it. What are you waiting for?
Tags: ack, alexa, amp, badges, bet, blog, blogger, bloggers, blogging, blogs, cid, constantly, ears, eed, eve, flickr, google, guess, guilt, hose, images, ing, ip, izea, junkie, logs, love, mak, measures, metrics, money, mp, ot, pay, prob, rv, spa, spanked, stat, stats, target, ted, ter, thinks, time, traffic, utm, wh
Posted in General | 1 Comment »
Monday, February 18th, 2008
Who wants a cookie? I know that I always could go for a cookie no matter when it is. However, I think I own one cookie recipe (actually make that two because I have a chocolate chip recipe and a Christmas cookie recipe). Bill and the kids get bored of my one chocolate chip recipe and are constantly bugging me that I should find some new cookie recipes. I think I found the site to solve all my cookie problems.
Popular Cookie Recipes is the site to go to when you are looking for the best cookie recipes. I also learned some cool facts about cookies that I am definitely going to be using in my next Trivia Pursuit game. Did you know that the first cookies were really miniature cakes used to test oven temperatures before the baker cooked the final cake? There is a long history that follows the cookie that I never would have guessed that I learned tonight. Anybody want to challenge me?
The real reason I wanted to check out the cookie site was for the recipes and I was not disappointed. All the recipes listed are super easy to make and hard to screw up. You know, my type of recipe. I looked at everything from the Chocolate Chip Recipe to Snickerdoodle Recipe to the Gingerbread Recipe. I think I could handle all of them.
The more I keep talking about cookies, the hungrier I keep getting. Needless to say, I think I am baking some cookies tonight. Anybody want to join me?
Tags: acts, ants, Bill, bore, chocolate, christmas, constantly, disappoint, disappointed, eed, eve, game, guess, heck, ing, ip, kids, love, mak, mp, nick, ot, prob, recipes, screw, target, ted, ter, wh
Posted in General | 5 Comments »
Sunday, January 20th, 2008
I have just started using Gloves In A Bottle to help battle the effects of a Chicago winter. Days like today (when with the wind chill it is below zero) are the very reason I need this new skincare item. The part I love about Gloves In A Bottle is that it does not wash off. With two little ones, I find myself constantly washing my hands. With other lotions, I was finding that I constantly was having to reapply for it to work. Well, I can’t spend my day applying lotion (mostly because I don’t remember). For maximum effectiveness, you just need to reapply Gloves In A Bottle every 4 hours. Well, I tend not even remember to do it that much, and I still have noticed a difference. I have also passed on a few sample packs of this to my cousin who is a nurse. She finds herself constantly washing her hands at work too. She lives over on the East Coast, so they have dry cold winters too. I also love that it isn’t greasy. I cannot stand lotion that leaves a mark on everything I touch after I apply it. It ranks up there pretty high on my list of pet peeves. Not only can you order this online, but it widely accessible in over 13,000 stores nationwide (if you hate to pay for shipping like me). You are also able to use this on other parts of your body, and it works just as good!
Tags: ack, amp, bottle, constantly, cousin, eed, eve, images, ing, ip, leaves, love, mp, nurse, ot, otic, oz, pay, pee, shipping, skincare, target, ted, ter, washi, wh
Posted in General | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
I was recently asked the question who could use the product Freeze It the most. The answer was super easy to come by. It is this guy:
Who is that? Well, as my regular readers know, that is my husband. Both of us are all of thirty (I know we are soooo old!). My body however seems to holding up better than his (not sure why that is though). Since college, Bill has a had a problem with his knee (I have known him since we were 19, and he was having knee problems then already). The first time I remember his knee going out on him was when we were helping his grandfather move. If I remember correctly, he was carrying a box to the street, walked over the curb, and his knee went out. Not is only painful that his knee goes out, it also pulls and stretches all the muscles and tendons around it. That is the most painful part for him. He’s tweaked it on and off several times through the 11 years I have known him. Most notable are two instances that have happened somewhat recently. The first that comes to mind is when his brother Nick got married. Bill was dancing and his knee, yet again, went out on him. I think he said his shoe stuck to the floor. The last time he had a major issue was at my family reunion in August. He was playing baseball and his knee went out when he was at bat. Not a good situation at all.
As he has gotten older, it seems like it takes longer and longer each time to recover. It also seems like what we used in the past no longer works. He is at the point where when the weather changes his knee starts to bother him. However, he will not go to the doctor for it. That where Freeze It Gel comes into play. I think if he would start dealing with the pain of the muscle pulls and tears that happen when this occurs, it will solve a lot of his other problems. He is constantly complaining of a sore neck. I personally think this is all connected (plus he can use the Freeze It on his neck too!). I think he adjusts the way he walks and even lays due to the pain in his leg. Get rid of the pain — get rid of the other aches. I am not a doctor, but that makes sense to me.
There are several uses for Freeze It such as:
- Sore Muscles & Muscle Sprains
- Back, Shoulder, Neck Pain
- Arthritis, Painful Ankle, Knee, Hip & Elbow Joints
- Muscular Strains
Bill could use it for all of these when he having knee issues. Also, during the summer, he plays softball and gets really sore. This is a product that would definitely make a difference in my household. We have a 3 year old and a 5 month old (who this week figured out how to roll across the entire living room floor!) that need to be constantly chased after. When one parent is out of commission, it just makes it a whole lot more difficult. We’ll survive, but I am worried that if Bill is having problems now already, what are the next 20 years going to be like?
If you are interested in Freeze It, you definitely should watch this:
Tags: 11_years, bother, brother_nick, constantly, family_reunion, instances, knee_problems, last_time, longer_works, muscles, muscle_pulls, several_times, stretches, stuck_to_the_floor, tendons, tweaked, walks, weather_changes
Posted in General | 3 Comments »
Friday, November 16th, 2007
I just checked out some great templates Designed by Lara. As you can see, I changed my template again. I would love to have a template designed for me, so I don’t have to constantly do this every couple of months. Think of all the time I could save. Head over to Just Not Martha to read all the fancy details. Pretty much all you need to do is comment on the contest post and if you want, write a post just like this. The more you do, the more entries you get. It is a great contest to check out.
Tags: constantly, i_changed, lara, love, martha, templates
Posted in General | 1 Comment »
