Spam Problems

Almost every single blog out there will be have at least a ton of spam comments on it. Spam has become very difficult to restrict in any type of website or blog. Using a spam blocker like Akismet or Bad Behavior can help you to manage automated spam. However, of late, spammers visit your website and advertise their products or sites which have no value whatsoever.

Also, spam directed toward your blog or site may be originating from specific countries. You can find this by keeping track of the IPs that leave spam comments or messages on your site. If you want to block an IP, you can do it easily. However, spammers may simply use another IP address to send their spam. Sometimes, it becomes essential to block an entire country or range of IPs in order to block the spam.

Blocking with .htaccess

The .htaccess or hypertext access file is one that can be used for changing access permissions to any folder or subdomain on your site. If the .htaccess file is present on your hosting account by default, then all you need to do is edit it. If not you need to create and upload one.

Creating a .htaccess file

• Create a text file on your PC and name it htaccess.txt (or anything else)
• Upload it to the root of your hosting account. In most cases, put it in the folder which has the folders by the name of public_html, private_html etc. If you do not know the root folder, simply ask your host.
• Then using a FTP client or the File Manager of your host, rename the file to .htaccess. Ensure that the file name is dot htaccess (don’t forget the dot)
• You cannot create the file with the name .htaccess in Windows and hence you need to follow this procedure

Banning Countrywide Visitors

• Visit Block a Country
• Select the Country that you want to ban
• Get the .htaccess details for that country
• Copy it and paste it in your .htaccess file
• Now, all visitors from the country will not be allowed to enter the site

Disadvantages of Blocking

The main demerit would be missing out of visitors from that country. However, these countries would probably not fetch you much traffic anyway. The site basically generates a list of IPs specific to that particular country. Also, spammers may use proxies from another country to over ride your protection. But, you can atleast discourage most spammers from your site.

This needs to be done only in extreme cases of spam problems. In case, you have a couple of spam from a country and you ban the country, then you seriously will be having problems in getting visitors to your site.

Do tell me if you’ve ever had the need to do so for your site or blog. Consider sharing this if you find it useful and thanks for reading!

It is a fact that people may have more than one email account. I have atleast 4 different email accounts with different service providers like Yahoo!, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL etc. However, to keep updated on all the new mail that keeps coming in to your various accounts, you need to log in to each of these sites separately or use a software like Thunderbird or Outlook to sync and collect all the mails.

However, if you are an avid Gmail fan like I am, then you can collect all the mail from your other accounts and view them in your Gmail Inbox without logging in for each site. Here’s how you do it:

• First, Log in to your Gmail account
• Click on the Settings option at the Top Right Corner
• Click on the Accounts Tab
• From the Get mail from other accounts: Click on Add another mail account to get a popup window
• Enter your email ID (e.g. myemailid@yahoo.com) and click next
  
• Now, Gmail will attempt to fill in the POP Server and Port by itself using defaults for the service provider. However, if the details seem to be wrong, then you can type in the right ones
• Enter the password for the account
• Click on add account and you are good to go.

The email accounts you add will then be checked by Gmail on a periodic basis and the mails will be retrieved from there and stored in your Gmail account. However, the frequency of checking will be based only on previous mail checks and you can’t set it. You can cancel the mail fetching by simply deleting the email accounts from the Accounts Tab.

You are also provided options to label or archive the incoming messages from a specific email ID in order to distinguish them from the rest. You are given the option to save the retrieved email messages in your other email account or delete them as soon as they are retrieved. Finally, there is an option to retrieve the mail by using a Secure Connection to prevent interceptions if your email provider supports the feature.

Also, I did test this for Yahoo! Mail and I found that the POP service is only available for Yahoo! Mail Plus users. The other email accounts seem to be working though. Do tell me if you would find this feature useful or if you’ve used it before. Thanks for reading!

Part of the [GAS] Ultimate How-To Contest

After being in the dark for more than a couple of months, the Pagerank Update has finally began taking place. Atleast, that is what I can deduce after noticing John Chow’s site today. Speculation has been rife in the Digital Point forums about the latest Pagerank Update. You can check your PR as its updating with the list of Top 7 places to check your live pagerank.

The Surprise

Also, the surprise here being that John Chow actually lost a PR on his blog seeing that it has gone down to four from five. The iWebtool Pagerank Prediction Tool, on which many webmasters seem to have had their eye on, also got its prediction wrong in case of John’s site. The tool clearly indicates that John Chow’s PR would go up to 6 and also displaying a backlink count of well over 25000. Then, where did it go wrong?

The Problem

Google, or atleast Matt Cutts, as far as I know has been clearly campaigning against the use of paid links on blogs and websites and has also recommended that people report paid links found on websites using the spam report form. Also taking into account the fact that John has extensive advertising on his site especially in the form of text links and banners which all fall under the paid advertising category, he shouldn’t be too surprised that the Pagerank has dropped on the site.

Of course, it is one of the biggest blogs on the web and that makes it just too easy to notice. On an approximate count, there are 16 text links and 8 banner links on the sidebar alone and it is quite evident that they are paid.

Does it affect John Chow?

A PR drop may be a momentary jolt for John, but rest assured that is not something I would worry about if I was John. The reason being that most advertisers pick the blog for the sheer amount of traffic it brings and not for the PR alone. Having an Alexa rank <2500 is certainly no mean achievement. Losing a single PR will most probably not affect the site in anyway, especially in terms of revenue. I’d love to hear John’s take on this.. This isn’t the first time that Google hates him though

How does it affect you?

For the average blogger however, this is a different story. The low traffic blogs try to sell text links based on their PageRank only. However, selling links may get you a rap from Google, leading to a drop in the PR. This means, you can’t command as much authority as before and your link sales may drop.

The average bloggers will be the most hit from this new strategy of Google. An alternate way to make money is certainly an option that such bloggers will have to explore, if they want to stand a chance of making money from their site without antagonising Google.

Have you had any impact on your PR with this update? And if the PR takes a beating, will it affect your income? Do give your opinions on this! Thanks for reading!

Edit:It seems that more than one top blog has taken a PR beating from Google and those include:

• Seroundtable.com
• Searchenginejournal.com
• Searchengineguide.com
• Problogger.net
• Copyblogger.com

Digital Point is really going nuts over this one!

Services like TinyURL are dime a dozen out there and they offer to shorten long URL’s in order to help you post them easily on any place from forums to blogs and even on paper. It is a fact that long URL’s are annoying to read and remember. They also break blog and website templates causing the URL alone to stick out like a sore thumb ruining the look of your blog.

But for those who really want to annoy their friends there are a few services that create longer or harder-to-remember URLs from simpler URLs and you can use these to have some fun of your own. As they say Bigger is Better and Size does Matter after all

Longer URL

This service offers you the option to choose the length of the final URL. The minimum length is 100 and the maximum length is 1000. Configurable I guess!

Link: Longer URL

Huge URL @ Wiggy

This service does not simply lengthen the URL but gives you options to apply different styles and then create a new URL from your old fashioned one. The styles include MD5, Base 64, UUID, Swedish Chef etc.

Link: HugeURL @ Wiggy

HugeURL

This site has no options for you. It’s simple and straightforward. Just put in your URL and presto, you get a really long one instantly! I got a 1565 character URL approx.

Link: HugeURL

LongerURL @ DMWH

Another run-of-the-mill service. You get a 650 character output approx.

Link: LongerURL

WideURL

This service lengthens the URLs to a not-too-annoying but yet noticeable amount, say around 100 characters. Also, the unique feature of this service is that it uses hyphens in the resulting URL that makes it eye catching and this makes it hard to miss such an URL when you post it.

http://wideurl.com/aitch-tee-tee-pea-colon-double-slash-
wubbleyou-ess-eye-tee-ee-gee-you-eye-dee-ee-dot-you-ess

That was how Siteguide looked like. It is pretty much like spelling out the word Siteguide..

Link: WideURL

Those were the services I was able to find.. If you have any other suggestions, let me know! Do consider sharing if you find it interesting!

Thanks to Pchere from QOT for the inspiration!

This certainly is no sweepstakes site, but a legit site run by a Jason Burns. TakeMyTech basically works like this. The founder Jason has quite a lot of techie stuff back home ranging from Computer Parts, MP3 Players, DVDs, Video Games to more expensive stuff like a laptop, a game console etc. At TakeMyTech, Jason offers to give away these stuff in the weeks to come.

So, once he decides to put up an item to give away, he puts up a post telling us a bit about the item that he owns. And all you need to do is to simply leave a comment on that post (a reasonable one atleast). And when the number of comments on a particular post reaches 100, Jason selects a random name from the 100 commenters and gives away the prize in the post to that person. And what’s more, he offers worldwide shipping for the items as well. I certainly think that this is an innovative idea. Instead of simply throwing away the unused stuff or selling them on ebay, this is a way to build some popularity for yourself on the internet!

Although the items that are put up on the site may not be brand new, they are guaranteed to work well. You may not end up getting something new, but hey, you can certainly end up with something useful. Only one item has been given out so far and that was a Kensington Notebook backpack. There are loads of other items as well including routers, games, a fingerprint reader etc that are yet up for grabs. So, go get them before somebody else does! Here are a few posts that are heading toward the 100 comment mark:

• Trendnet Dual Band 802.11a/g Omni Antenna w/ Base (83)
• Do you want a free ATI All-In-Wonder 2006 Card? (78)
• Netgear WGR614 802.11G Wireless Router (72)
• eHome EH100 802.11g WiFi Router (66)
• Microsoft Fingerprint Reader – USB (63)