Monthly Archives: October 2009

Blogging

Maintaining Your Blog

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Tuesday night I did something that I’m betting almost no one else ever does. Probably most people don’t have to do it as much as I do, but it’s something that they should think about doing in some way every once in awhile.


by Pete Birkinshaw

I spent a few hours doing maintenance on this blog. I think this is post #540, and I went through every post on this blog, looking for my ads that might be missing or that might have been altered in some fashion. As you know, I have either an affiliate link or a product at the end of almost every single post. I put products there because I’ve tried to figure out the types of things visitors to this blog might like every once in awhile. The thing isn’t so much that they might want to buy that particular thing as much as they might want to buy something similar to it. They, or you, can still click on that product link, look around the site for other things, and I still get paid from that.

However, what happens every once in awhile is one of three things. One, those advertisers are expired, which means those links are dead. Two, the images have changed and, though the link would still work, without a visual product who’d even think about clicking on it? And three, that product is discontinued, and therefore I have to change products.

So, I spent some time doing that. The next maintenance project will be activating Broken Link Checker, just to check all the links on the site, then deactivating it again. Some of you might remember when I wrote about that plugin and others that kept giving me server errors. It works great, but I don’t keep it running all the time on any of my blogs.

How often do you go back and check things on your blog to make sure they’re still working properly? It might take you some time, but most of you don’t have close to as many posts as I have, so go ahead, take some time, and while you’re at it, think about optimizing or monetizing your old posts in some fashion. Remember, the entire product of your blog helps your blog to rank better, and better rankings means potentially more visitors.

Soulmate Bear
by Swarovski

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Mitch Mitchell

Blogging

Fake Commenter Names

36 Comments

I’ve been thinking about the use of fake blog commenter names a lot lately. Actually, I’ve thought about it before, and probably for a long time. I really started thinking about it a lot more after I wrote my post on the person who was hiding behind a fake name and defaming the model; she got hers in the end. Earlier in the summer I also wrote on the anonymity of bloggers and how I will agree that, sometimes, a blogger has to keep their name secret to protect themselves, but how generally I don’t believe that’s the way to go.

I’ve also written many times on leaving valuable comments instead of throwaway comments. One such post was about commenting and not wasting people’s time with a terrible comment. Another post was a little rant about why it behooves you to comment on other blogs. People appreciate when you comment on their blogs, and if they like it you might get some love back; who doesn’t like that?

Anyway, back to this name thing. I’m someone who likes to respond back to people who leave pretty good comments on my blog. I don’t expect perfection, but I expect realism. I know to delete all those posts that ask me where I got my theme, especially when I haven’t ever written a post about blog themes here (well, that’s not quite true; I did write one that was more about gravatars than themes but mentioned it, and another one reminding people to move things after changing their theme, but that’s it).

When I don’t have a name to respond to, I feel a little bit silly if I want to comment and I have to use the fake name, which I know some people like to refer to as a keyword name. I will often look at the email address to see if there’s a name there, and if so I’ll respond to that email name and leave the keyword name. If not, then I change the keyword name to only initials, then I’ll comment on it. But that takes time that I shouldn’t have to deal with.

I’m easily not alone on this one. There are posts galore from people about hating keyword names, such as this one from Neil Shearing, this one from Success Creations, and this one from Blogging Startup. There was even a post from Remarkablogger on writing keywords in comment posts that I thought was very good. Even my friend Sire addresses this in his comment policy.

I’ve always deleted links in comments that have nothing to do with the topic I wrote on. They’re not needed; this always tells me that some folks have no idea what CommentLuv is all about, which they see at the bottom of every post. If you’re writing from a blog, CommentLuv will go and find your last blog post and add it automatically. If you go to the CommentLuv site and sign up for an account, it will find your last 10 and you get to select which one you want to highlight. I mean, that’s just a great thing.

If you’re not writing from a blog, then just post the link you want in where it asks for your domain address, and you’re good to go. I don’t have a real problem with that, unless it’s a TinyURL or to a site that’s easy to discern as bad; I will delete those, and have. I hate hidden links as a general rule, and it’s one of the things about Twitter that makes me wary at times.

Why do people use keywords as their comment name anyway? It seems that many years ago some people were writing and saying that it would help them with their SEO efforts to do it. Gang, that’s just not true. It only helps if you’re doing it on your own blog or website. By putting it on mine, all you’re doing it either helping or hurting me if your name does or does not equate to the topic I’ve just written about. And it generates a lot of spam; many other folks seem to say that they get way more blog commenting spam when they’ve been allowing fake names, and I do get quite a bit.

I’ve given people who comment on my blog a lot of benefits. I’ve added CommentLuv. I’ve made this a dofollow blog, which means you’ll get your little bit of juice by commenting. And I don’t turn comments off after a certain point in time either. I even respond to almost every comment (I mean, there’s a point at which I might have to determine who gets the last word, and it’s not always going to be me). All I ask is for a little bit of decorum coming back.

So, from today on, I ask everyone to at least give me a real name that I can respond to before you write your keyword name, if you really feel that you have to do it. Either that or put your real name at the end of your comment, which our friend Steve of Trade Show Guru fame does. It helps us develop a relationship, and keeps me from having to go in and edit names. And, if you can, use CommentLuv or the domain name area for your links, unless you’re adding a link in your comment to add to the discussion at hand.

From today on, I will be reducing those keyword names without a real name preceding it to one letter; if I’m going to work, I’m going to make it easy on myself. And we’ll proceed from there. I think it’s fair, and so would our friend Dennis, who also wrote a fairly good comment policy, which at the time I thought was pretty tough.

And there we go. Something for a Sunday morning before football starts, where I’m hoping my Cowboys will remember why they’re known as America’s team and actually starts playing some better football.


Internet

When Is The Last Time You Searched Your Name?

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How many of you ever check your name on Google to see what might be out there for you? If you have a common name, the numbers might be kind of skewed, which stinks. If I go looking up Mitch Mitchell I’m out there, but I have to deal with a heck of a lot of stuff that talks about Jimi Hendrix former drummer.

However, when I go looking under my official business name, which is “T. T. Mitchell (and don’t ask, because I’m not telling what any of it stands for), I’ll find myself all over the place. As a matter of fact, out of the first 50 references on Google, 38 of the references are to me. Out of the next 50 references, 17 are about me. I mean, 55 out of the first 100; that’s not bad if you ask me.

It can be pretty heady stuff when you keep finding websites that you’re listed on, or things you’ve written. I’ve found all sorts of things about myself that I never expected to find. I found a reference to a speaking engagement I’m giving next April on social media; never knew that was online. I found that many songs I have copyrights on are listed online in a certain place; freaky. I’ve found my articles on sites I never knew existed. I’ve found myself listed for things I’d have never expected to be found for. I even found someone who recommended both my newsletters and my services (read the article by Catherine Ryan on the right), someone I hate to admit I don’t remember, or can’t verify that I’ve met, but you know, we take recommendations as we find them, right?

Overall, how many references are there that pertain to me? According to Yahoo, more than 8,600; yeow! There’s also one thing I found that kind of freaked me out. The last year of my dad’s life, he was going to try to learn HTML so he could put up a family genealogy site. He got some of the references in, but not all that many. However, one of those references is me, and seeing that, something my dad put online back in 2001,… chills!

I guess the best thing is that I didn’t find anything negative about me, which is always a good thing. Of course, I’d probably find more if I could weed myself through all those other Mitch Mitchell’s. I’m listed at least 3 times in the top 100, and I guess that will have to do. Of course, if I add the “T T” to it, in quotation marks of course, I kill! As a matter of fact, 46 of the top 50 references are me; yeah baby! How long have I been talked about by some folks online? Check this article out from January 2004. I’d forgotten about it, to tell you the truth.

I’ve talked often about marketing and advertising on this blog. I haven’t talked as much about PR, or public relations, or press releases and the like. I have talked about being all over the internet and wondering what else I need to do to break through and become at least a well known name so that I can start making money, or at least getting more business, off my own name. No one can say that I haven’t established a presence on the internet, that’s for sure.

So, how are you doing with spreading your message, and getting your notoriety online? Are you ready for more? I am.

Microsoft Store