BlogRush has put up a “temporary stats” system on their dashboard, as the normal one with all of the graphs is “currently unavailable.”

It’s showing, for Webmaster-Source, the following:

Credits Earned Today: 363
Credits Earned Last 7 Days: 1,957

Your Traffic Today: 363
Your Traffic Last 7 Days 1,957

There’s something funny about those numbers. Somehow I doubt that someone clicked-through every time one of my headlines was displayed. Are these stats rigged, merely inaccurate, or do I have the best clickthrough rate ever?

Edit: Oops. Hehe, Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net clarified this for me. It seems that BlogRush isn’t reporting clicks at all, but it’s basically reporting the amount of credits earned.

• ProBlogDesign.com asks “Is Ad Blocking Immoral? Does it Matter?” Everyone’s favorite controversial blog topic is back with another 43+ comments of blogger opinions.
• Wordpress 2.3 has tag support now. If you’re done jumping up and down in excitement, think about this: Do you want to use Technorati tags instead of local tags? Simple enough, just grab this plugin.
• Who Is Your Visitor? An Average Profile - Be sure to read the poll mentioned in the article. More people maximize their browser than they make it sound like. They’re giving an aggregate amount, including huge screen resolutions.
• How does Google rank your website? No idea. Well, some idea (as much as Google will let us find out).
• Hey Firefox users! Want some add-ons to aide you in your design work? Vandelay Design has put together a list of 40 Firefox extensions for web design. I’ve been using quite a few of them for awhile now.
• Freelance Switch has had a redesign. Personall, I like it better than the old design. Whether you like the new design or not, Pro Blog Design has a design review of Freelance Switch up now. Beat me to it!
• Digg Saturation, yet another way to rank your website.
• Yeah! The Best WordPress Magazine Themes Available. Gridlock, The Morning After, Grid Focus, and several others all reviewed in one place. I especially like the Revolution theme.

301 redirects are useful for numerous things. If you change a post slug is Wordpress, then you can place a 301 redirect so anyone going to the old URL will be redirected to the new one. This had the added bonus of letting search engines know (when they re-crawl your site) that they need to update the URL they have stored. Others use 301 redirects when they use affiliate links, so no PageRank is passed on, and so if the affiliate URL changes, they can update their links by just changing the redirect target.

There are plenty of ways to do 301 redirects. You can use the PHP Header() command, you can edit your .htaccess files (using the mod_rewrite feature), etc. Mod_rewrite is generally the most versatile method, but it’s a big pain in the neck.

The Urban Giraffe blog has released a neat plugin that handles all of this for you. Their 301 redirection plugin makes it insanely easy to add custom redirects. I’d thought of writing a plugin like this before, but it looks like they beat me to it. Take a look.

Do you know how to write? If you can write a few coherent paragraphs without misspelling 10%+ of the words, then yes, you can write. Have you considered starting a blog?

If you have something interesting to say, then you’ve got the basis for a blog.

Blogging is a great opportunity to get your thoughts/ideas/knowledge/experience out there for others to read. If you can answer “yes” to any of the following questions, then you should think about starting a blog.

• Do you have a hobby you’re knowledgeable about?
• Do you have a business? More and more businesses are adding blogs to their websites.
• Is there some topic that your friends and family keep telling you stop talking about so much? Talk at people online instead!
• Are you a photographer? You could showcase your recent shots with a photoblog.
• Have you wished you had your own magazine or radio talk show? Then start a blog/webzine or a podcast.

If you have something interesting to say, then you’ve got the basis for a blog. If no one else has a blog about the subject, then you have even more reason to start one. Congratulations, you’ve found a niche market, providing you an opportunity to, with work and time, become the authority in the subject.

Starting a professional blog is easy and cheap. You can get a “.com” web address (domain name) for only $6/year. Reliable web hosting (with a free domain name included) can be had for as low as $3.99/month. If you’re interested, I’ve written a guide to starting a blog.

You’ve seen them. “Digg this post!”, “Save to Del.icio.us!”, “Add to Technorati Favorites”. The question is:  What’s the best way to utilize them on your blog?

On some blogs, you’ll see a strip of icons like this:

On others (like this one), we use a Wordpress plugin called Share This. The plugin reduces icon clutter by stashing all of the social bookmarking links into a hidden <div>. When you click the Share This button, a dropdown menu opens with all of the links. It looks sort of like this:

I’ve been using Share This for awhile now, so I don’t have an overload of those pesky icons, but here’s my question: Is it better to use Share This, or just pick 5-6 social bookmarking icons to include? Share This makes things easier for you to save the current page to all of the major sites, or even through email. The only problem is, it’s less noticeable than having a row of icons. So, which do you think is better? Tell us why in the comments.

Sorry it’s a day late! After much waiting, here’s the October 1, 2007 edition of the Webmaster Articles Blog Carnival.

Submissions for the next edition are now being accepted, and if you’re interested in hosting the next edition, please let me know. InfiniTech will probably host the next edition again if there aren’t any other offers. Do you want to host an edition of the carnival? Post a comment if you’re interested.

Well, without further ado, here are the links. Read the rest of this entry »

What is a blog? Can it be defined?

I’ve been blogging for about two years, and I still have trouble describing what a blog is. I’m sure most bloggers do as well. However, get this straight: “Blog” does not mean “online journal” (webjournals as I call them).

Webjournals are only a fraction of the blogosphere, and often not the better fraction. Look, most people don’t want to read what you had for lunch. You’re not that interesting. The average 13-year-old may think so, but they can use MySpace (bleh). Blogs are more than journals.

Here are some examples of blogs: Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time to cut my PageRank in half with yet another BlogBuzz.

• CSS Frameworks + CSS Reset: Design From Scratch
• MySpace News Is Stealing Your Search Results
• Create smaller CSS files
• Fonts, fonts, fonts, fonts. Wonderful fonts! Sorry, I couldn’t resists putting in a Monty Python parody there… 20 Tools For Working With Fonts.
• And you thought your host was bad (or not…)! I stumbled upon this hilarious spoof site when I was searching for some information about VPS hosting plans. No Uptime Hosting (”Stealing your money since 1986″) promises “lots of storage,” “10kb of bandwidth,” “PHP 5, 6 and 7,” “2 Glow Sticks,” a “Free Broken Toaster,” and “24/8 Email Support” in their $20/month “Take-My-Money” plan. This hilarious site has loads of funny things spread throughout, including a Downtime Chart and their “Why Choose Us?” page. Definitely worth a look.
• Converting a Newsletter Into a Blog
• 20+ Tools for Working With CSS
• Google must not like something David Airey did. His rankings have been sabotaged, dropping him several pages below nowhere on a variety of search terms. The question is: Why?
• 100 (Legal) Sources for Free Stock Images
• How much time are you wasting in a day, checking your blog’s stats? In case you didn’t already know, Netvibes can help you there. See new comments, incoming links, incoming Social Networking links, and more all in one place. Now, if only you could get AdSense and Google Analytics stats…
• 5 Step Failsafe Upgrade For Wordpress
• Smashing Magazine presents 10 Usability Nightmares You Should Be Aware Of. I think they’re over-reacting on a couple of points, but definitely worth a read.
• Movable Type already has a plugin that adds an iPhone interface to your Wordpress Admin. Wordpress plugin authors are fighting back with MobileAdmin.
• American Express may have the world’s least secure site. Your Digg username could be too secure…
• Did you know that the “Will it Blend” Videos have boosted Blendtec’s sales by 5x? They’re great DiggBait, and they’re sort of reminiscent of David Letterman’s “Will it float.”
• 80+ Online Communities for Bloggers
• After five years, AOL has updated their Mac software. By now, no one cares.
• Bored with the “standard” RSS icon? Here are 35 Different Styles of RSS Icons that don’t deviate too much from the original design.
• The Best Website Taglines Around the Web. Hmm… Maybe I should change my tagline. What do you think?
• While you’re over at Daily Blog Tips, take a look at their most popular posts for September. There are some good ones in there.

Well, it looks like Smashing Magazine launched a new layout without telling us. They’ve retained the clean look from the previous design, though the main content area isn’t nearly as wide as it had been previously.

Read the rest of this entry »

You know that convenient spot on the Wordpress dashboard that shows links leading to your blog? Guess what. As of Wordpress 2.3 it doesn’t work anymore. Some genius thought that instead of pulling the list from Technorati, they should use Google Blog Search instead. Now instead of seeing a list of recent incoming links, it seems to be more of a list of your recent posts. What’s with that? I hope they patch it soon.

Here’s an example:

• The new “Incoming Links.”
• The old “Incoming Links.”

What was the reason behind this change (could it be loading speed?), and why didn’t they notice the bug I just discovered?