SPEED MATTERS


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slow your site down!

How I convinced my webhost to unblock Googlebot

In my last post I mentioned the difficulties I was having with my hosting provider and their inability to understand that they had blocked Googlebot from crawling my site. I of course tried the live chat route, then I did the ticket submit route followed by more live chat, another ticket and so on. This continued for 5 days before I finally managed to reach someone who actually felt like checking into it rather than giving me the “everything seems fine from our end” response that the other dozen or so people had given me. In this last email, the level 3 administrator stated that he had found google IP’s that were accidentally blocked and that he had removed them from the firewall blacklist, literally 20 minutes later I had hits on my traffic log from Googlebot, so I replied with a few[…]

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Why I don’t like shared hosting.

It’s been a few days since I last posted, so I figured I would make a quick post about why I haven’t posted in a few days.

I have been trying to track down a few problems that are preventing this site and others I have on the same server from being crawled by Googlebot. About a week ago my daily crawl averages dropped straight down to zero on about 6 sites that I have on the same server, which just happens to be a shared hosting account. I also have a bunch of other sites that are on a different host, and some that are on dedicated servers that are being crawled just fine, so this led me to check if perhaps my hosting provider was blocking Googlebot. By all indications, this is indeed what is happening but[…]

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Page Rank, Back links, Keywords and Trust Rank?

Every day I talk to someone that is either elated or completely bummed out when they find out what their page rank currently is. I of course will reply telling them that it’s great news when its high, and when its low I tell them not to worry about it quite so much, and then we talk about trust rank.

Everyone who is actively working towards a goal that involves making their living online should understand a few things[…]

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Win cold hard cash by commenting on my blog

Hello everyone and welcome to the first of many contest that I plan on having here, the concept behind this is simple.

1. Sign up for my newsletter by submitting your email address in the form on the top right of my home page (and confirming your email address)
2. Comment on my blog with useful commentary that adds to the discussion and I will give you one entry for each approved comment between now and midnight April 30th, 2009.
3. One lucky winner will receive $25USD via PayPal after the drawing that will be held on May 1st, 2009. To win, get your name drawn and be on my newsletter list when I check and you get paid[…]

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Diversification, don’t place all your eggs in one basket

Diversification, yes it is a big word and one that is easy to misspell but it is a crucial element to any online business. Whether you are selling ebooks, promoting a product line or “enlightening” the world with your infinite wisdom, tips and tricks on how to make money online you should diversify. I was reading a post over at ryanmclean.net today and it got me to thinking, there are so many people that start off in their online ventures with a narrow focus and when that doesn’t product the desired 7 figure income in 3 months, they give up and are never heard from again. It is nice to see others in this industry that are focused and dedicated to acheiving their goals. I can say from first, second and third hand experience that if I had given up every time one of my plans didn’t take off as I had hoped, I would have stopped trying years ago and would be working retail somewhere[..]

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Children of Iraq V1

I was deployed to Iraq with my National Guard Infantry unit and during my time there I saw many things, some good and some bad. One item that stood out then and still does today is the needs of the children there. They are not all that different from my kids or any other child here in America, they are just stuck in the middle of something they can’t control.

I took many pictures while I was there and made a few videos as well, this one is a slide show of some of the children in our area of operations. They don’t have a choice but still pay the consequences, which is sad. It is with these children[..]

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