What happened to my PageRank?

January 4, 2007

As recently as a month or so ago, I used to have a PageRank of 5/10. Now it is at 2/10! Did I do it with my holiday redesign? Or is this part of some other Google anomalies that others were complaining about? Granted, I did redesign my site over the holidays using a custom WordPress theme built on top of the YUI Reset/CSS/Grid resources. But if anything, I thought that I made things a little cleaner and more SEO friendly. I even added the Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress v2 to the site!

While I was kind of happy to see the 5/10 rank, I always thought that it seemed a little high. I’m sure it had something to do with getting linked to directly from Gadgetopia on several different posts. Hmmm. Gadgetopia used to have a PageRank of 6/10. Now they are showing up as 3/10. I definitely think something is up. … 2 minutes later … Gadgetopia is back up to 6/10.

Unfortunately, I’ve got too many variables at play to even begin to isolate or determine what is going on. My major site re-design is one variable. The fact that I uninstalled the Google Toolbar yesterday and just re-installed it an hour ago could be another. Who knows? Could just be an anomaly. I’ve seen my ego search for matt smith go from the 19th result to not showing in the top 500 and then back again within a day.

Popularity: 16% [?]

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Posted by Matt Smith | Filed Under Google | Leave a Comment 

GMail is dead! Long live SBC Yahoo! DSL!

September 29, 2004

After all the problems that I have had with GMail, I’ve finally decided to ditch it. I got tired of sending messages, waiting, getting a “Could not send message” error and then looking in my Sent folder and seeing a copy of the message. Did it send or not?

I don’t know why I hadn’t explored this option in the past but I’ve had SBC DSL since it came to our area several years ago. A couple of years ago, SBC teamed up with Yahoo! for SBC Yahoo! DSL service. As part of the combined service, you get access some of Yahoo!’s premium services.

In this case, the part I like most is their premium email service. Thanks in part to GMail, Yahoo! bumped up their storage to 2GB, twice that of GMail. In addition, I can create 10 sub-accounts, each with a 100MB limit. Perfect for other members of the family. Also, one huge feature that I love once I found it is that I can use Yahoo! Mail to fully manage my personal email address. Sure, other email apps allow you to change the Reply To address to whatever you want, but Yahoo! Mail now allows me to associate my personal email address to my account and then send email from that account. It is now like a much more robust version of www.Mail2Web.com. Not to mention all of the Contact and Calendar integration!

So, I’ve got some GMail invites to give away if you are interested.

Popularity: 9% [?]

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Posted by Matt Smith | Filed Under General, Google | 3 Comments 

GMail Issues

September 16, 2004

I really want GMail to be everything to me in regards to email that Google is to in regards to searching. However, I’m struggling with my faith. GMail is the solution that I have wanted for a long time to be able to access my email history from anywhere at anytime. Previously, I downloaded all of my mail with Outlook on my laptop at home. If I was traveling, then I used Mail2Web. Mail2Web is great for quick access to the messages that haven’t been downloaded and deleted off the server. However, when I needed access to a message that I had already downloaded, I was out of luck.

With 1GB of email storage, GMail was supposed to solve all my problems in regards to accessing my email. Unfortunately, I’ve had many other problems pop up over the past several months.

- Two months or so ago, I had an issue where emails sent to my account just weren’t getting through. This went on for several days before, finally, I got a batch of emails all at one time. It included all of the test emails I had sent several days prior as well as all of the emails other people had sent to me. Granted I have my primary email account forwarded to my GMail account, but even emailing directly to my GMail account didn’t work.

- There are the times when GMail has been unavailable.

- How about those friendly JavaScript pop-ups that something didn’t work and to try again?

- Or when you type a really long reply to someone, click ‘Send’ and the little message appears in the top-right that it is sending the message. But then just hangs there. Did it send the message or not?

- I like how it builds my contact list for me from people I email, but because it only contains name and email, I still need to maintain my real contact list with all the addresses and phone numbers.

- Right now, I am trying to reply to a message but keep getting the JavaScript pop-up that it can’t. I’ve tried in different logged out and even tried in different browsers with no luck.

At this rate, I’m tempted to move over to Yahoo email. Since I am a SBC DSL customer, I have a Yahoo account that has 2GB of storage. However I’ve been reluctant to move to it because I am sure that it is dependent on me being a SBC DSL customer which I may not be for the rest of my life.

Popularity: 9% [?]

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Posted by Matt Smith | Filed Under General, Google | 1 Comment 

Blogging as a marketing tool

September 8, 2004

Interesting article on how one online t-shirt vendor uses their blog to help get traffic which resulted in readers which results in buyers.

RESULTS: Site sales tripled during 2003, and have continued strong in 2004. Altogether, blog content helps to bring in about 35% of total site sales — 10% from the email newsletter, 20% from affiliates who often reuse the content, and 5% from Blog traffic itself.

Blog readers are among the traffic most likely to convert to buyers. “Six to eight percent of Blog readers buy something. Once someone finds a Blog entry and reads the whole thing, they are about as qualified as you can get.”

Ultimately I hope that I will be able to use this site as an effective blog and marketing tool.

Popularity: 9% [?]

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Posted by Matt Smith | Filed Under General, Google | Leave a Comment 

Free GMail account

August 26, 2004

Want a free GMail account? I have one more GMail invitation to give away. If you are interested in receiving a free GMail invitation and account, leave a comment with your name, email address and your weblog address. The only thing I ask is that you add an entry to your blog with a link back to this site. Just looking to increase my exposure a little. The first person to leave a comment gets the invite (and until you see a comment, assume that the offer is still valid).

Popularity: 10% [?]

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Posted by Matt Smith | Filed Under General, Google | 37 Comments 

AdSense

August 23, 2004

Coming soon: Google’s AdSense advertisements. I completed the registration last week and when I get a chance I will begin my experimentation with incorporating the ads within the site. I know I risk alienating part of my audience by becoming yet another Google-minion, but since I have no audience yet, I don’t think it will hurt.

Popularity: 9% [?]

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Posted by Matt Smith | Filed Under General, Google | Leave a Comment 

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