Interview: Tom Rusling, Text Link Ads

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text-link-ads-logoHere, Thord interviews Tom Rusling at Text Link Ads.

Let’s start with you. Who are you and what do you do at Text Link Ads?

I am the Senior SEO Strategist. In that role, I offer resources to Text Link Ads clients that are looking to add a layer of strategy and/or on-page site optimization to their link building campaigns. TLA is by design a self serve network: clients can enter our system and find a huge array of links to choose from. However, often clients are looking for guidance around things like:

  • Which keywords should I be targeting?
  • How many links should I be buying?
  • How fast should I be purchasing links, and how much should I vary my anchor text?

And of course, many clients feel like the links they have acquired with us are not working effectively for them. Often my most important role is to help clients identify technical problems on their site which are impeding the benefit of their link building. Such examples could be incorrect use of redirects, duplicate content issues in all its many vast and wonderful forms, lack of page targeting and keyword dilution, etc. They always come into the conversation blaming the links, but invariably the client and I are able to analyze the problem and identify the source of the problem is something on-page.

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Drew Carey Wants 1 Million Followers, Will Pay For Them

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Drew Carey, or @DrewFromTV on Twitter, wants more followers. He also wants to donate money to Lance Armstrong’s charity organization Livestrong. So why not do both at the same time? If Drew Carey gets 1 million followers by December 31st this year, he’ll donate $1 million to Livestrong. And if he gets less? Well, it’s a buck a follower, so it’ll be money for Livestrong no matter what. Right now @DrewFromTV is at 73,814 followers, but that’ll probably change. [Read more…]

Committee to Protect Bloggers: An Interview

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The Committee to Protect Bloggers is an important blog that focuses on bloggers in peril across the world. They broke the story on the Iranian blogger who died in prison some time ago, and they have been doing their very best to keep a watchful eye on the state of the blogosphere in parts of the world where blogging is actually dangerous.

That’s why it was such a shame when Curt Hopkins announced its closure, and such a good thing when Andrew Ford Lyons picked up the reins again. So let’s here what he has to say about Committee to Protect Bloggers and the future. [Read more…]

China’s Censorship Equilibrium

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For as long as I’ve been paying attention Chinese internet censorship has always seems to fluctuate around an equilibrium, typically dependent on the social climate.

When there are times of unrest unflattering to China’s global ‘face,’ or even times when there is merely the threat of unrest (i.e. during important anniversaries like the recent 20th anniversary of the Tian’anmen massacre), websites get blocked. When all is relatively well in society, all is well on the internet. [Read more…]

Technorati Looking for an Identity

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technorati.jpgFormer blogosphere darling and Search Engine with capital S, Technorati, is looking to hire bloggers to feature original content on their site. In the midst of Twittorati and ad networks, this is a somewhat surprising move, since it means that the main Technorati site is moving even further from its search engine past.

I’d like to say that’s a shame but can’t really commit to that statement. The Technorati we once knew and actually used doesn’t fill a need anymore.

Obviously this is because of other search players in the blogosphere. It is tough enough to battle with Google, but they are joined by the likes of Twingly. All the while, Technorati haven’t been able to keep up with real time or anything, they should’ve been at the front. They must have other plans. [Read more…]

Huffington Post to Expand With Tech, Sports and Books Channel. The future of News Blogs?

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arianna-huffingtonAccording to Dylan Stableford, over at The Wrap, Arianna Huffington has plans to expand the Huffington Post with 3 new channels: books, technology and sports.

With this move The HuffPo, which started as a political blog, seems to prepare for a new times and is readying itself to become a main online magazine, newspaper. This move, already made by other blogs, fe. The Inquisitr might redefine the online news environment if Murdoch, and other conglomerates, continue their plans to put up paywalls.

In times when traditional news outlets are becoming smarter online and are competing directly with blogs for traffic, fe. by linking out directly to similar topic stories at other traditional media online presences like the BBC Online does, the news of paywalls is probably the best news since the crash in advertising revenue for blog and blog network owners. The battle for traffic can be won over the next two years, because even though mainstream outlets have recently endorsed blogging, their blogs are the first ones to suffer from the economic downturn. Paywalls will only help bloggers and probably result in even more financial loss for traditional outlets because if we learned one thing from the internet it’s that News should be free. [Read more…]

What Is The Actual Cost of Your Blogging?

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If you believe blogging is free, then you’re probably living in a dream world. Unless you’re a total freeloader who still gets a weekly allowance from his parents, then one way or another you’re paying for your blogging activities. Sure, WordPress.com and Blogger.com are free tools. And even if you pay for your own hosting, software like WordPress, plugins, and other tools are free, right?

Not necessarily. Blogging does have its costs. And these can sometimes be attributed to you, while it can sometimes be carried by someone else. Offhand, one could think of several costs that you can directly attribute to blogging. For instance, here are a few costs that I think I’ve been incurring through the years. [Read more…]

Janet Street-Porter Calls Stephen Fry Twat. Film at 11.

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Janet Street-PorterJanet Street-Parker, Editor-at-Large for The Independent, has hit out at the popular microblogging platform Twitter calling every person using the 140-character platform Twat in the same breath. Street-Porter who hit the headlines earlier this year with her controversial statements about Ian Tomlinson’s death seemed on a mission, using the flawed ‘Teenagers don’t use Twitter’ survey, and included both Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah in her vendetta, trying to remind everyone of the mindlessness of the platform.

…all twittering really delivers is the ultimate in mini-munchie banality. Instead of real emotion, in-depth opinion, considered arguments about why the NHS works, or the many reasons for not eating veal, what we get is breathless trivia. It certainly says bugger-all about what really happens at home with the Browns – which is why, presumably, Sarah, a former PR, loves it.

Twitter works for the middle class, the middle-aged and for work-weary wannabe trendies because it lets them feel they’re part of a big happening club, when in fact all they are doing is exchanging mindlessness. [Read more…]

Most Tweets Pointless Babble: So What?

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A whitepaper published by Pear Analytics (found via Mashable) says that 40.55% of all tweets are pointless babble. While that probably won’t get any raised eyebrows, it is worth to know how the good folks at PA got this conclusion:

So we took 2,000 tweets from the public timeline (in English and in the US) over a 2-week period from 11:00a to 5:00p (CST) and captured tweets in half-hour increments. Then we categorized them into 6 buckets:

News, Spam, Self-Promotion, Pointless Babble, Conversational and Pass-Along Value.

Get the whole thing from the PA blog post.

So 40.55% of the tweets are pointless babble. That will throw kindling on the Twitter is just nonsense fires out there for sure. Now with numbers!

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