Google changes inbound link policies

All hail Lord Google! For the Almighty Lord Google of the web has cited inbound links will be changed. No more are the days of links to your website. Now you must be disavow  all inbound links, or face the wrath of the almighty Google.

Most people are scrambling to no end to deal with Google's new insane policy. I'm not worried though because Along for the Ride! will not be affected. How so, you ask?

In 2008, when I started designing the system, I spent considerable time thinking about the link a structure and where it needed to be for future reference. In my design process, I had already anticipated that Google will try to downplay all free traffic sources and would try to move towards a "pay to play" model.

I believe this move, by Google, is designed to do only one thing - push people to pay Google for traffic.  In essence Google is engaging in legalized extortion. Anybody that wants traffic to their website must pay Google for it and all free sources of traffic will be penalized. Furthermore, if you use any free sources of traffic, you will also be penalized. In my opinion, this is nothing more then Google's misogynistic insidious greed at work.

While I am NOT a fan of Microsoft but I have to agree with them on this one point, Google seems hell bent to scroogle everyone, or at least anyone who did not anticipate Google's insipidous greed.

Now for the actual details of why Along for the Ride! is immune from this latest change. Its very simple, the Along for the Ride! link structure uses nofollow for its web directory listings only and dofollow for its members with emphasis of relevancy on membership.

But the heart of Along for the Ride! has always been Its traffic sharing system, which revolves around the widget. The widget is pure java script and is immune to Google and their insane policies. The web directory was actually an afterthought to help me keep track of all of my members that ran the widget.

That's right, the web directory was an afterthought. Nonetheless, when I designed the web directory, I wanted something humans could enjoy. Even though my entire system revolved around my traffic sharing concept, I wanted something that looked nice and felt welcoming. Unlike Google, where page after page is nothing but a boring and monolithic white, with the Along for the Ride! web directory, the pages are randomly different pastel colors that are easy on the eyes and help to distinguish separate pages.  I even spend time making sure the pastel colors are very mild and soothing.

The widget though is where I really spent time thinking about design, color, and layout. While Google is so obsessed with everything above the fold, I am not. My logs and my records show clicks from the widget illustrate clearly that it performs well anywhere on the web page. As long as the widget is visible, location does not matter. Whether at the top or the bottom of the page, its performance is equally well.

I think the reason the widget performs so well because I spent so much time making its design look so appealing and different from anything else on the Internet. I believe its uniqueness is why it does so well. Again, I wanted to focus on the human readers, not web spiders.

While Google and its insane policies are irrelevant to me, I do care about the members of my traffic sharing system and web directory. While I am appreciative to those that do run the widget, its does not bother me that most people listed in the web directory will not run the widget, because the blogs listed are there for the uniqueness of their content. Furthermore, I am not bothered by the many people who decide not to run sponsored links. I'm simply appreciative that they're running the widget at all.

Google maybe out to take over the world but I am not. My goal has always been and will continue to be, to provide a free and nice traffic sharing system and web directory.

Join me and come Along for the Ride!

Sponsored Links

Sponsored links - a blessing and a curse both at once. They are great in helping pay the bills, but they just don't belong in some places.

When I was a member of EntreCard (yes, I actually was a member), they rolled out sponsored links. They way EntreCard introduced sponsored links even turned me off. My disdain for EntreCard's approach to sponsored links really drove how I implemented them in the AFTR widget.

Most importantly, for me, was the ability to turn off the sponsored links instantly. Two ways are provided:

1. Through style sheets
   .AFTR2spon { display: none; }
   
2. Adding a NoAds clause to the script line.

Here are two widgets, one with the sponsored links and one without. First, the 125 widget with sponsored links:



Now for the 125 wide widget without the sponsored links:



Now for the actual HTML. For the regular widget, with the sponsored links:

<script src="http://tsswd.net/aftr2.xjs?ID+1" type="text/javascript"></script>

And without the sponsored links:

<script src="http://tsswd.net/aftr2.xjs?ID+1+NoAds" type="text/javascript"></script>

ID is the member's site ID. The NoAds clause on the script line takes effect immediately. While I understand the need to pay the bills, I understand the importance of a blog owner not wanting sponsored links and I make sure AFTR honors that.

Rapid growth

Along for the Ride!'s web directory has grown quite rapidly over the last year. The web directory now has over sixty eight thousand (68,000) blogs. That's quite stunning and surprising considering the web directory is just shy of two years old.

When I started the web directory part of AFTR, many of the leading experts told me that the market was over-saturated and it wouldn't do well. Since my primary purpose for the web directory was to provide a way to keep track of AFTR members, I wasn't concerned about any over-saturation issues. To my delight though, the web directory grew much faster than I expected or anticipated. Thankfully, I planned for growth during the initial design of the web directory.

I have also heard talk that social media is killing blogs. While I'm not so convinced it is, I do believe that social media can be a death note to a new blogger or a single owner blog. Social media takes a long of time and its stacked against the blogger.  Let's be honest, there is only so much time in a day. If a blogger is spending a huge amount of time promoting their blog through various social media programs, when do they have time to write for their own blog? While I believe social media has it place, I have seen many good blogs fall to the high costs of time and energy required to get most blogs simple scraps of traffic.

I think my biggest challenge has been showing that the widget is a viable tool to bring together all these different and unique blogs in generating traffic for the web directory and its members. Here I am still struggling. Perhaps part of my struggles in the area is people are still a little "gun-shy" due to Adgitize, CMFads, EntreCard, and AdBrite folding.  Quite frankly, I really can't blame any blogger that is as each of the programs had a very strong following.

This is an area I will continue to work on and with AFTR turning five years old in April, I think longevity will work in my favor, or at least I hope it will.

Finally, a new server

Finally, AFTR is on a new high speed server.

What? You didn't see the switch over?

That was the idea.  With all the headaches and interruptions in service the last server caused, I wanted this switch over to go smoothly. Thankfully, it did and the results are very nice.

Web page and widget load speed now take roughly half the time as previously.  Lookups for the related blogs for the widget are also faster.

Also, this time the signup form actually works on the first try...  I still can't believe I didn't catch that sooner....

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Got the blog going

Well, I have this thing up and running fairly well... Adding the AFTR widget was easier then I expected. I used the Add "HTML/Javascript" gadget with the code from the Widgets page for the 800 wide version. Its seems to fit well with the layout I've chosen.

Migrating from my custom software to Blogger wasn't as difficult as I expected, save one area - the meta tags. I have yet to get the meta tags for Title, Description, Author, and Keywords working without editing the template by hand and completely screwing it up. This one has been absolutely frustrating to no end. I've been building web sites for over ten years and given my level of frustration, I can only imagine what a true novice blogger feels. It really does open the door wide for WordPress, TypePad or some other platform.

I've read several ways to add the meta tags by hand, but I really don't want to go that way as it can be a real pain and seriouly limits the use of templates. Going the manual way means adding the meta tags back in every time changes are made to the layout. Thats just not a good way to go, especially for beginners. One would have thought that Google would have used the proper metrics since they are a search engine. In all honesty, it seems Google is self defeating its own system.

In the interim, I've programmed the AFTR spider to pull the meta data from a blog's RSS. While its not the best way to go, its significantly better then trying to figure out Blogger's crazy mechanics. I personally am not interested in becoming an expert in "Blogger Babble" and its probably safe to assume neither are most of Blogger's users....