Adsense Revenue Sharing Option in Blogger using widgets

This is a cool trick of HTML to implement Google Adsense code by sharing right next to the post just according to the blogger who writes it and get the money for that blogger rather than all other bloggers who writes at the same site. Before sharing the Adsense revenue I would ask someone to read these conditions that Adsense Team have made.
Click here to know more about that. This method helps someone who has a blog where multiple users write there as guest post, solving a problem between the writes managing a single site.

First Of all, we need to know what Adsense Revenue Share is.


How to add a contact form for blogger blogs

Hi dear readers, now I am going to show you guys how to create a contact which notifies to you directly to your email where you can even add more than 1 email for the notification. This service is from great site 123contactforms where they support blogger, wordpress, facebook etc.
To start up with a contact form at your site, you first need to register a account there. You can do it by clicking here.
Once you do it please follow the steps given below so that you will get a contact form at your site.

How to add Facebook like box to blogger blogs

Well I think there are many bloggers who doesn't even know who doesn't even know how to place a like box of their fan page at Facebook promoting it at their blog to get more fans/likes so that even from the status of the page make the blog get visitors too. So here is the simple tutorial with images so that it makes easier to understand.
Before you do this you have to make sure that the border color suits your blog template whether it is light/dark etc Then whether you want the  feeds, the people who liked your page. Also collect the URL of the page you want to show the ad of.

How to use permalink option in blogger blogs to create custom URLs


A permalink, or permanent link, is a URL that points to a 
specific blog or forum entry after it has passed from the 
front page to the archives. Blogger has now also introduced 
this most awaited SEO option to all its users. With the help 
of this option at blogger you can edit the way that you want
for your blog post to be set by you, with an option to write 
this as Custom URL at blogger. This option can only be 
accessed by going to the URL draft.blogger.com

Best Related Post Widget for Blogger with full customization help

Related post widget always help us to reduce bounce rate and increase visitors time on the site. Related post are always shown at end of article to engage readers. In Blogger, there are no official widget available. nRelate is a free tool that adds related post widget to blogger even in wordpress or any other site. In this post I will only show you how to add  Customizable Related Post Widget for Blogger using nrelate.

Top 5 Blogging Platform which I recommend

Blogging Platform are those site which help you to implement  and run a successful blog for you. Today, in this world I am using blogger/blogspot platform which is also used by most of the bloggers, which now stands at second place due to some of it's errors at SEO. But at first Wordpress which help the bloggers get one of the best SEO for their blog with some of the meta's stuff, etc.

How to submit blog/link to technorati

Hi guys I know technorati is a best directory where a blog can be listed and can easily get free traffic from them and the PR is 7 and alexa rank is around 1363 when I wrote this post.

But the thing is all blogger try to get a easy button to add the blog in their directory but never finds (in technorati),

Things blogger should not forget


Every now and then I will see a list of things bloggers should do, but I notice people are not that inclined to do what they are asked to do, while they pay more attention to things they should NOT do. That is why I decided to create the list below. The things which a blogger should not do are:

Positive Effects Of Blog Commenting

Blog-Commenting
There are many SEO and blogging techniques which help in improving a blog’s online presence as well as their search engine rankings, especially on Google. One such effective way is “Blog Commenting” - it is a process where a reader or visitor coming to your blog leaves a comment on the article posted in your blog.

Let's see how blog commenting plays a vital role in making your blog a popular one.

HELPS IN BUILDING QUALITY BACK LINKS:
Blog commenting helps in gaining good quality, do-follow back links for your blog (see how to turn your blog blogger blog dofollow), which further help in generating traffic. It helps in striking a conversation with other commentators, which help in building relations with your readers.

4 Simple Tips To Jumpstart Your Writing

jumpstart-writing
Writing a blog entry is not the same as writing an academic paper. It should not be too long or excessively detailed. It should be informative and something people would actually want to read. This being said let us go through these simple tips can get you over that dry spell and jumpstart your way to a new blog entry.

1. READ SOMETHING TO GET YOU GOING
Before pounding those keyboards, lead your mind into that “writing zone” by reading. A simple poem or short story can do the trick. You can even try an audio book. Try doing this and you will notice that writing comes naturally. You can just breeze through your way to writing. Just like when running, you need some warming up before everything becomes smooth. The mind needs some warming up too so it does not cramp in the middle of writing.

5 Simple Tips to Improve Your Blog's Readability

There might be hundreds of blogging guides and tutorials available on the internet, but no one can ever spoon feed the techniques of blogging. Blogging is not the complex way of writing, but creativity is the very soul of the art of blogging. Your blog is a window of your imaginations and the perceptions about the subject. You can mix up your writing style within the boundaries of your perception, but never do something, which leaves a bad impression in any way.

If you are done with a domain name and web hosting, then start writing. A blog should contain great content. It must provide a valid reason, as why a reader should spent time on reading it? Mentioned below are few tips that you might consider to build a better blog.

KEEP YOUR MINDS OPEN
Never ever craft your blog a niche specific site. Ultimately, this will allow you to make choice regarding subjects and intriguing issues around you. Similarly, if some idea has already been discussed on some other site, then use a different approach. Give a new angle to the same old issue and create something new on your own.

Let the words play for you and give a new dimension to the happenings around you. It’s more than a sin to provide plagiarized content on your blog. A reader can’t be fooled by some copied material. So, always provide firsthand and authentic information. Take it seriously and make it sensible, useful and readable.

STAND OUT IN THE CROWD
Your voice should be heard in the crowd of countless blogs and other information portals. There are thousands of established blogs around you, which will never let you go in the limelight. So, what else you can do to promote your blog and provide something, which they can’t? The world is too big and there are millions of topics to cover.

Compete with the other well-established blogs, which are providing a bulk of information to their readers. Believe in yourself and produce something, which can make you famous enough like a celebrity online. Let the competitors see your real talent and skills in your informative blogs.

“CONTENT IS KING”
 Yes, content is the king of blogging, but providing unique content is not a rocket science. You can create your own piece of creative content if you can do good research. Research is the base of writing a good content. After selecting a topic, do some relevant research and produce good quality content out of it. If you have a strong grip over the topic you have started writing on, then producing good content wouldn’t be so hard.

Quality content will also help you build good ranking of your blog in SEO perspective. So, follow the rule and make it happen. It’s better to write on your own, while inserting the most important facts and figures about the subject.

MAKE IT WORTH READING
Establish your blog with good words and phrases. It’s good if you know your subject and you have done some intense research over it. Like an idea and comprehensive research, good fabrication of words and sentences is also needed here. Your content should be eye-catching and worth-reading. Keep grammatical mistakes out of your content and produce it in a way that it can attract users.

Once you learn how to play with the psyche of the readers, you can produce great quality content. Don’t use such language, which doesn’t make any sense and confuse your readers. Explain everything like your reader knows nothing. Make everything well-explainable and to the point.

AVOID FILLERS AND STUFFING
If you’re absent-minded or don’t want to write something, then don’t give a damn, but avoid using fillers to complete the word count. Fillers and stuffing sound very bad and should be avoided permanently. Don’t confuse the readers with useless words and phrases. Just come to the point and make it clear. There is no need to create a table story if you are finished with the main subject. Stretching the main subject will make the readers lose their interest in your blog.

Loosing readers is not recommended here. You must be focused on your creative writing while feeding the blog with essential content. No doubt, there comes a point when we all use to put fillers to narrow down the gaps, but these tendencies should be limited. Or at least, use words and sentences logically to make sense.

Don’t be a short-sighted and have a deep look into your creative content. It should be logical and concise. Today, a reader demands good information in small chunks. It’s proven that reading on a screen is quite difficult than on paper. So, get him what he wants from you. Keep the long story short, which lets him skim the main information. Have you done this to your blog?

Fixing Common Template Errors On Blogger

blogger-error
I realized that I had gone too much into designing widgets, losing track of the basic stuffs which drove a lot of traffic to my blog - those articles and tutorials which helped the newbies solve their common problems. With that being said, I plan to post articles and refresh on topics that are already existing on my blog with a better view and knowledge about them in the upcoming weeks.

In this article, I plan to provide solutions for the most commonly encountered template problems on blogger. I guess webmasters shall find this article way too silly but, I'm sure this is a life saver for many newbies out there. I'll just list out the problems, as it appears on the dashboard, when you try to make a change on your blogger template. Obviously, solutions shall follow below them:)

Most commonly encountered problem on blogger - "Your template could not be parsed as it is not well-formed. Please make sure that all XML elements are closed properly." This error message is usually accompanied by another message that indicates the actual reason for this reason. Hence, you should watch out for the next statement which may be one among the following.

XML error message: The entity name must immediately follow the '&' in the entity reference.
SOLUTION: Just look out for the place where you modified the codes on your template. I'm sure you'll find the following symbol - &, somewhere in the newly inserted code. Just add amp; to the right of the symbol or in other words, suffix amp; with that symbol to fix the error.

XML error message: Open quote is expected for attribute "{1}" associated with an element type "href".
SOLUTION: The element type may be src or type or class or id or anything for that matter - not necessary that it should always be href. Well, it is pretty simple to solve this one! You just missed an a quotation mark some where in the code. Consider the example below.
<a href=http://abc.com">Example</a> should become <a href=''#">Example</a>

XML error message: The element type "img" must be terminated by the matching end-tag "</img>"
SOLUTION: This error occurs when you miss out a trailing slash ( / )that should appear before you close the img tag. This could be better explained with an example as shown below.
<a href=''source link"><img src="img link"></a> should be changed to
<a href=''source link"><img src="img link"/></a>

More than one widget was found with id: HTML1. Widget IDs should be unique.
SOLUTION: This occurs when the id name is found to the same at two instances. Just change the id name to solve this issue. For example, from id='HTML5' to id="HTML57" - a unique name that does not appear anywhere on your template.

We were unable to save your template. Please correct the error below, and submit your template again. There should be one and only one skin in the template, and we found: 2
SOLUTION: Simple! You defined two different skins on your template. Make sure you delete one and the problem should be fixed - occurs at very rare instances. But, it does happen:)

bx - xxxxxx error
SOLUTION: You'll find bx followed by some number when you try to save your template - usually occurs when you try to shift tabs between "Page Elements" and "Edit HTML". Just make sure you save your widgets at their respective positions before you shift the tabs to avoid this error. Clearing your browser cookies might help sometimes. Saving your template by manual deletion/removal of widgets using "Page Elements" section is better than using the wrench icon to delete them - avoids the errors.

Well, only few errors are mentioned in the article above. There are plenty of errors which you might have encountered. Just share them via comments - possibly with their solutions as well. If not, just post the error you encounter and I'll try to fix it up for you!

Simple Tips to Get More Comments on your Blog

This is a guest article written by Michael Scottsdale. If you wish to write one for us, then check out this page for guidelines - Write For Us. Are you having problems getting people to comment on your blog posts? It’s either your comment box isn’t working (which is highly unlikely) or you’re not hitting the right buttons. One of the most ignored ways of building steady readership on a blog is through the use of comment box.
fixing-comment-box
There’s simply no better way of gauging your blog’s health than by measuring the actual number of people who are not only reading your articles, but are actually providing comments and feedback. Below mentioned are few tips which might get your comment box going...

1. ASKING QUESTIONS
Good quality articles should be informative. But if it fails to tickle your reader’s imagination or leave them no avenue for questioning then your article has only been successful in educating which is good if you’re posting it on Wikipedia.

Asking questions at the end of the article is the most direct way of soliciting your reader’s comments or feedback. These should be easy to answer but refrain from using questions that could be answered by yes or no. Open ended questions offer your readers helps your readers express themselves more freely and is fosters a healthy environment for discussion.

2. QUALITY CONTENT
Everything starts with great content. Write on topics you feel strongly about or trending topics that elicit your reader’s opinions. However, this should be in line with your niche and placing political issues on a food blog is not a good idea.

Again, a little bit of creativity and research would help you come up with an interesting topic. Food blogs for example could talk about controversial diet programs or food cuisines that are entirely alien to their readers. The possibilities are limitless and only your imagination could stop you with coming up with a good topic. 

3. BEING PROACTIVE 
The best way to get the ball rolling is to open with your own comment. You could end the article with a question or immediately post a comment after the article giving your personal opinion on the subject. Other methods include sending emails to your readers informing them about the latest blog post and asking them how they feel about it.

4. MAKE COMMENTING EASY
Most of the websites that offer a comment box require readers to log in their personal information which could be a bit of a drag if you’re only planning to place a few words or phrases. Some blogs even oblige people to become fans or join the website before allowing them to comment.

Comments and feedbacks give you a deeper insight into what type of audience is reading your blogs. This is why making it easier for people to place their comments gives you a better look into what type of writing works for your blog. A simple opt-in box asking them their email address and user name is a good way of making commenting easier while protecting your blog from spam comments.

5. MAKE IT MORE REWARDING
Taking a hint from forums, making commenting worthwhile helps generate added interest among your readers. This could be done by allowing them to include links or a signature on their comments. Creating a top list of commenter’s and displaying it at the side bar for example is a wonderful way of showing that you appreciate and acknowledge their efforts. A personal email helps build trust and forge stronger relationships with readers.

6. COMMENT ON OTHER BLOGS
Another way of inviting people to write comments on your blogs and drive traffic is to become an active commenter yourself. Sharing your ideas with other blog owners and inviting them to visit and comment on your blog helps build stronger relationship with fellow bloggers.

So, let’s get the comment box working! Any more tricks to share?

Tips To Reduce Your Blog Bounce Rate

reduce-bounce-rates
Every blog that exists on the blogosphere, has some motive behind it. Some bloggers may want to share their ideas with the world, some just want a medium to write, and few write on a mission to help others with their own experience. However, there's one thing common between the blogs i.e. to attract as many as visitors to the blog.

To increase the number of followers who come and read what you have written. One should keep track of the blog’s visitors which gives you an idea of how many people are visiting your blog per day or in a month. This will also give you an insight on the traffic which is bouncing off i.e. the bounce rate of the blog.
bounce_rates
For that, we need to know what exactly this Bounce Rate means? Everyday some new visitors come to the blog, some come through search engines and some come through links or references. However some or most of the visitors leave your blog as they land on it. They leave your blog by simply closing it down or by hitting the back button.

What can be the reasons for it?
  1. The content is not relevant to the search term that brought them to your blog.

  2. The information provided on the site is not that useful.

  3. The site is not appealing enough to grab the attention of the visitor.

  4. The load time of the site is very slow.

HOW TO TRACK THE BOUNCE RATE
One can track the blog’s bounce rate by signing up for Google Analytics. They will provide you with the tracking code which you need to add to all the blog pages. This will provide you with all the tracking data in your analytics account dashboard.

The formula used for calculating Bounce Rate is
Bounce Rate = Total single page view visits / Total number of visits.

So, what do you do to reduce the bounce rate i.e. the number of people leaving the blog. Try some tips and tricks to make your blog more practical and useful to the visitors. Improve the blog quality to persuade people to spend time on your blog. Each and every single visitor is important and valuable for your blog and your blogging business. Mentioned below are few tips, which might be useful to make your blog effective and valuable for your visitors.

KEEP IT SIMPLE
Keep your blog post content simple and use apt and clear titles for them. Provide the information in most simple way. Support it with auxiliary images. If the visitor gets what they want in first glance, then there is less chance of them bouncing out.

MAKE YOUR BLOG USER FRIENDLY
Make the navigation system of your blog simple. The design should be easy and user friendly so that users can find what they want in two to three clicks. This will make it easier for the visitors to get what they are searching for; that is all they really want, so chances are they will come back the next time too.

FOCUS ON YOUR BLOG USP
Highlight your popular post which can help you to target those repeat visitors as well as target the new ones. Try to focus on the topics which have exhibited a good response in the past.

ANALYZE THE DATA
Analyze the Google analytics data of your blog, study the behavior of the visitors i.e. know which page they are visiting the most. Study which page has the highest bounce rate. On analyzing the data, you'll probably be able to understand which keyword has brought the maximum visitors to your blog.

GIVE MORE THAN WHAT THEY ASK FOR
Provide complete information about the topic that you are discussing in your article. If you don’t offer an option for your readers to look for more, they will most probably leave your site.

USE PROPER CATEGORIES FOR YOUR BLOG POST
Using categories in your blog, gives your visitor a sort of menu to your blog. It becomes easy for them to choose the category they most desire and probably read articles that are of their interest than just hopping around your blog for no use.

USE HIGHEST QUALITY CONTENT
Content is what makes a blog good or bad. There is nothing more important than quality content in a blog which makes a visitor interested in your blog. Always come up with creative ideas to share with your readers. Be unique and useful. Don’t try to be just “different” in your niche. Make your niche by providing quality content.

SPEED UP YOUR BLOG
Keep the technical stuff up to date. Use the latest technology in your blog. Everyone is busy in their life, so no one has the time to wait for the blog to load. Keep the loading time some where between 5 to 10 seconds at the max. Your page should load in fractions of seconds. Make sure your blog code is clean and clutter free. I recommend you to read the following articles to speed up your blog - Speed Up Your Blog : Tips And Tools.

So, use these tips to improve your blog’s bounce rate. If you have something to add to the list, then share it via comment. You might be interested to read the following articles as well - How To Reduce Your Blog's Bounce Rate?

Google Sitelinks Updated - An Improved Version

google-sitelinks
Google has constantly been rolling out some prominent changes via updates on PR, Google+ Games, Authorship Markups, etc... Today, I noticed one such update which is about, the way in which the sitelinks show up on Google search. If you wonder what sitelinks are, they are basically links from your blog that appear below your domain name which Google feels useful to the reader - usually appears when a person searches for your domain name.

Earlier, Google used to display eight sitelinks - just links. But, now it's completely different. The recent update shows 12 sitelinks with a small snippet about your articles - not a snippet, probably the first phrase from your article. You may check out the screen shot below to better understand about the way in which the new sitelinks are displayed - sitelinks generated for "newbloggingtipz" on 19th August.
newbloggingtipz-sitelinks
Since sitelinks are auto generated by Google with their special algorithms specifically written for the same, no one can actually tell you about getting sitelinks for your blog. However, I recommend you to read the following article which might probably fetch you one - How To Get Google Sitelinks For Your Blog? I also recommend you to install breadcrumbs for better results - Add Breadcrumb Navigation To Blogger.

Now, what if your unhappy with a link that appears below your domain name and you wish to remove the same. Very Simple! Login to your "Webmaster Tools" account and navigate to "Site Configuration>>Sitelinks" from your dashboard. Now, paste the URL you wish to remove and hit the "Demote" tab. That's it! Your done. 

You'll not see that link from the next day - takes time to process your request. As such, you can demote upto 100 URLs and they are effective only for 90 days which means they might pop up again after a period of 90 days. So, you need to demote them every 90 days. You can read more about this topic here - Sitelinks.

Let me know if you made use of the demote/deletion tool to display better links to your readers? And do share your knowledge about Sitelinks with us via comments...

The Hazards and Rewards of Hiring a SEO Firm

pros-cons-seo-firm
Optimizing your blog or website for search engine results can be an impossible task if you don't know where to begin. Days, weeks, months, and eventually years go by as no new unique visitors view your page because your site isn't search-able, and your melancholy only increases with your feelings of helplessness.

But, for those bloggers or online business entrepreneurs who don't have the time or confidence to research and execute search engine optimization (SEO) measures: there is hope! Many users opt to hire optimizers to increase the visibility of their sites so they themselves don't have to wrangle with that challenge. 

There are, however, a few guidelines you should follow if you are considering hiring a SEO firm, to protect the quality of your site and its reputation, even for experienced bloggers.

DO YOUR RESEARCH
When searching for a SEO firm, investigate it's potential thoroughly, and avoid ones that make outrageous claims about guaranteeing a top ranking for your website, or others that offer their services to you unsolicited. As a useful and beneficial as an honest, credible SEO can be to your site, a dishonest or belligerent firm can hurt your website's image, and even remove your site from a search engine's index.

Do everything you can to examine a firm's practices, especially concerning what exactly you are paying them for. Some SEO firms prey on uninformed clients and have various misleading and outright devious ways to fool you into hiring them. Try to uncover:
  • Shadow domains — affiliated websites created by SEO firms that redirect traffic from your website to theirs. Owning the rights to the site, the SEO may choose to sell the shadow domain to another website owner, effectively using your money to help advertise someone else's site.

  • Doorway pages with links to other clients. Practices such as ranking guarantees, address bar keyword sales, and placing links to your page in the advertising rather than the search results section of a page.

ASK QUESTIONS
Never be satisfied with the information an SEO representative gives you. Delve deeper into the firm and don't commit until you are absolutely certain that it can deliver the results it claims to. Try to obtain the following information from any prospective SEO firm you are considering:
  • A list of clients the firm has worked with in the past, and a few samples of their work.

  • The extent of the firm's experience in your industry and area.

  • Whether the firm provides any additional services outside of SEO, such as strategies or consultations.

  • The level of communication you can expect from the firm while working together.

KNOW THE PROS AND CONS
So far, this has been a primarily cautionary guide to SEOs; there are many benefits, though, to hire a SEO expert that match the risks, if not outweigh them. A good SEO can train website owners how to continue to optimize their site's search results, assist in developing site content and managing development campaigns, offer critiques and expert opinions that can help improve the structure of your site, and much more.

The key is to find a quality SEO firm that is dedicated to improving your site, not to siphoning money from you. Once you find the right firm, your site views could increase immensely, and faster than you can click your mouse.

Photo Rules for Beginner Bloggers

photo_rules_beginner_blogger
Every blogger should know that besides having unique blog content and articles, images play an extremely important role in ensuring that that your readership levels remain high. After all, you can post the most interesting thing known to man but unless it's "aesthetically pleasing", your readers may never pay any attention to it. 

Thus, you should always aim to include photos or graphics in your posts whenever possible. But you can't just simply attach any photo you download from a search engine. They have to be legal to use, otherwise you can find yourself face-to-face with a major law suit or worse. So what photos are ok to use? To find out, proceed with the article further...

ROYALTY-FREE IMAGES
Before anything else is said, it's important that you automatically assume every image you come in contact with is copyrighted. It can be confusing, especially if the image doesn't specifically say it's copyrighted, but it doesn't necessarily have to say anything at all for you to still get slapped with a law suit. Moreover, simply putting a link back to the owner's page or original source will not help defend you in court. One of the easiest ways to avoid any problems, however, is to only use royalty-free photos.

Some of the images cost a small fee to download and use. But there are tons of sources to find free legal-to-use photos as well. For example sites like Flickr, stock.xchng and depositphotos are some of the popular choices. While some sites may require you to sign-up (for free) to gain access to both their collections of paid and free images, it's important that you still comply with the user's common creative licenses. This will specifically state how the owner wants you to attribute the photo and under what terms it can be used.

PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTOS/FAIR USE IMAGES
Popular blog posts tend to consist of written product reviews. That being said, it's perfectly fine to use images of CD covers, book covers and movie posters to give your article some extra sparkle as long as the images have been floating around the internet for quite some time and already seen by the majority of public. In short, you may not post the images if they were "leaked" to you.

You may also use public domain photos. Typically images that fall under this category include the following: photographs and pieces of art work created before 1923, photos created/taken by the U.S. government, photos that have an expired copyright, and photos that are used on educational sites like Wikipedia.

SCREEN SHOT IMAGES
Lastly, screen shots that you take of a particular web site, video game, or software in order to show visual assistance in "how-to" blog posts are also perfectly acceptable to use as long as you give proper credit (meaning the name of the web site with a hyperlink) and you do not jeopardize the product/service in any way. Basically, this means that you are not taking a screen shot of a particular element that would discourage your audience from buying the product or service. For example, don't take a snap shot of the most climatic scene of a newly released book—no one will want to buy it if they know how it ends.

Solve "Another blog or Google site is already using this address" On Blogger

Another-Blog-Hosted-At-This-Address
This week has been complete a roller coaster ride for me. I saw both the ups & downs with my blog - almost lost this domain, PR Update, etc... Many would have noticed that my domain "www.newbloggingtipz.com" was not available for few days. The reason behind the absence was a redirection problem - the infamous "Another blog or Google site is running on this address" problem.

I did struggle to get my domain back. I'm not sure how I solved my issue but this might help you provided you have proper DNS settings on your domain registrar. I should definitely thank Jacklynn Tong and Patrick from the Google Apps team for their support and nitecruz from the blogger help forum who tried their best to solve my issue. I would list two possible solutions that would solve this issue.

Before we beign, just check whether the DNS settings are correct on your domain registrar. You need to have the CNAME and A NAME records as mentioned in the screen-shot below.
newbloggingtipz-dns-settings
Note: Please replace the domain name in the respective rows above with your domain name. I just showed you the DNS settings for my blog. 
Are they correct? If not, change them as mentioned above and wait for 1800 seconds. Now, trying redirecting your blog to the custom domain. If they are correct and still you see the problem on the blogger dashboard, then you need to try this...

SOLUTION 1
1. Login to your Google Apps Account - Domain Management. Navigate to "Settings" page from the dashboard. Now, choose sites tab that appears on the left.
2. You will see a tab that shows "Web Mapping". Just click on it. Check whether a mapping exists. If yes, then delete the mapping.
Solution-1
3. Now, login to your Blogger Dashboard and try to redirect your blogspot domain to the custom domain.

SOLUTION 2
1. Login to your Google Apps Account - Domain Management. Navigate to "Settings" page from the dashboard. Now, choose "Sites" tab that appears on the left.
2. You will see a tab that shows "Web Mapping". Just click on it. Check whether a mapping exists. If not, return to the previous page. Click on "Change URL" link that appears to be blue in color. Have a look at the screen-shot below.
Web-Mappings
3. Select the second option on the page that appears below. Just enter "www" in the space available in the second option. Proceed with the continue options. Now, make the DNS changes if required to! Else, leave it as it was! Have a look at the screen-shot below for better understanding.
Sites-Change-URL-Option
4. Now, save the changes that you made. Wait for few minutes. Then, login to your Blogger Dashboard and try to redirect your blogspot domain to the custom domain. It should now redirect to the sites page which you enabled (mentioned at step 3). In other words, you should not see the "Another blog or.." error.
5. If yes, then your problem is solved. Just revert back to the blogspot domain from your blogger dashboard. Save it. Later, login to your Apps Accout and navigate to "Dashboard >> Settings >> Sites". Again hit the "Change URL" link and choose the first option. Save the changes you made. Log out from your Google Apps Account. Wait for few minutes.
6. Now, login to your Blogger Account and try to redirect your custom domain. You will not see "Another blog or Google site is already using this address" error.

Well, if the above two solutions don't work. Then, login to your Google Apps Account and Use the "Support" tab to contact the Google Apps Team. Your query will be addressed in not more than 48 hours. In my case, they even gave me a call to fix the issue. So, don't panic! You will get back your domain! You may contact me via email if you need any help regarding this issue!

Google PR (PageRank) Update 2011

Google-Pr-Update
We talked enough about PR and factors that contribute to PR. We even discussed about the nofollow and dofollow tags in our previous articles. So this time, I wanted to show you some proven results to attain PR rather than just discussions. We are glad to inform that we got a PR3 today for homepage while several inner pages have got a PR2 or PR1! Did Google Update its PR this month?

From Googling, I found that the last major update was made on "19th January 2011". I guess Google is making another update this month "June 2011", as well. Few claim that they had a change in their PR this month just like I do. Well, who knows - it may just be a minor update! So, keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best!!! It's been confirmed that the PR Update happened on June 27th 2011. So, what's your PR?

I recently published an article about the comparison between Google PR and Alexa Rank - Alexa Rank Vs. Google PageRank(PR). I did mention that the Google PR algorithm seems to be pretty complex. I guess I should correct myself now!!! They do appear to be complex when you consider all factors like Page Speed, Do Follow Links, No Follow Links, etc.. But, if you narrow them down to one factor, well, it's pretty simple. That's the result I'm talking about - backlinks (the one big factor).

I would prove this is the main factor that contributes to PR from the analysis I carried out with my very own domain. Initially, I ran my blog on blogspot domain "www.newbloggingtipz.blogspot.com" which had a PR4. I assumed that blogs run on blogger, by default, were dofollow but later found that, they are not! So, it was a nofollow blog with more than 50 quality back-links from domains that had PR ranging from 1 to 5.

Later, I made the shift to the custom domain "www.newbloggingtipz.com"- way back in the month of June 2010. My PR dropper to Zero due to the shift. I made my blog "dofollow" which brought nothing but a lot of spam comments. I waited for the PR update - that was made on Jan 2011, but to my disappointment I found that even after the update my domain still had a PR0.

Well, I decided to revert my blog back to nofollow. I made this shift probably in the month of April 2011, I guess. Suprisingly, it has worked now. So, as far as I know, to have a better PR, make sure your blog has enough dofollow backlinks while your blog is on a nofollow status. Though it seems to be pretty selfish (getting all the link juice you want from high PR domains but not spreading them to your followers), I recommend you do it for a better PR.

Though I personally don't recommend building a PR, I do recommend you to build a quality website/blog with great content and good design. You don't have to follow sites that list dofollow blogs and  comment on them, PR will follow your blog! So, just concentrate on your content and work a little more on improving your design! Do let us know via comments if you had a change in your PR this month!

Why To Add Google +1 Button For Blogger?

Google-Plus-One-Button
It's been quite few weeks since the launch of Google +1 button. I'm sure many of you would have added this share button on your blogs. If you have no idea about what I'm talking about, then let me elaborate a little more - Google +1 button is share counter similar to facebook or tweet button that improves our search results.

HOW TO ADD GOOGLE +1 BUTTON FOR BLOGGER???
As per Google, the +1 button is defined as shorthand for "this is pretty cool" or "you should check this out". What should I do to get this button installed on my blog? Just follow these instructions to get the button working on your blog.

1. Navigate to "Design>>Edit HTML" and make a backup of your template by clicking on the "Download full template" link at the top of the page. Once the back up is over, search for the following piece of code.
</body>
2. Place the following piece of code just above the line mentioned in step 1.
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script>
3. Next, you may place the following piece of code anywhere in between your body tags where you want the button to appear. It is better you place it below your posts. So, search for the following tag.
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'/>
4. Place any one among the following pieces of code just below the line mentioned in step three as per your size requirement.

    For a SMALLER VERSION (15px)
<g:plusone size="small"></g:plusone>
    For a MEDIUM SIZED VERSION (20px)
<g:plusone size="medium"></g:plusone>
    For a LARGER VERSION (60px)
<g:plusone size="tall"></g:plusone>
    For the STANDARD VERSION (24px)
<g:plusone></g:plusone>
WHY GOOGLE +1 BUTTON???
  • Google clearly stated that the +1 button provides a stamp of approval meaning to say that your content is worth reading. More over, it states that it improves your search results. 
  • We blogspot users have the slightest advantage of better ranking on Google than our competitors like wordpress.com (not .org), joomla,etc... With the +1 button installed, it pushes your blog ranking further to the top.
  • When a particular user searches for some content on Google with his/her account signed in, the search results will be annotated with the names of their connections who have +1'd the page. This simply means that the recommendations from their social connections appear beneath the search results. 
  • More over, the +1's are public by default so any user who has signed in will be able to see the recommendations. How ever, you may choose whether or not, to have them displayed on your public profile.
  • The +1 Button is not the same as Google Buzz, though they share a lot of similarities. They both appear on your Google Profile under different tabs, but +1's don't allow for comments whereas Google Buzz does. 
  • Above all, Google will soon launch an analytics for the button that will display accurate results to the webmasters about their content, overall search impacts, geographic search impacts, etc...
You may get more updates about this button by joining the following group - Subscribe to Google Publishers Button. I hope you enjoyed this post. I'm sure many webmasters would know more than what I know about this topic. So, please share your opinions via comments.
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