Which is better, WordPress or Blogger?

This is an age old question and I first asked and encountered when I was just starting. Finding the answer to that question was everything but simple. I got answers from different people, some who knew what they were talking about, some who were willing to help but were unfortunately  ill-equipped to answer the question since they haven’t used both of them. I don’t want you to have the same problem – ergo my WordPress vs Blogger (WordPress vs Blogspot) post.

If you’re a Pro Blogger, Search Engine Optimization specialist or a Social Media consultant who can’t seem to find a short answer to epic the epic question which is better between WordPress and Blogger, or you’re still undecided which blogging platform you are going to use, or if you simply want to know a few advantages and disadvantages of these blogging platforms, check the list below:

WordPress vs Blogger – WordPress Advantages

• Highly Customizable

You can tweak it and become more than just a blog. It’s a powerful CMS that allows you to build different kinds of websites on top it.

• Huge Repository Of Free And Paid Themes And Plugins

There is http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ for WordPress Themes and http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ for WordPress Plugins, not to mention the hundreds of theme designers and plugin developers who build their business solely on this platform.

• Very SEO Friendly

It’s the favorite blogging platform of SEOs and Web Strategists for many reasons. Even Matt Cutts, head of the web spam team at Google, the real best friend of many SEOs agree with it.

• Easy Learning Curve

WordPress is pretty easy to learn. Trust me, I’m not a web designer or a web developer, my background is journalism, creative writing, TV writing and production, advertising and traditional media and hey I’m doing pretty well with it.

• Pinging and Third Party Application Integration

WordPress pings a list of servers that you can identify every time you update your blog. And there’s more, with the help of Plugins you can do a lot more with it, including integrating third party application and services on your blog. You can integrate social functions from Facebook, Twitter and other Social Media sites a lot easier on WordPress.

WordPress Community – the community that supports WordPress is simply amazing. You will never run out of people to ask help for if ever you run into problems on your blog, be it on hardcore coding level or simple problems like plugin integration.

WordPress vs Blogger – Blogger Advantages

• Owned by Google

We love our own. It is a fact. It is undeniable. Whether Google ranking algorithm favors Google Blogger blogs over other blogs running on other platforms or not is not the topic of this post, nevertheless I’m pretty sure that you’ll agree when I say that they will never hate their own, at least SEO-wise.

• Robust Servers with Unlimited Bandwidth

Site speed is an important SEO factor unless you have money to shell out to pay for your hosting, you will be left with two options: go for cheap and free webhosts that based on my experience is not a smart move if you’re serious about blogging; or use blogger blogs and have your blog hosted on one of the most robust server infrastructures in the world. Have you ever seen a blogger blog that has gone down because of huge traffic spikes? That’s nearly unlikely.

If you want to host your WordPress blog on a really robust server, check the host I use for my other blog that receives thousands of daily UVs.

• Huge Repository of Blogger Themes, Gadgets or Widgets

Customizing your blog will never be a problem; there are thousands of free Blogger Themes that you can use. Designing your own or building one from scratch or from Blogger’s rich collection of templates is fun too. The number of Gadgets or Widgets that you can apply on your Blogger blog I believe rival that of what you can put on your WordPress as plugins.

• High Degree of Customization

Customizing Blogger blog is easy with the use of their drag and drop interface on the Design builder, you can also edit the HTML of your blog and have an even more control.

• Really Easy Learning Curve

Blogger is more geared towards the beginners. One might even call it an idiot-proof blogging platform. It’s so easy to learn that you’ll hardly need to read a guide for it (at least if you’re okay with serving things as is).

• Blogger has Dynamic View Feature

One of the latest improvements in Blogger is the integration of Dynamic Views. These are templates that load your content (blog posts and pages) dynamically. This allows users to see and navigate throughout your content without even clicking. Your posts will load automatically as your visitor reaches the bottom of your blog. This makes your blog more user friendly, perfect for Pro Bloggers who do it for social engagement.

WordPress vs Blogger – WordPress Disadvantages

• Certain Security Vulnerability

WordPress is open source. And that openness extends to people who want to hack (whether for profit or just because they can) WordPress. It’s a common problem on the Internet anyway, that’s why you just need to know what to do or you need to know how to secure your blog from hackers.

• Prone to Spamming

Spam in the form of blog comments and trackbacks is a big problem and unless you install the necessary plugins like Akismet, which you should really be doing, you’ll be dealing with a huge degree of spam attacks on your blog.

• Update Incompatibility

WordPress updates frequently, too frequent that some themes and plugins can’t keep up. This could be a major setback if you did core customizations to your blog or you tweaked your theme so much without following web standards and clean coding practices.

WordPress vs Blogger – Blogger Disadvantages

• Heavy Flagging and Moderation

This is one of the biggest problems and for SEO and other Pro Bloggers it is a serious one. If you blogged about anything that’s not good with Blogger’s Terms of Service then your blog could be in big trouble. If you’re blogging and your theme falls along the niches of hacking, exploits, illegal and mature content and other bad niches (according to Blogspot) then you risk your blog of getting banned – losing earnings and literal hardwork.

• SEO Limitation

Compared to WordPress customization for SEO purposes are pretty limited. There’s not much you can do in terms of meta data, link automation, post element placements and many others.

• Free Has a bit of Negative Reputation

Many advertisers, especially those that look into metrics like PageRank, IP diversity and others would not advertise on a blog that’s hosted on a free blogging platform such as Blogger.

Conclusion – WordPress or Blogger?

There are many other advantages and disadvantages that I can include on this WordPress vs Blogger post. I swear I can do a whole one week Pro Blogging course on it and still leave some details out.

Giving you the choice at the end is very cliché. And saying at the end of this post that it all boils down to personal preference is a very predictable remark, so I will not do that.

If you’re really serious about Pro Blogging, SEO and Social Media and you want to take these disciplines to the next level or you simply want to utilize blogging other than to express your thoughts on a very serious level then I would recommend you to take the platform that gives you 100% control and responsibility over it – and that would be WordPress.

How about you? In the epic WordPress vs Blogger battle, which one do you side on? Express your thoughts below.

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1st SEO Organization Philippines National Membership Assembly

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In this post is my SEO presentation entitled How To Bulletproof Your Content and Survive Any Algorithmic Change delivered on Mastering Online Ranking Conference or MORCon 2011 last October 29. It was an honor speaking with some of the best Internet professionals in the country. But what’s even more overwhelming is that I was able to share my knowledge and expertise with some 150 Filipino Internet Marketers, SEOs, SEMs, Pro Bloggers, Web Designers, Web Developers, and Online Freelancers, Work at Home Professionals and Online Money Makers – and yes, that’s really the profile of the audience we had.

This presentation still revolves around content – something that at least a few considers me an expert at. It’s not too far from my topic a few months ago during the 1st SEO ORG PH general assembly: How Panda Changed SEO Copywriting

Few of the slides were removed or altered due to its exclusive and sensitive nature; after all, the PowerPoint’s purpose is just to support my talk, having a presentation that can stand alone defeats the very idea of a having it on a live presentation. I would like to apologize in advanced if you won’t be able to pick up much from this slideshare file, you should have attended MORCon 2011, kidding… but seriously, I’ll just try to compensate by writing more blog posts. If you have questions about my lecture or the slides, just shout it in the comment section below.

How To Bulletproof Your Content and Survive Any Algorithmic Change

by Kim Tyrone Agapito, KimOfTheWorld.com and ArticleScholar.com I’ve been seeing this guy on several Forums online, and he is really impressive. I really want to have a copy of what he discussed on the event. The latest Panda update got me de-indexed, and what he discussed could actually help us prevent it from happening to our other sites or to any future updates. He also gave us some hints about the “Manual Review”, that can be done by Search Engines people. Indeed, was a very helpful topic!

And to Renan Reora for a comprehensive review of MORCon 2011:

I usually see Kim Tyrone Agapito in the Online Filipino Worker on Facebook and he frequently replies to my questions asked there. I see him as a good writer and speaker because of his experience with journalism and doing stuffs related to his forte. Mr. Kim Tyrone Agapito’s presentation is about How to bulletproof your Content and Survive Any Algorithmic Change. His report is in a way tough because you can’t predict what is on Google’s mind as of now. Google might update his algorithmic again, for example he traced again some things to improve to deliver searchers the details and information’s that they want to gather. Kim Tyrone also noted an example of sites that were penalized by Google after updating. These sites were penalized because of having irregular usage coming from spammers and they don’t moderate them that’s why they are punished.

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Facebook Group Bug – Online Filipino Workers Group Missing

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Hi guys, our Online Filipino Workers Facebook Group originally found on: https://www.facebook.com/groups/onlinefilipinoworkers/ is missing, there is a bug apparently. It’s not banned or deleted for violation (hopefully) since there’s no email from Facebook about it.

New: Since Facebook isn’t responding to at least a hundred bug reports filed by the group members,  you can join us here, different name but same purpose: Pinoy Online Professionals Facebook Group.

The group contains precious discussions about Internet Marketing, Pro Blogging, SEO, SEM and Freelancing, not just from SEO ORG PH original members but from relatively new people who are all geniuses in their respective fields.

What can you do?

Help in REPORTING the bug to Facebook by going to this URL:

https://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=groups_bug

Indicate the following details:
Subject: Online Filipino Workers Group Missing
Group Name: Online Filipino Workers
Group Web Address: http://www.facebook.com/groups/onlinefilipinoworkers/

I made a report already containing the following explanation:

Hi. I'm the admin of this group called Online Filipino Workers...
the group is active and alive but it suddenly disappeared a few hours ago.
There are only two admins on the group: neither of the admins deleted the group.
The group is now also missing on our group lists... all other members
of the group told me that they're seeing the same status when they visit the page: 

This content is currently unavailable
The page you requested cannot be displayed right now. It may be
temporarily unavailable, the link you clicked on may have
expired, or you may not have permission to view this page.
Return home

The group is a  forerunner of a Non-Governmental / Non-Profit Organization
here in the Philippines, we recently conducted a conference 2 days
ago and so there were really a lot of people posting on the group.
We have no idea what the problem is. 

I attached the only possible screenshot that can reflect the problem. 

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you so much.

Regards,
Kim Tyrone Agapito

Please spread And thank you for a successful Master Online Rankings Conference 2011. Congrats Search Engine Optimization Organization Philippines – SOP.

UPDATE: Since Facebook isn’t responding to at least a hundred bug reports filed by the group members,  you can join us here, different name but same purpose: Pinoy Online Professionals Facebook Group.

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• This content is currently unavailable The page you requested cannot be displayed right now It may be temporarily unavailable the link you clicked on may have expired or you may not have permission to view this page facebooj
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What is Google Algorithm is an age old Search Engine Optimization question – and surely the answer is worth billions of dollars. Actually, figuring not what but how it works, with the exact formula and derivatives of course would be like finding the Atlantis or recovering every bit of gold in El Dorado. Ergo there are numerous attempts to crack and understand it, just like this post.

What is Google Algorithm?

Image from SearchEngineJournal.com

Wikipedia defines Algorithm as an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning. In simple words an algorithm is a step-by-step procedure for calculations.

Now adding Google to that and translating what Wikipedia told us into simpler English and adding Search Engine knowledge to come up with relevant and easy to understand definition:

Google Algorithm or more precisely Google Search Algorithm is Google’s own way of ranking websites and webpages for a keyword based on many ranking factors – more than a single blog post can cover. We can just say that the formula is complex and some the variables to an extent are unknown. This is why you won’t be able to find a solver for it or a one guy who outside of Google who knows how it works 100%.

But because it involves math and there is a finite list of well-defined instructions (several hundred ranking factors see the video below) people always try to come up with explanations on how Google Algorithm works.

Here’s a video from Google explaining how it does improvements to its algorithm:

SEMoz made a very good historical list on changes in Google Algorithm based on what Google had announced since year 2000: http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change

As you can see there are constant updates, and that only counts for the announced changes. The bad news as theorized by many webmasters: there are algorithmic changes and updates that are unannounced and Google tweaks its algorithm more than 500 times a year (that’s at least once every day and twice on many occasions), which leads me to another point: Why it can be a Bitch (sometimes)?

Why Google Search Algorithm Can Be A Bitch?

Excuse the term but there’s just no more accurate word for it. My algorithm failed to compute for the right word. But seriously, just check the hundreds of threads and blog posts that concerns, questions and complains about every Google Algorithm update. Here’s a short anonymous list that I compiled through lurking the Internet:

1. Google Algorithm is Damn Hard to Understand

People say it’s hard to understand. Well what did expect billion dollars worth of Algorithm to be? You didn’t expect it to be as simple as understanding e=mc² right?

2. Google Algorithm is Impossible to Dance With

Do you think you’re flexible? Do you think you can dance well? Well think again. Changes in Google Algorithm is one dance that’s impossible to sync with, let alone listen to a music only it can understand says a lot of webmasters that I know.

3. Google Algorithm is a Mystery

Google Algorithm is a Mystery according to webmasters who are baffled at how in the heavens Google come up with ranking factors. Yes it is hard to figure, almost impossible to understand IF you don’t know who to ask and where to look for answers. It will be impossible to comprehend if you won’t be able to indentify causation and correlation between factors and search results. Just remember it’s an Algorithm and therefore its math composed of formulas and variables.

4. Google Algorithm Constantly Changes its Mind

How bad is it to deal with a person who changes his or her mind more often than you can follow through? Now think that you’re in a non mutual relationship with that person and you need him or her while he or she doesn’t need you at all. Now imagine that person to be emotionless, unpredictable and totally out of this world. That’s just how a few SEOs see Google Algorithm.

5. Google Algorithm Hides a Lot of Things

I remember a relatively straight to the point comment I read on YouTube saying how Matt Cutts often avoid really answering SEO questions by giving political and marketing answers rather than straight and useful information. The guy works for the company so don’t expect him to tell a clear list of yes you can do things that will enable you to be on the top of search engine results. The best he can tell you are pretty much what you can read on Google Webmaster Tool Help Guidelines – general facts and ideas.

6. Google Algorithm Loves to Slap

Every update it takes means a slap on your website. Just when you think you’re recovering from the last change in Algorithm here comes another update that will slap your website even harder and push you down the SERPs again.

7. Google Algorithm can be worse than Your Girlfriend

Now I don’t know how understanding or considerate your girlfriend is, but I’m pretty sure no person on this planet can be as complicated, as hard to deal with, and as hard to please as Google Algorithm. The algo can be pretty hard to understand sometimes. Okay maybe there are a few exceptions, let me hear it in the comment section below.

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This year’s Mastering Online Ranking Conference (MORCon 2011) will be very special. I’ve been told that there will be a lot of new faces, bigger names in the industry and more exciting topics than any of the previous Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing and Pro Blogging conferences that I’ve attended – and probably one of the most exciting part is I’ll be speaking along with few of the greatest SEO and Internet Marketing minds I’ve known.

MORCon 2011 is an event for Filipino Internet Marketing professionals, bloggers, SEOs, SEMs, copywriters, web designers, web developers and Online Filipino Workers. If you want to know what’s the latest on the online industry, if you’re into Internet Marketing, e-commerce, online business and freelancing then MORCon 2011 is for you.

So see you this Saturday, October 29, 2011 at School of Urban Planning and Development, University of the Philippines – Diliman.

Below is the complete list of speakers for this year’s MORCon:

Benj Arriola – Benj Arriola is favorite speaker on local and international SEO conferences. He is the 2007 SEO World Champion and the current SEO Director at Internet Marketing Inc. His lecture will revolve around “Local SEO To International SEO Strategies”

Ed Pudol – Ed Pudol is the Owner and CEO of Lexorsoft.net, an Internet Marketing and SEO Outsourcing services provider. He’ll be discussing How To Build an Authority Site.

Jason Acidre – Jason Acidre is the Marketing Consultant of Doubledot Media. He blogs at KaisertheSage.com His topic: Viral Marketing Strategies and Content Generation

Ester Del Fierro – Ester Del Fierro is the Online Marketing Manager of Directwithhotels.com. She’ll be revealing the latest Social Media Ninja Tactics.

Kim Tyrone Agapito – Kim Tyrone Agapito is yours truly. I rarely like to talk about myself so I’ll just tell you what’s written on the event’s page: I blog right here, KimOfTheWorld.com and I also own ArticleScholar.com. My topic: How To Bulletproof Your Content and Survive Any Algorithmic Change

Mark Acsay – Mark Acsay is an SEO Consultant, he blogs at WebbyThoughts.com His topic: SEO Mistakes To Avoid

Sheila Dela Pena – Online Marketing Junior Manager at Directwithhotels.com, she’ll be discussing Website Audit – Site Analysis and Reporting.

Juanito Jacela – Juanito Jacela who likes to call himself PPC Demon, you can find via CellConversion.com. He’ll be discussing Pay Per Click (PPC) Strategies.

Myles Vives – Myles Vives is the COO of WebsiteTrafficAttraction.com and he’ll be sharing Surprise Juicy Internet Marketing Topics

Alfred Palconit – Alfred Palconit is the Senior SEO Specialist at Branders.com and he’ll be delivering a surprise lecture I guess. 

If you’d like to attend this event then simply go to MORCon 2011’s official event website: http://www.seocampphilippines.com/

You must be a member of Search Engine Optimization Organization Philippines or SEO ORG PH (SOP) to be able to attend since this event is free and exclusive to members of the Organization.

For more details, you can signup via MORCon 2011 Facebook Events Page

SOP forum: SEO ORG Philippines

And be sure to check out Online Filipino Workers Facebook Group too.

Tweet, share, stumble, reblog and do whatever you can to share the love.

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Just recently Google cracked down and banned hundreds of Adsense Publishers, with concentration on publishers from Pakistan.

There are many rumors and reports saying that Pakistan Federal Interior Minister Abdul Rehman Malik ignited the mass banning after he released a statement saying that their country reserves the right to block and ban the search engine if its administrators do not assist them in their criminal investigation.

Here’s the complete report on the banning.

Conspiracy theories aren’t the thing of this blog so I’d skip discussing that any further. Instead I’m going to try and help fellow webmasters into finding solutions.
Here’s an example email of what Google sends to banned publishers:

Hello,
After reviewing our records, we’ve determined that your AdSense account
poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a
responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due
to invalid activity, we’ve found it necessary to disable your AdSense
account. Your outstanding balance and Google’s share of the revenue will
both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers.
Please understand that we need to take such steps to maintain the
effectiveness of Google’s advertising system, particularly the
advertiser-publisher relationship. We understand the inconvenience that
this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and
cooperation.
If you have any questions or concerns about the actions we’ve taken, how
you can appeal this decision, or invalid activity in general, you can find
more information by visiting

http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team

From my research, once Google Adsense bans you then that’s the end of it. You can request for consideration but the chance of them reinstating your account is almost zero. This is why it’s imperative to always follow Google Adsense’s Publisher guidelines strictly. I’ll discuss more about that on another post but for the meantime read on a few explanations on why Google Adsense disabled/would disable/ your account:

Reasons Why Pakistani Publishers Were Banned (Probably)

1. Spam Site / Spam Blog

Google hates spam – very much. And they have zero tolerance to spammers, let alone Adsense publishers. The same is true to Google AdWords advertisers. This is why Google will do everything it can not to see their ads on spam websites and blogs. So if spam blogs are your thing, stay away from Google Adsense. This violation includes having duplicate and scraped contents which perhaps explains why many of the sites and blogs that got banned are thin technology and celebrity blogs that republishes (with little changes to pass the content as unique) content from popular news websites and authority blogs.

2. Made-for-AdSense Websites

Made-for-AdSense or MFA as they like to call it are thin websites without valuable content and are solely made to display Adsense and earn from it – ergo, Made for Adsense. Remember this: websites and blogs’ primary goal can never be to publish Adsense. Imagine watching a TV show with very little show and tons of advertisements/commercials. You’d hate it right?

3. Fraudulent Clicks

This is very basic but there are still people who do this and then will surprisingly ask questions why they got banned. Do not click on your Adsense ads (or someone to click them for you) under any circumstance, not even to check if the ads are working or if will be credited for that click. If you installed Google Adsense on your website as instructed then you should have no trouble earning from valid Adsense clicks. If you think you can get away by manipulating Adsense clicks then you’re dead wrong.

Best Google Adsense Alternative for Pakistani Publishers

Instead of whining or trying to wage a war that you will never win against Google, I suggest you move on. And move on fast. Start by singing up on a very good Adsense alternative like the one I’m using: Infolinks.

Infolinks is my top Google Adsense alternative and compliment. It can very run well on Adsense and other networks, it’s not intrusive and it takes no advertising space. Remember that one of the reasons Google might have banned your account is having MFA website? With Infolinks your website or blog will never look like it was made for advertisement.

I run Infolinks on my other websites that were banned or simply not compatible with Adsense. And actually, my Infolinks earnings rival my Adsense’s.

I wrote a review about Infolinks Marketplace here: Infolinks Marketplace Review. Infolinks Marketplace is pretty much like Google Adwords, and reading that article will make you understand the advantages of Infolinks ads and how effective that ad network is.

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Infolinks has always been one of the real money bringers in my network of blogs and websites. It has rivaled my Google Adsense earnings and even replaced the favorite ad network in some of my selected niches.

Now you may ask how that is possible. The answer is as simple as the network itself. Infolinks serves in-text advertisements, and with that comes a ton of advantages over conventional advertising models. They also launched the Marketplace, a place where advertisers can quickly and easily create an In-Text Advertising campaign and have their ads shown to more than 250 billion pages of content.

On the advertisers’ perspective, these advantages, coupled with the new self-service In-Text Advertising Marketplace can pump up your marketing campaign not overnight, but in a matter of minutes. Don’t take unfounded words for it, take a look at the reasons I listed answering how Infolinks Marketplace can very well rival Google AdWords:

1.Infolinks Can Rival Adsense Earnings

It did rival my Google Adsense earnings (as well as that of many Internet Marketers and Publishers I know), in fact there are occasions on different niches when my Infolinks CTR is higher than that of Adsense, and logic dictates that if the relationship between the earnings of Adsense and Infolinks publishers are on a close gap, then the same thing can be told about AdWords and Marketplace publishers. Simply put, In-text Advertising converts, and it converts very well. If you want to combine Adsense or any Ad Network with Infolinks and boost up your earnings like I did, or you simply want to be an Infolinks Publisher register here.

2. In-Text Ads are Ad Blindness Proof

In an era when Internet users are developing an incurable blindness, which is blindness to banner (image and video) ads, putting the ads where it cannot be avoided or ignored is simply genius. This can partially explain why I sometimes have higher CTR on Infolinks than in Adsense.

3. Content is King

Content is King and if you want something to be valued as high as possible, you need to put it as closest to content as possible.

The Content is King mantra is a favorite of many SEOs and Internet Marketers, it’s a golden rule that teaches you that content as in what you’re reading right now is the core of ranking and marketing; and the soul of optimization and conversion. The Content is the King, not the space above it, not the sidebar, not the footer, and not the navbar. If you want to make consumers feel that what you’re promoting is as important as the King itself, you’re going to put it in the content, just like how in-text advertising works. This is virtually making your ads the hand of the King.

4. Infolinks Ads are SEO and User Friendly

Because In-Text ads do not come as heavy javascripts or flashing banners like others ad formats, they do not reduce site speed, an important SEO and usability factor.

5. Popularity Over Competing Networks

Infolinks just like any other great company got competitors: Flite, Kontera, Vibrant are among them. But Infolinks is favored by more advertisers and publishers because they are way ahead of this Advertising model and they have more ad options as well (Related Tags, Tag Clouds and Search Widget). And metrics like Google Trends agrees:

Compete Stats: Infolinks, Kontera, Chitika:

Notice the rapid fall of Kontera’s stats?

6. No Intrusive Advertising

People hate intrusive advertisements. I do. This is true in all media: TV, print and Internet. This is why despite meeting strong criticism and objection from traditional marketers and advertisers, in-text advertising has proved to be a strong ad revenue model robust advertising platform in gaining targeted and converting consumers.

7. Advertiser Friendly

One main feature that Marketplace boasts is it being user friendly. Tomer Treves, Chief Marketing Officer of Infolinks even said that the Marketplace is “an advertiser’s dream come true.” True enough a system that is so simple you can actually set and start a campaign in a matter of minutes is nothing less but a dream come true.

8. Keyword Selection and Bidding

The Marketplace will allow you to virtually own the keywords that you want and spread your ads across the entire Web while letting you geographically laser target consumers without eating up your entire advertising budget.

9. Advanced Optimization

Setting up an ad is one thing, and optimizing that ad up so that converts is another, this is the beauty of Marketplace, somehow the genius developers were able to combine them in an easy platform.

10. Real-Time Reporting

How long do you have to wait to see results in an ad campaign that you set up? Or more importantly, how fast do you want to see results in your campaign. Is five minutes fast enough? This is the promise of Marketplace, and taking the experience of Treves “From my own personal experience it takes less than five minutes to start the campaign and go live and get real-time results,” five minutes would appear to be long enough.

Time is an important element in every campaign. Seeing the right and wrong things in your campaign immediately can spell the difference between a successful and failing campaign. With this system, you will be able to fix and perform adjustments in your campaign real-time.

Before I forget, using Infolinks Marketplace will only cost you $5.00 USD a day. Yes that’s how cheap it is. It’s literally an insane offer and an equally great opportunity to test the waters at the Marketplace. What is the potential exposure to more than 350 Million consumers in one month do you think should amount anyway?

These are just some of the things that make Infolinks In-Text Advertising Marketplace a good alternative to Google AdWords, of course that statement may be debatable but if all trends continue to favor this new advertising model, then we may very well say that the AdWords killer is born.

What is your experience with Infolinks both as an advertiser and a publisher? Shout it out below.

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If you are not using Dropbox or at least heard of it then you’re missing a lot. Aside from being an online service that allows you to sync your files to unlimited number of devices, Dropbox is also a free online storage service with one of the most robust and stable servers.

I don’t mean to sound too pitchy; Dropbox isn’t paying me to market their product anyway, I’m doing this for the sake of readers who are in dire need of a good file synchronization tool. So be it office documents, music files, videos, be it for personal, professional or collaboration use Dropbox is a good choice.

Dropbox automatically syncs your files as you edit them, so there’s no need to finish working on a file on a specific machine and then transfer it on your laptop then wait for it to download completely so you can start syncing it on your main workstation.

More features of Dropbox:

* Up to 8GB Dropbox capacity for free, premium options open for up to 100GB.
* Your files are always available from the secure Dropbox website.
* Dropbox works with Windows, Mac, Linux, iPad, iPhone, Android and BlackBerry.
* Works even when offline. You always have your files, whether or not you have a connection.
* Dropbox transfers just the parts of a file that change (not the whole thing).
* Manually set bandwidth limits — Dropbox won’t hog your connection.
* Invite friends, family or teammates to a folder. It’ll be as if you saved the folder to their computers.
* See other people’s changes instantly.
* Create photo galleries viewable by anyone you choose.
* Send a link to any file in your Dropbox using your Public folder.
* Bring your files with you when you’re on the go.
* Edit files in your Dropbox from your phone.
* Easily upload your photos and videos to Dropbox.
* Share freely with family and friends.
* Dropbox keeps a one-month history of your work.
* Any changes can be undone, and files can be undeleted.
* Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and AES-256 bit encryption.

You only need to register here, confirm your email and then install the software. Dropbox allows an easy 2 GB of free file syncing, if that’s not enough then you can easily work your way into increasing your account storage capacity. My Dropbox storage is currently at 8 GB limit, that’s more than enough for my Internet Marketing files and that I sync in three difference machines. You will easily learn how you can increase your free online storage capacity right after you install the software.

Here’s one trick that can help you get 50 GB max online hard drive on your Dropbox account. Enter this contest by simply putting your email, of course you need a Dropbox account in order to win so don’t forget to sign-up here first.

More of tricks and tips on how to get more of free Dropbox space on another blog post.

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If you haven’t been following what’s trending on Twitter, Plurk and Facebook at least on your local circles in the Philippines then let me enlighten you.

The DPWH scandal or better now called DPWH meme started after the Department of Public Works and Highways posted an edited image of their top people doing an ocular inspection to assess the damage caused by typhoon Pedring on Manila Baywalk.

Here’s the original edited / photoshopped picture posted on DPWH’s Official Facebook Fan Page courtesy of Pierre Albert San Diego:

Here’s the said image with notes and proofs of alteration:

And highlight of this post, the proof that DPWH could be at any place and at any time:

Craziest DPWH Photoshop Scandal Memes

DPWH Photoshop Scandal with General MacArthur

Kathruwen Ginete

DPWH Photoshop Scandal Nazi

DPWH with Ultraman and Godzilla (?)

Adrian Paolo Castilla Amador

DPWH Photoshop Scandal Where’s Waldo?

Jared Asuncion

DPWH Photoshop Scandal LEGO Version

Albert Jude Villaruel

DPWH Photoshop Scandal Greek Mythology

Nico Dela Paz

DPWH in Plants vs Zombies

Kenneth Guevarra

DPWH Photoshop Scandal Harry Potter Patronus

Alan Navarra

DPWH Photoshop Scandal with Moses on Red Sea

Ghani Madueno

DPWH Photoshop Scandal with the Flintstones Family

Nico Dela Paz

DPWH Photoshop Scandal with Simpsons Family

Alan Eric Concepcion

If any of the above images were wrong credited, or if you find a DPWH meme that you think is good enough to make this list, shout it out below.

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Getting hacked is perhaps among the worst nightmares of every blogger and Internet Marketer. Getting hacked is almost synonymous to getting your business robbed and in a few instances burned. It can affect your search engine rankings, lose your authority, expose your readers to viruses, lose you money of course, and lose your years of hard work.

But getting hacked is not the end of the world, at least that’s what you need to think and believe. I got one of my early blogs hacked after I signed up on a sneaky CPM network, needless to say I lost a few dollars over it. But I’ve learned my lesson and while prevention is always better than cure there are some instances that you will always need treatment in order to salvage whatever it is there to be saved.

Here are a few steps on what to do in case your WordPress website gets hacked.

1. Backup Your Website And Its Database

If you’re lucky and you still have access to your File Transfer Protocol or FTP and your phpMyAdmin do a backup of your website files and immediately download your database.

Make sure to put the files you are downloading on a safe folder in your hard drive, not on delicate folders that needs admin permissions. Since your blog is already hacked, there is a danger that you will also be downloading infected files, that is files that contains viruses, trojans or malwares and you don’t want to risk your computer getting exposed to it. As always make sure your favorite anti-virus software is running.

If your blog also serves a few download for users then backup those too, you don’t want your blog serving broken or unavailable downloads once you recover it.

The same goes for self hosted images. There should be a separate folder for these two, usually in the folder /uploads/ of your WP blog. Copy that folder and place it someplace else, outside of your download main backup from FTP.

Export your blog database into all possible formats: zip, sql, csv etc. This is part of our prevention is better than cure idea. This should only take a few seconds or minutes more depending on your ISP.

2. Download The Latest Version Of WordPress

Get the latest version of WordPress from the official website: http://wordpress.org/download/

The same goes for all of your plugins. I recommend you to download a clean template, and its best if you’ll use WP’s default template for the meantime. Why? Because there are a few times when the theme you use for that hacked blog is the already compromised or worse is the culprit why you were hacked. You can read more about how to protect your WP theme from malicious codes and a little on how can your WP theme get your blog hacked on this post:

How To Check Your WordPress Theme for Malicious Codes

3. Delete Files On Your Server

Delete all of the files and folders contain in your WP directory installation. You can do this through FTP or through your File Manager in cPanel. You can also do this through SSH if that is your sort of thing (on second thought I doubt you’ll be reading this tutorial if that indeed is your thing).

Make sure that the entire directory or folder structure of your old WP installation has been deleted and cleared. This will ensure you that you have removed all possibly infected files.

4. Reinstall WordPress

Remember step 2. Upload all the files necessary including your hosted images and files. Just make sure you have checked them with your local antivirus software to be sure that they are clean. You don’t want to upload infected files unless you enjoy cleaning your blog again.

Make sure you edit your wp-config.php file correctly. Also make sure that you take advantage of the secret key values that you can change. This can be found on the config file.

define('AUTH_KEY',         'put your unique phrase here');
define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY',  'put your unique phrase here');
define('LOGGED_IN_KEY',    'put your unique phrase here');
define('NONCE_KEY',        'put your unique phrase here');
define('AUTH_SALT',        'put your unique phrase here');
define('SECURE_AUTH_SALT', 'put your unique phrase here');
define('LOGGED_IN_SALT',   'put your unique phrase here');
define('NONCE_SALT',       'put your unique phrase here');

Go to https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/ and grab some keys. This can help you protect your blog from unauthorized access i.e. hackers.

5. Run The Database Upgrade

Go to /wp-admin/upgrade.php to be sure that your database has been upgraded.

Now you might remember that you made a backup of your database earlier, just pray that you won’t have to use it and that this simple reinstallation fixes things.

6. Change Admin User/Password

Since you’ve been hacked you can assume that the hacker knows your password, so common sense dictates that you will have to change it ASAP.

I recommend you to change your admin username to anything but the default username which is admin. A more detailed explanation on this merits another blog post.

If your blog has more than one admin, meaning got other users that have the same privileges like editing files, installing plugins etc then downgrade their privileges first so you can also change their passwords.

7. Repair Blog Posts

Check your blog posts manually. See if your posts now got iframes, noscripts and redirects. Check if you now link to malicious and bad neighborhood sites, something that these blog hackers love or even paid to do.

Of course links can sometimes be not obvious, thanks to the power of CSS and HTML coding so here’s a good tool that you can use if you have FireFox:  FireFox Addon LinkChecker. That will help you identify the links on a page, so you won’t to reply solely on your naked eye.

You can also run this query on your MySQL database to identify your posts that you may want to focus on:

SELECT * FROM wp_posts WHERE post_content LIKE '%<iframe%'
UNION
SELECT * FROM wp_posts WHERE post_content LIKE '%<noscript%'
UNION
SELECT * FROM wp_posts WHERE post_content LIKE '%display:%'

This query is for WordPress tables with wp_ prefix, that’s the default format. It will pull the posts that could have been altered by the hacker so you can verify its validity. To run the query just go to phpMyAdmin MySQL databases from your hosting’s cPanel.

If you’re having problems cleaning up your hacked WordPress blog just leave a comment below or contact me. Image is from RizwanAshraf.

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