Linking Out Will NOT Reduce The Google PageRank of Your Pages

It is a Google’s world, and as webmasters we live and die by our search rankings, right? One of the factors that both influences search rankings and that most people seem to care about is the Google PageRank. More specifically, we want as much PageRank as possible!

Now aiming to increase the PageRank of your pages is fine, the problem is when misconceptions around the PageRank algorithm affect the way webmasters behave.

One of these misconceptions is to assume that when you link to external websites you will be losing PageRank from the page where the link is placed. I call this the “bucket view” of the PageRank algorithm.

That is, people mentally compare web pages to buckets, and backlinks to streams of water. The more streams of water you have, the more water your bucket will have, and thus the higher your PageRank. However, under this analogy external links on your page represent little holes in your bucket, so every external link will leak some water and end up reducing your PageRank. Put 100 external links on your page and all the water will be gone!

This analogy is somewhat logical, but it is NOT how the Google PageRank algorithm works.

The PageRank of a page is only affected by the number and quality of its incoming links, and not by the outgoing ones (you understand this by taking a look at the equation used, but I won’t get into that because it is beyond our purpose here). Obviously if you link to 1,000 sites or to bad neighbors from your page it might get flagged as spammy and be de-indexed, but that has nothing to do with its PageRank, which would remain intact.

If you have an internal page with a PageRank of 5 (keep in mind the real PageRank values are not integers but rather floating points), placing 10 external links on that page would in no way affect its PageRank. The only thing that would happen is that each of those linked pages would receive a link juice of 0.5 (the value of each link is equal to the PageRank of the page where they come from divided by the total number of outgoing links on that page).

Now the reality is a bit more complex and we would need to take into consideration other details to make a complete analysis. For example, you will still lose some PageRank if you link to external websites because if you had not linked there the link equity of that page would flow back to your homepage and be distributed equally across your website. This is the so called PageRank leak, but it is not as significant as most people believe.

Despite these nuances, therefore, the moral of the story remains: linking out is not supposed to directly reduce the PageRank on your pages. In fact there are plenty of pages that contain dozens of links and yet rank in the first positions of Google’s result pages for competitive keywords.

If you ever refrained from linking to an external site because you feared you would lose PageRank (I have been there too), forget that. Linking away to relevant and valuable pages is good for everyone.

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Top 25 SEO Blogs

I love rankings, what can I say. After I published the “Top 25 Blogs About Blogging” list I thought that someone would replicate it for the SEO sphere. But no one did, so here we go again.

This list was made using pretty much the same algorithm (only small modifications were made, mainly due to the fact that SEO blogs are more popular). Once again the list should be useful because it is based on objective factors. There are many “Top SEO Blogs” lists around the web, but most of them are based on the preferences of the author.

The Top 25 SEO Blogs list, instead, ranks the blogs according to their Google Pagerank, Alexa rank, number of Bloglines subscribers and Technorati authority. Each factor has a score from 0 to 10, and the maximum score for each blog is 40. Details about the algorithm can be found below the table.

#1	Search Engine Land	7	10	9	10	36
#2	SEOBook	6	10	10	10	36
#3	SEO Moz	5	10	10	10	35
#4	Matt Cutts	7	10	8	10	35
#5	Search Engine Watch	7	10	10	7	34
#6	Search Engine Roundtable	7	10	8	8	33
#7	Search Engine Journal	7	8	9	8	32
#8	Online Marketing Blog	6	7	7	10	30
#9	Pronet Advertising	7	7	5	10	29
#10	Marketing Pilgrim	7	8	6	8	29
#11	SEO Chat	6	10	4	6	26
#12	Search Engine Guide	7	8	4	6	25
#13	SEO Blackhat	6	8	6	5	25
#14	Stuntdubl	6	6	6	6	24
#15	Graywolf’s SEO	6	7	4	7	24
#16	SEO by the SEA	6	4	5	5	20
#17	Link Building Blog	5	5	5	4	19
#18	Jim Boykin	5	6	4	4	19
#19	SEOpedia	6	5	4	4	19
#20	DaveN	6	5	4	4	19
#21	Bruce Clay	5	7	3	3	18
#22	Blue Hat SEO	4	6	3	4	17
#23	Tropical SEO	5	5	3	4	17
#24	SEO Refugee	5	6	1	3	15
#25	Small Business SEM	5	4	3	3	15

Blogs considered: the list considers only blogs that have a high percentage of SEO-related content. Topics might range from SEO news coverage to general SEO discussion and link building.

Google Pagerank (0 to 10): the actual Pagerank was used on the algorithm.

Alexa Rank (0 to 10): Ranges were determined based on the Alexa Rank (i.e., 100k and up, 80k-100k, 60k-80k, 40k-60k) and each range was assigned a number (1 to 10).

Bloglines Subscribers (0 to 10): Subscriber ranges were determined (i.e., 1-50, 50-100, 100-150, 150-300) and each range was assigned a number (1 to 10).

Technorati Authority (0 to 10): Ranges were determined based on Technorati’s Authority rank (i.e., 1-125, 125-250, 500-750,750-1000) and each range was assigned a number (1 to 10).

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Blogging for Business - A Simple Guide to Get you Blogging

A great blogging tips from Raj Anand, technical director at Kwiqq.com. In this ebook he describes how to use online journals (blog) and blogging activity as a fantastic marketing tool by join the online discussion and gradually gain authority in their field. Raj also mention seven reasons why individual, organisations, and companies should getting involved to blogging:

1. Blogging increases your search engine results position (SERP)
2. Blogging increases your site traffic
3. Blogging establishes your organisation as thought-leaders in your sector
4. Blogging provides a perfect platform for announcements
5. Blogging gives your users a space to comment
6. Blogging is a great platform for stakeholder communication and feedback
7. Blogging facilitates full engagement in the on-line conversation about your cause, campaigns and projects

Because the publicity gained through blogging is organic, it is much more trustworthy than traditional advertising, and much more valuable because of its authentic, personal feel.

Raj Anand is the winner of Europe's Young Entrepreneur 2007 by BusinessWeek and was one of the Top 6 Entrepreneurs in the UK at Cranfield University's Upstart Programme. Previously Raj worked for the European Union, in Shell STEP internships, and developed software projects for Dazdaq Limited (a hi-tech medical firm), local firms like Daniel Sullivan Racing, Desi-Soundz Radio Station and at Sussex University research labs (Informatics). Raj has also won many national awards for his projects in computer science, leadership skills and his entrepreneurial ambitions; for example the Millennium Volunteer award from the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke for helping local charities with Web projects, President of the best Society at Sussex University Union and runner up at South East Shell STEP awards.



Blogging for Business


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Adding TweetMeme (Retweet) Button to Your Blog

If you want to broadens your website and blog's audience through Twitter, you can encourage your readers to share your content by retweet it on Twitter. Simply put a Retweet button provided by TweetMeme service in your layout to make it easy for them to share your content.

The Retweet button is a free service for website and blog publishers, and it work on any kind of platform, including Blogger, Wordpress, TypePad, Tumbir, Posterous, Squidoo Lens, and many more. With one simple piece of JavaScript embedded to your layout, TweetMeme Retweet button give you up to date tweet counts and shorten your title and link for the retweets.

Adding Retweet button to your blog can do simply by copy and paste the following javascript code into your template where you want the button to be displayed (depend of what blog platform you use):



For this blog I put the code above the line

to make Retweet button appear on each post header. I also set its div style to float:right and set padding to make the button fit nicely at the top-right corner of each post (click on screenshot to see it larger):



And the result is:

The button will automatically grab the URL of the page it is placed on, and also give you up to date tweet counts and shorten your title and link for the retweets. If you are using Wordpress you may use TweetMeme WordPress Plugin.

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Weebly Free Online Website Creator: Easiest Way to Create a Website

Weebly is a San Francisco, California based free online website creation company that was founded in 2006 by David Rusenko, Dan Veltri, and Chris Fanini. In early 2007, the Weebly founding team joined a micro-seed funding program called Y Combinator. The company is backed by some of big shot angel investors in Silicon Valley, including Rajeev Motwani, Mike Maples, Ron Conway of Baseline Ventures (original investor in Google), Aydin Senkut, and Paul Buchheit (creator of Gmail). Weebly was named by Time Magazine as number four of the fifty best websites of 2007.

As an online, AJAX-based website creator, Weebly was written in vim on Fedora Core 5 machines, and is compatible with any web browser including Internet Explorer 5.5+/7.0, Firefox 1.5/2.0, and is functional in Opera 9 on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. As recently as October 2008, Weebly has become compatible with Safari and Google Chrome in addition to its existing compatibility. In the same year Weebly added the WeeblyPro feature, allowing users to create password-protected web pages and upgrade file size limits, as well as receive additional support services.

Currently Weebly have 2 million customers. What make their service interesting is its simplicity and ease of use, and backed by reliable stability hosting infrastructure. Weebly allow all types of users - newbie or savvy - to easily create, manage, and host their website. Weebly provide the hosting so you don’t need to pay for a hosting provider. They don’t impose arbitrary bandwidth restrictions, storage caps or limits on the number of pages allowed, either.

Weebly uses a widget style format, allowing users to create pages with only a few clicks and drags and drops different page elements - videos, pictures, maps, slideshows, files, forums, games, RSS feeds, Flickr feed, or any other HTML embed code - onto a page and fills in the content. Users can easily create any types of websites, from personal sites or blogs to web presences for their small to medium businesses (simple ecommerce site), portfolios, weddings, classrooms, and more. Weebly slightly saves customers time and money so they can focused and spend their time on providing worthful contents to readers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjY83SnrO1M&feature=player_embedded

Weebly provide 70+ ready to use template design to choose from, and users can completely customize the template, or build your own template with HTML & CSS, right in the Weebly editor.

Weebly start off by offering users fully free services - and don't place advertising on your site like those other crappy "free hosting" service. Weebly free services have some limitations, however. But users who are very pleased with what they see and use, mostly upgrade to WeeblyPro account versions for just small fee.

With WeeblyPro account you have the option to purchase a custom domain name (www.yoursite.com) directly within Weebly which they instantly setup. A custom domain look more professional instead of using free subdomain (yoursite.weebly.com). WeeblyPro feature also allowing users to create password-protected pages and upgrade file size limits, as well as receive additional support services like setup email with your own domain (mail@yoursite.com).

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Adding Related Posts With Thumbnails to Your Blog

you are looking for an attractive but elegant way to showcase more of your blog posts to readers, keeping them engaged with your blog and increase pageviews, LinkWithin is definitely worth a try.

LinkWithin is a free service offer blog widget that appears under each post, linking to its related stories from your blog archive. The widget also known as related posts widget. What makes LinkWithin different and far more attractive compared to most of its competitors is thumbnail with a picture taken from each post:

In case LinkWithin can't found pictures on most of the recommended posts, the widget will only shows text links instead of thumbnail links.

LinkWithin work by retrieve and index all stories from your blog archive, and stories are chosen based on several factors, including post title, tags, and content. It does most of the computing on its own servers, so it can take a little while before related posts results appear on your blog. Also, if your blog uses a non-standard custom template/theme, the plugin sometimes doesn't play nice.

To fix this problem, LinkWithin team offer support for your blog manually, as far the related post widget remains installed on your blog. Just contact them via email at support AT linkwithin DOT com, they'll fix the problem within 1-2 days.

LinkWithin related posts plugin is currently available for Blogger, Wordpress (self-hosted), and Typepad. For other blogging platform users, LinkWithin also provide you with a code snippet that you can use on your blog. You don't need to signup to use the service. Just fill in your email, blog URL, and your blog's platform. You also have an opt to customize number of stories that will shown in the related posts widget, and set widget appearance in case your blog design has light text on a dark background. Read more...

How to Make Money from Blogging (Other Than Using Ads)

The easiest way to generate income through your blogging activity is by displaying ads on your blog. You just have to join ad network (Google AdSense is the big daddy in this field), get approved, then start displaying ads by copy and paste javascript code provided to your blog's HTML layout.

However, unless you're a big shot blogger and your blog receives a very large amount of traffic each day, displaying ads seem not a guaranteed money-maker. Since most online ads earning are based-on PPC (pay per click), your income from ads very depend on the actions of your blog's readers.

An article in About.com written by Susan Gunelius show a variety of nonadvertising opportunities to earn money from your blog. According to the article, by diversifying your income-generating opportunities, you'll have a greater chance of successfully monetizing your blog.

Nonadvertising ways recommended to make money blogging including sell merchandise, write and sell an ebook - or printed book - related to your blogging activity or your expertise, become a public speaker and consultant, sell your guest posting services, and apply for other writing jobs (make your blogging activity as a way to polish your writing skills before you move to other writing jobs online and offline). Read more...

MetaStock 10 (End of Day)

MetaStock 10 (End of Day) & Chart Pattern Recognition Bundle

MetaStock 10 (by Equis) End-of-Day analysis software for Windows combined with the John Murphy's award winning Chart Pattern Recognition plug-in that automatically finds classic bar chart patterns like Ascending Triangles and Head-And-Shoulder Tops.


These are the latest versions.

This is a great combination for end-of-day analysis. These chart patterns were hand-picked by John Murphy and programmed with his guidance. ...and they work!
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Forex Trend Tracer system

Long Entry
Enter a LONG position when all following conditions are met
- TrendUp indicator is BLUE and pointing up
- MACD is > 0
Stop loss
Stop loss is set at value of ATR (21)
Exit
Exit LONG position when either the TrendUp changes its color or MACD < 0
Short Entry
Enter a SHORT position when all following conditions are met
- TrendUp indicator is RED and pointing down
- MACD is < 0
Stop loss

Stop loss is set at value of ATR(21)
Exit
Exit SHORT position when either the TrendUp changes its color or MACD > 0
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Forex Typhoon

It is the most sophisticated Forex trading robot around, bringing in high and consistent profits each and every day”, Mark told me.

"I used to work on Wall St, and after years of doing the same tasks, over and over again, I began to see the patterns in what I was doing. I knew what I had to do. I developed a system that did everything I was doing manually, but on a much larger scale and one that could work constantly, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You see, I realized early on it was emotionality and human errors that were killing Forex profits. So, I removed these imperfections in human trading and...

Best of all, it's completely automated, so you can just set it up, and leave it alone. The Forex Typhoon robot will haul in huge sums of money for its users every day of the week, every month of the year, while you get on with enjoying your life” I was astounded, and just couldn’t wait to put this system to the test. A question I'd had all along was eating me up inside... I just had to ask...

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Forex Income Engine 2

OK, I understand. That might all sound "too good to be true". If you're like me, you've probably seen some claims by supposed gurus that are not only unbelievable, but that make you almost feel embarrassed for the person making those claims.

Chances are, you're probably frustrated, confused, and maybe even a little angry because you feel like everybody is promising you the "moon and the stars", and delivering nothing but "hot air and fluff".

It's OK, and it's not your fault. Those "hucksters" should be ashamed of themselves. They're promising you things they know they can't deliver on. And that really burns me up.

So here's what I want you to do when you read this letter. See if what I reveal to you about Forex day trading actually MAKES SENSE. Ask yourself if you can imagine actually doing what I teach you. And see how you feel when you're done with the letter.

You won't find any crazy promises here. Not once do I claim "no losing trades ever". In fact, you'll discover how the most successful traders became successful because they learned the right way to deal with losing trades, and not wasting time and money seeking the mythical "holy grail" system of trading that never loses (it doesn't exist and NEVER WILL).

You also won't find any "green lights", "red lights", or "push button" nonsense that promises to make you money while you sleep. Do you honestly think that stuff exists? No? Good. I didn't think so.

However, what you WILL find here is how to become an INDEPENDENT Forex day trader. You'll see how I reveal to you the actual technical rules and logic behind a step-by-step trading method that finally gives you the power to trade on YOUR TERMS and on YOUR SCHEDULE... while protecting your positions with a built-in "risk shield" at all times. Whether you want to spend just 20 minutes a day, or hours at a time... the choice is ultimately YOURS.

When you're done with this letter, you should be saying to yourself, "YES. This makes sense."

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News Indicator

Basically I would like a database of all regular scheduled news events. The database would contain the name of the news event, the date and the time. I'm pretty sure that's all that would be needed.

Then, the indicator would be used to let the user highlight these news events on a chart, the user would select which news events they want to see or dont want to see.

The more complicated part that I'd like would be to find the average pip movement for when these news events take place. i.e. for news event A, the price on average moves 70 pips up or down. The average would be found by gathering the pip movement each time this news event was supposed to take place and finding the average movement for each hour that the news event took place in.

The reason for this would be to allow it to act as a filter of sorts for trades. For example, if a news event is comming up that moves the price by more than x amount, close all trades and don't open any more until a few hours after the news event, or move stops to 10 pips within price (This way you'll catch the move if it's a positive one and not lose much if it goes against you).

Right, my question is (Finally), how should this all be set up?
What kind of database should I use is the main thing, if an excel spreadsheet would work that would be acceptable.
How would the database thing work if it was hosted on my website rather than than on my home computer?
Would it make a difference?

The reason I ask is because I'm having this created by someone else, 2 people infact, 1 web designer to handle the database (If it even needs to be a database) and 1 to handle the indicator creation.

Oh yes, another very important question, where can I get all of the new events times and dates? Preferably in a form that it can simply just be scraped by a program and put into a file rather than me manually having to type all of it in. Read more...