Blogging Thoughts 2021

What is there to blog when you can Vlog?  Oh, wow!  Vlogging is the new cool.

Perhaps the pandemic changed the internet landscape in just a year's time.  Maybe I have to revive my youtube account and maybe, hmmm...

Actually, the reason why I updated my site today is just to see if blogger still function as it used too.  It may not have the influence as it used to.  But nothing changed much really.  I just need to make some slight tweaks. Perhaps, a new template. 

Should I write more?  I actually laughed at myself trying to answer this question.  To my few subscribers out there:  Are you still blogging?

No More Chatbox

Today, I will delete my chatbox. It has not served it purpose anymore and has become the haven of spammers, and passersby who only want to promote their sites without leaving at least some sensible remarks.



In the past, when spammers were fewer and the bloggers were purer, we were not afraid of unwanted visitors. Now, times have changed. And it changed really fast. I think I could still blog without the chatbox. Most blogs don't have chatboxes anymore, and interactions are more on the comment portions.

So, if you want to leave a message here, you should know where the comment section is.

Google Panda Comes To Town

Months ago there were stories of a Panda roaming around the internet slapping and slamming websites that a lot of webmasters cried foul. I didn’t bother to check it as I was lost in my day job and in some other ventures outside blogging.

Those who are seriously into SEO would know by now what I meant by this Panda. Perhaps they’re already affected and didn’t know what kind of truck had hit them. Or maybe they are now aware that all their SEO works in the past might possibly go down the drain.

So in the controversially reliable Wikipedia I got info about this Panda:
“Google Panda is a change to the Google's search results ranking algorithm that was first released in February 2011. The change aimed to lower the rank of "low-quality sites", and return higher-quality sites near the top of the search results. CNET reported a surge in the rankings of news websites and social Networking sites, and a drop in rankings for sites containing large amounts of advertising. This change reportedly affected the rankings of almost 12 percent of all search results. Soon after the Panda rollout, many websites, including Google's webmaster forum, became filled with complaints of scrapers/copyright infringers getting better rankings than sites with original content.”

Are you affected by this? Me, I’m not sure. I still get the same so-so traffic. My SEO skill is too basic and kinda old school. This site is used to be at PR4, and now it’s PR2. I don’t think Panda hit the PageRanks as well.

Perhaps we can now say that the field is leveled with this change by the big G. This initial hiccup, wherein they say that legit sites got struck while some scrapers got lucky, will surely come to pass. It’s reassuring to know that we’ll be getting less and less of the garbage when we do our web searches. It's also bad news for those making money online out of these search engine pollutants.

Welcome 2011

Today is the 2nd day of 2011 and it actually feels like 2010. I planned to make a blog entry on the last day of December but geesh, I forgot about it. It must be the age. But I'm young(if 30 something is young), and shouldn't be forgetful.

Okay, so who among my early blogging peers are still blogging? I mean blogging. Not copypasting and/or reviewing and/or newsreporting. My blogroll isn't that filled because I deleted that blogrolling link that they say contained malicious codes. What malicious code? Was there a proof?

I'll take a peek at the blog of my peers. Must be 50plus of them. Some had already shed off their masks of internet anonymity. I did. But partially. What will my niece say if she reads this blog? She'll be amused because she will not understand anything until, maybe 10 years from now.

Others retired. It's really sad to think that those I interacted with 4 years ago are no longer blogging. Some may have forgotten that we were once internet friends. They should know by now that I am only using a pen name. And that if you ever try to search me on Facebook using my pen name, you'll be surprised to see that I am Caucasian, tall and handsome. That is NOT me, of course.

So, what's up for 2011? Nothing, really. This blog will still be about my leftover thoughts, and that I am still here blogging.

Let us try politics next time.

Where's The Blog Money?

This blog already earned around $500. This month? Before your imagination goes wild, I want to make it clear. I made around $500 only in its more than four years of existence. On the average, it's roughly $10 a month. If I bought Starbucks coffee with it, I only got to drink three mocha frappe.

So, where do you find the big money in blogging?

After the sponsored post frenzy two years ago, wherein I earned 99% of my keep, the income from this blog is purely on adsense. And looking at my adsense stats, I earn less the twenty cents per month. I got a big fat zero yesterday, and nothing also the other day. Maybe I should write weird stuff in here. A lot of people are searching for scandals, right?

Seriously, there are ways to make money from one's blog. Here a video posted two years ago by someone who must be successful by now:



Now you can earn millions with your blog. Sorry I didn't.

Spur of the Moment

One good thing about blogging is that you can write anything you want anytime you want. There is no pressure for me to fill this blog with blahblahs. Even if I'd stay silent for a month or two without updates, I'd still be able to sleep worrying not about web metrics. I have no obligation to please my readers either. But if you are wondering where I am or what I am up to, I am just around Metro Manila. Almost two years ago I left Cebu for a temporary assignment here. (My bosses would raise their eyebrows if I say temporary. But really, this world is just a temporary place for us.)

This blog was created at the spur of the moment. A friend told me about blogging, then suddenly out of the blue, I registered a blogger account and wrote my first post on March 16, 2006. I was fighting off boredom so I titled my first post, "Boredom".

This spur-of-the-moment writer in me got so excited that from 2006-2008, I was able to write 321 blog posts. Of course, there were lots of trash in there that earned me a few hundred dollars. And it's not something that I should be ashamed of. This is my blog, and I can do whatever I want to do with it. I can sell it if I want to. But who would buy it? Offer me something that I cannot refuse. Yeah, who cares about PR4 these days.

So I'll just write my leftover thoughts. If you have your own writing standards, keep it in your blog, please. Also, let's no longer talk about passion to blog, because maybe that stage is behind me now.

Traffic-less

My other site got suspended last week by its host because of the rushing traffic that it got from web searches. I was expecting traffic (and G-clicks) that day, but not the suspension. I only did simple SEO, hoping to get at most the no. 3 spot on page 1 of SERP. (The top two were occupied by my friends who worked hard for two months prior to the event.)

After only 3k pageviews within an hour, my host kicked me out. They said that I as causing disturbance in the shared server. And so for hours I waited and waited for the restoration of my site. Surely I missed the dollars that went along with the traffic. During that same event last year, I got around $70 in three days. No suspension, no problem. But this time around, I only got less than $15.

I just have to accept the fact the no blog in a shared-hosting environment will survive a rushing traffic. Even some friends of mine who had their blogs hosted by US companies, got their sites down. But not those hosted by Blogger.

So today, I took a look again at this traffic-less site. The PR 4 is still there. And I know the underlying power of PR4 site. 4 years in existence yet only under 25k of visits. What if I optimize this leftover blog and direct traffic here? Surely this won't go down even if with 10k visits in an hour.

What do you think?

Happy New Year 2010

Thank God for the year 2009! Now we are looking at another year in our lives. Happy New Year 2010, everyone! I know you seldom find me here. I haven't visited the blogs of others like I used to. Sorry for that, friends. I can also understand why you aren't here anymore.

So, what happened to me in 2009? Didn't I tell you I am already based in Manila? And I've joined blogging events here too! I met a few bloggers. Some of them hotshots now. But I introduced myself with my real name and my other sites. No Laz or leftover thoughts blogger.

I met Sonnie in Iblog5. I hesitated and was having a hard time approaching him. How should I introduce myself? When you attend events such as this, you can remain anonymous if you maintain multiple blogs, and if you really want to. People will not easily remember real names if you have a name like mine. haha. Sonnie handed me his calling card. But I wasn't ready with mine. I told him my name. But I don't know if he remembers it.

At Wordcamp Manila, I met Bro. Vince. He's one of the first bloggers in my blogroll. And that is like being blogging buddies for almost 4 years. We had some gmail chat before wherein I also revealed my real name. Twas the first time we saw each other in person. We could have talked a little longer but my new buddies were hurrying to leave the place. Coffee next time bro Vince!

In 2009 was Ondoy. Had I stayed home, I could have missed the opportunity of witnessing what a flood in Manila looks like. It ain't easy. And you can't trust your vehicle when the worst comes. I had a flat tire while on EDSA.

In a few hours, it will be 2010. New year's resolution? I haven't prepared one. To lose weight will still be part of that list. Will I be attending more blogging events in 2010? Probably yes. But still no Laz or leftover thoughts blogger. I will come as me.

Adsenseless

Adsense is senseless, says a friend. She could not understand how people earn from it because she has the codes (and the ads) for many years now but she hasn't really earned beyond the $10 mark for her to qualify even for the pin code.

Adsense is useless if you only blog about yourself and your personal stuff, says another friend who had crossed over to the SEO side of blogging, and is now enjoying monthly pay-outs.

Adsense is the best make-money online scheme out there, says a young blogger who earns four-digits (on adsense alone) a month. He is not really telling the exact figures. He is discreet about it fearing some sabotage. (yes, there are blackmails and sabotage too)

Well, for me, I got my first pay out 13 months after I installed the codes. If I only relied on this blog, I would have agreed with my friend who ranted on the futility of adsense. I wouldn't even reach my first $10 by now, which is 22 months after I first displayed ads.

Of course, if you are interested to find out some local adsense success stories out there, you wouldn't run out of articles. Some are even earning while copy pasting articles, aggregating blog posts of others, and by even writing crazy stuffs loading them with keywords. Sounds easy, but it is not.

Is It the Coffee?

I drank more than five cups of instant coffee today. Tough meetings and those number-crunching jobs made me thirst for these caffeine-powered drinks. It made me stay awake even at this 3:50 AM.

I am not on night shift. I was never on a night shift. There is no night shift in my present job. But you know what accountants do on the first week of every month -- closing of books, monthly reports and all that. We may go home past midnight but still have to report to work at 8am. "What a life!" if you might complain.

But I'm used to it, working on this same situation when I started out at PWC at age 20. 14 years later and many steps up in the corporate ladder, it is still the same.

It is still the same 3-in-1 coffee that filled my cup, satisfied my lips, and kept me awake. Maybe I should try tea next time.

I Just Dropped My Blogroll

Folks, I just dropped my blogroll! Not a good news really. But I have to do it. Why? It just lead me to some spurious-looking third party site. I'm referring to blogrolling(dot)com.

I don't know what happened to it. But I am not comfortable with it anymore. So, there I just deleted it, along with the links to many of my online friends' blogs. If your link from here is gone, don't be sad. Also, don't throw your flame of fury at me. I'm gonna rebuild my blogroll anyway. Be kind to leave a comment as I had forgotten most of your sites' URL.

What's next? This site needs a lot of repair. And if you have trouble posting a comment, just click on the single post (post title). There is link at the bottom that says "Post a comment". I don't know why it is no longer in my front page. Probably this theme could be blamed for that.

This blog has really strayed farther away, traffic-wise, and in whatever blog statistics available. But I'm keeping this one nevertheless. I have my best posts archived in here.

To Comment Or Not To Comment

Now where is my comment box? AJ left a message in my chat box saying he could not find my comment box. I too searched for it. I checked my settings and I found out that it's fine. But still, the comment box is missing.

When I first started out blogging, I was too hesitant to leave a comment in someone's else's blog. I felt like I was invading someone else's property and maybe, the blog author was only rambling for his/herself, not expecting a reader to stumble on his/her private world.

Then came my first commenter. I could not exactly describe how I felt. Nah, I did not feel it was intrusive. But it was more of gladness that someone actually dropped by.

That was more than three years ago, and that first commenter had quit blogging. Her last entry was prayer a dated January 2008. I wish her well. The bloggers we've connected with for a long time had become part of us.

Leaving a comment is not just for SEO sake. It is to establish relationship. I know some uses it as a strategy to draw more traffic to their sites. But damn their strategies. The well-meaning comments are most welcome, and these are what inspires us to continue blogging.

For the new bloggers, please don't hesitate leaving a comment here. To the spammers, go to Mars. While I still want to figure out how to resurrect my comment box, maybe, it's now time to change template. I haven't done that for a while.

P.S. To the football fans, USA vs Brazil at the Confederations Cup finals today. USA is looking for another possible upset.

Still No PageRank

Of course, what do I expect? Google had changed its algorithms many times. And I can see that this site no longer enjoyed the traffic and readership it once had. Moreso, I also have few updates here. For this month alone, I only have one update.

Last month, I was surprised I had an opp with PPP. That was pretty tempting task, few words requirement, and the dollars enough to pay for 2 domain names. So I took it. You obviously know what the task is as it is in one of my latest posts.

Pageranks had updated many times already, leaving this blog with fat zero. But I had long ago accepted it. How many times had I posted about it? I'm getting annoying, am I? Haha. But if you know my other blogs, go check it out and read my updates there! I had already stripped my anonymous masks little by little. And besides, I have PR2 in both of my domain blogs. :)

And So They Banned Blogspot Too!

First it was Friendster. With the Social Network’s popularity, IT administrators thought that they should ban it because those with internet access might just abuse the system and consume internet bandwidth by logging on to the site every minute, browsing the profile of others and/or uploading pictures.

Those with Multiply account initially got away. But then, it did not take long for the site to be blacklisted. Then people went crazy with Facebook (FB). I just don’t understand the difference between Facebook, Friendster and Multiply. Their functionalities look the same to me. Anyway, people joined the FB bandwagon.

Two weeks ago, when I happened to be back at our head office, I noticed some people were opening their Facebook accounts. I recently opened my own FB account but limited my network to only a few of colleagues. Most of them in my friends’ list are my relatives, ex-colleagues and offline friends. Maybe two or three officemates I can tolerate. I checked a profile of an ex-colleague and from there I gathered a long list of current officemates who have FB accounts. Wow! I hope they won’t see my profile. But as of this writing, I already got three invites.

I really didn’t mind FB getting banned. But along with FB, they also banned Blogspot, Flickr and Twitter. My twitter addiction was curbed before it even started. And my race to a million followers will no longer be launched. As to Flickr, I only open the site when I remember it. But most of the time, I don’t remember it. My sites on blogspot, including this one, have very rare updates so the ban is still fine with me. Blogs at wordpress.com are safe. That, I don’t know why.

Who knows maybe next time, they’d ban any domain with the word “blog” in it.

On The Lookout For Another Web Host

This site of mine is using blogspot. I can’t just leave behind something which has over 200 posts and somewhat becomes a part of me over a period of three years. But I have other sites which are self-hosted. I made a decision a year ago to buy my own domain and find a web hosting. It was because of the perception that you’ll have more earning opportunities if you have your own domain. I thought it was just a rumor but I found out that it’s true.

And so I hopped into a host recommended by a friend because it’s cheap. Although I read the reviews from Webhostinggeeks.com, I took a risk. The downside of not following reviews, I experienced plenty of downtimes and lost opportunities. Imagine three weeks of site inaccessibility!

Oh, well! Patience is one of my virtues, though I am just ranting in silence. I am now on a lookout for a second web host, once that is unmetered, has excellent reviews, and can host multiple domains. I am also looking at the best budget hosting there is, the best value at the best price.

For the meantime, I am looking for a shared hosting until I get plenty of traffic. A dedicated server hosting are for sites which generates plenty of traffic daily. A few bloggers I know are on dedicated server hosting because of their enormous traffic. Downtimes are almost nil. Traffic equals money, if you know the tricks of doing it. I might reach that one day. But for now, I have to make the first steps.

And you too should read reviews before jumping into your first or second paid webhost. Check out Webhostinggeeks.com for very excellent reviews of various web hosts.

3 Years

This blog is now 3 years old. Would you believe that? I can't. I posted my first entry on March 19, 2006. That means that I missed my blog bday by 5 days! No cakes, no fireworkds, and no drinking spree my friends.

By some standards, three years of blogging is like a fifteen years in the trade. There were not too many bloggers then. I am not necessarily one of the pioneers. There were guys like Abaniko and Rudy who were there first in the online blogging world. I don't know what happened to both. Abaniko's last post is dated December 2008. Rudy's domain expired three weeks ago.

Blogging events are rare then and mostly attended by small groups. Most of the blogs I read are from anonymous bloggers, or those with online aliases. Only a few were monetizing their sites, and what we read were mostly personal experiences, and thoughts on certain events or happenings.

3 years is long enough for this blogspot site. I have my own domains now. You can find me there.

Google Giveth, Google Taketh Away

This is the third time that Google took away my pagerank for this blog. From previous high of PR4 at the end of 2007, to nil in 2008's latest PR toolbar update. The update happened while we were all enjoying the holidays.

I was actually hoping for a restoration of my PR. I haven't done any paid post for the last six months, rejected some opportunities, and even included rel="nofollow" in most of my expired paid links.

But again, the big G changed its algorithms for the nth time. No need for me to ask for a reconsideration as everything must have been done within their rules. I have also accepted the fact that no PR is needed in this blog as I am not monetizing it with paid reviews. I was just fortunate to have experienced that PR4 and gained around $500 doing paid reviews for 4 months in the past.

Oh, well! It's life. With or without PR, the fun in blogging continues. And it reminds me not to reject paid posts opportunities the next time it comes.

Monetization of Everything

Monetize here, monetize there. When did we first learn to make money? As children we ask them from our parents. Then some monetize household activities, like asking for money in exchange for washing of the dishes, or a mere shining of dad’s shoes. No, I didn’t do that. My monetization was based on the 100% grade I received at school -- P1 for every paper that has 100%.

In our teens, we get our allowance from our parents. Some gets P50 per day, others get more. Mine was a mere P20 then in the ‘90s. I have to sell used newspaper and bottles to get some extra money during summer.

At that time we got our first job, our glee reached high heavens when we received our first ever salary, even if it’s only a minimum wage. Then our needs grew, and so are our expenses. As we earned benefits, we want some to be monetized. Like our leaves credits. We want money more than a day of relaxation with family. Some benefits or even awards, trophies and recognitions, we want converted into cash. Can we cash-in the ‘most punctual’ award? At times, we might also prefer money for gifts this Christmas. You don’t have to think high and low of kris kringle gift ideas if your kris kringle wants cash.

And as to blogging, we too joined in the monetization bandwagon. We monetized our first personal blog. We added 10 more for the same purpose of making more money. Some sacrificed quality, content and even readership because of the lure of the green bucks. (Of course there are money bloggers of the rare kind)

At the high level of politics, we suspect some moves as an attempt to make more money. The longer they stay in power, the more they get from the people. Political relationships are also monetized, like what the Illinois Governor is charged of. (So it does not only happen in the Philippines).

After everything is said and done, we are now moving towards 2009. There will be even harder times in the future. What would be your New Year’s resolution? MONETIZE even more?

Blog Visits and Other Stats

Even I myself failed to regularly visit this blog. Looking at my Feedjit (at the bottom of my right sidebar), the visitors are mostly from Google, searchers who could not be bloggers. I did not enter this site in entrecard, so I miss 20-30 possible blog visitors daily from that community. I checked my Sitemeter. The number of visits had indeed halved. From a high of 1k visits in January to an average of 400 visits these last four months. My other site is receiving more than 3k visitors a month, these last 6 months.

My posts had become rare too. For the month of September, I only had two short posts. In July and August, I had four for each month. It seemed that my focus had been in my other sites; the updates, the commenting strategies, the SEO, the promotions, etc… Too many blogs to maintain, too short a time to blog.

There are no most paid posts here unlike before. Blog income had significantly reduced and or nil. Now that my PR is back, it doesn’t mean that I’ll fill this blog with paid posts again. I think am already done with that. On the other hand, my Alexa rank is somewhere at 3.9M. That is a very low rank! By gaining more visitors, Alexa rank will also improve. It is only I who is to be blamed for the decrease of my blog visits and other stats.

I also logged out from MyBlogLog, hence, if you have the widget installed, you will not find me when I visit your site. Also, you will rarely find me commenting more often in your blogs these days. Perhaps I did so using another name and with a link to another site. Or if you had that entrecard widget, I must have dropped a card. But I did visit a few blogs in my blogroll and read entries covering for months. I really missed a lot.

For this month of October, expect that I’d visit all the blogs in my blogroll at least once. Some had already de-linked me but that is fine. We often forget past friendships. I’m gonna cleanse my blogroll too, along with the annoying widgets that slows down loading time. But, hey, I’m still around blogging. If you’d like to follow my other blog as well, visit this link. I announced this in the past, but perhaps you just missed it.

A Belated Congratulations

Upon learning of the results of the 2008 Philippine Blog Awards a couple of weeks ago, I was just too happy to see very familiar blogs. These blogs are in my blogroll for many many months now.

Friends, bloghoppers, or whoever you are reading this post, let me introduce to you 3 award winning bloggers:

Best Blog – Family and Living
The D Spot – by Dine Racoma

Dine Racoma is Sexy Mom, a Filipina doing what she likes best—writing, her passion. She writes freelance, does research, advises on new media, and manages a virtual assistance office for home-based jobs. A mother of 7 (what joy!) foremost, a wife, MIL, grandma to 2 pretty girls and an angel in heaven, sister, daughter, friend. Was in the corporate world for 27 years, the first 5 as Executive Secretary to an affiliate of the country’s biggest drug chain, and the last 22 as an international civil servant in an international development bank with HQ in Manila. Traveled extensively to many countries bringing about rich experiences and lessons learned to share with dear Readers. All these—in The D Spot. (from the About page) Her blog was also one of the top 10 emerging influential bloggers in 2007.

Best Blog - Travel
Ironwulf.Net: En Route – by Ferdz Deceña

Ferdinand Deceña is a travel photographer and award-winning blogger. A graduate of Fine Arts, Major in Advertising at the Far Eastern University, he got started on film photography during his college years. He worked as a graphic artist and web designer for three years, pursuing photography as a hobby. (from the About page)

He was also a finalist of the same category and in the Best Blog Design in last year’s Philippine Blog Awards.

Best Blog – Arts and Culture
Gibbs Cadiz – by Gibbs Cadiz

Gibbs Cadiz is a prolific writer and currently a Desk Editor for the Lifestyle section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. In 2007, along with the D Spot, his blog was awarded as one of the top 10 influential bloggers. He writes mostly about theater shows and productions but he also posts some personal entries. He was also a finalist in the Fashion and Lifestyle category of 2007 edition.

Go check out these bloggers. I’m sure you’ll truly agree that they deserve the awards. My congratulations to you Sexy Mom, Ferdz and Gibbs!