One thing I really like to do on each of my Bobby’s Batch posts, is that each have a unique title and an article included before the links are listed. I have a few blogging observations this week I’d like to share with you.

About Pagerank

I have many pet peeves about blogging and I believe them to be rooted in my personal sense of ethics. One area most bloggers do not understand is concerning Google pagerank. I’m often perplexed when I see a personal blogger (or any blogger) displaying their pagerank in their sidebar – it’s obvious they have no idea what pagerank is or why it exists. Pagerank determines your ability to be found through a google search while they are looking for answers of some type. If you write a personal blog, especially about your life, etc, then pagerank is absolutely meaningless to you.

No matter how high it is, you will not be found through a search unless they enter your blog title in the search bar – how many people will ever do that?. This is especially true if you have a non-niche blogspot blog. To me, any stat in your sidebar, is much like wearing a clothing item with price tags hanging off of it – it’s just a little tacky. It’s like wearing a t-shirt with your college diploma imprinted on it.

Much of my outlook stems from martial arts, Zen and musical instrument playing/building. One of my favorite comparisons is a martial arts teacher wearing a black belt with ten stripes on it and the word ‘Master’ written in big letters across his back. Any real martial artist knows this probably means he cannot fight nor has any conception of martial art combat. I think what I’m saying is it is what’s inside that matters, just like my perception of people. Maybe I’m a little too uptight or hardcore about this, but I’m trying to get over it.

I am a musician and have been playing stringed instruments for decades. When I hear modern pop musicians, the music itself has become irrelevant – much of it written on a PC program using patches and samples. The music is usually written around a star vocalist by someone else, not by the singer. There are very few musical artists that actually write the music for their own songs. Nowadays, a great guitarist or drummer has become irrelevant. I cannot name hardly any gifted musicians in today’s popular music scene. They are simply a rare breed. The ones who do make it are extremely lucky. Just look at rap music. I am not saying that all rappers don’t have talent, what I’m saying is that the music backing their rap is ridiculous and requires absolutely no talent to compose. An artist who doesn’t write their own music (actually compose it and write in down in musical notation) should not be allowed to win a Grammy award. If they had this rule, 95% of all Grammy winners wouldn’t even qualify for an award. It’s like McDonald’s hamburgers: just because they’ve served billions doesn’t mean they taste good. They are like fast food TV dinners. I cook my hamburgers at home…you know, the ones that really are good.

Views on Entrecard

Lately, I’ve found my blogging, or how I visit other bloggers being taken over with things like Entrecard. Blogging is not about how many points you get on Entrecard. The idea of writing meaningful content has been replaced with this click happy attitude of point collecting, showing off stats and so forth. It wasn’t like that a few years ago – this is an all new type of fever, and it’s getting worse. The truth about Entrecard, is while it may increase your traffic, the traffic you get is 90% one second visits, which is really bad for for any blog. This is why I only use it sparingly. Also, if you use Adsense or many other PPC programs and you have the ads on the front of your homepage, you will become smartpriced and render your profits worthless. It’s so much better to only have ads on individual posts, and not on your homepage. Entrecard will increase your bounce rate (the quickness by which people instantly leave to click onto the next Entrecard site..haha), which is what you don’t want. Before I installed Entrecard, the average visitor looked through 7 articles on my site and spent 10 minutes looking through them. Now, it’s down to one pageview and a two minute visit average. I am seriously thinking of removing it from my site, but with so many friends depending on it, I have fallen in to a pit of dependence and am afraid I may lose many readers if I remove it. It’s like nasal spray – once you start using it, you can’t stop because your nose will stay stuffy for a few agony filled weeks upon quitting. It’s a definite catch-22. I probably use Entrecard for 5 minutes per day and click one if I see it. I only pay a max of 128 credits for an ad and I have never turned down an ad. I see some people rejecting 35% of all attempts to purchase – what is that all about? If I see someone rejecting a larger percentage of ads, I will not even attempt to get one as I don’t want to ruin my 0.00% rejection stat…hahaha!

Ok, that’s enough negative critiquing of Entrecard. It really depends on how you as an individual use it. It really does offer more positive benefits than it does negative and I have made several new friends through it. I think like anything, it can be detrimental if you overuse it and depend on it too much. People forget you could just as easily go through the main directory of Blog Catalog visiting everyone there, leave comments, make friends and gain new readers the old fashioned way.

There’s really no way to judge whether content is good or not, at least from an algorithmic standpoint. That is really up to the masses. I also realize that I don’t control anyone but myself and the content I write, so I will not take the outside world personally. On another aspect, I have many blogging friends, all writing different content. Some write only about their family, some are just having fun, some write with stunning brilliance and some are trying to get rich – most fall somewhere in the middle. No matter what they write, I still read because they are friends!

What it boils down to, is that we are all in this thing together and amazingly, we are all getting along quite well. I am just trying to come to terms with my perception of the blogosphere. I don’t like show offs, but I may still like the person doing the showing off. I think it’s a crazy thing to call yourself a liberal or conservative, because none of us are truly one or the other. I am an independent in my political, religious and every other belief I have – chances are, so are each and everyone of you on a deeper level. Now for this weeks links:

How To Upgrade To The Latest Version of WordPress – from Garry Conn. There are lots of sites that can show you how to upgrade your self-hosted Wordpress blog, but this one is actually easy to understand. It shows you how to do it step by step via FTP, which is really the correct way to do it.

Euromillions Rollover Contest – comment here – from FiddyP. My buddy Andy Bailey’s new contest. All you have to do is leave a comment to win a great prize. As you may know, I won his last contest and quickly received my brand spanking new set of headphones. While you’re there, check out his many fantastic articles.

Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less – from Rolando. Go to this post for information on how you can help convince congress to drill for oil here in America. Like Rolando and many of you, I can barely afford to drive with these skyrocketing gas prices. The way you change things is by simply getting involved.

Perfectly Imperfect – By Catatonic Kid. She is truly a brilliant writer and is definitely worth reading. This post is but one of many great ones. Be sure to visit her, you see some truly introspective passion.

Incomplete Figure – By Francis Scudellari of Caught In The Stream. This is a strange and undulating poem. It’s actually one of my favorites of all the poems I’ve read on line. I love the unusual perspective. I am new to his blog, but really enjoy his writing style and his unique drawings.

The Blood River Flesh Hunter – A bizarre short story I wrote a few months back (one of my personal faves of my own work). Please read the above poem and then read my story, you will feel very unusual when you’re done…I promise!

You Know You’re a Flirt When – Written by The Sandman, one of my favorite writers on line, offers this fantastic and hilarious post. Highly recommended! This is a late addition to this batch – I’m so glad I saw it.

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