The Last Post : Sundown at CommonSense

Sunset - Photo: AlphaTangoBravo / Adam Baker

CommonSense With Markk -- my very first blog launched in early 2006 -- has gone past its sell-by date. The time has come to send it to pasture. This is it, folks! Finito.

I hate to do it but I'm not going to feel nostalgic or sentimental about it after almost two and a half years of blogging on this site which, at one time, was going places. But since the Google PageRank slapfest late last year, things have not been the same like the "good old days."

I felt great with CommonSense when the going was good. It rose to PR3 in about four months after its launch and at one stage it attained PR5 before Goog started the slapfest. As is commonly known, writing paid posts has its downside - and that had incurred the wrath of Big G.

I'm taking this action now because the Google jive has started again and I'm not expecting Big G to show a benign smile on this blog. I've seen the little green thingy fluctuating in the last couple of days. Don't know when it will settle down but now I'm packing up here, don't care much for PageRank now where this blog is concerned.

Although I tried to plod on I found the task too tiresome and it was like a millstone hung around my neck. I soon realized that you can't be running two personal blogs -- the other being The Next Post -- at the same time. As it is, it's already tough for some bloggers to churn out post after post and making sure the stuff you write are not crap or fluff.

There's a lot of disadvantages in having a name like CommonSense With Markk. It's too personal and there's not much you can do to broaden its scope. I don't know what you all think but that's what I have learned through three years of running a couple of websites and a number of other blogs. I supposed if you treat blogging as just a hobby then it's fine to stay with it and continue posting at your own pleasure.

If I had wanted CommonSense to continue, I could, but reality check tells me I have to devote more attention to those other sites of mine. They are going to take up a lot of my time in the days ahead.

From here on, you can read future postings of mine at TheNextPost.

I have taken CommonSense With Markk off of the MyBlogLog site. I would like to thank all those kind bloggers whom I had crossed paths in our blogging journey for visiting this blog, especially those who had entered into some kind of communication with me and came back often to leave appreciated comments in my posts. If you happened to read this and has a blogroll link or any other in-post links to this site, please take the necessary action to avoid broken links.

Also, I have terminated my web hosting account for CommonSenseWithMarkk.com and have switched my URL back to Blogspot where this site will be left to dry under the blogging sun! I'll be doing some "house-cleaning" for a while (don't know how long it will take) and then if the weather is right, I just might press the self-destruct button for this site. Kaboom! Meanwhile, enjoy.

Adieu.

Hello, Hello, Are You Home On Your Blog?

What's so grand about this free service from Google that's called GrandCentral? For starter, it's a free service and you can get a free account right now if you have half a mind to do it.

The service, launched without much fanfare about one or two weeks ago, is still undergoing a private beta test.

So what is GrandCentral? It's a service whereby you can receive phone calls and post voicemail right on your blog.

What you need to do is to add a WebCall button to your blog which will enable people to easily call your phone or leave voicemails without ever seeing your telephone number.

Such calls can be screened. You can block unwanted callers, accept calls or send them to voicemail. Voicemail is all kept in a visual online Inbox. They can be stored there as long as you like. According to Google, there seems to be a limitless capacity for this.

I'm sure this new novelty from Google will get a lot of people signing up for a Webcall button especially those yakety yak types. Like other widgets, the CallMe button and the Inbox will be adding to the space on the sidebars of sites that are already taken up by banner ads and other items. But that's up to each individual to decide whether he or she would go for it.

SEO Book Ebook Guru Changes Direction

Ebooks are going down the path where dinosaurs have gone before but still there are Internet marketers who believe they can rope in some buyers especially the newbies. In fact, there is a general perception that the value of ebooks has been heading south.

One of the most respected SEO gurus, Aaron Walls of SEOBook.com, has been sending out emails to his affiliates to inform them that he is changing his SEO Book business model - that is moving away from selling his downloadable ebook. What he's planning to do is switch to selling a web based information product that is backed by a community forum which will eventually turn it into a service rather than product sales.

According to Aaron in his email notification, he has come to realize that the field of SEO was getting more complex. Many of those who had bought his SEO Book would like to have more interactions with him so they could ask him questions. Thus, he sees a need to change direction in his business with a new affiliate program that has more to do with training.

Since Feb 20, he had shifted his default affiliate traffic location to pointing at his new landing page instead of the old one. Aaron has no further plans to sell his SEO Book ebook.


Of related interest:
On the Internet Trail of Delusions

Making Sense of Keywords

Making sense of keywords

I've been doing some searches on Google's search engine with certain keywords that appear in my articles on my two blogs CommonSense With Markk and The NextPost. I'm pleased to say it looks like things are looking up if you start to "play with keywords."

For starter, I searched for the keywords "beyond blogging experience" and found my post Blogging Experience and Beyond on this blog in the No. 1 position on the first page.

I tried "predictions: changing face" and my The NextPost article Predictions: The Changing Face of Internet Marketing appeared in the No. 2 position.

 

Next, I searched for "pagerank slapfest" and I got my CommonSense With Markk post on No. 1, and on No. 2 is my article from The NextPost, Mama, Don't Let Your Baby Grow Up To Be A Blogger... which also has the keywords "PageRank slapfest" in the post. On No 3 is a post at RT Cunningham's blog Untwisted Vortex and No. 4 is Andy Beard's post about Google PageRank: Joke of the Blogosphere. They both have the keywords "pagerank slapfest."

When I tried a search for "mama don't let your baby," The NextPost article came out on No. 1. There were other sites with the "mama don't let your baby..." title on the first page.

 

Then I tried "Internet trail of delusions" and I got this post on No. 1 position and No. 2 as well. This article appears on The NextPost. I would like to add that the two articles on The NextPost - Predictions: The Changing Face of Internet Marketing and On The Internet Trail of Delusions - have attracted the most number of comments ever experienced by this blog.

Since the two articles, I've taken a "break" from posting any more articles on The NextPost while attending to other matters - and yet I keep seeing visitors coming and leaving comments. My suspicion is that these are search engine traffic and not social traffic. That's what I learned from Grizz.

I must admit here I've not been mixing with the social crowd much lately and that I'm not your regular techie so I don't meddle in those analytical techniques to know the ins and outs of how this thing works. I leave that to the smarter guys out there to explain this quirk or phenom, whatever that is.

I have some ideas in my head but I wouldn't dare say it out loud until I understand it fully. Meanwhile, you don't have to buy me a beer, I'm capable of getting my own and enjoy a cool drink in my own time.

C'mon Guys, Let's Do It For RT

It's not often we see another person or a blogger going through a difficult patch that may have a profound impact on his life and his family. If we can help by any means and even in our own small ways, I believe it will go a long, long way.

A situation has arisen today where fellow blogger RT Cunningham, a retired former US Marine living with his family in the Philippines, is experiencing this profound moment.

RT, as he is popularly known to his blogging buddies, needs our help so that he could be at his wife's side in the US where she will be undergoing an operation. The two-way flight fare is a problem and RT needs to be in the US for about 30 days between mid-February and mid-March.

For the full details, all you kind folks can visit RT's blog at Untwisted Vortex to read his post A Possible Disappearing Act to understand his predicament. Many of us have urged him to put up a PayPal button on his blog - and eventually he has agreed to do it.

So if you dropped by and see that the PayPal button is up, let us believe that goodwill and kindheartedness will win the day - for RT.