Beware of dirty techniques that Web masters use to boost traffic

As webmasters or website owners, I am sure that we have seen some dirty tricks that owners use to boost their traffic source.

Here are some of them and some solutions to work around them

1. Spamming comments in blogs or article posts
   
   If you're a blog owner, you have probably seen much of such comments, consisting of totally irrelevant content and a link to some website. Thankfully, Google's Blogger and Wordpress contains comment management system for you to weed out such comments.
   
2. Spamming contact forms that link to your site's users
   
   To reach out to your site's users (if you are running a community site), some might use spam bots to send out solicited emails. However, some seem to be done by humans or very smart spam bots as anti-spam features are bypassed.
   
3. Spamming Forums
   
   If you own a forum, this is a common occurrence. Methods to overcome this include a stringent check on forum members to ensure that their email accounts and IP are not blacklisted. If you use Vanilla Forums, there is a Stop Spam plugin useful for combating such problems.
   
4. Offering to write a free guest post
   
   If you've ever received an email from a certain blogger offering to write guest posts, well, its a trap to get you to check out their website in a bid to boost their traffic. The email consists of a template which is identical for such mails, probably through some marketing spam software.
   
5. Proposed Link exchange
   
   Proposal emails offering to exchange links with high PR rate websites to boost your Google's Page rank. If their PR is already that high, there would not be a need for them to do such link exchange. And who knows what their proposed sites are blacklisted for by various search engines. Furthermore, Google's search engine now places more emphasis on relevant content. Opt for good and quality content coupled with SEO techniques (your META tags, page title, good content structure)

The list goes on and on. Dishonest Proposals and Spam make up the bulk of such techniques to gain traffic for their website. Fellow webmaster and bloggers, beware of such tactics and as a rule of thumb, avoid "quick" ways to get traffic and rely on quality content together with good SEO practices instead.

Timzstudio - Singapore Web Design

Adding A Static Google Map Image to your Website / Blog

You are on the right post if you want to learn how to add a map of some place in your blog or website without the hassle of heavy coding. In this post, I'll teach you how to add a Static Google Map Image to your website or blog.(yes even with the free blog accounts at blogger or wordpress)

This method involves using Google Maps version Static Maps API V2. Yes, the current version is V3 but if you do not need the bells and whistles of the latest Google Maps, this will suffice.

Also, we will not be using lat and lng coordinates. Instead, we will be entering address places or postal codes directly.

The Code

Well, its all in a link actually. To query the Google Map that you want, you will need to use the link format below :

http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=[place to center map at]&zoom=[zoom level]&size=[widthxheight]&maptype=[type of maps]&marker[size:(size)%7Ccolor:(red)%7C(place)]&sensor=[true or false]

Let us go through each parameter one by one

• Center - This gives you to place to center your map at
• Zoom - This gives the zoom level
• Size - This gives the zoom size (there is a maximum size for the free version, for Google Business Maps, you can scale to very high resolutions)
• Marker - Adds markers to the map, you can add more than one
• size
• colour
• place
• Sensor - Option to select whether your device has a location sensor

For the full list of parameters, you can visit http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/staticmaps/ to check out their developers guide.

The link

http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=orchard+road,singapore&zoom=14&size=512x256&maptype=roadmap&markers=size:mid%7Ccolor:red%7Corchard+road,singapore&sensor=fals

Embedding the Google Map

<img src="http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=orchard+road,singapore&zoom=14&size=512x256&maptype=roadmap&markers=size:mid%7Ccolor:red%7Corchard+road,singapore&sensor=false" />

As you can see, we simply wrap Google Map link with an image html tag. This makes it very easy to add a Google Map to your blog or website as it can be used as an image source.

Google's New Blogger

Google Blogger has been revamped, streamlining it and giving it the appearance of their new clean style and interface typical of their updated products in recent months.

This seems to be part of their new initiative - Google+, as they start to integrate their products to socialize user experience (trying to give Google+ a user boost in the process)






New Changes

• Blogger can be integrated with your Google+ account, where posts are shared automatically.
• This sleek new theme is one change, breaking out from the old blog themes. The new dynamic view plays with the layout to allow users to sift through blog posts easily.
• Blogs are mobile enabled, having mobile themes catered to mobile phones

Gripes

• Some of the newer themes do not allow for flexible customization from the old blogger, where the drag and drop modules let users easily add features to their blog.

Overall, Google's Blogger seems to be much cooler than before. Comparing it with wordpress would be another story for another time though...