RAP Bank
I have just signed up for RAP Bank myself - call this a mini-review.
It seems to be one of the smartest ideas for a long time as a great way to consolidate 100s of affiliate programs under a single entity for promotion.
It is also one of the best implementations of WordPress I have ever seen.
It is not without its bugs, as this is effectively pre-launch. For example I just found a bug in the keyword based search RSS feeds (yes RSS feeds for any term will be hot), but it looks like they might be onto a winner.
Check it out - signup for the basic service is free.
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P.S. It is not immediately obvious who is running the site, but looking at my Paypal receipt (yes I signed up for Vendor Plus) I believe the site is run by Bill Ortell From Rap-Extras.com who is RAP certified and does the membership add-on that is highly popular.
Tag Archives: technorati
Technorati Changes From A Users Perspective
You didn't think I would leave it at just my expert perspective on the Technorati changes did you?
As with my previous post I want to make clear that it is somewhat of a dilemma writing about Technorati, as I provide some infrequent consultation to Blogcatalog in some ways one of their competitors.
However as well as providing an expert's overview of Technorati I have always been an avid user, so this is Technorati from a purely user's perspective.
Technorati Changes From An Expert Perspective
I am always in 2 minds to write anything about Technorati but ultimately the changes to the site today are extremely significant, and I had to balance that against my ability to offer suitable commentary
- Since I started advising Blogcatalog a little in private, writing about Technorati, Mybloglog or any other blog directory or search engine in some ways would be like writing about the competition. Celebrating the great things a competitor does would probably be acceptable, whereas writing something negative would be "dissing the competition"
- This blog has always had in-depth coverage of blog search, blog social networks and blog related SEO, especially in regards to things like the benefits of semantic markup and tagging. Not writing something would leave a huge whole in my content and a disservice to my audience.
Technorati State Of The Blogosphere – Rest In Spam
It looks like the annual Technorati State Of The Blogosphere is going to be lacking a lot of data this year - maybe just Gmail users, but possibly many more. Google thinks Technorati are phishing.
Why?
Why?
Posted in Google, marketing Also tagged email marketing, email_delivery, gmail, gmail_delivery Comments closed
Paydirt: Blogcatalog Interviewed on Technorati Blog Advertising
Technorati have now officially announced their new blog advertising platform surprisingly called Technorati Media.
It is a significant step, though not as many seem to think unusual.
Afterall, Google started as a search engine, then monetized search, and finally introduced their own publisher program Adsense.
Lots of discussion related to the often reappearing Microsoft Yahoo deal mention that display advertising is highly lucrative, and Technorati are in a prime position to serve advertising to a very specific demographic of publishers - bloggers.
Technorati know exacty what bloggers are talking about on a day to day basis, so in aggregate they can offer publishers targeted display advertising, at least in theory.
Also it is important to understand that instead of selling the vast amount of data they have, they are using it to provide an added value service.
From the official announcement:-
Posted in blogging tips, web 2.0 Also tagged blog advertising, blog monetization, Blogcatalog, blogging, blogs, make money online Comments closed
Aha Hmm Mumble Shhh
Just a few miscellaneous tips without too much explanation.
Viral Marketing Safeguards
- Did your site get banned from Google because of viral widgets?
- Has Technorati banned your blog because of WordPress theme spam in their index
- Do the links in your viral ebooks now point to an affiliate program or landing page that no longer exists?
- Did you recommend a web host that is no longer a good choice?
I would even extend that to buying any form of paid link or sponsored review, and possibly also links from directories, social networks, blog commenting etc.
Last June I provided a very simple guide to avoid being banned from Technorati but the same principle applies to
Posted in SEO Blog, themes, web 2.0, wordpress Also tagged 301 redirect, Google, technorati_authority, technorati_ranking, viral marketing Comments closed
How To Add FriendFeed To Technorati
You can add your FriendFeed account to Technorati, and there are various possible methods.
Go to your account on Technorati, and use the URL for your personal lifestream on FriendFeed to start the claim process.
Posted in blogging tips, web 2.0 Also tagged friendfeed, Google, microformats, rss, social graph api Comments closed
Blog Search Revisited – Google vs Technorati vs Techmeme
It has been close to a year since I first starting delving into the intricacies of various forms of blog search, and 10 months since I returned to the subject. My post yesterday on the Microsoft Yahoo deal was the ideal opportunity to see how things might have changed over the last 10 months, as it is a topic being heavily discussed on 100s of blogs.
Posted in Google, blogging tips Also tagged Google, google_blogsearch, google_blog_search, techmeme, technorati_search Comments closed
Nofollow Killed Google Social Graph API 3 Years Ago
Lets face it, I have social profiles all over the web and I am or have been an active participant in tons of conversations on blogs and forums.
3 years ago Google introduced rel="nofollow", very similar to rel="me" , rel="friend" and other XFN and FOAF standards. Today Google are championing their new API with the slogan "URLs Are People Too"
3 years ago that was true, now URLs on many (most) places where people congregate on the web are no longer "people" because in a supposed attempt to combat comment spam, Google encouraged major sites to use rel="nofollow" making the
Posted in Google, web 2.0 Also tagged foaf, Google, nofollow, social graph api, stumbleupon, twitter, xfn, xpn Comments closed
Technorati Topics Announced & Bugs
Technorati have added a new "topics" feature to their front page and menus.
It updates live, in a similar way to Truemors.com and various widgets such as the one for Netscape.com
Topics are split between Entertainment, Technology, Politics, Sports, Business, and Life and apparently blogs have been selected based upon Technorati Authority, frequency of posting, use of relevant tags, links to related subject matter and general topicality.
In theory some of my content might appear within both the Technology and Business sections, but that remains to be seen.
Is Technorati Topics Useful?
In theory it is spam free but it is also elitist
Posted in blogging tips, web 2.0 Also tagged blog_search, opml, tech, technology, technorati_favorites, Technorati_polular, technorati_topics Comments closed
29% Of Technorati Top 100 Never On Digg Home Page
I heard about this story from Glen yesterday about his extensive research into the correlation between the Technorati 100 and Digg home page stories.
I am sure a blog og people have actually read the story by now because Darren linked through and Jordan remixed the statistics a little.
What struck me the most was that 29%
8 Blogs in the Technorati Top 100 are none English, and some of those as you would expect make up the largest percentage of blog that haven't made the front page, but there are still 17% English blog that haven't made it.
I would love to know which blogs have never made a front page that are in that Top100, as they deserve some Diggs.
Secondly of course it does need to be mentioned that there are 10s
Important Tips On Using Feedburner Pro – Now Free
Feedburner have just annonced that 2 of their professional features are now available free of charge.
I have been signed up for Feedburner Pro for a while
Feedburner Pro – I don’t use all the features
Read more on Important Tips On Using Feedburner Pro – Now Free…
Posted in SEO Blog, blogging tips Also tagged 301_redirect, analytics, feedburner, pro, rss, rss_feed, stats, totalstats Comments closed
Reciprocal Favoriting Gives Benefits & Adds Value
Blogging experts and social media marketing experts frequently write about how important it is to build up a network of friends on social bookmarking sites, and even encourage careful gaming of the system by email and instant messenger.
Read more on Reciprocal Favoriting Gives Benefits & Adds Value…
Posted in blogging tips, web 2.0 Also tagged benefits, Blogcatalog, bumpzee, marketing, reciprocal_favorites, stats, technorati_favorites, traffic, twitter Comments closed
Blogging Productivity & Criticizing Goals
Ben instigated a community writing project on productivity, and Dawud thoughtfully decided to encourage me to get involved, after also giving some great tips on how to be productive and stay focused.
Posted in blogging tips, web 2.0 Also tagged dofollow, no nofollow, nofollow, opml, technorati_favorites Comments closed
Technorati Favorites – Is This Evil, Lazy or Just Smart?
I have just been casually observing what has been happening with a few memes, and one of those is what is happening with Technorati Favorites.
It is one thing exchanging favorites with people, that creates some interesting OPML data that can be used for all finds of things, but it is a lot of hard work updating lists with all the people who post comments etc.
DoshDosh has a fair number of Technorati favorites, currently just over 440
Now in Technorati they provide an OPML file of your favorites
Here is mine for instance
http://feeds.technorati.com/faves/AndyBeard?format=opml
Hmm Maki’s would be
http://feeds.technorati.com/faves/kawaiikuma?format=opml
OPML Can Be Imported Into Your Own Technorati Favorites
Hattip to Douglas Karr for this, also via Engtech even though I am subscribed, but I am sure he didn’t think of my evil/lazy/smart intentions. I knew about it, but reading his post clicked some brain cells back into position.
So anyway first stop was to download DoshDosh’s OPML, then import it into my Technorati Favorites.
Here is a quite interesting statistic, of the 400+ favorites I added from Maki, only 46 were already in my favorites.
356 Blogs were new additions, and 26 Technorati told me were not blogs, though they obviously were.
But I already had 276 blogs in my favorites to start with – that isn’t bloggers, but actual blogs. With some people I kindly added multiple blogs to my favorites.
I am not sure whether the maths above works out, but I now have 647 Technorati Favorites.
OPML (Right Click and Save to your HD)
Click This Link To Import To Technorati
Not everyone will hear about this much faster method, so make sure you share this with your readers. I really want to save people lots of time in checking their Technorati Favorites all the time.
Also not everyone will reciprocate a Favorite – that is one of the reasons I have added an RSS feed of my favorites in the sidebar. People get picked up as the occasional link from me, and come visiting, and sometimes add me back – not always but it certainly helps.
There are lots of RSS plugins and widgets, I know they also work well on Blogspot.
It is not something I suggest everyone includes on a professional blog.
Once you get lots of favorites, it is hard work managing them, so this solution for those interested is much much faster.
It is quite possible I have missed a few people out, so make sure you favorite me, and I will post a new list in one week’s time.
Also make sure you subscribe so you can get the update when published.
There is a purpose to this, I needed an OPML file of like minded people to do some additional testing of Blogrovr. An OPML of around 200 sites just wasn’t enough, and I wanted interesting sites on varied topics, not just the search and internet marketing feeds I have in my feedreader.
You can also give Blogrovr a try using my OPML file.
One Problem I Noted
Certainly not everyone who has exchanged favorites with DoshDosh linked through to the original, post, or lots of people are not being indexed correctly by Technorati.
Read more on Technorati Favorites – Is This Evil, Lazy or Just Smart?…
Posted in blogging tips, memes, web 2.0 Also tagged doshdosh, meme, opml, technorati_favorites Comments closed
Interviewed By Martin | Blogger Trackbacks | Technorati Junk
A few days ago I was interviewed by email by Martin Lindsey.
When I checked on Wednesday due to timezones it hadn’t been published yet, Thursday I was so buried in code, themes and plugins I didn’t spot it being published (yes I need more vanity Google Alerts), and so I am linking through to it today.
Read more on Interviewed By Martin | Blogger Trackbacks | Technorati Junk…
Posted in blogging tips Also tagged blogger, blogspot, interview, martin_lindsey, martyblog, trackback Comments closed
Goal Setting & Technorati 100
Do you set achievable goals both on your on-line activities and in your off-line personal life? I certainly do, though some of them I keep private, and a few I leave hints about.
Destroy Your Blog Rankings Linking To Digg or Technorati?
How many blogs link to Technorati on every post they publish? Many blogs also use followable links to social bookmarking sites such as Delicious, and social news sites such as Digg on every single page of their site? Google in their recently disclosed patent are saying that it could be a negative indication of quality.
Read more on Destroy Your Blog Rankings Linking To Digg or Technorati?…
Posted in Google, blogging tips, plugins, web 2.0 Also tagged blogsearch, blog_search, delicious, digg, dofollow, Google, google_blogsearch, nofollow, tagging, tags, wikipedia Comments closed
In Depth: Google BlogSearch | Ranking Blog Documents Patent

For a long time my blogs have performed amazingly well with Google Blog Search. I always appear in the relevant results quickly, and the results I obtain have some reasonable longevity, even when I am not the original source of a story.
Read more on In Depth: Google BlogSearch | Ranking Blog Documents Patent…
Posted in Google, SEO Blog, blogging tips, plugins Also tagged backlinks, blogging, bloglines, blogsearch, duplicate content, feedburner, Google, google_blogsearch, google_blog_search, linking strategy, rss, rss_subscribers, search engine optimization, search engines, SEO Blog, subscribers, tag, tagging, tags, technorati_favorites, ultimate tag warrior, utw Comments closed
Technorati Can’t Cope With Twitter, coComment, Blog Networks, and Blog Rolls

Technorati simply can’t cope with new forms of blogging and RSS feed generation. I am not talking about splogs, which seem to still be rampant, and reblogs, likewise, but totally legitimate alternative unique content sources that are effectively blogs.
Read more on Technorati Can’t Cope With Twitter, coComment, Blog Networks, and Blog Rolls…
Posted in blogging tips, stats, web 2.0 Also tagged 2000 bloggers, blog, blogging, cocomment, geek, rss, syndication, tech, technology, technorati_links, technorati_ranking, twitter Comments closed
2000 Bloggers and Hypocrisy
I actually applied only recently for Tino Buntie to add my name to the 2000 Bloggers collage. I thought it was a cool idea, although the SEO benefit is probably minimal simply because although massive cross-linking is happening, it could be looked on as:-
Posted in SEO Blog, news Also tagged 2000 bloggers, blogspot, links, microformats, nofollow, tagging, tags Comments closed
Cocomments.com Technorati Claim – New Feature – Full Exclusive Story

A little over 2 months ago, I spent some time trying to claim my coComment RSS feed in Technorati.
I was able to enter the feed and have it listed in Technorati as unclaimed, but I couldn’t claim it.
Read more on Cocomments.com Technorati Claim – New Feature – Full Exclusive Story…
Posted in SEO Blog, web 2.0 Also tagged blogging, claim_feed, cocomment, comment, comment_management, SEO Blog, social networking Comments closed
What Do Google, SearchEngineLand and Technorati WTF Have in Common?
This is a deadly serious question, and I am not even going to answer this one in my RSS feed, you will have to click through to get the answer.
Has Danny Sullivan committed the cardinal sin?
Yes I know how to use Read more on What Do Google, SearchEngineLand and Technorati WTF Have in Common?…
Posted in Google, web 2.0 Also tagged danny_sullivan, Google, Philipp-Lenssen, searchengineland, search_engine_land, technorati_wtf Comments closed
Lateral | Traditional – Blackhat | White Hat SEO
Frequently you see discussions regarding certain SEO techniques being Blackhat or Whitehat.
I have always looked on it that the easiest way to determine that is to read the Google webmaster guidelines, and keep an eye out for what Googlers are saying. I think it is also wise to follow the spirit and not the letter of the law.
Read more on Lateral | Traditional – Blackhat | White Hat SEO…
Posted in SEO Blog, blogging tips Also tagged blackhat, greyhat, laterla_seo, search_engine_optinization, SEO Blog, tagging, tags, traditional_seo, whitehat Comments closed
MyBlogLog Traffic
Zenrob has been checking his MyBlogLog stats to see how much traffic MyBlogLog is actually bringing him. His conclusion is 6 percent of unique visitors.
Checking my own stats the results are actually very similar.
Posted in SEO Blog, blogging tips Also tagged blogging, blog_traffic, feedburner, feed_readers, Google, google_blog_search, mybloglog, statistics, tagging, the_good_blogs, traffic Comments closed
Mike Filsaime | Social Marketing | Copyright Violations
Mike Filsaime always provides real quality in his free reports, and The Death of Internet Marketing is no exception.
I have read all 59 pages of this free report. It certainly isn’t junk, and it shouldn’t be ignored.
Read more on Mike Filsaime | Social Marketing | Copyright Violations…
Posted in blogging tips, reviews, web 2.0 Also tagged affiliate marketing, alexa, blogging tips, copyright., Digg-this, email marketing, how_to, link_blogs, mailing_list, marketing, marketing_technique, out-sourcing, rss, rss-sharing, rss_syndication, sales_technique, social networking, splog, youtube Comments closed
Technorati Favorites
I was just browsing Technorati.
It would only take 67 favorites to get in their top 100 favorites
Top 50 – currently only 115 favorites
327 Favorites to get in their Top 10 !
Posted in blogging tips, web 2.0 Also tagged better_blogging, blogging tips, blogging_help, bookmarking, social networking, web 2.0 Comments closed
Over the last year I have given a fair amount of coverage to PayPerPost, who now house the service along with other endeavours under the name 
MyBlogLog R.I.P Long Live Blogcatalog
I have long been a supporter of MyBlogLog and in many ways it was the many articles I wrote about how they could improve their site that led me to doing some limited consulting with Blogcatalog.
Read more on MyBlogLog R.I.P Long Live Blogcatalog…