Q3 PageRank update review

Posted by multippt

Looks like Google has rolled out another PageRank update. Overall, most sites won’t experience any change in PageRank. However, there is still a significant number of sites whose PageRanks have fallen by one or two points, usually for sites that have been around for quite some time. New sites are fairing fairly well, most of them achieving an average of between 2 to 3. There were improvements in PageRank for some relatively well-known sites, such as Youtube (why of course, a Google product). However most others simply experienced a dip in PageRank, and well-known ones are not spared either.

Though, if compared to the previous update, the previous one would be much enjoyed by most webmasters (firsly being that there were much more increases in PR than decreases). Seems like Google may have tweaked the alogarithm a little, or it could be that most webmasters are relaxing after preparing all that Search Engine Optimisation last year.

The previous PageRank update was on May, which means this update came a lot more sooner than expected. Judging from past updates in January, February, and May, it does seem that Google is updating PageRank much more regularly, with its cycles becoming shorter (hopefully moving towards the 1 month cycle Google had about 6 years ago). The current PageRank cycle is estimated to span across 1.5 to 3 months.

Notices on iGoogle?

Posted by multippt

Update: The “beta” notice appears to be gone, for now.

Seems like Google is doing a mini experiment on the iGoogle page. This time, it involves a small little yellow notice with a “Close” link. Apparently Google forgot to place any message on the notice.

Clicking on the close link will close the notice, though not for long as the empty annoucement will spring right back on the next time you reload the page.

Once again, yet another one of those minor things to happen on the Google home page.

Entrecard new credit perks?

Posted by multippt

With the recent update to the Entrecard credit system, there are now more ways to earn Entrecard credits on the go.

1. Buy Entrecard credits

After much debate on whether Entrecard credits are available with cash (officially anyway), Entrecard decided to fill in the gap by introducing the option of buying credits. The buy credits link is available from the main page. Credits are only purchaseable using PayPal. Credits can only be bought in batches of 1000, 5000 or 10000 credits, with each 1000 credits causing $9.50 (presumable determined automatically via a system within Entrecard). Only 12000 credits are allocated for purchase for all users, probably as “market mechanism” to prevent rapid devaluation (or the reverse) of Entrecard credits.

While third party credits are usually offered at a lower price than the official price, there are nonetheless some great perks of the credits coming directly from Entrecard: They are much more secure, and that money spent on these credits go back to the community. The 12,000 credits quota set is partly due to a second feature of Entrecard credits - you can possibly earn actual cash from it.

Entrecard credits sold by cash are compensated to original members who have sold their Entrecard credits back to Entrecard. Hence Entrecard acts as the middleman. However, only certain members would benefit from the extra revenue, and it is generally those who are regarded as trusted and reputable. This applies mainly to active members.

2. Blog on Entrecard blog

If you are not a contributor for Entrecard’s blog, you can get your post published on Entrecard and earn credits for it. Each post successfully approved will get Entrecard credits credited to your account. The better the post, the larger the payout. The payout is largely variable, but the average suggested by Entrecard is in the area of several hundreds, but it can reach a possible maximum of 2000 credits.

Each post on Entrecard will contain a link to your site, thereby promoting your own site as the Entrecard blog receives thousands of views each day.

3. Get paid to blog on your blog

Entrecard has taken one step further to helping new bloggers get the promotion they need. The moment you make a post on your own site, you would get paid 25 Entrecard credits per every 3 days you have made at least one post on your site. Entrecard would detect if you have made a new post on your site via checking your site’s RSS feed.

Did Google just changed its favicon?

Posted by multippt

I’ve just realized that Google changed it’s favicon from capital G to small g. For those of you who do not know what a favicon is, it is that small 16 by 16 pixels icon you sometimes see beside the address bar. I guess that’s probably one of the minor changes that I’ve ever seen happening on the Google homepage.

Nonetheless, it does appear that someone spotted it as well. Kudos to all who managed to spot the change.

I still can’t get accustomed to the new icon. Maybe I’ve been using Google for a very long time and even a small icon change makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Hopefully I could get accustomed to it sooner or later. Honestly, while the new icon looks pretty sleek, the shadow (or gradient?) behind the “g” makes it look ackward. I guess that’s because I’m using IE7 and that the icon appear to be semi-transparent. On Firefox, the icon looks great.

*Note: In order to view the new favicon, you can shortcut the caching process by simply accessing the favicon directly (i.e. google.com/favicon.ico) and refreshing it. Tada, the new Google icon!

Let’s hope Google won’t be turning lowercase anytime soon, otherwise it’ll look pretty odd.

Time to update your Flash player

Posted by multippt

If you haven’t gotten version 9.0.124.0 of Adobe Flash player, please do get it quickly, since an exploit found in earlier versions is being used actively. Older versions of Flash player are at risk.

The flaw is being used by Chinese hackers (presumably, since most of the affected sites are in China) to steal World of Warcraft passwords through the installation of a keylogger that records keystrokes for certain programmes. It also attempts to disable Kaspersky Anti-virus (fortunately most other anti-viruses are not affected).

The attackers also attempted mass SQL injection attacks (i.e. attempting to insert some “additional” stuff or modify things in your site) early on and are using these victim sites as a means of

While the bug affects Internet Explorer more often than Firefox in a way, it’s still a good idea to update your Flash player immediately (even if you not play World of Warcraft).

Wordpress 2.5 upload fix

Posted by multippt

Looks like even after extensive testing on Wordpress’s side, one nasty bug managed to slip through, and it’s not the fault of Wordpress either. Apparently, anyone using mod_security on Apache will not be able to upload anything on Wordpress 2.5 or Wordpress 2.5.1. This could be because mod_security doesn’t take a liking towards the Flash uploader Wordpress now uses. This is a big problem for Wordpress, since more than 30% of the Internet uses mod_security (courtesy of Hostgator and numerous other Internet web hosts), which means these uploaders won’t work if you simply install Wordpress and do nothing else after.

The fix?

Simply create or edit your .htaccess using your text editor. Insert the following lines to the file:

<IfModule mod_security.c>
<Files async-upload.php>
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
</Files>
</IfModule>

That should switch off security only for your uploader, and chances are your uploader should work fine.

Alternatively, since the entire problem is caused by Flash, you could try disabling the Flash uploader using a plugin that does that.

—

A second glitch is that sometimes the media gallery in Wordpress 2.5 may not be able to insert images. In addition to that, changes to your post might be lost for unknown reasons after doing that. Nonetheless, you can insert the image in another method by copying the URL of the image in the gallery and inserting it via Add Image in the toolbar.

Paid per search? Doesn’t sound quite right

Posted by multippt

My Search Funds is offering to pay you just for web searches. That’s probably one of the easiest ways to earn money, since after all, you do use Google or Yahoo right? Results are obtained from Yahoo, Ask, and Windows Live. Google is not supported since Google doesn’t permit third parties to modify searches. In order words, MySearchFunds would be Dogpile, except that it pays.

The new Dogpile?

Dogpile is already popular enough just for implementing the idea of combining all your favorite (and not-so-favorite) search engines in one. My Search Funds is very similar, except that you need to install a plugin in order to use their service. This plugin appears to record your searches, naturally since it has to know how and what you are searching for. The programme may discredit related searches so as to prevent “repeated searches”.

It’s pretty unusual that someone would offer paid to search services, especially since they may make a huge loss out of it. I’m sure that My Search Funds would be using the information collected in order to perfect their search results, or something else. Nonetheless, for those of you who are not too concerned with privacy issues, go ahead and use My Search Funds.

Nonetheless, the information collected by My Search Funds would be incredibly useful to companies like Alexa, since it records search traffic.

Privacy issue?

My Search Funds states in its privacy policy and Terms of services that it would collect information and retain it. Fortunately, it’s not much of a problem, since Google does almost the same. However, the fact that they are willing to divulge your personal information to the authorities meant that they will keep your personal information forever. Most search companies do not do that, so you may want to be wary of that.

Not much information was given on how the information might be used for future purposes.

To trust or not to?

There are no costs involved in participating in the programme, but you may want to note that My Search Funds is recording whatever you are searching. While you may not mind that, some do especially if they are searching for you-know-what. The pay rate sounds cheesy - but it’s possible that they may have gotten that from just ad revenue.