This is the first update / roundup style post on More Than Scratch The Surface. I originally thought I’d stick to articles, but I can now see the need to write about things that aren’t worth a full post. Expect to see these occasionally.
Plugins
I spent most of last week on the IFrameWidgets plugin. There were quite a few issues, but now there’s only one left: the site who makes the widget won’t know which page the widget was called from. This is fully explained on the plugin’s home page. I’m waiting a little while to see what the fallout of this is (if any) before I start to actively push it. I learnt a few HTML / Javascript tricks while sorting out the issues, so expect some posts on these soon.
The new version of the DualFeeds plugin should have been released six weeks ago, but I just haven’t gotten around to finishing the documentation yet. I’ve been busy, but that’s terrible! I did fix an obscure bug (only present when switching feeds and for some versions of php) over the weekend. Thanks to Dmitry from www.sportreport.ru for helping me sort this out. Anyway, expect this to be released towards the end of next week.
Alexa Milestone
A couple of stumbles from K-IntheHouse and Andy Beard helped push this site through the 150K barrier at Alexa recently. I’ve been surprised how easily I’ve moved up the rankings, but I’m anticipating that it will be harder from now on, as I’m in the same area as a lot of other great blogs.
Stormy Weather
Google storms, Blogrush storms. There’s a lot going on in the blogosphere. I’m an interested reader of it all, but there’s been no impact on me personally.
My blog is newish, so I don’t have any toolbar PR yet to lose. As Josh points out it seems that only toolbar PR is affected, not the SERPs. Let hope that’s true. I suspect it’s all part of Google‘s bigger plans for PR, whatever they are (and we’d all love to know). It would be good to see Google being more open about what’s going on, but I’m not holding my breath!
I haven’t signed up to Blogrush yet, so this is just based on what I’ve read. I will say in Blogrush’s defence that it is a public-beta, so people have to expect issues. However, it’s got to be said that the recent episode of making 10,000 blogs inactive has been handled very poorly. It would have been better to warn people that didn’t match the criteria and given them time to address it, rather than just pulling the plug on them.
I’ve worked in the software industry for 13 years and been responsible for releasing product and managing client communication. You can’t keep everyone happy, but right now Blogrush have way too many people unhappy with them. I think long-term they’ll probably sort out their issues, but they have alienated a lot of people which will make their job more difficult.
Guest Post
Something else I’ve been doing this week is writing a guest post for Snoskred’s Get Out Of Your Niche series. We’ll be moving back to Australia in six months, so I’ve written about what I’ll miss about China and what I’m looking forward to back in Australia. It should be appearing tomorrow on Snoskred’s site, so check it out if you’re interested.
Thanks for the link Stephen and Congrats on the Alexa increase. It’s fun to watch your own blog rise like that isn’t it.
It looks like this whole toolbar PR reduction is to decrease the value of advertising on these sites and not to actually penalize them, that’s what it looks like to me anyway.
BlogRush definitely has some major issues. I honestly can’t remember a system/service/product that has received this much heat and that bad thing is it’s free! Theres got to be some major issues for a free service to get dogged like that.
Hi Josh, I fished you out of Askimet again. I wish it had a Whitelist option, so that even if Askimet is sure you’re crooked and won’t believe my de-spams, I can tell it you’re cool for my site.
Your PR theory sounds good. I hadn’t thought of it that way. I was thinking this may just be part of the bigger picture – we know Google been considering the future of PR for sometime, maybe they are just playing around with it a little bit. It’s probably both! But I wouldn’t be surprised to see more changes.
Blogrush did an excellent job of marketing themselves – in hindsight, too good! They got too many people, not just on board, but on the bandwagon, too soon. Then when the inevitable problems surfaced, Blogrush reacted badly. Now that bandwagon is turned upside down and smoking… They could have reacted better, especially with making all those accounts inactive. Or they could have tried to keep a lid on expectations (bad for short-term marketing, but better long-term). But all this is just my 2 cents, from what I’ve read. It’s always different when you’re sitting in the seat yourself.
Hey Stephen.. great work with the iFrame plugin but sorry I haven’t gotten around to testing it in ShanKri-la yet! Wish I had an extra couple of hours every day.. 😀 don’t we all?
Glad to see your Alexa ranking going up. After I got into the 150K, it has been inching slowly and I’m not sure how long it’ll be to break into the 100K. 🙂 I think your plugins are going to help a lot with that! Thanks for the link..
K, Thanks and no worries. TOTALLY understand about the time!
Yes, having plugins should help me with PageRank and traffic – hopefully! I’ve got a few more in the pipeline. Truth be told, I like writing plugins more than I like writing posts!
i have checked this plugins but i m little bit confuse as i am having 2.1 version and i m not sure whether it will work for it or not. can any one give their experience with this plugin.
Ear plugs, both will work with 2.1