Is your email being rejected by a mail server?

Listed by Spamhaus? Check to see if you are on a blocklist. If the answer is yes, it is probably because email messages you are sending out are being rejected by mail servers around the Internet that use Spamhaus blocklists to filter incoming mail.

Spamhaus only lists IP addresses (they do not list email addresses or domains). To find out if your IP Address is listed on one of their 'blocklist' databases, enter the IP address in the box below and press "Lookup IP."

Btw, one of the top 10 Spammers in the world was arrested yesterday (Wed) by the Feds.

Google's Ranking Factors Examined

I thought a post by TopRankBlog was interesting. It's about a new study done on Google's Ranking Factors. For many of you, it may not be a big surprise but to others it may help somewhat.

What's new on Gmail?

The folks at gmail have just increased their attachment limit size to 20 MB. That's twice the size of yahoo.com or hotmail.com.

Now you can start sharing more of those home videos, large presentations and files you just can't seem to get smaller. They have doubled the allowable attachment size to 20 MB to make your Gmail space even more useful. Also, you don't need a silly invitation anymore to join gmail.com. By the way, Gmail gives you 2.8 gigabytes of free mailbox space.

Top Blog Skins Available

Now that you made an insightful post, wouldn't it be nice if someone actually read it. Bloggers will visit your site, but if it's poorly designed, they will be out in a flash. If you are like me, I'm always needing advice (i.e. template) when it comes to color/font/format schemes. I found a site that might be able to help you. It's called BlogSkins. They have some cool skins done by some of best people around in the blogging community. You can instantly and easily download them to your own Blogger, Movable Type, or other-powered site.

TraceRoute Internet Protocol Addresses

I started this new Forum for FreeAdLists. Not surprising, I'm getting my share of spammers. I can't believe how efficient these spammers are in finding new venues, especially a brand new one, to spam. I was curious as to where some of these spammers were hailing from. I found a tool by Network Tools that does a traceroute to the destination.

Often times, routers will block traceroute packets, but you still can get a decent idea. BTW, most of my spammers were coming from Europe.

FYI: Comprehensive traceroute guide by country: Traceroute.org

Google's Page Rank service has made some changes recently

There has been some concerned lately regarding Google's Page Ranking service. Some bloggers/webmasters are getting the following message after a PR query:

The Page Rank:

- N/A

IMPORTANT: N/A (not available) - it is not possible to show the pagerank at the moment The N/A pagerank (grey pagerank bar) might be due to one of the following reasons: (1) the web page is new and it is not ranked by Google yet, (2) the Google's server is not able to return the pagerank value at the moment, (3) the web site is banned by Google, (4) our PR checking tool is not able to get the page rank value at the moment, etc.

Here's an explanation as to why you might be getting these messages. If you see a grey pagerank bar or N/A rank upon your web page, you should not panic. Your site is probably not banned but do read the explanation to verify.

MyBlogLog Outreach Program -- Join Community

MyBlogLog empowers authors and readers, i.e., anybody who reads a blog can learn about and engage with one another, and in the process take the conversation to a whole new level. And readers can become friends with other people who read your favorite blogs. MyBlogLog enables one to take advantage of his/her existing presence on the Web and ties it into communities of like-minded readers and authors to add context to the conversations in which you take part.

This is one of the best social networking sites I have been associated with in the Internet space. I have found people that are supportive, serious, and others who are just darn-right humorous.

Found this interesting post from my friend over at The ANiTOKID. It is a links chain where you get to know more bloggers by joining their communities. Being active in the community is a way of supporting one's favorite blogs. I'm adding three friends of mine, Total-Spender, Digital-Nomads and HMTKSteve.

To join the train, just follow the rules below and set it on a new journey from your own blog!

The Rules

1) Write a short introduction about how you found this list and include a link back to that blog.
2) COPY the rules and ENTIRE list below and post it on your blog.
3) Take “My New Community Members” and move them into the “The Original Community Members” list.
4) Find 3 new blogs, join their MyBlogLog Community and add them to the “My New Community Members” section. Remember to also add the “Join the Community” link next to your new blogs. (Example: http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/community/yourblog/)
5) Join as a member to each Community listed here by clicking on “Join the Community”. The goal is that all of the new Members listed will join your community, and hopefully, you should do the same!

My New Community Members:
Total-Spender - Join Community
Digital-Nomads - Join Community
HTMKSteve - Join Community

The Original Community Members:

1. Michael McKinlay - Join Community
2. Culture Shiok! - Join Community
3. Jimi Morrison’s Head - Join Community
4. AnitoKid - Join Community
5. FreeAdLists - Join Community
6. Jane May - Join Community
7. Jeff Kee - Join Community
8. Nice4Rice - Join Community
9. Nathan Drach - Join Community
10. Mr. Gary Lee - Join Community
11. Jon Lee - Join Community
12. Everyday Weekender - Join Community
13. Bryan’s Rants - Join Community
14. Shawn Knight - Join Community
15. Kelly Cho - Join Community
16. Reformat This - Join Community
17. Ms. Danielle - Join Community
18. The Man of Silver - Join Community
19. Nate Whitehill - Join Community
20. Leo Chiang - Join Community
21. Garry Conn - Join Community
22. Samanathon - Join Community
23. The Feats of a Chilean Dot Com - Join Community
24. Danny Dang - Join Community
25. Mayenskie - Join Community
26. DoshDosh - Join Community
27. 
    

The Fish Story

I thought this was a cool find. These two are all camo'ed up in a fishy way.

The Makeup

Bite'em my head off

Getting Mouthy

Getting Gnarly

The Tease

Popular SEO tools for website optimization

Here are some good tools to use in your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts. Below is a list of tools available from Build--Reciprocal--Links.com

Fake Page Rank Detection Tool
Google Banneded Checker
Keyword Density Checker
Keyword Suggestion
Link Popularity
Link Suggestion Tool
Multiple Keyword Search Engine Position
Multiple search engine position
Multi Rank Checker
Page Rank Checker
Reciprocal Link Checking Tool
No Follow Link Checker
Search Engine Position Checker
Search Engine Saturation Tool
Spider View
View Http Headers
Google Search
Google BackLink Checker Tool
Dig PageRank Tool
My Text Link Value Tool

Paula's List of Blogger Salaries...Are you on the list?

Well, I'm definitely not on her list. :) She has compiled a list of the top 60 blog earners who she could find releasable earnings data. The list is a rough estimate but still an interesting compilation.

Who's on Paula's List of Blogger and Webmaster Salaries? She says she has spent hours and hours scouring the Internet for the last-reported information about bloggers/webmasters and their revenue. Some are hard-core daily bloggers, some run sites with lots of pageviews but not much written content -- like dating sites. Wow...I imagine that took a long time to compile.

John Chow: 7 habits of a highly successful blogger

I thought this was a good post by one of the Blogosphere's A-List bloggers, John Chow. Here are 7 habits of a successful habits of a successful blogger. He should know something about this topic...he's been one for awhile.

As a bonus, here's another post by John Chow. 5 ways to come up with something when you have nothing to blog about. This happens more often than I would like to admit.

Total-Spender gave me some ideas just the other day. Thanks.

This is one smart dog

Here's a video of a smart dog. You won't believe how this dog retrieved the ball from the pool.

World Internet Users and Population Statistics

The Internet space is still growing at a quickened pace. Here’s are graphs and a table by Internet World Stats providing the current snapshot of worldwide Internet usage.

The site also has additional Internet information sources and usage statistics.

Google Webmaster Central

Google Webmaster Central can help you ensure that your site is easily crawled and indexed and access tools that will enable you to diagnose crawling issues, study statistics on how your site is doing in our index, and tell us how you'd like your site to be crawled and indexed.

I hope this helps readers who have requested similar information and don't forget to create your sitemaps.

50 Largest MyBlogLog Communities and 12 Communities Visited

Here a find that lists the top 50 communities on MyBlogLog. I know the information is a bit dated and the order may have changed as of today. I know the top community has a little over 5100+ members, and the second largest and third largest communities have a little over 3400+ members and 3300+ members, respectively.

Here are 12 communities I visit from time to time. Invariably, the numbers will have changed by the time I submit this post.

The DJ List
5,162 Community Members

ProBlogger
3,465 Community Members

A Blog for Thinkers
3,367 Community Members

Lifehacker
2,766 Community Members

2000 Bloggers
2,299 Community Members

Read/WriteWeb
1,785 Community Members

Boing Boing
1,783 Community Members

John Chow dot Com
1,756 Community Members

The MyBlogLog Blog
1,429 Community Members

Shoemoney
1,332 Community Members

TechCrunch
1,303 Community Members

Random Good Stuff
1,236 Community Members

Classifieds FreeAdLists -- Posting Etiquette

As some of you know, I'm trying to launch a classifieds ad service, Classifieds FreeAdLists. Unfortunately, I got my first email telling me to do something or else. Obviously, I didn't intend for the classified website to be a venue to vet anger or frustration against someone else.

I immediately deleted the inflammatory ad listed below, but I thought I would share its contents with my readers. That’s some heated stuff, right? This is exactly what I don't want.

Well, at least people are finding and posting to the site; I'm hoping it can stay somewhat friendly. Geez!

BTW, I Googled and performed Yahoo searches on "UseAtorzzzzz" prior to posting this article. Nothing returned. ;)

Have a great weekend. :)

-----------------------------------------

The personal information of the complaint has been modified.

UseAtorzzzzz wrote:

This is one of many attempts to deface my company. Please find out who is posting these ads and what ip they are from because I have filed charges against them and they are dragging this site in with them. Please fix this issue

UseAmyzzzzz Corp (A city)
Posted on: 2007-05-02 04:02:12
Poster's E-Mail: Withheld. Use the form below to contact the user.

UseAtorzzzzz is scum. They'll tell you what you want to hear, get your money, and run. No one answers the phones, no one answers their emails, its all excuses after excuses. Someone should report that asshole for not delivering what he says he will. I'd be embarrassed to work for him.

* Location: a city
* Compensation: run for your life
* Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.

Rugged Notebooks

I thought this was an interesting picture regarding "rugged notebooks." Dang, that notebook is literally dusted. I think my "sensitive" notebook would have been kaput if that happened to it. For that matter, I'm not sure if my notebook would have survived my somewhat humid walk up to Seoul Tower yesterday.

Google Banned Tool

Webmasters/SEO firms who engage (but may not know it) in spammy techniques can find their websites banned from the Google index. Getting banned from the index can be the death of a budding website presence.

A simple way to check is to go to google search and type in your domain name (e.g. www.topbloglists.com). Check to see whether your links come up or not. If they do, your site is probably not banned. But if they don't come up, and they did before, you're probably banned.

Here's a free online banned tool to check if your domain is Google Banned.

I didn't want to make another post for this find, but here's a site where you can create disposable email addresses. Save yourself from a lot spam traffic.