Welcome to The Blog Report
I'm so glad you stopped by and hope you find this blog an interesting read. I've been blogging since April of 2006, currently the author of six blogs. In the beginning I knew absolutely nothing about blogging. Over the years through trial and error, frustration and elation, and a few tears I've learned a lot. However, the learning process when it comes to blogging continues to evolve. Here you will find a hodge podge of my blogging experiences, useful codes and how-tos, sprinkled liberally with my opinions. Enjoy!
I am a foodie which translates into me blogging about different food products I like. I do not get compensated in any way for doing this but rather am sharing with my readers. So when I bought my Keurig coffee maker last year I shared about one source for inexpensive K-cups. A representative emailed me and that's when all he-double hockey sticks broke out! Apparently they liked my review AND because I had mentioned their company where you can buy K-cups as low as 35¢ each in comparison to the normal sale price of 70¢ AND because I already gave them a free plug after I ordered from them, I was fair game for a high pressure sales pitch. Now they did not compensate me in any way nor did they give a backlink to my blog and yet for a good week I got daily emails from them telling me how I should pimp their product. As it dragged on into the second week of their suggestions, my sense of humour went out the door. I marked their emails as spam then swore I would not buy from them again. So ultimately their high pressure tactics for me to continuously blog about them had the exact opposite effect. They did lose a customer over it as well...
Garden Gnome
©2009-2012
Problems come and go when blogging. Most are easily solved but some take a lot more effort to solve. So it is with one of my blogs. I put the share buttons on all six of my blogs. A couple of months ago I noticed a red font over the share buttons on one of my blogs. We were on vacation, tired from moving and somewhat anxious to get back home in time for the holiday season so I put the problem on the back burner. Then I got rather busy in January so didn't investigate further. The other day, I sat down to figure out the problem after seeing a Google link in my stats to my blog. When I clicked the link I got to the search results and there was one of my posts backlinked to my blog but with something I didn't recall writing added. I immediately suspected being hacked so changed my Google password even though the problem was related to only one blog of the six and just happened to be the blog with the share buttons problem. Checking the archives, I found I had indeed written that so was back to square one troubleshooting for the share button problem.
Over the share buttons was what appeared to be a link but it wasn't. It was the words "Thisis!tenok" in red font over the share buttons. I immediately disabled the share buttons, removed the code, saved the template and started fresh. I added back the code only to find the words reappear so I removed the code again. I did a copy and paste from another of my blogs then added the code back in. The words reappeared even though there was no problem on the blog I did the copy and paste. I removed the code again and replaced it with a different code that didn't show the red over write but it also didn't show the buttons and the alignment was wrong. I compared the code for the suspected problem code to that from the cut and paste but they were identical. My next troubleshooting was looking through all the HTML of all added elements especially any added javascript but found nothing. Next I pulled up all published comments and removed any with links in the comment. Then I pulled up the HTML for the template, expanded the widget and went through line by line since 'find in page' found nothing for the over written words. I found absolutely nothing! Talk about a headache...
Garden Gnome
©2009-2012
From time to time I do use links to another website or blog without expecting a reciprocal link. I do so when I feel it is of benefit to my readers. What really gets me is the requests to please link to us but you get nothing in return requests. They usually take the tone:
Hi, I really like your blog. I have good information <spam site> so would really appreciate it you would give a link back to our site.
Hello, do I look like a moron? I am supposed to give a link to a site or blog I know nothing of, I get nothing in return but you, the spammer appreciates it? Too funny...
Garden Gnome
©2009-2012
Back in 2006 when I started blogging I chose gardening as my first blog and a few days later my cooking blog. We were living on waterfront property that very much lended itself towards the whimsy. I could do things with that house that would so have been out of place anywhere else. My kitchen was painted in a Behr colour called "Samanta's Love". It was a beautiful, purply pink with a touch of iridescence that very few kitchens could ever pull off and yet it worked wonderfully for that kitchen. When I created my kitchen blog I went with the pink tones and while the blog has undergone a lot of changes the basic pink remains.
Fast forward to our new home purchased in September of 2011. I didn't go back to the pink but rather the kitchen is in the process of being painted a deep burgundy, colour matched to my plates. The room handles the bold colour well with the taupes, blacks and marble floor. What struck me interesting is the colour is very close to my original blog header that was modified several times to become what it is today. It's not that I'm a pink kind of gal either so somewhere that repressed pink is coming out in my one blog and it is spilling over into my homelife or visa versa.
Garden Gnome
©2009-2012
I have started my major winter project of painting every room in our new house. It is a large house but I think the project is quite achievable. With the help of our youngest' significant other, the upper level (main) bathroom is 99% finished. The walls and ceiling are completely repainted. There is a little caulking to do and we are waiting for our friend to install the custom made trim he is making for us. Other than that the room will be fully ready to suport it's new solar tube in the spring.
I am very much a detailed oriented person. As I was working in the bathroom, I couldn't help but wonder if I should do a bit of revamping of my blog themes. It has been awhile since I have done this. While five of my blogs have custom designed by me themes, this one does not. Perhaps it is time to create a custom theme for this one as well. The creative juices are flowing and the more painting I do in the house the more ideas I'm getting for my blogs. Stay tuned...
Garden Gnome
©2009-2012
Oh my, we've all seen blogs with so many ads it is difficult to find the content. Well Google has announced with their new Page Layout algorithm than sites with too many ads especially ads above the fold are now going to be penalized. While Google is not saying exactly how many is too many it is quite clear that websites/blogs with a lot of ads are going to be penalized. Quite frankly I have mixed feelings over this announcement,
First off, like many I am getting tired of being bombarded with more advertising than content on blogs. That may be just me but some bloggers really need to give it a rest with pushing the advertising. I don't use a lot of advertising on my blogs simply because I just don't like being bombarded with advertising myself. The bottom line is, there is very little money to be made by displaying advertisements on blogs because blogs do not get enough traffic. Realizing this, as a blogger the choice is to monetize a little and be happy if you make any money or don't monetize. One thing is for certain, no one likes splogs!
Second, my personal opinion is Google has just a bit too much power. While they are well within their rights to not show websites/blogs that have too many ads in their search results, they really aren't playing fair by giving an acceptable number. If Google said, no more than 5 ads on a blog well then everyone would know not to go over that number otherwise they are going to be penalized. As it stands, no one knows how many is too many. It's hard to play by the rules if the rules aren't spelled out! Unfortunately this has been a pattern with Google setting up penalties without clarifying the rules leaving the average blogger at best treading water hoping they won't get slapped by Google's next round of penalties. And the worst part of this is even if you follow Google's rules to a T you can still end up getting penalized because Google changes the rules! What is wrong with setting the rules and letting folks know exactly what the rules are so everyone has a level playing fied?
Garden Gnome
©2009-2012
I have noticed an increase in blog comment spam lately and what I really don't understand is why anyone would leave a comment, knowing it is going to be moderated before posting and still do it. Hello? Talk about a waste of time. You know it takes me all of 2 seconds to click spam effectively rejecting the comment and yet some of these spammers have spent 5 minutes or more to leave their comment spam. It's not like they can say they weren't warned about the comment moderation either as I clearly have that set-up in Blogger. I kid you not, I got one comment spam this morning with three links in it! Honestly do they not have anything better to do? I'm just saying...
Garden Gnome
©2009-2012
