How can a "Fish Aquarium" Keep you Punctual in Office?

Around 22 beautiful and colorful Malawi, guppy and tropical fishes joined STCnetwork! These fishes were brought in for a purpose that is extremely related to work productivity and performance. The most difficult of all things for an entrepreneur is remaining punctual with office work. When you have no boss at top to monitor and supervise your activities, as a human we are all bound to become lazy and lethargic at some point and especially unpunctual when it comes to Office timings.  I love sleeping a lot and barely open my eyes unless I have slept enough for 12 hours! As a result my office opening timings are never fixed, sometimes I go at 11:00 AM while sometimes I go at 3:00PM. Indeed this habit will make me dump and lazy in future if I don't take precautionary steps to avoid sleeping a lot and making sure I setup a fix time to go office every morning. Neither did exercise help me with this lazy habit nor did sleeping early at night. The only best solution that I came around was placing a "Fish Aquarium" or "Fish Tank" at the Office!

Fish Feeding really makes one Punctual

Fishes are fed twice every 24 hours using a food supplement that looks like spherical balls which includes necessary nutrition for a healthy fish life. These fishes are so cute and adorable that you can barely miss feeding them on time else they would have a much shorter life and some would barely survive. Fishes even eat each other's wings or tails when they are not properly fed. Since they are living beings just like us, so I make sure that I treat them with care and feed them on time without delaying.

This habit has made be in fact quite punctual. Sometimes I jump off my bed just to reach office the sooner possible so that I may feed these little babies on time with proper diet. Just yesterday, I left my breakfast because I had a dull sinking sensation within my stomach that may be the little creatures are hungry, so I rushed straight to Office and started feeding the little ones. I had my breakfast after the fishes were properly served!

Aquarium keeps you and your customers socially active!

I never feel alone when I am in office thanks to these colorful little beings that smiles at you when you look at them. They even are quite hospitable to customers who visit the office. Customers find these colorful creatures quite fascinating and these clever beings never miss an opportunity of bringing a smile on a new visitor's face. =)

They keep the office lively, full of love, harmony and joy. Seeing so many lively colors in front of your eyes really makes one more productive and vigilant throughout the day.

Some Tropical Fishes are deadly carnivorous!

I am not sure if this term would be right for these beautiful little creatures but in fact the little ones are way quicker and sharper compared to the larger ones. Two days have passed now and around 4 of the fishes are hunted down by the Shifu Gang (it's the name I have given to the naughty ones), amongst the dead are the black balloon fish and few Malawi ones. The shifu group eats up the tails and wings of the bigger ones and I honestly feel too bad when I find a fish being badly tortured by this group. I am new to fish keeping and not well trained on what combination of fishes are kept together to make sure they breed and live for a longer period. The shop keepers being profit-motivated misguided me in this matter but with time I am learning how to keep better care of them and make sure no one is harassed! =d

Share your experience and feeding tips!

Let me know what tips could you give me to take better care of these little babies and make sure they are well looked after. How often do you feed them and what tips can you share regarding the combination and selection of same type of fishes that live in harmony without eating up each other! :p

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Customize Blogger EU Cookies Notification Bar

All blogspot users are recently informed in their dashboards that European Union (EU) laws require all publishers to give EU visitors information about cookies used on their blogs. For that reason Blogger team has automatically added a notice bar on all blogs to help meet these regulations. The notice lets visitors know about Google's use of certain Blogger and other cookies used on these blogs, including Google Analytics and AdSense cookies. It is a publisher's responsibility to ensure that the Notification bar must be clearly visible on the blog and must not be disabled in any case using CSS or JavaScript unless the publisher is already displaying a custom bar notifying users about the use of cookies on his site.

DEMO

Will Blogger Show The notice on Custom Domains also?

Of course it will!

Note that all blogspot blogs which are using the default .blogspot.com Domains ( country-code Top Level Domain or ccTLD) or custom domains (such as .com, .net, .org etc.) will automatically show the following sticky Notice at the top of the page when a user visits that blog from a browser in a European Country:

This site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services, to personalise ads and to analyse traffic. Information about your use of this site is shared with Google. By using this site, you agree to its use of cookies.Learn More Got it

The message will disappear when the user clicks Got it.

Is it shown on all Country Specific URLs ccTLD?

It will be shown only to visitors from European Union associated countries like Italy, France, UK, Denmark, Sweden, Greece, Germany etc.

You won't see the notice outside of the EU.

How to see the Notice if you are Outside European Union?

To see the notice if you’re outside of the EU, view your blog and change the country code, for example blogspot.it,  blogspot.fr or blogspot.co.uk.

If you use a custom domain, you can use a EU IP Proxy address to browser your site. A Simple trick is to add the following string parameter just after your custom domain:

.prx.gb.teleport.to

Like in our case to visit mybloggertricks.com in united kingdom we will type the following URL in address bar:

http://www.mybloggertricks.com.prx.gb.teleport.to

Clicked the 'Got it' button and now you can not see the notice bar again?

Use the Netherlands proxy and it will appear again!  Make sure you don't click got it this time else you will have to delete your browser cookies to make it appear again :)

.prx.us.teleport.to

Can We Hide or Disable the EU Cookies Notice?

Yes you can but only if you are already displaying a custom message using custom script on Top of your blog which informs users about the use of cookies on your site. If you are not using any such script to inform readers about cookies then you are obliged to display the Blogger Default notice instead. You must not choose to avoid informing readers about the use of Cookies on your blog. Doing such may cause your blog to get banned.

If you are already using a custom script to inform readers about Cookies used by 3rd part services on your blog and the message clearly links to your Privacy Statement page then you can surely choose to disable the default notice by add the following script just above </head> tag inside your template

<script type="text/javascript">

  cookieChoices = {};

</script>

How Do the Notice Look Like?

You must not try to hide this notice bar like we normally hide the Blogger navbar. If in case you have not hidden the blogger navbar then the message will look like this:

If you have chosen to hide the navbar then the message will display like this:

Lets Customize the EU Cookies Notice Bar!

Before: A Long Textual string with dull colors.

After: A Neat and cleaner message with custom colors.

The default Notice is a long lengthy text with dull colors, in order to make sure to display a custom Short message to your readers that may also match your Template color theme then follow the steps below:

1 Go To blogger > Template > Backup your template

2 Click Edit HTML

3 Paste the following code just below ]]></b:skin> tag

<!--Custom EU Cookies Notice by STCnetwork.org-->
<script type="text/javascript">
  cookieOptions = {
    msg: "This site uses cookies to help deliver services. By using this site, you agree to the use of cookies.",
    link: "https://www.blogger.com/go/blogspot-cookies",
    close: "Got it!",
    learn: "Learn More" };
</script>
    <style>.cookie-choices-info {z-index:999999!important;background-color:#333333!important;border-bottom: 1px solid #6FC415; 
        box-shadow: 1px 2px 2px #000!important; padding:3px 0px!important;}.cookie-choices-info .cookie-choices-text{font-size:14px !important; color:#dddddd!important;}.cookie-choices-info .cookie-choices-button{  background-color: #6FC415!important;border-radius: 1px!important;box-shadow: 2px 3px 2px #000!important; padding:6px!important;text-transform: none!important;}</style>

You can make the following customizations if you want:

• Replace the black bolded text with any message you may like.
• If you want you can replace the yellow highlighted link with your Custom Privacy Statement page else you can leave it as it is because the default link points to Blogger's Privacy page for Cookies info.
• To change Notice Bar background color edit #333333
• To change the green border that appears at the bottom of the bar edit #6FC415
• To change the background color of Buttons edit #6FC415
• To change the font color edit #dddddd

 

4 Save your template and you are all done!

Need Help?

Let me know if you need any further clarification or help. We have also started a discussion related to this topic at our Forum where you can interact with more bloggers to help you setup the cookie bar for you. Join the discussion by clicking here.

I hope you are now more safe than before. Wish you all a safe blogging journey. Peace and blessings buddies! :)

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6 Actions Taken against Blogs that are Flagged

Yesterday, we did a post on some of the things that are against Google's policy, Writing about these things on your blog might result in your blog getting deleted, or at least flagged. It also might get flagged as a result of other people reporting your blog for a violation. When this happens. your blog is automatically entered into Google's flag queue. A team will then review those flags, and if no violation is taking place, they will simply let that blog go. Otherwise, appropriate action against the blog is  taken to maintain the safety of the network, and to ensure no such thing happens again from that party in the future.

So how can you tell when your blog has been penalized? Google does send the blog owner an email message detailing them on the situation, and a recourse to be taken (if any). You can also tell when any of the following happens to your blog. These are the actions Google takes against flagged blogs indeed found guilty of violation(s).

Actions taken against blogs that are flagged

Mature content interstitial - This usually happens in case of adult-content hosted on your blog. Your blog will be placed behind a 'mature content interstitial', which means that it will no longer appear in safe search. It can only be searched by users who have their family filter turned off, which effectively reduces your traffic.

Blog becomes visible only to the author - Others won't be able to see or search your blog. Only you would be able to see it.

Deletion of offending content - Frankly speaking, this is the least that could happen to your blog. Google will only remove the content that's violating its policies. So as long as your website isn't filled with such content, you're fine.

Disabled Blogger account - OK, now this is getting serious. If you have been copying content, or spamming, you might end up getting your account banned.

Disabled Google account - Google won't just stop at disabling your Blogger account. If your offense is serious, then your entire Google Account, with all the associated profiles related to other Google products.

Reporting to law enforcement - OK, things are getting pretty real now, so you might as well snap out of it. If you're involved with cyber-crime, or are promoting illegal activities, you might get reported to law enforcement agencies. Now would be a pretty good time to pack your bags and run away :

How to report a violation?

These steps, harsh as some of them may sound, are necessary for the sake of the safety and sanctity of the Blogger network. If you see someone violating Google's guidelines by doing any of the things forbidden by Google, please don't hesitate to report that particular blog to Google.

To report a blog, simply visit Blogger's Help Canter section about reporting abuse. Do give Google's guidelines before filing a report. If you're sure that a blog is violating the policies, then you can use the different links given at the end of the report abuse page in Blogger Help Center to file a report. Help make the internet a better place by reporting policy-violators. Stay blessed :)

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11 Activities That will Cause Your Blog to be Deleted

Google Blogger is a very popular publishing platform. Millions of blogs run on Blogger, adding a vast inventory of knowledge to the internet. It is a free service designed for communication, self-expression and freedom of speech. But while that stands, Google also has to uphold its image of quality and safety for its users. If a blogger violates Google's quality guidelines, then Google will take action against that Blogger blog to protect its users. A lot of people ask us why their blog was suspended or deleted, even when they seemingly didn't do anything wrong. Well, there must be something they were doing, which is why Google had to do it. In this post, we discuss what things go against Google's policies, and which things you must avoid to stay safe.

11 things to avoid in Blogger blogs

1. Hate speech

Hate speech is something which, even though is very common on the internet, isn't appreciated by Google. Promoting racism, and hate against a specific religious or ethnic group is a crime, and is not tolerated by Google.

2. Violence

Google is used all over the world by people from different geographic and demographic groups. Promoting violence on your blog would not be suitable to many people, especially children who are easily effected. Also, promoting violence against a certain group comes under racism, which is also not allowed by Google.

3. Illegal activities

Blogging about any sort of illegal activity, such as drug or alcohol use, is illegal. The general rule is, if you could get into trouble by talking about something in front of a cop, then most probably that thing also comes under this section, and is punishable by a ban.

4. Gore

You must not have images, videos, or other graphical content that contains gore, or that could be disturbing to some people. For example, you can not show a man getting brutally killed by a shotgun, or a horrific accident that resulted in gore/death.

5. Adult content

Google has some strict laws against pornography and adult content. Although Google doesn't directly denounce this stuff, you still need to mark your blog as 'adult' from your Blogger settings, otherwise it won't be treated any differently. Google, however, doesn't allow you to make money off adult content.

6. Child Safety

According to Google, it has 'zero tolerance' when it comes to content that might manipulate or harm children. It is strictly against child pornography and paedophilia, and will immediately terminate the account of any blogger who is promoting such stuff.

7. Copyrighted material

No one likes it when someone copies their content and gets away with it. Google has a pretty effective system of curbing this problem as best as it can. First of all, copyrighted content will result in a lower rank, and the suspension of Google AdSense for that site. Continued plagiarism will result in the deletion of your blog. So be ware! (If you find someone copying your content, you should report it to Google).

8. Violating privacy

Please don't publish someone's confidential details without that person's express permission. Posting other people's credit card numbers, phone numbers, contact information, and other such private information is against Google's policies, and must be avoided.

9. Impersonation

Stealing someone else's identity and impersonating someone is a crime punishable by imprisonment and/or fine. For example, pretending to be someone else, or using their aliases is not OK.

10. Spam

Spam is something not appreciated by Google, or any other search engine for that matter.Google is forever trying hard to keep spam out of its system. It rolls out algorithmic updates regularly, and does not appreciate it when you start spamming.

11. Malware

Virus and malware isn't something users appreciate. That is why Google takes initiatives to keep malware out of its system. If your site is infected by a virus, you should check it out immediately. If you are involved with spreading malware more than once, then you run the risk of inadvertently getting banned by Google.

Please note that there might be a few exceptions to these rules due to educational, scientific or artistic considerations. These exceptions are made when there is a benefit gained by the public from such information. Otherwise, blogs with such content will be banned or deleted. So always play safe. And remember! When in doubt, always ask. We're here to help :)

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Introducing Pro Blogger's Kitchen!

As a single watchman of your entire website, you often fail to reach your blog audience in every single post. With growing readership, comes a great responsibility. The reason people subscribe you is because they love your work and they expect a lot of help from you. In my case, I found it almost impossible to do justice with readers' queries. I fail to reach every single  reader because dozens of comments are posted every day. It takes a lot of time to load each page and post a response. Sometimes replying comments takes more than 2 hours. Therefore we thought of a way that could significantly help just not us but everyone of you in the way you help out and reach your blog readers. To counter this growing author-reader communication gap the idea of a Kitchen hit my mind!

What Exactly is a Blogger's Kitchen?

Of course a kitchen is a place where you cook delicious recipes and it's a place which every member of the family loves to visit! Similarly a Pro blogger's kitchen would consist of a combination of posts where each post would address a separate [Topic] recipe! Confused ? let me explain:

Your blog is made up of categories that describe your niche. For example here at MBT our main categories/recipes are:

1. SEO
2. SMO
3. Web Hosting
4. Template Customization
5. Copyrights Violation
6. Advertising networks

Our readers often have several questions in mind and each question deserve an answer but unfortunately due to tough schedule, we often fail to address every single problem. To help out all such visitors with their queries and to interact more actively with our readers, we are introducing the idea of a Kitchen with recipes. We will publish a total of 5-7 Posts, where each post would have a specific Topic/Recipe. Readers would be allowed to ask questions related to that topic alone. Off-topic questions will be straight forwardly deleted and never answered. We will be answering questions posted in these 5-7 recipe posts on daily basis. The priority of such questions would be even higher than the client emails that we receive daily. No question would be left unanswered and spammers would be strictly treated. Comments with irrelevant content and signature links will be deleted and only those comments would be replied that are related to the topic of the kitchen. It would be more like an Open Question/Answer forum. These recipe posts will have a lifetime free help and consultancy support!

Why are we so excited about this new strategy?

Innovation and creativity is at its boom in blogosphere these days. Traditional blogging techniques of a dull black and grey text content is no more a hobby of interest. Readers demand both unique and quality content as well as 24/7 help and support forum.

Previously bloggers would often create a forum to help their readers but forums for me at least requires more careful watch as compared to a blog and is Spammers favorite party spot. After carefully monitoring the suggestions received by my fellow blog mates, I dropped the idea of a forum and have started the idea of such kitchen with recipes that will surely change the way a blog author communicate with his audience. Related questions on one page would help both the commentator and the guest with tones of new ideas and troubleshooting techniques. With such platform, we can really hope to help more and more people resulting in an ever growing referral readership. Happy readers means growing traffic, backlinks, page impressions, pageviews and a happy lucrative income!

How to set up your Blog's kitchen?

Your kitchen should be based on your core blog categories that define the overall purpose of your blog. Create at most 5-7 such Recipes [Question/Answer Posts] and  inform your readers to ask for quick help and support through these kitchen doorways only. Do visit these posts once every 24 hours and make sure you reply each and every comment.

Write down strict rules for commenting because they really help to foster a healthy discussion and saves time.

How would such a Kitchen Outstand you from others?

What readers like most is free help and suggestions rather than daily dose of new posts. If you are only posting on daily basis but not interacting with your readers then you are actually doing nothing unique! Start getting more creative with your work and let your readers trust you more and more. A healthy communication between an author and visitor guarantee far bigger surprises than your expectations. Kindly stop building traffic alone and instead start building readers, verily your loyal readers are your true treasure.

Our Kitchen Recipes

Following is the complete list of Question/Answer forums we will be publishing:

1. Questions & Answers » Recipe: SEO

2. Questions & Answers » Recipe: SMO

3. Questions & Answers » Recipe: Web Hosting

4. Questions & Answers » Recipe: Template Customization

5. Questions & Answers » Recipe: Google AdSense

6. Questions & Answers » Recipe: Copyrights Violation

I will be publishing each of these recipes one by one and would keep your informed through the notification bar.

Recipe Description:

1. Recipe: SEO

All questions related to on-page and off-page optimization from your webmaster account, robot meta tags, robot.text entries, link attributes till your Blogger search preferences settings would be discussed here. Complete technical help related to all your search engine optimization problems would be provided in this forum.

2. Recipe: SMO

SMO stands for social media optimization. If plugins such us Pinterest, Facebook Like buttons, Google+ buttons are not picking the right thumbnail image or description snippet etc. then you can find solutions to all your problems here. You can also ask questions related to installing or customizing MBT "Social Sharing" plugins and widgets here.

3. Recipe: Web Hosting

All your Hostgator or Godaddy problems would be solved here. Complete help will be provide to solve technical errors related to DNS settings, cPanel, phpMyAdmin, Domain hosting, file storage, Database Backup, sub domain creation and what not!

4. Recipe: Template Customization

If you are using MBT Template or any widget and need help related to its customization or debugging, then this is the place where you should contact us. All web designing stuff here!

5. Recipe: Google AdSense

AdSense being the first source of earning for any newbie blogger therefore causes a lot of troubles to some.  If you have any questions related to Adsense Policy, Ad display limitations, Best performing Ad locations and formats, adsense TOS violation etc. then you must join the party here.

6. Recipe: Copyrights Violation

Has someone stolen your content and not compromising? Or if you are confused which act of yours could cause you great troubles, then this is the place where you may clear all your doubts and learn effective ways of punching the violator the TRUE way!

 

Comment Policy

Following comments will be deleted or marked as spam:

1. OFF TOPIC questions
2. Blog promotion
3. Signature links with irrelevant feedback like "Thank you" , "Great work" etc. with no sensible question.

Simple and straight!

Want any Recipe to be included?

I have covered almost all categories that describe MBT. Details of all such recipes would be further given in their respective posts. If in case you think I have missed any important category then please do us a favor and suggest your proposed recipes which should be included in the list.

Ready to start cooking?

I hope this new idea may help all of us to turn our blogs into more interesting and productive community.  For all our dedicated readers, whose comments were never replied, now you have a good reason to start hitting us with as many queries as possible. It would be my greatest pleasure to help you all without any favor in return.

So have you started thinking of your very own kitchen? Do you have any other creative ideas to execute this plan much more effectively? Kindly post your queries and help us fulfill this purpose with great responsibility. Keep good care of yourselves buddies. Peace and blessings always! :)

---

For spammers: If you just want to thank us or say great post, then that cute little dustbin awaits your comment! :>

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Mohammad Chose Blogger, I Chose Hacking

An inspiring story by Rafay Baloch from RafayHackingArticles. Dating back to 2009 when I first met this guy.  

---

Well, this post is not  an ordinary one that talks about "Making Six Figure Income Online" or making millions from blogging, it rather contains some interesting piece of advices for Novice Bloggers and also the Ninjas out there who are struggling hard to survive online.  It all started, when Mohammad and I met back in 2009 in a Snooker Club. We both were interested in blogging and Internet Marketing, so we therefore had arranged a meeting in order to share our existing blogging strategies.

A Challenge that Changed our lives

No work looks interesting unless you are fueled with the requirement amount of passion and motivation. Our meeting did not only increase our learning but set us viral with new online goals that were yet to achieve. We had a long argument about blogging niche. Mohammad was in favor of a niche that was well accepted by Ad networks and that guaranteed great reputation online both in the eyes of search engines and readers. He hated and still hates niches that promote explicit, racial, political and malicious content. Hacking according to him was a topic that could never be accepted online by sponsors, no matter how pure or ethical it may get. To some extent, all that he believed was true and still holds it sanctity. My blog on hacking never succeeded with Adsense, Infolinks or BuySellAds.  So my earning from all these sources were nil despite receiving millions of views per month and with over thousands of readers (23K RSS Readers + 18K Facebook Fans).

On the flip side, my opinion was that one could blog on anything he likes even hacking as long as he know how to market things properly. For me, security related stuff is no less than an addiction. I could not give up with the blog just because Ad networks were not accepting my niche.

Mustafa challenged that I could not make any kind of profit from my hacking blog, On contrary I challenged him that it's not possible to take MBT to the next level with so many Competitors around who are continuously publishing tons of widgets, templates and blogger related tutorials. I also challenged him that your blog will never get below 10k Alexa because it requires a lot of Traffic momentum. I still remember Mohammad's blog was having 100,000 Alexa rank at that time. Mohammad on contrary argued that almost anything could be achieved as long as you serve the blogosphere with something new and fresh. About Alexa, he quoted its all a game of playing with algorithm.

So, we both started working harder to prove our claims. I was earning nothing back in 2009, so I decided to study the strategies used by Six Figure Bloggers to make money online. I subscribed to all the big blogs and read their e-books, here is the interesting part of all of them, they never relied upon Ads! AdSense was never their primary earning source and most of them even didn't even use AdSense. If you observe their blogs [John Chow (Johnchow.com), Darren Rowse (Problogger.net),  Neil Patel (Quick Sprout)], you will find no Google Ads. They work on a more interesting strategy that is no less than a magic ball for many professional bloggers today.

 

So, How Did They Made Money?

 

You might be wondering that how do they make Six Figures from their blog without using adsense, Well their are a lot of answers to it. Mainly, they focus on two important things:

1. Building Readership

2. Selling Product.

 

1. Building A Readership

 

If you have a good readership you are not at the mercy of  Google, John chow's blog was really affected with Panda and Pengiun, but his earning did not drop, because he had built a strong readership. He has more than 250000 active daily visitors on his blog. Take a look at problogger.net, His blog has more than 168k daily RSS Subscribers, 178k+  twitter followers, so even if Google knocks his blog completely off, he would still make a decent amount of money. That's one reason why Mohammad emphasizes on the importance of Readership so much.

2. Selling The Product

 

Now all of these Six Figure bloggers have something in common, they have their own product and they are using their readership to market their products, Even if 10% of their readers buy their products, it's enough to make them more than Six figures. Along with it, you would see all these six figure bloggers, market each other's product. Which also explains the idea of co-operation to make more profits.

So, I applied their strategies, I started with Affiliate Marketing, where I sold keyloggers, Spywares to my blog readers, by writing a review about all of them, I chose Clickbank and Plimus as a platform for Affiliate Marketing. I was earning pretty good amount of money each and every month by marketing other  products related to my niche. However, as the competition grew larger, every one started copying our ideas of marketing the same products, I saw a significant drop in my earnings. So I used their second strategy to create my own Product.

Around August 2010, I finished writing my first eBook "A Beginners Guide To Ethical Hacking", and managed to launch it that very month. Next, I used their first strategy of building a readership, i started writing articles frequently and saw a significant increase in my blog's traffic, Next i started interacting with bloggers in my niche, i offered my affiliate program to the people in my niche. To bloggers with significant traffic, I offered them 60% of the share and to small scale bloggers I offered 50% of the share. After few months i had more than 100 affiliates, thus I started earning more!

Along with it, I signed up for advertising networks infolinks.com, chitika.com and sharecash.org, My traffic was more than 24k unique visitors, so I was making a huge profit with them.

But, suddenly things changed, I was struck with Panda effect, My blog's traffic dropped by 60%. I was also banned by infolinks, chitika.com and sharecash.org for serving hacking content. All of them asked me to remove the content, which i couldn't since i worked really hard on them. That's where Mohammad proved right to a bit. And all of sudden i was left at the mercy of my book "A Beginners Guide To Ethical hacking', So i stopped blogging for a month and started working on my new product, "Facebook Hacking Course", I finished it at the end of the month, Since my traffic was not really huge at that time, i did not had that much sales as i expected, but it was decent enough to make me good amount of money at the end of the month.

Next, i decided to write another free book, to convert my blog in to a brand, I wrote "An Introduction to keylogger, RATS And Malware" at the end of the year 2011. I promoted my affiliate products under that book and it worked wonders! That books are my biggest source of earning today along with an additional earning source called "Awards"

 

The Year 2012

 

Year 2012 was not a good year for me, I was struck with penguin effect, My traffic dropped again, So, i decided to work on improving my skills. I started writing more and more and on the other hand tried to practice what i learned. Around September 2012, I decided to take part in Bug bounty Programs and responsible disclosure programs of Internationally recognized companies like Microsoft, Ebay, Apple etc. The idea behind it is that you would need to find vulnerabilities in their websites and they would reward you for your discovery by either paying you a bug bounty or either adding you to a responsible disclosure page.

I started with Microsoft and got listed in it's responsible disclosure, The first listing was very difficult but it got easier and easier for me, I managed to get listed in more than 14 responsible disclosure pages within the time span of 3.5 months. Some notable disclosure pages are as follows:

Microsoft Security Researchers Award

 

I have been Acknowledged by Microsoft three times for findings various vulnerabilities in their websites:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/cc308575.aspx (August)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/cc308589.aspx (October)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/cc308589.aspx (November)

Acknowledgement From Eset Antivirus Company

 

Dear Mr. Baloch, ESET Security team would like to officially thank for reporting security vulnerabilities on webpage www.eset.tw on October 14, 2012. We acknowledge that Mr. Rafay Baloch, RHA has reported following vulnerabilities: Stored XSS vulnerability SQL injection vulnerability Your information has helped us and our partner responsible for the site to improve security of online services and has prevented malicious exploitation of these vulnerabilities. As a part of official gratitude we would like to provide you license for ESET Smart Security. Please let us know the e-mail address where we can send You the license information.

s pozdravom /

best regards

Daniel Chromek

CISA, CISM, CISSP, MBCI Chief Information Security Officer

Adobe Security Acknowledgments

http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/securityacknowledgments.html

 

Ebay Responsible Disclosure Page

Reported an XSS in Ebay, bypassed their security filters to make the vulnerability work:

http://pages.ebay.com/securitycenter/ResearchersAcknowledgement.html

 

 

$5000 Award from Paypal

Update: The price Reward has been increased to $10,000 now. :)

I started participating in Paypal bug bounty program around the mid of September, I started hunting bugs, at first it got duplicate, however, one day while i was hunting for vulnerabilities  in Paypal, I managed to find a huge vulnerability in Paypal i.e. Remote Code Execution, which managed me to run any command on Paypal's Server.
Initially Paypal has payed me 5000$, along with 1000$ for reporting other vulnerabilities such as XSS and information disclosure. Here is the screenshot:

Along with it, paypal also offered me job as a security engineer a.k.a Security Ninja, However, I am not planning to work for them at the moment, as my bachelors is currently in progress.

 

So Who Won?

It's the last month of 2012 and around 3 years have passed since we first met. Fortunately neither Mohammad could prove me wrong completely nor I could win over him. He is now running one of the most widely read blogs in Blogging niche with thousands of followers, contributors, resources and amazingly a Google blog that has the highest Alexa Rank i.e 6K out of millions of Google hosted Blogs. MBT is the only unofficial blogger blog with the highest Alexa rank mashAllah. His blog is now DMOZ listed and a repository of hundreds of creative plugins and widgets. He is still a loving friend and a dedicated blogger.

On the other hand, I succeeded in keeping honor of my claim by turning my simple blog into a lucrative Online Income engine. RHA blog is now read widely throughout India, USA and Pakistan. All its earnings are from ebook sales, product reviews and affiliate sales, with not a single Ad from any of the widely renown Contextual Ad networks (AdSense).

I would accept today that hacking wont get you accepted with Adsense or Chitika but if its your only passion and you have a strong belief that your skills can contribute to the online community then just don't stop and give it a go. Search engines do index content generously irrespective of the niche. So blog on anything as long as you know how to market it.

Message To Upcoming Hackers

 

My message to the ones who have just stepped up in this field is that there is nothing wrong in learn hacking techniques, what makes it wrong is the way you use it. There is a misconception among people that hackers have good jobs overseas, this is all wrong, if you associate the word hacker with your name then no organization will hire you. As they would think that you might be posing risk to their organization. Don't run after fame, it will just be for sometime.
Instead if you are really interested in pursuing your career in information security, I would suggest you to build your skills. Go after some certifications such as CISSP, CEH, CPTE etc. And start using your skills to help organizations make themselves secure, by reporting it to them.

Final Advice

 

My final advice to every one is not to run after money or fame, It will eventually come to you, Just focus on building your skills. Neither Mohammad nor I blogged for income, what we aimed at was readership. People follow you only when you offer something worth reading. I wish you all the best with your future endeavors and hope that this little post may motivate you to trigger your online journey right today. Jump inside the ring to battle the big giants out there who are still missing a great contender. Leaving you with this beautiful quote. 

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character. – Horace Greeley

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The Terrible Exams are Finally Over!

It feels like someone has dragged me out of a big mountain. I feel like I am literally breathing again! I called it terrible because they really were terrible! :p I am pursuing B.E in Computer and Information System Engineering and just attended exams of 6th semester, 2 more semesters to go after which (Graduation) I would have enough time to groom STC Network. As a student its tough to look after an online business which demands both time and care. Working online today with an increasing competition and rapidly changing moods of online traffic, you can not let your blogs run on auto-pilot mode even if it is managed by your employees. Exams for me mean a complete 40 days ban on all online activities. No clients, no engagement with readers (through blog, fan pages, phone calls or email), no product promotion, no posting, no technical learning, no innovation and no implementation of developed skills. It does not only effect the revenue but also skill productivity.

I am extremely thankful to our co-author Qasim who managed both the blogs on my behalf because both Nida and I were having exams so could not work effectively. I would also thank all our readers who maintained visiting the blog and kept motivating the authors. Since I am free now, I will be sharing what I have planned for this winter and would also suggest some tasks to those of you who are also on their academic vocations.

Do Exams cause Business loss?

Of course they do too badly!

This month, one of the biggest opportunity that I lost was utilizing the benefits of the Black Friday Discount Tsunami everywhere starting from web hosting companies, eBook marketing, social media services, merchandise and what not.  Sales this year were as much as 50%, which is the best concession one could get in order to buy a new webhosting and share some great benefits of the sales with friends and readers. This one day of Discount Tsunami was an excellent period for web Marketers to invest and multiply the coins. I wish all the best for those who acted quickly on it and made good use of the sales both for themselves and their following.

Another great loss were the product reviews, web services and SEO consultancy. Providing SEO advises and technical help via Skype is something that I frequently do and we started this service 7 months ago as a separate package and it feels great to help most of our readers this way.  Due to tough Exam schedule I had to abandon it temporarily for 40 days but fortunately I am back on duty now.

In short a business gets effected in every aspect during exams unless you have prepared for it with careful planning. To understand how to manage a blog during exams do check the following post which has some great tips and recipes:

• Read: Managing a blog during exams - The Recipe

For a complete list of the services we offer please visit: MBT Services

What are the plans?

Since I am free for a month with no studies, I will be working on some new scripts and would try to improve my skills of PHP and Jquery development. I will be sharing more plugins and widgets to help you customize your blogs as much as possible. My main focus would be readers this time with no intention of taking new projects. I will try to receive as much queries as possible and help you with your problems the best I can. I will make sure to design some new templates, icons and buttons and avail them on free download. We hope to have great time working together as usual inshAllah.

How can you Turn your Vocations into Income?

For those of you who wish to start an online career. I think vocations are a great advantage in turning this wish into a golden future. You may utilize this time by learning and implementing. The more creative you become, the richer you become as a recourse to the online community. Internet is an open and generous space for all those who wish to contribute by working hard. The only requirement for a lucrative income online is quality skills. The better you work on your skills the better you contribute and higher you get paid.

For starters and even those who are following us for long we would suggest the followings:

1#  Learn every bit of SEO

Understand how search engines index and crawl web pages. Without traffic no business online can survive and neither do bloggers like us may breath. It's the key to Making Money Online without any doubts!

I personally follow the web sources below to keep myself updated about Search Algorithms, Search Engines tips and updates:

1. Google Webmaster Blog -
2. Videos by Google - From the famous web spam head : The Funny Matt Cutts
3. Google Help Forum
4. SearchEngineLand - For News and updates
5. SEOMOZ 
6. You don't need to look anywhere else other than the ones mentioned above! :)

Don't forget to read:

• SEO in 10 Minutes by Google
• 10 WhiteHat SEO Tips by Matt Cutts

2#  Build web designing skills

It has now become a must for every website owner to have some basic skills of photo editing, HTML and CSS. Things look good and attract customers only when they are presented well.  Online traffic today doesn't only look for quality content but also for a well presented content. You must know how to customize your webpages and make them appealing so that the first visitors to your page may turn out into a Fan or customer.

There are few resources that I would like to recommend:

1. You Must Read: SIX FIGURE EARNING
2. w3schools.com - the best website to learn CSS & HTML or almost any script or language

3#  Keep Reading

Understand how websites generate traffic - Get familiar with all sources like Search engines, Social Media Networks, Article Directories, Forums, Blogs etc.

• You Must Read: 3 Learning Stages to Become a Professional Blogger

Also read how you can work from home by joining freelancing sites. You may read about all such stuff on our blogs both at MBT and SEM

• Read: 10 sites you must join to work from home

I want to hear about you all!

Follow these three things sincerely buddies just during this month and trust me you will find tons of opportunities next year waiting for you. Do not worry about earning, earning will follow you itself once you develop your skills. Earning looks good with a Geek but never with a Noob, so realize this thing buddies and always value learning over your natural lust for bucks. I just hope I have not left out anything and have shared all that I know to the best of my ability. It feels great when I see MBT readers running their own blogs successfully and acting as a rich resource to everyone. This makes me feel really happy because that is what I always aimed for. I want everyone of you to go far ahead of anyone you may know in your niche and let me feel proud always. My job is guiding you as a friend and brother how to swim but you will have to dive yourself.

So tell me what were you all up to and what exciting news would you like to share. Update me with your blog rankings, readership and learning goals.I wish you all the best in life and a great future ahead. Peace and blessings pals! :)

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5 Tips To Win A Job As Freelancer For Beginners

Hi guys. A couple of days back, i wrote a post Blogger Or A FreeLancer? Time To Choose. It was one of my favorite post all time, as i love to compare things. So for today, i thought why not to get into the freelancing world.



Free lancing can be a true heaven, if you start getting jobs. At the end of the day, that's all what matters, right? So i got couple of points which would definitely help you earn jobs on any free lancing website, whether it be eLance, Freelancer etc. These points are basically natural facts that we need to take care of, while we bid for any job.



First simply think, that what if you need to hire somebody. What qualities would you like to be displayed in the  proposal. For me, these are the most important things that i would be impressed to see in a job application, that i get.

#1 Be Natural

See to me, a person that would work for me should be honest and should not make out something hes not. So, i would recommend to write the bid proposal in first person. Like (I would love to work for you...etc). This gives out a positive impression and seems like as if the person is in fact interacting with me, live.



Be polite, and simply mention what you are.

#2 Point Out Your Time Management Qualities

You need to make out this part, if its not build in your personality. Just mention it. You see, many job authors likes that confirmation, that they would get the job done in the said time. That just helps to gain some extra believe.



Tell the person that you would be there for him and could be flexible to the job posting timing. Make him feel comfortable to provide you the job.

#3 Bid Low, But Not That Low!

What many beginners do is that they often bid pretty low for the jobs. Though this seems positive to gain a job, but in real world that can put a negative impression too. See, we are dealing with real people and not robots. So by biding too low, the job poster would loose trust in you as he may feel that you are incompetent and are begging for the job.



So bid a little lower than the average bids around. Bidding in fact varies from job to job. Though this wont apply all the time. The real mirror of you skill would be your strong portfolio. So keep it up.

#4 Make Your Email Subject Spicy

This applies to every email we send. People often get so many emails each day. So its the subject, that sells out. Otherwise, your email would get under all those thousands of emails, that the person gets each day.



Let the subject be like:



You Wont Find a Better Technology writer than me- 100% Guaranteed



Got the idea? Just make them chilly so that the person is compelled to click it. Like most of those pop up ads.(They are crazy..hate 'em)

#5 Single Look Killer Portfolio

Though i plan to cover the portfolio part in my coming post, but its important to mention it as its the vital part of getting the job on free lancing sites. Its basically who you are. Don't hesitate to mention where you have worked before. Mention all those blogs where you appeared as a guest author. Thats your plus!



Mention your writing experience numerically. That gives a positive impression.( but only if it is worth mentioning time span :)



Do add pictures/videos to further strengthen your portfolio. Attach a sample article picture with you proposal. Media always creates bridge between the two parties. Its always a good move to portray your self online.



So generally, free lancer success is wrapped up in how he deals with the Job author. Its a one on one relationship. Hope it helped to get some idea. Do share your experience and knowledge over gaining more jobs as a freelancer.



Cheers..

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Guest Post by Hassam Ahmad Awan. MBT's Gold Star Guest Author.

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6 Qualities Of a Professional Blogger

Hope you all are doing well and ready to check our new post. I have talked about the success secrets of Steve Jobs and social networking websites but nothing particular for our respected readers. So, I have decided to sort out some points which can be applicable to any quality maintained blog. Applying these few quality elements to your habits will surely let you stand out as an author and then blogger. We will start with simple points and then will move on to comparatively challenging tricks.

 

1. No duplication of content:

The very first and the basic point to remember is originality of the content. Here, I would like to share my experience about my recent post. When I mailed it to Mohammad, he simply asked to rewrite my first paragraph. I was surprised because it was a definition and I thought that we can take definitions from any other blog or website. But, he explained me that this harms the blog and is not allowed. So, you see… how careful you need to be for your content.

2. No for granted terms:

Do not take any of the terms for granted, especially those appearing in your topic. If I am a layman, and I have accidentally come across your blog, don’t let me feel that your blog is not for me. No one likes to feel himself/herself as ignorant. For example, if you are writing a post about “Android Applications”, explain ‘what is android’ first, and then continue with your idea. It is a good practice to explain clearly, what you are going to talk about.

3. Lighten the stress:

Try making your readers feel as comfortable as possible. This point is especially for techies. If you are publishing any of your new code or tip etc, try to present it as if it’s nothing difficult. Use simple and plain language for its description, so the reader does not feel exhausted and do not lose the interest.
Secondly, use images that go with your color scheme and can give a lightening effect to your post. I like the image selection of MBT very much. The images are always light colored with most of the time white background.

 

4. Intelligent use of shapes and colors:

Look around yourself; you will see colors and shapes everywhere. Either, directly or indirectly, they convey us some messages and amazingly, we understand them. Or our subconscious have associated some meanings with them. This is the reason why favorite colors are asked in personality tests.
For example, think of green...What it brings into your mind??? Nature… trees...grass? A refreshing effect? Okay...Now think of blue… what comes into your mind? It will definitely be water, sea or sky. A serene effect indeed. A concept of vastness…beyond any limitation? And you can do the same with other colors… red, yellow, white etc, to feel their effects.
So hopefully, you are getting my point that you can use colors to reinforce your blog theme. Same is the case with shapes and symbols. Geometric shapes like circle, square, triangle represents organization, structure and of course they make one feel formal. Other shapes which are natural, with more curves and are uneven. They give some pleasant effect and add interest.

5. Embed Entertainment:

How would you feel if you enter a website and it asks you to set background music of your choice? When you read some posts there and it offers you to download some free wallpapers, widgets, plug-ins or even templates? Or it gives you a bonus trick /tip because you have earned some points? Won’t you find it different from the one that just publish posts? Of course, you will .So, be honest … do you really think that this blog can’t be yours?

6. Spread your word:

Don’t restrict yourself to your own website only. Join social networking websites for promotion of your blog. Also, practice guest posting on other websites. So, if anyone likes your posts he/she could follow you on your blog.

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Guest post by Aiman Khan. MBT"s regular contributor

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Blogger Or A FreeLancer? Time To Choose

Hello guys. The post today is extremely interesting and was in fact the topic that was bugging me from quite a while. Straight away. Blogger or a Free lancer? It could get difficult to decide ones side hobby for your self. A hobby that can make a difference in your life, in the future.



The purpose of this post is to differentiate between Blogging and Free Lancing Carriers. Both are great. But both are not for every body. Indeed you have to work hard to get to an appreciable point, whether in blogging or freelancing. It is said:

Being an entrepreneur is about living a few years of your life like most wont, so that you can live the rest like most can’t.

Blogging is when you start a blog, on a topic that you could write the most. And yeah note that free lancing can be of many types. Like you could be a free lancer for 3d Modelling, coding or making  iPhone applications. So its totally up to you. But for the sake of this post, i would be comparing the writing carriers, as blogging is entirely a writing carrier, where you have to speak up your mind through words.





So lets see if you want to differentiate between a blogger and an article writer as a free lancer. For the ones who don't know Freelancing, its basically working for people online for their set jobs. The most popular freelancing sites are Elance and Freelancer.



You search for the topics that you are interested to write on, and you would get different jobs, posted by other people. A person starts by biding on the job while keeping in mind other bids people have already made. Like say, the job poster mentioned his budget range for which he can hire writers. Say (500-1000$). Now people would bid. Each job on Elance has the highest, Average and lowest bid shown with it.



So starters usually bid low, so that they could get the job easily.  Each freelancer has his own portfolio (profile page) from which his expertise can be judged. So this is a general background of freelancing.



Lets compare blogging and freelancing now.

The Final Show Down

As you read the Top 10 earning blogs in 2011 list yesterday, you get an idea what ill be talking about later in this post. See, blogging can be more challenging then free lancing career. The actual results that you start to get for a particular blog is no less than 6-8 months. And this period is of extreme posting with proper SEO. Other wise it could take an year to just start getting the feel of blogging.



As building traffic is hard to achieve and requires true level of commitment, you wont be getting any sum of money before a whole dry year. An extremely boring one. You would almost leave blogging on every day that you rise. Its just how it goes. But the ones who stick to it, get what most cant.



On the other hand, setting up an Elance account takes less than an hour, with your all portfolio set. You bid for jobs and mostly you get few within 7-15 days period. Depending upon your profile and biding rates.

You would have written hundreds of quality articles on your blog, but you wont be getting any sum before a proper year of handwork. Where as, people on Elance offer 20-40$ for a single quality article that the writer writes. So just say you could make fast money while free lancing, supposing your portfolio is a good one.



On the other hand, most of us got our first Adsense cheques 6-8 months after we started blogging. So blogging is not a fast way to get into money business, but indeed it grows exponentially in later years. This is the power of blogging.



Where as on Elance, you might make a hell lot more than you would in first year of blogging, still that would be it. We in fact cant judge blogging and freelancing carries right away as it depends upon every individual that what suites best for him. But just to note, that you cant make those 22,000$ each day with freelancing profile that you could get in blogging carrier.

So it depends what level of targets you have set for your selves. Personally to me, freelancing really attracts and i know i could make more than 500$ a month without a problem, but still i believe on the power of blogging. :) Its just me.



So guys, Blogging or Freelancing?

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Guest Post by Hassam Ahmad Awan. MBT's Gold Star Guest Author.

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Attention: Guest Posting Now Accepted at MBT

This is an important opportunity for all those who wish to gain exposure in blogosphere by sharing their thought provoking posts with technology lovers. I am having exams in November so MBT will be set in auto posting and guest posting mode. Hassam Ahmad Awan has been chosen by us as our senior Contributor and Guest post Moderator. He will have complete Guest authoring authority. He is indeed a capable and smooth writer with tons of brilliant ideas in his mind. I am sure he will better entertain you during the month of November. If you wish to submit your guest post then you can email us the doc version of your post at mustafa.stc AT Gmail. Authors are informed of the following guest posting guidelines and conditions:

Guest Posting Conditions and Guidelines

1. Your post must be of at least 500 words
2. The post must be unique in every regard, free of duplicate content and must follow copyright laws.
3. Old Blogger tutorials and technology news will not be accepted.
4. Standard English Grammar rules must be fulfilled
5. Link builders are not welcomed here. Any duplicated article or choppy paragraphed article will be trashed. All posts are thoroughly scanned by copycat web software. Any copied paragraph if found will be considered as violation of copyrights. No future posts will be accepted from the same author and no MBT resources will be shared with him.
6. Authors will be granted a link to their homepages with one line introduction at the end of the Guest post.
7. Topics on the following categories will be accepted: Google Blogger, Web designing (CSS, HTML, JQuery, Javascript), Social Media News, Facebook, Google Plus and Blogging on smart phones.

If you managed to fulfill all these simple general rules then you are welcomed to post at MBT a thousand times and we promise to treat you the best we can.

This blog is surely yours buddies and I wish to help you out as much as you helped me with your consistent motivation and feedback. The only thing I request is obedience to these general rules because I often receive several guest posting requests but it hurts me badly when I discover that the post is a stolen one. The internet has surely become wide enough but there still exist easy ways of tracking the original source of the sent content.

I am suffering from some health issues and need your help in this time of need. Please come up with brilliant and worth sharing ideas and I will be more than pleased to share it with everyone. Need your prayers for my exams and apologies for slow replies to your queries. I will continue posting till 1st of November after which the responsibility will be taken completely by Hassam and you all. May peace and mercy of the Gracious lord be on all of you brothers.

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How To Find Sponsors For Your Blog?

To answer this question first and foremost ask yourselves why should an advertiser choose your blog? why Should he spend money by advertising his product on your site? What benefits or to be more precise what value does your blog provides to the sponsor? How can you guarantee that his product wont get neglected if he chooses to buy an Ad Spot on your blog? Too many questions but a simple logical answer to all of them and that is provide him with Quality. Read on to understand this logic.

 

What do Advertisers Look For in your Blog?

The biggest misconception in the minds of web owners and newbie bloggers is that if you have consistent and huge amount of traffic then you are the Man!. The bigger your traffic value the hotter your pockets. Yes that is true but for AdSense alone. The fact for direct Sponsors is entirely different from this propagated set of thinking.

Advertising services like Chitika, Adsense and Infolinks require nothing from you except huge flow of traffic. You surely earn more when you receive great amount of traffic because your Click through rate (CTR) depends on the number of unique visitors and page views made per day. So if Adsense is happy with you then does this means that even Buysellads will give you a thumbs up? The answer is a straight no!

BuysellAds is an advertising service which connects Publishers directly with advertisers. You create Ad Spots on your blog and sponsors come and buy that spot from you. BuysellAds unlike Adsense gives importance to a lot of factors which in order of decreasing importance are:

1. Alexa Rank ($$ Most Important)
2. Subscribers and Facebook Likes (Readers)
3. Page Impressions (Traffic)
4. PageRank (Trust)

As you can see clearly Alexa holds the most important position followed by your readership no matter whether they are RSS readers or Facebook followers. Page Impressions give an idea of how much traffic you are receiving. If your Page Impressions are greater than 100,000 then it means you are receiving 5000+ pageviews daily which means 2000+ visitors per day. Finally comes the PageRank which has the least importance in the eyes of Advertiser.  Lets now discuss in detail why Alexa is  so much important?

Why Advertisers Value Alexa so much?

Alexa is an algorithm which is based on the use of Alexa toolbar. This toolbar provides hottest news headlines around the globe and provides you with easy shortcuts to important websites and social networks and resources. That's why it is so popular. Bloggers and journalists often get topic ideas from the news headlines popping in their Alexa bar. This Toolbar is different from any other toolbar. It also tracks which websites are you viewing and how much time are you spending browsing different sites and blogs.  If you have Alexa toolbar installed and you are reading my blog then indirectly you are benefiting me by telling Alexa team "Hey I like MBT Please rank it higher!" and when more and more people visit my blog provided that they have Alexa toolbar installed, I rank higher and higher. As simple as that.

Quick Note: Alexa Rank is good when it is low and bad when it is high. A Blog With Alexa Rank 10k means that only 10,000 websites are better than it. A blog with Alexa Rank 100K means that around 100,000 websites are better than it. A site with Alexa Rank 1 or 2 means that it is the best site found online. No website is better than the one with Alexa Rank 1.0. So a smaller Alexa Rank means higher ranking.

Alexa tells advertiser whether a site is receiving quality traffic or not. By quality traffic I mean people having good tech knowledge, people who enjoy shopping online and people who enjoy reading about new and latest technology updates. These are the people Advertisers are looking for! Alexa toolbar as I said is usually used by webmasters, web owners, journalists, bloggers, technology analysts and everyone who loves being techy.

Alexa does not depend on how much visitors you receive daily. You can receive thousands of visitors per day and yet having an Alexa rank of 100k (Not Good) and someone else could be receiving just 1000-2000 visitors per day and still having an Alexa Rank of less than 15K(Great).

How come Traffic is not important?

It is but Traffic is not the sole backbone of a successful blog. If you have no readership and site rankings but still receiving thousands of visitors per day then your site offer no value to the sponsor. Why? Because it is mostly your blog readers that buy a product after you recommend it and it is usually your shining Alexa Rank that tells a Sponsor "Dude I offer people with credit cards!" If your Alexa Rank is 50k or above then it means that most of your traffic or general audience are teenagers and college boys, surfing for fun and entertainment with no intention to shop online. Thus offering no returns to the sponsor.

You can find a lot of blogs with tons of daily visitors and even good PageRank but with no impressive Alexa rank. The answer as I said lies in offering quality and not quantity. Blogs with no readership, Facebook followers and rankings such as PR and Alexa, offer no value to the advertiser.

How To Improve Blog Rankings then?

Write less but write best. Do not spam search engines with short and duplicated content. Most technology blogs share the same summarized content and circulate it by writing the same post in short paragraphs. Write for your readers and force them to stumble and bookmark your content. Do not worry about Revenue during the initial one year of your career and do not add too many Ads on your blogs. Attract and keep attracting loyal readers for continuous one year. Write at least two posts per day and add social media buttons every where on your blog. Keep post frequency constant and keep tracking your Alexa Rank. Build your network and expand your circle. Do exchange links but at most with 5 quality bloggers. Write unique posts with at least 300 words to avoid Google panda effect.

Final Advice

No one can claim to be successful because there are always bigger names ahead of you but do always keep a closer look on what they do and learn from them. Be polite in tone and always consider yourself a student and never a master. Be patient because a fruitful result does demand time. Give your self a one year of struggling period and track your performance consistently. Do not give up hope if you loose a Rank, just keep posting regularly and write on new and latest topics. Think of what Internet audience would like and always write on current happenings. When Christmas is near then write on posts related to Christmas and when EID is near then write on things that would attract Muslim visitors. 

Genius are you my friend! Just realize your inner strength and potential and utilize your time smartly. May you achieve what you always dreamt for. Wishing you love, peace and a happy successful life online. Peace buddies! :>

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