In this latest article I am going to give you 2 great tips for finding backlinks. If you have been doing any backlinking for your sites, you will have quickly realised how difficult it can be to find decent blogs to comment on. Once you have developed a plan though it will definitely get easier.

If you have read any of my previous backlinking articles, then you should have gleaned the following 2 suggestions.

1) Do not be overly concerned with finding only high PR places to backlink from. At the end of the day all backlinks count, no matter what their PR value (and PR only counts for Google anyway, the other search engines don’t care).

2) Do not worry about trying to find only links that are not “NoFollow”. A link that has been set as “NoFollow” is still followed, and counted, by the search engines. It just does not pass any PR back to your site.

If your entire backlink portfolio is only from high PR sites that are not NoFollow, then that definitely does not look natural. Which then presents a big glaring warning sign to the search engines that you are probably backlinking artificially.

Personally I backlink from anywhere I can, provided its not from adult or pharma related sites.

Now, back to the subject at hand, which is how to easily find places to backlink from.
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In this post I would like to explain the difference between nofollow links and normal (follow, or dofollow) links. First off it is important to understand that there is NO SUCH THING in HTML as “dofollow”. A link is either configured as “nofollow”, or it is not. Although it is semantically incorrect to refer to a link as DoFollow I will continue to do so in this article to make it easier to understand.

So, why should we care if a backlink is “nofollow” or not. Before I get to this, let me quickly explain the concept of Page Rank.

What is Google Page Rank ?

Page Rank is a system that Google have invented for themselves. Basically it is a very complicated algorithm that results in a number between 0 and 9, and that is a measure (in Google’s eyes) of the “importance” of your web page. Each and every page on a web site has a separate page rank calculated. Usually you will see that your home page is assigned the highest page rank, but this is definitely not always the case. It is very possible for any of your sub-pages to have higher page rank that your home page.

Why is Page Rank important for backlinks ?

In a previous post I mentioned that a backlink is basically a “vote” for your web page. If you can get a backlink from a page that has a high page rank, then that “vote” carries more weight. Essentially, some of the originating web pages page rank gets “transferred” to your page by the link. So, each and every link to your page incrementally increases your own pages page rank. From a search engine optimization perspective, this is the entire reason for going to all the trouble of getting backlinks.

Unfortunately, this is not the whole story. There is an important caveat to this which you will soon understand.
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I have written a new autocontent generation plugin for WordPress and Isnare article directory.

This plugin is very similar in function to my previous plugin (contentAB) that gets relevant article content from ArticlesBase directory.

It is command driven as well, and also grabs a relevant random article on each page/post load. The big difference is that it uses Google to search the Isnare site, so you get relevant articles that Google already likes for your provided keyword.

You can see more information (and grab the plugin) at http://www.psp-tubes.net/wordpress/isnare-plugin-auto-content-generator-plugin-for-wordpress

How to show eBay auctions in WordPress is the subject of many emails that I receive from my clients. Most of my users are non-technical. They start researching this subject and quickly see “scary” words like API, RSS and XML.

Instantly they hit a mental block, and dismiss it as too difficult.

I am telling you here today that there is a SIMPLE way. It does not require you hiring a propellor-head, techie type, nerd boy, computer expert.

The solution is called – phpBay Pro.

It is quite simply the best solution I have ever seen for easily displaying auctions on your WP blog.

The software presents itself as a WP plugin. The installation is trivial even for a non-technical person. If you know how to use your FTP software, and you know how to install a WP plugin then you already have all the skills you need to successfully get this running.

The documentation bundled with the script is very comprehensive, and also includes some instructional videos that have been put together by Wade (the software author).

There is also a very active phpBay private community forum where many of the users get together on a daily basis to exchange ideas on different ways to use phpBay, and to maximise the profits from using it. Wade is always around as well, and fixes any problems you may have very quickly. I swear the guy does not sleep.

What I love about this script is that you can integrate it completely into your own theme very easily. The other solutions that I have tried (including the popular BANS script) forces you into using a very generic type theme, and most BANS stores all look very similar. I am sure it would be very easy for Google to detect these cookie-cutter type site footprints, and to reduce their rankings in the search engines.

phpBay works completely differently. Its not possible for any of the search engines to detect that your site is using an eBay script as it leaves no footprint at all.

Using phpBay Pro, all it takes to display auction listings is to add a single line of text into your post, or your page, wherever you want the auctions to show.

Here is an example of a phpBay command that will display a nicely formatted block of 12 auctions of used golf balls on your post – [phpbay]used golf balls,12,”",”"[/phpbay]

Thats all there is to it. No worrying about RSS feeds. No fighting with your WP theme files.

The above example is a very simple one, and as you learn more about phpBay Pro you will make use of many of the other more advanced features that the script offers.

If you are interested in making some money on the internet then all you need to do is -

1. Sign up for eBays Affiliate program here.
2. Buy yourself a copy of phpBay Pro here.
3. Build yourself a few niche stores.

I paid $49 for an UNLIMITED license. This means that you can use the script to build as many sites as you like. It also includes a lifetime of free upgrades.

My software paid for itself within 5 days of putting my very first site online.

Now you know how to show eBay auctions in WordPress quickly and easily.

*** This post is intended for everybody ***

Backup your web site is critical. Its common sense I know, but I also know its human nature to think “it will never happen to me”. Sods Law says it will :-(

Disk drives are mechanical … and they break.

We do an automatic, global, daily backup of the entire contents of our server … ie. all websites. This is necessary if we ever have a hardware failure and our disk drives crash, and we have to restore everything.

I do not do backups of individual sites.

Keeping a backup of your site is your own responsibility as a webmaster.

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