Thursday, November 6, 2014

Understanding PageRank

Principles of PageRank
Principles of PageRank (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This is not me explaining PageRank.  I still don't really get it.  I'd never even heard of PageRank before I started writing some paid blog posts several years ago.  Then I learned that it was something to be desired, and the more active my blog was and the more other blogs I could get to link to my blog, the higher my PageRank went.

Except that Google doesn't like paid posts and paid links, so they can randomly take away any PageRank a blogger may have earned - which then means none of the advertisers who were willing to pay for posts and links are at all interested in paying for new ones.  In fact, they're all asking to have those same links removed ASAP because Google has also penalized their sites.  Except, of course there's no payment for removing said links, except in rare cases.  Somehow I just have to find the time to remove multiple links, all of them really important.

Anyway, the reason I was thinking of this is that I just renewed this domain.  I was thinking about just dropping it because I don't use it as often as I thought I might, but then I ran this PageRank Checker and found out this page as a PageRank of 2.  Considering I rarely update this blog and don't really do anything with it, that's quite surprising.  On the other hand, my recipe blog bcmom's kitchen has a PageRank of 0.  Zero.  I may not update it as often as I should, but I really do use that blog, and I know there are other blogs linking to it.  And I've never done paid posts there.  So what's up with that?  Yeah, makes no sense to me.

So, I renewed this domain - whether I really need it or not.  At least one of my blogs has a PageRank of some kind, even though it really doesn't seem to matter unless I'm going to sell posts or links - which would then make Google take away any Rank I might have.  Just Because.  Yep, I definitely understand this PageRank thing.  How about you?

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Free Online College Courses

I'm pretty sure I've heard this before, but I'd forgotten. Did you know that MIT offers virtually ALL of their course materials online for FREE?

I'm not sure exactly how it works, but I started with this list of courses and started browsing.  There are some very interesting things there.  I'm posting this here primarily for me, so I'll remember this time.  I know there's something I'll enjoy learning.

If you're interested in learning something new, or taking a refresher on something you've already learned, be sure to check it out.

Another source for free online courses - Edex.org .
I'm checking them all out!

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Free Legal Music Downloads

Have you discovered Noisetrade yet?  It's a great site for discovering new artists and new music.  There are thousands of albums available from artists who would love to meet you, and love for you to give them a listen.  And all of the content is FREE.

When you find something that sounds interesting - you can listen to the music on the page and get some information about the artist - just enter your email address, country, and postal code, and they'll email you a link to download the music.  That's all you have to do.  Then simply unzip the file you download and enjoy your new music.  If you enjoy it, consider leaving a tip to support the artist and spreading the word through twitter and/or facebook.

 You can even embed some music on your website or blog to share with your friends.


I've downloaded several albums, but I don't really listen to music that much, so I haven't even listened all the way through some of them.  Unfortunately the option to listen to or sample the music before downloading has stopped working in my browser, probably some plug-in that needs updated.  So, I've downloaded some based on the embedded video on the page.  Thankfully that still works, and if I like the sound of the song in the video, I'll download the whole thing just so I can hear the rest.  And then I don't always do it, but  I know there are people who listen to music all the time, so this is a great site for getting some new music - and then being able to support the artists as you choose.  You'll also get emails from them once in a while, so you can keep up with the artists you discover, know when they're releasing new music, performing in your area, etc. 

Also available on Noisetrade - free ebooks.
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