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Archive for January 11th, 2010

Adding A Favicon On Blogger

Blogger is a very popular free Blogging platform but each free blogs comes with the same exact default favicon that Blogger is using. You can help set your blog apart by getting your very own unique favicon plus there are a lot of benefits with having your own favicon. This post is in response to menopauseprincess. She asked about Blogger blogs having their own favicon.
Creating or finding your favicon

If want to create your own favicon you can follow my guide on creating your own favicon. You can also find a free favicon from the 20 free favicon resources I have collected. Ive used both unique and free favicons I just try to use a favicon that represents what my website is about or something that is rememberable.
Uploading your favicon

You will need to find an alternative host for your favicon because Blogger does not host custom favicons. A lot of free file hosting services will not host .ico file types so these are not good options. If you dont have your own web hosting account there is a service called myFavatar that will host your favicon for free. Flickr will allow you to host .ico files also so if you have an account there already that may be a good choice.
Linking to your favicon

You will need to do some updates to your templates in order to get your favicon to show up. This part might get tricky so if you need any additional help please dont be afraid to ask. To edit your Blogger templates after you login go to “Layout” gt; “Edit HTML”. Now you will need to add the following line of HTML between the start and end tag:

lt;link rel=”shortcut icon” type=”image/ico” href=”http://example.myfavatar.com/favicon.ico” /gt;

Make sure you update the location of your favicon to the exact web location where you uploaded your favicon. If you do use myFavatar to host your favicon they will actually provide you with the exact code to paste into your templates.
Testing your new Favicon

Typically when you save your templates and reload you should be able to see the new favicon. But occasionally there may be settings in your browser that may prevent your favicon from showing up so you may need to reload or clear your cache in order to see it right away.
Comprehensive Guide to Favicons Series

1. 7 Reasons Favicons Increase Your Website Traffic
2. How to Create Your Own Favicon
3. 20 Free Favicon Icon Sets
4. Quick Favicon Tip to Insure its Visibility
5. Adding a Favicon on Blogger

About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;Ahamed RazzanMCP CCNA Dip.in Java Programmingwww.ccna4.tk

Making Your Website Prom Queen With Link Popularity

As if the pressure of being popular in highschool wasn’t enough now website owners have to worry about making sure their site sits well with the ‘in’ crowd namely the search engines. This has everything to do with link popularity which is merely a way to measure a number of inbound links coming to a website. It is becoming more and more of an important aspect for search engines as they sift through the mountains of data looking for relevant information that comes to the web on a daily basis.

It used to be that having a vast number of links was enough to increase page rank. However as technology and the web have progressed so has the criterion for creating and having links that will be considered valid. Linking for the sake of linking will no longer increase a website’s page rank. In fact it just may get that website not only dropped from the rankings but get it labeled as a spammer and shutdown.

The issue of link popularity is complicated and hotly debated. The deepest secrets of link popularity remain with the search engines; however techniques that seem to work well are available to help websites increase their page rank. Certain nuances may change but standards seem to stay the same as this popular method for delivering relevant search results becomes stronger over time.

Since having too few links to your sight can get it overlooked by search engines and having too many can get a site dropped the secret in building link popularity seems to lie in creating balance between the two. Links need to be not only reciprocal links that lead back and forth but also relevant to the site they are linking to.

Not only will the link need to be relevant the information on the website that creates the link will need to be relevant also. Technology has gotten around those who tried to fool search engines by linking their site about smallblock engines to those about nasal spray. Search engines now have the ability to search the content of a website and whether or not the information on it can be deemed valid to the site it is linked to.

Linking to one site of great importance or relevance can be just as important as linking to 10 meager sites with little information. Sites rich in content and full of relevant information are now a very important part of achieving a high page rank. This is why writing and linking sites to ezine articles has become a very important tool for many website owners.

Building good links means looking at the keywords theme and topic of the site one is linking to and whether the information or content corresponds with each other. A site about babies will of course do well linking to a sight about diapers. Another thing to look for is the sites that are already linked and their website content also. This is truly a case where quality beats quantity every single time.

Link popularity offers the chance to also build online relationships where sites can really help to promote themselves and each other through the ranks by merely linking to each other. It is often said that when one works on making quality links to and with other sites many issues with having a website will roll up and take care of itself.

Once those links are made link maintenance will be the order of the day. Those who enjoy this type of work can do it for themselves but for those who don’t there is always a quality SEO company skilled in link popularity that will readily handle the task without difficulty.

About the writer:  Andy West is a freelance writer for Vertical Measures. Vertical Measures offers SEO and link building services including creating quality Link Popularity that can increase website traffic. Visit Vertical Measures at http://www.verticalmeasures.com/qualitylinkbuilding.html .