Blogging is not something that “stands still,” it is always changing. Trends, strategies and beliefs are always shifting and how you stay up to date with it is your decision.
But some people are never really “alerted” to these developments in the blogosphere. Because there are already quite a large number of things to worry about on your blog, it’s probably best that you try to cut that number down as much as possible. If you’re worrying about trends and strategies that aren’t really important to your blog anymore, you will be wasting a lot of much-needed time for nothing.
I took a moment and tried to remember back to the days where this blog started, and even at past blogging ventures. I tried to remember things I worried about back in 2007 and 2008 when I really first started blogging, and how irrelevant they are now in 2010.
You don’t worry about any of the following now, right?
1. Google PageRank
I think this is the biggest thing that most bloggers and webmasters in general have stopped worrying about. I remember the days where everyone would be trying to build as many back links as possible for the sake of having a higher PageRank. At one point in time, you could use PageRank as a selling point for a domain name. Now? Not so much.
The only thing you can gain nowadays from a high PageRank is bragging rights. My buddy Rob and I were talking about the PageRank of our blogs a few weeks ago, and we both rank 4. I would like to see Blogussion hit 5 as a ranking (just to rub it in his face), but I won’t be spending even a minute trying to do it, or a second worrying about it.
Why do you think PageRank has lost its value? What was once a defining factor of a “successful website” has now been deemed virtually useless. What happened?
2. Negativity
I remember back when I created my first blog that receiving negative comments, or hearing people disagree with what I wrote about was the end of the world. Controversy was the last thing I wanted to write about, and negativity was one of my biggest fears. I think I feared it because I didn’t know how much it could help me.
I used to think that negativity and disagreement were problems, but it’s actually pure positivity and agreement that were the actual problems. When you write an article that everyone agrees with, one of the two things probably happened:
- You wrote about a dead-obvious subject that has been overly talked about in your niche.
- You didn’t add a unique point of view to the subject you talked about.
When I see disagreement within the comment section here, I also see success. It shows that people actually read my article, and actually took time to analyze what I said and write out an opposing opinion. That’s a lot better than seeing those comments where all anyone says is “I agree, nice post!”
3. Aggressive Competition
Is it just me, or are bloggers in the same niche actually nice to each other? Maybe I just don’t know any mean bloggers, but it seems to me that we would much rather help our “competition” than slam them nowadays.
I remember reading SEO articles that warned you not to stuff your meta tags with keywords as a blogger in your niche would report you to Google and get your site penalized. I just can’t imagine any of my friends (and most of them are in the same niche as me) doing that to me. But I don’t see myself keyword stuffing either.
Yes, competition still serves a purpose: to inspire you to keep doing good. But, your “competitors” also help you a lot too. They link back to your articles, they include you in their Blogroll, retweet you on Twitter and even want to connect with you on a more personal level. That isn’t what I remember first starting out.
4. Content Thieves
Alright, so they still bring up some worry to many of us. But nothing nearly as bad it was even a few years ago.
Content thieves (aka scrapers) are people who take your content, oftentimes word for word, and publish it to their own blog. Most do it out of ignorance and think it’s okay, and some just think they are sneaky and that it’s actually helping their site.
When content gets stolen, it becomes duplicate content, and duplicate content causes a bunch of negative effects to your SEO. So why do I think content thieves aren’t anything to worry about?
Luckily, things have changed a little. Most of the time when you contact the owner of the blog (the person who stole your content), and ask them to remove what they have stolen, they will listen. Some just need to hear you ask them to remove it, some need a warning, but there are also the few who won’t take it down. In my experience, I have never been declined when asking someone to take down what they have stolen, so some of these people do actually have a conscience.
I can’t back this up entirely, but I believe search engines have also gotten smarter when it comes to duplicate content and can often determine a scraper from a legitimate source. So, if the site that has stolen your site seems spammy, I wouldn’t worry even the slightest bit about penalization in the search engines.
5. Simple Marketing
It’s become extremely easy to carry out even the simplest marketing techniques. So there is no excuse for you to not bring in even a few readers to your blog.
Marketing has literally become as easy as signing up for a Twitter account, following a few people and tweeting. It has become as easy as leaving a comment on a blog. Those are just simple techniques, yes, but many forms marketing has become such an easy task with the web becoming a better place for bloggers.
What’s there to worry about?
I think my blogging life has become a little easier since I stopped worrying about the things I talked about above. They all were pretty important things to me when I first started, but are now trivial and meaningless to me.
So, what are some things you have stopped worrying about? I find that the more experiences you get with your blog, the fewer things you worry about believe it or not. What are your current fears and woes? I’m sure we can talk about them all day.
The Discussion
Leave a Comment Read Again?Well, here comes some disagreement in the comment section! I still look at PR. I look at it as a general gauge of backlinks and Google authority. I know it doesn’t mean what it used to, but when I am looking for quality backlinks, or sites I might have to outrank, this is something I look at. It is not the end all be all, but it still means something to me anyways.
But besides that, good post! I thought the competition part was funny. That is something I like about blogs and bloggers, it feels like a community.
.-= Patrick Toerner´s last blog ..$1,000 a Month From a Minisite =-.
I agree with Patrick on this. When I view a site with a higher PageRank, that is a quick way to view the fact that the broader online community respects this site and the content on it and that others are linking to it. When you a view a site with no PageRank, it essentially tells us that the site in questions is receiving very low reviews from their peers.
PageRank isn’t as important as it once was. While that may be true, we should still be working to create valuable content that people want to organically link to. We should still be working to promote our content and get listed as high as possible in Google. I’m a PageRank fan. I contend that it is still worth paying attention to.
And as Patrick said, Good post! I enjoyed it.
.-= Nicholas Z. Cardot´s last blog ..40 Ways to Build An Army of Inbound Links =-.
I do sometimes use PageRank as a means for judging a site’s authenticity. But the #1 thing I use to measure a site’s usefulness is, you know, the actual content.
Maybe it’s just me, but I generally don’t search for websites just for the hell of it, I usually just visit websites that will have something of value on it to me. But that’s just me speaking from my browsing habits, there’s no doubt you could use PR as an indicator of a site’s reputability.
I do agree with you though man, always create content that people will want to link to. If you get PR on the side for doing it, then you should congratulate yourself. I do actually enjoy seeing my articles get PR, even if its PR0 or 1. At least its something.
Always love to see disagreement, thanks man.
I guess PR has some value when it comes to statistics like that, but I have never really looked at another blogs PR and really thought about things like that. I guess that just shows my inexperience with search engines!
I agree with Patrick and Nicholas, and here’s why:
Google still has to order results.
From what I understand, the “Page Rank” they report doesn’t _directly_ correspond to the actual “page rank” used to order search results pages. But it does influence it.
I suspect the higher the Page Rank, the more influence it has on the “page rank.”
One the other hand, people just starting out should probably worry a lot more about getting a boat load of content posted, and less about Page Rank.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..How To Publish The **** Out Of Your Blog Post =-.
I have to slightly disagree on the part about content thieves. I don’t believe they are any easier to deal with, especially the hardcore spammers, but I do agree that with most people you can simply request your content be removed (when possible) but that has been possible for as long as I’ve been tracking the issue, at least seven years.
The bigger question is whether search engines have gotten smarter about this issue and the results are mixed from what I’m hearing. Some are saying it has gotten better, others say it has gotten worse. I routinely see duplicate content of mine rank above the original still in many cases but, all in all, Google does do a reasonable job. Still, many cases fall through the cracks.
It seems that there are some sites that are more vulnerable to this problem than others. New sites, sites that have reshuffled their permalinks or sites without a lot of backlinks, regardless of PR, seem to suffer the most.
Just my observations on the issue, I could be getting a slanted perspective…
.-= Jonathan Bailey´s last blog ..Copyright 2.0 Show – Episode 144 =-.
Actually, with stolen content if they refuse to remove it you can write an email to the hosting company that their page is on and demand that it be removed. They are obligated by law to remove it. I’ve actually done this so I know that it works.
.-= Nicholas Z. Cardot´s last blog ..40 Ways to Build An Army of Inbound Links =-.
Thanks for advice Nick! Will do that next time scrapper hits me. But how do you find out about the host?
.-= King Sidharth´s last blog ..The Third Jesus – A Book Review =-.
I’m pretty sure you can figure it out with a WHOIS lookup on the domain.
I guess I just mentioned this in the article because of how easy it has been for me to get stolen content taken down. I have never been denied, as I mentioned, so maybe I have just been getting lucky with stolen content (as ironic as that sounds).
I do think that search engines are getting smarter about things like that, just as a general trust of their algorithm getting continuously smarter. But of course, I don’t have any facts or proof as you have brought up, besides hearing a few opinions from “search engine experts.”
I think you’re right about the effect on new bloggers. But how often do new bloggers get content stolen from them? Still, if it happens I suppose it could do them a little harm. But there could of course be millions of factors that the search engines keep true when ranking these sites that you and I have no idea about, so it’s really something that is still up in the air to me.
Good thoughts Jonathan, thanks for stopping by!
I’m with Jonathan. Content thieves are still a worry for me. I too know of sites that have had their content stolen only to have the stolen content surpass their own site. That sucks! It ticks me off that Google allows this and that their bots aren’t smart enough to detect it. I’ve seen hot-linked images show up before the original. The whole thing just makes me mad.
I’ve had plenty stolen from my site, both images and content. Some of the people take it down immediately. Most state they had no idea??? Still others ignore my requests and my emails and leave it up. It’s annoying. The higher your site gets in Google, the more it will get stolen. If only there was a way to stop it…
P.S. I know page rank means nothing, but you’re right, it still makes you brag.
I don’t know how Google checks these things, but I would have to think that there is at least something going on in the ranking system that protects us from things like being outranked by thieves? It’s all really confusing, especially when speaking out of ignorance of how the search algorithm works.
I hate when people email me back saying “they didn’t know” or try to talk to me like I was too harsh sounding with my request. I just think it embarrasses them that they got caught, and they write the first reaction that comes to their minds. :p
Aren’t advertisers the only ones that care about page rank? I haven’t given much thought about it.
I’m focusing on updating regularly.
You’re right about your competition helping you. Most of mine aren’t direct competition but they’re in the general category. We order from each others affiliates, comment regularly, and are not afraid to tell our readers about each other.
What’s the best way to tell if your content is being scrapped?
.-= Adrienne´s last blog ..How I Plan To Lose Weight This Week – Lazy Sunday Reading March 28, 2010 =-.
I suppose they may, but I can’t give you much insight there as I am totally against selling advertising. Sorry! :p
I do the same exact things with my competition, it’s just a really friendly relationship a lot of us have, and I don’t even think “competition” is a good way to describe them anymore.
Sometimes if you interlink in your blog posts, and the thief stupidly keeps the links in, your blog will be pinged about it. There are a lot of ways to catch them, but most of them really revolve around luck and chance I’m afraid.
Thank you because my Google PageRank has been driving me crazy! I will stop worrying about it
.-= Shannon O | Confessions of a Loving Wife´s last blog ..Love Confessions: How to Affair Proof Your Relationship =-.
Shannon,
Yea, stop worrying about it. Google uses it to give importance to pages and decide which one will be crawled first and how frequently – that’s all. And as you grow, your PR will grow to. You don’t need higher PR to rank higher.
.-= King Sidharth´s last blog ..The Science of Ideas – From Idea to Creation =-.
You are right, most of us have really stopped worrying about these things and moved on to better things like community building, value creation and relationship with our readers.
A few more things we have stopped worrying about:
1. Bandwidth: With Amazon’s cloud hosting and almost unlimited bandwidth from every host- it’s no longer an issue.
2. Spam: Yea, we still have it but thanks to latest smart detectors, they take care of most of it.
3. Emails: Not a hint or anything
Cool post!
.-= King Sidharth´s last blog ..The Science of Ideas – From Idea to Creation =-.
Those are great things to add on for sure. Can you expand on the email part? Not sure what exactly you meant.
Whether I’m with you on all of your points or not, I love the general idea. Stressing out about these and a host of other issues prevents us from blogging from the hip and from the heart, which is what really makes for a great blog anyway.
I agree with Brandon. I expressed above that I may not 100% agree with all of the points, but I do agree with the overall concept: Stop Stressing Out! Great post, Alex.
.-= Nicholas Z. Cardot´s last blog ..40 Ways to Build An Army of Inbound Links =-.
Glad you like the post man. What are some of the points you disagree with?
Good topic you’ve pointed. Page rank always plays major rules. Suppose a website has high page ranking mean large number of visitors are reviewing and in case of low page ranks, visitors are not giving that much interest even that blog has good theme. Page rank always gives quality lead.
So always you should write quality and unique content which will be help to give better ranking as well as new visitors
Sorry Chris, I don’t think PR has THAT big of a role in giving off a first impression or any kind of general impression of a website. I would actually say the design of a website has a much larger importance than PR when it comes to things like that.
Great post although I must confess I still have an eye on PR, I think it’s a guy thing. How big is yours kinda thing! But as you say negative comments can be a real help as every one gets involved in the conversation.
My biggest worry now is content ideas, they seem to come in bursts and I need a steady flow.
.-= Richard@Debt Solutions´s last blog ..Debt help: Scottish homes ‘missing out’ on cold weather payments =-.
Haha, that’s a great way to put it for sure! I do keep tab on my PR, I check it a few times a month just to see if it has done anything. I mostly do it just because the person who actually cared about PR is still inside me, and I know he would have an interest in its rank. Weird, right?
Content is definitely a worry, but once I get started with some ideas – man, do I get a lot of posts.
Hey Alex! I used to constantly worry about my traffic… constantly. If I didn’t get more uniques in one month than the previous month, it would rip a whole in my heart. I also used to worry about my subscriber count going down and my Alexa ranking not going up. I even got cranky a few days ago because my traffic was 1/2 what it normally is
.
I like this post! It’s a nice little reminder.
.-= Nick Tart´s last blog ..VIDEO: Why Do You Want to Be an Entrepreneur? =-.
I am a little more concerned about traffic and RSS numbers, I won’t lie! It’s just a general thought that as you keep working to make your blog better, your traffic should be better each month and reflect that. But it doesn’t always happen, and yes, it can hurt!
I do worry about my Alexa rank probably more than its worth. I checked it as you brought it up, and its sitting at 17,269. If I checked it tomorrow and saw it at 17,500 – I’d be a little annoyed.
We all have our things I guess, haha.
Haha! Thanks for your honesty, Alex! You should know that Blogussion sitting at 17,(whatever) is a huge accomplishment. I know you don’t see it that way, but it is. It’s remarkable! And you deserve a huge high five for that!
But, don’t ever settle…
.-= Nick Tart´s last blog ..Interview: Syed Balkhi, Social Media Prodigy at 19 =-.
My greatest worry is that I will run out of things to write about – that my mind will just go blank, and that will be the end of my blog…
.-= Kiesha @ WeBlogBetter´s last blog ..10 Interviews every blogger should read =-.
Wow, so it all hits you at once huh?! I think if you keep thinking like that, it will be the end of your blog. :p
You’re doing fine on WBB, don’t worry!
Then reading related logs can give you more inspiration on what to blog about, there are few motivating topic in this blog that may keep you moving…
Alex,
I also think that your blogging life became much more easier because of guest bloggers, that surround you more and more
Speaking about my own blogging fears.. I’m not sure, if what I mean is a kind of a fear, but I will say it. I fear of the time needed for my blog to make money enough for living. I’m sure, that this time will come, if I will keep doing what I’m doing, but again.. nobody can tell you when this time would come.
.-= iWoodpecker´s last blog ..7 Reasons of My Most Popular Blog Posts =-.
Guest bloggers have saved me time, but they also cost me time. They make me lazy sometimes, and put me in the mood to use someone else’s content rather than writing my own. Then when it comes to writing my own stuff again, add in the procrastination and the slow process of writing – they COST me time. So it’s like a love/hate thing.
Making money blogging is sometimes a complicated thing. It really depends on the different tactics you use. If you sell a product, money will become a little more obvious and maybe even predictable (if it actually sells). Then you have affiliate links, which you never know what they will do.
It’s tough man, no doubt. And your fear is as valid as any of mine, so don’t be ashamed to admit them!
I used to think that page rank matters a lot. Well, perhaps it did back then, but your post made me realize that a high page rank only enables you to have the bragging rights. This gives us less to worry about and more time to dish out good content.
.-= Julius´s last blog ..Learning About Web Accessibility Through Everyday Tasks =-.
There was definitely a time where PR has meaning. Now isn’t that time, but it was very important when I started blogging, I remember that much.
The only thing you really need to concern with content thieves is if their with a reputable hosting company…if so, they’re screwed. It’s pretty 1 2 3 nowadays to get them shut-down.
.-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Attention Readers of all Kinds! – Multiple Articles Comin’ Atcha!! =-.
People really get scared I guess when you bring hosting into the picture, so if they’re on a decent host, as you said, yeah – they’re screwed.
I think i seldom worry about those things. The thing that i always worry about is the content of my writing. I find it difficult to get the idea to write something new and useful to my readers. This is the obstruction for me to keep updating my blog. I just cannot write something useless in my blog.
In my opinion, PR is still an important factor for me to determine the authority of the domain. Before i subscribe to one blog, i will see the PR and Alexa ranking first.
Anyway, thanks for your sharing! I really like it!
.-= Kok Siong Chen´s last blog ..Genome Instability Causes Cancer =-.
About content theft, I think Google is at least smart enough to distinguish between which sites published the content first. Whoever did it first will appear earlier for searches for that content, and the thieves will be penalized accordingly by keeping them low in search engine rankings for that particular piece of literature.
.-= Blue Laptop´s last blog ..Blue Laptop Skins =-.
We’re really not sure how Google works, and it may work as you said. But, from the comments above – people have seen scrapers rank better than the original author.
Google pagerank still important for SEO, I think. When two blogs has a same content, the blog with a higher pagerank will dominate the SERP. CMIIW
.-= Reza Winandar´s last blog ..This is blog is now Do Follow =-.
As far as I’m concerned PR plays a major role in finding good sites. We can’t completely neglect the PR. Many SEO specialists work hard to improve the PR of their site, hence it is necessary!!
.-= Medical billing´s last blog ..Anesthesiology Medical Billing =-.
I echo the comments of many here and say that PR still plays a big part in many webmaster’s mind’s. Whether or not it is the phycological barrier that many want to break or not, it is still a factor that creep’s into our heads.
Damn, I should stop checking my PR and just focus on making my site better.
.-= Cemil´s last blog ..Setting Up Wordpress For Maximum Profits =-.
I have to say my experience with content scrappers/stealers has not been fantastic. I find a lot of the sites that content gets taken to do not have any contact details for anyone to use, I have even tried looking at the domain registration details to find something.
.-= Brad´s last blog ..Surfing Angourie Back In The Day =-.
Based on the responses to this post I think it’s still ok to worry about content scrapers. :<
One defensive measure against content scrapers is to throw articles with anchored keywords on your site. If they scrape your content, at least you get a free backlink out of their theft so it can’t be all that bad.
Traffic is the most important thing for any online business, so I think we must really worry about it.
Some good points here, both in the piece and the comments. I think i’m starting to see the benefit of blogging. Anchor text is something i’m only just getting my head round, thanks for pointing out the importance.
When I was a new blogger, I also came to a point of having negative and bad comments in my first few blogs. Honestly, those comments made me less eager to write. But I really had to fight that because blogging is actually part of my income. I have to be determined more in writing and of course improving my blogs to avoid too much negative feed backs I receive. Right now, I have to say that I overcome that obstacle and true constant writing and brainstorming, my readers are now appreciating my blogs and post. This was just one worry I faced. One thing I would advice to those new bloggers out there, stop worrying and just go on blogging –it’s a practice. Thanks for sharing this list of worries! This would make others aware.
Yes, I agree that PR means little when it comes to actually making money. Gotta have other stuff to get people to sell.
Well I agree with Alex, PR is not something which we should take care much. Now Google has also changed its regular updating of PR.
Stop worrying! Nice mindset.
I too think that Pagerank is a word of past.
Even google barely pays any attention to it, rather we should focus on building up traffic and quality content rather than other irrelevant things.
Thanks for your article alex…Most of the bloggers not aware of this 5 things which u discussed here…Hope all make sure whats that now..Keep going..all the best
Wow, that really got me cracking
I m also worrying about the pr for my site, but after seeing this post. I m more relaxed. thanks for sharing this post.
Good topic you’ve pointed. Page rank always plays major rules. Suppose a website has high page ranking mean large number of visitors are reviewing and in case of low page ranks, visitors are not giving that much interest even that blog has good theme. Page rank always gives quality lead.
There’s no way to prevent content stealing so I don’t worry about it much. What I worry about is my pagerank. I got a pagerank of two within first two month of blogging. Later pagreank remains the same.
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