Jordy Blog

Just When I Thought Google Hated Me

I don’t know about you, but my PR was showing as a 1 forever. Not that it really matters since I’m not really selling anything here, but it was kind of annoying. Why wouldn’t Google satisfy my ego like it does for everyone else? (Actually, it was more like, “I don’t suck that bad.”) The crazy thing is that my blog feed page had been showing up at a PR 3 all along, but that made no sense to me, unless Google was using my Google Analytics traffic to determine which of my pages were important –which is very possible. I get a lot more hits on my feed than my regular pages: probably a combination of having savvy readers and a really ugly pic. :)

Still, I suspected (since my content is so darn good) that if I was not unconsciously breaking some cardinal rules, then Google must be was just toying with me using cached data from different data centers. Since I’ve now instantly jumped from a 1 to a 5 doing hardly anything, I think it was the latter; but there’s no way to be sure –it’s just too much of a black box. Being a little opaque plays to Google advantage since it keeps blackhatters from gaming the system. I like that because it makes search result more relevant. But I’ve determined that Google’s antics are enough to drive anybody crazy if they’re trying to use PageRank as any sort of validation measure. Here at home, I’m still showing up at a 1.

So I wish I’d seen this Future PageRank Tool a little sooner. I don’t know how long my PageRank was limboing in Google purgatory, but my big jump tells me it was a while. The Future PageRank Tool basically queries a whole bunch of Google data centers for you, so it’s like the Google Toolbar, only reliable. Had I used it a few months ago, I may had saved myself some counseling. :)

By the way, for those of you who don’t use the SearchStatus plugin for SEO, it’s basically the Google and Alexa toolbars combined and on steroids. If you’re still wallowing in IE sadness, the SearchStatus plugin is yet another reason to use Firefox (YAR2UFF) . Perhaps I’ll highlight the many merits of SearchStatus in some future post, but for now you’ll just have to take my word for it.

So wanna know if Google loves you after all? Check out Future PageRank. If it turns out that Google really does hate you, then take comfort in the fact that “Future PageRank Tool” is somewhat of a misnomer; it really only sees the present. There’s still hope for you and Google in the future, and even there weren’t, MSN isn’t that bad… Lots of people like butterflies… We call them “lepidopterologists”, or more comonly, “weirdos”.

Emailing Large Files

I found two free services that come in handy when you want to transfer files that are bigger than your email server’s limit. YouSendIt and DropLoad make it really easy to upload a large file (up to 1 Gig) to their servers via a simple webpage, so there’s no need to use an FTP client. After the file is uploaded, an email is sent to the “recipients” with instructions to download, which must be done within 7 days.

This is a great service for people who have trouble emailing large attachments. Sure, you could always setup an FTP server and grant the person access, but for one-time deals or non-technical folks, these sites provide a simple and elegant solution.

Spread Firefox Plugin for WordPress

Those of you who are visiting my site in IE will notice my new alert, generated by the Spread Firefox Plugin for WordPress. Quoth the alert: “Internet Explorer sucks. Jordy recommends Firefox (a free open-source alternative) so your browsing will suck no more forever. Click here to learn more or download.”

It’s a little spammy but it gets my point across. Besides, IE users love spam.

I really do love the Firefox browser and wish more people used it. It’ll be fun to track whether my free advertising helps out any. In some future post I’ll mention why I love Firefox instead of pontificating. Until then, just try it out. It’s free and doesn’t suck. :)

Mozy for Free Automatic Backups

Berkley Data Systems has a great new disk backup service called Mozy. You get up to 2GB for free and can get up to 20GB for a very affordable yearly fee. So far the clients only works on Windows, but there are plans to support other platforms as well.

One cool thing about the service is that your files are actually encrypted on the server that they are hosted on. Those BDS guys are pretty smart, and this is a great service (especially for free). I really hope it takes off for them.

CTO Josh Coates is a real down-to-earth guy with some great experience in the data storage industry, including the Internet Archive. He’s also very approachable and loves to give back to the community.

Free Broken Link Checker

This free broken link checker is a cool service for webmasters. I found and fixed 2 broken links on my blog. I guess I’d better be a bit more careful. :)

Free DNS

I’m using a great free DNS service for the Provo Labs small business portfolio. EveryDNS lets you manage up to 20 URLs for free, but you get an unlimited number for 15 bucks or so. EveryDNS is a pretty cool service because it doesn’t abstract the details from you, and it’s much better to just do it yourself than wait for some dude to change it for you, especially if you plan on making a lot of changes like fast-moving companies do. Plus you (hopefully) get the added comfort of knowing it was done right, without having to make a bunch of phone calls and wait.