Australia Day January 26th: ‘Understanding Our Australian Christian Heritage’ presentation available online

With Australia celebrating its National Day next Tuesday (January 26, 2010), a 98 downloadable slide presentation, “Understanding Our Christian Heritage” is now available online from the Christian History website (www.chr.org.au).

It details many of Australia’s European founders as well as institutions, documents and events in early Australian History HERE [.pdf download].

You can view the presentation in just one hour or one week, depending on time available to see the many hyperlinks with extensive information.

We need to reflect on our foundations and recognize the hand of God in the commencement of a Christian nation in the Pacific within reach of the great Asian nations.

While many Australians look to a convict past with its fear of authority and feeling of inferiority, rejection, isolation and loneliness, there is history being discovered, that of our Christian forefathers and their faith and their contribution to the kingdom of God — a positive affirmation of a nation with a providential destiny.

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Wednesday Web 2.0 Q&A

The idea for this new feature, and the questions for this week are from Ben Hodge, of Kansas Progress. If you have questions you would like answered in upcoming posts, or if you have additional story ideas, please e-mail Jenn.

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Q. Can you explain twitter to me? My understanding is that if I really thought way too highly of myself and thought that people would care about what I was doing every 10 minutes of the day, that I would “twitter” them. But why are other groups on twitter, when RSS does almost the same thing?

A. Twitter is a developing phenomenon. Yes, there are some people that literally use it to keep in touch with their “friends” throughout the day, but there are a bunch of conservatives there now that are using it for legitimate networking purposes. Check out TCOT, (the feed is here)and TCON (feed).

 Even if you don’t really do much with your account there, however, any posts you do rank very high in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). You can use Twitterfeed to have your Twitter account automatically updated with your blog posts, too, which is a very convenient feature. You do NOT have to tell anyone what you’re having for lunch or where.

In fact, for general networking, it’s probably better not to do a lot of “small talk” (a little is fine – lets people know they’re dealing with a real person). Also see: Twitter, Twitter Everywhere

Q. Which [social networking] sites should I join…How often must they be updated?

A. It’s really a good idea just to at least “reserve” your name on the major social networking/bookmarking sites. It usually takes just a few minutes, and you really don’t have to keep MOST* of them updated. It’s amazing what a political adversary can/will do to ruin your online reputation. The added advantage of these is that many of them give you a chance to enter your own blog URL, and that will help you with linkage.

Facebook, Linked-IN, and Twitter are the “Biggies” right now. YouTube is great, even if you just set up an account there for the purposes of watching (not uploading). Naymz and Plaxo rank high on the search engines, too.

 Beyond that, it’s just really up to you. There are hundreds of these sites, and you have to draw the line somewhere. The next tier down would be del.icio.us, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Digg, and Propeller.  Stay tuned for an upcoming study to be released soon on which news, indexes, and social networking sites rank highest on Google.

*How often to update? Well, keep in mind that with the social networking sites, you tend to get out of them what you put in, so it’s good to be active in at least a couple. We have received (unconfirmed) information that Twitter may soon start deleting accounts that are over 180 days old. Also, some search engines give less weight or refuse to count links that are over six months old, so it’s a good idea to check on your accounts, even the ones you’re not “active” on at least twice a year.

 Q. [In terms of Search Engine Optimization], if [the links I put on Social Networking sites] don’t “look like” links, but merely show the URL, does that matter?

A. Some social networking sites, such as Facebook and Digg.com, don’t allow “hyperlinks,” (text that points to another URL) or any text that contains html. You won’t need to worry about this for SEO, because the search engines are reading the source code, and will recognize the link, anyway.

This is a valid question to address, however, because on your own blog posts, you can maximize the benefit of internal and external links by properly using “anchor text.” In a nutshell, this means that it is better to format a link to your blog like this: Ft. Hard Knox, rather than like this. For more information on anchor text, see Don’t be Link-Lovin’ in Vain (Judiciously using ‘Anchor Text’).

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Using target=”_blank” to Retain Readers (Updated)

This post is dedicated to Ron, our IT Guy, who has been trying to get me to use target=”_blank” in our outbound links for over a year. Sorry, Ron…you know…the ADD thing…

Now, where was I? Oh, yes! You know what’s really maddening as a blogger? When you research and post a great blogpost, with some great links, and when you check your “IP’s” and “actions” later on your stats, you realize, readers found your article, then promptly clicked out of our blog to your link, never to return. How can this be avoided? Read more

Don’t be Link-Lovin’ in Vain (Judiciously using ‘Anchor Text’)

We’ve been researching and discussing the best ways to use links within a blog to promote conservatism online. [See Enough Already, we're Blog UNRolling, and Using (and Abusing?) rel=”nofollow” to Preserve Page Rank.] The following is adapted from information sent to Ft. Hard Knox by an author who wishes to remain anonymous.

The “anchor text” or “link label” is the visible text in a hyperlink – the part you click to be taken to a new website.

For Google and other search engines, it does make a difference what words you use in the anchor text of web or blog postings. Many webmasters and bloggers don’t realize this. Thus, today’s brief tutorial. Read more

Using (and Abusing?) rel=”nofollow” to Preserve Page Rank

Bloggers, how many times have you noticed that you’re getting traffic from a link on one of the “huge” blogs and websites on the web…only to check your Technorati links and Google alerts to find that the link isn’t showing up? Have you wondered why that’s happening?

Chances are pretty good that the Biggie-Blog (or social-networking site) is adding the code: rel=”no follow” to its outgoing links.*

As we know, one of the ways to increase Google page-rank (and Technorati authority) is to get links from other blogs (For more info on why Page Rank is important, see Why Conservatives Need to Geek-Up). All of the Biggie Blogs got big by receiving lots of links from other bloggers. But now, it seems, even among politically-conservative bloggers (which are decidedly a minority in the blogosphere), some are unwilling to help other like-minded blogs in the same manner. They have started putting the rel=”no follow” code in all of their outgoing links, to preserve their own page rank.

Others are selectively inserting the code, so that they only support other bloggers that they want to support with “link love.” This is a more responsible use of the rel=”nofollow” code.

 

What is rel=”nofollow”?

This code was actually developed by Google a couple of years ago to try to help prevent comment spam. It didn’t work for that, but what it did do was give bloggers a whole new way to compete with each other for page rank. Some figured out that they could use their knowledge about the code to preserve their own Google ranking while still receiving links from lesser-experienced bloggers who didn’t know how to use the code.

 

How does using rel=”nofollow” preserve (or stop leaking) page rank?

A couple of very thorough explanations are here and here, but in a nutshell, the more links you have on a page, the less each link is worth in Google’s highly-secretive and ever-changing system for determining page rank. Therefore, linking to outside bloggers reduces the “value” of your own internal links. Currently, if you use rel=”nofollow” in your outgoing links, those links will theoretically not be counted against you, and will also not increase the linked blogger’s page rank.

 

How/Where do I insert rel=”nofollow” on my links?

(For general information on hyperlinks, see Adding Hyperlinks, and Hyperlinks on the WWF Wiki) When the code is added to a link, the link will look like this:

 

So, when should rel=”nofollow” be used?

Here are my suggestions (and I am open to discussion on these) – these are guidelines, not hard and fast rules:

1. Use it when you know the linked blog is not going to return the link. (Some blogs simply don’t return links.)
2. Use it when you do not wish to increase the page rank of the other blogger (i.e., the other blog is a competitor or opponent).
3. Use it when you need to link to a for-profit blogging site, like a retailer, or so-called “spam blog.” (Google often punishes these blogs on the page ranking, as well as any blogs that link to them.)
4. In the comments section, which is susceptible to spam (Wordpress does this automatically -in fact, if you want to disable the feature, you’ll need to a plug-in like one of these.)

 

Is there a time when rel=”nofollow” should NOT be used. (i.e. Wouldn’t it be easier to just include it in all outgoing links?)

Sure, this is a good idea of you are so big and so powerful that you no longer need to network with other bloggers to maintain your success online.

For the rest of us, who actually are interested in building up the conservative movement online, I would strongly recommend not using the rel=”nofollow” tag on links to other bloggers you want to network with. This would include:

1. Blogrolls (Assuming you’re using blogrolling software that IS recognized by the search engines).
2. Blogbursts (Remember, one of the reasons you signed up for the blogburst was to get links from other bloggers, so don’t be ugly, and not return the links.)
3. “Hat-Tips” (“Thank-you’s” for good leads for stories, either via e-mail or from other blogs)
4. Links to information you’ve borrowed or quoted from another blog to support a point you’re trying to make (C’mon – if you’re going to use their stuff, give them credit, and share some link-love! This does not necessarily apply when you’re “exposing” rather than “using” info from other blogs – see #2 in the previous list.)

 

Alright, who is Using and who is Abusing the code online?

To see if your favorite blogger is using (or abusing) the code, simply go to a post on their site, and click “view” then “source” (or “page source”). Then use “Edit-Find” to see if the rel=”nofollow” code is in ALL of the links, or just in links to their opponents, competitors, advertising sites, etc.. You might be surprised at who is more interested in preserving their own page rank, rather than promoting conservatism online.

 

More information on using rel=”nofollow” can be located on the following sites:

• LinkTutorial.com: Attribute ‘rel=nofollow’
• Wikipedia: nofollow
• About.com: rel nofollow – What does this mean?

 

*Another possibility, if the link is not showing is that the link may be included in a script that is not recognized by the search engines…see:Why Blogrolling is Useless

 

FHK Computer Lab #5: Adding Hyperlinks (Updated)

Last Update 4/17/08

Welcome back to computer lab. It’s been awhile – we were so busy with CPAC, and with getting the new WWF Facebook group up and running that this fell by the wayside – many apologies. It’s good to be back.

Hyperlinks are the way we get a link to look like this: FHK, rather than like this: http://www.forthardknox.com. Some social networks like Facebook and Digg simply won’t accept hyperlinks, but most blogs and discussion forums do. So if you would like your posts and comments to look more professional, this is one way to do it. Read more