Image courtesy http://www.sxc.hu/profile/FlyCat

With that said, we would like to know whether you like the 3 column layout that “Wistie” comes default with or would you like a more traditional 2 column layout?  Please leave us a comment below so we can get a sense of what you are looking for layout wise.

Blog Upgrades

We have made some changes to our blog that we feel will benefit you, our readers.  You may have noticed we know acknowledge our top commentators by displaying a list of the top 10 in our sidebar.

Each member’s name links to their website and the link is a DoFollow link.

We have also changed how we treat outgoing links when you leave a comment.  Up until now, the URL you entered in the comment form was set to be a “NoFollow” link, we have changed this so that if you leave 3 or more comments, that link will now be a “DoFollow” link.

This is our way of thanking our loyal readers who take the time to leave us a comment.

However, we will closely monitor all comments, any comments we feel our not related to the post will be removed.  We are confident that our anti-spam measures will keep spammers from abusing this new setup and as always, we will verify all comments tagged as spam to ensure no mistakes were made.

If you are leaving us comments that are not being displayed, please drop us a line and let us know so we can correct this issue immediately here.

Contest

Last month we in our RoundUp post we told you we were working on an upcoming contest.  We put this on the back burner while we put out 3 themes since then.  We are still workng on this contest and hope to have it ready for launch soon.

Twitter

We love Twitter!  If you are a user of Twitter, consider following us, @Pliggs, we post news and announcements there as well.  We would love to follow you as well, leave us a comment below telling us your username.

Ok, that’s it, that’s all the news for now.

Related Search:

• official pligg themes

A week or so ago we added a feature to allow you to easily Tweet our posts should you feel they deserve it by adding the plugin TweetSuite.  It’s use has been limited but we hope to see more of you using this service.  You can follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Pliggs.

We changed our layout and design late last year due to widget overload, ease of use and the overall experience here at Pliggs.  We are extremely happy with our current layout and design and hope you are too.

You may have noticed that we have added a few banners recently, this is for a couple of reasons.  One, external sources see us as a good source of information and two, we have an upcoming contest coming soon.

The contest will require you to take part in a scavenger hunt, more details will be released soon.  If you would like to sponsor this contest please us know by contacting us.

A list of sponsors include:

• SEO Certification
• Host Gator
• Blog 2 Life
• Boxed Art

A couple of days ago we launched a new template call Pliggie, it is our first of 2009.  Once launched a couple of rendering issues came to light and as far as we know, all have been fixed.

More information and screenshots are available here or you can download Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

We hope to release a new template soon and we are looking forward to our contest launch, let us know if you want to sponsor it.

Email Bag:

We receive numerous emails, usually about people wanting custom work, but this one really got us down and then irritated.  We have always prided ourselves on the fact that we provide FREE templates, we had one premium one that didn’t do well and have since decided to only do FREE templates.

Anyone who does templates knows it takes time to make a template, time no one is paying for.

Here’s the email:

Hello, i was wondering if you could make some premium themes or if you make theme to sell. I do like your themes but it seems that they are verry simple they miss a lot of colour and maybe some imagination i think you have the skills and you could make some great theme.
I know i can buy theme from pligg clubs but they are verry expensive.

Now it’s not that bad of an email, however, it’s the part of missing some imagination and color that really irritated us.  We are providing these templates for free and doing them on our own time, so emails saying we have no imagination is a real  kick in the pants.

We have not replied to this email and probably won’t, this post will be our response.  We do not do premium themes, we do however do custom work.  We are not friends with Photoshop so do not expect to see some fantastic graphics.

We will work on adding graphics and backgrounds to our future themes though.

What do you hope for from us this year?

The owner decided it was due for a new look, here’s how it looked back in December:

and here’s how it looks now:

I was always a fan of the old look as it was unique, the new look offers a fantastic layout even though it is a template from our friends over at CMS Theme.

The uniqueness is definitely gone as it now looks like our good friend Brian’s Pligg install at Blog Engage.

The layout isn’t the purpose of this post though, something else has changed at Blogsvine, and it isn’t for the better.  While perusing the front page and subsequent pages of “Popular” submissions I was blown away by the number of comments each submission had, 50+ comments.  Each comment gave you valuable information on acquiring any type of drug going, SPAM!

Spam in the comments isn’t the only place it is found, the “Upcoming” posts seem to be riddled with them as well, repeat posts also have been added.

It is a shame to see such a popular and valuable Pligg install like Blogsvine starting to lose it’s luster and become a new haven for spammers.

Hopefully this is temporary and the owners will get it cleaned up fast before it damages their reputation.

How are you combatting spam?

Related Search:

• pligg blogengage

This was the logo he sent me:

The logo worked well with our layout at the time, with matching colors and the symbol was the one I was using, just not as good looking.  Jamie blogged about it here.

Since then, we have made changes here at Pliggs, which included, a brand new look.  The new look consisted in a new layout and colors, therefore, the above logo didn’t exactly work us anymore.

After all the tutorials I have read, I am still not comfortable with Photoshop, but I am trying.  So I was forced to use Photoshop to make a logo that only consisted of words as I couldn’t get my symbol’s color to change to blue which would make it match the new color scheme.

Jamie pops in from time to time, he noticed that I didn’t have a proper logo anymore and being the giver he is, he sent me a new one to match my color scheme.

New logo:

I’m not sure how he does it, but thankfully he does.

Please take a moment and head over to Blog 2 Life and see more samples of his work, send him a message and see what he can do for your logo too.

We should all follow Jamie’s footsteps and every no and then do something for someone else without being asked, how much better would the world be.

What have you done lately for someone else?  Got an idea for something others could do for a fellow blogger?

Leave us a comment below, and what do you think of the new logo?

After 3 months, Google gave me a PageRank of ’3′, this was fantastic since I was new.

Another 9 months went by and suddenly I had a PageRank of ’5′, it only latest for about a week, and then I dropped back to a PageRank of ’3′, another victim of the Google Dance.

However, 6 months ago I lost all of my PageRank, overnight it was gone. I was dumbfounded, no idea why it had happened.

I was doing everything I thought was proper and by the books. Something had penalized me. I was being indexed by Google but they seemed to have turned on me.

What I did:

• I did a complete overhaul of Pliggs, new design, got rid of all ads except Adsense.
• Ensured all images had the ‘alt’ tag
• Made sure all outbound links in my posts were using anchor tags
• Commented more on other blogs
• Removed all widgets from the blog (EntreCard etc…)

I have released numerous FREE templates for Pligg, they have been downloaded thousands of times.  This must relate to a lot of backlinks.  Wrong.  There are a few things that a lot of downloads of my templates mean:

• Not everyone will keep the backlink in the footer
• Not every download relates to a live website
• Not every website using my template has PageRank.

So, as an example lets say I have 2000 downloads(which I have), 25% of them are not live, 25% of them are not live and 25 % of them remove the backlink, this leave 25% that should be active.  Lets go further and say half are indexed by Google.

So, 125 backlinks from the 2000 downloads, which is low-balling, this is evident by looking at the numbers in my sidebar of the downloads, I still have no PageRank.

According to Backlink Watch, I have 1000 backlinks, upon studying the list, not one of those backlinks are passing on any PR juice.  However, upon even further studying I note that no backlinks are from a site using my templates.  Google does show sites using them though, and a few have PageRank, so wheres the PR love from Google?  Who knows.

Some of the websites using my themes with PageRank:

• Entreview – PR1
• Indonesian Circle – PR2
• Linka-me – PR1

While these sites have very little PageRank, and there are more with PageRank, I still do not understand my loss of it, maybe a decrease, but a total loss?

PageRank is a reflection of the number of backlinks to your website and the PageRank value of those websites and whether ‘bad neighbours’ are linking to you.

I have plenty of backlinks, no ‘bad neighbours’ I know of and fresh content, but no love.

I have come to the realization that beating myself up with this issue is over, I can no longer focus on what I did wrong but what I did right.  I have done almost all SEO tips I know of and have plenty of backlinks.

I will continue to produce FREE Pligg templates and posts and maybe someday I will be rewarded by Google, but from here on in, PageRank is the last thing on my mind and I have even gotten rid of the Google toolbar from my Firefox.

If you have any insight or a familiar story to share, please leave me a comment below.

What is your new PageRank now that the last 2008 update was complete a couple of days ago?

Over the past 12 months there hasn’t much development, released that is, except for contributions by Pligg members and the several paid modules which in my opinion have taken a higher spot of the list of priorities for the development team.  I blogged about one module that was released, but it definitely wasn’t tested properly prior to the release.

However, it now appears that the development team has found their second wind and have big plans for the popular and quite possibly best Digg clone.  They have released some information about the upcoming release of Pligg 1.0 and it looks good.

One of the biggest changes that will definitely change Pligg forever and also increase it’s possibilities is a “Group” function.  This has been sought after by numerous Pligg sites.  As you can imagine, this is a major coding feat and will enhance the experience you can offer your users and will attract more users to register at your site.  It has been highly successful at Mixx and can broaden your network of friends.

Pligg has also changed their default theme, thank god!  It now looks more inviting and professional.  This however doesn’t mean that you should use it, I am not a big fan of using the default theme in any CMS or blogging script, sites need to stand out.  However, perhaps this new theme can be used with some modifications to make it more unique to you.

I am patiently waiting to see what other changes are in store for Pligg 1.0.  They are not saying when this version will be released.

Get full details over at their blog…

In this case I must congratulate the developers for a job well done, providing they actually deliver on it.

Does this renew your faith in the Pligg development team?

]]> http://www.pliggs.com/pligg10/feed/ 4 http://www.pliggs.com/pligg-developers-robbing-new-members/ http://www.pliggs.com/pligg-developers-robbing-new-members/#comments Sat, 22 Nov 2008 18:04:02 +0000 Geoserv http://www.pliggs.com/?p=451 Chuckroast is up to his old tricks yet again, as for Yankidank he is just as guilty for not stopping it.

First the developers started posting modules that will not work with the Pligg CMS without butchering key features of it, for example this module, which has no business being released as compatible with Pligg.  I posted a viable solution to achieve this effect that will work with Pligg here.

Pligg seems to be more into pushing useless modules that you need to pay for instead of offering support.  This explains they declining member base and support which is clearly shown here.

Hopefully more and more new Pligg users read posts like this one and see what they are in for.  The CMS itself is good, but the development staff are unfortunately pushing people to use other CMS’s like Social Web CMS.

Here’s the latest instance of Pligg developers robbing new members.

My good friend Lincoln has also written about this over at Social CMS Buzz.

What do you think about current state of Pligg?

Related Search:

• Submit a New Story pligg

Blogrush was just about 1 year old, still young in my eyes and was still in beta.

It was definitely popular with bloggers but like a lot of blog services, monetizing it wasn’t easy. It apparently cost around $7000/month to pay for enough servers to operate. Bloggers could install widget on their blog, the widget would then add new posts to a cycle and would display the bloggers post on other blogs with the same tags or interests. This was the source of quite a bit of traffic for some bloggers.

I don’t think the owner is interested in selling, so this maybe a sign that it could come back with a whole new business model and perhaps ways of monetizing it, we’ll have to keep our eyes and ears open.

So if you have the widget installed on your blog, you need to remove it.

As an alternative, check out Blog Catalog.

Sample widget:

Another popular widget for bloggers is Entrecard, they also faced similar issues with monetization a few months ago, but have seemed to rebounded successfully with a few key moves. For example, adding SezWho to their service, posting affiliate banners on member dashboards and more.

Did you use this widget and was it a source of traffic for you?  And, do you think it has the chance to return like I do?

News Dots: http://www.newsdots.com

News Dots is meant to be a Pligg install strictly for submitting news related items, or blog posts that relate to news.

FAQ Pal: http://www.faqpal.com

FAQ PAL is a website to find and submit tutorials for webmasters, developers, coders and surfers.

I will be srating my next FREE template release tomorrow and hope to release it sometime this weekend.

Check out my 2 above projects and let me know what you think, sign up, and maybe submit an article or two.

The first to leave Pligg was Informed Networker.

The next major site to leave Pligg is Foxiewire, they have now completed moving over to Drigg, the Drupal equivalent of Pligg.  Thusfar, it is far more secure and has much more development and add-on action than Pligg has had in months.

How do you feel about Pligg?