The following is a guest post by Alia Haley. If you would like to write for this blog, please check out the guidelines here.

In spite of some massive successes, like Chrome, Maps, Gmail, and AdWords/Adsense, to name a few, there have also been many blunders from Google over the past 10 years or so. Google Wave, Google Buzz, Gmail’s Launch, and DejaNews all have been proved to be failures for various reasons, mostly due to the technical side of things.

Let’s take a look at these blunders in closer detail.

Top 4 Biggest Google Blunders

1. Google Wave

The idea of Google Wave was closed by Google for various reasons; perhaps there were too many features, or it was launched ahead of its time. Basically, Wave was supposed to be a real-time messaging platform which quickly proved not to be a success. After launching Google Wave in May 2009, the development of the product has been ceased permanently.

2. DejaNews

DejaNews.com was a site for Usenet discussions where messages were posted to discussion groups. The site was shut down in 2001, and the archives were moved and renamed as Google Groups. The closing of the service was handled terribly, as it was without warning and didn’t allow anyone anywhere to post or browse usegroups.

3. Gmail’s Launch

Gmail, Google’s popular web 2.0 email marketing service, is a huge success today. However, the initial launch of Gmail was a quick failure. The launch took place on April Fools day, which was widely misinterpreted. Previous fake launches on April 1st made many believe that it was just another prank. Gmail was launched in 2004 as an invite-only service.

4. Google Buzz

Many mistakes were encountered with Google Buzz, most notably user control (or lack thereof) and a simple, yet confusing design.

Control was very limited, and it was more of the application controlling the user and did not provide the liberty of options and features you would have expected to find.

Privacy was another concern, and the lack of tech support, like a Help Center, was baffling.

Buzz seemed to be essentially a Twitter-like application, when Google should have tried to create something different and better, as they’re trying to do with Google+.

Although many blunders have been introduced by Google, there are always opportunities to come up with better ideas and technology. The recently launched Google+ is an integrated product of Google products and Google Buzz. Google+ is a social networking site which was designed keeping in mind all the drawbacks of Facebook.

About the Author:

Alia Haley is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on technology and luxury, and is fond of games. She recently bought an Aprilia Scooter for herself. These days she is busy in writing an article on how to compare mobile phones.

I had a lot of people asking me for months why I never made a lot with Adsense, and the answer was simple.

I stopped running Adsense ads on my home page for at least a year. This raised more questions as to why I would stop running ads if they were bringing in revenue for the site.

That answer is also simple…

Why I Had Stopped Publishing Google Adsense Ads

At the time, I wanted to test Clickbank hop-ads, where money isn’t made with clicks, but rather through actual sales. I placed these ads exactly where the Adsense ads had been, in hopes that they would produce the same amount of clicks.

The result, over a span of close to a year, was that they did receive clicks, but only one sale ever resulted. Yep, only one sale, ever!

Now, simple logic would tell you that if I could make a few sales a month from those ads, it would justify running the Clickbank ads rather than the Adsense ads. However, that was not the case.

No sales = no income. I would much rather make a few pennies or dollars from clicks than make nothing at all. Anyone who is involved with Adsense knows that with enough clicks per month, a decent amount of income can be made.

With this re-founded realization, along with some urging from readers via my Income Reports, I decided to go back to Google Adsense.

Google Adsense IS Profitable

Some people will tell you that Adsense is a waste of time, while others will say it’s profitable and that they make a full-time living from Adsense alone, usually spanned across many, many sites and niches. Depending on your sites, goals and ambitions, both are correct.

It’s important to do a little research and determine if Google Adsense is right for you. I have been an Adsense publisher for years and know firsthand that it can generate a decent amount of extra income. At the time, it wasn’t quite the income I was looking for, but my site was also young and didn’t see the kind of traffic it gets today.

With increased traffic and targeted ads, I thought maybe Clickbank could provide the boosted income I was looking for. Obviously, I was wrong. It didn’t generate the revenue I was looking for, at least, not in the way I had hoped.

Knowing that Adsense generated income from that same part of real estate on the site, I wanted to see if I could get an increase in revenue.

Reverting back to Adsense ads, replacing the Clickbank ads, I waited a few days to see how they would perform. To my surprise, they generated over $5 the very first day. If you saw last month’s income report, you’ll see I made a total of $81.72 in November from Adsense. That’s more than I ever made in a single month with Adsense during my time online running my online business.

Considering this is income generated from natural traffic coming from search engines and referring websites, that’s $81.72 in pure profit. Obviously, publishing Google Adsense ads does make sense for me.

Will I Continue to Publish Google Adsense Ads?

The simple answer is, yes! I was very optimistic after last month’s performance, and I was excited to see how this month would do. Well, the month is almost over, and as of right now, I have made $120.84. That’s almost $40 more than last month, and there’s still a few more days to go in this month.

That’s encouragement enough for me to continue running Adsense ads on this site, and I can’t wait to see what the new year brings.

Are You an Adsense Publisher?

Being an Adsense publisher just makes sense for me, but as I stated before, it’s certainly not for everyone.

Are you a publisher? Why or why not? If so, what’s the most you ever made in a single month from Adsense?

Leave a comment in the form below…

The following is a guest post by Alia Haley. If you would like to write for this blog, please check out the guidelines here.

Irrespective of your love for new and innovative apps, whether you are a geek or not, whether you have a habit of spending hours together sitting on a computer or not, this combination of two words, the second one bearing its origin from the science of mathematics, must have hit your ears at least once. Google+ (Plus).

Google+ has become the latest competitor to Facebook. It seems very interesting and different than Google’s other failed social networking experiments. There are many reasons why you should come to like it, but here are 10 features that we have come to love.

Top 10 Reasons to Like Google+

1. Circles

Google Plus allows you to segregate your friends into groups much easier than Facebook does. You just drag your friends’ names to the appropriate group that you designated. You can create as many groups as you want. You can have people in multiple groups. In that way your status updates and the things that you are sharing with those people are seen only by those people and not by your entire news feed the way Facebook is now. So Google has really tried to create a new niche to allow these circles to be formed.

2. Hangouts

It is basically group video chat. It would kind of be like a status update which says, “Alan is hanging out with seven other people. Join the Hangout.” and you go and join the group video chat. You see everybody on the screen. It is like Skype group. So it is very exciting, something that has not been implemented on a large scale for social networking yet.

3. Huddle

Instead of text messaging your friends, you basically can create group chat sessions very easily, so if you have got a group of people who are going for a party, everyone can be chatting with each other. Thus, everyone will be informed together in real time.

4. Sparks

You can gather content on the basis of your likes and interests. This will be done by sparks who will collect the content that you are interested in ensuring you that you always have a stream of content at your disposal.

5. Ripples

Ripples is a brand new feature which helps you visualize a post. You find a post and then hit the ripples button, and you will be directed to a fresh window showing stats for the posts, e.g. how many times a particular post was shared by a specific person.

6. Creative Kit

This is built within the editing software of Google+. You can do a whole lot of things, like cropping pictures, adjusting different exposures, rotating, and much more. There is no need for complex software like Photoshop for an average user.

7. Mobile

Google+ can be integrated fully into your mobile phone, utilizing its basic functions like camera, GPS, etc., and can thus give an impressive Google+ experience on your smart phone or other mobile device.

8. Extraordinary Interface

Google+ comes with a very crisp and thoughtful interface. It is very soothing to the eyes as compared to the interfaces of other social networking sites.

9. Privacy

The privacy settings are easy to find and edit, unlike Facebook settings which are very cumbersome. Furthermore, with the help of Circles, one can control who sees what content that you post, therefore providing the right information to the right viewers.

10. One-Way Following

Taking a leaf from Twitter, Google+ allows the users to follow anyone without having to friend that person, a newly added feature integrated into Facebook.

What Do You Like About Google+?

Share with us what your favorite features are about Google+ and why you like using Google’s social networking site so much.

About the Author:

Alia Haley is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on luxury and technology. Beside this she is fond of mobile games. In her free time she loves playing game on her cell phone.

The following is a guest post by Alia Haley. If you would like to write for this blog, please check out the guidelines here.

The only irritant to US based search giant Google’s reign is social networking site Facebook. Google’s three previous attempts at social networking in the form of Buzz, Wave and Orkut have not been much success. But, Google+ is about to change that.

Google+ Offensive

Google has come out in the open, criticizing the privacy policy of Facebook. Google Vice President of Engineering, Vic Gundotra, even labels Facebook as sloppy, scary and insensitive towards people’s need for more control over their privacy settings. He further added that every activity on Facebook is like a public performance. His comments are a clever marketing ploy, especially when Gundotra claims Google+ is offering everything that Facebook is not.

The Circle of Success

In recent times, the aim of social networking has been to imitate real life as closely as it can. This theory has become the benchmark for all major innovations in this arena. Google+ offers a feature called ‘Circle’ that is based on a similar approach. It plays on the fact that people have different groups of friends with whom they interact in different ways. This interaction is often mish-mashed in the way Facebook handles things. With ‘Circles’, users will be allowed to add friends into different groups, independent of each other. This will allow sharing of data in separate and unique ways.

The Hangout Zone

Google+ is the first social networking site to offer video chat. Google+’s feature ‘Hangout’ allows you to have multiple video chats, similar to call conferencing, with the click of a single button. This feature has created a lot of buzz in the social networking circles so that Facebook is now working on its own video chat feature (Update: Facebook now has video calling integrated into the chat feature).

Integration

Google’s mobile operating system Android is already a market leader. Google is planning to launch Google+ on Android able phones. The mobile version will not only benefit from the fast browsing service offered by Android, but would also have the added feature called ‘Hurdle’. Hurdle will allow the users to send messages to different groups of friends in one go. The ‘spark’ button is another excellent feature that rather looks like a rip-off of the Facebook ‘like’ button. With spark, you can easily put up anything that interests you on your profile.

It is a pertinent question to consider if this is all a gimmick by Google to put down Facebook. Are they really trying to innovate in the field of social networking? Google has two advantages that Facebook does not. One is the overwhelming success of Android, which will help them capture the mobile market. The other is the reign of YouTube as the most famous video based social channel.

About the Author:

Alia Haley is a writer whose thirst for latest updates on technology is insatiable. She has a keen interest in cars and for her nothing-can-beat Bugatti Veyron in style and design.

Imagine for a moment…

You’ve spent hours and hours, possibly even days on end building backlinks to your website. And, not just any backlinks. These backlinks are on high Page Rank and authority sites. Maybe even on blogs and forums you visit regularly.

But…

Days go by. Your website’s position in Google hasn’t increased a bit, or has gone up very little. All of that time and energy spent building those links seems worthless.

Does this sound familiar?

I, as many others, deal with this issue all the time. It’s not entirely our fault, but it’s not all Google’s fault, either.

I’ve been getting asked lately how I get Google to index my new backlinks, as well as any old links that still may not be indexed and counted. I thought it would be helpful if I wrote a detailed, step-by-step guide on exactly how I go about it.

How I Get My New (and Old) Backlinks Indexed by Google

Google is limited in the fact that it’s spider can only index links that it comes across. If your newly created link(s) isn’t on a page that is being linked to from an already indexed page, then how is Google supposed to know that your link(s) exists?

For example, if I create a brand new profile page on a forum, my profile page may be set to public, meaning anyone can view it, but right now no one is linking to it. I may have a link or two on my profile page that I want Google to find and count towards my total backlink count.

So what can we do so that Google finds those links?

Here is my personal step-by-step approach to ensure that any new link I create is found and indexed by Google.

Step 1: Create a Blogger Blog

Go to blogger.com and create a new Google account. Even if you already have one, still create a new one. Trust me on this.

Give your new blog a generic name. Don’t make it anything specific… you’re not going to be promoting your blog or trying to rank it well in search engines, so just keep it basic.

Step 2: Add Your Links to Your Blog’s Sidebar

Any backlink you have that you want to get indexed by Google should be added to the blog’s sidebar.

Blogger makes this super easy to do. Simply click the little edit icon next to the links section, and a new window will pop-up to add your links.

When adding your links, you want to include the entire URL of the link you want indexed. The Title of the link should include just the main domain of the site. DO NOT use keywords in the Title of the link. See picture below to understand what I mean…

Step 3: Get PLR Content

You’re going to want to post to your blog every day, and multiple times per day. This is more important towards the beginning since your blog is brand new.

The easiest and quickest way to do this is to get your hands on PLR content. It doesn’t matter where it comes from or what kind of quality the content is. As long as the quality is half-decent and makes sense, go with it. I would recommend doing a Google search for “PLR content,” “free PLR content” or something similar.

Start posting articles on your blog, 30 minutes apart between each post. If you can’t post that often, don’t worry about it. Just post as often as you can.

Don’t worry about re-writing the articles. It doesn’t matter if it’s duplicate content. As I said before, you shouldn’t be worried about the quality of the content. You really don’t want your blog ranking in search engines, but if it happens, let it happen naturally.

Step 4: Ping Your Blog Posts

Every time you publish a new post to your blog, you’re going to want to ping the actual post. I’m not going to go into detail about what pinging is, but basically, it lets other sites know that you added new content to your blog. Those sites then send out their own spiders to collect information about your post, including the URL.

The easiest way that I know to ping a blog post is to grab the Ping-o-matic bookmarklet and save it to your bookmarks toolbar.

Once you’ve done that, every time you publish a new article to your blog, view the new post, and click the Ping-o-matic button on your toolbar. It will instantly ping your post, which should take all but 2 seconds.

After that, just head back to your blog and wait a little bit before you publish another new article from your PLR collection.

Step 5: Confirm Google is Visiting Your Blog and Posts

By now you should have 10 – 20 links in your blog’s sidebar that you want indexed (no more than that), and you should have been posting new articles to your blog for about a week now. At this stage you’re going to want to start checking to see if Google has indexed your blog yet. At this point, only your blog needs to be indexed.

To check if Google has indexed your blog, do a Google search by entering your Blogger blog’s full URL address in the search bar, with “site:” in front of it. See example…

If your blog shows up in the results, you’re good to go. The links currently in the sidebar have most likely been visited by Google. If you want to double-check, do a search as exampled above, using that link’s URL instead.

Step 6: Rinse and Repeat

Now that Google is visiting your blog and has indexed your first set of links, it’s time to update your link list with a new set of links you want indexed. Go ahead and change out all the links, keeping sure you follow the example as outlined in Step 2.

Once your links have been updated, follow Steps 3 through 5. Keep track of the title of the article that you post as well as the date in which you posted it. For Step 5, you’re now going to check to make sure Google has indexed your latest post. This is the post that should have been published immediately after you updated your list of links.

If that post has been indexed, you’re ready to change out the links again.

Keep repeating these steps over and over again for any new links you want to get indexed. After a while, it’s not uncommon for Google to index your new posts within a matter of hours. It happens to my blog all the time.

Let’s Recap

Now that you have my step-by-step guide on getting your links indexed by Google, let’s just quickly go through the entire process again.

First, you want to start a new Blogger blog. Then, add your non-indexed links to the sidebar of your blog. Publish articles to your blog as often as possible, but at least 30 minutes apart. Ping each new post you make using the Ping-o-matic bookmarklet. Check to make sure Google is indexing your blog and posts. Once your current list of links are indexed, change your list, adding new, non-indexed links. Repeat the entire process over and over again.

It really is this simple. This doesn’t take a whole lot of time at all. It takes me less than a minute to publish a new post (just copy and paste) and ping it. Adding new links takes the most time, but usually no more than 10 minutes or so at a time.

There you have it. Everything you need to get your links indexed by Google quickly. If you have any questions, leave a comment below and I’ll be sure to get back to you.

I’ve had the opportunity to be a beta tester for the Google+ project. For those who don’t know, Google+ is Google’s attempt at a social networking site, similar to Facebook. Google+ wasn’t always available to the general public as you had to be invited to join, but now, anyone can join by signing in to their Google account.

My Thoughts About Google+

I’ve been a member for about a month now, and so far, I’m not really impressed. I’ve seen a lot of people, mainly marketers, just raving about it and the “benefits” of using it to market your online business. While this stands to be true to some aspect, with Google’s search being influenced by social voting via the Google +1 button, I’m still not totally convinced.

I have read some people state that they like it much better than Facebook and that it’s more user-friendly. If you ask me, Facebook is very user-friendly and easy to use. Maybe I’m just biased as I’ve had a Facebook account for the past 4 years or so. I use it for personal use as well as use it to promote my online brand.

If you take into consideration that Google+ has a mere 10 million user base compared to Facebook’s 750 million users, then the obvious place to market yourself is still Facebook.

And personally… I just can’t get around the layout of Google+. It’s similar to Facebook in a lot of ways. Almost too similar. Way to be original, Google. I feel like I should spend more time on the site to get more familiar with it, but when I make an attempt, I end up browsing my News Feed on Facebook instead.

Overall, I feel Google has a long way to go before they become any real threat to Facebook. I do see potential, though, and I’m curious to see where things progress as Google+ gains more momentum.

What Are Your Thoughts?

I’m curious to know what others have to say about Google+. I imagine there are those who have similar views as my own, while others are probably thinking I’m a complete moron.

Either way, I want to know your thoughts. Good or bad… share your experience, opinion or idea on Google+ by leaving a comment below.

It seems there has been a PageRank update, courtesy of Google. I noticed the change yesterday on this blog, just as a few blogs I follow started posting about the updated ranking system.

I’m not going to get into the elaborate debate surrounding PageRank or even explain what it is. If you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, you can always “Google” it.

Why I Care

For me, PageRank plays an importance in my overall online business. This may sound crazy to some, but regardless of what you may think, PageRank does have a role when it comes to my monthly earnings. To give you an idea why, I suggest reading this post and looking over the “High PR Backlinks” section. You may also be interested in reading this post and this post. And, you can always check out my Income Reports and see how much I make from selling advertising space on this site, which is partially made possible thanks to PageRank.

Okay, so now that we know the Google PR of our sites have been updated, I wanted to share how my sites faired in this update. I currently have three websites in my portfolio, and I’ll also include my blog on the list as well. Let’s take a look at them:

ReplaceYourSalary.com

• PR before update – 4
• PR after update – 4

Work From Home Blog

• PR before update – 4
• PR after update – 3

GetBackYourExAdvice.com

• PR before update – 0
• PR after update – 1

Micro Niche Adsense Site (Not Disclosed)

• PR before update – NA
• PR after update – 0

Overall I’m pleased with how things turned out. I’m a bit bummed the blog didn’t fair so well, but hey, nothing I can do about it except continue to post quality content and build quality links.

How Did Your Websites Do?

Did you notice a change in the Google PageRank of your website/s? Let us know by leaving a comment, and I’ll even allow you to post one of your websites so we can all take a look. Just don’t abuse the privilege, as I do moderate all comments.

I know, I know, it’s been live for a little while now. And, don’t worry, I’ll spare you the boring details about Google’s new social button that’s supposed to be the arch-rival to Facebook’s “Like” button. You can read all the intricate details about it here, straight from Google’s mouth.

+1 Blog Posts

This post is an announcement to let you all know, my readers, that I have decided to implement the Google +1 button on this blog. It is now LIVE on the blog. You can find it at the top of each post, on the home page as well as each individual post page.

Why?

Because it’s new. I like to try new things and see how they perform. Also, it’s Google we’re talking about. They’re the biggest search engine, period. If they implement a new change that could affect website rankings and overall website traffic, I think it’s best to pay attention and play their game.

Social Search and Impact on SEO

Will their new introduction to Social Search take hold? I really don’t know. Should we care? Yes! At this stage it’s only an experiment, but it’s possible it could be here to stay.

There’s a lot of hearsay floating around as to how this is going to affect SEO and the way personalized search engine results are served. I really don’t want to get into all of that here as plenty has been said about it elsewhere. But, if you want to learn more about the Google +1 button and the future implications it could have on search, I recommend you check out these links:

• Google competes with Facebook Like button
• Everything you need to know about Google +1
• How Google’s +1 button may change SEO

That should provide everything you need to know about the +1 button.

Now, if you’re interested in adding it to your own site or blog, it’s actually real simple.

How to Add the Button to Your Site or Blog

For those of you who run a static (non-Wordpress) site:

Log-in to your Google Webmaster’s Account and follow the simple instructions: http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/

For those of you who run a WordPress blog:

Garry Conn offers simple to understand instructions to add the button to your posts and pages: Google +1 Button.

Now you’re set. You’ll be able to invite your friends and website visitors to click and +1 your sites, blogs, and blog posts.

And, if you found this post helpful, I’d appreciate some +1 love from ya if you have some to spare. *hint, hint*

Did you know Google celebrates Valentine’s Day? I didn’t have a clue until I received a Valentine’s Day card in the mail. Yes, Google sent me a Valentine’s card!

I have no doubt I wasn’t the only one to get a card like this. Maybe you did, too?

As a Google Adsense Publisher, I usually get two or three mailings from Google each year promoting Google Adwords. Funny thing is that I’m also a Google Adwords user (or at least used to be). I haven’t ran any campaigns in over a year, so maybe that’s why they keep sending me these offers.

Basically, they send me promotions to give Adwords a try and offer a $100 coupon voucher. Now, since I already have an account which is several years old, none of the coupon codes they send me have ever worked for my account. Supposedly these offers are only for newer accounts.

However, the Valentine’s card I received a couple of weeks ago contained a coupon code that actually worked! I was literally stunned in amazement.

Google loves me!

LOL… at least that’s what I was thinking at the time. All other redemption codes had failed, but when I entered the this code into my account, it went through without a hitch.

I now have $100 in free Google Adwords advertising to play with.

I haven’t yet had a chance to test any campaigns, but you can bet your bottom I’ll be running at least one campaign.

I’ve made some money in the past with Adwords, but have sunk a lot of money as well. It’s a tough game if you’re not real good at it. Not to mention all of their new rules and regulations. It’ll be a while before I attempt it again, but I’ll keep you posted when I do.

Afterall, Google just gave me $100 in free, virtual money. I’d be stupid not to at least try.

Thank you, Google! It’s nice to know that you really do love me.

LOL…

Anyone else receive a Valentine’s card from Google? Did your redemption code work? What’s your experience with Adwords? Share your thoughts below…

After reading the title you’re probably thinking there’s no way that keyword research can be easy, let alone free. I think that too many people make keyword research a lot harder than it has to be. And, while paid tools are great when researching keywords, I think that for the majority of people they’re not needed.

What IS needed though is knowing how to do some basic keyword research when you’re looking to rank your articles, blog posts, and web pages on the first page of Google.

Keyword research is essential, and it’s a lot easier than you might think. I put together a video explaining how you can use a free tool to find “golden nuggets” that are going to provide the traffic you need. Follow that up with a little research on your competition, and you’ll be well on your way to getting a top 10 listing.

Once you find the keywords you want to use, remember to include those keywords when building backlinks to that article, blog post or web page. That’s how you’re going to build up your rankings in the search engines.

And, speaking of backlinks, the two methods of backlink building I recommend to get the fastest results is using Angela and Paul’s backlink building services. They are worth every penny and can produce massive results.

I hope with this little tip you’ll be able to bring in more traffic and sales for your online business.