Important updates to blog improvement review contest, please re-read; leave any comments on that post .

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No I’m not keyword stuffing the title, but it has a good effect. And no it’s not my Google adsense account either; no reason to close what’s not in use.

As I was making some rounds this morning I came across my buddy Mike at IM Is Easy and he had a VERY interesting story to share (not his account either).

Now I’m not a Google hater per-say, but most will agree that it’s always satisfying to hear of David taking a piece of Goliath, even if just a small piece…..$721 in this case.

Read the full story (new window). Pay close attention to the end where Google’s paralegal protested (quite loudly I’m sure), “What if everyone whose account was canceled sued Google?”

This post has multiple points; lets get to it…

As you know, I do a DSWM link round-up each month in case you’re new and missed or old and forgot (now there’s a play on words). There wasn’t a lot this month, but a few good points still relevant…

Google-Feedburner/CommentLuv Snafu - The Solution (27) - If you’re wondering why the plugin is not showing your latest link.

New Comment Policy - You Want To Read This (76) - Always a good idea.

Twitter Gone! (54) - Account deleted but not forever.

Guest Bloggers Wanted/Needed Right Here (33) - Hellooooo, anyone home?

Your Thoughts Are Wanted On My Other Two Blogs (15) - One post on each blog that could use your input.

Top Commenter Contests - Officially Speaking… (29) - Revealing my new Rules & Tips page.

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Have you been experiencing the same issues I have? For the past week or two or more I’ve been bitchin’ all over the sphere about bloggers CommentLuv plugins not picking up my last post. In fact, it kept picking up the post about, Google alerts, which at the time of this writing is more then 10 posts back.

Oh yea, really frustrating. Alas! Thanks to Andy Bailey, the tireless/fearless creator of this awesome Wordpress plugin, I have the solution! And, well yea, it was my fault. Oops.

The following solution is in Andy’s words, assuming you’ve had your Feedburner feed switched to Google,

“Visit commentluv.com and log in, go to the claim your site page and see if it still has your old feedburner url in the feed field. If it has, change it over and see if that does it.”

About two weeks ago Ryan McLean from SmarterWealth fame wrote an article discussing the importance of having banners. It was a brief article (a tad self-serving ) but overall got me thinking about some changes coming soon to Direct Sales Web Marketing.

I know it’s been asked and talked about before, numerous times; but not from me (I don’t recall) so here goes…

Main objective today is 2fold:

1. Which is currently better for overall sales - Advertising Banners or Text Links? Does “banner blindness” (or other pet names) REALLY exist?

2. Does the answer to number1 make a difference if it’s affiliate sales or private ad sales?

Reason I’m asking:

As mentioned above, I will be revamping the blog a bit; specifically the side bars for starters. 2009’s primary focus will be income production (not even on the list in ‘08). One avenue of this is inevitably blog monetization. However I would like to do it as classy as possible and genuinely helpful for all parties concerned (sorry Mr. Chow).

A very important post on DennisEdell.com and $500 to be won on EasyCashContests!

OK so everyone else already did there page rank update posts; what the hell, dare to be different, right? Anyway, I’m happy .

I blogged after the last one back in September about going from 3 to 2 and the reason I thought it happened. Now I got my 3 back and I have YOU to thank for it! All of your very generous outgoing links to me and ULTRA generous blog comments definitely contributed to me raising back up a point; thanks!

Tip: For those that may not realize it, blog comments are Google feeding content just like anything else!

I haven’t checked ALL my inner pages yet, but three of my most popular scored a 2! Another scored a 0, which is different from nothing at all. (Ask if you dare, but it’ll give you a headache.) Hopefully those will score more next time.

The following is a guest post by Donna Fontenot, better know as DazzlinDonna from seo-scoop. Pay attention boys and girls; if you’ve ever had a thousand ideas, but don’t know where to start (who hasn’t?), this is a good one .

Those who know me well, know that I have new site ideas nearly every day. Although I don’t act upon every idea that floats through my head, I do act upon quite a few of them. Occasionally, I’ll start a new site just on a whim, but I at least “try” to be sensible about it before starting one. Essentially, the smart thing to do before I waste time starting a new site is to determine several things:

1. Can the site make money - either while I own it or from selling the site later?

A little reminder of three posts on DennisEdell.com and an EASY $300 on EasyCashContests .

Now I’m not asking about all those cool little SEO tools, that give you all the numbers and such. Instead, lets say you turn on your computer each morning and wish to see who’s linking to you…what do you use?

I’ve heard some say they just use the dashboard:

(Highlighted to the right.)

I however have come to realize recently that this method can be quite ineffective…three reasons I see for this:

1. It shows your comments on do follow blogs; useless for these purposes.

2.  It shows sites where you are top commenter; again useless for these purposes.

3. This morning mine shows this site as linking to me. 1 Million PayPal to the first to explain that to me.

OK so it’s not FREE link love this time, but there’s plenty of time for that you know I love to do it.

No no, now I’m talking about probably being the last blogger on the net to give a go to the scratch-back “top spots” link tipper dohickey (I think that’s the official name), which you can find on the left side bar.

How do I consider mine a wee different? I’ve seen them for $5 per day, which isn’t too too bad, and more often then not I see them for $5 while using the auto-bump feature…..

What this means is, your five dollar link is there only until the next person buys one. To me this is a double-edged sword for the buyer, and a little greedy on the bloggers end…sorry but it’s personal opinion.

First, a little horn tooting for reaching 50 posts! Woohoo! Yippie!! Yay for me!!!

Don’t worry, I don’t dare to openly compare myself to Darren Rowse again

All kidding aside, I sincerely hope they have been good quality posts for all involved

Hmm, it seems though that the good quality posting is at least half the reason I got a PR downgrade from Google - I went from 3 to 2 during the last dance at the end of July!

Huh? What?! Penalized by Google for quality content?? Well, in a round-about sorta way…

Those that have been with me for awhile may remember that I had well more then 50 posts at one point. However, realizing that the posts weren’t even close to stellar (not by a long shot), I removed about 40 of them.

Please don’t misunderstand. I’m all for fighting comment spam as much if not more then the next blogger. If you desire the use of a captcha or two, go for it. I fully support you.

For cryin out loud though people, use one that is CLEARLY VISIBLE.

I read and comment on a LOT of Blogs in the sphere and the pure disdain I have for those teeny tiny little question/answer captcha’s placed in amongst the other fields (name email URL) cannot be measured with todays technology.

A real PITA if there ever was one. Btw, for those that don’t realize, that’s PAIN IN THE ASS. Who’s brainchild were these?

Now I know the first silly question popping off all over, “If you have to fill in those fields anyway, how can you miss it?”

Answer 1: Easily. One click of the AutoFill button within the Google toolbar takes care of it.