Simple PHP Blog

I have already done a lot of ranting and raving about Blogger and Wordpress.

Although I consider these two to be the leaders of the blogging pack (by a large margin), I did run across a blog using Simple PHP Blog, and was impressed. It doesn't have all the crazy features like the other two, but it does have a feature which really attracted my attention. On the bottom of every post there are five dots, and you can rate the post 1 to 5. This way, people can interact with your posts and website without actually having to write a comment.

Don't get me wrong, the comment function is still intact, but the percent of comments compared to visitors is tiny, while the percent of "ratings" to visitors is much higher.

Another note: Simple PHP Blog isn't database driven. You can run it on a server without needing a database!

If anyone ends up using this system, please let me know how it goes.
-Ashton Sanders

Mordheim Blog - Update

It has been under two months since I have started my Mordheim Blog, and we are seeing lots of good progress in the Search Engine Rankings.

For almost the entirety of the last 7 weeks, my blog has been ranked on the second page for the keyword "Mordheim" at Google. Just this last week, I've arrived on the first page! My blog has been sitting in the #10 rank for about 3 or 4 days now.

My blog is very content heavy on the word "Mordheim" and is included in the title of my website and in almost every post title and keywords. Many of my categories also begin with the word Mordheim. I currently have 42 posts in my Mordheim blog. That is almost .9 posts a day!

Merry Christmas,
Ashton Sanders

Let it Snow, Let it Snow

On a separate hobby of mine, I came across Tom's Boring Mordheim Blog. Tom is a very skilled miniature painter and modeler. After joining his online community, I helped him to make his home page "Snow."


Check out the link to the blog above to check out (EDIT: see what his header image usually looks like. Now that he has taken down the snowing animation, click here to see the same image Christmas Style. It used to be just a plain .JPG. I replaced it with a Flash Animation, and amazingly, it is a smaller file than the .JPG!

Enjoy,
Ashton Sanders

Google Index Spasm (Google Dance)

I call this the Google index Spasm (other's call it the Google Dance):

After a couple weeks in existence, my new blog found itself on the second page for it's main keyword. After fluctuating between rank 12 and 18 for another two weeks, it fell to rank 80+... If I didn't know better, this would have caused me to be very disgruntled.

I don't know the purpose is of the Google Spasm, but it's kind of funny and annoying at the same time.

Today my blog is back up to rank 19 for its keyword. I think some call this the "sandbox" but my site wasn't in it for very long. Although that could be because it is a blog.

-Ashton Sanders

Google's Indexing Delay: Update

As of today, Google knows about 35 pages of my Mordheim blog. The last time the Googlebot hit this blog was on the 22nd, and my post on the 21st of November is up second when I check to see how many of my pages Google has added to it's search index.

It looks like Google has a fondness for blogs, as I've never had a page on my website get into the Google index that fast. Usually it takes at least a couple weeks.

Another thing to note: this blog is a subdomain of www.ashtonsanders.com, and Google already knows about this site. Even thought it is only a one page site, I'm sure it helped the speed into Google's index because it already knew that that domain existed.

-Ashton Sanders

Google's Indexing Delay

I created a new blog about Mordheim on the 10th of November. I worked on the design of the blog for about a day, and then linked to it for the first time on the 11th. I linked to it from a couple different sites: Websites in a Flash on the 11th, my Website Design Blog on the 17th, and Board Game Geek on the 17th.

By adding this new blog to my Google Webmaster Tools account, I could tell that Google Accessed my new blog on the 11th of November, 11 days ago. I have checked my site in Google's Index everyday for the last week, and yesterday, the 21st, I got my first click through from organic search results. Today, I have 5 pages in the Google index; the same five pages that were my only pages on the 12th of November (Home Page, About the Author and the entries for the 10th, 11th and 12th).

From this, it seems that it takes 10 days from the time that the Google-bot sees your page/site till the time that it gets entered into Google's search index.

I'll keep my eye on how Google reacts to my blog, and will keep you posted.
-Ashton Sanders

Update: This blog shows up at #23 for the keyword term "Mordheim"

Blogger vs Wordpress - Remote Site

When I first started this blog, I did a little bit of research about blogs, and chose Blogger. Now that I've been using Blogger for almost a year, I've started another blog, about Mordheim, with Wordpress, and here are my thoughts:

Blogger

Overview

Blogger is very simple and user-friendly. There is a reason they are the most popular: it's extremely easy to set up a blog and write posts. They also have a lot of functionality.

Wordpress

Overview

Wordpress is a little more complicated, and it seems like you can do more with the additional complication. They also have a very user-friendly interface and simple layout. Wordpress has a larger base of fans who have created many blog layouts that are free to download. Because of this, Wordpress's Free Layouts are much nicer, stylish, better.

Blogger

Remote Blog

Unfortunately, if you want to put your website on a remote server (any other website besides "*.blogspot.com"), you lose almost all of your functionality. You don't even get a Category Roll. The Categories listed on the right side of this blog is done manually. (The post count is also done manually).

Wordpress

Remote Blog

Fortunately, Wordpress.org supplies you with a free download of Wordpress, and easy installation instructions. In 5 minutes, you have a new, stylish and functional blog hosted on your PHP website. They have a lot of functionality, and each free blog layout has different amount of functionality. You could probably spend the rest of your life trying out different blog layouts. If you are a PHP programmer, it is very easy to sink into the code and make lots of changes to the functionality. From making the categories display alphabetically, by ID, etc.

I would definitely recommend Wordpress over Blogger for advanced users who are looking to host their blog on their website.

Blogging For Life,
-Ashton Sanders