Until recently, I had been using the free sitemap generator of xml-sitemaps.com. The sitemap generator works fine and is useful for getting your page indexed by Google. Specially for putting the sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools, the sitemap generated by this tool is great. However, the main problem with this tool is that it can’t create a sitemap with more than 500 pages if you are using the free version. You can definitely create a sitemap with infinite number of pages using the pro version but hey, who gets a paid one these days? Everyone’s looking for a free one.
But now with the new Free Google sitemap generator plugin for wordpress, your blog doesn’t need to buy a pro version. All you have to do is download and install the free plugin which is available here. With this new plugin, you will be able to dynamically generate xml sitemaps which are compatible with google and therefore can be much more useful and easy to use. With this new plugin, you don’t need to recreate the sitemap again and again. So, cheers to Arne Brachold who created this plugin. By the way, feel free donating him a few bugs if you really like this plugin.

It’s been around 3 days since the last Google Page Rank Update (I don’t remember exactly). Now, everybody must have seen how the Google page ranks are going these days. Even those sites with thousands of backlinks have a 0 Page Rank and even a simple site with 10 or 20 backlinks has a 3 or 4 Page rank. So, what do you think? Is there a bug in Google’s Page rank algorithm that instead of giving page ranks depending on the backlinks, they are just assigning the Page ranks in some random unknown way? Nope, it’s definitely not a bug and I can assure you a few simple ways to fight against this uncertainty of Google’s Page Rank.

Almost everybody knows some idea on how Google assigns Page Rank to websites. It’s definitely based on the number and quality of backlinks and some other factors. But how come some sites have 0 page rank even though they have thousands of backlinks. The reason is that there are some factors which can let Google blacklist your sites. And those factors are what I’m going to talk about today.

If you can simply avoid these mistakes, I’m sure you will get a Page rank that your site deserves. Now, let’s go to the 5 mistakes that most web developers make in the blind hope that it will increase their page ranks or SERP.

Mistake no. 1: Getting reviewed or linked from blacklisted blogs.
You do this; I’m sure you get a 0 page rank in the next update. I’m not talking about a single blacklisted blog linking to you. I’m talking about hundreds of blacklisted blogs linking to you. This usually happens when you pay a network blogger to post a review of your site in his/her collection of crappy/blacklisted/useless blogs or paying blogger networks like , blogvertise, payu2blog for reviews of your site. Because unknown by many advertisers, there is a mass out there in such sites with thousands of useless, made for money and anti-quality blogs. Many people do this thinking that this will increase their Search Engine Rankings but this will definitely affect your site’s page rank. And the more number of such blogs linking to your site, the more chance you have of getting blacklisted or getting a 0 page rank.

Well, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t advertise on these sites but you should advertise only on quality sites. Paying $100 for a review in a quality blog will do a lot better that getting reviewed by tons of crappy blogs. I mean “Don’t go by quantity. Prefer Quality instead”. Now, “How do I find out whether a blog is blacklisted or not?”. That is a good question and here’s the simple clue - “Does the blog has quality information?”. If the blog is a quality blog writing about useful information rather than pointless reviews of advertisers, then certainly, the blog is not blacklisted. But also see if the Page Rank of the site is 0. If page rank is 0, there is a big chance that the blog is blacklisted unless it is a new blog less than 3 months old. The point is - choose a blog which has a high page rank (check if the blog’s page rank is valid or not at http://www.checkpagerank.net), has quality posts and less number of advertisements.

Mistake no. 2: Very High Outbound Links
Unless your site is a directory or some link related site, linking to too many sites can be a threat for your site’s Page rank. This is not about the total links in your site but the number of links to other sites. This is because if you link to too many sites, Google thinks that you are selling links to other sites or something like and you already know that Google’s not happy with link sales. Having a high outbound links is not a good idea especially for blogs because blogs are not meant to link to other sites, they are meant to give information. So if you have a blog, cut off your outbound links, make it as few as possible.

Mistake no. 3: Having a tag or phrase or disclosure in your site
If your blog is in , you might have already added the disclosure policy. This policy declares that the content in your blog are not always your opinion and may be based on advertiser’s views and ideas. This is where Google kicks your ass. If your blog is not about a useful information but advertiser driven, it doesn’t have a place in Google. Google will definitely give you a 0 Page Rank in the next update if you still have the disclosure unless your site is some big old one like the Daren Rose’s or John Chow’s blog. So, if you are working hard to increase your page rank, it is a good idea to stay away from and that is why I insert an image instead of the word . Even having this word can be a threat.

Mistake no.4: Having very short posts with many links
Many bloggers whom I wouldn’t call bloggers have this habit of writing posts only for money and when they do, they write it so short that it just has the minimum number of words in it as it is required. Google knows it; Google has already taken necessary steps to blacklist such sites. So, keeping your posts lengthy and having lesser links will help you in the long run.

Mistake no.5: Cheating with Google
The biggest reason why Google dominates the other Search Engines is because they deliver quality results in their Search Engine Result Pages. It delivers the most relevant results when you search for a query. And the mystery behind this great Search Engine is its Page Rank. Page Rank is one of the most important factors upon which Google search results are based. So, if you try to increase your page rank or SERP (Search Engine Results Position) by cheating Google, Google will sooner or later detect it and will kick you out when it does.
The point is – Never try to use cheats or deceives to increase your search engine rankings or your page rank or try to deceive your users. Google wants a quality site and will definitely leave you with a bunch of page ranks if your site is useful to the users and if you don’t break rules.

In one of my blogs, I had been using the url format of http://www.mydomainname.com/index.php/2008/07/post-name . This url structure is not used by many people but somehow I used it because it wasn’t working when I tried to use the http://www.mydomainname.com/2008/07/post-name . So, I had been using this permalink style for around 2 years and I never changed it because my advertisers would simply complain that their post urls can’t be found. And it went alright until recently when wordpress 2.6 was released.
When I installed the new wordpress 2.6, this permalink is no more working and I have to change it to the more correct one - http://www.mydomainname.com/2008/07/post-name . But the problem is that if I change it, my post urls will all be changed and many advertisers won’t be able to find their posts -especially those posts which are written for advertisers. So, I had only one choice – to restore to the previous version of wordpress 2.5. For now, that is the only solution to this problem. If you are also having the same URL structure, I recommend you not to upgrade to the new version until a compatible version is released. However, I don’t think that the next version will work on this URL structure because I think they are trying to remove this structure altogether and the last option still remains the same.

Since a new month has started, namecheap’s old coupon code - MAYFLOWERS is no more working. you need a new soupon code to buy your domains at reduced prices. Once again, I’m sharing this coupon with you. This coupon will help you buy your domains at a reduced price of $8.41 instead of its original price of $9.29. The coupon code for june is given below:

Coupon code: ROSEMONTH

Expires on:     30th June 2008

Hope this helps you guys save your money while buying your domains from namecheap.

I have seen many bloggers having an archives page where all their categories and monthly archives are listed. However, I never thought of adding this page into my blog because I always thought that this feature might not be available with the wordpress itself and may be it comes with a wordpress plugin. But, today I did a little search on google and it comes out to be a default feature of Wordpress and it can be done in a minute. I just added this archives page and removed my archives section from the sidebar. I think this will decrease the OBL (Outbound Links) of my homepage without the expense of archival navigation. In short, adding the archives page can save you unnecessary homepage links.

If you are an experienced blogger, I’m sure that you already know how to add an archives page but if you are also a beginner like me, you might wanna read this. To enable your archives page, go to “Write a Page” page of your wordpress admin control panel and create a page called “Archives” or whatever you want. Now, all you have to do is change the Page template whose default value is “Default template” into a “Archives ” Template.

So, you can easily add the archives page. Now. if you want to change the page structure, you can change that in your theme editor’s “archives.php” file and with this simple step, your blog will look much better and become SEO Friendly. Good for SEO Guys.