WP-dbManager is a good WordPress plugin that handles database optimization and backups. It was created by Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan, and can be downloaded at http://lesterchan.net/wordpress/readme/wp-dbmanager.html.  As your WordPress tables become filled from adding posts and comments, they will need to “optimized”.  And, of course, they need to be backed up!  Lester Chan’s plug-in easily handles managing your Wordpress database.   It allows you to optimize, repair, backup, restore, delete backup databases , drop/empty tables and run selected queries.  And, it supports automatic scheduling of backing up and optimizing of database. 

It does all this through the “Admin” panel in WordPress.

The following is a great “tutorial” (from Tubetorial.com) the explains the basics of WP-dbManager.

I stumbled across a whopper of an article on search engine ranking factors on SEOMoz.org.  After having read a ton of advice on how to get pages ranked, it is great to see a quantified list of items and their relative importance to the search engines.

Since I’m still figuring out what it takes to move up in the search engines, this article helps alot by showing the relative importance of each kind of SEO action.  Since there’s a lot of “noise” concerning good SEO practices, this makes it easier to filter-out the junk and only use techniques that will actually pay off.

Best of all, the contributors for this article are all SEO experts, so there’s more than one opinion being expressed for each of the tactics being discussed.

Kudos to Andrew Hansen for “The Best SEO Advice I’ Ever Received.”  That’s where I stumbled across SEOMoz.org.

Here’s a slick trick that will give you a fast peek at what Yahoo! has in their index for your site.

Go to https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ and enter your site’s URL. After Yahoo! returns the page, make that page a Bookmark in your browser.

Anytime you hit the bookmark, Yahoo! will retrieve the current information, and display it.

Viola, a fast way to check Yahoo’s index and also see what incoming links are listed for your site. This may not be the most elegant solution, but it’s fast and free.

For Google, in their search bar enter “site:www.yourdomain.com” for a list of indexed pages. For a list of sites linking to your domain, use “link:yourdomain.com”. (These additional operators “inurl:”, “allinurl:”, “intitle:”, “allintitle:”, “info:” and “related:” also contain useful information. See http://www.google.com/help/operators.html.

Here’s a cool image application I just ran across that the was displayed at TED2007. This is Microsoft Labs technology that blows image handling into a whole new universe. Blaise shows off some impressive software.

Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from around the Web, Photosynth (based on Seadragon technology) creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation. Its architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, shows it off in this standing-ovation demo.

I’ve always wondered about which pay-per-click network actually performed the best. So far, all of my campaigns use Adwords and usually have average to poor results. I don’t blame Adwords, I figure I’m still learning the ins and outs of pay per click. But, it was great to stumble upon successful marketers who had taken the time to run actual tests on the various networks.

Chad Frederiksen at CDF Networks put together a comparison of 10 pay per click networks which looked at volume, click pricing, conversion rate, keyword competition and ease of use. He took a campaign that was performing well on Adwords and ran it across the other networks. His results and conclusions surprised me!

Chad ran additional comparisons in January and September of 2007. You can check out the results at http://www.cdfnetworks.com/category/ppc-smackdown/

Jeremy Palmer is moving away from information products and making his ebook, “High Performance Affiliate Marketing” a free download!

I have a lot of respect for Jeremy, he authored a great ebook in “High Performance Affiliate Marketing”, and has an informative web site.   He’s also a terrific example of someone who knows when he’s overloaded and admits it.

Here’s what he blogged the other day:

… Continued … »

I’ve enjoyed and learned a lot from Michael Cheney. Each of the products I’ve tried has always been first-rate.

Now he’s started another video series titled “Confessions of a Marketer”. You can view episode 1 here.

Here’s the actual verbage …

January 31, 2008

Board of Directors
Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Attention: Roy Bostock, Chairman
Attention: Jerry Yang, Chief Executive Officer

Dear Members of the Board:

I am writing on behalf of the Board of Directors of Microsoft to make a proposal for a business combination of Microsoft and Yahoo!. Under our proposal, Microsoft would acquire all of the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 based on Microsoft’s closing share price on January 31, 2008, payable in the form of $31 in cash or 0.9509 of a share of Microsoft common stock. Microsoft would provide each Yahoo! shareholder with the ability to choose whether to receive the consideration in cash or Microsoft common stock, subject to pro-ration so that in the aggregate one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be exchanged for shares of Microsoft common stock and one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be converted into the right to receive cash. Our proposal is not subject to any financing condition.   

… Continued … »

Talk about big goals.  Here’s some internet marketing training you may want to consider.   It’s called Ken’s Project.  I know, it’s a catchy name.  But, it has some catchy goals.

Ken’s Project has three objectives:

1) Create one million new entrepreneurs

2) Help each entrepreneur build a million dollar business

3) Generate one million dollars a year for charitable causes

I’ve listened to Ken’s first lesson about becoming an online entrepreneur.  I think it’s something every new person to internet marketing should hear.

He provides some eye-opening exercises that will help you develop better focus and help shift your mind set so that you are more likely to focus on what’s important rather than what’s urgent.    … Continued … »

This is a cute comedy-club routine. I’d rate it PG.

This is from Jack Humphy at Jack Humphrey’s Friday Traffic Report

I’ve spent many frustrating minutes trying to figure out why my embeds to YouTube were getting trashed. I could tell that it occurred within the editor, but I thought the problem might be related to the themes I was using.

Turns out that it’s a simple fix!