Six months later...

OK - Firstly, apologies for the delay.  

It seems that whilst I tried very hard to do everything by the book, the response from Google after the appeal was "you're still banned".  No reasons, no explanations, no money.

So, after much hunting about, I've decided to restart the blog using the adbrite network.  Give me a few days to get back up to speed and I'll let you know how things are going.

Finally - Movement!

Google responded this morning with news that my account is being looked at. So that answers the immediate question of "How deep is the appeals pile".

Will let you know as soon as I hear news.

The Mushmoom Effect

I have a massive black Labrador, called Dave.  Amongst his repertoire of tricks is "Touch my nose", where upon command his nose will make contact with mine if I say that phrase to him.  The cause and effect is quite simple to understand - I give the command (the cause) and Dave supplies the effect (touching a nose).  

In addition to the dog, I also have a habit of talking in silly English at him.  One recent occasion of this was regarding some talk about Mushrooms, where I then went off on a load of waffle about mushrooms, but then corrupted this into "mushmooms" and getting down to Dave's level, I asked him "Do you like mushmooms?", at which point he bonked his nose enthusiastically on my nose.  

To my ears, "Touch my nose" and "Do you like mushmooms" sound nothing alike.  So, I repeated the question to Dave - "Do you like mushmooms?" and again, I got a bump on the nose.  Shortening things to "Mushmooms?" resulted in the same effect.  I've no idea why saying the word "mushmooms" around my dog correlates to the command to touch my nose, but for some reason it does.

I can hear you asking "What does this have to do with blogs and adsense?" as you get this far...

Looking at Google Analytics, there are certain posts that seem to bring in a lot more traffic than other posts.  Every now and then (about once every week and a bit), something is posted that causes a spike in traffic once Google has indexed it, and then continues to be bring in traffic at a higher rate.  This is adding to the visitor count week over week.

One such post was totally unrelated to adsense, but it's helping with the growth of numbers of visitors to the blog.  If you check out this calculation regarding teaspoons and unicorns, I come up near the top of the search results quite often.  I only put it in one post, but it's bringing in a lot of visitors.  

Whilst it's good to keep a blog focused on the topic at hand, I will try another topic like my list of fun items to put into Google, and see if I can pinpoint whether this is like Dave and his "mushmooms" where there is a replicable source of cause and effect.

You should check your pages in Google Analytics and see if there is a similar effect in your content.

What is the blogosphere?

What is the blogosphere?

The blogosphere is a term that describes the whole world of blogs and blogging.  It is in effect the sum of all blogs.  If you've read a blog (which you are now), then you have entered the blogosphere.

What does the blogosphere do?  

In short, it's the "personal web".  Websites are generally marketing products, solutions, things to buy, things to vote for (or against), etc.  When you visit a blog, it allows you to get opinions, advice, etc, from people with their own viewpoints and passion.

What can I do with it?  

You can do as much or as little with it as you want.  However, not getting involved with other bloggers is a bit like being in a school playground and not playing with the other children - you don't learn online social skills, you don't get inspired, and you make no friends to help you when you want to do something.

The blogosphere is something you've already encountered.  The more you familiarise yourself with the concept, and the more you get involved, the more you get out of it (more friends = more promotion = more visitors = higher page ranks = more money).  

Blogging Frequency

If you are a reader of a blog, but that blog is only updated once a week, how many times do you go to that blog each week?

This is a fundamental question that many bloggers forget about.  You have access to millions of readers, but if there's no reason for people to come to your blog more than once a week, then they won't come every day.

Additionally, if you only post one article a week, then after a year you will only have 52 posts.  A blogger that posts 5 days a week will have 260.  

In this new world of social media, the winners will be the blogs that are being very sociable.