A Plugin Broke Your WordPress Blog?

Source : DailyBlogTips

Here Is What To Do :

Most WordPress users had this experience at least once. You find a cool plugin around the web, rush to upload it to your server, activate it, and then when you check the blog to see if its working, bang! The blog crashes and you can’t even load the homepage….

Obviously this is not WordPress’ fault. The crash usually comes from bad code that was used in the plugin itself, or from a conflict that is coming from another plugin already installed on the blog.

Either way it is a frustrating experience, and here is what you can do to get out of it.

1. Try to de-activate the plugin

The first thing you should try is to de-activate the plugin. Simply try to login into the admin area. If that is working, go the list of plugins and de-active the one you just installed.

2. Rename the plugin via FTP

Many times the crash will affect the WordPress admin area as well, so you won’t be able to de-activate it. In those situations you should try to rename the plugin file or folder via FTP.

3. Delete the plugin via FTP

If simply renaming the plugin was not enough, try to delete it completely. This will try to stop your WordPress install from loading the buggy code.

4. De-activate all the plugins via PHPMyAdmin

Some plugins will alter tables in your WordPress database when you activate them. As a result your blog might keep crashing even after you delete the plugins via FTP.

If that is the case, you will need to log into cPanel, and open the PHPMyAdmin interface. Then select the WordPress database, and browse inside the “wp-options” table. Look for the “active_plugins” column, and edit it. Inside the “options_value” field you will find something like this:

a:31:{i:0;s:13:"AddMySite.php";i:1;s:19:"akismet/akismet.php";
i:2;s:23:"all_in_one_seo_pack.php";i:3;s:16:"authenticate.php";
i:4;s:28:"breadcrumb-navigation-xt.php";i:5;s:18:
"codeautoescape.php";i:6;s:37:

These lines represent the active plugins in your blog. Delete them all and save. This should automatically de-activate every plugin. Now check if your blog is live again, and if the admin area is working. They should be.

How to Use Apture

Source : ProBlogger

By Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen.

Do you want to create posts that sparkle, dance, enthral, touch the heart, and inform? Do you want your blog to stand out, and subscribers to scramble in at the door? Then I suggest you check out what the New York Times, Reuters, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the World Wildlife Fund, the blog of Tim Ferris, and Goodlife ZEN all have got in common: they use Apture.

Apture is a plugin that transforms an ordinary blog posts into an extraordinary media experience.

Here’s what Jim Brady, the Executive Editor of the Washington Post says about Apture:

Apture adds a new dimension - a web of information - inside washingtonpost.com stories, and continues our mission of bringing readers the most comprehensive and in-depth news coverage.

The most important feature of this award-winning plugin is that readers can access additional information - without having to leave your page. Whether it’s a Wikipedia article, a related blog post, or a video - all can be integrated seamlessly into a post. And Apture is free for blogs with less than 5 million visitors per month.

So are bloggers thronging to use Apture?

No - not yet. Typical responses I get are “It seems like advertising and it makes a site look too busy.” I don’t agree. I think Apture rocks!

10 reasons why I love Apture:

1. It’s free.
2. It saves time.
3. It keeps my readers onsite for longer.
4. I can create a multimedia experience for my readers.
5. I can offer a greater depth of content through layers of information.
6. I can shape and control the ambience of my blog.
7. I can use high resolution images and videos without bandwidth headaches.
8. I can draw readers deep into my blog through using attractive links to related posts.
9. Apture is stylish.
10. It’s creative, and it’s fun.

I think there are two reasons why bloggers are slow to embrace Apture. Firstly, bloggers don’t know how to use Apture. Which is hardly surprising, seeing that Apture lacks a user guide and tutorials. Not only does Apture lack information on how to use it, the team manages to hide some of the best features - which is an interesting kind of reverse-marketing. Secondly, Apture works with popups, and popups are seen as spammy advertising gadgets.

Are all pop-ups spammy?

A criticism frequently leveled at Apture is that it ‘looks like ads’. That’s because we associate pop-ups with nasty advertising. ‘In-text advertising’ or ‘contextual advertising’ means that links in the text lead to adverts, and not to further information. Some of the worst offenders are Vibrant Media, and Kontera. Personally, I hate contextual ads. They seem to me a betrayal of our readers. After all, readers come to a blog for information or entertainment - and not because they want to be shopped by the blogger.

Contextual advertising has created enhanced hyperlinks, called ‘blooms’. This means that a link can ‘bloom up’ into an image, a video, an article, a flash advert, and so on. There are other products on the market that are easily confused with Apture, for example Snap - which also ‘blooms up’ contextual links. Snap is primarily an advertising tool and gives bloggers and readers little or no control over their online experience. Snap uses pesky auto links, i.e., it automatically creates links in a post.

In contrast, Apture places control firmly in the hands of the blogger and the reader. A blogger can choose what she or he would like to link to, and the reader can determine how they want to use Apture. And they can even disable it. A new player on the market is Zemanta. You can read a review of Apture vs. Zemanta.

I’m sure you can see why Apture is treated with suspicion by many bloggers. I mean, who wants a spammy gadget on their blog!

But forget about ads for a moment. You see, the Apture guys had a brilliant idea: they decided to use the latest in-text advertising technology in order to create layers of information, so that the reader can understand the wider context of a particular topic, or drill down into more detail.

Apture is the art of adding layers of information to your blog posts, and wrapping multimedia around your readers.

You can see why the big newspapers have rushed to embrace Apture for their online resources. After all, their mission is to drive more and better information to the readers. Bloggers have yet to discover how Apture can transform their work. In this post you can learn how to use Apture, and get a taste of what it can do.

First up are step by step instructions on how to use Apture (including links to 5 training videos), followed by a section on Apture for minimalists. Next, I confront the Apture team with some challenging questions. And finally, you can find out how to wow your readers with Apture. In this section I discuss a post by blogger Arvind Devalia whose inspired use of Apture demonstrates that this plugin can transform a good post into a brilliant one. (If you’re short on time, head directly to Arvind’s 6 Key Lessons in Life From a 140 Year Old Man in order to get a sense of what Apture can accomplish. Make sure you click on all the links to get the full juice. There are some surprises…)

1. How to download Apture

Apture is configured for a variety of different blogging platforms, such as WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Movable Type, Ning, Tumblr, and Drupal. You can can download Apture here. (If you use Blogger, Typepad, of Tumblr, you’ll need the Apture Firefox plugin.) In this post with its accompanying training videos, the focus is on using Apture in WordPress. If you’re not familiar with how to upload a WP plugin, watch Episode 1 of my screencast series Apture Made Easy.

2. How to install Apture

Installing a plugin is normally an easy process, but Apture is a little different, because there is an additional activation process. You can watch Episode 2 of my Apture Made Easy series.

Here is a short summary of action for more experienced bloggers: Once you’ve uploaded the plugin, activate it like any other plugin. When you then write a new post for the first time, a popup offers to install a short piece of code automatically into your site. You will also need to register with Apture at this point. If the code hasn’t installed, copy it and paste it before the last body tag in the footer code.

Apture has two widgets, the Link Widget and the Embed Widget. Together they make up the Media Hub. The Link Widget creates an in-text link - whether it’s an internal link which opens directly on your page, or an external link which transports the reader to another website. The Embed Widget takes objects, such as images, videos, etc, and embeds then into the post.

3. How to use the Apture Link Widget.

Apture links work just like plain links. For example the blog you link to gets ‘link juice’ - even through your readers dodn’t need to leave your page in order to follow the link. Watch Apture Made Easy Episode 3 for detailed information on how to use the Link Widget.

In brief, when you highlight words and click on the Link Widget ( the one of the right-hand side), a window opens that allows you to choose what to link to.Here is what you can do with the Link Widget:

• Link to Wikipedia or other information sources. Scroll bars in the popups allow the readers to read a complete Wikipedia article. You can also choose Wikipedia articles different languages. You can also link to a particular section in Wikipedia.
• Link to other websites. The links function like plain links,i.e. the blog you link to with Apture gets link juice - without the reader having to leave your site. You can also find links you previously made with Apture.
• Internal links Apture links are a great way to entice readers deep into your blog. I use the Embed Widget in order to link to previous posts. Each Apture popups contain a post image and a snippet of text and looks very attractive. Here’s how to link to a previous post: click on the Embed Widget, and then choose ‘Enter a Specific URL’ . The Preview will show you what the link will look like. If you have more than one image in your post, you can select which one - if any - should appear with your post.
• External links: You can choose to use Apture for plain external links that open in a separate window.
• Customizing your sources: you add additional sources from Apture to pull from.
• How to add links: check out the short article from the Apture team that explains how to add multiple links.
• Twitter links: The Apture team has come up with some great options for embedding Twitter. You can link to a single Tweet, or show Twitter search trends. You can even embed your Friendfeed in your blog. Check out a YouTube video that shows some of the cool Apture tricks for Twitter. I think that Twitter fans will be all aflutter over these options.

4. How to use the Apture Embed Widget

Sourcing and embedding media is a snap with Apture. You can find step-by-step intructions in Episode 4 of my Apture Made Easy video series. Here is what you can do with the Embed Widget:

• Embed images: Using Apture saves me a lot of time. For example when I use an image from Flickr, the shortest time it takes me to source, resize, embed, and credit an image is 06:48 minutes. The same process with Apture takes me just 44 seconds. Check out how to use Creative Commons images in Apture. If you use stock images, you can upload the images from your computer quickly resize them with Apture, using the ‘Upload File’ function. Check out how to resize images.
• Embed audio: Apture embeds an elegant audio player. At present, music can only be sourced from Imeem and NPR. It would be good to see greater range audio sources, including radio stations outside of the US, such as BBC, etc. In order to upload audio podcasts, I suggest you upload the audio to Amazon S3, and then link to the file using the Apture Embed Widget.
• Embed video: At present Apture supports videos by YouTube, Reuters, Truveo, Dailymotion, Imeem Video. If you want to embed your own flash videos, you may run into problems. Apture works with a fixed size of 320px wide and 250px high. In other words, Apture only supports videos that have the Standard Definition aspect ratio of 4:3 , and not ones with the High Definition aspect ratio of 10:9. (I have been assured by the Apture team that this flaw will be fixed very soon.)
• Embed YouTube. With Apture you can control start and stop times of YouTube videos. This means that you can choose a clip from a YouTube video to support your post.
• Use captions: You can use captions on all your embeds.
• Add Additional content: You can add up to 6 pieces of additional content to your main link. The additional content is visible in thumbnails beneath the main embedded item. Watch this excellent video by the Apture team on the effect of adding additional content to one link: Why Include 1 Piece of Content When You Can Include 7

5. How to update a published post with one click

Let’s say you’ve published a post and some new information has come to light. Maybe a commenter has suggested a link, or you’ve found a new image that you want to include in your post. The old way of updating your post is laborious: you need to go into your WP dashboard, bring up the post, make changes, and save them.

With Apture, all you need is to go to your published post and bring up your Apture Dashboard by clicking ‘e’. (This is a widget that hovers on top of your published post. Then you can make changes to the published post by highlighting text and adding new links or images. Watch Episode 5 of my series Apture Made Easy for step by step instructions on how to use the Apture Dashboard.

6. Reader control

The reader is in control of her or his reading experience. A small question-mark in the bottom right-hand corner of each Apture ‘bloom’ leads to a popup where readers can customize their Apture experience. They can disable Apture completely, or choose whether Apture links open through a hover, or through a click.

7. Apture for minimalists

Hard-core minimalists may think that Apture look too busy on a page. I think it depends very much on how you use it. I recently ran a Virtual Zen Retreat and used Apture in order to create the daily retreat posts. I used images that supported the calm retreat ambience. I also embedded a couple of videos in order to sharpen the focus of particular posts. My aim was to create a calm retreat ambience that allows participants to deepen their experience. The feedback showed that it worked: most participants mentioned how much they loved the calming images and inspiring videos.

My suggestion to minimalists is to use Apture in a - well - minimal way. For example minimalists could use Apture just for fast selection of images, or for attractive internal links.

8. Apture secrets revealed

Apture hides many of its top features. (Note to the Apture team: how about installing a search function on your site?). Here are some features even die-hard users may not know about:

• Apture uses Amazon S3 to store all media it provides links for, without passing the storage cost on to users.
• Google Street View is supported by Apture. Watch this fascinating demo on what this could do for your blog.
• Apture provides support for Linkedin profiles
• Bing web and image search is integrated into Apture.
• Apture supports super-search engine Lijit.
• Apture integrates into URL shortener Kiw.is.
• Apture supports Wikinvest. You can insert stock charts within their apturized embeds and links.
• Apture has partnered with SlideShare, a community for sharing presentations where individuals or organizations can upload and share PowerPoint, PDF, or OpenOffice presentations. Check out how Apture integrates with Slideshare.

9. How to monetize your blog with Apture

As you can imagine, Apture has great potential for monetization, especially for blogs selling products. I use Amazon Affiliate links on Goodlife Zen and I’ve notice that since using Apture, my Amazon affiliate income has increased by 28%.

I am sure that there are many ways to monetize your blog with Apture. Here are two tips: if your blog is focused on Real Estate, read how Apture can help the Real Estate community make more sales.If you write about the Stock Marked try embedding real-time stock charts on their site.

10. Confronting the Apture team: questions and answers

Transparency is important. If we as bloggers want to engage with Apture and learn to use it, we need to be able to trust the company and know that it isn’t going to change the rules on us. So I asked Andrew Machado

When we invest our energy into learning how to use a major plugin, such as Apture, it’s important to be sure that we’re not going to encounter problems further down the track. So I asked Andrew Machado from the Apture team some searching questions (Andrew is the Community Manager at Apture and runs the Apture Blog.)

Question #1 Is Apture safe?
Answer: Apture was vetted by the technical and security diligence of the New York Times, BBC, Washington Post, and Reuters tech teams. We’ve also tested to make sure Apture is compatible with other WordPress plugins.

Question: If I decided to deactivate the plugin, would I lose all the images, videos and links created with Apture?
Answer: All baked Apture links will turn into regular hyperlinks pointing to their primary destination (Reference, Maps, Videos, Images, ….). All embedded images will remain while Videos turn into screenshots of the video which link to the video when clicked. Documents and Reference Viewers will turn into an image representing document or reference content that links to the document in question.

Question: When a new version of WordPress appears, how fast can you update the plugin? Will there be down times until you’ve adapted the plugin to a new WP version?
Answer: The plugin code responsible for inserting our JavaScript (which enables the viewing experience) is extremely small (10-20 lines) and interacts with a part of WordPress that is extremely stable over time. Very major changes to WordPress might cause problems with the editing aspect of Apture. Because of this (and for general compatibility) we test with pre-release versions of WordPress so the update is always ready in time for new WordPress releases.

Question: Can you confirm that for bloggers (below 5 mill visitors a month) Apture will remain free?
Answer: Yes, we will not be charging for the (current) basic version of Apture.

Question: What’s the long-term viability of the Apture project?
Answer: We raised our Series A round about a year ago and are very happy with our current financial situation and are very actively hiring and growing the team. We are absolutely in it for the long haul and all believe in the vision behind the company. The company was incorporated in July of 2007, we received our Angel financing at the same time, launched a beta in April of 2008, launched fully in July of 2008, and raised our Series A in the fourth quarter of 2008. We have, however, been working on Apture in some form since January of 2006.

11. How to wow your readers with Apture

So far we’ve looked at Apture as a tool for adding levels of information. But for bloggers, the secret of creating outstanding posts is to turn turn a read into an experience. I asked one of the new breed of up-and-thriving bloggers -Avind Devalia of Make it Happen - to test Apture. He was reluctant and wrote: “I’ve previously tried Snap on my blog but found it distracting and irritating as the boxes seemed to open up all too frequently by just hovering over a linked phrase.”

Finally Arvind decided to rework one of his popular posts with the help of Apture! The post is about Gandhi’s enduring legacy. Against this serious background, Arvind created a counterpoint with Apture links that are playful, emotional, rousing, fascinating, and surprising. Arvind’s post leaves the reader inspired, smiling, and with a tear or two. Check out 6 Lessons in Life from a 140 year Old Man. (Make sure you click on all the links to get the full experience!)

I think Arvind’s inspired use of Apture has turned what was a good post - into a brilliant one.

12. Conclusion

I think blogging is at at crossroads between old-style blogging, and new-style blogging. Old-style blogging replicates print media. In other words, the reader’s experience is focused on a page of text, which may contain images. In this scenario, the reader follows outward-bound links in order to access more information. New-style blogging creates a multimedia experience for the reader. Bloggers are waking up to the fact that Broadband allows us to deliver not only text, but simultaneously images, videos, music, and other media to our readers. Apture is a perfect tool for new-style blogging because we can add depth and focus to a post, as well as enhance mood and message - all by using easy one-click actions.

Quite simply - if you’re not using Apture yet, you’re missing out on the hottest tool for bloggers.

Top 10 Websites to Get Internet Usage Statistics

Source : DailyBlogTips

Sooner or later most of us need to collect some Internet statistics. Maybe it is for your homework, maybe it is for a market research you are doing for a project, maybe it is just out of curiosity. Over the years I came across several websites that provide these stats, and I decided to list the best ones in this post.

1. Pew Internet Project

One of the best resources for people looking for Internet statistics. Their research cover social networking, web 2.0, broadband and digital divide. Apart from detailed reports you will also find infographics, presentations, trends and surveys. The research topics are quite actual as well. For instance, they already have a bunch of reports and numbers on Twitter.

2. w3counter Global Web Stats

w3counter provides a web analytics program for website owners. However, they also use the data collected on the websites using the program (over 28,000) to create a monthly report called “Global Web Stats.” On the report you will find the most popular web browsers, operating systems, screen resolutions and countries.

3. w3schools Browser Stats

The w3schools website also publishes a report with browser, operating system and screen resolution statistics. One advantage of this site over the previous one is the fact that you can see at a glance the market share evolution of the different browsers over time. They have data going back to 2002, and there is also a section about the adoption of JavaScript.

4. Internet World Stats

If you are looking for Internet usage and adoption statistics from around the world, this is the website to visit. It comes with data regarding the total number of Internet users, a break-down by continent and penetration rates. The data seems to be updated frequently as well.

5. Alexa Top Sites

Not all of us are Alexa fans when it comes to traffic estimations. However, we can’t deny that Alexa has been tracking traffic numbers for a long time, and its list with the 500 largest websites on the Internet seem to be relatively accurate. If you need to get an idea of what are the largest sites on the web, it is worth a look.

6. Nielsen Net Ratings

Another company that offers decent traffic estimations for large websites is Nielsen. On the free report that is available inside their website they list the top 10 web parent companies, top 10 U.S. web parent companies, top 10 U.S. video sites and top 10 U.S. search providers. Nielsen also offers a monthly newsletter with the latest online trends and numbers.

7. Hitwise Data Center

Hitwise is a company offering competitive intelligence services. Inside its website there is a section called “Data Center” where you can access all sorts of Internet data. For example, they offer a list of the top 20 search engines, top 20 websites per industry, top 10 search terms per industry and the like. Make sure to check the Reports & Webinars section as well.

8. Point Topic

Point Topic is a research company specialized in DSL and broadband research. Most of their reports are paid, but they have a section called “Free Analysis” where you can get access to a bunch of free reports and studies. As far as broadband numbers go, they are the most complete I have found online. The only catch is that you need to register an account before getting access to them.

9. Internet Growth Statistics

If you want to see some data regarding the early days of the Internet (i.e. 1993 – 2000), check this website out. Apparently it was created by an MIT student, and it is not complete, but it does have some data available. For example, you can see the growth in the number of websites, web hosts, and the usage of the different protocols over time.

10. Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief

Verisign is the company responsible for the .com and .net domain registrations. As you can imagine, they have a lot of data regarding domain names, and they provide a quarterly report detailing all the latest numbers and trends on the domain industry. You can download the PDF documents directly, and they are well structured.

Blogging Tips : 17 Statistics to Monitor on Your Blog

Today your task in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge is to spend some time looking at your blog’s statistics/metrics package to see what you can learn from it.

I encouraged participants in 31DBBB to make sure they had a metrics package installed on their blog before they started so I hope you have at least a month’s worth of stats to look at. If you’ve not got a stats package installed yet you should get one on your blog ASAP as it’ll help you track how it is performing.

Take some time out today to do a little analysis of your blog’s statistics. There is a wealth of information in them that can be incredibly useful.

Important Note: this exercise tends to become more useful over time. If this is the first time you do it then hopefully it’ll be illuminating - but the longer you have been collecting metrics on your blog the more useful it can become as you track trends and see patterns over time. As a result - this type of exercise should be something you build into your regular blogging routine (I try to do an in depth review each month).

Some of you will be used to doing this type of analysis so you won’t need a lot of help in doing it - but if you’re new to this here are a few metrics to pay particular attention to:

1. Overall Visitors - this is the metric most of us probably look at the most so I’ll start with it. Are visitor numbers on the increase or decrease? What might be the reasons for these changes (ie could it be tied to frequency of posting, topics, other sites links etc).
2. Most Popular Posts - what posts are being read more than other posts? Knowing this is important for a couple of reasons. For starters it gives you a hint of what topics you could write more on - but secondly it gives you some key pages on your site to optimize (ie think about how you can drive people from these posts deeper into your blog).
3. Referral Stats - what sites are sending you the most traffic? If it’s another blog or site, perhaps you could develop a relationship with them to see this increase. If it’s Search Engines, how can you adapt the posts to see it rise even more using on page SEO techniques).
4. What Questions are being asked? - what questions are readers typing into search engines to find your blog? These could make great future posts (learn more about how to do this here).
5. What Keywords are sending traffic? - knowing the keywords that people search for to find your site is very useful. It helps you to know how to optimize your blog for SEO even better and can give hints on what content to write more of.
6. What seasonal traffic is there? - are there any seasonal trends that you should be aware of and could use to capture more traffic? What caused the bumps in traffic and how can you prepare yourself better for next time those conditions might happen again (read more on seasonal traffic and how to capture it).
7. Daily/Weekly Trends - another trend to watch is what traffic does over different periods of time. What are the most popular times of day? What days of the week are most popular? Knowing this gives you ammunition in planning when to release new posts.
8. What’s Your Bounce Rate? - metrics packages like Google Analytics provide you with a ‘bounce rate’ stat which measures how many people arrive at your site and then leave again without viewing any extra pages. I find this a key metric to watch and attempt to change. Set yourself some goals to get this rate down and the page views viewed per visitor up by making your blog sticky.
9. Page Views Per Visit - Similarly to ‘Bounce Rate’ - This is a good one to watch over time as it shows you whether those coming to your blog are going deep into your blog’s content or simply looking at the page they arrive on. My goal on my blogs is to see this number increase over time. For tips on how to increase page views also check out 4 Quick and Simple Ways to Increase Page Views on Your Blog.
10. Time on Site - Another stat that can give you a sense on whether readers are engaging with your content is to look at how long they stay on your blog. The longer they are staying the more likely it is that they’re reading, commenting and interacting (or that they forgot to close their browser).
11. New vs Returning Visitors - This one gives you a sense of whether you’re succeeding in converting people to loyal visitors.
12. RSS Stats - If you’re using a tool like Feedburner to manage your RSS feeds you’ll have access to more useful information. Feedburner provides you with the number of subscribers but also what posts people are reading most of (again showing you what content people are engaging with most which gives you some good information on what type of content is working best).
13. Outbound Clicks - Not every metrics package will give you this type of information but if you have access to it knowing what links on your blog people are clicking to leave it can be very useful. It’s not that you want to stop people clicking links - but knowing what links they click on can give you some useful information on what motivates your readers to click a link and what type of information they want more of.
14. Where are People Clicking on Your Page - not all stats packages track this but some like Google Analytics or packages specifically for it like CrazyEgg will create heatmaps or visual pictures of what people click on when they visit your blog. I find CrazyEgg’s heatmaps better than Google Analytics but you do need to set it up on specific pages of your blog to be able to see them. This is very useful information when thinking about the design and layout of your blog but also can help you test how to layout posts to see where people click.
15. Exit Pages - A similar metric is knowing what page on your blog people are leaving from. A couple of years ago I checked my stats and noticed that the % of people leaving a particular page on my blog was triple other pages. When I investigated I found that the page had some very bad formatting issues on it that made the page almost unreadable - I was able to fix the problem and keep more readers engaged as a result.
16. Monetization Stats - many of you are looking to make money from your blogs so it’s also important to pay attention to any stats you have at your disposal on how your blog is performing in this way. The metrics you have at your disposal will vary from income stream to income stream but if possible try to work out where on your blog the income is coming from specifically. For example if you use Google Analytics and AdSense you’ll be able to see what specific pages are earning more than others. Otherwise - use what ever channel or tracking options your ad network or affiliate program gives you to help you work out which posts are performing.
17. Other Stats - There are plenty of other stats that can be revealing when you dig into them. Knowing the Geographic regions of your readers can be helpful as you think about content but also is useful if you’re dealing with advertisers, knowing the screen resolution and browsers people are using to view your site is good from a design perspective etc. Also worth doing from time to time is looking at other stats like how many posts you’ve done over time (post frequency can help you monitor how you’re performing personally) and how many comments you’ve had on your blog over a period of time and on which posts (which can be a great indicator of what kind of posts are working best on your blog and how reader engagement is going).

What Would You Add?

There are many other types of metrics that most statistics packages will provide you with. Feel free to share the metrics that you check most often and how you use them to improve your blog in comments below. Also let us know what tools you are using to check your blog’s metrics.

Warning: Don’t become a stats addict. Most new bloggers go through a period where they are checking their stats every hour. This is pretty normal but over time can add up to a lot of wasted time.

I personally try to do a quick check of stats throughout the day 2-3 times (just looking at traffic numbers mainly to see if there’s any spike in traffic that I need to know about) and then month put aside an hour or two to go deeper and look at some of the above statistics.

Blogging Tips : Download the World Wide Web

Every week I get a dozen or so of press releases in my email inbox. Usually they come from companies that are launching a new website or service, and that want to get some free exposure. Needless to say that I skip virtually all of those.

Yesterday, however, a very intriguing press release hit my inbox. It was from a company called MyWebDownload.com. After reading through a couple of lines, I was surprised to see the service that they are offering: they basically allow users from around the world to download the World Wide Web! That is right, you can download the whole thing to your computer and be able to surf offline after that.

Needless to say that I was skeptical, but here is what I found on the FAQ that they have on the site:

Q: Isn’t the Web too big to for anyone to be able to download it?
If we consider the whole World Wide Web, yes it would be impossible to download it. The latest numbers from Google estimate that there are around 40 billion pages on the Web. If we then estimate that each page has 10KB on average, that is already 400,000,000,000 KB, or 400 Terabytes!

It turns out, however, that 90% of those websites are pornographic or gambling related. Once we removed those, therefore, the size of The Web was reduced to 10% of its initial value, or 40,000,000,000 KB (40 Terabytes).

After that we removed the illegal MP3 and movie downloads, and the YouTube videos. This further reduced the size of The Web to 3,444,000,000 (or 3,444 Terabytes), and that is the size of our file collection.

I guess it makes sense.

The files are very big, each with over 100 Gigabytes. The site recommend users to use a download manager software to make sure that they will be able to pause and restart downloads if necessary.

On the company website they also mention that they are developing a product version, where you will pay $49 and receive 132 DVDs in your house with The Web. The product is not available yet though.

Overall it is a nice idea, and certainly a website to keep an eye on.

Update: It looks like the download links are currently disabled due to excessive server load.