No I don’t. At least not yet. But I really, really wanted to. For a Sony Vaio, that is.  Turns out that I can’t.  Join the contest I mean.

Ok, enough with the cryptic talk.  Nuffnang recently had this joint event with Sony which they called Sony Expo, pretty clever huh?  The expo showcased the latest Sony products, gadgets, and ladies holding those gadgets.  Prior to that, they sponsored a blogging contest of some sort with the most creative blogger winning a Sony digital camera.  I already have a Sony semi-pro camera unit so the contest wasn’t really that appetizing to me.

This afternoon however, I got one of those emails from Nuffnang saying that the Sony competition has been extended.  I thought that the contest was already over but after continued reading I realized that they were talking of an altogether different contest and this one featuring a Sony Vaio as a reward.  Now this is what I’m talking about.  Some models wouldn’t get out of bed for less than $10k, me, I wouldn’t boot my computer for anything less than 1Gb.  Of RAM that is.  And the latest version of Vaio?  Well, it surely will cower in shame beside my MacBook but hey, a laptop is a laptop.

So when before I wasn’t really that enthusiastic about putting up Nuffnang ads, I had to revisit my profile in their website, get an ad code and paste it right there in the middle where you can see it.  Matches the upholstery doesn’t it?  lol.

But holy mother of moses, I was too dazzled by the Vaio’s resolution that I failed to read the contest mechanics in its entirety.  It was only for those who actually went to the expo!  And of course I didn’t! I was in the other side of the Republic!

Shame, shame!  And after putting up that ad. Argh.  Nuff(nang) said.

Here’s me trying my hand at explaining the ramifications of these terms. First two words have something to do with comment links (you can argue that these two words may pertain to any link and you will be right, but in this case I am limiting my explanation to the links found in the comments area) while the last one goes well with hotdogs and bonfires and is generally considered delicious.

Ok, here we go.

Most blogging platforms are inherently NoFollow, which means that any link (usually author’s URL) included in a comment will not pass PageRank. I say most because I haven’t tried out all the blogging platforms out there. And even if I say “All” I could still be wrong. Either way I’m screwed. The relevance of not passing PageRank is that the link that you included in a comment that you made will not have any value as far as your PageRank is concerned.

We all know that backlinks are supposed to count as a vote of approval for your blog, however if that backlink is NoFollow, it’s like shooting blanks. Alright control your overactive imagination. Now what it doesn’t mean however is that search engines will not crawl these nofollow links, they will, and they’ll come a-knockin’ on your door, but that’s just it. Although these links are still counted as one of your backlinks, they’re just not that valuable.

DoFollow links on the other hand are the kind of links you want. Spiders crawl them and they’re considered an affirmative vote in your favor. So if you’re on a link building mission with the intent of skyrocketing your PageRank via a commenting strategy, you would be much better off seeking out those DoFollow blogs. Here’s a DoFollow community that you could join to get you started.

So You Want Your Blog To Be DoFollow Eh?

A bit of caution on this one. DoFollow blogs are easy target for spammers so I recommend that you enable comment moderation for you to sort out which ones to grant your precious Dofollow link. If you don’t have the stomach for this, better stick to nofollow. Still there’s a valid argument to be made for making your blog DoFollow. For one, it motivates your regular readers to comment which could result to a lovely discussion on your posts. Fair enough?

Now, if you use WordPress, you’re in luck. There are a lot of DoFollow plugins out there starting with this one. Or if you want to make things a bit more manageable(remember my note on spamming? this is a good tool to mitigate that), you can use this one– this is an interesting plugin that only activates DoFollow for commenters after they’ve posted a number of comments. Very nice huh?

Now if you’re on blogspot, go switch to Wordpress!

Kidding. Actually here’s this tutorial for blogger’s beta template that you can use. It’s actually very easy to follow. Again, better turn on that comment moderation thing before you do this.

But What About CommentLuv?

What about it? It parses the visitors last blog post and that’s it. Unless the DoFollow plugin is installed, it’s still NoFollow.

One of the oft overlooked promotional tools in blogging is tagging. Tags are words or phrases that you use to associate to your blog post. An article on the Kizuna Satellite for example could be tagged with Kizuna Satellite, satellite internet, or plain Kizuna. Sometimes folks can be quite lazy in tagging their posts so some very smart guys came up with ways to make tagging blog posts easier.

If you’re a wordpress user, you’re in luck, there’s a wonderful plugin called Simple tags. This is a really cool plug-in that will automatically suggest tags for your the blog post you just created.

If you’re with blogger, then it’s just too bad. Well, not really. Zemanta is your solution for those tag suggestions. I have been using Zemanta for a while now and has been satisfied with what it does.

One important tag that a blogger should always associate with their posts are Technorati Tags. This allows your post to be categorized under Technorati. You benefit from having Technorati tags in your posts via tag searches made in Technorati. Here’s a very good discussion on Technorati Tags that I’ve read.

Again, if you’re a wordpress user, here’s a Technorati Tag plugin that makes life very easy.

For Blogger users, you may have to follow the instruction in the above linked discussion or, you could use this nifty service where you just type in the tags you want, click on the make code button, and then copy-and-paste the resulting code in you blog post.

The thing to remember really is to ensure that you don’t get crazy lazy and not put in any tag in your posts. By so doing you miss out on one of the simple promotional tools out there.

I wasn’t able to update this blog as much as I wanted to because of some whatever reason. But now that I’ve finally gotten around to doing what’s supposed to be done, I came face to face with a rather daunting task for a wordpress newbie– modifying my free wordpress template so it won’t look like one of those cookie-cutter themes.

Because I used to be a Blogger fan boy (I think I still am except that I’ve migrated my blogs to wordpress), I am somewhat perplexed as to what to do first. Since I have a self-hosted wordpress installation, I had to deal with changing permissions and making sense out of all the wordpress .php files. I guess all that practice in modifying blogger templates did pay-off. Still I managed to make a decent (still not perfect) job I guess. Although, man, Internet Explorer likes to make a mess of things.

How I Came Up With My Gorgeous Wordpress Template

Let’s see, I started with a whole lot of searching in the internet for the template that would suit my needs perfectly. I wasn’t really sure what I want exactly but I know I want a widget-ready wordpress template, and it has to have 3 columns. I also wanted a template that would allow me to display ads in the sidebar, and something that’s adsense ready as well.

The good thing and the bad thing about Wordpress is that it has a lot of beautiful templates that are offered absolutely for free. It’s a good thing because you have a lot of choices but at the same time it’s a bad thing as well because without a clear template in mind, you could be overwhelmed by the choices in display.

After several days of searching for the perfect wordpress template, I finally stumbled on Dezzain Studio where I got to see the Timeline Theme for the first time. I was instantly drawn to the color combination and the features embedded in the theme. So I worked on putting all the necessary wordpress plugins and widgets and did a little template tweaking until I was satisfied. Now it still retains its proud form but somehow I’ve managed to insert a little of me here and there.

And then I came across this wordpress template collection at WPZoom. Holy guacamole, I may have to change my template again. Gah.

Next up, I’ll be compiling my ten best free wordpress templates.

Man this is some work. I have read almost all the how to’s on painless beta blogger migrations to wordpress and I have to say this is excruciating work! Still after having finally done it, everything seems worth the hours spent in front of my computer. A lot of the experts agree on two things to do the migration but with usually the same goal/s in mind– ensuring that the previous links don’t get broken and all that google juice and pagerank will not go to waste.

In my previous free blog I have already cranked up the PR meter to PR4 and have managed to land in the first page of some very competitive keywords. The problem was I was using a free account. I really should have started with a dotcom from the very start. Had I done that, I wouldn’t have to go through all the research I did in order to migrate successfully.

But still, there is a silver lining in all of these. Had I started with a dotcom from the get go, I wouldn’t have learned about 301/302 redirects, .htaccess, and all those meta tags redirect methods that a lot of experts were betting their nuts on as surefire remedies to the pain of migration.

The first instructions I did consider was Techcounter’s instructions, but the loooongg queu of questions scared the heck out of me. Then there were a lot of others in between before I arrived at bloggerbloke’s site. At first I had it made with his very nifty .htaccess system. It really worked for him and I think for others too. Even I was convinced I had it down pat. I typed my redirected blog address and voila, I was taken to blogger’s redirect page and then eventually to this site. It’s all good, except that in bloggerbloke’s case, there’s none of that temporary blogger stop.

I was prepared to live with it until I clicked on some of the permalinks pointing to my own blog. It did the usual redirect and ended up with a 404 error. I kinda slipped back down to earth after that. I had to play my final ace. I tapped on the great Wordpress reserve for help. And there it was, the plug-in created by Sam Wong — the Blogger Redirector. I installed the template and removed the .htaccess code I pasted earlier. Everything worked real well after that. Including the permalinks.

I have already placed the noindex,nofollow meta in my old blog hoping that I won’t be penalized for duplicate content. I’ll also try to do a little 302 redirect so the search engines would know that I have moved to a new location and then later on will do the permanent 301 redirect.

Right now, my concern is how to get out of that blogger temporary stop when any of my link or my url is typed. I also have to work a little bit harder promoting this site. Also some of my internal links (of course they came with the migration) are still pointing to the old blog! I still have to see if there’s a quicker way of changing these internal links behaviour so they will recognize their new location. However I only have very few internal links to modify in case I decide to do everything manually.

It may take me a couple of weeks more to finally say that I have moved successfully and comfortably here in my self-hosted Wordpress. But I’m not really that worried. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

If you happen to be here and you have some questions about migration, shoot me a note, I may not be an expert yet but with all the internet literature I’ve read and the kinks I’ve encountered, I may just be able to offer a few insights.

Cheers!

A couple of weeks ago I joined a contest at eblogtemplates.com where I submitted a template for porting to Blogger. The winning template will have the submitting bloggers name in the end credits of the ported template. Several weeks and submissions later, the template I submitted was chosen as one of the two finalists. Now it all boils down to which template gets the most number of votes from visitors to that site.

Because I really want to win that contest as I have NEVER won an internet contest before, I will be running a series of campaign posters here until the end of the month when the winner (hopefully me) will be chosen based on the number of votes cast.

You can either click on this link to vote for me (oh please do, what’s 20 seconds of your life), or you can click directly on the poster to again, vote for me (oh please do… you know the rest).

**updated 3.26.08

This is a long overdue follow-up to my 10 of the Best Free Blogger Templates post. I have been restraining myself from immediately doing a sequel to that post after seeing the new batch of free blogger templates templates that were recently released. I guess I’ve waited long enough.

The below templates are some of the coolest templates I’ve come across with recently and I do think each one deserves an explanation why they are cool.

1. Forte Template – this template improves on the functionality of the WP Premium template– the template that I’m using. Instead of just two tabs (if you refer to the upper right portion of this template), the Forte has three, and here you can put in your labels, your categories, and your links. Very cool I must say. But what sets this apart from the WP Premium template is the footer. If you will scroll down on the demo page, you can see that there are a lot of widget ready space down there. You can include a lot of widgets on this baby that you may have to exercise some restraint so as not to cramp your blog. Very, very nice. To Moses Francis, you da man! And for those cool hombres at BlogandWeb, muchas gracias amigos for porting this to blogger.

Live Demo | Download | Notes & Instructions

2. Ads Theme – above all else, I like this one the best. But that’s just me, I’m a closet conservative you see. And I like the way this template reins in the widgets with its borders achieving a result of controlled creativity. In most things design related, I like the restrained flamboyance best, something that this theme unconsciously projects. This cool theme is designed by Blogging Secret and presented by eBlogtemplates.

Live Demo | Download | Notes & Instructions

3. Blogging Pro – this theme screams professional and money! The audacious orange fonts are actually pleasing to the eyes and coupled with the clean white background, very, very fresh looking it’s like a theme that just stepped out of the shower (oopsie!). The banner slot just below the header is also a very nice touch, and the powder blue sidebar background, very nice. If you’re thinking of monetizing your blog without appearing very tacky (like my blog), then this is the template to be. This one was ported to Blogger by the boys of eBlogtemplates based on the design by Design Disease.

Live Demo | Download | Notes & Instructions

4. Leftin – Dzelque, as long as he keeps making those simple, no fuss templates, will always have a space here. This template I like for it’s green-ness and the understated elegance of the design. This one is designed for Blogger by Ourblogtemplates.

Live Demo | Download | Notes & Instructions

5. Blue Steel – this is Amanda of BloggerBuster’s contribution to the Blogger community. And what a contribution it is. I so liked it that I had to create another blog using her template. The installation was a breeze and you can go crazy with all the widget ready elements just waiting to be used. More power to you Amanda!

Live Demo | Download | Notes & Instructions

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I’m cooking up something to feature here a fresh new batch of free blogger templates. Recognizing the need for other bloggers who would rather have the simple two column templates, I have shortlisted some of the more awesome free blogger templates I’ve come across the web. And then there’s some new 3-column blogger template releases that will just blow your mind away.

Stay tuned!

I am loving my new look right now. Having discovered WP Premium template from eBlogtemplates.com I immediately changed my previous free blogger template to this theme. I think it gives the site a really professional look and also allows the blogger to post as many ads as he wants.

R. Bhavesh’s conversion of the WP Premium them from wordpress to blogger is commendable. When before, I can only drool at the super cool designs of wordpress templates, I’m now actually using one but with one distinction. I’m using this template with blogger– easily the most user-friendly blogging platforms around.

Like most bloggers, I am always on the lookout for free blogger templates that I can download. I have scoured the internet for blogger themes that will present my posts the way I wanted them to be presented. Most of the time, the more beautiful blog templates I find are wordpress templates. There are times that I have contemplated moving to wordpress but blogger, I believe, despite the lack of pretty themes, provides some intangible benefits that wordpress doesn’t give- like allowing the blogger to write sponsored ads or post ads on their blog. Sure you can host your blog somewhere outside of wordpress so you can do whatever you want, but it’s too much hassle. Thus I stick to blogger.

In the course of my blog template search, I have come across some templates that were originally created for wordpress but were converted to blogger. This makes life very good for blogger fanatics like myself.

Below, I am posting those templates that I think are worth a blogger’s time. Sure you can do what I did– browse the internet for hours and come up with nothing, or you can just get it directly from here. As I mentioned, these templates were lifted from other sites thus, support and any questions you may have (should you decide to use the free blogger templates I’m suggesting here) should be directed to the template creators.

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags:free blogger templates, blogger templates, free blogger templates 2008

Ten of The Best Blogger Templates Available For Free

1. Cleanbox

Live Demo Site | Download Now! | Notes & Info

2. Minyx

Live Demo Site | Download Now! | Notes & Info

3. iWork

Live Demo Site | Download Now! | Notes & Info

4. Blogy Web

Live Demo Site | Download Now! | Notes & Info

5. Blog Oh Blog 2.0

Live Demo Site | Download Now! | Notes & Info

6. Aspire

Live Demo Site | Download Now! | Notes & Info

7. Polaroid

Live Demo Site | Download Now! | Notes & Info

8. sImpress

"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb253/fence_shots/simpress.gif">Live Demo Site | Download Now! | Notes & Info

9. Tasteless

Live Demo Site | Download Now! | Notes & Info

10. WP Premium

As you may have noticed, 9 of the 10 templates I listed here came from eBlogtemplates. What can I say, those guys running that website rock! Special mention as well to Dzelque for the cleanbox template which is awesome in its own right.

I’ll be further searching for more templates and continue to post them here so subscribe to my feed!