Best Practices: Attack of the Link-up Bots

It's been a while since I've gone on one of my Best Practices for Blogging rants.
No time like the present, eh?

I'm on my third year of running 52 Pick-me-up, my weekly link-up party that has always had some sort of "theme of the week".
I noticed, about a month ago, a sudden barrage of link-ups from bloggers who posted random unrelated links, never left comments, and never linked to the link-up on their posts (I don't require it, but hey, it's polite behavior.) It was kind of creepy. They all posted within minutes of each other.

sample from this week

I was clicking on these unusual link-ups, to see if they made any mention of SpyGirl, and one blogger wrote this:
"[redacted] makes sure all my links get submitted to so many great parties. I don’t know what I would do without her. If you are a blogger and are looking to expand your audience, then you should totally hire [redacted]."

AHA!

After reading this, I looked at the emails from inLinkz, and saw that all the posts came from the same IP address! This "helpful" blogger hires herself out to post link-ups for those "too busy" to do it themselves. Do these bloggers even know what link-ups they're on? What kind of community is this fostering? To, me, it's SO WRONG and it irritates me to no end.

You can watch my ire develop in the "fine print" that comes with my inLinkz script:

June 21, before the Link-up Bots appeared

July 5

August 8

Not that any of you reading this are guilty of this behavior. I needed to rant and to alert fellow link-up hosts. ;-)
Have any of you hosting link-up parties noticed this phenomenon? 

A Little House Cleaning 1) Blogger plus Disqus plus Google+ 2) The Referrer Bots

CREATED/ LINKS/

We interrupt our usual Tuesday programming to bring you this public service announcement:
Google+ and Disqus don't play nice! 

I found this out the hard way. It wasn't until this morning, after a day of locked comments, that I found this on the
Google+ Comments FAQ page:
"What happens to my existing comments when I enable Google+ Comments?
If you use Blogger’s commenting platform, existing Blogger comments will stay on your blog, and you’ll continue to have the option to delete or mark them as spam. If you use a third-party commenting system, your comments might not be retained when you enable Google+ Comments." [my italics]

Gee, thanks for letting me know when I originally checked the box, G+. Yeah, I really want to lose all my comments for the last year.

I know you'd much rather see our 70's Pick-me-up girl, Vix,
vs reading my rants about things.
She'll bloom in full color on Thursday, I promise!

My other words of warning concern unusual spikes in your page views due to referrer shenanigans. Have you noticed that a random post has become wildly popular? It's flattering, yes, until you look at your stats and see that the views come from some strange sounding URL that you've never heard of. DON"T CLICK ON IT -- no matter how tempting! Sometimes these URLs will link to porn sites (eep!) or worse, contain malware which can infect who knows what in your blog or system.

My latest tormentor is r-e-f-e-r-e-r (dot) com. They have invaded ALL my blogs.
Here are some screenshots from my On the EDGE blog, where the spikes are very obvious:

note: this blog was started 1/7/13, Blogger starts the stats from the date I first started blogging

I did a Google search yesterday and from an Etsy discussion, found this link for an informative Zioli post. In a short video, Matt Cutts from Google explains what exactly is going on. The most important take-away from all this is: DON'T CLICK on anything suspicious!

+Arash Mazinani +Heather Fonseca and I will be discussing Google+ in a Google Hangout next Sunday at 10am PDT.
Are any of you Google+ mavens out there? Maybe you'd like to join us?

Tech Tip: Using Google Images Search with Pinterest

"Curator : one who has the care and superintendence of something; especially : one in charge of a museum, zoo, or other place of exhibit" [Mirriam Webster online] Curators in a museum or gallery setting are always concerned with the provenance (history) of the pieces in an exhibition.
I would like to propose this same level of care when using social curation sites, such as Pinterest. It may take some extra time, but I think it is only fair to the photographers, craftspeople, bloggers, etc that created the original content.

How? Use Google Images!

note: you need to see that little camera icon at right edge of search box
if you don't see one, your browser is too old, this tip won't work

First, check to see what URL the image jumps to
(all Pinterest images are supposed to link back to their origin -- unless they were uploaded directly from the Pinner's computer)

Clicking on the image above was a dead link:

So, if the link is bad, it's time to do some detective work.
There is a reason I'm called SpyGirl!

Click down on the image you like and drag it to the Google Image search box.

Here's what came up in my Image Search:

Click through until you find the image.
(Sometimes this goes only to the top level of a blog -- disheartening because you'll have to scroll a lot*).

Copy the URL

It is now time to Repin and curate responsibly!

After hitting Repin:

Choose your Pinboard + hit "Pin It"

An image of your Pinning source will appear, choose "See it now"

Hit the Edit button:

Paste in the correct URL that you found during your Google Image search in the Link section

Hit Save Pin.
You are now a trustworthy curator! Yay!

If you're feeling especially anal, return to the source of your Pin, and add a comment, pasting in the same URL:

I got this, because it's a link:

So I removed the "http://" and replaced the dots in the URL

*If that's "too much" for you, at least have the correct URL on your own Pin.
*If you "don't have time" for all of this, may I suggest "Liking" the Pin instead of Repinning it?

I'd like to credit the catladies at GOMI for teaching me this trick.

Here's a humorous piece about the new usage of the term "Curate" written by ALEX WILLIAMS for the NY Times on 10/2/09

Remove Captcha in Blogger for New Interface (2012)

I helped a friend start her blog a while back and one of the first things I had her do was turn off Captcha.
I DESPISE Captcha. What is it?
This:

I wrote a post on this last year (my most popular!) but Blogger has updated their interface, so the visuals on that post are obsolete (updates - the bane of the digital instructor).

Here's how you do it now...

1) Go to your Blogger Dashboard
(upper right of this page, or hit Design when on your own page, then go to Step 2)

2) From menu on the left, choose Settings

3) Choose Posts and Comments

4) In Show word verification, Choose No

While you're there, make any other adjustments that seem worth it.

5) Be sure to hit Save Settings, on upper right!

My eyes thank you in advance...

A Lesson Learned @TxSC: The Business Cards I Wish I'd Had but Didn't [Part 2]

In part 1, I discussed the types of cards that I personally found the most helpful for remembering fellow TxSC participants. Now let's brainstorm on some visual aids to memory and design some cards with me as the guinea pig. 


First, your important information. This can all go on the back side, maybe with a graphic from your blog.

most likely the graphic will have to be B+W. oops.

Make sure your card has:
Your name
Your blog URL
Your twitter handle
Bonus points for: instagram handle, Facebook page, etc
And make sure it's easy to read! NO SCRIPT FONTS PLEASE!!!

The front is where the fun stuff happens...  Remember, my focus here is on cards with your picture on it...
Here are some questions to ask yourself to get inspired... (I had more questions but realized they went outside my "visual of self" criteria and better served a card with a less specific purpose -- I'll add them at the very end without visuals, maybe you can use some of the ideas)
Disclaimer - most of my samples here I did quickly at 72dpi. Don't zoom the images!

Do you post Outfit of the Day photos? No brainer!

Do you have a certain accessory that is a signature look?

Me, in my gigantic glasses
photo credit: Shimelle

note: you will be seeing a lot of that squiggle print background
in my samples below. just warning you!

or my handful of rings --
my hand over my keyboard is a good "blogger" cue

Do you blog about a certain thing?

I do crazy pattern mixing.
If I know for sure I'm wearing a certain outfit,
I could put that mix on the card
(very limited use!)

Does your blog have a unique stylistic thing or special kinds of posts?

I've got my SpyGirl sketches that are also self portraits

there's the self portrait that is my Blogger avatar

Do you have a DIY you might be wearing or that you are known for?
Can you give mini-visuals of the steps?

not mine, not entire image -- source

Do you sell a product? Will you be wearing a sample?

my scarf design I'm pimping

Maybe you have less visuals and more writing? A headshot and your tag line perhaps?

(if you zoom this, it will look pixellated. just warning you)
tag line is legible on my header at top!

Keep in mind -- fashion and beauty bloggers are primarily visual people. They will remember you by what you were wearing, your fabulous shoes, your amazing earrings, your incredible hair style, your style in general, etc, etc.
Help them remember you!

MOO Cards let you do 50 different designs so you could have an array to fan out for someone to choose... let your imagination run wild!

We were given an offer of 50 free cards prior to the conference.
So what did my cards look like for TxSC?










(drumroll)













hint...

this is what I was doing in my motel room at 5pm Friday night of the conference

voila! >cue awkward silence<

yes, they are the size of a 1 x 3" mailing label

DIY! Information FAIL! (do I at least get points for the QR code?)

What happened, Anne the SpyGirl?
I froze. I procrastinated. I had too many choices. I waited until the last minute. Was I the only person that handed out a weird sized thing (not even card stock) with raggedy edges? Did that make mine memorable? Ha - it certainly became a topic of conversation during card swapping.
Next time I'll do better, I promise myself. I'll start working on them NOW! [I vowed in March]

Did I? No.
At least I'd written this out so that now I'm under a deadline, I won't forget anything important!
When I get them all uploaded, I'll post my designs. That'll be Part 3!
To be continued...
here


ps: more questions/themes -

Do you blog about a certain thing?
I've been working on a 365 photo project. Maybe one of those images?

Maybe one of your Instagrams, one that you're really proud of or one that got a lot of likes or comments?

A trend board?

A "favorite things" visual?

Something from your Pose app?

Did I miss something?

A Lesson Learned @TxSC: The Business Cards I Wish I'd Had but Didn't [Part 1]

Jyoti of Style Delights recently tweeted a photo of her new business cards. I thought she'd done excellent design work.

source

Her photo reminded me about this post that I had in draft that I'd written in March after TxSC. It also reminded me that I need to get my cards designed and printed for the Lucky FABB West conference in two weeks. EEEEEEK!

[from back in March]
I am home now after a whirlwind three days meeting an amazing group of women (and a few men!) in Austin at the Texas Style Council. I took tons of random photos, I did a bunch of sketches and now I want to connect the faces to the URLs. By the last day I was pretty good at approaching people. -- on the first night, not so good. A conference is not a normal situation. It's very intense - you meet (and see) lots of people in a very short time. Next time I'm going to make special cards tailored for that kind of event.
Here is the pile of cards that I got:

Let's lay them out in a grid:

(some are fronts AND backs and not adjacent)
click on image to see bigger

For my purposes (putting a face with a name + blog), the most helpful are these:

Jessica Rae of Freckled Mama

Elizabeth of Delightfully Tacky

Lauren of A Wild Tonic

Chelle of Spangled Paraphernalia

You can see they included a photo of themselves so I immediately know what they look like.
(I'm sure when I get to everyone's sites, I will find the graphics on many of the cards match. A lot are very beautiful... Just not so helpful at this particular moment.)

Stay tuned for part 2: Designing a business card especially for conferences

Things I've already learned @TxSC (and it's not even 7am of day 2)

First, put your twitter handle on your business card! (I forgot)
all I had to have done was put my name as
@AnneMBray or @Anne M Bray

Second, add a photo of yourself on same card.
It helps us visual people remember you!

Third, I know it's damn heavy, but bring the laptop next time. And a sketchbook.

Note: my first time posting from the iPad caused some nutty formatting issues that I fixed later when I got home. The worst was the original title!

here on Blogger

facebook

at least Twitter was OK