I thought why not write a quick post about how to get some visitors from Google Knol. Well Knol launched last week and it isn’t so popular yet. Here’s our chance to take advantage of it!

Okay first of all, lets clear things up. Don’t expect a rush of traffic from Knol (like the “Digg effect”). So here are the things you need to know:

Go write a Knol

Are you thinking about what you should write? Well write about the things you’re good at. Like I wrote a Knol about resellers. Find out what you’re pro at and the write about it. Just don’t spam and make sure the quality of the content is good.

Add a few backlinks

Go to my Knol about resellers. See how I added a backlink to my blog? Do that in your own Knol. Make sure the links are relevant to the Knol and try to keep the number of backlinks low (so it doesn’t look spammy). Plus you can also hyperlink a few words on your Knol to your site (keep it relevant!).

When should you start writing?

ASAP! Knol is pretty new right now and there aren’t a lot of Knols. So, you should take advantage of it. People will see your article, rate it high (if they like it) and then later on (hopefully) more people will read yours instead of the newer Knols on the same topic.

Why should you do this?

Well people noticed that Knols are ranking high in SERPs. Now that’s good for us. Jack some traffic! Your Knol ranks high, you threw in a few backlinks, people see your Knol and they check out the links. Tada! Simple as that.

Plus don’t forget you can also make a few bucks from Knol. You can link your AdSense account to Knol and get the revenue from the ads displayed on your Knol. So, there we go another reason to invest a few minutes in Knol.

This is even better than “Digg effect”

I’m not joking. You only stay on Digg’s front page for a few hours and you get about 15K visitors on average (and it crashes your server). On Knol, you’ll be up there forever (and no server crash!). No one’s taking you off, buddy. There is no front page that will take you off after a few hours and make you say goodbye to the huge traffic wave.

In my opinnion, this would be great way to get some long-term traffic. Writing a Knol doesn’t take you that long. I wrote my first one in about 10-15 minutes. Well good luck and let us know if it worked for you.

Cuil is a new search engine (by former Google employees) that launched the day before yesterday. Everyone was being optimistic about it. I was too. And I still am. The thing is everyone just started hating on Cuil after its launch. Now that’s not nice.

People are complaining that the search results are not (so) relevant or there aren’t a lot of results. Oh I forgot to mention that people were crying about Cuil having no results for their search. Cuil also got some additional hate when it went down for a bit. Well I guess they didn’t expect this huge traffic rushing towards them.

What’s so stupid is that people don’t realize that Google had a decade to perfect its search engine while Cuil is just a few days old. WTF? Like c`mon its not even a fair fight. Its like a small kid fighting a professional wrestler.

Right now, Cuil is looking cool. I think it might be the Google killer. If not, at least Google gets a new competitor. That should make it a bit harder for Google to try to own the web. Plus Cuil actually cares about our privacy unlike Mr. Evil Google. Cuil does not log IP addresses or send out tracking cookies. The features are nice too.

Now the question is, will it be a Google killer? I wish I could see the future (some how). So, right now I can’t tell. But, I think it could be the Google killer. People might just move away from Google because of their privacy issues. Well I do know that Cuil will work and improve their search engine, so I’m looking forward to that.

Over to you: What do you think of Cuil? Do you think it can beat Google?

Sorry I couldn’t post yesterday. Had a problem with my VPS (I accidentally turned off the DNS server). Oh well. Its fixed now (my brother pointed it out). So lets move on to the important stuff.

Google Analytics (GA) is probably the most popular and detailed traffic analysis application. Well actually it used to be. Not anymore. Now we have a better and more privacy-friendly alternative. Its called Woopra. Its a pretty new and right now, its in beta. But still, it kicks ass!

The Features of Woopra

Its got all the features of GA. So its just as detailed as GA, but even better because it updates live. Yeah that’s right folks. Its always updating unlike GA which updates every 24 hours. Plus its got this really unique feature that builds profiles of your visitors and you can tag them. And you can even chat with your visitors. Now that’s just awesome.

Oh if you’re wondering how it lets you chat with your visitors. Let me tell you how. Just like GA you enter a few lines of JavaScript before the end </body> in your page. There’s a button on the Woopra desktop client (yes you need to install that) that lets you pop-up a chat screen on your site and then you can chat with that one particular visitor.

More Privacy-friendly! How?

Well duh! Its not related to Google. Thank God! Google like stalks us. They take information from your GA account about your site’s visitors. Learning your visitors habbits so they can show more relevant ads to them (and God knows what else).

What do YOU think?

Go ahead and give Woopra a try. I’m telling you, you’ll love this. Trust me. I loved it. Plus don’t forget to let us know what you thought about it and if you have an application like this in mind.

Did you notice that Google seems to own everything we use on the web? They are just buying everything off. We still have a few things that are not owned by Google. But, soon it will be under Google. Why though? Why the fuck are they doing this? Why are they trying to control (pretty much) everything?

What they already have

The list below is just a few examples of what Google controls. A shit load of people use these services. Don’t forget the Google search engine itself (the most popular search engine).

1. Feedburner: A site that allows you to promote your RSS, keep track of subscribers, send email subscriptions, etc. This site is used by almost all blogs.
2. YouTube: World’s most popular video sharing site. Everyone knows about it and uses it.
3. Gmail: A free webmail service that is getting popular every day.
4. Google Reader: A RSS reader that is pretty popular and used by a lot of us (including me).

Breaking news guys. Google is trying to buy Digg for $200 million. Digg, the #1 social bookmarking site. Shit!

I think you understand that Google is trying to have a big influence on the web. Trying to own and control everything. Almost trying to make us dependent on it.

What’s the reason behind this?

Why though? Why are they doing this? Is it good or bad for us? Obviously bad because we don’t wanna be puppets of a big corporation. I can’t tell what Google is planning. But I sure can tell what I think they’ll be doing.

What do you have in mind? What do you think they are trying to do? What can WE do about it?

Don’t forget that Google has a lot of privacy issues (my own post here) and its been ranked worst on privacy. Hint, hint!

What is so special about that freakin` horse? I am so jealous. Please I wanna die. Google respects its privacy but not ours. Uhh we suck! We humans suck! Horses rule!

Don’t have a clue about what I’m saying? Just look at the picture on the left. Okay that picture is not fake. Click here and it will take you to Google Maps and you can see for yourself there. Weird/funny, huh? I know.

Either the people at Google are messed up or this horse is really, really important. Oh well who cares. I wish Google would respect our privacy as much as it does about that horse or maybe all the other horses.

<joking>Oh shit. You know what. I think Google is being runned by horses. Yep I got it. Frigin horses are running Google. OMG. The horses are going to wipe us out. Shit! Run while you can!</joking>