[XILED]

I’ve been looking at a lot of referrer logs and reports lately and I’ve discovered that most of my search engine traffic comes from here. This is because of a link I once bookmarked in Del.icio.us. At the time that I did this I was using the FeedWordpress plugin from Rad Geek. At a later time when no longer using the plugin somehow the permalink for that post got b0rked and no longer pointed to the site I had bookmarked. This resulted in a page on my site being indexed by Google with the words ‘ “Windows XP Professional” “Belarc Advisor Current Profile” key:’ on it.

It is at this point that I must admit that the small shallow part of me that wants to get rich with no effort began to scheme. You can’t see me, but I look shamefaced.

I spent the better part of the day searching Google for ‘ “Windows XP Professional” “Belarc Advisor Current Profile” key:’ and finding only URLs that had software licenses on them. I then added those URLs to an Adsense for Search widget. I went to my old blog which I still have wordpress admin access to (but not shell access, thus the new blog) and edited the original post, with this:

Update: This site is no longer active my new site is located here. I am currently working on a custom search engine in google that weeds out all the spam sites you find when searching for “Belarc Advisor Current Profile” key:. So please check there from time to time to see if I have the search engine completed yet. This may take some time as I’m going through search results by hand and filtering spam sites. Once it is completed I’ll place a link to it here. Hope to see you on the new [XILED] soon!
This post Updated on: June 03, 2008 at 10:03 PM CST

Next, I made a new Page on this site called “Custom Searches” and put my custom search code in there. If you look up at the top You can see the link to it. I then edited the local version of that post with this:

Update:
Check here for a custom Google search with all the spam sites removed from the results.

After I had completed all this the part of me that is not a complete wanker woke up and I edited Custom Searches so that it now looks like this:

On this page you will find whatever new Google hack I find interesting.

My first candidate is the “Belarc Advisor Search” and it would already be here if Google would just cooperate is finally here. I decided to add this one because I noticed in my referrer logs that Google was sending me some traffic via search for: “Belarc Advisor Current Profile” key. When I tried this search I found an ass load of spam sites. After several hours of removing those I had a nice list of sites left and I thought a custom search would be nifty.

Belarc Advisor Search (Results will open in a new window.)This search was removed because I don’t want to be EVIL. If you want to find a product key for software you don’t own then you will have to look elsewhere.

At first I was going to delete the page and both of the posts, but this way I was able to preserve (and actually enhance by fleshing out both posts a little bit and cross-linking the posts and page) the content. Also it inspired me to write this. It will also serve as pointed letter to people who find my site looking for software licenses. There is nothing to see here. This isn’t the blog you’re searching for.

I hope someone who is considering monetizing their site/blog via evil means such as this will find this post and reconsider. If you have something to say and establish a community around your site the money will come in time, be patient.

On an unrelated note, I’ve been trying to think of a phrase I can use to close a blog posts that can be a sort of personal hook. What do we think about this:

Insert catchy “signing out” phrase here.

• » Tags: adsense, Belarc Advisor, belarc advisor current profile key, custom google search, custom search, custom search engine, Don't be EVIL, monetizaion, referrer logs, search engine traffic, software licenses, windows xp professional belarc advisor current profile
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This entry was written @ 4:52 AM on June 03, 2008 using Notepad++

My internet connection has been up and down all evening and I’ve
given up on my usual memtracking via Google Reader, Twitter, and
FriendFeed. I’ve decided instead to try to do something useful with this
time. But what?…

One is that I could shut down my computer (gasp!!) and take this
keyboard apart in hopes that I could stop the ? / key from sticking.
Problem is that I’ve never taken a keyboard apart before. I realize that
this must be a shocking admission from someone who claims to be a geek
but still, its the truth. I guess I’ve just never had a reason. Another
of course is that I could write, which is what I’m doing.

The main problem for me there is that other than technology I don’t
really have much to write about. It seems that the muse of fiction hasn’t
visited in quite some time. I suppose one has to exercise those muscles
from time to time to prevent atrophy, which is why I’ve been thinking of
giving Ficlets try. Of course that brings me back to the same problem. I
want to use Ficlets as a sort of fiction OpenCourseware. A place to jump
off from for story ideas. The strict 1024 character limit Ficlets makes
it almost like an english assignment and I feel my fiction was best when
I was forced to write daily by my wretched old english teacher. Of course
this time I would be in charge of myself and I’m a terrible boss. :/

The other problem with me using Ficlets is that its yet another
online service. I believe now that when I did away with my feed reader
that I made a mistake. My reason for doing so was sound, nobody wants to
read an rss feed twice and I need to read them in Google Reader so that i
can share and or note them. This is a vital part of building a community
around [XILED]. It’s all a part of networking. Yet at times like this,
without an  offline rss reader, I am without access to the feeds at all.
The error was in not having a backup. I should have had FeedReader
archiving posts even though I wasn’t using it. Hindsight…

But how am I to backup Ficlets? Sure I can back up my Ficlets and my
favorites and my favorite ficlet authors all via rss(fail once again).
But as for using the service as an idea factory, how am I to back that up?

Screw it, time to take this keyboard apart.

Update: I haven’t worked on my keyboard yet and 12 full hours later my internet is still b0rked. Centurytel, YOU SUCK.

• »

I was just at Plaxo editing my public profile when I thought about how many pages I’ve had to fill out that look like this:

Many of them are now incomplete because I’ve joined other sites and not updated them. How many more will I fill out before some sort of XML based profile list is universally supported? What format would be best? How do we convince these sites to adopt the idea? Answers anyone?

• » Tags: Coffee_Powered_Musings, social bookmarking sites, social media, social-networking
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