OpTempo Ramblings
OpTempo was conceived as and has remained more or less an experiment in flagship blogging for me. It’s niche is being in no exact niche, with posts about making money online, news stories I found interesting, reviews of various types, personal observations, favorite music and videos and so forth. Essentially, it’s a personal, social, blog. I’ve thought about making some changes, perhaps taking it in a more monetizable direction, but I kind of like it the way it is right now.
Here’s what I have going on right now and planned over the next month or so that you might be interested in as a regular reader or as someone who’s visiting.
Random Blog Roll and Top Commentator Plugins
I’ve completed a fix for the problem with the Top Commentator plugin mentioned below in this post: Top Commentator Fix Available
Yes, it’s the first of the month again and many sites that have the Top Commentator plugin reset their list as this point. Since links displayed by this widget are followed by default, it’s a good time to get a followed, sitewide, link from blogs that use it. BUT….
I got frustrated with the Top Commentator plugin when I noticed that some people figured out a way to game it with spam comments, even comments that had been sent to the Akismet filter. I don’t want to go into the details of how this is done but this little trick was done on OpTempo and I’ve seen it on other blogs as well. So, I modified the code in the plugin to make it nofollow. If you would like this modification for your site, let me know and I’ll make it available to you. However, I do like the plugin though from a social perspective so I’m keeping it on the site for now.
But, I would still like to support sites I like, preferably with an anchored link to their preferred keywords and deep links to their key posts. To do this, I’ve added the random blog roll plugin from Goldfries. This neat widget picks 10 random links from your blogroll and displays them. I’ve already added several interesting anchored links to it and I’ll be adding more. I also like the random display of links since that makes it easier to add more links to the blogroll and creates new content for everybody’s favorite search engine ‘bot. BTW, being a top commentator on OpTempo is a good way to get your anchored text added to this list. 
What About the Free Blog Reviews?
I had intended on getting these done this month but my schedule just didn’t permit it. Secondly, I got frustrated by the whole deal since my trackbacks from reviews have been Akismeted several times. I just don’t get someone asking for a review and then marking a trackback from it as spam. Plus I also got frustrated by the lack of appreciation for the service and my time on the part of some people.
If you are on the pending review list and still would like a review of your site, leave me a comment here and let me know. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll also be adding some of the sites I’ve done reviews for and who were on the pending list to my random blog roll so at least you’ll be getting a link to your site. I am keeping my Free 125×125 button ad offer for now though.
Upcoming Content
Over the next month I’ll probably do some additional posts on the eBay affiliate marketing methods that are working, or not working, for me. I’m trying it out using BANS, Blogger blogs and a few other techniques. I’ll continue to post articles about events I find interesting and entertaining, like the recent one about the escaped zebras, as well as video clip posts and the like. And, yes, I may do a marketing post (like this one: Mother’s Day is May 11th) too from time to time to announce discounts and deals I get wind of that I think might be of value. I’ll also be announcing something concerning my content mangler program shortly as well.
Anyway, thanks for reading what I’m rambling about here. Let me know what you think about what I’m doing here by leaving a comment.
I don’t think that placing a nofollow tag for a top commentator plugin is a good idea, because this plugin works as incentive for people to leave comments. With no follow, much less people would leave a comment, thus whole idea of this plugin vanishes.
Hi Greg,
The problem is that how to game it so that the legit followed link can be changed into a link to a ‘bad neighborhood’ site has become common knowledge with blackhatters. That means having to use a level of moderation similar to what I’d have to use for full dofollow in comments, something I don’t want to do.
I’m working on a solution where I can trust this plugin again, but, until I do, I have to leave it as nofollow.
Good News Greg,
I sat down and got to coding this morning and did a fix to the plugin that should work around the problem I found while allowing followed links. Note your ‘comments’ below and what URL is shown in the Top Commentator plugin.
This is a test comment for a possible Top Commentator Fix
Another Test comment for Top Commentator
So, you stopped the reviews after all. I learned a lot from your review of my blog and of other blogs.
I really appreciated my review cuz it was obvious that you have spent a considerable amount of time on it. A couple of my fellow medical student bloggers liked your reviews too and they actually applied for one. I am not sure if you noticed or not
Anyhow that was a long time ago.
I consider this a loss. Because there are not many reliable free blog review services out there, that I know of.
GL in your future projects,
Hi Y.S.,
As I mentioned, it became too much work to maintain it with my current workload, especially given the lack of appreciation for the service.
RT Cunningham of Untwisted Vortex is doing reviews now, Request A Blog Review, so that might be an option.
I was wondering whatever happened to the review. When I last checked the list back in April/March, I think my blog was only third or fourth in line to getting a review. Too bad I missed the cut. Sorry you felt unappreciated. I know how that feels, especially right now.
Hi Bilingual Blogger,
I’ll slip in a review for your site since you asked as I mentioned in the post.