Who Makes The Rules For Blogging??

Ever wondered, there are billions of bloggers with zillions of blogs in the blogosphere. Every person connected to the virtual world of world wide web, ends up owning a ‘blog‘. But, what should people write in these blogs? Is there someone who tells you what and what not to write? What is to be done to maintain a blog or may I say ‘a quality blog‘? Are there any ‘rules for blogging‘?

No one is around to settle our curiosity. All the questions remain unanswered. All the doubts unrequited. I tried to answer my queries myself. I thought and thought about the facts on blogging and hardships bloggers face to succeed in maintaining  ‘a quality blog‘. I came up with a few enthical to dos and related them to the ‘blogosphere‘. So, here is the first draft of what I call rules for a blog to be called as ‘A Quality Blog‘. 

1. Post blog entries regularly.
2. Always have a title for each blog entry.
3. Associate blog entries with labels and categories.
4. Do not post material that is obscene, defamatory, harassing, abusive, hateful or embarrassing to another person or entity.
5. Provide each post with its own URL called as a ‘permalink’.
6. Allow full access to archived posts.
7. Allow comments on your posts and pages.
8. Respect the opinion of the visitors.
9. Identify updated/ corrected content with appropriate label.
10. Provide a feed like RSS, Atom etc.
11. Respond to the comments.
12. Do not post copied content without quoting the source.
13. Do not post entries with harmful computer routines like viruses, trojan horses, worms etc.
14. Assume full responsibility and liability for all the content you posted on the blog.

 It goes without saying that on one hand knowing the rules helps to understand better the constraints on blogging and responsiblity of our actions. On the other hand, knowing the rules helps in knowing which might need to be broken. 

Page Rank – Complexity And Importance To Blogging

Definition:

PageRank is a link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references. The numerical weight that it assigns to any given element E is also called the PageRank of E and denoted by PR(E). In a simple way, it is number assigned to each page on world wide web, the more the number, the more chances of the page to appear in the Google search.

Google describes PageRank:

“ PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important”. ”

History:

PageRank was developed at Stanford University by Larry Page and later Sergey Brin as part of a research project about a new kind of search engine. The project started in 1995 and led to a functional prototype, named Google, in 1998. Shortly after, Page and Brin founded Google Inc., the company behind the Google search engine. While just one of many factors which determine the ranking of Google search results, PageRank continues to provide the basis for all of Google’s web search tools. The name PageRank is a trademark of Google.

Impact on Blogging:

The more the pages refer to your blog, the greater is your PageRank and more are chances to be picked up by the visitors. If you want to be well known in blog town, your PageRank is the quickest way someone will be able to tell if what you’re saying is worth their reading. It has now become a global criteria to judge you blogs by PageRank. The higher the PageRank, the popular your blog is.

Tips to improve your PageRank:

• The easiest way is to increase your PageRank is to get as many links from quality websites.
• If you have multiple blogs, refer each blog in your other blogs.
• Always have niche topic, the lesser the pages on that topic, the better your PageRank.
• Allow trackbacks from your site.
• The better the blog, the more the referrals to your blog.