RSS Feeds: Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes: Me and Google
Time may change me,
But I can’t trace time.
…Changes
Over the last 24 hours, I've made some changes. I've made changes both because of something I discovered and because Google changed AdSense for search.
The Discovery
I entered site:http://www.untwistedvortex.com/ in my Google search bar and found the beginnings of many of my posts were indexed with the date at the very beginning of the excerpt used for the description. The date of a post is worthless, in my eyes, as part of a search description.
As I've made plainly clear by mentioning HeadSpace a few times, I'm changing descriptions of particular posts when I find they don't convey what I intended.
AdSense For Search
The old clunky, sidebar-consuming Google search box has been replaced by a new form. Google AdSense for search is now powered by their Custom Search Engines (CSE). I'm not sure what kind of effect it will have because it still works pretty much the same as it did.
Visible Changes
Let's start with the header. The vortex, logo, and Google search forms are now spaced and centered correctly. It was impossible to do with the previous Google search form, pushing the logo over by a few pixels to the left. The vortex not being centered on the left sidebar was my fault and I fixed it at the same time.
The date and time bar above every post is gone. So is the author byline below every post title. The date and author are now included in the meta information at the bottom of the posts. I didn't bother with the time. Okay, so now that information shouldn't show up in any search descriptions after they're re-indexed.
I'll be making more changes, but I probably won't be mentioning them. Oops! I forgot to mention I removed the tagline above the navigation bar. I actually did that a few days ago to see if anyone would notice and nobody mentioned it. I have to assume it wasn't noticed, so it wasn't important.
I'm attempting to make things more pleasant to look at, especially for me since I spend the most time looking at my blog. If you see anything you think I should change, don't be afraid to pipe up and tell me.
Under The Hood
Ripping out useless code, unused plugins, and plugins superseded by something else along with installing new plugins and writing custom code is really time consuming. Besides running errands for my wife (it's a really long story that I don't want to get into right now), I've spent every waking hour since my previous post doing all of those things, for all 3 blogs!
In the process, I've learned a few things I can and can't do with WordPress. I had to turn off caching until I figure a few things out.
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I haven't a clue what you just said. :)
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LOL. Ecin blog! Thats a word spelled backwords that you banned!
It's not banned. You just have click again to make it go through.
I hate messing around with google adsense.
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Good change or bad change huh?
So, how is the result after google change their seach engine?
More people are using it.
I still using the previous google search, just worry to change it
I have run adsense myself on any number of sites.
The tip that I learned from one of those useful clickbank documents ( i threw the others away ) was that the clickthru rate on adsense can be doubled no trebled, ok quadrupled by following one really simple trick.
In the case of this blog, put a horizontal graphic above the adsense horizontal bar.
This works like gangbusters. I have tried it myself and it makes sense. There are no less than a half a dozen clickbank documents that will attest to this simple trick.
The eye is drawn to graphics, if those graphics sit about advertising text and any of that text is relevant to the user, your chances of achieving a high CTR go thru the roof.