Introducing StumbleUpon's URL Shortener su.pr

StumbleUpon recently announced their new URL shortener su.pr which adds an in-browser toolbar and can post to twitter and Facebook.

The toolbar includes some of the usual StumbleUpon buttons, Stumble, thumb-up and share. URLs can be posted directly to twitter / Facebook or scheduled to post at a later time. This can be up to two weeks later. Here's an example of a shortened URL, http://su.pr/1JKt8R.

By using su.pr to shorten URLs, the pages you tweet can potentially benefit from additional StumbleUpon traffic. su.pr includes a range of statistics for shortened URLs, including clicks, traffic from SU, referrers, etc.

StumbleUpon are planning to automate su.pr to post items from an RSS feed. Until then why not try combining twitterfeed with the Digg toolbar?

Entrecard Acquired by ZipRunner: What it Means for the Community

Earlier today Entrecard.com Inc. announced it has been acquired by ZipRunner Inc. via an email to the members. Entrecard's founder, Graham Langdon, will be retained as an advisor.

Over recent months Entrecard has seen the membership decline after a number of unpopular changes to the service. Entrecard's traffic has dropped 31% after reaching a peak of 1.7 million page views in March 2009. Graham posted about the sale on his new blog, Ontrapranore, quoting conflict with the community among his motives.

It is unclear as yet what changes ZipRunner intend to make and what effect this will have on the community. Until ZipRunner's intentions are known I would advise the following:

• don't spend too much time dropping cards until ZipRunner's intentions are clear
• if you have excess credits consider using them before any changes are implemented

If you have any thoughts on the sale and it's effect on the community, please let me know.

Effective Commenting on Blogger Blogs

When leaving a comment on a Blogger Blog, the default is to use your Google account which will leave a link to your Blogger profile. There are usually two more effective options.

1. Name/URL: allows you to choose any name and include a direct link to your blog. If you're commenting on a dofollow blog there's a SEO benefit, otherwise you'll just benefit from slightly more traffic clicking through.
2. OpenID: enter the URL to your Blogger blog and when asked, confirm it's okay to tell Blogger you own the blog. You'll receive the same benefits as Name/URL, but unfortunately it's not possible to choose any name.

DoFollow: How to remove NoFollow from Blogger Blogs

Blogs hosted by Blogger automatically add rel="nofollow" to links in user generated content, for example comments. The nofollow attribute is intended to prevent these links having any influence on search engine rankings, so removing nofollow will be of benefit to your visitors.

Before you begin, back up your Blogger template just in case something goes wrong. Go to layout and select edit HTML. Then download full template.

To remove nofollow, the first step is to click on expand widget templates. This updates the template HTML to include the HTML for individual widgets.

Next, search your template for nofollow, you can search on most browsers with CTRL-F. Nofollow may be in several different places. What you're looking for is a section of HTML code which specifically mentions comments, similar to the below:

<a expr:href='data:comment.authorUrl' rel='nofollow'>


Simply remove the section of HTML which says rel="nofollow" and then save template.

<a expr:href='data:comment.authorUrl'>


One final word of warning: if you remove nofollow, you must make sure comments with a link to dodgy sites are removed. If you allow too many to slip through, search engines may begin to consider your site dodgy by association!