For several times, Google Adsense team helped me earn more from the Adsense ads displayed on my blog by giving me advices. During the times when I only used 2 Adsense unit, they told me to add 1 more unit because according to them, I can use up to 3 Adsense units in a page. In an another message, they told me to place the Adsense unit on the hot spot of a page like, above the fold, because those spots are tested as easily be noticed by the visitors.

I followed what they advised me which I am also happy because my Adsense income has increased.

More Ads Above the Fold be Penalized

But with the release of the new update of Google on its search engine algo, my implementation of Google Adsense will just lead my blog to the decrease of its income than getting more from Google Adsense because what will you earn from the ads if no one will visit your blog because it is already penalized by Google on its search engine?

Google called its new update, the Page Layout Algorithm.

Google is now looking at the layout of the page of every site, and it calculates the amount of content that a visitor will see once he landed on that page.

Of course, Google Team who are responsible on its search engine admitted that ads above the fold perform well. They said, “we understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content.” However, they are also considering the feeling of the visitors from the search engine who visited a page with lots of ads above the fold. Thus Google said, “rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away.” That’s the reason why they implemented this new Page Layout Algorithm.

You can check your site or every page of your site by the browser size tool of Google and learn how many percent of the above-the-fold spot have been situated by the ads. If you think that almost all the space is eaten by just the ads, then I think you need to change the ad placement to avoid the search engine penalty.

Now, what about if you changed immediately the layout of your site? Will you still be affected by it? Google answers:

If you decide to update your page layout, the page layout algorithm will automatically reflect the changes as we re-crawl and process enough pages from your site to assess the changes. How long that takes will depend on several factors, including the number of pages on your site and how efficiently Googlebot can crawl the content. On a typical website, it can take several weeks for Googlebot to crawl and process enough pages to reflect layout changes on the site.

Checking My Own Site

So, now I will check all my sites and change the layout immediately to avoid another problem that this update might bring to me. I suffered a lot from its Panda update and I don’t want to suffer again from this new update.

Source: Google Official Blog.

Question

Dear Sir Selaplana,

I am your avid follower. I have been doing what you had taught me through chat and through the articles you posted in your blog. Until now, I am still trying to visit your blog to find new things about the internet, blogging and SEO. But I feel sometimes disappointed because you seldom update your blog anymore.

Your way of blogging in these days has made me curious whether your blog is still on the top in Google SERP because since 2007 up to 2009, I always found your blog when I tried searching Google using the keywords like SEO, Search Engine Optimization, Make Money Online Blogging, Blogging and Pinoy Blogger. Today, I found out that your blog is nowhere anymore in the top pages of the search result.

My questions are: Is it the effect of the so called Google Sandbox? What are you doing now to help your blog off the Google Sandbox?

Please answer these questions because I know that I will learn something from your answers too.

Thank you.

JR

My Reply

I know very well that this blog is not already listed on the top of the Google SERP. It is not even listed on the first spot of the Google SERP when searching my complete name (Sustines Laplana). And it is not even found on the search result when using the blog’s title, “I Make Money Online By Blogging“, in searching Google. But at least when searching Google using the keyword “SELaplana”, you’ll find that this blog is still the authority.

Does it really mean that the blog is already placed into Google Sandbox?

Actually, I couldn’t tell whether it is the result of the so-called Google Sandbox. But I am pretty aware why this blog experienced the problems mentioned above. The number 1 reason for this is the loss of backlinks from other blogs and websites.

Last year (October 2010), I lost dozens of blogs hosted by blogspot.com which were all under my single Google account. Those blogs are considered by Google as authority in the sense that they all got the top positions on the SERP with the targeted keywords. Besides, almost all of those blogs got a PR of 5 down to 3.

Why I lost them? Well, it happened when I created two blogs which looks like spammy. They seemed spammy because all the contents I posted to them were taken from article directory. And the worst thing that I did was that I did not establish backlinks to the authors of those articles.

I don’t know if a member of the Blogger.Com team noticed those blogs. It might also be the Blogger.Com system which detected what I did. However, I was a little bit positive that the authors of those articles reported my blogs to the Blogger.Com team or system that caused the redflag.

I thought that it was just fine to have two blogs in my account that were being suspended by Google. I created again another blog. I created that particular blog not for spamming purposes but to compile articles that I really needed. However, I forgot to make the blog private. So, I think, when the original authors of those articles reported that blog to Google, Google acted by suspending not just the blog but the whole account and then deleting all the blogs created through that account.

I really felt sorry for my self. But it already happened. I lost not only the income through those blogs but also the PR juices that those blogs shared to this blog (selaplana.com).

I did not feel immediately the effect of what happened. But after two to three months, the traffic of this blog (selaplana.com) suddenly dropped.

And it doesn’t end up there. On May this year if I was not mistaken, Brother Macuha urged the participants of the Pinay Scandal SEO campaign to edit or delete their posts about the topic. And I noticed that many participants followed what Brother Macuha told them by deleting their blogposts. And the result was, I lost more PR juices from those blogposts.

So, now, I guess, Google perceived that I was doing illegal considering that I lost a lot of backlinks, and so the trust-points that should be given to this blog was reduced so that this blog will not receive any good ranking on the SERP.

Well, some SEO called this effect a penalty and others called this effect as Sandbox. But for me, it is just the effect of the loss of the PR juices that the blog received before.

So what should I do to gain back the Google trust, so that the blog will be rank well again on the SERP?

Actually, there is nothing that I need to do except updating the blog with quality and unique content, while building permanent backlinks.

I actually find these two methods hard to do especially that I am not really a talented writer. Just like what you already know, I am just a struggling writer… struggling to write articles with better grammar and better usage of words. Besides, I don’t have enough time this time especially that I am still building by my own our future home.

But wait… you might ask: Why aim for permanent backlinks?

I realized that temporary backlink is perceived by Google as paid link. And we already know that Google hate so much the paid link and consider it as not natural link. So, once Google detected that a particular site is buying backlinks from other sites or blogs, that site might be penalized by reducing the trust-points given by Google to that site. And just like what I said already, they called this as Sandbox effect.

Finale

Anyway, I am very much thankful for your email, because it reminds me that I need to work hard to gain back the success that this blog is experiencing before.

Question

Just received an email from a visitor of this blog.

Selplana,

I noticed that you are not allowing your commentators to enter URL of their website when they comment on your blog selaplana.com. Based on the age of the domain of your blog, I realized that you are blogging for long already. So I expect that you understand that letting your commentator to enter their website’s URL encourages them to comment more in your blog. And not only your old commentators will be encouraged to comment but also those new visitors of your blog.

In other blogs, I noticed that they are using plugins that give links back to the websites of the top commentators. It is one of the ways how they inspired visitors to comment at their blogs.

So, it is like you are pushing your visitors away from your blog when you don’t allow them to have the URL of their website on your blog’s comments area.

Thank you.

Crisostomo Gonzales

My Reply

I understand very well your point. And I believe that what you’re saying is true except for the one you said: So, it is like you are pushing your visitors away from your blog when you don’t allow them to have the URL of their website on your blog’s comments area.

Giving credits to commentators by allowing them to show a link to their websites even if this link is tagged “no follow” is what I really wanted to do. However, a warning from the Google Adsense Team regarding the spam comments posted on my blogs (not just this blog), prompted me not to allow URL on the comment.

Of course, there is other ways that I can do to avoid such spam comments. But  plugins installed on this blog is not really perfect for there were times that it failed to detect spams.

I can however flagged those spam comments manually. But I don’t have enough time to do that since I am still busy building our house.

So, I have no choice but to disallow any URL on the comments.  But, I am not pushing away visitors who want to comment. After all, if they really want to share some thoughts even if I am not allowing any URL on the comment, they will still be posting comments here.

You might asked me again: What about those spam comments that do not have URL on them?

My answer is this: Yes! I noticed that there are spam comments that are not detected by the anti-spam comment plugins installed, and they are not automatically blocked by the WordPress system because they don’t have URL in them. It doesn’t matter anymore because these spam comments are quite clean from spammy terms or words. At least they are safe to read and most of these comments just say, “Hey, you have a good post, and your thought is quite intriguing!”  Sometimes, these comments have this thought: “Hi! I found your blog through Google. Interesting to read.”

I also checked those blocked comments.  Most of them have URL linking back to questionable websites.

I recently received a message from Google when I logged in to my Adsense account. Google told me that the most visited webpage of this blog, Make Money Online by Blogging, has been detected by its system for being too slow. The Google system advised me then to speed it up or the whole site by doing the following:

1. Spriting the images.
2. Setting the expiry date or a maximum age in the HTTP headers for static resources.

But, instead of following the recommendation of Google to sprite those images, I opted to change the bullet design used by the bulleted items at the sidebar from using the small bullet images to nothing. So, I guess, this speed up the site or the webpage a little bit since the browser will never request those bullet images anymore.

Now, for the second recommendation of Google, I did follow it by inserting the code below into the .htaccess file.

I found this code by searching the internet. I only changed the specified options.

Whether this code works, that is what I don’t know yet. I will still check it using any tools available in the internet.

… not yet done…

I checked again the advised webpage and I found out that I activated the display of gravatar in the comment section. Of course these images add up more downloading time and HTTP requests, so I better diactivated it.

And by the way, you can check the speed of your webpages by using the Page Speed tool by Google Labs. It also gives recommendations on what you should do to speed up your blog or webpages in particular.

There are lots of good things happened in my life because of blogging and making money from it. I was able to provide the needs of my family and I was able to give them what they wanted which I think could make them happy and would help them grow better. And through the income earned by my blogs, I bought a lot of things just like those I mentioned on my previous post, My Life Being an Employed or Jobless Blogger and Blog Juices: Cellphones, clothes, foods, motorcycle, car, computers and many others.

Blogging saved me too from becoming slave of others. I mean, I was not working for others in exchange of low salary. My income might not be as high as the income of other Filipino bloggers, but at least I was doing the tasks that I really wanted to do without anyone supervising me and telling me what to do.

Here, I was the boss of myself. I could go, where ever I want to go. I could do whatever I want to do. No one would fire me just like what happened when I was still working as an internet café attendant in one of the internet café in Metro Manila last 2001. And the most important thing is that blogging did not and would not hinder me perform my duties in the Church. It, instead, helped me do my duties and obligation spiritually.

In blogging, I was just actually writing my thoughts into articles, publishing them on my blogs and then money came in. I did not consider it a job. I did not even consider it a business. I just consider it a play. I really enjoyed everything I did from composing articles, to publishing them, managing websites or blogs, and even in reading articles written by others.

Blogging, for me, is a best online play or game because it did not just make me enjoy, but it also helped me enhanced my writing skills. And most of all it helped me earn money for our family’s living.

Blogging Enhanced Your Writing Skills?

I think, I was mentioning this over and over again in interviews, and in my old posts. I never felt tired of telling you this because I was just actually thankful that I was able to enhance my English writing skills.

When I started blogging, other Filipino bloggers insulted me by telling me to close my blog because I was just humiliating Filipinos online. After few years of blogging, my writing was not yet perfect but at least I had not heard anyone calling me idiot again. But of course, I still need to practice more, and even read more articles written by professionals, for me to enhance more my skills in writing.

Building Our House by Myself

Did I already tell you that starting last June of this year I continued building our house alone?

After becoming disappointed on the performance of my carpenters and masons, including their helpers, I fired them all and do the building by myself alone. Of course I know that what I did only shows that I am not a good manager or a team leader. But at least my building plans and design will be implemented well and I can also save money which I should pay the workers.

What I want you to realize is that I couldn’t do this all if I was working as an employee of a company or office wherein I would not have time to do the building of our home except during day off.

But what if I had not tried blogging?

I understand that I became a blogger after I tried the blogging platform introduced by blogger.com. But I would not find the blogger.com if I was not interested of publishing my thoughts into the internet. But I would not have idea about publishing my thoughts into the internet if I was not given a chance to manage a personal website. And thanks to the De Guzman brothers from Tisa, Cebu City for this chance.

On June 1999, Rick De Guzman made me his internet café attendant in his Tres De Abril internet café branch. I was doing that job until December 1999 before I went home to Oteiza – San Agustin, Surigao del Sur. Through that, I was introduced to the then popular network games called Warcraft. I also became addicted to mIRC chatting and to meet-ups or eyeballs too. And the most important thing is that, I learned how to put up a personal website using the geocities.com free hosting services.

My personal website which was located at geocities.com/selaplana contained personal information about me. And I also published all my journals and other articles, especially those about religion into that website. Today, the said website doesn’t exist anymore.

However, I would not be hired by Brother Rick De Guzman if I was not introduced by my classmate, Mr. John Ho, into the Iglesia Ni Cristo. It’s actually my affiliation to the Iglesia Ni Cristo that started these all. The De Guzman brothers in Tisa – Cebu City are members of the said church.

In other words, I would not become a blogger who made money from it if I had not joined the Iglesia ni Cristo. So, if it did not happen, then I am sure I am a priest now of the Roman Catholic Church?

Priest of the Catholic Church? Why?

Becoming a Catholic Church’s priest is one of my dreams when I was still in Elementary. And I was not just dreaming of becoming a priest, but I also tried to walk on the path of becoming a priest. I joined the altar boys of our parish, St. Augustine Parish-Diocese of Tandag when I was still in grade three during the time of Rev. Valentine Kind, our parish priest. And then when I was in High School, our parish priest at that time, Rev. Peter O’niell, made me the Sacristan Mayor in our parish.

I was actually planning to study in the minor seminary in Butuan City for my college and then I would pursue theology course. However, my brother, Engr Lorenzo Laplana, told me to take engineering course first outside the seminary. And after finishing the course, if I would still be interested, that would be the time to pursue theology course.

I was convinced by my brother. The reason why he’d advised me this, so that people would not say anything bad against me if ever I would not be successful, considering that studying in minor seminary in Butuan City is free in tuition. The money used in this seminary is the money collected by the Roman Catholic Church, particularly by the sponsor diocese.

But You Could be a Blogger Even if You’re a Priest…

Well, I know some priests and bishops who are blogging. In other words, even if I was not introduced to the Iglesia Ni Cristo, instead, I became priest, there’s still a possibility that I will become a blogger. But I don’t think that I will become a blogger like I am now who is not just blogging but also making money online.

Finale

I believe that the life that I have now is the life that God has given me. I know that the things that I got and earned are all the answers of God to my prayers.

Thank you for reading. God bless you.

Yours,

Sustines Laplana

The Southern Leyte
Pinoy Blogger

First Year of being an Unemployed Blogger

I started blogging and making money from it in 2004. But blogging at that time was just my sideline because I still have a job and then in early 2005, I started managing my own internet café.

When I lost my little café business in Quezon City on January 2006, I immediately went home here in Malitbog – Southern Leyte and made blogging my main source of income.

At first, my aunts and my sister were worried about me. They thought that I was just staying there for nothing. What they knew is that I don’t have a business and I don’t have a job but everyday, I went to Maasin City which is 40 kilometers away from our home and stayed there for few hours before I went home again. They thought that I was just spending my money for nothing. They did not know that I was there in Maasin City to blog and earn money from the blogs.

I tried to convince them by telling them that I might have no job or business but my blogs were making money for me. I also explained to them what blog is and how it earns money. But my explanation seems not clear to them. They’re still wondering whether I was telling them the truth or not. They’re still telling me to apply for a job at our local electric cooperative.

Why were you told to apply at an electric cooperative? And for what job?

Okay. I know you’ll wonder why I was told to apply for a job in an electric cooperative.

I am actually a BS Electrical Engineering graduate from the Leyte Institute of Technology in Tacloban City which is now known as Eastern Visayas State University. But, I don’t have the license (PRC License) to practice the profession. However, I have a TESDA certificate as a Third Class Electrician.

I also have experiences in building and industrial wiring. In fact, I was the one who installed the electrical wiring of our house in Surigao del Sur.

With these, my aunts and my sister thought that I would be hired by our local electric cooperative if I would apply for any position that I might be qualified of.

But what happened?

I hate jobs like that. I don’t want to have a boss. I just want to become my own boss. So, looking for a job is not my first priority.

I continued blogging. I wrote the articles at home, and then published them to my blogs when I would be there in Maasin City. I only rented computer from the internet café in Maasin City, and used their internet connection in managing my blogs.

When I receive my first checks from Adsense and other companies, I immediately showed them to my aunts and sister hoping that they would believe me that I don’t need a job anymore because I have my own sources of income.

By the way, those checks were actually not my first checks. I referred them as my first checks because they were the first checks that were sent to me in my Malitbog – Southern Leyte address. Before, those checks were delivered to my Quezon City address.

So, soon as they realized that I was really earning income monthly, they started to become proud of me. When someone would ask them what was my work, they immediately answered them that I was working in the internet.

And those who heard them say that immediately thought that I have my own internet café in Maasin City. Few of them even asked me where was my internet café in Maasin City and that if I am willing to let them use one of my computer for free.

I had to explain to them that I don’t have internet café and that I was just using the computers of the internet café to do my blogging works.

That’s when they started to wonder what really my real work was. There was a time that a friend asked me if I engaged with illegal job like selling drugs. They just couldn’t figure out how I earned money.

Anyway, time came that they started to understand the nature of my livelihood. That was after they visited this Make Money Online blog.

So, How’s your life?

So far, my life is becoming better every year even if I am just a bystander.

In my first year of blogging at full time (2006), blogging bought me a Honda XRM 110 motorcycle. It also bought us (my wife and me) the wedding ring which we later used on our wedding on June 20, 2008.

On the next year (2007), blogging bought me a laptop computer and paid my bills on my apartment which includes the apartment monthly rental, internet subscription, power and water bills. It also financed my daily needs.

On my third year of blogging full time (2008), it financed my wedding which was held in the Hinunangan locale- Leyte East of the Iglesia ni Cristo and the reception was held in the conference room of the Sts. Peter and Paul Multipurpose Cooperative Lodging House in Hinunangan – Southern Leyte. It also bought me and my loveones cellphones and its prepaid load credits, home appliances like the televisions, refrigerator, washing machine, stove and others.

My family actually bought a lot of things using the money that blogging brought us. We got a Kawasaki Barako Tricycle in August 2009, ASUS Eeee PC in 2008 and LG KM-555 cellphones for both of us and a Suzuki Carry (Van) in 2010. Early month of this year, blogging financed the building of our house.

God’s Blessings and God’s Will

I am pretty sure that we have different religion. Most of you are Catholics or members of the Roman Catholic Church and there are others who are Protestants and Born Again Christians. Maybe some of you are Muslims, while the others are members of other Christian groups and sects. And you already know that I am an Iglesia Ni Cristo member.

We might have different belief but I know that you will agree with me that all these things that I got through my blogging income are simply gifts from God to me. God entrusted me this blessings not just for my own personal use but also for my family’s service to God.

Blogging is actually the answer of God to my prayers. When I was still in Manila, I experienced being fired by my employer. But I understand why they did that to me. I made mistakes and I agreed that keeping me with the job will just ruin their business. That was the time when I started praying to God to help me find a job or a living that would not hinder me to do the things that I want to do. I just hate having someone supervising me. I just don’t want someone controlling me and my time. I just want to have a full control of my time so that when I need to attend any activities of the Iglesia Ni Cristo, I can attend freely without thinking anything behind me.

Now, all that I asked from God came true… I became an unemployed blogger.

Fin

Just like the previous post, this blogpost was written through the MS Word 2010 Starter Edition and was published to this blog, Make Money Online Blogging, using the same software.

Thank you so much for reading this post and I hope you learn something from it. If you have something to say about it or have a message for me, kindly send it through our contact form or simply post your message at our comment section.

Thank you.

Sustines Laplana

It’s been two months since I left my blogging office in Maasin City. I may have time to write journals but I find it hard to connect to the internet. So, instead of worrying about my blogs, I just focused my time building our home here in Hinunangan – Southern Leyte.

While I was here, posting blogpost to this blog, Sustines Laplana’s blog, couldn’t be done regularly, but I will try to post the journals that I already wrote through the MS Word 7. And once I found a Smart Bro signal, I will immediately post it using the same software.

I just don’t when can I publish the news articles submitted by the lone contributor of my Maasin News website.

Building our Home

I am not sure if I really had mentioned already that we started building our house last May 2, 2011. A month and a week after (June 11), I kicked all my workers out: Carpenters, masons, helpers and others. I just hate them. They couldn’t do their work according to my expectations. They did a lot of failures like:

1. They didn’t follow the plan especially the dimension of the post, and the distance of each of the post.
2. They didn’t know how to install the guide-form for the posts and beams.
3. They didn’t know how to align posts.
4. They’re too slow.

The people that I hired were not really talented. They’re telling me that they’re good and were skilled but then they couldn’t prove it through their work. There were times that I was the one teaching them how to do the task that I gave them.

But, I am still thankful to them because through their help, the posts and the beams were successfully installed. The rest, I think, will be installed by me, myself…

Actually, since yesterday (June 13) I work alone in preparing for the installation of the trusses. I know it would take time for me to finish the trusses installation but at least I can do it according to my expectations and the plan too.

And the most important thing is that I can save money because I am not paying workers anymore.

Blogging Income

By the way, my blog’s income for the month of May and for the past days of the current month is still good. That’s the good thing if you’re making money by blogging. As long as your blog is online and Google still has the trust on your blog, the money is always there flowing into your pocket.

But I know that I have to work more for the blog. I need to publish more articles, and I need to keep the trust of Google to my blog.

Getting the top spots on the search engines results is a competition. My blogs might be one of the sites listed at the first page of the search results but time will come that it will be out ranked by other websites or webpages that got a lot of PR points.

Actually, there are lots of important keywords that my blog topped the SERP before but you couldn’t find the blog on the SERP these days. There are lots of reasons why it happened but I don’t think that my blog has been penalized by Google in some keywords.

So, I have to do something. I need compete with other websites. And I also need to find new keywords that might be profitable and has less competition. These are two of the ways that a blogger should do to continuously earn money through their blogs.

And I know that many bloggers are doing that do. After all, all bloggers are aiming to make money by blogging.

Making Money with Adsense

By the way, I noticed a comment on my previous post, “Creating a Blog”, wherein the commenter asked me about whether the target monthly income of $10,000 which I mentioned on that certain blogpost is just an Adsense income…

I’m sorry but I forget who the commenter is. I really find it hard to access my blog for the past days, that’s why I couldn’t reply immediately to the comments posted on my blog, and even to the emails I received.

Well, the said target income is not just through the Google Adsense. But of course I also have a goal of hitting that target through Google Adsense alone. After all, Google Adsense is one of my best earners along with, Kontera, TLA and AdMob. My earning from CPA programs helps too.

Finale

I will just end this post here. And thank you for reading. I will just post more journals tomorrow or the next day.

I am currently having a hard time logging in to my email accounts and blogs for some reasons like:

1. Busy building our own house. It’s been a month already since we started building our own house in Hinunangan- Southern Leyte. I designed it myself and I personally supervised the workers in building this house.
   
2. Slow Internet Connection. Smart Communications offers a high speed 3G or HSDPA internet connection here while Globe offers the GPRS. But the Smart Bro’s high speed internet is limited to the first few users or slots. The excess of the limited slots will enjoy the very slow GPRS connection.
   
3. Over-crowded Internet Cafés. Since most of the times, I was one of those unlucky internet users using the Smart Bro Prepaid Plug-it, I had no other option except to use the internet connection of the existing internet cafés here. However, you need to wait for hours because there are those who were there before me waiting for their turn too.
   

By the way, I received an email from a visitor of the blog. The emails goes:

Hello po. Talagang na inspired ako sa website mo kasi grabe ka patok sa internet. Kahit nga ako binabalik balikan ko ang site para makakuha ng impormasyon paano kumita ng pera through internet. Hope you can help me answer some of my questions…

Are you using webshosting for your site kuya sel? Then pwede pakisabi para magamit ko rin, atleast alam ko na reliable sya. Then kuya, how much do pay for your domain name? and what is the site. Yan lang po sana, sana matulungan mo po ako. Thanks!

Creating a Blog that Makes Money Online

You can actually start blogging in two ways: (1) You can create your own blog, or (2) You can ask those who own blogs to let you write and contribute to their blogs in exchange for a little fee.

However, if you’ll ask me what to prefer between the two, I will choose to blog at my own blog rather than blogging at the blogs of others. I am actually the type of person who doesn’t want to be commanded or supervised by the others.

Talking about being supervised by someone, I remember when I was still working as a computer café attendant wherein, soon as I noticed that my boss stood at my back watching me on what I was doing, I immediately stopped working my job waiting him to leave me. I just felt uncomfortable if someone is observing me.

And then when I was once kicked out from my job, I told my self that I should put up my own business so that no one would dictate what I should do.

That’s one of the main reasons why I chose to blog and make money online by blogging, rather than becoming an employee of someone.

So, I suggest you start your own blog and consider it as your own business. If you think you need more blogger who would blog for you, then do that. At least, in that way, you are their boss.

Creating a blog at Blogger.com

Creating a blog is actually just easy and free. You can start by signing up an account at blogger.com by using your existing email address. Just follow the instructions and steps. And don’t forget to prepare your cellphone number too, because Google is now asking cellphone number every time someone would create an account from them.

Your phone number will be used for the so called two-way verification process. If Google perceives that you are violating one of the policies and terms of the services, your account will be automatically be suspended and then the verification code will be sent to your cellphone number. This verification code will be used in re-activating your account.

Which is better, free hosting of blogger.com or a paid webhosting?

Free hosting by blogger.com and the paid webhosting account have both advantages and disadvantages.

For example: If your blog is hosted by blogger.com, you would not need to spend a dime just to make sure that you’re blog is up and running, because Google see to it that your blog can withstand what ever is the size of the traffic that your blog is catering. But of course, you should make sure that your blog doesn’t violate any of the terms and conditions of the use of the services, because once the management found one of your blogs is violating the terms and policies, sometimes your whole account will be suspended not just the particular blog that violates. And once you failed to reactivate your account in certain period of time, your account will then be permanently suspended.

In a paid webhosting account, obviously you need to pay the fees being collected by the webhost. And if it happens that you’ve got a webhosting account from a webhost with bad services, the performance of your blog will be affected too.

But which ever of these webhosting accounts you have, you can always be successful in blogging and making money online. After all, your success depends on your hardwork, passion and knowledge. You should have these three if you want to become successful, not just in blogging but in any ways that you want to do.

Remember that you couldn’t become successful if you are just hardworking without the passion and the knowledge. If you are knowledgeable in certain field like blogging, yet you don’t want to exert effort, then you could never be a successful.

Just like what I said, you need these three: Knowledge, Passion and Hardwork. These are the main ingredients of success.

Are you using a paid webhosting?

Actually, I own a lot of blogs. These blogs are all real. I am writing and posting articles into these blogs regularly. And I am also earning money through them.

But most of these blogs are created and hosted by the blogger.com. Only few of my blogs including my Make Money Online by Blogging blog are hosted by my dedicated account from a webhosting company in the US.

As of now, I am paying $260 every month for my dedicated server. The price does not include special updates of software installed in the server.

But in 2004, when I was on my early days in making money online, I was not actually spending money for the webhosting services, because my first few blogs used in making money online were all hosted by blogger.com.

But the blogging platform of blogger.com at that time is not as good as that of the WordPress. So, I bought a domain, a webhosting account from a Filipino Reseller, and used the WordPress software as the engine of the few of my blogs.

In that year, I wasn’t yet blogging at the selaplana.com. Selaplana.com started to exist only in March 6, 2006 when I started to focus all of my time in blogging.

My first WordPress driven- self hosted blog was kawebspy.net. But it only existed for few months because the Filipino webhost abandoned me even if I paid all my obligations.

So, I registered similar domain, the kawebspynet.com and used it for my blog called, Ka Webspy Network. I was blogging here since 2004 up to March 2006. I earned my first $100 per month Adsense income through this blog.

When I launched a new blog, the SELaplana blog at www.selaplana.com, I abandoned the Ka Webspy Network blog and focused my self to the new blog. I earned my first $1,000 per month Adsense income through this new blog. And now, with the help of this blog, I am currently trying to reach my goal of earning income of about $10,000 per month.

I have been unemployed for five years already. I don’t have job, and I was just here staying at home playing my computers. But the only difference of me from other unemployed Filipino is that I am earning money abroad.

I came from San Agustin – Surigao del Sur. So, if you’re a Kamayo from Oteiza, then you probably knew me. You just couldn’t figure out who particularly am I.

Well, I am living here in Maasin City – Southern Leyte. So, officially, I am part of those unemployed or jobless in the Eastern Visayas.

But I finished a degree at the Leyte Institute of Technology. I just don’t have the PRC license to practice that profession. Besides, I am too lazy for that, and I don’t like that profession.

Before, I wanted to become a priest… a Catholic Priest. But now, I simply want my life today as an unemployed Filipino yet earning abroad.

Earning Abroad?

I mentioned that twice. And for the third time, I will mention it again… I am an unemployed Filipino yet earning abroad.

I am not an overseas Filipino worker but I am an OFW too. It was Brother Marhgil Macuha who coined that name to those who are earning money abroad but are staying at home in the Philippines, for we are the Online Filipino Workers.

Yes! We stayed here in the Philippines yet we are getting money from the companies abroad like, Google, CPALead, Kontera or Infolinks, TLA, ClickBank, YesAsia and others.

There’s no need to get a visa and then buy plane tickets because by staying at home is enough. OFW like me simply needs an internet connection, a computer and the passion in writing. The knowledge in computer programming, website designing, marketing and copywriting is a plus and a great advantage.

To make it more clearer, I am actually making money online by blogging in the Philippines particularly here in Maasin City – Southern Leyte.

Why I am telling you this?

I don’t write this blogpost just to boast who I am. I wrote this because I received few emails asking about me.

I already referred them to the about page of this blog which eventually tells them that I am Mr. Sustines Laplana. They just couldn’t believe that it’s me who is blogging here. I don’t know why? But I think it is because my English writing is better now compared to my writing before.

I am not saying that my writing is better than the writing of the other bloggers because the truth is, I am nowhere compared to them. Most of the Filipino bloggers are writers or journalist in profession. There are those who are not writers or journalist but at least they were studying the courses like Mass Communication, AB English, Bachelors in Education and other similar courses.

I am just nothing compared to them. I am simply a product of Technological school whose major subjects deals in numbers and computation.

But I am not saying that all Engineering students are not good in writing because I knew some who were good at it. Some of them were members of the School’s journalists.

I just want to mean that besides that I am focused in numbers and computations, I am also an idiot.

What? You’re an Idiot?

I remember when I was in my early days in blogging, Filipinos who visited my blog would tell me to close my blog because I was just humiliating the Filipinos by my writing. They just couldn’t take my writing. A lot were calling me idiot or dumb.

That happened actually in 2003. And eight years after that, I am still here blogging. But at least, even if my grammar is erroneous and I have a worst usage of words, no one calls me idiot again. So, I think, my writing is better now compared to my way of writing 8 years ago.

That’s actually the result of blogging. After all, my eagerness to learn to write better article even if no one here beside me teaching, made me enhanced my skills.

But blogging doesn’t simply help me enhance my writing skills. It also helps me become updated on what’s happening in the world. And most of all, it helps me find a livelihood.

Income from Blogging

How much are you earning from blogging?

Well, my income from blogging is not as good as the income of other bloggers I know like, Marhgil Macuha, Abe Olandres, Gumer Liston, Sammy Feliciano and many others, but at least I was able to support the needs of my family and pay my bills.

How did you start Blogging anyway?

Actually, it all started in 2003 when I came across the blog of an Iraqi who blog about the invasion of the United States in Iraq. This man simply wrote what he saw, observed and heard while Americans and their allies battled with the Iraqi forces. His blog was actually hosted by the blogger.com which at that time was owned by a certain Pyra Labs if I am right.

Currently blogger.com is already owned by Google.

I was actually maintaining a personal website since 1999. My personal website was hosted by Geocities.com (which later owned by Yahoo.com). This website served as my online diary where I posted my journals.

While reading the blogpost of that Iraqi blogger, I thought of examining the host of his blog which I learned that it was blogger.com and that the set-up and the setting-up was just easy. Posting journals was really very easy compared to what I was doing in my personal website hosted by Geocities.com.

So, I immediately signed-up and account from blogger.com and set-up my first blog.

My first blog actually was among the blogs deleted by Google. My whole account actually was suspended by Google because one of my blog had been considered by Google as spam.

How you earn money from your blog?

Actually, I only learned that I could really monetize my blog only in 2004. I learned from a news that Google introduced Google Adsense wherein small publishers like me could use in monetizing a blog.

Soon as I heard about it, I immediately signed up an account. Signing up an account during that time was not really hard. And just few hours after signing up, I immediately received and email from Adsense Team, that I was already accepted into the program.

My first month Adsense income only cents. However, every month my income increased until I received my first check worth more than $100.

After receiving my first income from Google Adsense, I became more inspired in blogging. I blogged and blogged until I reached my goal to earn $100 in just three months. My next goal which was to earn $100 every month had been met again. Then time came that I hit my goal to earn $1,000 a month income.

But that was just the income from Adsense. Actually, there are many ways a blogger can earn money through his blog. You can earn by displaying ads of TLA, Kontera or Infolinks, Amazon, Adbrite, and other Ad networks. You can even earn money by selling Clickbank products in your blog.

So, Google Adsense is not just the source of income of a blogger. And a blogger should not just use Google Adsense but should try other ways of making money online. After all, one of the blogger’s goal is to earn more than what his currently earnings.

Are you not planning to have a stable job then retire after that?

Talking about retirement, I am actually a retiree.

You see, I don’t have job, I don’t even have a business establishment but I am receiving money. What do you call that money I received? Isn’t it right to call that my pension?

I can call it my pension because it regularly came even if in a month I did nothing but sit down in front of my computer and facebooking. Talking about facebook, I already have almost 3,000 friends. That number of facebook friends is the proof that I am really addict in facebook.

Anyway, I am actually planning to get a PRC license and to have a masteral and then join the faculty of a college. My plan is actually opposite to Gumer Liston’s experience, because according to him he was a college instructor who resigned from his job to focus his time in blogging, which is actually effective because he is now earning 150,000 pesos to 300,000 pesos in a month compared to his 12,000 to 15,000 pesos monthly income in teaching.

But in my case, I want to become a college instructor not because I am interested of the money I might earn, but I simply love teaching. After all, the blood of my parents who are both teachers is running in my veins.

And if my goal to earn $10,000 a month will be met, then I think, that will be the time that I will start my own school. I will start to open a pre-elementary grades until I will finally opened up both Elementary and Secondary levels.

So, what can you say to your readers?

I want to thank you for reading my blogposts. I know my articles are not that interesting. But I am glad you’re still here reading.

However, if you want to earn an extra income, you can try blogging.

You can start by opening an account at blogger.com. It’s the best place to start a blog because it is owned by Google and your blog through it can be monetized using the Google Adsense and other ads served by other networks.

After successfully creating a blog, continue writing articles and post them there. If you can manage to write one article everyday, then that’s better. In three months, you can now try to apply using your blog to Google Adsense program.

You also need to learn about SEO. This technique will help you find visitors for your blog because its your blog’s visitors who will actually help you earn money.

So much for that… I want to thank you for everything.

Post Revisions tracking system was introduced on the WordPress version 2.6. With this, everytime you save your post or the WordPress system automatically saved your post, it also creates a new data in your wp-posts table in the database. But this data has the type called “revision”.

The very purpose of this is for you to be able to get the previous copy of your revision if ever you did something wrong with the latest revision of your post.

But the negative effect of this is that your database is getting bigger especially if you saved your post several times before posting it, or if you are editing your posts several times. And as you already know, bigger database file will just be a burden of your server, thus slowing your site, if not crashing it off.

Turn Off Post Revisions

You can however turn off the Post Revisions Tracking System. That is if you think you don’t need this kind of feature. Just follow the steps below:

Step 1: Log-in to your cPanel.

Step 2: Find the wp-config.php file. It is usually found in the WordPress directory.

Step 3: Edit the wo-config.php file and insert this: define(‘WP_POST_REVISIONS’, false);

Step 4: Save the file.

So, now the feature has been turned off already.

Delete Post Revisions from the Database

Now, if this feature has been turned on for a long time already, then I am sure that there are lots of post revisions entries in your database especially if you are posting a lot into your wordpress blog or site. You might need to delete them.

You can delete those entries by running the Sql command: DELETE FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type = “revision”;

You can run that code using the MyPhPAdmin of your cPanel. If you are using the WP-DBManager WordPress plugin, then you can make use of its Run SQL feature.