God and Google showed me the path

When you work 14-16 hrs a day, sitting in-front of your computer screen, taking the pain to write new content, think and create new structures for your website...and then one day you realize you have been blessed with the success you dreamed of...I can say today that feels good. Because, today God and Google blessed me for my perseverance.

A month back I came up with the idea of creating unique content for India election results with the hope that on 16th may people will come to the website searching for result updates. I designed the pages in best possible manner so as to provide the maximum ease to the user in finding the desired information.

In general, google used to send me 2000 visits per day, but today I got 72,000 unique visitors. Last time, I posted saying I reached 1,00,000 unique visits in a month, today that stands at 3,95,000. My adsense income was $5 per day, today I got $88. My alexa rankings went to 72,000.

I know that from tomorrow, life may go back to normal. My traffic and adsense income will return to where they were. But, I am just thankful to God and Google for showing me the way. This is the path that I need to follow and I am sure that with the correct contents and hard work, I can make this a regular per day figure for me.

India election Exit polls show Congress lead

Today, 13th May '2009, the final phase of voting came to an end and so did the restriction by Election Commission to show exit polls on News Channels. A expected, all news channels went berserk showing exit poll results. Most of them seem to be pointing towards the Congress emerging as the single largest party, and UPA coming out as the single largest coalition. The BJP and it's NDA group is showcased as lagging just a little behind.
The results wil be out on 16th May and till then these speculations will continue. However, one must keep in mind, that in 2004, the News Channels predicted a BJP success, but it happened just the opposite. So these exit polls can't be really always trusted.

google search engine optimization and 1,00,000 page views

Site: India Travel Guide

My India travel website today crossed 1,00,000 pageviews (per month) with around 1800 visitors per day. Now this was a fairly new site for me, I started work on the domain in just Nov last year and by Dec, I had 200 visitors coming daily to the website. My google adsense earning was also very low (around $2 per month).

This is what I did to get more visitors in just 5 months:

1. In early January, I decided to work on the content. I took to writing and adding new content to the site on a daily basis.
2. For new content, I used wikipedia and 3-4 other sites on that topic. Then re-wrote all in my own words and created unique articles.
3. I reorganized the website structure to be more simple, no more folder inside a folder inside a folder thing. Checked a few other sites who were my direct competition and followed their link structure.
4. Submitted to digg and other sites very often. I got a lot of diggs for my article on 26th January, India's Republic day. I think that made google notice my site.
5. Slowly my traffic rose, I started coming up on first page for different keywords and by March I had 800 daily visitors.
6. I have continued the same concept of adding new, genuine contents in. Now I have over 2000 pages on the site and traffic has reached to 1800 visitors per day.

For Adsense:

When in Feb I was getting 500 visitors, I was still making $2 per month. That was really a bad earning. In March I decided to do something about it.

1. First I studied a lot of tutorials and found that it's all about clever ad placements. Earlier all my ads were either in the left menu or featured some where bottom of the page.
2. I added in the 720 px ads to the top header sections and moved the left ads towards the top of the page. Text-link ads, although not high paying, proved to be a good source for clicks.
3. Another important thing was adding channels for tracking. The channels helped me identify which ads were doing the best and I followed the same structure in the new pages I was making.
4. Channels also helped me target publishers and earlier if one click gave me 0.01 cents, it moved to 0.14 cents per click.
5. Now, I get on an average 150 clicks per day and an earning of around $5.

Although I feel it's still not much as I can optimize it up to at least $12 per day with 150 clicks that I am getting, I can't complain considering I made $2.28 in Jan, $16.07 in March and now in April it jumped to $95.22!

My alexa rankings have also been fast improving and today I am ranked at 2,43,487.

Just happy to see my site crossing 1,00,000 page views/month today and thought of sharing with you all. I am sure many won't consider this a BIG achievement, but it's great for me considering the fact that 4 months back the site was going no where.

India goes for Elections

Another round of General Elections start in 2 days from now, but the common man knows nothing is going to change even after the elections. We'd again make the mistake of choosing the Govt on the basis of religion, caste or Political Party affiliation, irrespective of the fact, that even after 60 years, none of these parties has ever done anything for India.

When will we understand that India is not about fighting over one's religion or caste. We have the capability to really take on the world, to became the best there is. All we need is right direction, a strong leader. Look at the election manifestos. None of the parties promise anything substantial. We have Mulayam promising ban of computers and English, BJP promising Rs 2/kg rice and Congress with Rs 3/ kg rice. Is this what we really want after the election? Do we not need to know the actual development policies these parties have?

The truth is India 2009 Elections is not being fought on policies or principles. It is being fought on the same age old mentality of making fool of the common man by mudslinging and illogical promises. We'd again see film stars and no good politicians winning over good contestants who could have made a difference to India. And we'd be left with only ourselves to blame after the elections.

I have a dream

It's my B'day today, and of all the years in my life, I find my self the loneliest this year. Last month, there were so many people scheduled to be here at my b'day, but one by one, they all had plans canceled. First my sister canceled her plans, then my best friend was not able to get a confirmed reservation for travel, my Spanish client is coming a day late and another friend who lives nearby didn't bother to come. Add to it, that my wife is at her parent's home, this being the first year of my marriage.

Sometimes, life makes you feel so lonely, so unwanted. But then again, these are the days which makes you resolve even harder - resolve to succeed, resolve to live life alone, yet remain happy, resolve to fight harder and harder. I know deep down inside, that I need to go on, I need to keep fighting, I need to win someday soon as I have a dream and I'll make that dream come true.

Serial Blasts Rock Delhi Sep'08

Another set of serial blasts happened moments ago(13th Sep'08) in New Delhi, India. Sucks, isn't it. The fucking politicians will again come out showing alligator tears on the losses of life, property and our security. But nothing will change. India will remain as it is for ever, because we are just hypocrites. Every time these things happen, we sob, raise cries and then we forget. Nothing changes. Unless the asshole politicians and fucking bastard police get their working right, we will keep suffering like this. Till the time they keep saving terrorists like fucking afzal gurus inside their assholes, nothing will change.

Feel sorry for all those who lost their near ones and will pray that God gives them strength to pass through this.

if's and but's

Every one goes through an if and but phase in life. It starts when you think like this "If this would have happened, it'd have been so good , But then this happened and I got screwed." I don't know how many of you keep getting this if & but syndrome, but I feel I have been getting it all my life.
Recent of them has been the Visa decline. I applied for a Visa to Spain (Schenegen Short Stay Tourist Visa)from the IVS center based in New Delhi, India as I needed to go there to meet my friends and also for some work related purpose, but they denied it the first time saying that I did not give enough evidence for my sustainability, whatever that means thinking that I submitted proofs for hotel reservation is a 4star hotel, flight and insurance tickets. Well, after getting a reject, I felt angry and wanted to appeal. the Visa officials then suggested that instead of appealing I should reapply, as appealing decisions can take more than 2 months to come! So I went ahead and re applied. I had received 5000 Euros from Spain for my travel expenses through western union, so I submitted that receipt as well to prove that I can sustain myself easily with that money. This time for the first 15 days I got no reply from the Spanish Embassy, on the 16th day I got my passport back! And yes, you got it right, the visa got rejected again! What is amazing is this time around they did not even bother to call us for an interview. What else do they want us to provide them? We gave a 4 Star Hotel Reservation confirmation(all paid for), to and fro plane tickets, 5000 euros proof , platinum insurance, company bank statement(we are self employed), personal bank statements, notarized invitation letters from the host,etc, etc. Do they think we have money falling from trees that we keep applying and they keep rejecting, mind you they return nothing from the money you submit as application fees. Shouldn't they at least have asked us to come for a meeting to discuss the reason for rejection, taking into consideration that we already have wasted that much amount of money just for application and insurance purposes?
Life really sucks big time when you get in these situations. It just feels so unjustified. I have done everything correct, and they keep declining my Visa. That's because I am following the correct path, crooks keep getting Visa because they know how to cheat. I, now have not only not got the Visa, I am now also around Rs. 25,000 short- the money which I wasted in applications and all (The visa was for two guys).
The same if and but situation again: If I had got the visa, I would have been able to meet my friends and my client in Spain, and it'd have helped a lot in my business, BUT, the Embassy guys declined it and now I am nowhere.