With all our recent linking activity, we had one question to be asked over and over again. Often, when somebody linked back to Cyprus Blog Network, they used the URL with WWW - http://www.cyprusblognetwork.com . When we asked them to change the URL to http://cyprusblognetwork.com , we usually received the “Why?” question.

Well, that’s not a big deal at all. But having a uniform link from all web sites helps a lot. First of all, Cyprus Blog Network’s URL is already long enough. Adding extra four characters (www.) without any good reason looks, well, unreasonable. Secondly, using the same URL in links from many web sites prevents rank split.

The thing about rank split is that many search engines think that the web site with address somedomain.com is different from the web site with address www.somedomain.com . It is possible to have them different, and some indeed do, but the problem is that there is no sure way for the search engine to know if the web sites are the same or not. Google introduced recently Webmaster Tools which allow one to clear this confusion, but other search engines don’t have it. So, by considering the www. and no-www. web sites as different, search engines rank them as different. So, instead of getting, for example, a rank of 6/10 you might end up with two ranks - 3/10 for the www. web site and 2/10 for the non-www. web site. Boring and silly, but it does happen.

If you are interested in the subject, you can read more about it at the www. is deprecated web site. They also have some instructions there on how to configure your web server, so that it behaves properly - accepts requests for both www. and non-www. and redirects them to the same page.

Does your blog work without www? Do you use www when typing the address in the URL? Have you seen any problems with www and non-www confusion?

Blogging is still a geeky subject. A geeks love t-shirts. There are, of course, many t-shirts out there aimed at geeks. But you don’t have to be a geek to love t-shirts. And there are, of course, many t-shirts out there aimed at non-geeks. The bottom line is - there are many t-shirts out there.

If you love t-shirts and you love blogging, here is an idea for your next blog - T-shirt of the week. Bookmark a bunch of online shops. Subscribe to their mailing lists and RSS feeds. Search the web for more. Look through a whole bunch of t-shirts, and select the one you love the most. Write a post about that t-shirt. Tell everyone why you selected this particular t-shirt. Attach a picture. Put a link to the shop, where one could buy it. Make it an affiliate link, so you’d make some money too. Repeat next week. And then next week. And then next week.

In exactly the same way, you can have a blog about some specific type of t-shirts, like computer t-shirts (think ThinkGeek) or t-shirts from a certain shop (think CafePress). Or you can have a blog about some other shopping item. The key here is to have the item available in online shops (pets won’t do) and for people to have the need to buy more than one of this item (houses won’t do).

This week’s Together! is about your blogging habits and tools. Tell us more about how you blog, from where you do it. Do you use a laptop computer or a desktop? Do you blog from home or from office? Do you blog from you mobile phone or PDA? Do you publish posts straight from your head or leave them be until you have time, will, and mood to review them? Do you use a spell checker? If so, do you run it in real-time while editing your post, or once only after the post has been prepared otherwise? Do you listen to music while blogging or do you prefer silence? How do you do your research, if you do any, before writing the post or while doing so?

There are so many blogging tools and guides these days, as well as people blogging from so many social backgrounds, that it’s almost like everybody does it in his own way. Tell us more about your way. What is important to you in your blogging process? What are the shortcuts and tricks you’ve got used to that others maybe ignored or haven’t heard before?

Let’s make our lives easier by sharing the knowledge.

The new address for Smart Home Blog is http://smart-home-blog.com . Russian version is available under http://ru.smart-home-blog.com . It was decided that this new URL will help to promote the resource, rank it higher in the search engines, and will look more appropriate.

We have setup all redirects, so both old and addresses should work, but just to be on the safe side, please, update your bookmarks and RSS subscriptions.

There has been a lot of confusion recently about all those links to and from Cyprus Blog Network web site. Here is a quick post to clear some of that confusion out. The long story short - we will link to you!

You can have a link to your web site from the front page of Cyprus Blog Network. And you don’t even need a college degree to have it.

Bloggers

Leave a comment with either URL of your blog or your contact information if

• you have a blog about Cyprus (no matter in which language)
• you have a blog and do live in Cyprus (no matter if you are Cypriot or just a resident)
• you have a blog and you are a Cypriot (no matter where you live now)

If any of the above applies, your blog is good enough for our “More blogs” section.

Friends

If you have a blog and want to help spread the word about Cyprus Blog Network, then link to this web site’s front page (here are the instructions) and let us know either via comments or the contact form. We will link to your blog from the “CBN friends” section. It is higher on the list and shorter (for the time being) than the “More blogs”. So you link will be seen and noticed by more people.

Members

If you have a blog or want to have a blog and are willing to share ad revenues from your web site in exchange for a whole bunch of stuff that we can do for you, then let us know. We’ll work the details out with you, and your blog will be linked to from our “CBN members” section.

More?

If you are not sure about anything, or need more information, or have an alternative suggestion, please, let us know. We want these issues to be as clear and convenient as possible.