Category: News & Trends

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Runescape – Game Review for Parents

As a parent, you should really know what your kids are playing. In an effort to help you know which online games may be suitable for your kids, I will be reviewing several of the most popular. The first online game I’ll be reviewing is Runescape.

First, this game is popular with the elementary and middle school set. I have seen some high schoolers play, but typically it is popular with the younger set.

I think that Runescape is great! have played with my kids and it can be quite complicated but is easy to get started on right away. First you can customize your person. At start up the tutorials will show you how to play the game, you select hair color, clothing, and physical attributes for your person.

Once in the game, it is a virtual world. You work, earn money, barter and sell items, store things in a bank, get attacked by robbers, and can even die and lose your stuff. If you die, you lose the things you were wearing or carrying, but do come back to life to start out again. If you had stored items in your bank, you can get them and be back in business quickly.

Runescape does teach kids that you have to work to earn things, now that is a real world lesson. The group that hangs out on Runescape is friendly. Others will chat, share tips and how to catch fish for example, let you know where to find the best food and other helpful tips.

I have never seen or heard foul language, sexual conversations, or for that matter any other things that would raise my concern to keep my kids off of Runescape. One thing that my kids really like is at Easter, Christmas, and other holidays, Runescape will offer special events. If you complete a mission, you will get a ring that allows you to turn into a bunny, for example, with a ring, on demand. These special items are coveted, not able to be traded, and once lost can never be regained. My kids also love the rainbow socks and special hats and clothes you can buy.

For a special treat, you may want to consider giving your kids a million Runescape dollars for about $7 real dollars on PayPal you can hook up with a person on Runescape and get a million or two dollars and let the kids knock themselves out buying cool stuff.

Should you become a member? I have not allowed my kids to do this, but if you are a member, you can do more and buy more. One of my kids recently told me that many of the things that used to be available only to members are now becoming available to non-member – oh the glory of competition between online games.

I would definitely recommend Runescape to you. If you see McMom there, you’ll know that it is me being lead around by my pack of kids.

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Do You Need A Custom Blog Template?

You don’t need one really, that is a custom template, but you may WANT one. Custom templates can run anywhere from $200 to $450 and up, but the ones that we have seen have typically run around $350 to $400.

A custom template should include:
1. A custom banner or image
2. Preferably match the look and feel of your website
3. Should for sure include links back to your main website
4. Include easy subscription options for readers for email or RSS

Why not use a free template?
If you are HTML savvy you can certainly download any number of free templates and tweak them. Remember a blog template for Blogspot will contain different programming syntax than will a template for custom FTP or old Blogger. WordPress templates will have unique syntax and will not be compatible with the Blogger platform.

A lot of whether you will purchase a custom template will depend on your budget. If you are buying blog writing services, it seems crazy to spend that much money for content and have a “plain vanilla” blog template that clearly says to the world “I am tentative on this blogging thing”.

Custom blog templates can really enhance the professional appearance of your blog. Now’s the time for you to consider one.

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SEO “Snake Oil”

You know what snake oil was, it was a 1920’s patent medicine that supposedly offered miracle cures and was frequently sold at exorbitant prices. Now, we have the FDA to protect us, but the very idea of “snake oil” has moved into the search engine optimization market.

If you don’t think that there are companies selling supposedly miracle traffic generation schemes, think again!  Then, there are other firms that simply persuade buyers to pay for services that may provide questionable results. Here are just two of the tactics that I have seen in just the last month alone.

1. Doorway pages created by a firm in India for traffic generation. When confronted with the technique, the firm stated that it was a rogue programmer who had installed them and that they were not providing the service knowingly. There were over 100 doorway pages on the client’s server and each page had clearly taken hours upon hours to create. Do I believe that this was an oversight? No, it clearly was a thought out and comprehensive plan.

2. Directory pages supposedly for link exchanges created by a service firm located in Baltimore, Maryland. On closer look the pages content content with fake anchor text. The <a name> tag contained stuffed keywords and the keyword dense visible links went no where on the site or the web. Clearly an effort on the firms part to build bogus keyword density by using important anchor tags. When challenged on the validity of this approach the SEO “expert” said we are leaving those links as in the future we may actually find someone to link to.

When it comes to organic placement and search engine optimization, there is simply no replacement for great content, clean source code, and hard work. There is no “silver bullet” to get site traffic. Some of the tactics that we have seen implemented just this month may actually penalize you and not help you. Buyer Be Ware!