Most people will already know what PLR is, but for any who want to learn more, a google search or this wiki page is a good place to start  – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_label_rights

Although you have the right to publish any private label rights material “as is” on your site, there is a possibility that search engines will consider it as “duplicate content” meaning that if the identical material can be found on another site, your article can be considered duplicate content and penalised with regard to ranking. If you have some PLR you want ti use, you can easily find out how many other sites are using that same content by selecting a sentence from an article, putting quotes around it, and entering that sentence into a search engine. Often you’ll find 10, 50, or 100 other sites with the same article.

There is a lot of debate on the subject of duplicate content – only yesterday I heard one marketer proclaim that it is rubbish, using duplicate content didn’t affect his results adversely at all, while another IM teacher urged readers to avoid it at all costs.

So if you are a newbie, do you use it or not?  My suggestion is to use it, but change it enough to make it quite different from the original. For me, this is a lot faster than writing a new article from scratch. Here are three of the most common recommendations:

Firstly, you should add a new first paragraph to the article. This paragraph explain your purpose in the rest of the work and summarize what is coming up next.

Secondly,  rewrite most of the first two or three paragraphs in your own words. I like to read a few sentences in a paragraph and then reword them in my own style. Then I delete the original sentences and continue with the next sentences.

This process creates at least three or four paragraphs totally in your own words that are very unlikely to be duplicated elsewhere.

Just how may paragraphs you rewrite is up to you. The more your rewrite the better off you will be. And, the more you change, the more original the article will appear to both the search engines and your site’s visitors.

Thirdly, write a new closing paragraph. Make this a summary of the article. You may also include a lead-in to another page on your site with a link to that page.

It is often said that there is “nothing new under the sun”, in this context meaning that what has been said and written has been said and written before, the only thing that is new in each case is the presentation, so if you want to save some time when creating your own material, whether  articles or complete ebooks, using Private Label Rights in this way will avoid any duplicate content penalty.

For more information, subscribe to the blog (RHS of the page) – one of the June freebies is “25 Ways to Reuse PLR content”

It must be Google day.

I had not long pulished my simple post about Google search when I received an email from Pot Pie Girl regarding her latest post.

Jennifer has also talked about Google & how they get their search results. Since her blog post is much more in depth than mine, I’d recommend to those who want more information, to head on over to this link.

http://www.potpiegirl.com/2010/07/how-google-works/

When you want to search the internet, or “surf the web”, you’ll very likely use the Google search engine (http://www.google.com/) which is estimated to have 70% of the market at the present time.

Have you ever wondered just how this works?

Well, first of all, when you search on Google, you are not actually searching the web, you are searching Google’s index of the web. So the next question is, how does Google create this index?

They use software programs called spiders, or web crawlers, or web bots (short for robots) which start out searching a few web pages, then follow the links on those pages to more pages, continuing on and on and in a very short time, have reached millions of pages stored on thousands of machines all around the world. Google’s  index is based on all the words the bots find; not all search engines work this way, but today, we’re just discussing Google.

If you want to find some information, you type in the main words and Google goes away and searches for all the pages they have in their index that includes all your key words. For example, say you want to know how much an African Elephant weighs, you’d type the words in say African elephant weigh and back would come a list of approximately 200,000 results for you to look through.

It’s interesting to note that if you type in African elephant weight, you’ll get a smaller result and that’s because African elephant weigh will include results for African elephant weight, but not vice versa.

To get more specific information, you just type more key words (called keywords), such as African elephant weight at birth or white African elephant. Now, this last one is interesting, because we all know that the term “white elephant” has nothing to do with real elephants, so if we really want to get information about a white elephant animal, we need to enclose the term in parenthesis, so instead of searching for web pages with all the words individually, Google will only search for all the words inside the ” “  marks as well as any other words not inside them.

My trial search today brought up 376,000 results for white African elephant, but only 93,200 for “white African elephant”. Parenthesised search results still may not necessarily contain the phrase “white African elephant”, just the words in order, something like the following, which might not be relevant to your search:

Black & White African Elephant preview
Isolated, White, African Elephant
it’d make the whole enterprise something of a white (African) elephant  - this is a page about football kits

Google can search for images, maps, videos, news and more to help you refine your searches. Want to find a picture of an African elephant at birth? After you have typed in your search term, just click on the word “images” at the top left hand side of your browser window (the search page you are on). You will get images related to the subject, including some that are not what you might expect.

People with websites naturally want search engines to find the pages they publish, so part of the web publishing process includes SEO (search engine optimisation) to make them Google friendly & thus get a Google ranking. There are probably millions of web pages that never get found at all.

Some other search engines you might like to try are:
Microsoft’s relatively new Bing http://www.bing.com/
Yahoo http://www.yahoo.com/
Ask http://www.ask.com/
AOL http://www.ask.com/
Hotbot http://www.hotbot.com/
Answers.com http://www.answers.com/

All of us, in a certain point of our lives, experienced memory loss. It could be forgetting where we put the keys, if we have locked the door, etc. As we grow older, it is natural for some of our brain cells to age and die which would cause some problems with memory. Over the years, research on brain training showed that it could help in decreasing memory loss.

Dementia is one of the biggest health issues that the older generation is facing. Currently, about 24 million people are suffering from dementia. By 2040, the number could reach about 84 million of sufferers, making us one of the possible patients of dementia.

The same goes for Alzheimer’s disease which is affecting about five million Americans. Health experts project that Alzheimer patients could reach about 16 million by 2050. That is until the current generation would do something to avoid such problems with memory loss.

How does brain training help us in enhancing our memory?

Think of the brain as a muscle. When developing muscles, exercise is needed to develop strength and flexibility. The same goes for the brain, different exercises would help sharpen the memory and enhance focus and concentration.

In a brain training program, you would have an idea on the present status of your brain. There are some software for brain games which would help you get an idea how “old” your brain. Understanding your weaknesses would help you build its strength. This software can also be referred to as your brain trainer.

Getting a “brain trainer” could cost you, but there are also other exercises you could engage in which would set your brain into action. Brain games and exercises like solving puzzles, logical-thinking games, card games and board games could help your mind. Just keep in mind that the brain develops when repeating certain skills. So you could stick with one kind of game of problem solving.

According to a research performed by the University of Alabama led by Dr. Karlene Ball, different brain training could help in improving memory. In their research, there were four groups of people. One group was the control, receiving no kind of training. The remaining three groups had different kinds of memory trainings.

According to the research findings, the three groups that received memory training showed improvement in their mental functions. Those who underwent memory training sessions showed development in how they process the information and quicker reasoning.

Those who have not received any training did not exhibit any advancement in their mental activities. Aside from improved memory, there are studies showing brain training also had an effect on the mind’s alertness and ability to remain in a positive mood.

Brain training, however, is not a standard program for everyone. A particular brain training program may work for one person, but may not yield significant effects on the other. This is the reason why brain training would start with knowing your brain and getting an idea what would be suitable for you.

In these studies, brain training did not only lasted for a couple of weeks but stretched until two years. Brain training is a choice. A choice which would be based on understanding the importance of maintaining and developing your mental health.

Websites like Briangle, Lumosity, Brain Metrix & Play With Your Mind have fun free brain training exercises to get you started:

http://www.braingle.com/

http://www.lumosity.com/

http://www.brainmetrix.com

http://playwithyourmind.com/

Do you have a blog already, but it has been a while since you posted something?

Or perhaps  you thinking of starting a Blog?

To keep your blog fresh and interesting, then you need to post frequently, preferable at regular intervals so your readers have an idea when to expect another instalment. Create different types of posts to keep your readers interested. This also helps you from getting bored with your own blog. It doesn’t matter if you have a blog to make money directly fromit, or you are blogging to drive traffic to someone else’s product to earn affiliate commissions, you need to be aware of the following types of post.

1. The Review Post

Review blog posts can help you to earn income because you review several products, including your affiliate link for each. When reviewing, be unbiased and give an honest review, including both positive and negative comments about the product. Even if you totally loved the product, keep your review balanced by mentioning a few things that could have been improved. Your readers will appreciate your honesty and be more likely to trust your recommendation.

2. The Quick Tip Post

In between your longer posts you can do a “quick tips” type of post; these are approx 150-250 words.We may have a lot of information about our niche that we want to share but it may not rate a full length post. In that case, post a quick tip. Focus on ONE key area of the niche. For example, “How to connect a new monitor” would be a quick tip article for a beginner computer users blog.

3. The List Post

Blog readers love lists! The most popular blogs make good use of lists. You can create lists that fit with any topic imaginable. This is a great way to convey information online because it can be easily scanned by web readers who are “skimmers.” You can also create lists of different ways to accomplish a goal in your niche. “10 Ways To Prepare Your Soil For Planting” would be a great list for gardeners.

4. The Interview Post

Interviews will require some preparation, but they are very valuable to your blog. Interview someone in your niche and then share the results of that interview with your readers. This will not only provide valuable content for your blog, but will also bring more traffic. Most likely, the person you interview will also publicize the event on their blog or Website, directing traffic to your Blog.

5. The Instruction Post

This is similar to Quick Tips as you are providing your readers with valuable information. However, these Instruction posts will go into much more detail on a certain topic. Sometimes your instructions can even be divided into two or three posts or courses. Look at comments and questions from your readers to find what topic would be most beneficial to them.

As you blog, remember that your readers like variety. Don’t always write the same type of post, but add something different to keep it fresh and new.