Om Thoke

Diablo III Fans Freaked out with Error 37!

Om Thoke — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:31:55 +0000

There has been a rage amongst all the gamers who had enthusiastically pre-ordered Diablo III and logged in to enjoy the game, but saw the annoying error 37 message on their screens, instead of being able to get the bang for their buck!

Blizzard Entertainment politely apologized & explained the reason behind the error to be the massive overload on their servers, which they hadn’t expected during the launch. Apparently, too many of those excited gaming freaks tried to login concurrently, which is precisely what caused this crash.

Here are two handy links to read more on what error 37 is, and what caused error 37, in detail.

In short, just the way you see the funny message “Sorry no donut for you” on your favorite social network, or “Whoa you broke an axle” on Digg, it’s just a small error that came up, due to the overload – just chillax, and wait for a few hours – you’ll be certainly able to enjoy Diablo III within a matter of few hours!

Play Real Farmville and Grow Real Veggies Sitting at Your Workplace

Om Thoke — Wed, 16 May 2012 04:53:23 +0000

You must have grown lot of crops playing Farmville on Facebook, but Nick & Harry Loweth have come up with a novel scheme that allows city-based gardeners to grow their veggies with the click of a mouse!

This unique idea is called i-Grow, and it allows people to make their choices online, including the land, and the veggies/crops to be grown on it.

Owners are given regular updates with photos of the progress, and produced veggies/herbs are delivered to their doorstep too!

Those who sign up for this incredible scheme can visit the Abbey Parks Farm during the harvest season, and collect their share of produced crops.

Now, isn’t that simply out of the world?

Grab more information on abbeyparks.co.uk

Looking for ATT Uverse Coupon Codes?

Om Thoke — Mon, 14 May 2012 08:05:48 +0000

ATT Uverse, the leading provider for IP-based communication services like long distance calls, cable TV, broadband, and cellular services, occasionally offers coupons for its customers. Using these ATT Uverse coupon codes, users can avail monthly promotional offers and discounts on DSL high speed Internet and broadband packages.

Customers have appositive opinion about this brand for the highly reliable service and excellent customer service that they offer.

You don’t have to sign up with AT&T to use these coupon and promotional offers. Check out the ATT Uverse coupons that are currently available:

• $46 off TV per month + $100 promotional card
• $41 off per month + $200 promotional card
• $51 off per month + $200 promotional card

The above three offers are valid till July 14, 2012.

Here are a few more offers from Uverse:

• Use the coupon code EXTRAGIFT to get free $25 VISA card with Uverse TV and internet bundle
• You can get almost $300 cash back when you place an order for Uverse TV and high speed internet
• Sign up with AT&T TV and Voice and avail high speed internet for free.

Force Motors Planning a New Facility in Gujarat

Om Thoke — Sat, 12 May 2012 11:55:45 +0000

Force Motors is planning to set up a brand new facility in Gujarat in order to give its operations a big boost.

Currently the company is manufacturing Traveller, Trax and Tempo in India. The managing director, Prasan Firodia commented –

We are awaiting approval from the board regarding the new unit in Gujarat. Once that is done, we shall make an announcement

The company refused to divulge any further details about this project but a government official from Gujarat said that the auto manufacturer plans to invest a massive amount of Rs 2,000 Crores. He also stated that the company will zero in on 700 to 800 acres of land somewhere in Halol or Sanand. Force Motors says that it will take another couple of months to chalk up all the plans about this new facility.

Currently, the company has its production facility located in Pithampura (Madhya Pradesh), where its commercial vehicles are manufactured. Currently only 65% production of its full capacity is being carried out in the facility but still the company wants to come up with a new facility. Sources say that the automaker is looking at extensive expansions in next few years, and we can expect to see many more SUVs and MUVs from Force.

Force Motors is also planning to roll out a new passenger vehicle even though its recently launched SUV could not strike a chord with the masses.

Top 10 Causes of WordPress Hacks and How to Protect Your WP Blog

Om Thoke — Thu, 10 May 2012 10:43:24 +0000

WordPress hacks and malware attacks have become a real pain these days, and I’ve spent countless days trying to fix hundreds of blogs, because I had to deal with big numbers.

Even many of my clients’ blogs had been infected, and I’ve been basically working more like a web security agent rather than content writer, or SEO professional.

I’ve figured out that following have been the top 10 sources of malware infections in WordPress off-late -

1. Weak passwords – Stop using passwords that are less than 8 characters long – use combination of uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and special characters.

2. Outdated WP version – Update all your blogs to WP 3.3.2 – even WP 3.3.1 has many vulnerabilities.

3. Old themes files (even the inactive ones can cause trouble) – Default WordPress Theme Twenty Eleven 1.2 is vulnerable to latest attacks.

4. Outdated plugins – Old versions of All in one SEO pack, Google Xml Sitemaps and other popular plugins are also vulnerable – so update all plugins right away!

5. Remote Mysql connections – If your MySQL is accessible via internet, then hackers may be able to inject malicious codes.

6. Web caches — plugins like WP supercache have been known to allow hackers to easily stuff in iFrames and JavaScript codes via caches.

7. Wrong file permissions on server – if files are writable, they can cause trouble, so you need to refer to WordPress’ file hardening rules to set the right files & folder permissions.

8. Backdoor access might have been created during a previous hack – look under “USERS” and REMOVE any newly created users that have come into existence without your knowledge.

9. Change “Admin” user name – If your blog is old, then the chances are high that the username of your admin user is “admin” – this makes it easy to apply brute-force, and break into your blog. Simply create a new user, assign admin role, delete the default admin user, and assigned all posts/link to the new admin user.

10. FTP Hacks – If you save password in FTP clients like Filezilla, or CoreFTP, it could mean trouble – don’t allow any FTP program or your browser to remember passwords – delete cookies, caches every time after logging out of your WP blog.

So, there were the top 10 causes of WordPress hacks, and the ways in which, you may encounter them.

Remember, these are just 10 basic rules – there are tons of malware attacks, and one must check their WP blogs on daily basis to detect any abnormalities!

Facebook – An Inspiration for All Start-ups!

Om Thoke — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:18:48 +0000

Facebook is about to become a $100 billion company in a matter of another one week, and tons of start-up companies have already started following Zuckerberg’s footsteps to make it big in the market.

What was just an innovative idea 8 years back, has become the biggest buzz on the Internet. And, Facebook has grown to an extent that all the social media marketing strategies almost start and end at Facebook marketing!

And, that’s not all – after the recent billion dollar acquisition of Instagram, the other start-ups have also started dreaming of being their next acquisition as well. We always see tons of Android apps development firms, but things are slowly changing as ideas like Pinterest are rapidly picking popularity in the markets!

It’s not about working with traditional business strategies anymore, because developing your own USP is increasingly becoming critical to retain your identity in your business line.

As a matter of fact, I’ve also realized that I’ll need to focus on branding and start building a USP to attract the focus of investors at a later stage.

I had never thought about angel funding in past, but my thoughts have been quickly drifting, and now I guess I’ll be definitely preparing for an IPO of my company over next couple of years, and for that to happen, a lot of efforts will be required in terms of brand building!

Anyway, coming back to our original discussion, Facebook and Zuckerberg have almost become the idols of all the young entrepreneurs, and I definitely believe there are many more Zuckerbergs sitting quietly at this point, and all they need is a little bit of inspiration and support to join this race for supremacy!

This is yet another reason why I’m launching an SEO training academy for freshers to help them come up in life, and look at entrepreneurship in a positive way!

Is Alcohol A Drug?

Om Thoke — Mon, 07 May 2012 18:08:26 +0000

Is alcohol a drug? Well, before we even try to answer this tricky question, lets first start the discussion with the definition of a drug.

What is a Drug?

A drug, by definition, is anything that alters one or more state in the body of a living organism. This means that any chemical substance that changes the nature or structure of any part of the body or the body as a whole can be termed as a drug.

If we continue to go by the definition of drug then we realize that things like vitamins, microbial, plants, sting bites, pollutants, minerals, hormones, venoms and in fact even the food that we eat daily are all drugs. We often come across many medical stores that have a hoarding that says “drug store”. So do we really purchase drugs or we go in there to get medication? Well the medicines are nothing but prescribed drugs that again change the state of a body; only these try to change a bad state to a better one.

The point is we can not really club alcohol beverage or other nasty drugs like heroin with these medications. Alcohol can rather be referred to as an illicit drug, which temporarily makes you feel good but potentially harms your body.

Alcohol is Indeed a Drug!

So, does all of this answer our primary question – “is alcohol a drug?” I guess yes, it does!

It definitely is a drug; in fact the most dangerous one and the most widely consumed one in the world. What makes things even worst is the fact that it is widely and easily available for sale and you don’t need to spend much either. No wonder it tops the list of 20 most harmful drugs in the world as assessed by British medical journal. The assessment was made based on the potential harms that the drugs can cause to an individual’s body and its systems. Alcohol, chemically known as ethyl alcohol, even tops the infamous heroin and crack in the list of most dangerous drugs.

A study says that more than 55% of inmates in different prisons of America are in there for crimes related to alcohol. Having said all this, the fact remains that alcohol is hugely popular amongst all the classes of people belonging to different age groups; sad state but true nevertheless.

Let us now see how alcohol actually harms our bodies. The initial effect of consuming the drug is feeling of relief and relaxation. Well this is exactly what alcohol does; it relieves you from your temporary, but real world state, and relaxes you in no time. This happens because there is something called as vitmain B1, which starts burning at a very fast rate inside the body. B1 is very vital as it keeps the body from getting stressed and it functions directly with brain. Apart from B1, alcohol also messes with Vitamin C and B complex that account for energizing the body.

No wonder people who are stressed or tired for any kind of reason often tend to have a drink to distress themselves; but once you are out of the effect the situation worsens as you not only feel weak but you also get disinterested in any other kind of activity.

So, not only we’ve the answer to our preliminary question, but now we also know why and how it affects our body.

Get this very clear in your head – alcohol is most certainly a drug and if you don’t want to be a tagged as a drug addict – stay sober, don’t booze!

Back in Action – Webfosys Bags 3 New Clients in 3 Days

Om Thoke — Sun, 06 May 2012 12:38:29 +0000

2012 had been quite dull, and I had been kinda’ passive for the first few weeks, but now it feels great to strike 3 new deals in 3 days, and to return to the busy days again (not that we were sitting idle for past 4 months lol!).

And, I’ve been planning to launch an automotive magazine, and a realty magazine for past few weeks, which is going to materialize pretty soon – and that should keep me busy for rest of the year. But, I’m very happy to explore new niches such as real estate, local Bangalore markets, working with educational institutes, and even doing SEO for packers and movers businesses, and chartered accountants.

Webfosys has also been working with Rediff, and marketing their design & hosting packages for the last few months, and now we’re planning to launch a new SEO academy, and expand in global markets too.

I’m extremely excited about Facebook’s IPO, which would take company’s worth to a massive $96 billion mark! And, I’m equally excited to see that a small start-up like Instagram having just a team of 13, was acquired by FB for a whopping 1 billion, and I’ve a strong hope of taking Webfosys’ value close to the tune of 10-20 crores over the next 2-3years.

I may not be able to take the company public anytime sooner, but when we do an IPO, I don’t want to settle on low figures – so let’s see how well we grow, and I’m also planning to give some stocks to my employees to keep them interested in long term engagements, which might fetch them at least 10lakhs during the IPO, 4-5 years down the line!

For now, I’m happy adding more clients to our portfolio, and making money online with blogging, and teaching SEO to freshers! Now, I’ve had hands-on experience in more than 42 niches already, and I plan to delve into newer niches, to learn SEO tactics at advanced levels, and to take my online marketing campaigns to another level!

Learn SEO: Understanding the First Link Priority Rule

Om Thoke — Sun, 06 May 2012 10:19:51 +0000

Most of the SEO professionals know about the basics, but at times, they fail to catch some of the important concepts, and today I’m going to discuss about one such concept; the first link priority rule in SEO.

When is this Rule Applicable?

Well, basically when a web page (i.e. link from a different domain – we’re not talking about internal linking here) links to another website more than once, then the first link is given the maximum weight, and the subsequent links are often discounted by Google & other major search engines from SEO point of view.

So, if you get 3 back-links from a good web page, with three anchor texts – “here”, “more info” and your desired anchor text, say “learn SEO” i.e. if someone website links to this tutorial to learn SEO as – You can find more SEO tips from Om Thoke here… Then in next para, click here to read more about the “First Link Priority Rule”, and finally in the end, it links to this page saying – I’ve picked these ideas from Om’s tutorials that greatly help newbies learn SEO – then the anchor text value would be almost zero, because the target anchor text is appearing in the third link.

Effectively, the back-link anchor text would be considered as “here”, which has very little to do with my target keyword learn seo or the First Link Priority Rule in SEO.

What Can You Do About It?

Unfortunately, it’s a tough job to get back-links from credible sources, and if that happens naturally, it’s even TOUGHER to request then HOW to link to you, isn’t it? Think about it – if you like this post, and link to it, I can’t be telling you what anchor text you should be using while doing so… Even worse, if you’re linking multiple times, I’m nobody to scrutinize the way you’ve linked to my post, and suggest any changes to your blog post. If you’ve obtained a link from a fellow blogger with whom you’ve good terms, you may want to e-mail him requesting to change the first occurrence, but it may not be possible in most cases.

Linking Via an Image

When a site links via image FIRST, and then text next, the SEO value of such a link is almost lost; remember, alt text does NOT count as anchor text while linking, so although you might as well get some PR juice from such a link, it won’t help you in ranking higher in SERP.

Linking Carefully to Your Other Blogs

But, at least, when you’re linking from a promotional blog, or a guest post, to your website/blog, you must bear this first link priority SEO rule in mind.

Stay connected to grab more cool tips like this and learn SEO to build a profitable online empire!

SEO is All about Learning to Admit Mistakes and Correcting Them

Om Thoke — Thu, 03 May 2012 05:04:33 +0000

I’ve heard this question time and again – what is SEO all about, and what does it take to become successful in this field? Whenever I’ve been interviewed by Indian bloggers, small magazines, and other publications, I’ve just told them one thing – “It’s all about learning from your mistakes, rather than justifying them!”

For instance, the Google Panda updates have been killing millions of blog every month, and now the new Google Penguin algorithm looks all the more ruthless… So, in this competitive world, the only way to survive is to figure out where you’ve been going wrong, and correct those mistakes, rather than justifying that you committed them intentionally.

Criticism Isn’t Always Negative!

Yesterday, I was exhausted and felt little bored, so I decided to do something different, and created that post on blogging mistakes not just to kill time, but it had a hidden intention of notifying the author of that post, and to make him realize where he needs to correct his mistakes.

If you had read my conclusion, you’d see that I didn’t make a mockery out of him – but I rather suggested that there are better niches to make money online, which he might be comfortable writing on. But, I knew he won’t learn – and it doesn’t surprise me that he created a cross post saying you should commit mistakes to make more money online – ROFL!!!

And, he doesn’t understand the meaning of a client too – when I say XYZ company is my client, I don’t mean I own any stakes in that company, or have the power to run it – LOL! And, a smart person would never reveal the details of his contract to anybody, just in an attempt to boast about his greatness. (Do you expect me to publish copies of contracts on my company website or my personal blog now? – ROFL again!)

Another funny thing is that he doesn’t understand that if your PC is infected with virus, you may see fake alerts, but that doesn’t mean the entire Internet is infected (lol!). And, he’s yet to taste the pain of malware, and he doesn’t know that his own database has been infecting, and the hacks in his free themes have got back-door entries that any hacker can exploit!

And, above all – as you might have seen his level of English, it doesn’t surprise me that he can’t understand the meaning of “Channel Partner” – companies like Bharati Airtel, Rediff, and Tata have partnered with literally countless companies in India, and all they look at, is the amount of business a potential partner can generate, not the size, and infrastructure of an organization.

If I were to partner with another company, would I really give a damn to anything else, except their business ethics, and the capability to generate business for us? Well, not really! And, another thing is that it’s illegal to disclose wrong things, and only a company, which has an official contract with another company, can mention such a thing on their website, or the company board, unless they want to be sued for lying!

Some people believe that condemning others would actually help them, but the sad part of the story is that they can never understand the difference between criticizing and condemning! Perhaps they can’t digest others’ success, and I can’t help but just pity them, and I don’t think I’ve got any time to spare, writing cross posts on their miseries, irrespective of what they write or feel about me! But, I’d still thank him for opening my eyes about another flaw in my design – kudos to him!

Anyway, coming back to our main focus here – SEO is all about identifying the places where you’ve gone wrong in past, and correcting those mistakes; it’s not about justifying your wrong deeds!

When someone criticizes my posts, I take it positively, and learn to correct those mistakes… When someone criticizes my design, I take time to assess where I had gone wrong, but when someone says he doesn’t believe I run successful blogs, and I actually work with the likes of About.com, Rediff, BrightHub, and plenty of top companies – well, there isn’t much I can do about it; I most certainly don’t believe in boasting about my success, and disclosing things that are meant to be strictly confidential.

I’ve never disclosed my earnings ever on this blog, except the time, when I was about to cross my 1st crore in terms of GROSS EARNINGS (mark the words, I’m not talking about net profits here!), so that other bloggers would gain confidence, and try to strive harder in this field.

But, it’s a pity that the loud mouths can never keep quiet, and that’s another reason why such people end up ruining their own business by blurting out things that they shouldn’t have! They also end up disclosing their business to their potential rivals, and then end up crying, regretting that they shouldn’t have done it! I’m happy with my life, my contracts, and “all things confidential – hehe!”

Google Penguin is Here – Beware!

And, now the big news – Google Penguin is in some serious action, kicking b***s of tons of blogs, and if you’ve been lucky enough not to be pandalized, don’t be too happy about it – your blog may get a Penguin-slap pretty soon!
On 24th April, Google made their latest change (again I pity those who’re not even aware of Google updates, and are busy condemning others) to their search algorithm, in form of Penguin update, and the results have been quite staggering. Although just 3% of the Internet blogs have been affected apparently, the big change is yet to come.

Is May the Special Month for Google?

Last May we saw the Panda terror, and it’s the same time of the year again! I can’t help wonder what Google has in stores for May 2012, and will the terror of Penguin be worse than the Panda slap? Well, we’ll have to wait and watch – so stay clear of the Penguin! And, stay away from blog networks and blackhat SEO – Google is watching you!