A recent comment on my last post on  Comment Policy Plugin For Wordpress was written in Russian: По-моему, у Вас украли эту статью и поместили на другом сайте. Я её уже видела. Since I do not read Russian, I have to translate it and it actually says, “I think you stole this article and placed on another site. I had already seen.”

I certainly do not need to clarify why I posted the article as this is my homepage. Yet, comments like these bug me because it makes me wonder if readers can ’smell’ if posts have been plagarised, stolen or re-edited? I am feeling quite glad actually that you have made that comment. Otherwise I would not have been able to update this site this week for many reasons; I’ve not been online browsing for a few days. Now I have.

Here is a screenshot from subscribing to Gobala Krishnan’s website since 2008, click to see the bigger picture:

Topics on sales and marketing excite me less than website building tools. You can tell that I have only read two letters that do not have anything to do with sales and purchases.

Here’s the letter I received regarding his comment policy for wordpress:

Wordpress plugins are great to work with as long as you understand their uses and how to set them right. There are enough make money online blogs and sharing another one online just does not cut out for me. This letter however, is more of a teaching tool, no coupons attached.  If you have read the post correctly, credit to the creator of this plugin is given at the end of the post.

How do you know if a post has been plagarised, copied and re-edited? In other words, how is this not stolen?

1. You give credit (link) to the source of the article.
2. You do not give the reader option to download the plugin , software or script from your own website. (very importantly not to try this without prior permission to redistribute from your local domain.)
3. You use the explanation given by the source site and then always make reference back the source file in a hyperlink.

It is easy for me to understand this because every now and then, my own original post are linked word for word without any literature whatsoever to mention that it has come from my website,  except for two words “read more…..” Naughty naughty. That is pure cut and paste, lazy way of giving credit to the blogger who wrote.

Some people look for the about page to read about the author’s profile. I have not created my about page yet because I simply want to use this blog to focus on my journey online and not on myself. Maria Montessori is the only page I have got so far and that is because of my Montessori training background. You can read “How This Domain Is Inspired?”

Linking back to the source url is very important if you have indeed written something about or from another url. It shows your networking presence online and certainly open doors for readers who are interested in the topic to go right to the source with one click.

If you notice, headline news websites are great culprits for posting news word for word from the source without linking back to the source. Just type in Michael Jackson’s news and you can see for yourself. Read at least 5 news on the latest and you can certainly find the same form of writing and layout.

Yet another trick bloggers used to cut and past original text without linking back to the source url is by writing only the first 160 characters in his own words because in search engine optimisation (SEO) practice, only the first 160 and last few of the post will be crawled or spidered completely when a reader enter his keywords. I have read many myself and their google page rank is so high, you won’t believe it until you study the rest of the post.

Another more concrete way to determine if the blogger is genuine, you can look for this banner on his blog:

You can grab a banner for your website here Copyscape If you decide to use the banner, just make sure you follow some the rules of ‘white hat blogging’ code of conduct.

Having said that, the banner will be posted on this site from now onwards if that makes you happy.

I was pleasantly surprised at the wide range of topics people are attracted to blog about or search for on the internet. I spend all my time with my family, blogging at home is a great way to give me an outlet to connect with the world outside without leaving the doorstep. This blog is a self hosted domain name which means I make my own decisions how where and how I want to dress up my internet weblog.

The steps to setting up a blog are vey simple, although you have to be brave to conquer each step. Learn them at your own pace and you will see progress.

Your first concern should be to ask yourself how much time can you spend online writing or updating your blog? If you do not wish to learn how to manage your blog, use the free blogging platforms like wordpress.com, blogspot.com or the most recent one called moonfruit. These are very popular online blogging services and they come with free themes for you to choose from. Themes basically refer to the website where you want to begin posting your articles. After choosing a design you desire, go ahead, sign up and start blogging.

Give your blog a name and describe in the heading so visitors understand what to expect when they come visit your homepage. So if you only want to update your blogs without having the need to work with analytics or design, go with the free blogging platforms I have mentioned above. You get unlimited storage space and if you decide you do not wish to blog anymore, just delete the entire blogsite.

Anywhere, anytime. Here are 3 services you can choose from, each providing unlimited storage space for your blogs and a community where you can link to and get help from whenever you have technical problems you cannot resolve.

Moonfruit
Wordpress.com
Blogger

Now that I have told you the free website builder services, I have come to interim decision on what this site will be about. “The Making Of A Homemaker’s Blog”.