Karlonia.com

This first week of September has been the best so far in terms of search traffic, with a new daily record of 438 search engine visitors being set on Wednesday. Overall search traffic for the week was 2,443 visits on 1,665 separate keywords. Much of the recent boost is coming from my article on how to get rid of frogs, which managed to attract 106 unique visitors for the week and has moved into fourth place (out of 525) as the most visited page on the site. Another recent article that is doing relatively well is the one on getting rid of lizards, which scored 52 visits and 11th place overall.

These experiences show that my keyword research has paid off; there is definitely a hardcore niche of people who strongly dislike frogs and lizards, and will do almost anything to get rid of them. After these two pages drop off the home page over the next few days, I will be able to monetize them with AdSense or Chitika (or maybe both) and increase my income. Meanwhile, here are some of the other long tail queries that we have received over the past few weeks.

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The issue of using dashes as punctuation marks can become somewhat complicated. However, in this article I will attempt to simplify things as much as possible while still providing a sufficiently detailed explanation for the proper application of dashes and examples of correct usage.

First of all, it is important to distinguish dashes from hyphens. The hyphen is relatively short in length and is usually used to form compound words. It is also traditionally used in typography to indicate that a word has been split by a line break. By contrast, dashes are longer and have different uses in English sentences where a hyphen would not be entirely appropriate.

There are two major types of dashes. The first is the en dash, which is so named because its original length was supposed to be equal to that of a lowercase letter n. This dash is most commonly used to indicate an interval of some sort. It can also be used to connect points of geographical destinations and in rare instances of compound phrases where it is necessary to have a stronger separation than a hyphen. For example:

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This week’s batch of 40 quotes is about friendship, which seems to be a fairly popular topic according to my keyword research. For many of these sayings I could not find attributions attached to them. I have placed the names in parentheses after the quote for those that did have verifiable authors. Meanwhile, if you happen to know the original authors for any of the currently unattributed quotes, please mention these in the comment section and I will edit the post to include them.

• A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they’re not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they’re not so bad.
• We must hang together, or surely we shall hang separately. (Benjamin Franklin)
• A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.
• My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me. (Henry Ford)
• One’s best friend is oneself.
• Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. (Mark Twain)
• A true friend is one who thinks you are a good egg even if you are half cracked. (Bernard Meltzer)
• A friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself. (Jim Morrison)
• An old friend will help you move. A good friend will help you move a dead body. (Jim Hayes)
• There are big ships and small ships. But the best ship of all is friendship.

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This article by Ashley Ludwig is aimed at book lovers and introduces readers to different websites that can be used as social networks for people who like to read. Following up on her article about LibraryThing.com, the author reviews a relatively new site in this genre called GoodReads.com and describes its most relevant features.

So, what’s your favorite hobby? Chances are the love of reading is right up there at the top of your list. Whether or not you have the time or the inclination, book lovers abound on the Web.

There are a plethora of sites available for book lovers to unite, load up their personal libraries, and read each other’s reviews and picks. So, with all of these online social networks for bibliophiles, the question remains: which one is right for you?

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At the end of last month the LinkShare Corporation, a large affiliate network encompassing many mainstream e-commerce businesses that offer commissions to publishers who promote their products, sent out its latest newsletter. In this issue, the company describes its content and contextual ad formats, lists several companies known for being eco-friendly “green” advertisers, and provides some information about a WordPress plugin called DealFeed that makes it possible for bloggers to display RSS feeds of affiliated advertisers. If you would like to join the LinkShare network and earn commissions on sales generated from your website, simply click on the banner below to access the Publisher Signup page and fill in the required information.

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With most Americans returning to work today after the Labor Day weekend, those who have managed to break the habit of last-minute holiday shopping may be starting to think about what they are going to buy in preparation for the upcoming winter celebrations. However, because of the recent rise in fuel costs and the ongoing general inflation that is increasing the cost of almost everything else, many people may have less money to spend this year. This article by Angela Baca provides some suggestions for how to enjoy the holiday season while staying within a reasonable budget.

As Americans face a tough economy, there arises a need to save money whenever possible. The holiday season presents a great opportunity to save as winter approaches and heating costs strain your monthly budget. You can streamline your spending for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Here’s how.

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For the past few years, mesothelioma was something that I knew very little about other than its use as a relatively high value keyword that is displayed generously by made-for-AdSense (MFA) sites. Earlier this morning, I had the chance to read through this article by Clara Osei-Yeboah, which provides a brief overview of what mesothelioma is and why it is being taken so seriously by lawyers, doctors, and even Internet marketers.

Throughout the past decade, the term mesothelioma has become more recognizable as people are beginning to realize its dangers and the threat it may pose to society. Once an obscure disease that meant relatively little to the general public, mesothelioma is now one of the various sections of cancer research itself.

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Overall search traffic increased somewhat this week, with the topics of rejection letters, cell phones, and the various quote pages continuing to top the list. The big surprise came from a surge in visits to my low carb zucchini page, which managed to obtain a #5 ranking for “zucchini pasta” for a few days before suddenly dropping back down again. I quickly placed Chitika units on the page to take advantage of the rise in traffic, but now that this has subsided I will need to look for additional pages to target for Chitika testing. Meanwhile, here is the next batch of questions from our search queries.

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Parentheses are punctuation marks that enclose supplementary material such as explanations, clarifications, or afterthoughts within the text of a sentence or paragraph. In standard English prose, an enclosed parenthetical expression provides the reader with information that is interesting to know but does not change the meaning of a sentence in which it is included. Depending on dialect and location, parentheses are sometimes referred to by other names such as brackets, rounded brackets, oval brackets, curved brackets, or parens.

The main rule to remember when using parentheses is that any other punctuation marks such as commas, periods, or semicolons that immediately follow the parenthetical material are placed outside of the right parenthesis as long as the material is part of another sentence. For example:

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Because it is essential to the sustenance of life, water is one of the most important substances on Earth. It also has useful chemical and physical properties that have made it the object of much fascination throughout human history. Perhaps not surprisingly, there have been many quotes describing the actual or metaphorical powers of water and their effect on human civilization. In the list below, I have compiled 40 of the best water quotes that I have found so far.

• Between Earth and its atmosphere, the amount of water remains constant; there is never a drop more, never a drop less. This is a story of circular infinity, of a planet birthing itself. — Linda Hogan
• In every glass of water we drink, some of the water has already passed through fishes, trees, bacteria, worms in the soil, and many other organisms, including people…Living systems cleanse water and make it fit, among other things, for human consumption. — Elliot A. Norse
• Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it, because they have no way to change it. So the flexible overcome the adamant, the yielding overcome the forceful. Everyone knows this, but no one can do it. — Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher, 600-531 BC
• Life originated in the sea, and about eighty percent of it is still there. — Isaac Asimov
• Water is everywhere and in all living things; we cannot be seperated from water. No water, no life. Period. Water comes in many forms - liquid, vapor, ice, snow, fog, rain, hail. But no matter the form, it’s still water. — Robert Fulghum
• All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. — Toni Morrison
• Water is life’s mater and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water. — Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
• We are in an age of media consolidation and concentration and, yes, threatened, but also liberated information flow; and since flow of information is to spirit what water is to life, we’d best think about how to keep the pipes free and unclogged. — Raphie Frank
• In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference. — Rachel Carlson
• You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there. — Edwin Louis Cole

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After being approved by Chitika earlier this month, I am beginning to learn more about how their system works and have now installed ad units on two of my older pages that were not already monetized. Preliminary results are too sparse to draw any conclusions, but I have managed to receive two clicks so far, which means that the units seem to be functioning properly.

The company also offers 10% referral bonuses on new publisher accounts, so if you have not signed up with them yet, you may want to do so in order to make money by referring other bloggers who are seeking additional monetization options. To reach the signup page, simply click on the banner in the upper left and then click the big button that reads “Apply Now” after the page loads. Meanwhile, Chitika sent out a newsletter today that explains more about how their new Premium search targeting works in light of recent additions they have made to their overall program:

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Internet marketers who are trying to sell products, gather leads, and make money through Google’s pay-per-click AdWords system will have to cope with some significant changes that are being rolled out over the next few days. After introducing the idea of a “quality score” for individual ads back in 2005, Google has complicated the AdWords equation somewhat in recent months by factoring things like landing page quality and the loading time of the landing page into the quality score. This is important because the quality score influences the position of an ad (including whether or not it is actually displayed) and how much money the advertiser ultimately must pay. Here is a summary of the most recent changes:

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Although most people think of lizards as beneficial to the environment because they eat insects and other undesirable critters, others seem to have a significant fear of these little reptiles and will search for ways to get rid of them. While doing the research for this article, I ran across a desperate plea for help from a woman posting as “Janet” on a message board dealing with organic gardening topics. She had been scared away from entering her house through her carport door by the presence of two albino lizards that had started to wander around that particular area at night.

Eventually she discovered two smaller lizards in her bedroom, and after “screaming and gasping for air” she managed to grab a can of wasp spray from the kitchen and began spraying it at the lizards from several feet away. After using up about 2/3 of the can, the lizards finally died and it took another 15 minutes before she mustered the courage to remove them. She never mentioned what was done with the copious amount of pesticide that was sprayed all over her bedroom, which for me would have seemed scarier than the lizards!

In any event, for those who are afflicted with herpetophobia (fear of reptiles) or simply find lizards annoying, here are some methods that can be used to get rid of them:

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The idea of getting rid of frogs seems to be a controversial subject. Some people claim that frogs are endangered and caution against killing any of them, while others consider them annoying pests that have spiraled out of control in many areas. Overall, frogs are beneficial for the environment because they eat mosquitoes and other undesirable critters. In this way, they can be part of a balanced local ecosystem that enables the possibility of organic farming and gardening.

On the other hand, given the right conditions, certain kinds of frogs can multiply to the point that their numbers can create problems for certain types of humans. For example, south Florida seems to be having problems with the Cuban tree frog, which is not native to the area but has managed to migrate there and is now reportedly overwhelming the native frog population, disrupting the local ecosystem, and annoying residents with their noisy mating calls. Meanwhile, Hawaii has been battling a severe infestation of the coqui frog for the past ten years. Originally from Puerto Rico, this imported species has proliferated so rapidly on the Big Island of Hawaii that they have passed a state law prohibiting people from releasing, transporting, or exporting coqui frogs, which are classified by the state as “injurious wildlife.”

After searching through several different Internet sources, I have identified a significant demand for getting rid of frogs arising from frustrated property owners. Many of them are struggling with large numbers of noisy frogs disrupting their normal sleep patterns and even getting into their houses in some cases. Those who keep dogs in their yard also complain because some dogs foolishly attempt to eat the frogs, which often makes them sick because frogs are capable of releasing a poisonous substance called batrachotoxin when threatened. Others seem to like the frogs and don’t want to get rid of them, and animal-loving groups don’t like to use pesticides for this purpose because they claim that these produce a relatively slow and painful death for their beloved frogs.

Personally, I tend to favor organic and environmentally friendly ways of getting rid of things whenever practicable, but also favor lots of free speech and access to information. Therefore, in the classic Karlonian style I have combed through the Internet sources and brought together many different methods for getting rid of frogs that were reported to have some success. The “organic” status of some methods is debatable because although they involve chemicals, they are food-grade substances that do little environmental damage even though they can effectively kill or repel frogs. Here are the methods that I have found so far:

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The usual proportion of about 70 percent search traffic was reduced somewhat this week by an influx of 775 unique visitors from StumbleUpon, most of them going to my page on How to Stop Websites from Resizing Firefox Windows. The various quotes pages are also doing well in the search engines; I will probably branch these off to a separate category soon after I come up with a suitable category title. Meanwhile, after browsing through the list of keywords, I have selected the next group of eight that are due to receive answers:

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