I noticed a couple weeks ago that my Alexa rankings were skyrocketing. This happened in less than 2 months.

Take a look:

Catpuppy
(2/17) 12,946,832
(3/24) 946,131

Ultimate Redskins
(2/17) 12,969,408
(3/24) 887, 251

Bloggintown
(2/17) 12,956,347
(3/24) 619,887

Is this normal? I’d love to hear your experiences with your Alexa rankings.

I tried to change them around on CatPuppy but I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do with that site adwise. I’ll address that in a later post.

I found some great info on ad placements and decided to move things around. I havent been making a lot of money from my sites (I’m cool with that, it’s just frustrating hearing about the amount of money I could be making if you have the proper placements) so doing this was a no brainer. Google has a nice page about where the best placements are. Problogger has one also.

First, I removed the banners that were at the top of the pages. I then placed ad units between the 1st and 2nd posts of the site. Once you click onto a post, I kept the inline ad unit (the one inside of the actual post). Lastly, I added an ad unit at the bottom of the individual posts right before the comments section.

I’m actively looking for another ad program where I can integrate them in between posts. Anyone have any thoughts or comments on this?

I did this a couple days ago so we’ll see how it goes.

Well…as my luck has been going with these types of thing, I was denied.

Ok, fair enough. I didn’t even think about it again till I got my ranking on Alexa. I reapplied but this time for Bloggintown. I had to be a shoe-in, right?

Apparently not. Here’s what they wrote:

Your Blog Was Not Approved For Our Network
This message is to inform you that we have carefully reviewed your blog:

BlogginTown

http://www.bloggintown.com

Your blog did not meet our strict quality criteria.

Therefore, your blog has not been approved for use in our network.

Please do not take this decision personally. We have decided to only approve the highest quality blogs for our network.

I won’t. A-Holes.

Anyway, after Text Link Ads (click here for the post) denied me because I didn’t have a high enough ranking, I realized: I gotta get recognized.

So, I started my research.

Originally, I was just trying to get a Google Page Rank but then this Alexa thing kept coming up in my searches. If you’re reading this, you’ve read all the ways to get a high rank so I won’t go into it but just so you know I tried everything for about about 2 weeks. I did StumbleUpon, Technoratti, MyBlogLog, etc. I downloaded the Alexa toolbar on my laptop and my girlfriends. I still didn’t get a bump.

Then, I wrote this post on How to Hack the Verizon Voyager. I submitted it to Digg, Technoratti and StumbleUpon and then went about my usual day.

I woke up the next morning and saw that I had over 200 unique visitors. Holy Crap! I then looked at my ranking and I was listed. Already?? I was at 12, 956, 347. Ok, it wasnt the highest ranking but at least I was on the board. (Update: Since I started writing this post, I’ve since been Alexa ranked on my other two sites, UltimateRedskins & Catpuppy).

I still havent had any success at a Google Page Rank… but I’m trying. Anyone have any suggestions?

Originally, I submitted for UltimateRedskins and then just this morning put the code on this site (as you can see on the sidebar). It’s a lot easier to set-up than Adsense and doesnt conflict contextually either.

I like the look of these ads and they claim to have as high a rate as Adsense. I’ll see about that and report it back here when I get some hits on it.

I also replaced Amazon Ads. I might put them back up but not as big… maybe a single item?

I logged on and downloaded the WordPress widget they provide for you. After installing it, they sent me an e-mail that said they had just spotted the widget and I would have the ads running in 48 hours.

That was the good part. Now the strange part.

On Sunday I get another e-mail saying that my site was rejected due to”limited link popularity.” What? Weren’t they supposed to know that before they accepted my site?

So now I’m bummed.

I told them I wanted to put it on UltimateRedskins but since it’s only like a week old, I doubt they will let me be a publisher. But…it’s worth a shot!

Also, I still havent seen Adbrite pop up on CatPuppy yet. It’s been almost 36 hours – 48 past the 24 hours they said it would take. Did I do something wrong? It seemed easy enough. I’ll have to check it out.

I had a lot of trouble with the theme I decided on. I really like the look but the code was awful. This was the one where the creator encoded the footer file so no one could remove their name. I understand why they did it but it stinks on my end. Once I removed it removed parts of the css so I had no choice to restore the footer.

I’ll have a ton of videos like CatPuppy but more commentary and opinions. I’m thinking I might even recruit some friends to write articles for it. At least that’s the idea.

I also put adsense on that site and on this one also. I need to figure out what else I can do to ad wise. I’ve read a bunch of articles on what ad programs one should use but I’m still waffeling on them. I did sign up for Adbrite and put that one a test site I’ve been using. So far, I just havent liked it.

So, 2 sites down, 3 to go.