I have just come across a new plug-in that might be of interest to bloggers using Wordpress as their platform of choice. MaxBlogPress Stripe Ad from MaxBlogPress is a very useful text link rotator that has several functions.

The most obvious use would be to offer text link advertising on your blog and for that function this plug in shines. It allows you to setup an unlimited number of different text link ads that will rotate each page view based on a weighted scale that you designate when setting up the ad, the higher the weight the more a particular link will appear.

Of course every blog is different and MaxBlogPress Stripe Ad takes that into account. The plug in allows you to choose the colors as well as the fonts of your ad bar so that it will blend nicely into just about any template. You can also choose font styles, weights, and alignment allowing you to have full control over how links are displayed.

Finally, like I mentioned earlier, it has other useful functions as well. It is also an excellent plug in to use to announce contests or other site news to your visitors. Just set it up to list your announcement and it will show to everyone at the top of the page. You can even set it up to only show at certain times so that visitors aren’t constantly bombarded with your ads or announcements.

Best of all this useful plug in is available at no cost (registration is required). To find out more and to download the plug in head over to the authors web site.

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Anyone that runs a directory is familiar with spam sites. The minute you go live and start accepting submissions the spam immediately begins. Run a free directory and the spam submissions increase tenfold.

In the many months this site has been running, I have had to weed through an untold number of just horrible sites and being a blog niche directory I would say 90% of the sites that are submitted aren’t even blogs. With all that said, a submission I received today has to be the worst example of a web site I have ever seen and definitely belongs as the inaugural member of the Superblog Directory “Hall of Shame”.

The site supposes to be a resource for those with bad credit to enable them to get loans but if you look at the screenshot of the submission I have posted of the site (www dot loans-with-ccjs dot com) you will see that other than the 2 links, it is nothing but a MFA site, and a bad one at that.

Despite what the spammers might think, even though I was born during the day, it wasn’t yesterday. Please feel free to continue to spam the site with junk submissions if you wish to waste your time, just be aware it takes me approximately 2 seconds to hit the delete button and that is exactly what will happen. Thought in this case I must thank the spammer that submitted this site as I really enjoyed a good laugh.

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If you thought that the title was in reference to DMOZ, while true, it is actually in reference to what was once one of the best webmaster resources on the web, Digital Point. I joined almost 3 years ago and throughout my varying web site attempts, it was always a great place to discuss issues with others going through similar situations. Somewhere along the way the amount of relevant and valuable information started to decline and it is now more known as a haven for scammers, spammers, and those trading anything and everything most of which is either against the TOS of the sites involved or totally worthless, or both.

I am not sure when it started down the long path towards uselessness but for me it began early last year on the directory forum where for awhile it became a major pissing contest between several so-called big boys and the rest of those that frequented the forum. It became nothing more than a “mine is bigger than yours” and your directory sucks fest to the point that some of the most helpful posters left altogether. Things have since quited down but now the majority of the posts revolve around different newbies posting their latest and greatest lists of some sort or someone else chiming in on how they believe that directories are useless.

So what is Digital Point good for now? From a blogging perspective, it is a place where many template designers frequent to show off their wares and from time to time there is the useful tidbit posted in regards to SEO and marketing but otherwise unless you are looking for someone to trade Diggs or Stumbles with (against their TOS’s by the way), not a whole lot else seems to be of use there anymore.

Even with all that is bad about Digital Point, I still have a hard time not going there daily to see what is going on. I know that normally it is just a waste of time but I guess some habits are hard to break. In the meantime I am now looking for somewhere else to get my fix of marketing and web related discussions so if anyone has any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

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