Google Tip of the Day: Submit your content to Google, and more…

submit your content

I was pleased to see that Google made it really easy for webmasters to submit their content to Google’s Engines of Search. The page details almost every content-related site within Google that I can think of and is a valuable reference for would-be webmasters.

So if you are looking to get your website in Google’s search engine, you would certainly start with:

Step 1: Get Included

Add Your URL to Google’s Index
Submit your website for inclusion in Google’s index

Step 2: Webmaster Tools

Webmaster Tools
Submit a Sitemap of your website to Google

Step 3: Submit Your Blog

Blog Search
Make your blog searchable in Google’s blog index

 

To get your site additional traffic, you can also…

Step 4: Ping Your Blog

Pingomatic

Step 5: Ping Your Sitemaps, too.

You can also ping updated sitemaps (when you create a new page/post, for example).

Many of these have suitable plugins for Wordpress and automate the process. In fact, some features are already included in Wordpress. So I think Wordpress makes running a website easier and smarter than using Joomla.

Chris, this is for you as you are building your website! Hope it really turns into something great!

The Italian Job: Why would you transport US$134.5 billion dollars in your briefcase?

Something is not right. The story is amazing, the kind of thing you might see in a movie or work of fiction.

Italian financial police uncovered a briefcase literally stashed with bonds and papers worth US$134.5 billion dollars that was being transported by two ‘Japanese’ agents from Italy to Switzerland. And the US media is not covering it at all. I won’t regurgitate all the facts here.

There are too many good speculative stories and a smattering of actual stories:

News

Views

The story remains buried under a mess of international news,kidnappings, GM bankruptcies… that it makes you wonder if there is a case of deliberate burial of an otherwise significant story or just an inability in US media to portray stories that are significant, accurately and in a timely manner.

Whatever is going on, we note that a number of events are taking place that could indicate the whole situation.

The G8 countries are meeting in Italy at the moment, a Japanese minister just resigned, statements of faith from Russia and Japan, more meetings with the G8…. Can you add any more?

But I’ll add something to the mystery: it is interesting that Timothy Geithner attended a speech on Thursday evening, flew ahead to Italy and on getting there met both the Japanese Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano and Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin in Italy before the general meeting.

While Kaoru Yosano stated clearly "We have complete trust in the fact that the U.S. views its strong dollar policy as fundamental”, you should note the language in another report: “We have complete trust in the fact that the U.S. views its strong-dollar policy as fundamental” which most reports missed quoting. (Source)

So what is he saying? That he trusts the Americans think their strong-dollar is important. He trusts what the Americans ‘thinks’. Since when did bankers and financiers only rely on trust? He’s stuck between a rock and a hard place: he can’t be seen to talk down the dollar when so much of Japanese reserves are placed in US dollars.

The Russians were quite happy to say they are looking to ‘help out’ the IMF.

Russia said on Wednesday it would reduce the share of U.S. Treasuries in its reserves and buy bonds issued by the International Monetary Fund. Russia holds about 30 percent of its reserves in U.S. Treasuries. The country had pledged to buy about $10 billion worth of bonds to be issued by the IMF as part of a fundraising effort to help countries hit by the crisis. (SOURCE)

And the Chinese are unhappy with the US policy on spend-spend-spend. They’ve been calling on the US to be fiscally responsible. But what is clear: China is quietly buying gold, silver, and other assets as well. Yes, they’re still buying US dollars, but … what are they selling to buy these other assets? Could it be a revolving door?

Tienmou Saturday Arts & Crafts Market

One of the stalls at the Saturday Market in Tienmou. It’s pretty hot in the afternoon, but things get a little livelier near dusk and in the early part of the evenings.

There are two parts to the market: a general arts and crafts stall with lots of ‘artisans’ selling homemade cakes, products, and planters; then there’s the more flea-market side to the market with people selling all manner of bric-a-brac.

It’s fun to look around, but I didn’t see too many people buying yesterday, perhaps because it was a regular school day for most of us.

Worth looking around.