Would you look at that. I’m one of the top pinoy probloggers in 2007. LOL. (How? Why? When? Where??)

Well, at least according to Michael of Basapa.com, who released his list of Top Pinoy Probloggers for 2007 a few weeks ago. I was ranked number four (whoa), trailing behind Teh Yugatech, Bryanboy, and the infamous 13 year old blogger Carlocab.

According to him,

I’ve rank the pinoy probloggers using the Highest Blog Juice (HBJ) per person. At first I was tempted to use the Total Blog Juice (TBJ), but upon closer inspection, I found out that it can skew the rankings. A person can create dozens of blogs with low-ranking juices, and will rank very high on this list. So I gave a much higher weight on the HBJ, which measures authority or popularity of a certain blogger, which is the purpose of this ranking in the first place.

I’m surprised. And honored. I’m not quite sure if I could call myself a problogger at this point. Sure, I blogged for a blogging network for several months at the start of this year, but even then, problogging is not my main source of income. I did get my Nikon D40 with blogging moolah, a percentage of which are from Google Adsense.

So okay, I may not be a hardcore problogger like Yuga, but in some essence, a problogger just the same. And a proud pinoy at that — at least that one I can brag about.

Cheers to all pinoy probloggers out there.

Goodbye Starbucks journal, hello Belle de Jour Power Planner!

Barely three weeks before the end of the year and everyone’s on a goal-setting, planner-panic-buying frenzy already. I’ve always kept a journal, or a planner, you know, just because I enjoy the thought that my life is organized and I have goals to reach. The past four years, I availed those traditional limited edition Starbucks planners. This year, however, I thought that spending for 26 ridiculously priced drinks is not practical anymore.

Especially when you can get a more posh planner at quarter of the price.

Last Friday, I finally got my very own Belle de Jour Power Planner from a pick-up point at Galleria. One look at it made me more convinced that I did the right choice.

The BDJ planner has everything that they promised. Coupons, goal tracker, menstruation tracker, birthday lists, (my favorite) vacation planner, and a lot more. I imagined myself filling up each page this coming year, being able to go places and take my goal-setting to the next level. Makes me excited just thinking about it.

You want to get a Belle de Jour Planner yourself? They said that the power planners were sold out, but they’re selling the last and final set for anyone who still wants to avail. So.. what are you waiting for? Go.

I know, I know. It’s easy for me to say “duh” because I’m not affected by this drastic change in Google PageRanks that’s happening now across the web. My sites, after all, have always had PageRanks of 4 (but so are the rest of you now! Bwahaha! Kidding.) Admittedly, it had been a little disappointing at first — considering all the link building I’ve done for these sites, I reckon I should have at least moved a step up in that PageRank ladder already. Heh.

But it’s not like I’m having sleepless nights over it. I stopped caring about PageRanks long ago, after all, I’ve seen websites with PRs as little as 2 and 3, ranking in the SERPs along with sites that have greater PageRanks. I just don’t think that PageRank is still a valid measure of a site’s relevance anymore, is all.

Andy Beard made an inventory of sites/blogs that were affected by the update downgrade. And so did Barry Schwarts at Search Engine Land. It would be interesting to find out if the traffic of these sites were really affected by this whole PR update thing. I think not.

Hence, I make an anti-thesis to Jayvee’s “Blog Networks should NOT rely on Text Link Ads or Google AdSense” idea. (Hi, Jayvs! Hehe.) Yes, Google is not a big fan of selling and buying links, we all know that already. Then again, it has been pointed out several times that a lot of those blogs that were affected are not involved with selling (or buying) links. I don’t think this has got anything to do with Google Adsense, either. Perhaps, the theory should be something in the line of “stop relying on Google PageRanks, people.” Google must have been fed up already by sites that are relying too much on its PR technology to market their own businesses.

Didn’t Aaron Wall state long before this controversial PR update that “PageRank is the wonkiest stat of them all“? Prior to this, we all know that Google updates PageRanks every after three months (longer sometimes), hence, the PageRanks we’ve all been seeing are, in a sense, outdated. Also, PageRanks vary across data centers, and across Google toolbars even. And again, I’ve seen a lot of sites that do not have PR5s or PR6s ranking for competitive keywords all the time.

My thesis: Websites should NOT rely on Google PageRanks.

Blog Networks should no longer use PageRanks as their “bait” or marketing pitch to advertisers. Text Links Ads or Blog to Profit shouldn’t make it their standard for approving sign-ups, either. Point is, there are far better and more reliable ways to measure a site’s relevance, like, traffic for example. Or content. Or backlinks. PageRank is soooo 2005.

Good for me, while blogging this I found myself at Search Engine Journal (whose PR, by the way, dropped from 7 to 4). So hey, I’d stop ranting now so I can direct you over to Loren Baker’s take on this. Take it over, Mr. Baker. I agree with everything you say.

So should the rest of us.

You know that Facebook’s growing even more in popularity when a College Choir composes a song about it and sings it in four voices. LOL. Sang to the tune of Everly Brothers’ Dream (which I love, by the way), here’s Miami University Cheezies with the ultimate Facebook Song.

Click here if the video didn’t load. Lyrics after the jump.

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Happy Birthday to you.
Happy Birthday to you.
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday..
Happy Birthday to you.

To the Internet search giant, for all your 9 years of existence, without which we wouldn’t have our jobs –Â a toast. May you shower us all with higher pageranks, more indexed pages and traffic, and bigger adsense cheques. And may your empire continue to expand so that whatever blessings that will come your way will overflow to the rest of us. *clink* Cheers! Heh.