|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
What Is Top Mommy Blogs?Top Mommy Blogs is a fun, fantastic and FREE resource that helps you build your blogs audience, discover great new mommy blogs and connect with other mommy bloggers. The Top Mommy Blogs Directory is a ranked (by monthly referrals) reciprocal link directory & traffic exchange program just for mom blogs. Blogs
are ranked by popularity (popularity = incoming unique hits that are averaged over 30 days). How Does This Work?
In order to participate, you'll need to register your blog. After you create & confirm your account via email, your listing application will be queued for review. Once your account is approved, you'll place a link to http://www.topmommyblogs.com/ on your blog sidebar. When a unique visitors Ratings & Comments: You may also rate and/or comment on listings by clicking the Ratings or Comment images on your listing. These images appear right next to your site title on your listing. If you click on the rating comments and nothing happens, try using Firefox (the pop-ups are buggy using Internet Explorer). It's important that you maintain an easy to find link to TMB from your registered blog How Do My Visitors Vote For My BlogYour visitors just click the banner or text link that you have placed on your blog that links to http://www.topmommyblogs.com/. A vote is unique referral
What Is The Coupon Section/Edition? Why Is It Separate?Coupon blogs, while a very valuable resource, often don't contain what we consider to be Unique & Original Content. This is a small niche directory with fairly specific guidelines and quite often there is a fine line between Coupon Mom Blog & Coupon Blog. We also saw that very often most coupon blogs didn't fit under the TMB guidelines and so were not previously accepted. We wanted to find a way to incorporate some of these amazing mommy geared coupon & freebie blogs. Instead of starting a whole new website for Top Coupon Mommy Blogs or changing the guidelines which make TMB a top notch mommy directory, a special edition category was created just for coupon blogs! The coupon section is, for the most part, separate from the main ranking pages. Members who are placed into the coupon category will not show up on the main ranking pages, only on the coupon pages. However, coupon members will qualify to be a Featured Blog on the main ranking pages. Coupon members also have the option to link directly to the coupon section instead of the home page thus have a more direct exchange of traffic with other coupon blogs. Visitors will be able to access the coupon section from all the other pages, like any other category, but will have a more exclusive exchange of traffic. SUPER IMPORTANT FOR COUPON CATEGORY MEMBERS See more/comment about the Coupon Edition on it's discussion over at the TMB Lounge. This section is in testing and we will need your cooperation to make this a successful and happy addition to TMB. How do I become a Featured BlogTell me I'm pretty? Kidding (but feel free to do that anyway). To qualify to be a featured blog your ranking needs to be in the top 200. Of the qualifying listings, the Featured Listings will be chosen randomly, are updated hourly and will be different on each ranking page. If your site is not in the top 200 you may want to consider how and where your TMB link is located on your blog. Adding some additional links/banners to your blog, moving the link/banner higher up on the page or more actively campaigning for votes will help raise your referral rates. Don't rely on your blogs link page/directory to produce a lot of referrals or if you have only placed a link to TMB in a single post (which is actually against the rules because it's so invective), it's not likely your blog will stay ranked. In addition to a well placed banner, an occasional dedicated post to remind your visitors for votes is a very useful tactic. Do I Have To Pay To Join?Nope! It's free to join. You do, however, have to place a link to http://www.topmommyblogs.com on your site to remain listed. What Can I do To Get More Votes? (Do's & Dont's)Here are some basic Do's and Don'ts. Starting with the Do's...
Now for some of the Don'ts (things we've seen that aren't effective or against the rules)
Contest Entry Do's & Don'ts While of course here at TMB we want you to be creative when it comes to producing more referrals but unfortunately contests can be quite controversial. So here are few guidelines and suggestions that we think are fair and a way for you to incorporate your TMB account into contests. The most important thing to remember is never link directly to the Top Mommy Blog home page or suggest clicking on a direct link to http://www.topmommyblogs.com/ with in your entry options. That is the page that tracks your referrals so if you lead people to the home page, you're still asking for a vote. You can link to any other page besides the home page to be safe. You can ask your visitors to leave a rating/comment on your listing as long as you link directly to the comment page (see more here). How Can I Report A Member?If you see a member that you feel is breaking or abusing the Top Mommy Blog rules, please . Simply use Abuse as the subject of the email with a link to the offending post or blog. Sorry, we can't help if you just think the blogs content is inappropriate or you don't agree with the blogger. I'm Being Told I already Have An Account Here And Can't Sign Up!If your positive you don't have an account already (duplicates are against the rules), try using a different site title. It's possible the title you are using is already in use. I am getting an error!If you are getting an error that isn't explained here (usually it is) or you can't get around, please copy and paste the entire error message in an email when you and include your username (if your a current member), info about what you were doing and what links and/or info you were trying adding. What Is A Blog URL?A URL is the permanent & full home page web address of your blog. It may be http://myblog.blogger.com or http://www.myblog.com. Since tracking is done using the domain you register, it's vital that you enter the correct URL for your blog. If your URL changes, for example if you register a new domain name, longer use a registered domain name, or you switch blogging platforms you will need to update your blog URL in your account details. If your blog URL is using any sort of redirect, forwarding or refresh system, see this Lounge thread about redirects as not all redirects are picked up and may cause tracking issues. My Blog Isn't My Homepage.Your website may include many sections and that's great. What's important is that the URL you register points towards your blog and that the registered URL contains a link to the TMB homepage. Otherwise when we review accounts we will land on your site and say, "This is a general website and not specifically a blog" which means it will probably be rejected. My Site Wasn't Accepted. Can I Apply Again?If your blog wasn't accepted, the email that you received will tell you if you can apply again. Most sites are rejected because they are too new, not even a blog or just not the right fit for our small niche directory. Since we manually review every application, repeatedly submitting your account will not increase your chance for acceptance (actually quite the opposite). If your site has less than 3 months of recent and consecutive postings, please wait until after you have reached that minimum before applying again. If your blog doesn't have an easily accessible archive this may be something we misjudged since many sites are reviewed each week and can't spend forever hitting the older post link or scrolling page by page. If your blog was rejected for being too new and it really isn't, let us know. I Edited My Account. Why Doesn't It Show Up?Changes are not automatically displayed on your listing. Please allow at least one hour for your changes take effect. In addition to site update lag time, due to computers caching images (storing them for faster viewing) banner updates may take even longer to reflect so you can clear your browser cache to speed up any banner updates. How Do I Remove My Account?To remove your account, please with your blog URL and/or username. Make sure you are emailing from the same email address that you signed up with. You of course are welcome to rejoin at any time. I am getting errors when I a try to add my bannerError messages are really useful in helping you fix your form errors and . Here the common image error message and are a few reasons why your banner may not be accepted:
If your having problems with your banner URL, see here. I Don't Have A Banner. Where Can I Get One?You don't have to add a graphic to participate (it's optional) but it does improve your listing visibility. Here is a list of some possible web designers if you are interested having custom banners. Alternatively, for a $5 fee we will create and add a 125 x 125 px screenshot to your listing.
I Changed My Banner. Can You Update It?Updating account information is something you will need to do by logging into your member dashboard. This includes updating any contact or blog information as well as adding or updating your banner URL. If you are receiving error messages and are unable to resolve them with the information on this page, please contact us for additional help. Where Can I Get The Voting Links & Banners?These are found in your member dashboard. What is A Banner URL? How Do I Upload My Banner?A banner URL is the link to your image on your server. Sorry, there is not an upload option but here are some instructions on finding or getting a banner URL. First, of course, you have to have a banner either on your blog or on your computer. Do you have your banner on your blog already? If you do than you just need to right click it (when looking at it on a live page). You want to view it's properties (Address/URL). A banner URL will look something like this: http://www.yourwebsite.com/images/125banner.gif. The images folder is a common place to store banners but your URL will most likely look quiet different, depending on where your system uploads the images too. The above link is just an example. Image URLS will start with your blog, then the file path of where it's stored, then the file name and end with whatever type of image it is, usually: gif, jpeg or png. If you are unable to upload images to your server (which is unlikely) or it's too complicated, visit a free image host such as TinyPic.Com to upload your banner. After you've uploaded your image from your computer, they will give you a URL to use. Here are in the instructions for using Tiny Pic:
My Ranking Banner Says #4 But I'm #1Not all stats are updated the same. Some are daily and some are hourly. The dynamic ranking banner, your account stats and search results updated hourly where as the ranking pages are updated daily with a 24 hour delay (so your seeing yesterday's rankings on the main/category ranking pages). This is just the way the software currently works and not something that can be "fixed" or changed. I changed my banner but the old one is still thereYou'll need to clear your browser cache. Your browser will store images and web page data so that it will load faster. Since when you update your image, it retains the same name on our server, your browser will likely not recognize it as a new image so will not refresh it. To force your browser to refresh, you will want to clear the temporary files. Site Terms & Listing Diagram
Site Updates Unique Visitor Registered Domain Votes (unique in) Visitors I just signed up, why doesn't my Blog appear?
Why Am I Losing Votes?TMB tracks votes using a monthly average so your IN votes will not raise like a tally. It's normal to see your referrals go up and down through out the month. I know My Blog Has Sent In (More/Some) Votes. Why don't They show?Here are the things to understand and to check (#2 & #3 are the most questioned) :
*A unique referral can often cause debate and confusion about votes. While we don't disclose all the anti-cheating and security methods, several are in place and will cause not all referrals to be counted. This is the same for all members so it's an even playing field for referrals. **If you are trying to "test" that your votes are being counted and you a) ask everyone in your office to visit your blog and click the banner link or b) do the same from every computer in your house but still only 1 vote will appear, this is normal. All of your house's computers are likely to be sharing an IP address. Same with an office building, it's likely you are using a shared IP. Also, often with with work computers, your company may block cookies or use other browser restrictions which the TMB system will not count. "Testing" to see if your votes are tracking w/in your house or office is not going to work. If you are experiencing issues, please contact us for help if your referrals are not tracking. My Rank # Is Different On Search Results, My Stats & Ranking PagesNot all stats are updated the same. Some are daily and some are hourly. The dynamic ranking banner, your account stats and search results updated hourly where as the ranking pages are updated daily with a 24 hour delay (so your seeing yesterday's rankings on the main/category ranking pages). This is just the way the software currently works and not something that can be "fixed" or changed. My blog was listed and now it is gone!Can you log in? If you're able to log into your account, your account is still active. Once you confirm this, you will want to check your stats to see if you have any votes in in your statistics which is shown on the account overview page when you log in. If you have at least one vote your blog qualifies to be listed. If you're seeing activity in the stats but your blog is still not listed to help locate it or see why you aren't listed. If you can't find your account and have already tried
the password reminder which also tells you your account can't be
found, then your account may have been removed. Accounts are
removed generally for 3 reason: If your account was suspended, it's usually because of a rule issue. While we try to let you know to resolve any rule issues before your account is suspended or removed, we don't guarantee that you will receive notice. If you need more help, please . What is the direct link to The comment/Ratings Form for my listing?If you would like to ask your readers to comment and/or rate your blog, log into your member dashboard to grab the special rating banner that has the direct link to your rating page. You can add this to your blog just like the voting banners. Rating/commenting has no direct effect on your overall ranking so asking your readers to do this is OK if you want to offer this as an option for your blog contests, to encourage more activity on your listing or to maybe be on the most rated page. We manually review comments for spam and relevancy so they will not show up right away. If you need any help verifying a comment that has not yet been published, . How Do I Contact You?Email Support: If you have account specific questions such as log in issues or error messages that are not answered above, . Please include in your message:
Support Forum: Top Mommy Blogs Community Lounge: The forum is great place to post your question (that hasn't been covered above) so others can benefit as well! |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
TMB also has a cool community area, called 
Your banner width or height is too
large
