About RobinMc1969
Rank 1304
1,576 followers Joined August 2012
My name is Jennifer Robin. But I've always liked 'Robin' and have decided to go by "Robin' here and on any websites I build. I love

Posts

33

Questions

239

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asked in
Everything Wordpress
Updated

I did a search for broken links on my site and many of the "broken" links were actually affiliate links that were not at all broken. I tried another program that gave similar r

Yes, if you are using a tool to search for broken links most of theme will say that affiliate links are broken.

Thank you! I Googled it and didn't get any answers. I was afraid that I couldn't trust the results of the broken link search. Now I don't need to worry. :)

You are very welcome.
No need to worry.

See more comments

Do affiliate links appear as broken links?

Do affiliate links appear as broken links?

asked in
Everything Wordpress
Updated

I did a search for broken links on my site and many of the "broken" links were actually affiliate links that were not at all broken. I tried another program that gave similar r

Yes, if you are using a tool to search for broken links most of theme will say that affiliate links are broken.

Thank you! I Googled it and didn't get any answers. I was afraid that I couldn't trust the results of the broken link search. Now I don't need to worry. :)

You are very welcome.
No need to worry.

See more comments

asked in
Authoring & Writing Content
Updated

I was recently contacted with this guest post offer:

"I hope this email finds you safe and doing well!
Are you open to a guest blog on anywherenanytime.com? I’d

Featured Comment

Hey Robin,

To be honest, I'd completely ignore this request.

You'll receive plenty of offers of guest posts, as your site matures and has a greater online reach.

However, there were quite a few things in this email that perturbed me, well. completely put me off if I'm honest.

Here's how I see it:

"I’m working with a client from the Marketing industry who can be a great value-add for your blog and readers!"

No, No, No... that immediately sounds like you're trying to sell me something, Nope, not interested. Don't come knocking on my door and start telling me how you have a "marketing client" (sounds painful) who can add value to my blog (Why, what's wrong with it now?)

"We are also open to discussing a small admin fee to cover your time reviewing and publishing our piece."

Excuse me, Mr. High & Mighty, who are you to tell me that you're "open to discussing" a "small" admin fee? It's my site, I own it, I have not approached you, NO, you came to me, so I shall decide how much I charge (and it definitely won't be "small").

"Happy to send you some topic ideas"

Well aren't you full of yourself? Once again, it's MY site, who are you to tell me what topics YOU would like to write about? My site, I make the decisions .

Okay, perhaps a little tongue-in-cheek, but hopefully you get my meaning.

If I wanted to approach someone with the aim to guest post on THEIR site, I would certainly have a far more humble approach.

I would explain the reasons for my interest (usually, I'm in the same niche or I find the topics on your site of great interest). I would provide you with a link to a relevant site of mine, or articles that I have previously written. I'd ask you to take a look over my work, if and when you have the time. I would say that I'm open to whatever terms YOU wish to discuss (within reason).

And I'd probably butter you up a little with a few compliments as well, LOL.

Partha

Wow! Jump on that Prince!!!!!!!

Thanks A LOT for all your thoughts. :)

I think that Prince Partha has you completely covered, Robin!

Jeff

I am confused by your post. I am not sure what your purpose is.
The website link is to your own website.

Please explain what you are looking for...

I don't think I would do it, personally. You're better off writing your own stuff because you would have to read their and edit so it sounds like what you want anyway.

Yeah, I wouldn't take a ton of these posts but remember my friend you will need a ton of content, and these posts are generally written and placed by professional SEO firms on behalf of big companies and can shoot some content that pays you up front as well as a long term into the nix.

You will get them from time to time, many are legit but make sure that payments are on your terms and the post does, in fact, fit into your site's niche well before signing an agreement. Small fee though is not something after you should get no less than $40-$50 because the post and resulting links will be a permanent addition.

See more comments

Is this a normal guest post offer?

Is this a normal guest post offer?

asked in
Authoring & Writing Content
Updated

I was recently contacted with this guest post offer:

"I hope this email finds you safe and doing well!
Are you open to a guest blog on anywherenanytime.com? I’d

Featured Comment

Hey Robin,

To be honest, I'd completely ignore this request.

You'll receive plenty of offers of guest posts, as your site matures and has a greater online reach.

However, there were quite a few things in this email that perturbed me, well. completely put me off if I'm honest.

Here's how I see it:

"I’m working with a client from the Marketing industry who can be a great value-add for your blog and readers!"

No, No, No... that immediately sounds like you're trying to sell me something, Nope, not interested. Don't come knocking on my door and start telling me how you have a "marketing client" (sounds painful) who can add value to my blog (Why, what's wrong with it now?)

"We are also open to discussing a small admin fee to cover your time reviewing and publishing our piece."

Excuse me, Mr. High & Mighty, who are you to tell me that you're "open to discussing" a "small" admin fee? It's my site, I own it, I have not approached you, NO, you came to me, so I shall decide how much I charge (and it definitely won't be "small").

"Happy to send you some topic ideas"

Well aren't you full of yourself? Once again, it's MY site, who are you to tell me what topics YOU would like to write about? My site, I make the decisions .

Okay, perhaps a little tongue-in-cheek, but hopefully you get my meaning.

If I wanted to approach someone with the aim to guest post on THEIR site, I would certainly have a far more humble approach.

I would explain the reasons for my interest (usually, I'm in the same niche or I find the topics on your site of great interest). I would provide you with a link to a relevant site of mine, or articles that I have previously written. I'd ask you to take a look over my work, if and when you have the time. I would say that I'm open to whatever terms YOU wish to discuss (within reason).

And I'd probably butter you up a little with a few compliments as well, LOL.

Partha

Wow! Jump on that Prince!!!!!!!

Thanks A LOT for all your thoughts. :)

I think that Prince Partha has you completely covered, Robin!

Jeff

I am confused by your post. I am not sure what your purpose is.
The website link is to your own website.

Please explain what you are looking for...

I don't think I would do it, personally. You're better off writing your own stuff because you would have to read their and edit so it sounds like what you want anyway.

Yeah, I wouldn't take a ton of these posts but remember my friend you will need a ton of content, and these posts are generally written and placed by professional SEO firms on behalf of big companies and can shoot some content that pays you up front as well as a long term into the nix.

You will get them from time to time, many are legit but make sure that payments are on your terms and the post does, in fact, fit into your site's niche well before signing an agreement. Small fee though is not something after you should get no less than $40-$50 because the post and resulting links will be a permanent addition.

See more comments

asked in
Search Engine Optimization
Updated

My domain authority was 23 in January and has gone down to 20 now. Any ideas why it might be decreasing?

Probably the big reason can be lack of publishing new content. There also may be new competitors who are outranking you.

Hi Jennifer,

There's quite a few reasons this can occur.

The most obvious would be a lack of ongoing published content.

Have you published since January?

DA can also decrease your site having had issues recently, which Google may view as negative visitor experience, e.g. your site went offline, was hacked, etc.

If can also happen if it is deemed that you have used underhand practices, e.g. keyword stuffing, blackhat SEO, etc.

However, my guess would be your backlink profile.

You can check external sites that link to you in Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, AHrefs, MOZ, etc.

If you have a number of spammy sites linking to you this could devalue your own site.

Once you've checked there are ways to remove these linking sites from your backlink profile, which should help to improve your DA.

Partha

Thanks a lot!
I have published as well as updated a couple of posts a month.

I think looking into my backlink profile will be my first line of attack. The other options don't seem so probable unless site speed on mobile (Which I working on improving) would make a big difference.

(Jennifer) Robin

Hey Robin (Sorry, just read your profile properly, Haha),

Yes, my guess would be your backlink proflle.

If you use Ahrefs backlink checker, even the free version will provide details (including DA) of linking sites.

Perhaps not all of them if you have a ton of backlinks, but it should give you a good idea.

You can also check your Core Web Vitals on Google Search Console (you'll see it about half way down on the left).

There were two Google core web vitals updates, one in June and another in July, this year, so you may want to check if you have any "bad" urls.

A lot of the issues were caused by "largest contentful paint" and "first contentful paint".

Make sure that you have an image optimizer plugin, and you can also check the loading speed of certain posts and pages.

Do you have a large header image, infographics, lots of videos, etc.?

Google Search Console will walk you through what you need to do if you have an url errors.

Partha

Appreciate your detailed answer. I'll look into it all.

How to really understand what behind CLS and LCP issues is? I have all url that need improvement on mobile and none on desktop, and this means more than 1000. The same is in another site with more than 500 posts. So it seems I have the same issue perhaps due to the same thing repeated in all of them.

Hope you do not mind me asking the question here.

Hey Jovo,

It's probably not as bad as you think it is, i.e. probably an easy fix.

It usually comes down to installing plugins (and yes, I know, no-one needs anymore plugins, LOL).

If you go to Google Page Speed insights (make sure you check "Mobile" on the top left).

Check a couple of your urls.

Once the test is completed, scroll down slightly and you'll see the results.

Your LCP is recommended to be 2.5 seconds. I'll guess that all the urls you check will be more than this.

If you scroll down further you'll see "Opportunities".

And this will provide suggestions to improve.

When it comes to LCP the main one is usually "serve images in next-gen format".

So, this may suggest that you need to change the optimization of your images.

If you have JPEG or PNG it will typically tell you to use a plugin to convert these to WebP format.

So, you'll then need to install a plugin to convert in bulk to WebP.

Sorry, I don't know any off the top of my head, but if you go to your WordPress back office, then plugins, and just search WebP.

Obviously choose one that has decent ratings and feedback.

You may also be recommended that you need to install a lazy load plugin or an AMP plugin.

Once again, do the same.

This is just a guess, but these are the main issues that most WordPress had with core web vitals.

I have the premium plugin Imagify installed, so it takes care of all of this.

Once you've installed whatever you need to (or followed Google Page Insights instructions), go back to Core Web Vitals on Google Search Console and click "Validate Fix".

I believe it says to allow 28 days for Google to check the pages.

However, I did mine back in June and checked 5 days later and all my urls were showing as good.

So, it probably won't take the 28 days, but that's the guidelines.

It could of course be other issues, but you'll be notified of those in Google PageSpeed Insights and the "Opportunities" will explain how to fix them.

Hope that makes sense.

Partha

OK many thanks.It seems the main issues in my case are 'eliminate render blocking resources' , 'reduce initial server response time', and 'reduce unused css'. Discussing server response time with Support has always been useless. The other two are far from clear, but it seems they have to do with CLS. Thanks again.

No problem! Let us all learn more. :)

See more comments

Why might my da be decreasing?

Why might my da be decreasing?

asked in
Search Engine Optimization
Updated

My domain authority was 23 in January and has gone down to 20 now. Any ideas why it might be decreasing?

Probably the big reason can be lack of publishing new content. There also may be new competitors who are outranking you.

Hi Jennifer,

There's quite a few reasons this can occur.

The most obvious would be a lack of ongoing published content.

Have you published since January?

DA can also decrease your site having had issues recently, which Google may view as negative visitor experience, e.g. your site went offline, was hacked, etc.

If can also happen if it is deemed that you have used underhand practices, e.g. keyword stuffing, blackhat SEO, etc.

However, my guess would be your backlink profile.

You can check external sites that link to you in Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, AHrefs, MOZ, etc.

If you have a number of spammy sites linking to you this could devalue your own site.

Once you've checked there are ways to remove these linking sites from your backlink profile, which should help to improve your DA.

Partha

Thanks a lot!
I have published as well as updated a couple of posts a month.

I think looking into my backlink profile will be my first line of attack. The other options don't seem so probable unless site speed on mobile (Which I working on improving) would make a big difference.

(Jennifer) Robin

Hey Robin (Sorry, just read your profile properly, Haha),

Yes, my guess would be your backlink proflle.

If you use Ahrefs backlink checker, even the free version will provide details (including DA) of linking sites.

Perhaps not all of them if you have a ton of backlinks, but it should give you a good idea.

You can also check your Core Web Vitals on Google Search Console (you'll see it about half way down on the left).

There were two Google core web vitals updates, one in June and another in July, this year, so you may want to check if you have any "bad" urls.

A lot of the issues were caused by "largest contentful paint" and "first contentful paint".

Make sure that you have an image optimizer plugin, and you can also check the loading speed of certain posts and pages.

Do you have a large header image, infographics, lots of videos, etc.?

Google Search Console will walk you through what you need to do if you have an url errors.

Partha

Appreciate your detailed answer. I'll look into it all.

How to really understand what behind CLS and LCP issues is? I have all url that need improvement on mobile and none on desktop, and this means more than 1000. The same is in another site with more than 500 posts. So it seems I have the same issue perhaps due to the same thing repeated in all of them.

Hope you do not mind me asking the question here.

Hey Jovo,

It's probably not as bad as you think it is, i.e. probably an easy fix.

It usually comes down to installing plugins (and yes, I know, no-one needs anymore plugins, LOL).

If you go to Google Page Speed insights (make sure you check "Mobile" on the top left).

Check a couple of your urls.

Once the test is completed, scroll down slightly and you'll see the results.

Your LCP is recommended to be 2.5 seconds. I'll guess that all the urls you check will be more than this.

If you scroll down further you'll see "Opportunities".

And this will provide suggestions to improve.

When it comes to LCP the main one is usually "serve images in next-gen format".

So, this may suggest that you need to change the optimization of your images.

If you have JPEG or PNG it will typically tell you to use a plugin to convert these to WebP format.

So, you'll then need to install a plugin to convert in bulk to WebP.

Sorry, I don't know any off the top of my head, but if you go to your WordPress back office, then plugins, and just search WebP.

Obviously choose one that has decent ratings and feedback.

You may also be recommended that you need to install a lazy load plugin or an AMP plugin.

Once again, do the same.

This is just a guess, but these are the main issues that most WordPress had with core web vitals.

I have the premium plugin Imagify installed, so it takes care of all of this.

Once you've installed whatever you need to (or followed Google Page Insights instructions), go back to Core Web Vitals on Google Search Console and click "Validate Fix".

I believe it says to allow 28 days for Google to check the pages.

However, I did mine back in June and checked 5 days later and all my urls were showing as good.

So, it probably won't take the 28 days, but that's the guidelines.

It could of course be other issues, but you'll be notified of those in Google PageSpeed Insights and the "Opportunities" will explain how to fix them.

Hope that makes sense.

Partha

OK many thanks.It seems the main issues in my case are 'eliminate render blocking resources' , 'reduce initial server response time', and 'reduce unused css'. Discussing server response time with Support has always been useless. The other two are far from clear, but it seems they have to do with CLS. Thanks again.

No problem! Let us all learn more. :)

See more comments

asked in
The Wealthy Affiliate Platform
Updated

I set up my site in 2013 and made my own email for it at that time. I easily integrated that email into my Gmail account so that I receive all my site-related email via a Gmail

Does website email address provided by wa work with gmail?

Does website email address provided by wa work with gmail?

asked in
The Wealthy Affiliate Platform
Updated

I set up my site in 2013 and made my own email for it at that time. I easily integrated that email into my Gmail account so that I receive all my site-related email via a Gmail

asked in
The Wealthy Affiliate Platform
Updated

The comment I got isn't bad, but it isn't what I asked for. I asked for questions so that I can elaborate.
Does the person have a chance to edit their comment?

Than

I have got comments that I have edited and then accepted moreso from non-native English speakers. Comments that are not helpful I reject. I don't recall having to give a reason but if I could I would.

If you disapprove a comment if it isn't bad, you'll be labeled as a "meanie". Lol!
It is up to you and your take on the comment friend. If you see it as not being related to what you've ask for, then you have the right to disapprove it. It's your site and contents. You don't want your site to have comments that look like a bunch of random words with no relative connection to your content. As for the person to have the chance to edit it? From what I know, there is a time frame to do that before it gets approved or disapproved. Once approved or disapproved, that option to edit the comment by the visitor will be no more. You're the only one who can edit it from your end once you approved or disapproved.
I also think that you'll lose that paid credit once you approved or disapproved the comment. So, if you can adjust some words of the comment around to make them seem worthy for that content then go ahead and save that hard earned credit. All the best!

You can read more about it here which was posted by AngelBcn to see what others have thought:

You can actually edit their question if you wish!

I thought of that but wasn't sure if it was 'legal' to do that.

You can, but if there is no way to make it coincide with what your post was, then trash it! Some of these might even be considered Spam, Robin!

Hi - no, you either accept it or reject it. And if you reject it, you are given the opportunity to explain why you did so.

Hi

If it doesn't help your post or your site and you believe it is a hindrance, then yes you do what's in your best interest. You may lose out on the credit if in site comments.

I don't think they can once submitted, unless they do a newer comment.

See more comments

What happens if I disapprove a comment?

What happens if I disapprove a comment?

asked in
The Wealthy Affiliate Platform
Updated

The comment I got isn't bad, but it isn't what I asked for. I asked for questions so that I can elaborate.
Does the person have a chance to edit their comment?

Than

I have got comments that I have edited and then accepted moreso from non-native English speakers. Comments that are not helpful I reject. I don't recall having to give a reason but if I could I would.

If you disapprove a comment if it isn't bad, you'll be labeled as a "meanie". Lol!
It is up to you and your take on the comment friend. If you see it as not being related to what you've ask for, then you have the right to disapprove it. It's your site and contents. You don't want your site to have comments that look like a bunch of random words with no relative connection to your content. As for the person to have the chance to edit it? From what I know, there is a time frame to do that before it gets approved or disapproved. Once approved or disapproved, that option to edit the comment by the visitor will be no more. You're the only one who can edit it from your end once you approved or disapproved.
I also think that you'll lose that paid credit once you approved or disapproved the comment. So, if you can adjust some words of the comment around to make them seem worthy for that content then go ahead and save that hard earned credit. All the best!

You can read more about it here which was posted by AngelBcn to see what others have thought:

You can actually edit their question if you wish!

I thought of that but wasn't sure if it was 'legal' to do that.

You can, but if there is no way to make it coincide with what your post was, then trash it! Some of these might even be considered Spam, Robin!

Hi - no, you either accept it or reject it. And if you reject it, you are given the opportunity to explain why you did so.

Hi

If it doesn't help your post or your site and you believe it is a hindrance, then yes you do what's in your best interest. You may lose out on the credit if in site comments.

I don't think they can once submitted, unless they do a newer comment.

See more comments

Login
Create Your Free Wealthy Affiliate Account Today!
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4-Steps to Success Class
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One Profit Ready Website
icon
Market Research & Analysis Tools
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Core “Business Start Up” Training