Want to know whether someone has read your Facebook message yet? In the past you had no way of knowing, but now, thanks to this little bit.ly hack, you no longer need to wait in the dark.
Bit.ly run a URL shortening service. In simple terms you feed bit.ly a long URL, like http://www.hermestechnologies.ie/index.php/take-us-to-your-servers/, and then bit.ly converts this into a short, tweetable http://bit.ly/65dgXc.
But this isn’t all bit.ly does – it also tracks the number of times your shortend bit.ly link was clicked.
Applying this to your Facebook private messages, there is only person who could have clicked your newly created bit.ly link: the intended recipient. By checking bit.ly to see whether or not the link has been clicked yet, you know whether or not your message has been read.
Of course, this method assumes, fairly I think, that no internet user can resist following a link and I leave it to you to debate the veracity of this assumption.
Happy stalking. Creep.
You already know that submitting your website to online directories is one of the best ways to increase rankings in Google. The problem is, with over 22,000 directory sites out there how do you know which ones to choose? You could go out and do all the research yourself checking Pagerank and pricing for each. Or you could just follow this guide. Your choice.
Page Rank 8
Free
http://www.dmoz.org/ Takes up to 6 months, and your site must have unique content
http://www.lii.org/ Sites must have a freely accessible information component
Paid
http://dir.yahoo.com/ Highly respected but a pricey option at $300
Page Rank 7
Paid
http://www.business.com/ $299/year
Page Rank 6
Free
http://www.hotvsnot.com/ - Free if you give a reciprocal link. Here is ours:
View Mining Jobs online. This site is listed under Consultancy Directory
http://www.the-big-brain.com/ - Simple submission, reciprocal link required
Paid
http://www.whatuseek.com -€25/year
http://uk.ask.com/ - 10$ per month
http://www.joeant.com/ - $40 one time
http://www.gimpsy.com/ - $30 one time
http://botw.org/ - (best on the web) the oldest website directory, annual $99 (one off $299)
http://www.familyfriendlysites.com/ must have family friendly content, but this shouldn’t be a problem for most sites.
http://www.greenstalk.com/ $40 one time
Page Rank 5
Free
http://directory.classifieds1000.com/
http://www.directoryworld.net/ - Reciprocal link required
http://www.elib.org/ - Reciprocal link required, free
http://www.illumirate.com/
http://www.clickey.com/
http://searchsight.com/
Paid:
http://www.goguides.org/ - $70 once off
Page Rank 4
Free:
http://www.netinsert.com/ - 3-4 month wait. Faster with reciprocal link
http://www.jayde.com/
http://www.smartlinks.org/ Sites are submitted via email and must offer a free service or information of high quality.
http://www.itzalist.com/ Sites providing a backlink get higher priority
http://www.arakne-links.com/ Three days with reciprocal link, otherwise no timeframe
Page Rank 9 (huh? why down here…. read on to find out)
http://wordpress.com/
Not really a directory per se but we are throwing it in as you can get a do follow link to your Facebook. This means you’ll be the highest ranking John Smith on public search. Noice.
And as if all that wasn’t enough here is a link to a directory of web directories. Recursive? Hell yea. That’s how we like it. Use the search feature in this site to find niches or geographic regions relevant to your website.
Did we miss anything? Is any of our information wrong? Let us know in the comments!
One of the best ways to increase your website’s search rankings in Google lreland is to submit it to a set of Irish online directory websites. By submitting to these sites you will gain a “backlink”, that is a link into your site. The number and, more importantly, quality of the backlinks into your site is one of the key determinants of your rankings in search engines. That being said not all directories are created equally. The main differentiating factors between them are their “Pagerank ratings and whether they charge a price for submission.
Pagerank
Pagerank is a scale used by Google to denote the importance of a website. The number can range from 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest. The scale is logarithmic – this means that a Pagerank 7 site is ten times as important as a Pagerank 6 site, which in turn is ten times more important than a Pagerank 5 site. You want to get links from the highest Pagerank sites possible, as these will have the most benefit to your rankings, yo.
Price of submission
Some directories are free, whilst others cost a fee. It is up to you whether you think the level of Pagerank offered is worth the price. I could tell you, but I have to keep a few secrets 
List of General Directories in Ireland by Pagerank
Pagerank changes with time as Google adjusts it’s algorithms. Thus these results are only accurate as of Nov 22nd 2009. To add your site to these directories follow these links and look for links such as “add listing” or “enter your site”.
Pagerank 6 Directories in Ireland
Paid
http://www.browseireland.com/
€29.99 / year / *Seems like you get a bonus PR6 link from www.local.ie through this site… nom nom nom
Free
http://www.irishblogs.ie/
Free / *Blogs only. Step aside.
Pagerank 5 Directories in Ireland
Paid
http://www.discoverireland.net/
€30.00 once off fee. Make sure you navigate to the desired category before submitting, otherwise it won’t work.
http://www.irelands-directory.com/
€60 euro/year for a listing with a weblink (The free option doesn’t give backlinks dagnanit)
http://www.whatswhat.ie/
€5/month for a listing with a weblink (Free option doesn’t give backlinks)
Free
http://www.irishblogdirectory.com/
Free / *Blogs only
http://www.irishblogs.com/
Free / *Blogs only
Pagerank 4 Directories in Ireland
Paid
http://www.linkireland.com/
€16.50 / once off fee
Free
http://www.gimmedat.ie/
Free
http://www.niceone.ie/
Free
http://www.search.ie/
Free. Optional paid version not required for Pagerank benefits.
http://www.simplythebest.ie/
? / *Site down at present but looks promising
http://www.startpage.ie/
Free but links are set to “no follow” which means they won’t count to your search engine rankings. Thus, for our limited purposes of climbing Google’s ranks, this one isn’t going to help you.
Most of this information was gleaned from an excellent post by a
SEO expert based in Ireland. Be sure to check out his blog for great info.
If I missed out on any PR4+ directories in Ireland please let me know in the comments. Likewise comment away if any info here is incorrect – I’d like to keep this document as an up to date definitive list of directories.
For those of you who don’t know, Fit College is a competition run by the highly recommended Cherwell student newspaper where Oxford students vote over which college has the fitter pair of representative students.
Also, for those of you who don’t know, I rigged last week’s competition. Oops.
Much Better
Here is how I did it in 7 easy steps
Step1: Download Do It Again (Windows only)
Do It Again is a free program that allows you to record yourself doing a task on your computer then have your computer “playback” this task on repeat. Download it here.
Step2: Disable Cookies in your browser
How to do this depends on your browser. Here’s a guide for Internet Explorer 8 , and one for Mozilla Firefox 3.0
Step3: Vote within the online poll in the website of your choice
Open your browser and vote for the option you wish to rig. You will most likely be brought to the results page where it shows the votes/percentage for each possible option.
Step4: Begin recording in Do It Now
Make sure your Internet browser is maximized. Open Do It Now in front of your browser. Click “Create New Task”. Now move the mouse into the Internet browser and click. Now press F5 to refresh the page. Press enter to confirm in the “resubmit” dialogue box. Repeat 10 times. Press scroll lock to finish the recording, entering a name.
Step6: Set the repeat setting to 99999
Within Do It Again select your recently saved task. Now select “Options” at the top of the screen. Select the bottom option “Repeat settings for x”. Change this to 99999 (or whatever you want).
Step7: Go to a psytrance rave
This step is crucial. By the time we got back home psytrance (9am, the next day mind) the results were very much in our favour. Happy voting.
One gotcha: If your recording refreshed too fast you may time out the server and the voting will stop. If this happens try recording a slower version.
