So its true - Google is intelligent and it penalises you if you try to be oversmart

Google has blocked almost all the sites that were participating in the Shaastra Google SEO Event, including mine :( Now if you search for the keywords Shaastra Thamesportal Zalecenia Autophytes Invernesshire on google, you will find blogs that have just one or two posts, blogs that have been started but never taken care of, and blogs that are not at all participating in this contest!!
Yes ... a big blow to all those who have been trying so hard for over a month now. Here is a screenshot from my google webmaster page that clearly shows that google has removed all my pages from its index:-

You can also see it was last indexed on 19th Oct,2006. That was when my page achieved the top spot. You can still see the cached page here. But now, its banned......... :(

My dream of SANDEEPs winning this contest is shattered :(
Now I understand. Google, you are intelligent.
Ohh... I forgot to mention why has it been banned. It is banned because of Keyword Spamming. One-tenth(not sure) of the words on my blog were just the keywords. With such a high keyword ratio, how can it go undetected by the search engine giant Google? I knew that Google penalises you for keyword spamming. But I had to do this because the contest had not left much options.
1. You had to host your blog in their domain and you were not allowed to use keywords in your domain name.
2. There was not any control over the template other than choosing another template.
3. This also means no control on meta tags like keywords, description, etc.
4. And many may suggest getting links was a good option. But PR does not changes so quickly. Also it takes time before you come out of the google sandbox. This contest had only allowed you one and half months and now only 4 days are left. Till now, no blog participating in this contest has a PR greater than zero.

So contestants were left with no other option that blatant keyword spamming. All those who have ever been in top 10 had done the same.
However, what surprises me is why they banned all of a sudden. I mean if its not manual banning, then the site should have been banned as soon as google bot detected the spamming. This was been done for more than one and half a month. Google cant be so late in detecting such simple keyword spamming. And if its manual ban, then why at all Google Bangalore sponsored this contest?(see the sponsor on top right of this page)
Well.... Google's ways are mystery.

Technorati: blogging, contests, google, SEO, Shaastra, spam, technical

Who selected the sysadmins?

Well... I have been asking this question for long to all my friends. But today, after being EXTREMELY EXTREMELY HIGHLY HIGHLY FRUSTU over the performance of internet and NO PERFORMANCE of WLAN and DC++, I want to ask this question to the concerned authorities.

I know that Profs like DR. Kamal, Dr. Sangal, Dr. Govindrajulu, Dr. PJN, etc. read blogs. Well.. if you are reading this post, then consider it as your responsibility to defend the selection of the sysadmins
or
Accept the inability of the sysadmins and remove them.

How come someone employ such system adminsitrators who don't even know linux, to monitor / administrate around 10-20 important linux servers in the server room that are the lifelines of IIIT?
I want to know what was the process followed when selecting the sysadmins. I want to know who selected them. Those who selected them, don't they know that all IIIT servers, proxy, etc. are linux systems and only a linux bond can administrate them. Forget linux bond, you have not even selected a linux newbie, you have selected such persons who are not even linux newbies. They simply don't know linux.

Well... Let me go into a little defensive note. I can't prove that they are completely new to linux, but its well established that they are no more than linux newbies. Even a UG1 student (after passing the first semester) knows more than them. If you want proof of this statement then visit:-
http://nirnimesh.blogspot.com/2006/04/server-room-tragedy-1.html
http://nirnimesh.blogspot.com/2006/04/server-room-tragedy-2.html
http://nirnimesh.blogspot.com/2006/05/server-room-tragedy-3.html(hilarious as well :P)
http://nirnimesh.blogspot.com/2006/05/server-room-tragedy-4.html
http://nirnimesh.blogspot.com/2006/06/server-room-tragedy-5.html
http://nirnimesh.blogspot.com/2006/06/server-room-tragedy-6.html
http://nirnimesh.blogspot.com/2006/06/server-room-tragedy-7.html
http://nirnimesh.blogspot.com/2006/07/server-room-tragedy-8.html
http://nirnimesh.blogspot.com/2006/07/server-room-tragedy-9.html

If you still don't believe, then just go and have a chat with the sysadmins regarding linux. You will soon start believing.

PS1: Yes... I am not doing anything else than weeping about the problems. But the problem is that faculty does not believe that there is anything wrong.(well, not exactly but still they prefer to ignore). So, I think weeping about the problems may ring some bell in faculty's mind.

PS2: Sangal sir, please don't say I have over emphasized the problem as you say about every post in the blogging world.

PS3: Those who are trying to block DC++, please understand that you *MAY* block DC++ but still you can't block all ways of sharing unless you block the whole LAN. If you block DC++, students will resort to some other INEFFICIENT way of sharing resulting in more degradation of LAN performance(if at all its true that DC++ degrades performance). We need sharing and we will do it somehow. Only problem is that it may be an inefficient method as compared to DC++.

PS4: I have nothing personal against the sysadmins. It is all the fault of those who selected windows geeks(not sure) to administer linux servers.

PS5: So long PSs!

Technorati: iiit, life

Finally at top

Yeah... I am at top finally. After weeks of effort, I am top now in google search results for the search string "Shaastra Thamesportal Zalecenia Autophytes Invernesshire". Just 3 hours before I was at a meagre 5th position and now I am at top!! Atriiecs has been pushed dwon to second. He he, the wish that I made here in Postscript(PS1) seems to be coming true...

Spamming under my name !!!

There is an entry in iiit blogroll with the name "sandy" that is not mine. That blog is contesting for the google seo contest. Now as soon as I stopped spamming, someone else is doing this under my name!!

UPDATE : That blog has been removed now. so here is the screenshot:-

Read on for the full story.....

For quite long I have been spamming in my splog(spam+blog) Shaastra Thamesportal Zalecenia Autophytes Invernesshire. This all I was (and I am) doing for the Google SEO contest being conducted by IITM as a part of its techfest Shaastra.
I also used comment spamming hoping to increase my PR only to find that most blog sites(wordpress, in my case) put the attribute rel="nofollow" in all links posted in comments. That attribute was started/proposed by google and basically means that google won't consider the link with this attribute for page rank purposes.
Then I slowly realised that I should not comment-spam. I also apolozised. Then I realised that I am also spamming blogroll by registering my splog there. It was today only that I asked smr to remove my splog from blogroll. And then....... I was surprised to see a similar splog on blogroll under my name!!

Well its not exactly my name, that guy's name is also sandeep, Sandeep Reddy. [Update: and he is with his friend ad srikanth]. They are students of IITM karshak engg college hyd. He is They are the one who are at top in this contest right from the beginning. Theirs blog is at atrieecs.seo.iitm.ac.in. Everyone else has tasted all positions in google search results, but THIS blog has never budged from the top. Congrats to them for that. But dude! don't spam under my name or under a name that is similar to mine. Anyways, you blog is going to be removed soon as you are not a iiit student. I have mailed smr.

PS: The guy, Sandeep Reddy, who is at top , is quite a bright student. See his webpage here.
PS1: If not me, someone with a similar name is winning this contest. I would love to see the top two positions going to SANDEEPs.... only problem is , it would have been better if I was the first one and he the second :)

Technorati: google, Shaastra, SEO, blogger, blogging, blogspot, wordpress, contests, iiit, spam

New Look 2

Changed the template once again :)

Technorati: blogger, blogging, blogspot, template

New Look

As you can obviously see, I have changed my template. Does it look better?
Of course, it looks better, atleast to me and that is all that matters. The old template had lots of images which made it very slow to load. This one is much faster to load.
I am planning to make my own template for blogger, which would look like one of those ajax sites. No ajax, but look would be look like that. Its not that only ajax sites could have that look, but normally such looks are present in ajax sites.

Technorati: blogging, template, blogger, blogspot

My take on attendance policy

A hot debate is going on on Karan's blog regarding the attendance policy. Here I am presenting my own views and solutions.

My Views:-
1. 85% is too much. Should be reduced to 70%.
2. Reducing grades should not be the punishment for less attendance. Faculty says you perform bad if u dont attend classes. So we already get punished by getting bad grades. Then why to reduce grade further on top of it.

Note: Faculty says we perform bad if u we dont attend, not I :) There are tens of examples of students who got an A and then their grade is reduced because of less attendance(including me :( ). So, in a way faculty's argument itself is at fault. Either way, its proved that reducing grade is not a solution.

My Solution:-
If at all there has to be a punsihment, then it should be doing some kind of social work for a week or two, like teaching slum kids, etc. Or may be attend Jivan Vidya for a week. Prof. Sangal will agree to it :) There should be an FSIS where we can say to the faculty to change the punishment to doing social work.