Category: wordpress

Farewell To The Blog?

Hello to everyone 🙂

Today’s blog post is a difficult one to write.

I am only writing this post now because I have spoken to so many people and we have all had the same questionable moments of following an active blog and then suddenly, they stop being updated or just disappear completely. You, my readers, have given me so much time by reading and commenting on my articles, that it really seems only fair that I should take the time to share the current situation honestly with you.

I have spent so much time here on the blogosphere and made so many friends, that I have always wanted to continue my blogging here as long as was possible. However, it seems that timing and circumstances have come to a moment where I may have to say farewell to the blog. I knew myself that when I made the decision to end my affiliate marketing with large companies and to stop my promotions from affiliate platforms and instead to focus on encouraging others to shop locally and frequent the small businesses near to them, that any income from the affiliate marketing would stop and I most likely would not be able to pay for the website when the time came to do so. While many would cite this, and my refusal to ask for reader donations (it’s just wrong…) as bad business decisions, I do not. I wanted to encourage others to help small businesses, and I did. I was so horrified by highly successful influencers begging followers for money when the pandemic hit that I wanted to maintain some dignity myself. I was able to do both those and because of that, I do not feel a failure or anything of the kind.

So I just wanted to inform what is happening and that there is a high chance that I will be saying farewell to Lifexperiment Blog. It has been an amazing 5 years here and I thank you all so much for making these years so much fun! I wish you all happiness in your lives and success in your journeys. Thank you so very much for all of the support, friendship, ideas, encouragement and laughter!

Be Good

-Mliae

Discovering ‘Hidden’ Comments & WordPress

I have found myself getting lost in the labyrinth of WordPress settings at times and I made an interesting discovery days ago. Where there was a page of comments waiting approval and spam comments, which has always been those bot comments filtered out, I discovered a hidden treasure pile of comments. Actual comments, from actual people that I have been interacting with for a long time in some circumstances. Some of these from many months ago and these comments never showed themselves for approval. So, I have been replying to ages old comments recently. If it was a comment of yours, I am very sorry for the delay!

I just hope that no-one feels that I have just been ignoring people. Sori sori! :/

If you are someone who can tell me why comments from people who had been approved for instantaneous posting of comments previously, are suddenly in my spam comments folder, it would be good to know so please tell us!

Technical difficulty…always.

-Mliae

I Am Very Sorry For The Mass Amount Of Notifications Sent From My Site Today!

This is truly embarrassing and I do apologise. I needed to downgrade my website because…economy. Support told me that I may lose some content and I was prepared for that possibility. It seems that the resetting of my website resulted in the system going peanuts and apparently sending out more than 30 notifications for both random published posts as well as some drafts that had been just sitting unfinished in a folder for a very long time.

So please, if you see many emails from me in your inbox, this is what it is. Just delete it and continue on with your day.

Technology is not my friend today

-Mliae

How are you?

Hello world 🙂

I wanted only to ask how you are doing? With less than 2 months still of 2020 – the oddest year I have ever experienced – I feel that many of us find ourselves in similar circumstances of wait and worry.

I have found that in my own life, spending too much time online leads me to obsessively looking the news and other media outlets, which helps me – not at all. I instead try to set my focus on other things…happier and less stressful things.

Also, being unable to just go to places and parties…visiting friends or family frequently and without restriction has resulted in weight gain. I am still able to go places and visit with people, but I had not realised the frequency that I was on the move before the restrictions until I found myself feeling quite lazy with the altered pace of social life during restrictions. I have gained more than 10 kgs (about 20 lbs?) this year, and although it disturbs me that even my too large comfortable clothes are now a very tight fit, I am surprising myself with the smallest bit of acceptance. I do truthfully hope that I will fit comfortably into my clothes again soon.

I am very fortunate in that I am able to spend time in the outdoors and to see others when it is suitable circumstance. I have thought about you, my readers and friends in the blogosphere, quite often. I do hope that you and those close to you are doing well.

How are you?

-Mliae

The WordPress Whitescreen and Updates

I have been trying to write a new post for few days now.  But every time I log into the WordPress pages, Ive been greeted with a blank screen. So frustrating!

This seems to be a common problem. My biggest frustration is that although there are many articles online about the problem and what it could be, as I could not access my site, I was unable to do anything.

I have been trying to write to you, my readers, about my previous experiment. I was going to take a week learning about new happenings in IT. This was before some family things happened, and I took a small pause. I was going to look into the IT and share with you what I learned. When I began looking into things, it was a bit too much for me. With all of the AI and the social ranking systems, newer and newer systems – making the current systems seem quite ancient (and I don’t even understand those!). It was too much. I left the IT information search for something more fitting…. Gardening.

I like gardening. Or the fantasy of it, at least. I understand now that I am a amateur. I am a seed in soil and hope it grows person. Which sets me in the category of ‘dangerously stupid’ gardener.  I have read about mono crops, polyculture, food forests, planting zones  (proving my stupidity), hardiness levels and even…planting in the snow (sounds crazy)?? The thing I learned is that I have no wisdom about what I am doing.

Thank you for reading!

-Mliae

To Like or Not To Like, The Like Button is The Question!

I have been thinking much about the possibility of removing the like button on my WordPress blog posts. There are good things and bad things that could go with removing it. Since I share everything with you, my readers, I wanted to ask your opinion on this. I know it is quite a trivial question and I do feel a bit silly. However, this site is for you. I know sometimes when I visit webpages, there are certain things that I find quite annoying, which make me not want to revisit the site. And of course, I do not wish to get that response here.

The Good:

I sometimes get the feeling that often people will just hit the like button on their readers, without ever actually reading the content. It seems that there exists a mentality similar to the Instagram game here, where people will like a post and expect a return like on their content.  As I do make an effort to visit blogs, I only ‘like’ posts which I actually enjoyed reading. I do not just go clicking away on others’ sites.  This tit-for-tat game is frustrating and time consuming for me. So, not having the like button takes this game playing away.  As I will still have the comments section open, I will be able to of course engage in good discussion with you, as I do enjoy that!

I don’t focus so much on numbers. But I do notice them sometimes. And because only people on WordPress are able to leave a like, but none of my readers from other sites or email, the likes do not really give an accurate accounting. So there’s that…

The Bad:

I know that I will wonder if anyone is reading my posts. And if you liked it, or hated it. Silence on the internet is anxiety inducing.

The Scary:

If the like button is removed, I will discover if my content is actually quite horrible. I do fear that if I remove the like button, that somehow I will find myself here writing….for myself. And that is….worrisome.

What do you think?

-Mliae

Happy Birthday, Lifexperiment Blog!

4 years…. I really can’t believe it.

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You can imagine the smile on my face when I logged into WordPress and saw the special notification waiting for me. You know the one:

anniversary-2x

Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com!
You registered on WordPress.com 4 years ago.
Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging.

When I started this blog, I told myself that I would try blogging for 1 year. I made a goal for myself and was quite surprised when I reached it. Now, 4 years later, I find myself wondering how I ever managed to write somethings that people thought was interesting. I was quite certain that when I shared my thoughts, my questions, my ‘I wonder…..what would happen if…. maybe I figure out the answer for myself….let’s experiment’ on the internet, that I somebody would tell me in very loud voice how odd person I am and that there is ___ medication to help me ‘fix my strange’. But no. Instead, I found myself surrounded by some very cool people who not only understand my oddness but encourage me to find the answers to my questions!

I thank you, my readers, my friends here on the blogosphere! It has been a lovely 4 years here and I’m looking ahead to this next year. 🙂

Over these 4 years, I have slowly been finding my focus as a blogger. I enjoy writing about many subjects, as I am sharing my experiences here with you. I am learning all the time, those things which I like and enjoy sharing about and those things which are bla for all of us.

For this coming year, going into year 5, I do have some visions for this blog. I would like to do some more experiments. I am on the search for the most affective skincare & anti-ageing products. (I am done with wasting my money on products that don’t work and I know you are also!) I would like to learn how to make some new foods and sharpen my focus a bit on the foods I am eating. Also, I think I am returning to the diet. I plan to continue my sustainability features & spotlights on small businesses that are doing good things (as this is a subject that is important to me).  Also, sharing those life moments which I enjoy sharing so much. 🙂

Thank you for 4 great years!

-Mliae

Why I No Longer Write For Millionaire’s Digest

Millionaire’s Digest. Many of us are familiar with it. Its the site that has 100’s of likes within 1 hour of publishing a post. They were big. I haven’t seen them around in some time, but it may be because when I stopped submitting my work, I disconnected completely.

I was so excited to have my work published on the Millionaire’s Digest platform. Until … I understood their game.  It did not take many published posts for me to realise that this platform was just turning over posts in order to bring traffic. Meaning, that a post would go live, get loads of likes and then sink into oblivion – only to be posted again at a later time. When these posts were published again (or rescheduled?) all of the likes and comments from the 1st, 2nd, 3rd publishings were still there. Making it look like there were +400 likes, when actually it was only more like 20 for that publishing period. I would never had noticed this except when I reblogged my own posts to my site here at Lifexperiment Blog, it would become unviewable after several days. Quite frustrating.

And then it came….the biggest insult of all. I soon realised that Millionaire’s Digest didn’t accept me as a writer because I was good at it. They didn’t even care what I submitted. They just needed consistently revolving content. They did not seem to care if it was reliable information, good content, well considered, or a photo of a filthy toilet – they would take anything they could just get. Considering all the hours I had devoted to providing the platform well heavily researched, well-written, thoroughly cited content  – I felt used. Just a tiny piece in their big traffic-promoting machine. And it hurt. A lot. It was no longer an earned privilege to write for such a huge platform. It never was, even I was quite proud of myself for being accepted as a writer. Until I learned the game.

The game seemed clever in its simpleness. Beg people to create content for you, then post it, reschedule it for posting again, then again. The appearance of high traffic is there which generates even more traffic. Making it a perfect marketing machine. Anyone who doesn’t look deeper sees only a heavily ‘successful’ blog.

People have different motivations for blogging, and making money (attracting business marketing) is one of the biggest.  I understand. Money is difficult to get and getting paid to blog (actually paid – you know, where you can pay the bills or at least some of them) is like finding a unicorn. It can happen, but the rest of us are just imagining.

What bothers me about this plan is that it is so selfish and not caring about the people involved. You know, those people who spent so much time creating content for a site that was so self-thinking that we weren’t of importance. Just the workers there. Unpaid workers. Working for something we thought was great and was nothing more than a make money fast fraud for 1 guy.

I did google Millionaire’s Digest now and it seems that I am not the only writer that walked-away. I’m not sure if its even the same webpage, but it’s all new and there isn’t content anymore. Truthfully, you can still see the formatting posts – those fake ones.  It seems that a hard fall is what happens when you treat the people that are trying to help you, like rubbish.

If any bloggers are thinking about trying this – I would not suggest it.  Not only will it destroy any reputation you have as a human, but rescheduling your posts will badly mess with your SEO. All it takes is 1 person to click a link to your site that no longer exists, and the % is higher that they will never visit your site again.

Anyone else learning by bad experiences?

-Mliae

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I Keep Doing This…

So it seems that I keep accidentally publishing post drafts. Apologies for the title only post that I was just beginning to write and seemingly hit the publish button instead of the draft. Ugh.

I find it amusing though, that I got some likes on it.  Obviously no person read the post because there was no post yet written to read. Was the title that good? Or…how does this happen?

Please do not mistake me – I am NOT complaining about likes! No, no, no, no, no… not at all! But I do find myself asking the question: Does anyone actually read these posts? Or are people just scrolling through the reader hitting the ‘like’ button?

Whatever it is, I am sorry for the accidental posting. I will try not to do it so often, but we both know that it will happen again, most likely.

Have a lovely week’s end!

-Mliae

*Feature photo via Haha stop

Sharing a Small Fact About WordPress Plugins

Hello to you!

Many of my super readers are also fellow WordPress users. I discovered a little something about WordPress plugins and I thought I would share. (Had I known this, I never would have made this mistake.)

Many of you know that I went on a reformatting spree and managed to thoroughly destroy my blog pages. Some of which are yet unfixable.

Apparently, when you install your first plug-in on wordpress, you can say fare-the-well to some of your wordpress perks, previously taken for granted. For example; the plug-in I installed, completely scrambled my formatting. In a forever kind of way. I changed to varying themes with minimal success in retrieving things lost. One of the permanent losses is my reblog button. As someone who loves to share great posts on occasion, this was a real sad moment of realisation for me.

Worst of it? I did all that damage for a plug-in I didn’t even want! Ugh…

I finally spoke to WordPress about what I can do and was informed that when you install your first plug-in (!Any plug-in!), the reblog button is gone forever. (I noticed myself that if my reblog button on my site is missing, then I have no ability to reblog from others sites either…) *Sniff sniff

If this happens to you and you want a reblog button for your site, you can install another share plug-in which will give you the capability to create a button for wordpress sharing.

Good Luck; Ask yourself if you reeeaaaalllllyyyy need that plug-in!

-Mliae

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Bloggers Bash Blog Awards Voting Is Now Open!!

I am sooooo-excited about this. The Annual Bloggers Bash Blog Award is the first actual blog award I have been nominated for. We have now made it to the point of voting, which is completely up to you, my awesome readers!

There are 8 categories. You can vote for your favourite blogger in each of the 8 categories. My blog, Lifexperiment Blog, is a nominee for the Best Lifestyle Blog category.  Categories include: Best Blogging/Writing, Best Entertainment Blog, Best Food Blog, Best Lifestyle Blog, Best Personal Development Blog, Best Photography Blog, Best Travel Blog,  and Best Book Review Blog. Please click here to vote for your favourite blogs!

Thank you and….YAY! 😀

-Mliae

The Final Nominations list has been published!

The final nominations list for the Annual Bloggers Bash Blog Awards is now published! You can view the list by clicking here.

I am so excited to be included in this list. I am also happy to see that there are some friends from the blogosphere on here as well and I wish everyone much success!

A big thank you to the Annual Bloggers Bash and to whomever nominated me! 😀 Online voting starts 10.04.2019 and you can be certain that I will be blogging about it!

Sooo Cool!

-Mliae

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Just Another Site Fix: Removing Ads

Hi guys, I’m down here! Keep scrolling, you’ll find my site under all the ads. Keep scrolling…..

Wow. So….ads! As you know, I was trying to format my blog and I did something really strange. In the process of trying to repair the damage I had done, my site went a bit funky for about a week there. There were word ads everywhere! I have finally managed to learn how to control how these show all over the place and have them removed. If you are like I am, you hate visiting sites that are plastered with ads! I hope that I have solved the problem, and I truly apologize for any frustration or annoyance that this may have caused for you. Thank you so much for your understanding.

For anyone struggling with this, contact WP support. They’ve been very helpful!

I’m working on it!

-Mliae


Symantec Home 120x60

A Question For My Readers – Your Feedback Is Appreciated!

As you have probably seen, I decided to include some affiliate marketing here. I, of course, wanted to sign on with the companies and products that I myself admire. Sustainable fashion/home, luxury items, contemporary furniture, travel and software. Through this process, I have also tried to only offer those things which may be of interest to you, my readers.  I am aware, of course, that most any kind of advertisement goes unnoticed, or worse, makes people adverse to visiting ‘your’ site. But this also includes my being able to offer specialized promo codes. (Which is always nice to be able to share a special discount. I love special discounts!)

You are a very diverse group of people, and so I feel that instead of trying to guess about it, I should really just ask YOU. That’s what we do here…no?

Please, take the time to answer so I can stop being strange about this.

What would you prefer to see OR prefer to NOT see? (as per accessibility/promo codes):

  1. Travel (airfare, sight seeing, hotel…)
  2. Sustainable Goods
  3. Luxury Goods
  4. Luxury Resale (consignment)
  5. Software
  6. Gifts
  7. Handcrafted goods
  8. Beauty
  9. Home goods
  10. Helpful services
  11. Any combination of these which interests you (please state which)

This way, I am able to focus on only those things and I can remove myself from the remaining programmes to save everyone some time and frustration.

I would also like to ask you; How important are duties and shipping to you?

Please let me know and I will adjust accordingly.

Thank you for reading (& hopefully answering) this!

-Mliae

Oops! Your Patience Is Needed…

Yours truly decided that she was going to give this blog a complete make-over. In the process, I seem to have installed some items which did not work well with my format and seems to have scrambled … or just deleted…. many things on this website.

Basically, I got a bit over-motivated and broke my site. 😦

I am working with wordpress to correct these ‘issues’ as quickly as just is possible. Please be understanding. We will find a way to get things back to normal soon!

Thank you 🙂

I. am. an. idiot.

-Mliae


Deal Alert: HMA

Hello there,

As you know, I don’t usually post about purchasing. Software, especially that which is expensive, will be shared when I can manage to get a deep discount. I know that there are a lot of people out there using VPN’s so I thought I would for sure share this promo deal.

So here’s the deal: Hide My Ass VPN software is offering 75% off to my followers. They are shared according to currency below!

Hide My Ass VPN is offering a 75% off a 36 month subscription.

HideMyAss! VPN 75% off   for my followers! (This is for the USD crowd)

Privacy Day discount for my followers! (This is for the Euro crowd)

You’re welcome 🙂

-Mliae

*Feature photo sourced via Pixabay


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New Blog Series: The Broke Blogger’s Guide (To Life, Blogging & Other Weirdness)

This post (formerly just accidentally published & emailed to all of you…sori about that!) is about a new blog series I have been thinking about.

I thought it might be nice to share some of my budget bending tips for all things. Living on a budget isn’t easy. Neither is blogging on one. But if there’s one thing I have learned, it’s how to live on as lean a budget as possible. Also some time-management, resource management & quick solutions. I know that I am not alone in this, so I thought, this might be a fun series to start here on Lifexperiment Blog.

I am a blogger, I am broke… I am the broke blogger. Hey, why not?

Any thoughts on this? Good, bad…indifferent?

-Mliae

*Photo sourced via Pixabay

Trying New Blog Formats

I decided that I would like to add a bit of ‘newness’ to my blog here. As you surely noticed, I have been changing formats like I’m trying for new shoes. I do apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. I just can’t seem to find a format that I’m super happy with.

Does this happen to you? Do you become overwhelmed with the options and find something you think is perfect only to discover you can do nothing with it? Ugh.

Oh, if there was a format that you either do or do not like, please let me know.

Still on the search

-Mliae

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Lifexperiment Blog Has Been Nominated For Best Lifestyle Blog At The Annual Bloggers Bash 2019! #bloggersbash

This is exciting! 😀 😀 😀

Very, very cool! I am all smiles at the moment 😀 😀 😀 You can imagine my reaction when I looked at my email yesterday evening and noticed an email from Bloggers Bash. I have seen some of the posts about Bloggers Bash shared on some of my favourite sites, so I knew it was a real thing. At first, I didn’t completely understand what was happening. And then…Eureka!

Speaking the truth, I really don’t know how to react. This is the first actual blog award I have ever been nominated for, so I am surprised, stupid happy and many other things which I am unable to describe at the moment. I guess ‘can’t find words’ is true in this case. (I always wondered how that was possible, now I know!) I also spent most of last evening dancing around and annoying my husband. I think I mentioned this at least 30 times. Today I will mention it more, but I did not receive the email until it was already evening. 😉

thumbnail_Annual Bloggers Bash Awards Nominee Best Lifestyle Blog

So here’s the thing: Some of you actually nominated me! (Yes, I checked the site to make sure I didn’t actually nominate myself in some weird early morning stupor. I didn’t. It’s impossible.) So to whoever of you nominated me, A VERY BIG THANK YOU!!  I cannot believe it! As a blogger, having someone appreciate our work enough to nominate us for an actual award means so very much. Especially when there are days when all of us wonder if anyone is actually reading our posts.  😀 So Happy….SSSSOOOOO HAPPY!

The email told that voting does not happen for awhile yet. I will, of course, let you know when voting begins. Because, well…now that I’m in this thing, I think we should do this!

Thank you to everyone in my blog family for making this such an awesome place to be!

Stoopid happy

-Mliae

Link Up Party: 2/1/19

I’ve been following http://www.dreambigdreamoften.co for years now. I love it when he posts link-up parties, as they are a great way to network your blog! Where its encouraged to drop a link to your blog, without it being spam-my.
Join in!

Dream Big, Dream Often

 

It’s time for the Link Up Party weekend everyone!!  Strap on your party shoes and join the fun!  

Ok so here are the rules:

  1. Leave a link to your page or post in the comments of this post.
  2. Reblog this post.  It helps you, it helps me, it helps everyone!
  3. Edit your reblog post and add tags.

  4. Feel free to leave your link multiple times!  It is okay to update your link for more exposure every day if you want.  It is up to you!

View original post

The Blog Following Experiment is Complete!

Well, my people, I’ve done it! I have completed the year long blog following experiment! Can you believe that a year has already passed? Where does the time go so quickly?! For those of you that are unfamiliar with this experiment of mine, allow me to explain. As many of us do, I got really frustrated following blogs that would suddenly stop, or disappear.  I started to do some online researching (because, well, that’s what I do!) and some of the articles I found were… eye-opening. Like this post from Hellbound Bloggers which states that ‘…out of every 100 newbie bloggers, around 90 hang up their boots even before enjoying a trivial amount of success’. (Singhal, Harshit, 23 April 2017) or this beauty from the New York Times which cites a 2008 survey by Technorati and says ‘only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs that the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to roughly 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned…’ ( Quenquay, Douglas,5 June 2009) I kept telling myself, that this can’t just be true! So, I decide to do a little test for myself. You can find the full blogpost here explaining this whole process.

Results:

  • I followed 1000 blogs at random for 12 months:
  • Sites remaining after 1 year: 480 = 48% of total
    • Of those 480 sites, 346 had been updated within 7 days.
  • Month 1: 80 sites removed in February, which hadn’t updated the site in 2 months,  8% of total
  • Month 2: 95 sites removed in March, which hadn’t update in 2 months. 9,5% of total
  • Month 3: 0 sites removed in April. 0% of total. This has my attention. What’s happening in April?
  • Month 4: 25 sites removed in Maj, which hadn’t update in 2 months. 2,5% of total
  • Month 5: 23 sites removed in June, which hadn’t updated in 2 months. 2,3% of total.
  • Month 6: 35 sites removed in July, which hadn’t updated in 2 months. 3,5% of total
  • Month 7: 29 sites removed in August, which hadn’t updated in 2 months. 2,9% of total
  • Month 8: 23 sites removed in September, which hadn’t updated in 2 months. 2,3% of total
  • Month 9: 33 sites removed in October, which hadn’t been updated in 2 month. 3,3% of total
  • Month 10: 26 sites removed in November, which hadn’t been updated in 2 months. 2,6% of total
  • Month 11: 50 sites removed in December, which hadn’t been updated in 2 months. 5% of total
  • Month 12: 83 sites removed in January, 2019, which hadn’t been updated in 1 month or more. 8,3% of total
  • 18 sites were formatted where the posting dates were unavailable/hidden. 1,8% of total

Analysis: 

Although my small, unprofessional experiment shows that 52% of the blogs I followed were left abandoned within the year. This is a large difference to the 75%-95% of failing blogs that I read about.

It does seem to my mind that the reports were accurate in that the larger percentile of blogs left abandoned were within the time frame of the first 3-6 months of the blog’s creation.

Surprisingly, there seems to be an interesting pattern regarding the time of year. This may be entirely coincidence, but it seems that a higher percentage of blogs are ‘abandoned’ during the winter months. I very much want to know why April seems to be a magical month for blogging! Not even 1 blog was left unattended for the 2 month limit during the month of April. Which tells me that something is happening during March/April that is affecting blogging motivation. This may warrant further study, as I am unable to stop thinking about it.

34,6% of the total blogs studied had updated within 7 days of the end of the experiment. Many (but not all) of these blogs have an excess of 1000 followers. This could be approached from the view that more followers, leads to more blogging focus. OR that higher blogging focus leads to more followers. Either or neither could be true.

Methodology:

  • Follow 1000 blogs directly from the reader in a range of topics at varying times of day. I didn’t read them, I just hit the follow button on the top few posts under each topic. Wait several hours and repeat so as to gain a variety of nationalities. This lasted several days.
  • Once monthly, I would remove the blogs that had not been updated in 2 months. I would collect data and record it in experiment excel file. (colour-coded by month unfollowed)
  • On January of 2019 (the final month of the experiment) I removed all blogs which had not been updated in 1 month or more. Data was collected, recorded & coded in excel file.
  • On January of 2019, I recorded data as well on all remaining blogs that had been updated within 7 days.
  • Recorded data counted and recorded in above ‘results’ section

Methodological issues that could result in false data:

  • I was unable to give accurate monthly updates, as I first thought I would be able to. This is due to the fact that 1000 blogs is ALOT and when you go ‘manage blogs’, I noticed that only part of them would display. Even when I waited patiently, changed the order…It still could not display the entire list. This also needs to be taken into account when considering the things that could have affected the outcome of my experiment.
  • Blogs followed were followed directly from the reader > discover > tags section. As it would distort data to include some languages, but not others, I used only english language in the tags search (as it seems to be the most widely used language on this platform). This has limited the control group to blogs written in the english language.
  • 1,8% of total blogs followed did not show (on my reader or their sites) the date of last update. So there is a 1,8% unknown variable

So this is what I have found, people. I did invest much time into this experiment and I hope that I was able to offer some data that you find interesting. There are some surprises in this which I think may warrant further investigation.

Thank you for reading and you are welcome to share this if you wish.

-Mliae

*Sources:

Pixabay, Feature photo

Quenquay, Douglas, ‘Blogs Falling in an Empty Forest’ New York Times, 5 June 2009

Singhal, Harshit, ‘5 Reasons Why Most Bloggers Quit Blogging Within 6 Months’ Hellbound Bloggers, 23 April 2017


*This blog experiment was a small-scale, personal experiment for blogging/entertainment purposes which should in no way be considered as professional, publishable data.

Project Make – Candles

via Project Make – Candles

Hello there!

I wanted to share this great post via My Colorful Life. As you know, I have been searching for ideas on things I can make for gifts, instead of spending a ton of money on gifts people may or may not actually like. I have been trying to get the mustard situation down, but I just cannot allow myself to make it strictly by the recipe. Time to try something new. Candle-making is such a super idea and Suzi makes this seem so…possible!

I hope you enjoy this post as much as I have. Thank you, Suzi, for allowing me to share this!

-Mliae

*This post was reblogged via Press, so you need to click the link to read the full post


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Readers, You Decide!

Hello there 🙂

Today, I want to ask you about posting some of my series’ a bit more often. I have noticed that my ‘Quirky Quotes‘, ‘Random Factoids‘ and ‘Getting to Know You‘ series’ have actually had a much better response than I ever imagined they would. I have tons of fun with these also, so I have been going back-and-forth on the idea of doing them weekly, as opposed to monthly as I do now.

I originally opted to post these monthly because 1) I never imagined anyone other than myself would have so much fun with it and…2) I was only posting 2-3 times weekly. I am now posting more often so it would not be difficult at all to include these on a more frequent basis as well.

You are the ones reading my blog, so I leave this question in your very capable hands. Would you like to see more of these, or prefer I keep it the way it is now?

What do you think?

-Mliae

Happy Holidays and Link Party!

Hello all 🙂

It is that time of year again. I just wanted to wish all of you a very Happy Holiday! Enjoy being with you beloved ones, forget about the diet for a few days and take the time to just stop and enjoy the moment!

In the spirit of the season, I am opening the comment section on this post for everyone to share your blogs. Give us a short description of your blog and leave the link. If you feel like it, check out some of the other blogs there too!

Happy Holidays!

-Mliae

Two Types of Affiliate Marketing: An Avenue to Earn Money Blogging Around the World

Hi there 🙂

Today, I want to talk about something I know most of us are wondering about. That something is an avenue for income in the blogging world.

Now, if you are in the U.S.A., your options are basically unlimited. There are too many platforms to mention that cater specifically to the American market. For the rest of us lone bloggers looking for the odd sponsor or affiliate, things get much more complicated. In my 3 years of blogging, I have discovered that it is very difficult to find companies that want to work with someone in a random part of the world. Most want to corner the American market. For those platforms which occasionally have a desire for the European market, it seems to be either France or the UK which they are focused on. I understand entirely, the marketing aspect of this. However it can be quite stress-inducing for a blogger not located in the USA, UK or France to find platforms which would fit their demographic. Anyway. I have found several platforms with which affiliate marketing is possible for all of us everywhere, and I have found a couple platforms which are looking for bloggers all over the world for specific posts. This is what I wanted to share. I know that I have spent many hours of frustration that could have easily been avoided if I had found a post like mine.

So here goes:

For example shareasale.com  is a great site if you are looking to connect with a variety of companies that are looking for affiliates worldwide. This is strictly affiliate marketing. Share A Sale offers competitive commissions and unlimited access to apply with their companies.

Another great platform, which is relatively new is Get Blogged. This platform allows you to apply for multiple individual paid placement opportunities. It seems that Get Blogged mainly has opportunities in the UK, however there are placement opportunities globally, you just have to keep an eye out for them.

Hope this helps!

-Mliae

*Photo sourced via Pixabay

3 Year Bloggaversary and link party!

I love it when I get happy notifications from WP. Today, it’s that Lifexperiment Blog is celebrating its 3 year anniversary!

I must admit, I never thought that I would be celebrating 3 years here. I am so honoured that you take the valuable time out of your lives to read, comment, chat and even offer fun ideas! It means so much to me.  I feel like I have made so many connections here, my home on the blogosphere. Thank you, so very much!

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Every year when this time rolls around, I like to thank everyone by hosting a link party…and this is it! Please, feel free to tell us a bit about your site and leave your link in the comment section of this post. I hope that you will take the time to hang out a bit, chat and visit some others sites. We have a great community here!

So grab a drink, a few bites and let the fun commence! Wooohoooo!

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Also, you are free to share this post if you think your readers might want to join the link-up also!

Start dropping those links!

-Mliae

 

 

Recycled Book Reading Challenge: American Beauty by Zoey Dean

This is my RBRC book for the month of September.

I have to start by saying that this was not my kind of book. I think this book is aimed more towards the teen crowd. Apparently this is one book out of a large series.

This was more of a Beverly Hills high graduation story, rife with teen angst and first world problems. I was unable to get through the entire book.

If you would like to join the Recycled Book Reading Challenge, we would love to have you! You can find the complete challenge layout by clicking here. I usually post on the 1st day of every new month. I will add the link to your post from that month on my upcoming posts.

Thanks for reading!

-Mliae

 

Just Checking In … How’s It Going Today?

Greetings all 🙂

I was thinking about my blog-family on this grey cloudy day and I thought I would just pop in and ask you how is everyone doing today?

Monday, Monday, Monday…

-Mliae

*Photo sourced via Pixabay

Significant Sunday – A New Theme?

Hello everyone 🙂

Happy Sunday! Well, maybe not for everyone…you know what ‘they’ say: Going to sleep on Sunday, results in Monday. Anywhoo…

I read a great post by Ali at the Mindful Gardener. In the post, the possibility of starting a new theme on WP is discussed. That theme being ‘Soulful Sunday’. Now, don’t cringe. This has nothing to do with religion. (Trust me, I get it. I was scratching my head too before I read the post.) No. This is about posting a photo and telling about something that kind of makes you all warm and fuzzy inside that relates to it. (Please, correct me if I am mistaken here.) However, due to the ease of misunderstanding – I’m switching up to ‘Significant Sunday’.

I, personally, think it’s a grande idea! I mean…why not. As bloggers, we discuss products, health, travel, love, gardening and all manner of technical things. But we never quite manage to make ourselves the tiniest bit vulnerable, do we?

So here we are; Let’s get personal.

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This is my nostalgia for the week. I know, it seems like I’m about to do a promo. I assure you, it is nothing of the sort. The reason this makes me nostalgic is purely because of thoughtfulness and a seemingly new tradition of sorts. You see, every December for the past 3 years, no matter where in the world I am at the moment, my mother sends me a Body Shop Advent Calendar. It has come to my home, my office, and at one point when I was unable to be pinpointed exactly, a local pickup.

Ever year she waits for them to be released. And ever year I get a different one. And every year, I do not have to go out and buy myself nice smelling items for a good long while!

The fact that she thinks of me so diligently (and also that she manages to find a way to get these to me) just warms my heart.

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Family is so IMPORTANT! We must take the time to appreciate every bit of thoughtfulness. Our schedules are never too busy for that!

What’s your Significant Sunday?

-Mliae

 

Today We’re Celebrating 3,000 WP Subscribers to Lifexperiment Blog! THANK YOU!!!

Hello!

I am soooo excited to announce that http://www.lifexperimentblog.com has reached 3,000 WP subscribers! *Clutches roses and wipes tears 😉

I have no badge or notification to share as proof. Apparently, WordPress does not think this a monumental enough occasion. But for me, yours truly, this is HUGE! I have been looking forward to hitting this enormous milestone for quite a few months now and I am SO EXCITED!

Honestly though, it would mean absolutely nothing if not for you! THANK YOU SO MUCH, really,  for taking the time out of your busy lives to stop by and show interest in what I write here on my own teeny tiny corner of the web. I have made so many friends here, and I feel that this is a very important part of my every day – to check in, blab away, and continue my incoherent blabbing in the comments section. BTW- thank you so much for your kind comments!

Many thanks and much appreciation! Until the next milestone (hopefully!)

-Mliae

You are AWESOME!

 

Re-launching the Recycled Book Reading Challenge!

Hello 🙂

How is everyone today?

Today, I’m re-launching the Recycled Book Reading Challenge! I originally launched this challenge 2 years ago, and I was amazed at the results. The challenge originally ran for 1 year, but it kept going strong for at least a good 15 months! After a while, challenge posts began to dwindle down. I really love this challenge, and I want to keep it going. So…Here’s the new and improved RECYCLED BOOK READING CHALLENGE!

The ‘rules’ are simple. Mostly all of us have a bookshelf sitting there full of old favourites which are collecting dust. Do we want to read them? Of course! Do we ever? Uummmm…Nope. This challenge is designed specifically to make use of that which we already have. Free, simple, and a motivator. Here’s what you do:

  • Try to dust off an old friend and read it that month. Just 1 book.
  • Write a post about the book you read on the 1st of every month.
  • Challenge 1 friend by pinging them in your post. This isn’t required, but….the more the merrier!
  • Either pingback to this post or drop your post link in the comment section (of either this post, or my most recent RBRC post – I will see it.)
  • I will link to your post on my upcoming RBRC post on the 1st of every month.
  • Also, as a bonus, if you decide to IG your challenge with the #recycledbookreadingchallenge hashtag, I will share your post & tag you on IG 😉
  • This challenge is for 12 months, but really, just hang in there as long as you can.

It’s really that simple! Read before you Kondo-ize your bookshelf! LOLz.

Who’s with me?

-Mliae

I Read a Great Quotable Phrase Today

While I was visiting some blogs today, I saw this in one of the posts. I thought it was so perfect, I had to share it!

‘You are younger now than you will ever be.’ That’s it. Simple. True. It really shines some perspective on the fact that most of us over the age of 35, miss the days when we were younger – had less responsibility – looked better in anything we wore, etc. It’s true though, that we will never again be as young as we are today. Years from now, we may look back and wish for this time to return. So how’s about we make the best of the time we have…now…and live with no regrets in our later years!

How perfect is that?!

-Mliae

I’ve Officially Begun the Blog Following Experiment

I thought long and hard if I should invest the time and effort required to do this, and the answer is ‘Yes’. A while back, I was quite frustrated because so many of the blogs I follow just seem to drop off the face of the earth. No explanation, no nothing. Sometimes a blogger will return months later with an apology post. I understand that life happens. But it can’t be that so many people drop out due to illness or family situations.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, you can read my initial post here. I wrote a post saying that I was so tempted to follow a random 1000 blogs for 1 year to see how many were left standing at the end of that year. I didn’t want to do it from this blog because I am an avid reader of the blogs I follow here. I didn’t want them mixed up & wasn’t sure how to go about it, or if I should.

Thanks to the fact that I’ve got some awesome people who actually read my blog (THANK YOU!), I got some great advice in the comment section. So, I created a different site and spent several weeks following my 1000 blogs that will make up my ‘research base’. Once every month for the next 12 months, I will go through and unfollow every blog that has not posted for 2 months or more. (I am leaving a bit of room for error on the updated message, as some bloggers may have scheduled posts a month in advance.) On the 12th month, I will visit each blog that hasn’t updated in 1 month just to make sure there aren’t really any new posts (earlier than a month) and if not, I will unfollow those as well.

Each month, I will post an update of how many remain out of the original 1000. If I can manage to keep track of it, I will also keep a record of how many I lost that particular month and maybe it will give us a glimpse of actual insights. Plus, I will continually be looking for any additional publications or stats regarding the same issue.

This should be an interesting experiment. I do hope its worth the time I’m investing in it & I hope you find it somewhat interesting as well.

My first stats to share with you are this: It took me about a month to follow 1000 blogs. By the time I got them all followed, there were 5 blogs that hadn’t updated (according to the reader) in 2 months or more. I’m thinking that most of these had to have scheduled posts because I followed from the reader. Of the 1000 followed blogs, 28 followed me back. 1 of those that followed, no longer exists as a WP site. Wow, that was fast!

Thanks for reading!

-Mliae