Top blogs

Major Google updates: has your blog been affected?

Google Search carried out at least three major updates this year, and all are such that bloggers might have seen a dip (unusual: rise) in the search performance of their blogs.

The first one, that was announced last year was relating to page experience. In short, if a page has features that give bad experience to the visitor, that affects the search performance of that page. Google itself considers it a significant addition to how it looks at webpages

The other two updates are in one sense even more important: they relate to spam or artificially jacking up one's webpages on the search result pages (SERP). If your website or blog has been getting links from guest posts, forums, etc in a way that it looks artificial to Google, you are in trouble. The first of the two updates was rolled out through June-August. We at Top Blogs received its notice on 24th August, and has seen slight uptick in its performance.

The next spam update is currently being rolled out.

What is Google's advice to website owners? As always, it advises that the quality of content and its usefulness to the visitors should be in mind rather than artificial boosting of site ranking and - worse - trying to fool search engines with tricks. That applies to not only Google but also Bing, Yahoo! and other search engines, isn't it?

India's top economy and finance blogs in 2021

The following is the list of top Indian finance, business and economy blogs in 2021.

This listing contains blogs that have been providing value to people interested in this niche over a long time. Unlike earlier lists, this list has blogs from firms also. The list, thus, has blogs ranging from those maintained by a big media house and firms to those maintained by personal bloggers, one even on the blogspot subdomain.

We were constrained to NOT include blogs that were not regularly updated or in which the sole concern of the website/ blog owner was business rather than sharing information and advice.

The blogs are arranged alphabetically, taking the most representative part of the blog domain. Broad area(s) covered by the blogs are given in bracket alongside the title of the blog.

Here is the list:

aishmghrana - AishMGhrana [Companies' legal administration]
basunivesh - BasuNivesh [Investment]
bemoneyaware - Be Money Aware Blog [Pers finance]
capitalmind - capital mind [Investment]
cashoverflow - Cashoverflow [Investment]
charteredclub - Chartered Club Blog [Pers finance (mostly taxation)]
elearnmarkets - eleaarnmarkets [Pers finance (focus on stock markets)]
fintrakk - FINTRAKK [Pers finance (mostly stock market)]
forbesindia - Forbes India Blogs [Multi-disciplinary]
freefincal - FreeFinCal [Pers finance]
getmoneyrich - GetMoneyRich [Investment]
goodreturns - GoodReturns [Multi-disciplinary]
jagoinvestor - JagoInvestor [Investment]
moneytap - Money Tap [Credit (loans)]
myinvestmentideas - MyInvestmentIdeas [Investment ideas]
nirrtigo - Property, Real Estate, housing, and Economy in India... [Real Estate]
niveshmarket - Nivesh Market [Pers finance ]
stableinvestor - Stable Investor [Investment]
subramoney - Subramoney [Economy & finance]
Swaminomics - Swaminomics [Economics]
taxguru - TaxGuru [Taxation]
theleapjournal - The Leap Blog [Economics: multi-author blog]
tradebrains - Trade Brains [Investment & trade in stocks]

Want a cheap web host for a video blog? Read before you jump!

Paid hosting, you know, is much better than free hosting for blogs and websites. By that logic, if you want lots of videos on your blog or want to have a vblog or vlog outright, you MUST have a self-hosted blog with the facility to host a number of videos.

Add to that, the fact that videos

are difficult to edit (and professional editing tools and skills cost a ton),
come in different formats and not all open on all computers or mobile devices,
cannot be viewed when the computer or mobile phone does not support that format,
take a great deal of space (and web space is an expensive commodity),
can become unusable when new technology and formats are used by browsers (and converting individual videos and reloading them after a few years is a big job).

Now juxtapose this with the hosting realities:

Between the two major free blogging platforms, Blogger allows you to post videos free on your blog; Wordpress (free) does not allow that.
Web hosts charge for space (and videos take huge space).
Videos need big bandwidth for their playback by users (so, if many users visit your website and play the video, either the site will hang or the host will demand extra payment for more bandwidth).

But there is a ready-made solution from Google, and it is so simple!

Host your videos on YouTube

If you have not published your videos on YouTube yet, let me tell you that it is as simple as sending an email. You need to have a Google account and the YouTube is all for you to use. You can upload videos in many formats and sizes as standalone videos and can have playlists and channels that you can share with others. Each of these have their own URLs, so you can post them the way you post images. In addition, you can embed a video on the blog or any other website (not social networking accounts) so that it plays there itself.

In addition to giving you free space to host your videos, YouTube hosting gives you many other advantages:

You earn money when people visit your videos.
You get comments and feedback.
You can link your blog and get traffic to the blog.
Make channels of videos and let people subscribe to these, getting you more traffic and income.
Download free music and sound effects for use in videos.
Get detailed analytics of your videos and channels.
You can even live stream events after some additional verification by Google.
The videos are secure and available 24x7.
And much more!

You will realize that his is an enormous facility and yet it does not consume space on your blog or website. So, if you want to open a vblog, have many videos on your blog, or have a website with numerous videos or something similar, think of YouTube first.

Laptop not recognizing headphones fixed

This post is not on blogging but helping bloggers, especially new and bloggers on YouTube whose laptop has stopped recognizing headphones. This may happen occasionally or all the time. Because I fixed it, thought to share it with the community.

Windows 10 comes with a Realtek audio driver pre-installed for managing the audio. But often it is not installed with all its wares and sometimes it misbehaves too. One frustrating thing that many users face is the laptop not recognizing headphones. And when the laptop does not recognize headphones or headsets, you try to change all types of settings but it does not help. It happens mostly on Windows 10 computers.

This is how you should approach it, and it will work perfectly.

1. Go to Control Panel. Then click on the grid of dots to open all services. If Realtek audio manager is listed, you can change the audio output settings there.

2. The issue could be worse: Realtek audio manager missing issue. In that case you have to download Realtek HD audio manager. You need to download the driver pack. This is available on Realtek site, for both 32 bit and 64 bit computers. However, downloading the audio driver from Realtek site is a pain, because the connection is extremely slow, it breaks and the downloaded audio driver might not even work!

Here comes my experience handy. I tried Dell and Sony websites where too the Realtek audio driver is available. However, the download from OEMdrivers did wonders. It fixed the laptop not recognizing headphones issue in two ways: It started shifting to the inbuilt speaker or headphone when the headphone was inserted or removed. In addition, it started giving prompts when a new device or software (e.g. Whatsapp) wanted to use a sound device.

Let me give the download link for Realtek HD audio driver/ manager. There are options for Windows 7, 10, 11 etc, and also 32 bit and 64 bit.

Disclosure: I have no commercial affiliation whatsoever with OEMdrivers.

Directory of Best Hindi Blogs 11th edition released: हिंदी के सर्वश्रेष्ठ ब्लॉग्स की डायरेक्टरी का 11वां संस्करण प्रस्तुत

हिंदी के सर्वश्रेष्ठ ब्लॉग्स (top Hindi blogs) की डायरेक्टरी का 11वां संस्करण आपके सामने है. हिंदी ब्लॉगों के संसार में जो नया पाया और जो चल रहा है, उसपर चर्चा कुछ समय बाद करेंगे. बस इतना कहना है कि इंटरनेट/ वेब पर सोशल नेटवर्किंग और वीडियो शेयरिंग के आधिपत्य के बावजूद जो लोग ब्लॉगिंग जैसे गंभीर और टिकाऊ माध्यम से खुद को अभिव्यक्त कर पा रहे हैं, वे प्रशंशा के पात्र हैं.

संचार या इंटरनेट की टेक्नोलॉजी पर भी हिंदी में ब्लॉग लिखे जा रहे हैं, लेकिन वहां अभिव्यक्ति या ज्ञान का आदान-प्रदान नहीं, व्यवसाय मुख्य उद्देश्य है. हम टेक्नोलॉजी पर ऐसे ब्लॉगों को इस लिस्ट में सम्मिलित नहीं कर पाए जो पूरी तरह से व्यावसायिक हैं, हालाँकि ऐसे ब्लॉग धनार्जन की कसौटी पर इस डायरेक्टरी में सम्मिलित अधिकतर ब्लॉगों से ज़्यादा सफल हैं.

जैसा कि आप जानते होंगे, इस डायरेक्टरी में पूर्णतः व्यावसायिक और फ़र्मों/ कंपनियों द्वारा चलाये जाने वाले ब्लॉग सम्मिलित नहीं किए जाते. ऐसे ब्लॉगरों के ब्लॉगों को भी सम्मिलित कर पाना मुश्किल हो जाता है जो अपना परिचय पूरी तरह से छिपा कर रखते हैं, क्योंकि यह पता नहीं होता कि वो ब्लॉग किसी कंपनी द्वारा चलाये जा रहे हैं या व्यक्तियों या संस्थाओं द्वारा.

हिंदी के बहुत सारे ब्लॉगों पर डिज़ाइन और रंगों का ध्यान नहीं रखा जाता. हमने डिज़ाइन को डायरेक्टरी में सम्मिलित करने का पैमाना नहीं रखा है लेकिन फूहड़ लगने वाले ब्लॉग तो "सर्वश्रेष्ठ" ब्लॉग कतई नहीं हो सकते, इसलिए ऐसे ब्लॉग भी डायरेक्टरी में जगह नहीं ले पाते चाहे वह कितने ही संसाधन-संपन्न क्यों न हों.

यह पुरानी पोस्ट हिंदी ब्लॉगों में डिज़ाइन के बारे में टिप्स देती है: Web design in Hindi blogs: major problems हिंदी के ब्लॉगों के डिज़ाइन में बड़ी खामियां. संक्षेप में, अधिक दिखने वाली डिजाइन और वर्तनी आदि की खामियाँ इस तरह की होती हैं:

मात्राओं का गलत प्रयोग, विशेषकर गलत बिन्दु और ऊ की मात्रा..
अर्ध-विराम का गलत प्रयोग. (अर्ध-विराम शब्द के अंत में लगता है और उसके बाद एक स्पेस देना होता है, न कि अर्ध-विराम को अगले शब्द में जोड़ दिया जाए.)
अक्षरों को बहुत बड़ा या बहुत छोटा कर देना.
रंगों का बहुत अधिक प्रयोग। फूहड़ रंगों का प्रयोग। गलत रंगों का मेल.
पठन सामग्री के पीछे ऐसे रंग या चित्र लगा देना कि पढ़ना मुश्किल हो जाए.
बेहद लंबी लेबल या टैग लिस्ट (15-20 से ज्यादा लेबल बेमानी हो जाते हैं, साथ ही वे ब्लॉग को अक्षरों के कूड़ेदान में बदल देते हैं.)
बहुत लंबी ब्लॉग-लिस्ट (blogroll) तथा ब्लॉग-लिस्ट में ऐसे ब्लॉग भी सम्मिलित होना जो बंद हो गए हों.
ब्लॉग के खत्म हो जाने के बाद पूंछ की तरह लटकता हुआ साइड-बार. (ऐसा अधिकतर तब होता है जब हम लंबी लेबल-लिस्ट या ब्लॉग-लिस्ट साइड-बार पर लगाते हैं.)
बहुत पतले कॉलम या साइड-बार, जिनमें सामग्री ठीक से नहीं आ पाती.

आशा है, आपको डायरेक्टरी का यह संस्करण पसंद आएगा. अगर कोई अच्छा ब्लॉग छूट गया हो तो इस ईमेल पर सुझाएं: kp.nd.2008@gmail.com हम उसे परख कर डायरेक्टरी में जोड़ लेंगे.

This post is to announce the 11th edition of the Directory of Best Hindi Blogs. It lists top Hindi blogs in 2021 selected for their quality of content, regularity, and commitment to blogging as a craft and a medium of expression.

As in the past, we have included quality blogs in Hindi that are being maintained by individuals or organizations but not those (i) maintained by business entities or (ii) fully commercialized. We could not include those blogs in the listing whose bloggers do not disclose their identity - whether they are an individual or an institution or a corporate entity.

A big majority of Hindi blogs do not care for colors and design. Though it is not a selection criterion, we could not take blogs with an extremely bad sense of design or colors. We shall come up with another post on other observations on the Hindi blogosphere.

You will agree that despite the domination of social networking and video sharing platforms on the web, maintaining a traditional blog, that too for sharing knowledge and expressing oneself, is a task that needs commitment and passion. We appreciate Hindi bloggers who have withstood the onslaught of social media and have continued with the serious, stable and much more valuable medium of blogging.

Hope you like this listing of top Hindi blogs. If you find any good-quality blog that is missing here, please share that with us here: kp.nd.2008@gmail.com