Bounce rate in Google Analytics is the percentage of single page visits spent on your site before clicking (bouncing) away. A high bounce rate means that your entrance page is not relevant to your visitors.

I wondered whether I should change my blog title which is “Making Money on the Internet”. When I started this blog making money was my intention, but I have given up on that project and the blog is more of a personal diary; perhaps my title should reflect this.

Some blogs have a commenting cut-off. For example they stop accepting comments after 6 weeks. I never understood why they did this until now.

Recently  I have been receiving a lot of comments on posts I wrote a couple of years ago. Searching back through old posts in order to answer the comment is very time-consuming. However I have found a short cut which I’d like to share with you;

1) Go to your WordPress Blog Dashboard and click ‘comments‘

2) Click onto the post title where you have a new comment to answer.

Russian scientists expect humanity to encounter alien civilisations within the next twenty years. “The genesis of life is as inevitable as the formation of atoms…..Life exists on other planets and we will find it within 20 years,” said Andrei Finkelstein, director of the Russian Applied Astronomy Institute.

Finkelstein says that 10% of the known planets circling suns in our galaxy resemble Earth. If water can be found there, then so can life.

I hope the Russians are right. I have always believed that our galaxy is teeming with life, but that the size of the universe, and the enormous space between solar systems meant that contact is highly unlikely.

Many people have favourite numbers but there has been scant research on why this should be so. Why have an emotional attachment to an unemotional number? The mathematitian Alex Bellos would like to know and his survey website is www.favouritenumber.net .

The website is simple to complete, and refreshingly there is no email collection. Only leave an email address if you want the results of the survey which will be in 2012.

Apocalypse Now is my favourite war film and I have owned the DVD for many years. Last night however was the first time I watched all the “extras”. Here the director Francis Ford Coppola explains the ending.

Apocalypse Now was originally issued with no credits at the start or finish, instead cinema goers were presented with a film programme. When editing the film for worldwide release Francis Ford Coppola realised handing out programmes was impractical, and so credits were included at the end.

Everyone can make mistakes, even a genius like Einstein. The theories of relativity (Special and General) have been proven many times since they were first published over 100 years ago.

Gravity bending light has been observed by locating the position of a known star near our sun, then during an eclipse noting the change in apparent position. Light has bent towards our sun making the star apparently change it’s location.

Even time dilation has been proven. The atomic clocks on satellites are nano-seconds slower than the clocks on earth, because of the speed they are travelling and gravity being lighter in orbit.

I’ve just written 3,000 words on the Secret, and do you know what happened as soon as my back was turned? God came down from Heaven and nicked it. The Bastard. I made it all easy to understand, but he wasn’t happy with  that oh no. Too easy. So he came down from Heaven and nicked it.

Do you know who I suspect gave the game away? My mate the great god Google. Yes. Who would have thought that? My Mate. Google. He spotted my 3,000 words on the Secret that would make the whole of mankind happy, and you know what he did? (SAVE DRAFT)

Recently I have been posting 4 times a week, and commenting on blogs 50 times per week. This naturally improved my site traffic from around 1,000 visitors per month to 5,000.  My Alexa rating also improved from around 200,000 to 106,000.

I have been ill recently and have not posted anything new for a month. I watched my Alexa rating deteriorate as expected to 130,000 today. However when I checked my Google Analytics statistics
my visits has improved to 7,000 and my visitors to 6,500. WHY? I’m puzzled.

Since I’ve been blogging I have read many positive posts about making money, however they all tend to be in the future tense. Loads of Dollars will be earned by applying this or that system, but no subsequent information about what actually happened. How much was earned?

I’d like to ask my blog readers if you are earning money online, and if you are, how are you doing it? My instinct is to create niche, or micro niche websites and sell products as an affiliate. Perhaps creating review sites that compare and contrast different products in the niche. 

The revolutionary turmoil that has emerged in North Africa and the Middle East has been connected to the freedom of information, and the cross-border connections that Facebook and Twitter allow.

However a humble eBook may have also contributed to the peaceful nature of these social and political movements.

From Dictatorship to Democracy was first published in 1993 as an 88 page booklet stuffed full of advice on how to overcome authoritarian regimes in a peaceful manner.

The author is Gene Sharp who argues that there is no point attacking dictatorships with violence, as state control of the army, police and security forces means that this is a Dictators centre of power. Instead he advocates peaceful protests in the manner of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.