Bandwidth usage for this blog has been rising over the past year (click for larger image):

In March 2012 bandwidth reached nearly 175GB, so I breached the overall 200GB limit of my web hosting company (I operate a good number of websites that take the remaining 25GB), leading to this and all those websites shutting down for a day. A commentator on this blog kindly suggested I move to cloudfare. I've done so. 

Bandwidth is now much better managed

This month I've used only 20GB for sabhlokcity.com in the first 5 days. Projecting this, it would mean 120GB usage for the month, with total usage of 150GB, well below 200GB. 

Cloudfare says (image below) that it has saved me 10GB of bandwidth so far (that's correct, for it would imply the blog was tracking at 180GB this month, consistent with last month – without Cloudfare). Cloudfare, a free service, clearly saves about one third bandwidth. That's good value. 

Moving to cloudfare will allow this blog to increase its visitors by 50 per cent without threatening a repeat shut down.

Speed

Cloudfare is also supposed to increase the speed of loading. I suspect, though, that Cloudfare has slowed down the speed of loading this blog, but can't say. 

Could you please provide me information about the speed (of loading) of this blog that you are experiencing? If it is a general concern, then I'll start reading up on strategies to speed up this blog, else I'll let things continue as they are.

Security

Cloudfare also claims to have stopped thousands of visits to this blog from "threats" such as web spammers, botnet zombies, exploit attackers, etc., – mostly from China. Have any of you (regular visitors) been blocked by Cloudfare? I'd be concerned if Cloudfare can't distinguish between "good" vs. "bad" visitors. [True, if you are being blocked, you won't be able to read this, either!]

My main experience in India is of a miserably slow internet. That could well be my particular connection, but it might be, I suspect, the fate of others in India, too. That means that bells and whistles on this blog could become a problem. The main page of this blog is huge, about 350 KB, and takes a lot of time to load in India.

Based on this and feedback received from PD, I've switched off the bells and whistles in the comments box.  Please let me now whether you find the plain vanilla comments box better. I don't know how it works with HTML and don't have the ability to tinker with it or improve it.

You either get this, or we go back the previous fancy one.

Let me know.

PD provided useful feedback on this blog, here. He also raised the issue of excessive ads, and noted: "I am assuming, that you make money of these ads to support the costs of running the site".

Well, here's some analysis. The biggest cost of this blog is the cost of accessing the internet. My monthly bill to access the internet is $49. 

The marginal cost of hosting this blog is pretty small. The domain costs $10 or so per year, so less than $1 per month.

In addition, web hosting costs $5 per month. (This cross-subsidises a number of domains that I host, e.g. freedomteam.in, freedomparty.in, liberalpartyofindia.org, seesta.org, indiapolicy.org, etc.) And of course the numerous sub-domains of this and associated domains. I pay all for these domains separately, but hosting cost is paid only once: just $5.

So my monthly costs of running this particular domain/blog are trivial, less than the cost of a cup of coffee. I don't need to be "supported" in meeting the cost of a cup of coffee.

So why do I run advertising on this blog? Two purposes:

a) To find out how this works

Curiosity. Sheer curiosity. So I set up an adsense account 1 1/2 years ago, and have so far, in 19 months, earned a notional $44, i.e. an astronomical $2.30 per month! [see detailed table below].

On top of that, google's policy states, "Payments are issued within 30 days after the end of the month in which your unpaid earnings reach A$150". This means that at this rate I'll get paid after 6 years! 

What is this telling me? That google is running a scam. MILLIONS of bloggers run ads which earn google REAL money, in the billions. Thereafter it sits tight on that money for years, and 99 per cent of the bloggers will NEVER reach the $150 limit. That means google will NEVER pay out the money that is due to the bloggers. A bigger scam one can't think of.

(I also run some google ads – for BFN. Google doesn't say that I should pay only after I've accrued $150!)

b) To stretch the reach of this blog

Every week someone or other contacts me wanting me to put ads on this blog. I ignore them because of the HUGE transaction cost of setting up accounts with individual advertisers. They have promised me big money – far bigger than what google offers, anyway – but I've simply ignored them.

What did interest me was MGID which doesn't offer cash (which is a sham anyway), but offers more traffic from diverse sources: people who might be interested in economics topics. That is why I run the MGID ads. I don't know how they make any money out of this, but they do ensure that (only) the following two posts of mine get about 30-60 additional visitors each day:

• For 12 out of the past 20 centuries, India was the world’s RICHEST “country”
• China exports seven times more than India

As you can see, I have no objection to extra traffic for these two posts. I am likely to find readers of the type I'm looking for: those interested in India, and who knows, even an FTI member or two. So I like MGID ads (they also spice up my website which is otherwise very boring).

In sum, I'm stuck like with google ads a mouse on a treadmill. In order to get my first $150 I have no choice but to keep going! I also want to know whether google will finally pay up in the end or not – I'm very sceptical of google, perhaps the greatest scam going in the world at the moment. They will surely have an excuse at that point not to pay. I need to understand its racket fully.

And MGID is GOOD. I have no intention of removing MGID ads.  

One thing is sure, I'm not going to end up a rich man from running ads on this blog!!

MY AD "EARNING" SO FAR

(Writing from India: fantastic experience earlier today morning of Delhi's new – private – PPP based – international airport; truly world class; will write more later, time permitting).

Bhagwad Jal has been kindly providing me with useful tips on how to manage this blog over the past year – such as on how various features/plugins work. Thanks for that, Bhagwad. Much appreciated. And, of course, I'm grateful to Anubhava Srivastava of FTI for introducing me to WordPress in the first place. 

I'm a blog novice; still learning. 

I've now received very helpful feedback on the design and looks of this blog and would like to seek your assistance to study this matter further.

The comment received

Sanjeev: I am not sure if anyone else has already mentioned this to you but your blog re-design is probably turning off some visitors (if not a lot). 

It cuts of words to the left/ does not feel navigation friendly and appears too aggressive (not sure what word to use). 

Hope this makes sense.. This is not meant as a criticism at all but a genuinely friendly observation..

I would not want people switching off frm reading your blog merely because of a design issue/ 

My response

I've been fighting against web hacking of my blog for long, but have not changed its theme or design since I picked the free Whitehouse theme in mid-2010. Not sure exactly what's the (new) visibility issue. Would you be able to provide a screen shot? I'll also ask readers about what they think /experience.

In brief, I'm always grateful to receive such feedback since I'm can't possibly know (without spending too much time on this) whether this blog is working properly. I'd be grateful if you could provide me with screen shots of any difficulties you might be experiencing with this blog.

Since my knowledge of how to fix such matters varies from poor to dismal, it would be of great help if you could also provide me with directions on how to fix the identified problem. Please write to me at sabhlok AT gmail DOT com  (Note that I'm slowly winding down my yahoo account which has very poor search features and doesn't have any of the flexibility of gmail.)

For some reason, Google has hired a Head Designer who has an urge to build huge amounts of WHITE SPACE.

I stopped using google reader because the new design was a disaster. And I refuse to move to the new gmail "look" because it has so much wasted white space and not enough use of colour and shades. And g+ is a master of white space – and lack of useful information. 

Once its useless new offerings bomb (orkut, buzz, g+), google wonders why people aren't using them. Well, we need INFORMATION, not white space! 

We humans scan quickly and can absorb HUGE amounts of information at one go. We hate having to click repeatedly to find out what's behind a particular link. Everything should be OBVIOUS. Clutter is human friendly. White empty space is NOT.

The best sites on the internet are (somewhat) CLUTTERED. They let users pick and choose the information they need, in any form or shape they need. Facebook is an ideal example of clutter. That's why it is so successful. I'm not saying that pages should only have links, but there should be NO WASTED WHITE SPACE.

Are you listening, Mr Google?

If google doesn't care, I'm happy to take my custom elsewhere should someone provide a more human-friendly design.

Fire your designer, google! That will save you from looming disaster.

Pirates are taking over the world. The good guys are losing. At least on the internet.

And there is no one to help anyone, with governments trying to shoot the unwary, innocent consumer (or service provider like Facebook or Google, or even Wikipedia). 

SOPA and PIPA are playing out their debates, with internet pirates devouring property that does not belong to them and governments unable to catch or hold the pirates to account. Governments are therefore trying to force "accountability" on those who are not responsible for the piracy.

In somewhat similar manner, I was held to account for a "phishing" attack that was launched from my website/s by gangsters of the Wild West Internet who hacked it. Instead of catching the gangsters who attacked my website, my web hosting company Downtownhost promptly suspended my account without as much as a warning!

After pestering Downtownhost (they don't have 24/7 service, and didn't bother to respond to my complaints for nearly 24 hours) they finally woke up and reinstated my account. But in the meanwhile sufficient confusion had been caused. I've debated this issue with my web hosting company but it is unwilling to change its policy of punishing customers for crimes committed by Internet Gangsters. 

By all means people should catch and punish Internet Gangsters. But NOT the innocent! Let there be no confusion about who is a guilty party.

I am dead against SOPA and PIPA and other government attempts to impose red tape on service providers to make them somehow "accountable" for crimes committed using their property. It is as if someone were to hijack your house, launch a missile attack from that house, and YOU (house owner) get the blame for the missile attack.

Let governments and web hosting companies find and punish the actual crooks. 

My search for a replacement web hosting company has begun. Despite good experience with Downtownhost prior to this, it is time to change. Your suggestions are welcome. Currently I'm considering Godaddy.

Consider the powerful impact created by Wael Ghonim – who launched the Egyptian revolution using Facebook. So, why aren't Indians using the internet as effectively – for governance reform?  

I decided to explore the blog scene in India, and chanced upon the following question in a Deccan Chronicle article:

With more than a million people, can we name at least five eminent bloggers in any field such as finance, architecture, culture or history? Blogging is a medium that directly connects with people and is a great way to get instant online feedback. It makes interaction quick and reliable. Then why aren’t the Indian audiences making full use of it? [Source]

The author of this article conducted some research:

Gurcharan Das stops to think for a moment. “People are so used to reading articles in magazines or newspapers that the transition to reading it online, regularly is yet to take off,” he says. Satish Kantheti, joint MD of ZEN Money explains that the slow growth can be attributed to the unavailability of the internet. Designer Anamika Khanna agrees, but goes on to add that blogging will be huge in the near future.

Gurcharan has one of India's most popular political blogs (his articles are available here), but he doesn't actively operate it. That is, in my view, is the problem. Good Indian writers have not yet branched out on a significant scale into the blogsphere (citizensphere).

I'm a nobody but even then I've found the internet to be useful in reaching out to people across vast distances. Indeed, I've only incidentally used traditional media so far, and I am increasingly inclined to use the internet, particularly after my first book has out-"sold" most Indian authors ever published upon its becoming available freely online. And since I started dabbling with this blog (in around July 2010), I've found that I'm able to reach out to a respectable (and growing) audience with minimal effort. 

If a nobody like me can reach out to thousands of people this way, imagine what established writers can achieve through the internet – WITHOUT THE INTERMEDIATION of ignorant, holier-than-thou "journalists" and "editors"? The time has come for everyone to talk to each other DIRECTLY. And work towards the governance we want. Wouldn't that be true democracy? True deliberative, liberal democracy?

The conclusion? 

The internet is becoming a very important medium for writers, politicians, economists and philosophers. They ignore it at their peril. I can bet my last rupee that had Gandhi been alive today he would have been a blogger (and not just a writer for Young India).

In a mere 18 months I'm a convert to this new way of communication.

Indian political blogs

While I'm on this topic, I'd encourage you to consider subscribing to the following Indian blogs.

• Satyameva Jayate FTI member [classical liberal]
• Indian Liberals – Ashish Deodhar's blog [classical liberal]
• Expressions (Bhagwad Jal) [left-leaning libertarian]
• Atanu Dey on India's Development FTI speakers panelist [but pro-BJP]
• Offstumped [economic liberal but pro-BJP]
• Gurcharan Das's blog [classical liberal]
• Internationalist FTI member [classical liberal]
• Vidyut Jain's blog FTI member [classical liberal]
• Careless Whispers FTI member [classical liberal]
• India of my dreams FTI member [classical liberal]
• Sagarone FTI member [classical liberal]
• Unite India FTI member [classical liberal]
• When thoughts seek expression FTI member [classical liberal]

I did not have any intention of blogging – leave alone as intensely as I have done over the past year. But just over a year ago I thought I'd try to be use the internet more actively and so I moved to this site in June 2010 (the earlier 'avataar' was extremely sporadic – and this domain was being used earlier largely as a personal storehouse of useful information). 

Over this last year I have reported its progress here and here. Basically, the uptake of this blog was quick – from a very low base – and thereafter its growth has reduced, although still quite positive. After a year, the data are now becoming more clear.

Yes, not only are more people visiting this blog (around 600-2500 per day depending on the web statistic used), you are likely to be from India – my focus "market".

That people from India are visiting is wonderful. Sabhlokcity has at least become a sabhlokvillage. 

Is this enough? Of course not. It is a drop in the ocean. But all big things start very small. From this remote corner of the world, that I'm able to speak to you about my thoughts and hopes for India – and interact with you through comments – is a great feat of modern technology.  Let's spread the word and invite others to this blog. Let's make this a sabhlokcity - or better still, FREEDOMCITY.

It is a lonely war I've been waging against misgovernance in India – since February 1998 – and my health has been constantly on the edge. With my limited time, financial resources, and health, I can't do much – but I hope that you will join FTI (if you haven't already done so) or otherwise support it, and work – YOURSELF – towards a totally new India. My message is about YOU, about your role in your own country's future. 

Awareness has increased in the recent past in India about the problem of corruption, but awareness about freedom is still very low. Let's work together to enhance liberty and good governance in India.

I'd like to end by sincerely thanking you for listening – whether you agree with me (yet!) or not.

And now for the stats

I don't understand web statistics well enough, but the number of visitors is clearly increasing. Below are three visuals from three different data sources.  

Alexa (click for bigger image)

Control panel (click for larger image) – note that data for Aug. 2010 are incomplete

WordPress statistics (click for larger image) - note that data for Aug. 2010 are incomplete

Just a few days ago I noticed that the pagerank of this blog had increased from 3 to 6. That was a surprise. Now it has dropped to 4 today. Still an increase, from 3 to 4, and more plausible than the PR of 6, but the rapid shift in PR of this blog, from 3 to 6 and then to 4, in less than one month indicates that Google is becoming seriously confused.

Google must have messed up its calculations in June, for clearly nothing has changed on this blog in the meanwhile. Such erratic modeling indicates that Google is in trouble. Has it lost its brightest people to Facebook? – which has generally been getting better and better with time. 

In passing, let me add that I'm also disappointed with the changes Google is rolling out in its otherwise excellent google groups, such as removing the ability to store files and pages. That is a serious inconvenience to those – like me – who have spent hundreds of hours building pages and storing files on various groups. It also makes it very hard to manage confidential groups since there is now no way for members to access the critical rules of the group. Being able to download that material in a zip file is no consolation.

Why waste people's time? Google clearly did not seek the views of the users. 

Google is beginning to become quite erratic. Hubris and confusion seem to be setting into Google's management.

This is not a good sign for the largest internet company in the world.

Addendum The only "proof" that this blog had a PR of 6 till last night is the following snapshot from Invesp (click for larger image):

I just noticed that this blog's Google pagerank has jumped from 3 to 6 – which is quite amazing. It shows that the hundreds of posts I've pumped out over the last year have had a significant impact on internet searches. The great challenge now will be for me to retain this pagerank, which is pretty much close to the highest any individual blog can get.