I figured I had to go over the top with this one. Not quite sure if I have. You tell me.

I have been using Fast Blog Finder to find dofollow blog posts for me. It helps and then it doesn’t. I don’t spam. I like getting beneficial links back to my site. I use tools like this because they simplify the process. But sometimes the posts are a little bit old. And I am not quite sure of the etiquette involved. Is an older post OK to comment on? I could see refering to it from a blog post. But after a post has 20 comments, how much do you really add to the conversation if it has ended?

But I have used the software often enough to build a long list of dofollow blogs, 516 to be exact. There may be some doubles. And there may be some nofollow blogs that slipped through the cracks, but it’s pretty clean.

I have seen the blog lists. Useful in some ways. I have seen the search engines. Useful but there is usually no way to favor more recent posts. I built a dofollow river of posts out of this list of feeds, but it’s slow and incomplete. So I figured I’d give out the OPML file.

This is a file you should be able to import into any feed reader. If you can’t, you need to find a better feed reader. I highly recommend NewsGator. To filter out just topics you want to comment on, use watches.

But I also did a quick install of the Optimal OPML browser plugin for WordPress. The results of that are below. And if any of you happen to clean up the file of duplicates or add your own favorites, just pass the new file back to me and I’ll put a new version up.

The OPML of KeywordLuv and CommentLuv Blogs

I haven’t picked up the blogs who have installed these plugins in the last month or so, but here is what I have now: 562 feeds. Same disclaimer. There may be duplicates. Some blogs may have uninstalled the plugins. Etc.

Here is the file.

Update 3/25/2010

The opml files are still there. If you know how to use them go ahead. But blog comments based on dofollow should not be a priority in your link building any more. Rather make useful, meaty or controversial comments on high traffic blogs and use social media to drive traffic to those posts. In other words, contribute.

And then there is this:

Over 300,000 Dofollow Spam Comments On This Blog Alone

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I cover a lot of topics and read a lot of blogs. Up until recently, I had them all in one folder in my feed reader. Then I broke them up into folders. That took some thought and until then, I really had no idea what all my interests are. After that two hour organizing session, a lot of things became more clearer. I saw what I liked listed by topic. After that, I was able to create a few filters for each of my blogs. Now, if I’m in commenting mode, I just go down the river of articles in each filter. I have only headlines showing and open all the links in my browser. It is training me on writing better headlines and opening the link in the browser means I don’t have to retype everything when I go to comment.

Like I said, I read a lot of blogs. Before that, I used to read a lot of books. I still do. A productivity expert would tell me to trim down. But I am not worried about information overload. It is not my goal to read every post on every blog that I subscribe to. It is my goal to always have a variety of posts to read, for inspiration, for ideas, for commenting on, and for submitting to social news sites. The more, the merrier and the more chances I will hit something that I really need to read or that slipped between the cracks.

I like reading good books. I like reading good books that no one else heard of even better.

So, I noticed a few gaps in my reading material, a few categories where there were only twenty or so posts to read. And I went looking for "top" lists to add to my reader.

• 40 Inspiring Writing Blogs that you Don’t Already Read
• Top 100 Productivity and LifeHack Blogs
• Best eCommerce Blogs and Information Sites
• Affiliate Marketing Blogs List

So now I will just go check a few of these blogs out and start adding new subscriptions. A list of affiliate marketing blogs was hard to find. You can find plenty of "make money" blogs, but I was looking for the pure affiliate marketing blogs. So, for you list builders out there, hint, hint.

I have been so wrapped up lately trying to replace desktop software with web apps that I haven’t looked into desktop feed readers for a long time. I used Firefox live marks until I realized that 700 feeds will slow down the browsing experience.

After that I went to Google Reader and have kept my feeds there for a while. I maxed out Google Reader with Monkeyscripts to the point it runs real lyslow and then I went to the mobile version in the sidebar of Flock.

But after I have seen what some desktop feed readers can do, I may be changing my mind about Google Reader. And a few will synch with Newsgator online so you don’t lose that "Access Everywhere" feature of Google Reader. This is not an exhaustive list, but just the few I found that went above and beyond the average features to a few you might not have thought of, but now you really must have. And I put free in the title because I actually found a few nice feed readers that cost.

FeedDemon

I downloaded this on a lark a few days ago. I figured if so many people liked it, I would give it a try. Google Reader was running really slow on refreshes and switching folders. Running my own web-based reader may not be faster in the the directory of a live site but running a desktop feed reader may be more responsive.

Within a few hours I had all my feeds in folders, something that would have taken forever on Google Reader. I then created three custom filters on the topics I now cover at three of my blogs. I then took the feeds of the top and upcoming stories of the social sites I visit and through them in one folder. I took the comment feeds of my blogs and put them in a To Do Folder along with the feed of the gmail account I use specifically for contact forms and social network friend requests. I might add a ReminderFeed in there. I am going to turn whatever I can into a feed. Your schedule, your contacts, your news rebuilds on the fly via one OPML file.

You notice a DoFollow folder, this is growing via using Fast Blog Finder.

Omea Pro

There’s sliced bread in there somewhere. So this is the best thing and sliced bread, if you need everything in one place. I have to admit that I have been looking for a way to minimize the amount of inboxes I have. But for now I have Thunberbird set up perfectly so that everything goes to the right place and I can usually blast through my emails in about 10 minute.

Newzie

I tried FeedDemon first. If any one of the feed readers in this list may replace it, it will be newzie. It monitors webpages as if they were feeds. You can set up word watches. You can create bulk channels, making multiple feeds at like one. It has a slideshow feature that allows you to blast through items

Aggrevator

This one will download, permanently store and index thousands of feeds. It is cross-platform and uses a MySql database, which means that you can run the feed database in one location and access it via a user interface from multiple locations. It also has a smart rating system built in that learns what you like over time and picks items of interest for you. Great for a data junkie. If you know you read something somewhere in one of the blogs you subscribe to, you will find it in Aggrevator.

Awasu

Awasu downloads and archives all feeds. It also synchronizes with third party feed readers like Google Reader, Bloglines and Gregarius. It can use Internet Explorer or Mozilla as the embedded browser to give you a choice. It archives all feed content and has an advanced search engine. You can set up search agents and search channels. There is a feature called a workpad that allows you to annotate feeds items and put all of this together in a report.

Another features of Awasu is plugins. With these you can have Awasu do a lot of other things like update databases and send emails. There is even a webscraper plugin to subscribe to pages without feeds.

RSS Bandit

This was a feed reader I used back in the day. Now it supports a multitude of languages. It will subscribe to newsgroups like they are feeds. It synches with NewGator online so you can access your feeds anywhere. There is a nested categories feature. It is the only feed reader I’ve seen with it. It gives you the ability to post comments from the reader.

Snackr

This is one I will still use. It is a random feed ticker. It pulls random items from your feeds and runs them news ticker style across any border of your screen. I find I comment more when I have very random choices.

I got sidetracked by all advances web apps have made and went looking for an online solution. I am happy with this solution for now and want to look into more options of turning email and other inboxes into feeds and bringing everything to one place.

A feature I would like to see is the ability to create watches that include one or any number of the folders, instead of just searches of all subscriptions.

One of the first things you want to do when starting a new blog is find the neighborhoods that you will hang out in when you are working on your blog. These will be the blogs you comment on, get news from and reference when writing the posts on your own blog.

Google Reader

I am a Google Reader junkie. I use it in the browser, in the sidebar, in iGoogle, and on the phone when I am bored in waiting rooms. It is fast and a very useful tool. And I found it a necessity to use someone else’s processing power after the feeds in my OPML file grew to the size of over 700 individual feeds. Live bookmarks just isn’t going to do the job. And this was just my reading list for this blog and Digital Products Review.

Both of these blogs are pretty closely related. While this is mainly about the machine behind the money making, my other blog is about the actual techniques of making money online. I can browse this list of feeds for either.

New Blogs

But how would I go about adding the feeds that will be the reading list for a blog that is not as closely related. I could use the folder system of Google Reader, but that seemed sloppy to me. The feeds in the reader currently are those I would read whether or not I had a blog on the subject or not. I would rather keep those feeds by themselves, completely separate.

Another reason not to use Google reader is this: if I want to run a related news widget, I couldn’t put that information from Google Reader. I would have to find a more open place to store my feeds.

Many Feeds into One

The way you read your feeds depends upon the purpose. I like the river format so that the newest stories from all my feeds float to the top. This gives me a jump on commenting on new stories in the niche I am currently dealing with.

Another method would be to search the feeds to find very closely related posts to comment on. But I find this has it’s ups and downs. You might find the perfect post but it may also be over a year old. I find a quick browse of a river will sometimes work just as well and put your comment on a more current post.

RSS Mixing Services

FeedHub – After a lot of looking, I came up with this one. You can create unlimited custom feeds by either adding feeds manually or using an OPML file. You simply add your feeds and then subscribe to the resulting feed. Not only that. Feedhub tracks meme’s in your feed as pictured below:

And you can customize the meme’s it tracks by dragging and drop each one to each section. Click on one of the meme’s and it brings up the posts from that day, week, or month that match the meme. So Feedhub gives you a river format and a meme format. You can take your feeds and create your own personal Techmeme or Megite for each of your niche blogs.

You can also customize just how much content you get from your mixed feed. You can set it based on percentage and popularity. A great function if you only want the top stories out of your feeds.

FeedRinse – Between the time I was searching for a RSS mixer and the time I wrote this post it seems that FeedRinse made their premium service free. This was my first choice until I found out the free account limited the feeds you mix to 500. It seems that this is not the case any more. You can add unlimited feeds and filter them by author, tag and keyword.

I still like FeedHub’ filtering system better. It involves putting a bit more trust in an algorithm, but that is better than coming up with a list of tags and keywords to filter.

Yahoo Pipes – Yahoo Pipes is sweet. You can do just about anything you want with a feed except through a huge OPML file at it and expect it to give you a RSS output. I tried. Small ones work. Forget the big ones.

FeedBlendr – I put my OPML of 700 feeds into FeedBlendr and watched it load for about an hour. Then I gave up and forgot about it. Not sure if my feed is still there somewhere or what. I didn’t create a login. So who knows where it is. So, try it for small feeds and tell me what’s up.

xFruits – As far as out of the box mixing and mashing, xFruits probably has the most features. This one has also been around for a while. I remember checking it out in the past. Their service features an RSS aggregator, RSS to web, RSS to mobile, post to RSS (I guess for creating a blog that only has a feed?), RSS to mail, RSS to OPML, OPML  to mobile, mail to RSS, RSS to voice and finally RSS to your blog.

feed.informer – Another feed consolidator I have yet to check out. There seems to be a focus on republishing the content.

Google Mashup Editor – Haven’t used it yet. I am guessing something along the lines of Yahoo Pipes.

What Do You Use?

I never say something is the best of the best on the internet, because I know it is only a matter of time. I pick the best for the moment, but if something that does it’s job better comes along, I am all about jumping ship. So if any of you have found a great RSS mixer that missed my list, be sure to leave a comment. Or if you have found a whole new method of dealing with a mass of feeds, let me know. I am always on the lookout.

This weekend I got off my butt and went down a list of things I wanted to get done.

• I built a list of blogs using the CommentLuv plugin over at my site Digital Product Review. I am just getting the final tweaks on the theme done and am ready to start getting a little more traffic. I figured this list would bring some. It only has 100 blogs on it now, but I have about 250 more links to go through, so look for updates. A large percentage of these blogs have an Entrecard widget, a second reason to check this list out.
• I put up another WordPress plugin project for bidding. It’s a simple one and I will be using it to check out developers. The plugin is a huge project, so I am getting it made piece by piece until it is finished, depending on my budget for hiring developers and my own time to add to it.
• I purchased and read The Lazy Affiliate Marketer. This is an awesome book for intermediate affiliate marketers. I finished reading it in a day. The blueprint I have used to make money through affiliate marketing is about 20% of the book. The other 80% is where I want to go. Plus I have some ideas to add to the book. So I will be writing a report expanding the book, adding a few more techniques and giving it away with future purchases. Look for the annoucement when I am done with the report.
• I did some work around the house.
• I came up with an awesome idea for my domain Dir23.com which is just sitting around collecting dust, but that is going to require some Drupal knowledge. The idea. I’ll wait until the site’s done.
• After my post about automatic related content, I have explored it more by playing around on my Squidoo account, just trying to find how many different feeds I could come up with to cluster around one concept. A laboratory of some sorts. The SimplePie plugin works great for WordPress, but it requires a little php knowledge. I have written some preprocessors for the plugin and noted all the code and will be writing a post about using it the day I make it live here, along with some ways to make money by using the plugin.
• That made me want to build a list of Squidoo-like sites: dofollow, the ability to add multiple feed and content sources, and no marketing haters. On the to do list.
• I have been questioning myself about post frequency for a while. The problem is that there is a lot of info on the subject and a lot of opinions. One thing I have noticed: work put in on posting and commenting on the weekends is usually less effective during the weekend. In other words, I get more mileage out of my weekday post. Another thing: I get a lot of comments on the post just before the last one I posted. I figured I will drop myself down to every other day posting for now, with a goal of 4 posts a week. I will have to discipline myself by timestamping post forward even when I can’t wait to publish. On the weekends, I will post a light post, most likely off topic. I write some long posts quite often. Those should be able to make it a couple of days and give me an off day for my other blog and projects. Plus, it’s close to the same amount of posts I have been getting in anyway. Might as well stop berating myself and make it the new rule. But I would like to hear opinions on the topic of post frequency because nothing has totally swayed me one way (daily posting or more) or the other (every other day or a few times a week).

And that’s about it.

There are a few things you have to do if you want to get the word out about your blog. Joining blogging social networks helps. Writing good posts help. But you will probably go unnoticed by other bloggers if you are not commenting on their blogs.

Oh, great. Another rehashed post on commenting.

Not!

I am not going to tell you how to comment or what to comment on. I am going to show you a few of the techniques I have used to spread my comments around as far as I have and to have the posts come to you.

And after I searched the blogosphere for posts to reference I realized I am rehashing a little because Caroline Middlebrook wrote a killer post on building a blog commenting strategy that mentions a few techniques that I didn’t think of. But I am pushing on regardless because I have found a lot of tools that aren’t listed in one place. Plus it makes my job easier. Read her post and then check out the tools here.

When I start blogging, I would comment here, comment there with basically no rhyme or reason. Don’t get me wrong. I left what I thought were worthwhile comments, but I would get at the most maybe ten comments a week.

Subscribe to Feeds to Find More Commenting Options

I started by collecting feeds, a lot of feeds. All Google Reader says I have is 1000+. I did this through MyBlogLog and Entrecard. I would find a blog with great posts and subscribe.

At first, I used Firefox Livemarks along with the Feed Ticker plugin. The Feed Ticker picks random posts from your feeds and constantly scrolls them across a toolbar. Most of the time, just by watching the ticker for a minute or so I would find a few posts to comment on. The issue: Using Livemarks slows down Firefox. So it’s great if you subscribe to a few feeds, but right around 600 I started having issues.

If I could, I would find a way to make this work. The randomness of the posts really helped. They worked like an artificial subconscious. I never new what was going to pop up and that gave a freshness to my comments.

I eventually stopped this and went to using Google Reader so that my computer wouldn’t have to deal with the overhead of getting the updates on 1000 feeds. I can sort all posts from all feeds by date, so the newest one floats to the top. And I can search just the feeds I subscribe to. That’s how I found all the posts I link to. And there are some tools to make using Google Reader easier:

• Get More From Google Reader
• Google Reader Tools
• An Awesome Firefox Addon for Google Reader

One site I will leave up to you to investigate, because I haven’t made it there yet and I tired of finding a perfect reader after I just found the perfect reader is favorit, which offers:

• News Reading
• Commenting
• Blog Posting
• Content Republication
• Human Powered Blog Searching

Now if any of you can find me a true OPML cleaner let me know. I have been looking for one for months. I have manually removed duplicate feeds, but no reader seems to do this well. And I mean the ability to tell that a Feedburner feed is the same as a WordPress feed of the same name. It would also have to know that adding www. to a domain doesn’t make it a different. It would be great if it could tell me if there hasn’t been a post for a month also. I don’t ask for much. Just the world.

Hop Along

Explore the blogging communities and traffic sites you have signed up for. With Entrecard, I drop from 60 to 100 cards a day. By the end of that, I have found more than enough posts to comment on.

BlogCatalog recently added a lot more features to their dashboard that allow you to spy on the social doings of your friends there. I have yet to check out all the features, but it is bound to help you find posts that you can contribute to with your comments.

Targeted Comments

This falls under the "Guns don’t kill people. People kill people" category. A lot of these tools could be used by spammers, but if used correctly can help you out a lot. Comments on blogs that use DoFollow can help you not only while people are reading the post you are commenting on, but they can also help you in the future by increase your backlinks.

The tools:

• Comment Kahuna
• BacklinkSpot
• DoFollo

Of these three, DoFollo seems the best.

Then there is the CommentLuv plugin. So by searching Google for "keyword" and "This blog uses the CommentLuv plugin", with the quotes, you can find posts that fit with the last one you posted.

Another technique that Caroline mentioned in her article is being one of the first to comment. And I have a tool for that too.

• Comment Sniper

Each of these are powerful tools if used correctly.

From Your Own Blog

And once you start getting comments on your blog, just go back through them and pay a visit to the people who commented on your blog.

So, how to you find posts to comment on?