Since a couple of days ago, I’ve noticed several of my websites have been experiencing a massive drop in traffic, some as much as half of their normal level.

As a result, any income source that depends on free traffic from Google suffers. This includes AdSense and some affiliate programs.

Sabahan.com isn’t spared as some of you may have noticed after checking my Alexa traffic ranking. In addition, it has dropped from number one to number four for the keyword “sabahan” in Google.

Other important keywords Sabahan.com can be found for are now mostly missing from the Google first page results.

Everyone (well more and more bloggers anyway) seems to be revealing their blogs’ income nowadays, following a trend started by John Chow Dot Com. If there were others who had chosen to reveal their blogs income before John Chow, I am not aware of them. Those that I know of didn’t go into as much details as what John Chow is doing.

I know how much you make is your own business so many bloggers prefer not to reveal their earnings.

I’ve told myself not to wait until the very last minute before I file my B income tax form. Unfortunately that’s exactly what had happened. Well, I did the accounting stuff a week earlier but only submitted my income tax form today. Lucky for me, we have e-Filing to help me do this quickly over the Internet. This was my second time using this service.

While I’ve noticed some marked improvements in the service (it’s working for a start), there are a few things that they could have done to improve the service further.

A few months after I wrote about my intention here and here to upgrade my operating system to Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows Vista, I finally did it on Saturday last weekend.

I managed to grab an OEM copy for RM680 after shopping around at Karamunsing Complex in Kota Kinabalu.

Getting Ready For Vista

I ran the Vista Upgrade Advisor, an application that helps Windows XP users identify which edition of Vista meets their needs and whether their PCs are ready for an upgrade and I passed with flying colours.

It’s time for another round of readers’ poll. This time I’d like to ask the bloggers among you – what is your blogging motivation?

If you ask me that question, my answer would be ‘Money’.

That’s one of the major factors that motivate me to continue on blogging. Being an Internet marketer and working full time online myself, I can’t help but to spend my time and put the efforts on things that bring some financial rewards.

Realistically speaking, I have to pay the bills and can’t afford to work for nothing.

I am back! I was out of town for a couple of days in case you were wondering, and could hardly find time to get on the Net. It’s just not enough time for me to write a post or two.

Anyhow, there have been some interesting developments in some of my blogs while I was away. I see the number of Sabahan.com subscribers has crossed the 200 mark. It’s still a little lower from my target but it’s an improvement anyway. Thanks for subscribing!

Also, another Text Link Ads slot was purchased by an advertiser.

I have set aside about $400 to spend on the promotion effort for Sabahan.com. However I have not decided what I should spend it on.

I’ve some interesting ideas but I want to make sure it’s spent on things that could offer the best return on investment. I know US400 is not much to some people but considering that this blog is just my part time venture, that amount is quite substantial to me.

Hey that amount can get me a Windows Vista Ultimate!

Recently, I conducted a poll to find out what my readers think about the the Kontera ads here at Sabahan.com.

There are only 12 people responded to the poll at the time of this writing. I don’t have to wait until I get more response to know what the majority of my readers think about the Kontera ads.

As you can see below, 67% find them annoying and suggested that I should removed them. I see this positively in that, my readers actually care about my content. Displaying Kontera ads sacrifice the ‘good’ experience they’ve been enjoying so far.

Perhaps some of you may recall that I hinted in one of my earlier posts about a contest I was planning to run where the prizes could include free domains and/or free web hosting for your wordpress blog.

I got this idea after the successful transfer of my accounts to a new dedicated server at Hostgator.com

I’ve been thinking how this can be done properly without burning a hole in my pocket and still ensure the prizes remain attractive.

Offering free domains is easy but offering free web hosting (for life?) is a little tricky.

You may have noticed that recently certain keywords are underlined twice. Those are Kontera ads in case you don’t know.

Kontera is an advertising program which selects contextually relevant keywords on a page in real time and automatically turned them into a link.

I was accepted into the Kontera program a few weeks ago and last Saturday I decided to give it a try and installed it.

The addition of Kontera link at Sabahan.com seems to contradict with my position in regard to what I consider annoying web design elements.