Whats’ with Black Friday?  A lot of company are into “giving” mood. Is it because of the Thanksgiving day? Well, let’s hope everyday is Thanksgiving day.

I have received tons of emails about big sales on different products including services, software, WordPress themes, cheap airline tickets, domain name, vitamins and web hosting from ever reliable HostGator. This is where Blog De Manila is currently hosted for the past two years already.

The 50% OFF includes shared hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, Dedicated servers and Windows hosting!

If you are paying $4.95 this will translate to $2.48/month (pre-paid) if you will get a new account. That’s it, if you are an existing client of HostGator you are still qualified for the 50% OFF as long as you  keep your original, existing account open and in good standing.

For this promotion, you can get a  hosting packages for as low as:

• Shared hosting: As low as $4.95 Now only: $2.48/month (pre-paid)
• Reseller Hosting: As low as $24.95 Now Only: $12.48/month (pre-paid)
• VPS Hosting: As low as $19.95 Now Only: $9.98/month (First Month)
• Dedicated Servers: As low as $174 Now Only $87/month (First Month)

This is very cheap hosting packages already and here’s the catch – it will only run for 1 DAY!

How can you avail of the 50% OFF?

Just SIGN UP for a new account, and you do NOT need to insert a coupon code to receive the promo. The correct coupon code will automatically be inserted on all orders placed on Black Friday.

The promotion will begin just after midnight, Friday, November 25^th, 2011 Central Standard Time (-6 GMT). The special offer will run until 11:59PM CST Friday, November 25^th, 2011.

Hurry grab your domain name  GoDaddy’s “$5 .COM Black Friday Sale!” and host in on “HostGator’s 50% OFF” promo.

This is just gonna be a very, very quick post.

I received a special coupon code today from WPWebhost which I want to share.

How to Avail the Coupon Code:

Sign up at http://www.wpwebhost.com/signup/ with the special coupon code “INDEPENDENCE” to get 47% off  the normal pricing.

What you will get?

• Free domain registration
• Free WordPress Migration
• Free WordPress Installation
• Free Premium Themes from Themefusse
• Free Bundled CDN

WPWebHost is an optimized WordPress hosting server, and if you are using WordPress you will have no other reason not to host your WordPress with WPWebHost.

This wpwebhost special coupon is applicable to all hosting plans and payment terms, and is available from July 4-6 only.

By the way, you will also enjoy FREE lifetime domain when you sign up! (except Rookie Plan which is free for only 1 year).

Happy Independence to all our American friends!

When I first installed WordPress more than 4 years ago on my 2nd blog, I admit that I fell in love with it.  It’s what you call “love at first sight”. Since then, there’s no turning back for me.

Being an I.T. consultant for more than a decade already, I’ve used various tools in developing website from Notepad (do you believe it?), HTML editors, Dreamweaver, Mambo, Joomla and more. But nothing beats WordPress in features that I’m looking for. All my clients websites are based on WordPress engine, whether they are blogs, corporate sites or just a simple mom and pop front store page.

Here Are My 7 Top (Personal) Reasons Why I’m Using WordPress

1. Great Price @Free – Who wouldn’t want free lunch? Yup, you don’t have to pay anything when you install except of course your domain and hosting. Compared it to other tools such as Dreamweaver which, as of this writing, will cost you almost US$400. Thanks to open source community, WordPress is  provided for FREE!

2. Very, very Easy to Install – Based on my experience, the hardest part of installing WordPress is setting up the database but, only if you want to install it manually. If not, it’s just one-click if your hosting is using Fantastico installer.

3. Very, very Easy to Upgrade – Specially with version 3 and up, upgrading themes, plugins and WordPress core itself is almost all in one-click already. No need to download anything if you are upgrading from the Admin dashboard.

4. Optimized for Search Engines – in short SEO. By default, WordPress is already set to be SEO friendly from page titles, summaries, permalinks, categories, blogrolls, feed submissions (pinging), meta tags  and sitemaps. There are also a number of third party plugins that will further improve WordPress SEO.

5. CMS is Pretty Damn Easy – I have clients where I developed their websites using WordPress and nothing else. These client of mine are not into blogging but they are my corporate clients. By tweaking some codes and changing the look-and-feel of the Admin dashboard, my clients doesn’t notice that their corporate website  is running in WordPress framework. In fact, WordPress has been awarded in 2010 as Open Source CMS Hall of Fame.

6. Themes and Plugins – I call these additional tools as magic tricks of WordPress. They are like wizards to me. They can extend WordPress and do almost anything you want to do. Upload a new theme and you can turn your WordPress to your eyes desire. Plugins on the other hand are “little but smart wizards”  that were designed to modify, customize, optimize and add functionality. There’s no WordPress site out there that is not using a theme or a plugin. Do you agree?

7. Vibrant and Wide support of the Community - Just try to throw in a question in Google and you will surely see an answer already. You will always find the solutions for any questions, and the community is always willing to help when you are stuck with a problem. There’s always the lifeline that you can depend on. WordPress is an open source software and is being developed, maintained and improved by hundreds of people. These group of silent brains are all working hard to make every version of WordPress surpass the previous one.

You can do a lot with WordPress. You have the power to control almost every thing on it. The limits are really only set by your own imagination and abilities. If you are just starting, try get web host provider that has WordPress on their Control Panel already such as BlueHost and Hostgator. WordPress is a secured platform but sometimes the web host is not, so don’t take chances.

So why am I using WordPress? My short answer is… WordPress is FUN!

Now tell me, why are you using WordPress? If not, then Why Not?

My wife is so happy to know that her blog’s Google PageRank is finally back. She doesn’t have any idea why she lost it last year. The only reason we assumed is because of the local host provider she was using which was always downtime. It’s good that she transferred it to a better host already.

The rumors of Google PageRank is already all over the place. It’s the buzz among the webmasters. The Unofficial date Google updated the PR was on the 19th of January. Why unofficial? According to some webmasters, there’s still no announcement from Google itself.Google’s engineers are still silent on the update. So as of this time, it still not confirmed.

Confirmed or not, I’m sure a lot of bloggers are already happy to know that their hard labor of building links paid off. It took 9 months this time for Google PageRank update. Unlike in the previous years,  it is being updated almost every 4 months.

How to Increase Your Google PageRank

If you are not satisfied with your Google PageRank or simply wants to improve it, I suggest that you review the following posts. I assure you these tips will make wonders on your blog or site.

1. Secrets and Tips on How to Generate Traffic Like a Pro
2. Make Your Site Visible To Google And Other Search Engines
3. 3 Tips For Creating a Google-Friendly Site
4. Improve PageRank by Linking Automatically
5. SEO Here, SEO There, SEO Everywhere: The Secret – Revealed!
6. WordPress SEO Secrets
7. Use Drag and Drop WordPress Theme – a Super Optimized wordpress theme.

Just a very quick post here.

First, I would like to thank all those who recommended their preferred web host provider on my post at “Mad and Furious, I Need Your Recommendation“.

Glitch and Jade recommended BlueHost which is what our company is testing right now. We ordered a 3-year webhost contract and also purchased a dedicated IP from them.

Glitch of Glitchline.com emailed me privately that her friend is selling his Dreamhost account worth $214 for only $80. If you haven’t bought your own or looking for an additional host, please get in touch with Glitch. Her friend’s offer is really a BARGAIN!

I’ll let you know the results of our testing with BlueHost if we will push through with them or, get our money back, since they are offering a 30-day full refund.

I was mad and furious with my webhost provider.I’m sure most of my regular readers were aware on what happened on my site.

First, all my blogs and websites (not blog) were inaccessible for more than 48 hours. Second, the staff of my webhost provider were not aware what hit their server. I had to emailed them multiple times before I got an answer. And third, this happened not only once but twice this week!

Sadly, I’m not even receiving an update from them on their so called “patches” after their first replied email.

Let me clear this, I will not badmouth my webhost provider because I considered their manager as a friend (online) already. My only problem is their their technical and after sale support.

This week our company is looking for a webhost provider that can provide not only unlimited bandwidth but also a good after sale support. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend anymore my current provider because of my experienced with them.

After searching and asking fellow bloggers through forums and emails, a lot of them are recommending HostMonster.com and BlueHost.com which I’ve found out later that they are the same company.

Anyone of you are using Hostmonster and BlueHost?  What do yo think of their services? Can you also recommend other webhost provider aside from these two? I don’t mind the cost as long as the provider can give a reliable’uptime’ and an excellent 24×7 online support.