Paypal Policy for Indians
.. why is it different from other countries?
On feb 4th, I was surprised to receive this email, which said,
Hello xxxxx,
Your payment of xxx.xx has been sent back to the sender of the payment.
We reversed this payment because we have stopped allowing personal payments to be sent to or from India.
If this was a payment for a purchase of goods or services, and not a personal payment, then you may contact the buyer and have him or her resend the payment as follows: (a) click the Send Money tab, (b) select “Goods,” and (c) provide a shipping address.
If this payment was a personal payment such as a gift, then we have requested that the sender find another payment method until we restore personal payments to and from India.
We are trying to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and we’re sorry for any inconvenience.
Thank you,
PayPal
I soon logged into my account and saw a negative balance. Two days back, i had transferred all my paypal balance to my credit card. I wanted to try this option even though i had to pay $5 for the transaction. Usually i just request for money transfer to my business account. This particular payment was from TLA, so I wrote an email to them also. So far no reply from them. I checked a few of the webmaster forums and it seems everyone was talking about the same issue.
I am sure paypal will solve the issue soon and all of us will get to see the money back in our accounts. Some people are saying, it was because of RBI’s policy to keep a tab on all the money transfer happening over the internet without any record and without any taxes being paid. The most surprising thing is that there is no notification from paypal also. However i feel it is more of a technical issue. I hope it is sorted out soon. Till then, just wait and watch.
Flowers, flowers… everywhere
… good to see. I never miss our city annual flower show and every year i look forward to visit the flower show and buy some cool flowering plants, even if they bloom just for 2-3 days after bringing home.
See the lovely orchild flower photos from the show where one of the nurseries from West Bengal was selling it. I sincerely feel to shift to eastern part of the country, towards my native place and start horticulture and floriculture business. it will take some more years to execute my plan.. i will keep you guys informed 
Till then enjoy these lovely photos of Orchid.
And this beautiful bonsai
SEO - To Improve CTR
We all love to see an improved CTR in our Adsense Reports and with an aim to increase the CTR, i planned to take out some time and revisit each of my sites and do a few tweaks here and there. Some of my sites have been just lying there without any content update or design changes for years. This baby names site of mine - just4babynames.com is one such site. It was once a very very popular site with a good number of visitors and a fair income from Google and and other small time link buyers. However with time, i had no time to look into them… so i stopped selling link spots and the google earnings also went into a downfall.. i never bothered.. as my overall income from all the sites was increasing.
After working on two other sites, i had a look at this particular site of mine, studied the statistics, checked out the popular pages on the site and the popular keywords which was bringing a few traffic. On the 14th of jan, i made a few changes, removed some old content, put some new content on the home page and a few tweaks of the ads and other links. And as usual, i just uploaded the new pages and forgot to check the result. Today, 8 eight days after when i checked the stats, i was surprised to see a sudden jump in the traffic of this site. See the image below
It was a good jump from around 50-54 uniques visitors to more than 400 unique visitors a day. For a moment, i was wondering if i had put this site on Google Adwords by mistake. I am running ads of another new site of mine on Google Adwords ( because i got a voucher worth 2500 INR.. and i had to use that). I checked the stats again and it was for real. The site is listed on page one of Yahoo for a very competitive keyword and it was Yahoo which was sending all the traffic to my site.
I am happy that my tweaks worked. I plan to give some time to all my sites and increase traffic, to increase the CTR which will further increase the earnings.
Wishing all of you a very Happy New Year and Happy Earnings!
Bye bye 2009
… last day of the year 2009. A year has passed, some opportunities lost, some sacrifices made, happy moments shared, learnt new lessons of life…. overall it was a fruitful year. Did not achieve something great but it was a good year.
Time to look forward to a better tomorrow, a better 2010, a better life (read organized)! New year is the time when we all are busy making resolutions only to break it. Most of the people are not able to fulfil the resolutions.. i am one of them. But this coming year, my top priority is to be more organized and take out time for myself. Indulge in activities and hobbies which will make me happy.. yes be happy, have fun and enjoy life. Do not worry about the future and do not keep thinking about the past.. live the moment and enjoy the moment. This is what my little brother taught us in his short lifespan. We miss you brother.. each and every moment. I am sure you are in peace wherever you are and guiding us.
In terms of my earnings from my websites including earnings from Google, it was a great year as the earnings were much more compared to the previous years. I would love to write someday.. my earnings doubled this year… maybe in 2010. I just need to find time and as I said be more organized, give specific time slot and plan things and EXECUTE it. Yes i do lot of planning and i am good in that, but somehow i am lacking when it comes to actual execution of the plan.
In 2010, i also plan to start out some venture on my own or with partnership with my sisters.. again many ideas in mind.. we just need to sit together, plan it and execute it. Yes, i also want to go on a long holiday with family in 2010, just leaving all the work behind, destination yet to be planned 
I wish all of you a very happy and prosperous new year 2010. And yes BE HAPPY!!
Goodbye to DGM and Kontera
…. yes it is time to say that.
After trying Kontera for more than a year DGM for more than 6 months, I have finally decided to say goodbye. I did earn some money from Kontera. DGM also, well some of the advertisers were paying well, but overall performance on my site was not that good.
However I did stick with DGM for more than 6 months thinking that i should reach the minimum payout. I believe it is short of a few Rs. But i am not interested anymore. I don’t want to wait for another month to see that the amount has reached the payout level. I am still very very happy with the main source of income ie Google Adsense and the extra income from TLA and direct advertisers.
Last month i increased my ad spots from 4 to 10 in TLA and luckily 9 of them are sold and only one spot is left. And the last spot will be also sold off soon and it is good money for a 250×250 ad space where you can have 10 links.I am waiting for the day when my other sites will also be included in the TLA.
October was a very good month for this blog also. The monthly income doubled. I now believe that this blog can also earn good money . I am still reviewing what all keywords are popular on this blog. I will make sure that i post more on those keywords. However this is my blog, so you will find other posts from me, which may not be so interesting for you, but I know, it will make me happy and the blog is all about Being Happy.
Be happy and enjoy life!
Calculate age from photos
…… well my son can do that. Surprised ? Let me share you his unique technique.
Today i feel quiet relaxed. Was busy with my 6 year old since last one week for his 1st term exams. He is a very smart and intelligent boy and is quiet good in all his subjects except Hindi. This year, hindi is one main subject which he is trying hard to learn. I know, he has improved a lot in Hindi. But every time, i ask him to write a word in hindi, he has to think which alphabet to use… and he ends us saying all the hindi alphabets starting from the first alphabet .. till he reaches the actual alphabet.
One of his subject is Value Education (V.Ed) and while he was reading the lessons, I saw that he did not complete one assignment. I asked him to finish the assignment. It was a simple assignment, he was supposed to write 5 sentences about a picture given. He finished it in a minute and asked me to check. His sentences were correct, however I was surprised when I saw that he had mentioned the age of the two boys. See the picture below and his sentences.
I asked him, how he know the age of the two boys in the picture. He said..” it is so easy mamma. see how i calculated. i took my scale, and put it over the picture and see.. this boy reaches till 5 in my scale and the other one reaches till 7. you don’t know anything mamma“.
So if you want to know someone’s age, just send a snap to my son. He can calculate it for you
Diwali Rangoli
…. we love making it!
Last week, the traffic to my blog was at an all time high. Many people came to the site looking for Diwali Rangoli. For those , who are not aware of this term Rangoli, here is the definition from wikipedia
Rangoli is one of the most popular art forms in India. It is a form of sandpainting decoration that uses finely ground white and coloured powders, and is commonly done outside homes in India.
The term rangoli is derived from the words rang (colour) and aavalli (’coloured creepers’ or ‘row of colours’).
Here are the rangoli designs which we made this Diwali. My son also tried making one… his first rangoli
And this third one is done by my son… he was trying to make two fishes with weeds around and the sea waves.. that is what he told me. See if you can find the fishes. No prize for guessing it right
Happy Diwali
I wish you all a very very Happy Diwali and Prosperous New year. Diwali is also called as festival of lights. Festivals in India are bright and rich in tradition. Diwali means rangoli, wearing new dresses, lanterns, sweets, gifts, diyas, prayer, cards, party, good food, shopping, flowers and the list goes on. And Diwali also means family time, sharing, bonding and LOVE.
So spread peace and love and enjoy the festival. Treasure the moments… Enjoy and Have Fun!!
