I’d like to take this time between writing the big articles and ask my readers what they would like to know more about concerning affiliate marketing or Internet Marketing.

So if there’s been a question you need the answer to or you need some help to get over a hump, let me know, I’ll write a blog post or reply in the comments if I can help. Chances are if you’re having a problem or have a question, someone else is having it also.

Feel free to ask about any topic as long as it pertains to affiliate programs, affiliate marketing, internet marketing, search engine optimization, blogging or Adsense.

I’m no Guru, but I bet I can help most of you if you’ve reached a dead end. Just leave a comment and I’ll get started.

For those who’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you’ll remember that my Mother passed away in Dec. Since that time I’ve been trying to get her home and other affairs in order, which means a 500+ mile one way trip every time I went up there. I’ve been there more than here the last few months. I thought I had just about got everything in order too.

It Rains On the Just As Well As The Unjust..Or So They Say!

I had been home only a few days when I got a call early one morning from her next door neighbor. They had received torrential rains in Oklahoma over a few days time and my Mom’s home had flooded!

Geez! Throw me a bone already!

She lives on a creek, but this home had only flooded once before, in 1980! Since that time they had made improvements to the low water bridge upstream and to the creek itself. Flooding wasn’t a real concern since the creek rarely got out of its banks and even when it did, it receded quickly.

The bad thing was, most of her stuff I had organized and sit on the floor in boxes and bags. Needless to say, all that work was for naught because much of it was now ruined! I was just sick!

So, I jump in my Truck for another trip North. It took a few weeks, but I managed to get all the wet stuff out, including carpet and padding plus bad drywall. I fixed what I could and now I’m back home.

I guess we were lucky in one regard. The flood waters only stayed up a few hours. If it had stayed for days, it would have been a lot worse!

Hopefully, this time I’m home for more than a few days.

Here’s a little picture for you. The water was already down when I arrived but there was still a mess to clean up!

Catching Up on Emails – Please Be Patient

Thanks to everyone sending emails. I appreciate them.

For those of you who bought the Build A Niche Store Program through my site, and there have been many, first of all, THANK YOU, I APPRECIATE IT VERY MUCH! Second, you should have your Free Special Report by now. If you’ve bought BANS through this site and have not received your Free Special Report, please resend the information and I’ll make sure you get it.

I’m going to try and get back to regular posting. All the drive time I’ve had between here and Oklahoma gave me plenty of time to think about affiliate marketing and ideas for Post. Some I wrote down while I was driving…yeah, I know…not a good idea…lol

Since I wasn’t home to manage my offline business first hand, I was worried about my income. Thankfully my Wife has a separate job and my employees are pretty good people. So I only have one mountain of papers on my desk instead of a dozen!

What really made me feel good was the income that I knew would keep coming in from my Internet work. Day in, day out, the Internet will work for you if you set it up right. There’s no way my Internet income comes close to matching what I make in my offline business, but I knew if my employees ran off and I didn’t have a lick of business, I’d still receive checks from my Affiliate Marketing efforts. This is why I believe the Affiliate Marketing is sooo sweet! And why I believe it’s worth all the time and effort I put into it.

The best income in my opinion is passive income. Income that keeps coming in whether your on vacation, fishing, goofing off or in a hospital. Trust me when I say there’s is a certain kind of Peace you feel knowing that money will be deposited into your PayPal account or that a check arrive in the mail whether or not you’re “at work”.

Okay, so its now back to the grind of affiliate marketing and blogging…sheesh…I can already feel the sweat beads popping out on my forehead

It’s no secret that both Microsoft and Yahoo have been lagging way behind Google in the last several years. To make matter worse, both companies have been buying up smaller companiesin an attempt to give theirself an edge over Google, but to no avail.

It was nearly a year ago that I predicted that Microsoft would have to buy a major search engine company to stay competitive with Google. Looks like Mr. Gates was listening! (now share the wealth brother!)

Microsoft’s Buyout Details

Last year, Microsoft sent out feelers to Yahoo about a possible takeover. Yahoo’s board told Microsoft that they felt like the time was not “right” for a deal. Which probably means the Yahoo board wanted more time to figure out how to make more money off of Mr. Gates.

Now a year has past and Microsoft is standing at Yahoo’s door with the Armored car out front…actually that would be more like a Armored train!

Microsoft is offering to offer Yahoo shareholders $31 per share, which is an increase over what Yahoo share’s are currently going for.

Will the Merger Really Help Either Company?

Microsoft is looking at saving at least a Billion dollars by merging the two companies.

Personally, I don’t see that both companies combined can take on Google unless their development teams start getting creative. Google is where it’s at today because they offered innovative and creative products and services to Internet users while Microsoft and Yahoo have been offering the same old thing in a different wrapper.

Yahoo has been a little more successful against Google than Microsoft in the PPC arena, but both still come up short. Most of us who use PPC simply get better results and reach more user through Adwords than we do with Yahoo or MSN.

Only time will tell whether or not Yahoo accepts this offer. They’ve recently laid off over a 1000 employees so they are certainly feeling the heat. Microsoft may be just what Yahoo needs to keep its head above the water.

However, unless both start coming out with some innovative products and services, this takeover may be just the thing that drowns both companies (as far as search and Internet services are concerned). It will be a long hard climb to the top for a merged Microsoft/Yahoo and when they get there, they’ll have to deal with King G and he’s not going to give up easy.

If you’re looking for a post about Affiliate Marketing or making money on the Internet, this post isn’t for you, wait a few days and I’ll get one up for you. This post has nothing to do with those things and has nothing to do with the subject of this Blog, but it’s my blog none the less and I choose what I write and what I don’t. At this point, I choose to blog about what I’ve been doing over the last Month or so.

 Of the last 6 weeks or so, I’ve only been home 1 week, that was the week after Thanksgiving. The other times I was taking care of my terminally ill Mother in Oklahoma.

I went and stayed with her for the two weeks or so before Thanksgiving. At that time she could get around with one of us helping her. She’s very independent and when she asked for help, I knew it was getting bad.

I took a break and come home Thanksgiving as one of my Aunts came to stay with her for a while. She had started Chemotherapy again when she went back into the hospital and was diagnosed with Pneumonia. At that point, her Doctor cancelled the rest of her Chemo treatments saying that she was too weak to take them further. He arranged for Hospice to start coming in and told us that she would not beat the Pneumonia and called the Family in.

Angels Indeed Walk Among Us

I’d heard of Hospice before. But honestly, I never gave them much of a second thought. I always thought they were a home health care for the terminally ill. I was kinda correct, but in a vague way.

When my Mother was diagnosed with Cancer last Spring, I didn’t know that she had already spoke with Hospice. They determined at that time that she wasn’t ready for their services as she was still very active and pretty much still independent. They told her to call them when she needed them.

After she was sent home with Pneumonia, two Hospice workers showed up at the home one evening. Before I had gotten there, they had already delivered a hospital bed to her home along with several other pieces of equipment.

Since the Family was pretty much there, the head Hospice person (I think she was a Supervisor) called us out into the Garage and had a little talk with the Family.

I can’t begin to tell you how caring, supportive and understanding these people were. I’ve been around great Nurses and Doctors before. But these Hospice workers went above and beyond and then kept going.

They told us what to expect in the coming days. Signs to watch for and what they could and could not do for us. (which as it turns out that the things they couldn’t do for us was very minimal)

Never, in my life would I have suspected that there were such compassionate people on the face of this Earth! And it wasn’t these two people either. Every Nurse that came to check on my Mom was the most compassionate and caring person I had ever met. Not only did they go all out to meet my Mothers needs, they were there for the Family as well.

When they said “Call us anytime, I don’t care if it’s 3 a.m.”, they meant it!

They did receive some of those 2 and 3 a.m. calls from us and they couldn’t have been any nicer or helpful when we woke them up.

Enter One Of the Worst Ice Storms In Oklahoma’s History

My Mother started having complications with the Pneumonia, so we called Hospice about 10 a.m. one night and asked if we couldn’t get a Nurse to stay with her 24/7 and help us. They said “No Problem, well send one as quick as we can”

This was on the night that the Ice Storm started hitting Oklahoma and ice had started forming on the roads.

About an hour after the call, a Nurse showed up. She had about an inch of ice on her vehicle, but she’d cleaned off the windows well enough to drive 45 minutes to our home.

About 5 a.m. that morning we lost power due to iced limbs breaking and downing power lines.

The Hospice Nurse got on the Phone and called 911. The Emergency services didn’t feel that my Mother was an “Emergency” case. A few well chosen words from the Hospice Nurse and they changed their minds.

When the Ambulance came to take her to the Hospital, the EMS guys didn’t think she was an Emergency case either. Again, the Hospice Nurse had to remind them there was no power, no heat and only about 45 minutes of Oxygen left in my Mom’s portable tank. She made them boys see real quick that this WAS an emergency case and they transported her to the Hospital.

This day also happened to be my birthday.

My Aunt, one Cousin and myself stayed with Mom in the Hospital. We took turns going to get food, coffee and going outside for smoke breaks.

About 4 a.m. the next morning, my Mom lost her battle with Cancer.

My faith tells me she is in a much better place now and this has helped immensely handling her death.

Nothing, but nothing prepared me as much for her death though as the Hospice team. The information and support they provided helped us a great deal and I will forever be deeply appreciative to them.

To top it off, we were without power for a week due to the ice storm.

Life’s Lessons My Mother Taught Me

My Mother and Father divorced when she was about 50. I was 20 years old at the time and going through a divorce of my own from my first wife.

Mom taught us boys a lot of things growing up. However, I think it was the lessons that she taught us through her actions after she divorced that made the most impact on my life.

Unlike my Dad, she never remarried. She only had a high school education and she received very little money in the Divorce settlement.

However, she immediately went out and got a job after being a Homemaker for nearly all her life.

She worked and saved her money. She never made more than 10 dollars an hour, but she managed to buy and pay off a house (on a 15 year note) and pay off her car on her income. When one job became too difficult or she saw a better opportunity, she took it. If one job slowed down, she would often get another one to take up the slack.

She scrimped, saved, sacrificed and budgeted to make ends meet. But she did it. She proved it could be done.

Every July 4th she had a huge Family Reunion at her house. This was one of the high points of her life every year. She provided most of the food for this also.

She loved her Family and when someone was coming over, even if it was for a day, Mom was busy in the Kitchen cooking up something good. It was seldom that anyone left her house that wasn’t carrying food home with them.

I look back now and actually feel bad that I make probably 10 times or more than she did and have a helluva lot less to show for it. I’m guessing that many of you do also.

Strangely enough, it was my Mom who was the most supportive of me and my “hairbrain” ideas. My Dad was a work-aholic and a successful entrepreneur. However, his advice to us boys was always “Go to School, get an education and get a good job”. It was my Mom who always said “Son, I know you can do anything you set your mind to. If you want to do it, go for it, I’ll support you in any way I can.”

And she did! I probably never let her know how much her supportive words meant to me. Even when I failed, she never said “I told you so”. It was always, “You did the best you can do, you’ve learned from your lessons, you’ll be successful next time, I have faith in you.”

She also taught us through her actions to never give up. She wasn’t a quitter.

Shortly after she moved into her home, she came home one morning from work and thought my Uncle’s truck was in her driveway. She let herself in the door from the Garage and herd someone go out the back door and then heard the truck start up and leave. It had been a burgler and he’d stolen a lot of her antiques and jewelry. Some of her jewelry was her Great Grandmothers. Even though she was shaken, she carried on.

In 1996 a lamp in the Living Room shorted out. She was asleep when the fire started but managed to get out with only some singing of her hair and clothes.

The fire gutted most of her home. Many things that the fire didn’t get, the so called “clean up” company got. Just a FYI, be wary of any company you Insurance agent sends out to “clean up” items damaged by a fire. From what I can tell, most of them are crooks and your agent may be taking a kickback.

Mom had to fight with her insurance company to cover the things that were supposed to be covered by her policy.  She fought for everything that was described in the policy and got it even though they tried their best to get out from under it.

There are other examples, but you get the picture. There were times should could have gave up and quit, deciding to become a victim, but she didn’t. That wasn’t my Mom.

Getting Back To Normal Isn’t Easy

So if you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, now you know. I got back home from taking care of her stuff this past weekend and I’m still trying to get my business and home life back on track.

I literally have hundreds of emails I’m trying to sort through.

I didn’t have the heart and mindset to work on my Internet stuff while I was taking care of Mom.

To you wonderful people who bought a copy of the BuildANicheStore or PHPBay ebay affiliate programs and are waiting for a copy of my ebook, I promise, it’s on its way as soon as I get all the emails out of the way. I also have some new and exciting information that I’m going to be updating the ebook with.

For everyone else, I’ll be getting back to posting on a regular basis shortly. I have some good topics for articles and can’t wait to sit down and write them up.

I thank everyone for their patience and hope you had a great Christmas and I’m wishing you all a Happy and Profitable New Year!

Anyway, if anyone else is having a problem with this site continually reloading, drop me a line will ya!

We’ve had our DSL for about 3 years, maybe 4. In that time we had outages about every other month or so. Every time we call them, they always say it’s something in the line at our house, our computer or that our modem is bad. They insist of sending out a service technician which usually takes a few days to schedule. Of all the times they’ve done this (which is about 20-30 times to date) not once has it been a problem with our modem, the computer or our lines. Every time it has been a problem in a data center somewhere, usually it takes the field technician about 5 minutes on the phone (apparently they knows who to call) to fix our problem.

Embarq customer service isn’t much better, in fact, it could be worse. We’ve been hung up on, put on eternal hold, lied to (one customer service tech told me that he couldn’t help me because there were no tech’s on duty on the weekend, which I found out later was a lie), gave the wrong information, etc, etc.

Now they’re quite sure it’s our modem this time. I was on the phone for over an hour Saturday with the Embarq tech. We tried settings on both of my computers and still could not get my Internet service back. He assured me that he would have one go out first thing Monday morning and it would be over-nighted.

Here it is Thursday morning and I still don’t have a DSL Modem. I called them last night and was told it was shipped that morning. When I asked the girl on the phone why it wasn’t shipped out on Monday like I was told, she said she didn’t know and that they don’t offer overnight shipping on anything.

By the way, this is a Small Business account I have with them. I’d hate to see how they treat their Residential customers.

I reminded them every time I talk with them that if I had a choice of local service providers, I would choose someone else in a heartbeat!

The best though is when they call us wanting us to use their Cellular service. Trust me, the poor sap who calls me and wants me to sign up with Sprint Cellular service gets an ear full. Basically it goes like “Why in the hell would I want to sign up for your cellular service when you local service and customer support is by far the worst I’ve ever seen? Do you honestly believe that I want your crappy Sprint Cell service? I mean, no one can take that much abuse!”

So, if you’re planning on moving, you’d do well to check out who your local phone/DSL service provider is. If it’s Embarq (formerly Sprint), I seriously think about another neighborhood if you value your Internet Service!

I’ll be back to regular posting just as soon as this incompetent company can get their heads out of their butts and actually do something they’ve promised.

Note: The above post is entirely my opinion and based on the service I’ve received from this company over the last several years.

UPDATE: A packaged arrived yesterday afternoon shortly after I got home from McDonald’s where I was using their WiFi to post this blog post. It was from Embarq and it was my DSL Modem. It had been sent the previoius day (Wed.) instead of Monday as I was told plus it was sent Next Day Air (I guess they do have that service after all) Once again proving that the people who work there don’t have a clue as to what’s going on or what their company can/can not do.

BTW, it took nearly an hour to get the new modem working. When I was on the phone over the weekend with the Embarq tech, he had me change so many of my settings on my computer that I forgot to write them down so I could change them back.

PLUS the new DSL modem came with spamware an integrated virtual assistant program. Once I got my connection my browser automatically opened up the Embarq page saying I had to download this virtual assistant. I tried to cancel the download and installation of this program and go directly to the Internet but no dice. The browser wouldn’t work at all until I downloaded the virtual assistant program. Nice…real nice. Way to go Embarq! You really know how to make your PO’d customers love you even more! I can see a day in the future where they’ll be referring all problems to this virtual assistant program.

Last night I was surfing the ‘Net and trying to figure out how to game Wikipedia researching information on the wildly popular site ‘Wikipedia’, when I came across this blog post about the ATF changing Wikipedia pages.  ATF is a U.S. Government agency called the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. It’s under the control of the U.S.’s Department of Justice (DOJ).

This rubs me the wrong way as I don’t want my tax dollars going to some bozo sitting in a room on my dime changing pages on Wikipedia. I think there are a lot of other useful things one can do with my tax dollars and they don’t include surfing the Internet and changing pages on a free online encyclopedia.

This is the exact reason I LMAO whenever I hear someone say “It’s true, I read about on in Wikipedia.” Ummm, yeah….Wikipedia…where people like you edit an encyclopedia with information that they believe to be true…oh yeah…I’m believing that man!

I took that posters advice and used the instructions on his site to view the logs of IP’s from the ATF so I could see which pages they’ve been changing. It’s scary to see which pages they have been changing. Here are just a few pages I found that they changed.

• Affirmative action
• Ted Dibiase (before pro wrestling)
• Star Wars
• Sherman Anti-trust act
• Euthanasia In the United States
• The Star of Nanchang
• John Madden
• Lucy Lawless

That’s only a start. Here are some the poster found by his self.

# 149.101.1.116 (Star Wars, Harry Potter, Samuel Adams beer, US Antitrust law)
# 149.101.1.117 (US Marshals, Enron, Fantastic Four)
# 149.101.1.118 (Bolt-firearm, Ann Coulter, 2000 election-added “stolen election”)
# 149.101.1.120 (Martial Arts, Cal Ripken, Civil Right & Black Power Movement)
# 149.101.1.128 (US Senate, Palestinian State, Aryan Brotherhood)
# 149.101.1.130 (Charles Bronson, Calvin and Hobbes, Alberto Gonzalez)

Calvin & Hobbes, Xena, Ted Debiase and John Madden?! Now they’re screwing with my Heroes!

Seriously, these incidents may only be some low level employee screwing off. It doesn’t matter. If they have this much free time on their hands, they have enough time to due more meaningful things!

The ATF is requesting more and more funds saying that those funds (in part) are needed for new personnel. What the hell do they need new personnel for? Fire the managers who let these bums surf the Internet on my dime then fire the people who are surfing the Internet! This is of course, if they are really doing this on their own time and not changing Wiki pages as part of their ‘Official’ duties.

I’m not so sure that they were just employee’s screwing off though. Past actions of all administrations suggest Uncle Sam wants to keep a closer eye on us.

There I go, sounding like a conspiracy theorist. It ain’t so. Nothing could be further from the truth. Go do your own research and come to your own conclusions.

I have to go now, there’s a unmarked black helicopter circling my house, I need to go put on my tin foil hat and see what they want.

Also, don’t forget to sumbmit entries to  “simpleblogmail at yahoo dot come”. If you entry bounces, use my contact form or the comment section to contact me and I’ll help ya.

What’s Up With Graphic Artist Anyway?

Speaking about graphic artist, what’s up with them getting their panties in a wad about creating samples?

After I posted the original contest rules, I thought it would be a great idea to visit some graphic artist forums and post about the contest. As usual, I do try and read the forum rules and browse through the post to see example post of what the forum does and does not allow.

Both forums I visited had rules that posting ”free contest” were not allowed. There were several post by graphic artist stating that they felt it was wrong for them to enter their work in contest without a guarantee of winning and being paid.

What?

I’m not sure where this idea of theirs came up, but there are plenty of other Professionals who work up samples with no guarantee of getting paid! It’s called submitting a bid, putting on a presentation, etc, etc.

I’ve worked with real estate agents who might spend days making mock flyers and sales sheets, putting together binders, setting up faux “talking ads” campaigns and such to present to a home Seller in hopes of getting their business. Do they get paid for doing all that? Hell no, not unless they get the listing.

Same goes with many sales presentations. There’s no gurantee of getting a sale and a company sure as hell doesn’t pay other sales professionals to come in and give sales presentations.

As far as I know, the same is true for SEO and Webdesign companies. At least that’s the way I’ve approached both. I work up a Sample to present it to the company or individual. There’s no guarantee my work will get picked. It’s just something you do in business if you want to work.

And judging from the number of graphic artist complaining that they couldn’t get their business off the ground, I’d say many of them do not work or have to work on the side due to a lack of business.

Perhaps if they participated in a few contest here and there they’d get some eyes on their work?! Hmmm?

I never thought for a minute that this little contest of mine would attract big name designers like our friend David Airey. What my intent was to create a fun contest and help some designers who are just getting their feet wet by showcasing their work.

Remember, all entries will be put in a post for the readers to help decide the winner. Even is your design isn’t picked, you still get a link to your site or contact info and your samples showcased. This site gets around 3-400 pageviews a day and around 100-200 unique visitors a day so you can do the math.

1 more thing, just to say it’s not a “Free” contest, I’ll let the winner decide whether or not they want the 125 x 125 banner ad on my site for as long as the banner stays up or $30 via PayPal. Winners choice of one or the other.

Remember, I’m not asking for the next award winner to the Graphic Artist hall of fame, just a simple, clean design. Either a logo (I can put it on a banner) or a banner. (see link in first sentence of the post for the details).

Okay, I’m done ranting now

1st if you’re a long time reader, you probably noticed that I went with Post Teasers on my front page. I know some of you liked the full post, but to be honest, I thought it was ugly and distracting on the longer post.

I’ve always liked how DoshDosh’s and Problogger.Net’s front page looks. It’s easy to scan their post and then simply click on the post I want to read.

A cleaner looking front page is something I was also trying to achieve.

This should also help me with Duplicate Content problems by not having the full post up on the front page.

The RSS Feed will still display full post!

If you want to browse full articles, then please click here to sign up for my RSS Feed.

Top Commenters Plugin Installed For My Top Talkers!

Okay, for those of you who’ve been good commenters and were put off by my removing the DoFollow plugin, I’ve installed the Show Top Commentators plugin. It shows the top commenters and will link back to your site if you provide an URL in the Comment filed. The links in the Show Top Commentators box have the “nofollow” attribute removed.

There’s a few more surprises coming, including a Give-A-Way in August. Nope, not gonna tell you what it is….just yet anyway!

For those of you who do not know what a Sponsored link in a WordPress Theme is, I’ll tell you. A sponsored link is one where a Sponsor pays the WordPress theme designer to include a link to the Sponsors site in the Theme, generally in the footer. The designer charges a fee for this.

I came across this little mention of sponsored links on Shoemoney’s site. I wish Shoe would just come out and tell us how he feels about the subject

After that, I found this post on Matt Mullenwegs site followed by Matt Cutt’s giving him an “Ataboy” for doing it. Is it only me, or do you see a WordPress.Com and Googlelove-fest coming to a blog near you in the future?

I was then emailed this story about Weblog Tools Collection removing all sponsored themes from their site.

Well, well, well, what a wicked web we weave!

Before I go on, let me say I read Matt Cutt’s blog frequently and only occassionally read Matt Mullenweg’s. I have nothing against these two, have never met them and I don’t think we’ve conversed over email. As for Mark Ghosh, I’ve never read his site, didn’t know it existed before someone emailed me the story.

I’ve read the so called “evidence” that sponsored links were ruining the whole WordPress experience.

I didn’t see it that way. If the sponsored links were really that awful, people would stop supporting the designers who made them. Funny, that’s how capitalism works. No one wants to pay for links on bad designs that get few downloads.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

I also think that Google and the folks at WordPress are the last two companies on the Internet that should be complaining about hidden links, sponsored links or anything else to do with embedding links and unwanted software on people’s computers and programs.

The most popular complaints for the people in favor of the ban on sponsored links were that “some people didn’t realize their WordPress theme contained sponsored links” or “some people are not technically skilled enough to remove the sponsored links.”

Pleeeze…give me a break!

Let’s see who’s paying attention. The first person who can tell me, by commenting on this story, the correct number to the following question will receive a ten dollar donation from me to their paypal account. Who can tell me how many links are embedded by the WordPress program in a default installation?

I can almost understand the WordPress link in the footer, but why the links in the Blogroll? If you people at WordPress are so concerned with someone not knowing about embedded links in a theme, why do you embed unwanted links in every default install?

The occurrences of Google installing unwanted programs (spyware, adware, etc) on unsuspecting consumer’s Computers are well documented so I won’t go there. If you want to know more, just Google it…

Either Sponsored Links Are Wrong, or They’re Not - Which Is It?

I found it amazing that Matt Mullenweg actually had the nerve to reply to a comment on the Weblog Tool Collection site telling a visitor that it was okay to sell WordPress themes, just don’t put Sponsored links on them? Huh?

Also, even if you decided to make them GPL, you’d still be able to charge for them. There’s nothing wrong with charging for something.

Anyone else confused? Either it’s okay to charge for something or it’s not?

This reminds me of the story about the Old Businessman who asked a Cocktail waitress if she’d sleep with home for a Million bucks. In an instant she said “Yes“. Then he asked her if she’d sleep with him for $10. She said “Hell no, what do you think I am, a Whore?” He replied, “We’ve done determined what you are, we’re negotiating the price now.” 

Either embedding links in a theme, ANY links, is wrong or they should be okay.

A Quick and Easy Solution To Embedded Links In Themes

Since this whole thing got started because some people were jealous others were making money on theme design concerned about the quality of the themes being designed, the solution is simple. Remove all links in the footer.

Yep, the WordPress link also. I’ll go for that. While we’re at it, the existing WordPress links should be removed as well. I guess I should write a tutorial on “How To Remove The WordPress Embedded Link in Your Footer.”

I don’t remove WordPress links in the footer, but I’m liable to start. I do insert the “nofollow” tag on all WordPress links. That’s another post to think about!

I’d also like to know if Google is going to penalize WordPressfor violating the TOS by embedding unwanted links in Themes. After all, according to Matt Cutts, there should be no embedded links unless they’re based on merit and put there by the blog owner.

What say you?

Yesterday I read two headlines on Yahoo News that got my attention quickly.

One was:

Diver Killed Off The Coast Of Florida After Lightning Strikes Oxygen Tank

And the Other was:

Minor League Coach Killed By Line Drive

I’m not even going to mention the story about the Chihuahua saving a 1 year old from a Rattlesnake. 

These stories just go to prove my theory that when it’s your time to go, that’s it, you’re checking out! No refunds, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. I just found it strange to have two weird death stories in one morning.

It also helps prove my belief that you should try and live every day as if it was your last, because it just might be. Love your Family and friends, make peace with you enemies and don’t sweat the small stuff…and remember, it’s all small stuff.

Honestly, I thought it was. What I had forgotten was that the more tag would cut off the articles in the Feed. So no more ‘more’ tags. You get the full Monty on the front page.

I’m also told this will help with my SERPS. We’ll see about that one!

Thanks for the feedback and your RSS feed readers, enjoy!

The other day I was reading John Wesley’s “Pick The Brain” blog post on 27 Lessons Learned on the Way to 3000 Visits a Day and 2200 RSS Subscribers. #20 took me by surprise. So much so that I’ve been thinking about it and doing my own research. And I’ve came to the conclusion he may be right.

#20 on this list is “Posting comments on other blogs is overrated“. We’ve always been led to believe that commenting on other blogs will bring us lots of traffic, make us cool and good looking all in one.

After reading John’s post, I started looking through my blog’s stats, courtesy of Google Analytics, to see just how much traffic I get from comments on other blogs.

My findings were somewhat surprising.

I comment quite often on some rather large blogs such as JohnChow.com and Shoemoney, as well as a host of smaller sites. I’m not sure how much traffic these two get in a course of a month, but I’d say it’s in the thousands per day.

In one months time, I’d received less than 30 visits from these two sites combined! Many of the other blogs accounted for a few visitors each. Total for the month from all blog comments, less than 50 visitors.

Wow, I think John is on to something!

The Real Value of Commenting On Other Blogs

Comments on blogs were never meant to be used to share PR link love or drive hordes of traffic to your site. However many “guru’s” will tell you that you must do this in order to build traffic.

The real value in commenting on other blogs is that you’re building a relationship not only with the blog owner, but with the readers of that blog as well. Whether or not they visit your site is not as important as them getting to know you.

I enjoy commenting on other peeps blogs. I enjoy the different views many other bloggers have and it’s interesting to see the response some bloggers get to their latest post.

So if you’re only commenting on other blogs in hopes that massive traffic is coming your way, you may be in for a let down. Post comments if you have something to add to the discussion, otherwise your time driving traffic to your site can be better spent elsewhere.

I’ve started using Do-Follow WP Plugin to remove the no-follow tag. Take notice, this doesn’t mean I’ll put up with Comment spam, Comments are still moderated.

I think it’s important to reward good Commenters with a little link love. And since this blog is all about helping others and not PageRank, I’ll share my PR with my Commenters.

I’m not sure who started the “You Comment, I’ll Follow” rage, but I’m glad they did. Some people are crediting Tricia @ Tricia’s Musings as the guilty party. You can follow the previous link to a long list of bloggers who have implemented the “I-follow” movement on their blogs.

Thanks again and remember, You Comment, I Follow!

I happened across this story from the Financial Times today.

I have to tell ya, it’s a little discomforting to read what Eric Schmidt of Google says about obtaining personal information on the world wide population.

On one hand, I love Google. They provide an outstanding product and service, but at what cost?

Google has stated in the past that they want to organize the worlds information. I’m down with that as long as it’s not the personal information they want to organize! But it seems Google is shooting for more personal data on you and me.

Eric Schmidt stated recently;

“We are very early in the total information we have within Google. The algorithms will get better and we will get better at personalisation.

“We cannot even answer the most basic questions because we don’t know enough about you. That is the most important aspect of Google’s expansion.”

“The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’”

Is it just me, or does anyone else have a problem with Google wanting to make everyday decisions for you? Have we come so far as to not be able to, or not wanting to, make simple everyday decisions such as “What shall I do tomorrow” or “What job shall I take”? 

Ummm, okay. That’s a little freaky. Hey Eric, dude, love the Search Engine and Webmaster Tools, but I don’t want you in my life, like, from here on out.

It’s not you, it’s me, I need to start seeing other Search Engines.