Domain Name Giveaway: MORTGAGEUSA.BIZ

Domain Name Giveaway - Free Domain Name
That's right, folks: the www.DomainBlog.net Domain Name Giveaway is back (it's been on hiatus since 2005!)

I'm giving away the name MORTGAGEUSA.BIZ, which is resgitered @ Godaddy and expires on August 5, 2013.

I've decided to make the contest much simpler.  All you have to do is guess my mother's birthday.  Just the month and day, not the year.

How to Enter:

Post a comment below with your ONE guess AND send your guess to me via email.  Contest email address is:

Domain Name Giveaway - contest email

When you post your comment below, include either your name or whatever unique nickname you like.  No need to post your email address in the comments section. 

One guess per contest entry.

There is no deadline with this contest.  Whoever gets this right date first, wins.

This contest is open to everyone (the world.)

If you win, the name will be pushed to your Godaddy account (if you don't have one, you can create one very quickly; and free, of course.)

Good luck y'all.

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Yahoo! Cache = Web Forgery???

Every once in a while, I  like to check the cache of the major search engines, to see how current the snapshot of my site is.  Was checking Yahoo the other day, and was shocked to see this message pop up:

Yahoo! cache is a web forgery?  Yikes!  What a mess!

The IP address, 74.6.238.254, points to Inktomi Corporation, which was acquired by Yahoo! back in 2002.

Are you paying attention Ms. Mayer?

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Domain Name Auction: Joy Dot TV

Just started a Sedo auction for the JOY dot TV domain name. Name has obvious potential. If interested, please visit this link. Thanks!

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Manipulating Google's Freshness Signals

Penguin

I've been working hard to combat the effects of Google's Penguin algorithm update for one of my most important sites.  I had a number of sites that I was developing.  Hompepages were up with some unique content, and I had links installed.  Soooooo...I guess the Algo' assumed I was trying to build link farms.  Oops!  Oh well.  No big deal.

For a few of these penalty-inducing, nascent sites, I redirected.  For the rest, I added the NOFOLLOW attribute to all the links.  I think my rankings will be back to normal soon.

Just submitted a reconsideration request, just to let Big G know that I wasn't trying to be a spammer.  We'll see.

Last year's Panda update resulted in the same site getting deindexed, but it bounced back in short order.  I have faith that Google does not want to punish honorable publishers. 

My other major Internet property should have been hit with the same penalty.  But it wasn't.  Because it has too much authority.  Authority is the key.  Not enough authority, and these algorithm updates become a major pain.

Manipulating Google's Freshness Signals

A site that I compete with is manipulating page content to get better rankings.  The site is DailyMarkets.com.  What are they doing?  Simple: they are constantly changing the date next to the byline to the current date.  So an article / blog post that was published 6 months ago has today's date.  And it will have tomorrow's date on it tomorrow.  Penguin is clearly bestowing too many points for this kind of "freshness."  I'm surprised the algorithm is that easy to trick.  We'll see what happens over the next few weeks.

Shame on you DailyMarkets.com.  Shame!

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Competitor Site Hacked by Tiger-M@te

Was checking out the site of a serious competitor yesterday, which everyone must do every once in a while, and found that his site had been hacked by "Tiger-M@te." The hacker, apparently from Bangladesh (Bangladeshi HackeR), sent props to aBu.HaLiL501, w7sh.syria, Sy-Hacker, NmR.Hacker, Wa7sh Hacker, h311 c0d3.

What really surprised me was how long it took for the site owner to get the site back up. It was down for at least 12 hours.

Weak login credentials? Must be. Probably used his home address for his master server password, or something silly like that.

By my estimation, as we have very similar sites, he lost at least $300 during the downtime. An expensive lesson in server management.

Hacking: what a sorry waste of time, energy and talent. Hackers need serious therapy.

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Press Release Writing And Distribution

Writing and distributing press releases is a key part of my SEO strategy. Been doing them for more than 5 years now, for lots of different sites.

Was using PRWeb until 2009. I liked them because I could easily add links to my releases (which one can still do, of course), and my releases used to rank well in the search engines. For some reason -- and completely out of the blue -- my releases stopped ranking well in both Google and Yahoo!, so I decided to try other distribution sites.

Have been using MarketWire since mid-2009 and they've been OK. With MarketWire, however, I couldn't help but think I could do better. So I've been on the hunt for more value.

Been helping my friend Sharay Hayes revamp his GetPunished.com site recently. Sharay is an entrepreneur and entertainer; when he's preforming, he's known as The Punisher. We're going to do a press release for his site soon, and I've decided to give eReleases a try.

eReleases offers a great deal of value, much more than it's main competitors. Here's a table that compares what you get with eReleases vs. PRWeb:

I especially like the included national distribution, and the fact that eReleases will get a release noticed by radio stations and TV shows.

Of course, I will update this post when i have more to share about my experience with eReleases. Stay tuned!

If you want to give eReleases a spin now, click the banner below (shameless affiliate link!):

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GoDaddy Discount Codes

The latest domain name discount codes, from my favorite registrar -- www.GoDaddy.com:

gdz372pla - 31% off your domain name purchase, with no minimum. Expires March 31, 2011. GoDaddy describes this particular coupon code as their "best-ever offer."

WALLET412 – 35% off new .COM registrations and renewals. Unknown expiration date.

DOWNFORCE - lowers the cost of just about any domain name at GoDaddy. Unknown expiration date.

Enjoy! Visit www.GoDaddy.com to get new domain names or renew the names you have there. This blog post will be updated frequently.

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GoDaddy Coupon Code: 20% Off $40 or More

A brand new coupon code from the good folks at www.GoDaddy.com just hit my inbox. It's gda824pl, which can get you 20% off your order of $40 or more.

If you plan on using coupon code gda824pl, don't procrastinate. This code is set to expire on August 15, 2010. Enjoy!

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My Latest Dropped Domain Names

I had such lofty plans for so many domains in my once impressive portfolio. But I've been forced to cut back in many ways, including dropping lots of domain names. Here's a list of some names I've dropped recently, or are about to drop, from www.GoDaddy.com:

INTERNETINDUSTRY.INFO
EBAYAUCTION.TV
VERTICAL.WS
ALIVE.WS
DOWNLOADCENTER.US
BOTANICALESSENTIAL.COM
PROFITPURITY.COM
BRIDEUSA.NET
DEBTUSA.NET
DRUGSUSA.NET
SUPPORTUSA.NET
TAXESUSA.NET
CHATLIVE.WS
MAXFIORENTINO.COM
SUPPORTUSA.NET
GAYUSA.US

Enjoy!

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Wanted to Get Out, But The Recession Kept Me In

When I left my reasonably comfortable job I had @ a big NYC law firm, I was willing to do anything to make it on my own. I realized the potential of the Internet and decided that I was going to make a million dollars online, or die tryin'.

So, yeah: I got into porn. Nothing illegal or sick, just a few adult entertainment sites that make money by offering downloadable video clips. Niche sites that served me quite for about a decade.

For the first 4 years these sites made good money. Income from these sites began to slip after 2004, due to a massive increase in competition. Big corporations with deep pockets started to get into porn in a big way. However, I was still making enough to justify keeping the sites up and updated. When you have to support a family, every penny counts.

After the banking crisis and subsequent Great Recession, income from these sites continued to plummet, but the sites still made enough to pay for themselves and to cover a few bills.

Just before the recession, I was planning on either selling these sites or shutting them down. Why? Because I had my first child in 2003, and, as a new dad, I didn't want to be in the adult game anymore.

I see porn as entertainment, and just like alcohol or gambling, too much can be destructive. However, just because some people are prone to excess, doesn't mean that everyone should be denied access to this type of fun. Those who would like to see online porn banned forever should remember how successful prohibition was. Yep.

My plan was to first stop accepting new signups by simply removing the signup pages from my sites. Then, after all current memberships expired, I was going to shut them down.

But now it's 2010, and I'm still a porn webmaster.

I don't update any of my adult sites anymore, and I won't, ever. They will simply live on, in limbo, until I can afford to get rid of them for good. I'm hoping that'll be soon.

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