Last night my system was subjected to a vicious attack. I only know that it was done by someone who either knows me from Digitalpoint or knows of me being active there.
If you need to get in touch with me or have any sort of information, please email me.

Mike Dammann

P.S.: I have set things so you guys can comment here without registering, will tell everyone more soon. Thanks for everyone’s support and kind words.

Added: This is turning into a bigger disaster than I thought. Google refuses to give back gmail accounts once they were deleted, you can vote for this story on Netscape and Digg titled Don’t use Gmail and Losing your gmail account to Google and help prevent others from going thru the same thing.
Google states that
“If Gmail service has been deleted from your Google Account, it can’t be re-enabled and the username can’t be reused. This means that it’s not possible to access or forward the contents of the account.”

Exact quote from the Gmail NO Help Center.

Here is the latest email reply from Google:

Hello,

Thanks for your report.

We can only restore access to deleted Gmail accounts if the request is
made within a relatively short period of time after the deletion occurred.
However, you can create a new Gmail account with a different username by
visiting http://mail.google.com/mail/signup.

We appreciate your understanding.

Sincerely,

The Google Team

I then replied:

no listen I did that and you guys didn’t respond then

Followed by their ultra generic

Hello,

Thanks for your reply.

Once Gmail service is deleted from your Google Account, it can’t be
re-enabled and the username can’t be reused. Also, there’s currently no
way to access or forward the contents of the account.

You can visit http://mail.google.com/mail/signup to create a new Gmail
account, but you’ll need to select a new username. Thanks for your

understanding.

Sincerely,

The Google Team

Now I’m waiting for an answer to:

I don’t need the old content, I just want mikedammann@gmail.com to be forwarded to sitetutor@gmail.com or mike@ticoville.com

The last reply was this:

Hello,

Thanks for your response.

We have investigated this issue, but we’re not able to provide further
assistance.

Gmail takes the privacy and security of our users very seriously. For this
reason, we can’t reveal any further information about this account.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, and thank you for
your cooperation.

Sincerely,

The Google Team

Here is an ongoing conversation.

In June Jeff wrote this post on his blog which made Rand out razed. The discussion was about the fact that should SEOMoz’s Page Strength tool be put in the Quick Buck Crew, this website lists the people who cheat, scam and do everything for money!

Well what the issue was that SEOMoz built a tool named Page Strength Tool whose function was to tell the strength of page which by calculating IBLs, they never were correct with this tool! Jeff and many webmasters helped this tool to get popularity among the others on the net. Rand then made that tool used by free members only once a day and for premium members where you have to pay them to use that tool they kept unlimited usage!!!

Now after a month Rand came back up with his white board friday and sued Aviva directory by saying that they are not an authority site based on the fact that they don’t rank for the terms in the title of Aviva Directory which happens to contain “Information Web Directory”. Well as we all know Jeff does brilliant promotion for his directory. He has been in the front page of Digg more than once and has received a lot of organic links! Well every body knows that domain age, organic IBLs are the chief factor of gaining authority!

Well as everybody has a friend John of v7n takes a good participation in this contest. He gives his brilliant SEO insights in this post and a good discussion starts in this thread. Then Rand himself replies to this thread and says doing such type of protection was out of character!

It doesn’t suit a reputed SEO to talk like that on a public forum!

Then we found that Bob Mutch of seocompany.ca joins to protect rand by saying that rand is correct and Aviva is not a authority site (lol he couldn’t make the difference between authority domain and authority site) in this post. John made valid points in his replies but bob kept on disagreeing in this thread and this thread.

Then Mike also had the same view that “Web directory” was a worth less keyword, as the traffic coming from it would be worthless in this post.

Then I too got my boots on and went in to give my opinions of solid analytical reasoning why rand’s opinion was baseless, incorrect, pointless, inconsistent and even not to bob’s own belief!

What i felt is that this is very true! You just can’t judge a website for it’s being authority or not on the base of it’s not ranking for the title terms which are too competitive. If Jeff had known that his directory would be in such a deep trouble for not ranking for his title terms he really would have looked in to the matter and did the SEO of his directory. Well anchor text IBLs are the chief factor of SEO this is again proved. But just mix things up (bob even didn’t knew this, I had to tell him that it is good to mix up things…hehe)!

Well whatever happens to this discussion, let your mind be clear about whom to listen and whom to not! Otherwise you would be losing a hefty sum and get nothing in return!

Manish Pandey,
Proud Member of Frogengine Blog Network.

I have finally made my first post. Active Rain is a real estate blog network with huge benefits. You can immediately rank for terms related to your post due to the authority that AR has in Google. Active Rain is fairly new but already has a huge following. Active Rain is affiliated with many other great real estate networks as I have posted here on my Real Estate Blog.
If you are in real estate, join Active Rain today!

You can find great local California real estate information on Localism.com Mike Dammann is a proud member of the ActiveRain Real Estate Network, a free online community to help real estate professionals grow their business.

The answer is very simple. Blog networks are moderated and have credibility with Google because of it. If you are a good blogger, you need to find yourself a good blog network to join in order to get recognized by Google immediately. Your own blog may not have that credibility YET, so I recommend that you find a network which does.
If it’s from a site that Google has awarded authority to, you can quickly get business thru your articles.
Let me say though that providing useful content is the key.

I just came across this thread and believe it brings up very important facts on how webmarketers should prioritize when getting backlinks. We all know the Digitalpoint spammers and how aggressively they promote their web directories. Most of them provide no value, no traffic, and no search engine benefits. I personally have submitted to over 1k directories and in this post I’m sharing the ones which I myself am listed in and am getting more than my money’s worth.
Other than that I recommend not wasting your time on directories based on which ones are most plugged, but the ones which you yourself find thru Google for keywords somehow related to what your site is about.

Follow this link and find the ongoing discussion about Property Hogs being hacked. Vote for that story on Netscape. You can also digg it.

If you are an active blogger, what do you want to know more about? I’m about to write a newsletter for Blogger Talk and need your feedback on what to write about. I have the help of many professionals and experts in their fields, so whatever it might be, if it’s a good idea, consider it done!

Mike

He confirmed it on Latenight with David Letterman.
Drew Carrey will replace Bob Barker, one of the television pioneers as the new host of “The Price is Right”.
Many of us grew up watching the show. All things must come to an end. Kind of sad, but that’s how things go.
Maybe Bob will be in another movie and beat the crap out of Adam Sandler again.

Mike

Read more …

I always tell people to disregard the keywords in the domain.
I don’t like something like
smithrealestatecostarica.com
because it’s too long.
I like something short and brandable.
I used Frog Engine as a name just to have something people can recall.
Now I’m getting a lot of untargetted traffic and had I chosen something like Web Sites Frog Directory,
I’m sure I would get better traffic now.
The problem is that the first come first serve is still happening within the domain name world and few people know about sites like
Findeteer and how to use them to your advantage.
I’m often in shock to see what sort of domain names some of the local companies are settling for.
Names I could never remember.
So what do you think should be done with traffic that you can’t use?
My idea now is to network with websites that have something to do with frogs and have them link back to me so I can have their untargetted traffic.
Here is a post on my forum about it where I have added a section about frogs in case someone wants to chat about them.
Google is confused.
The information on the bottom of a page seems to mean a lot, because when you have copyright info, you are likely going to enter the name of your company.
But of course, the spammers have gotten wind of it and use it now to manipulate.
The best algo would be one where the company name, the reputation and other factors of value can be taken into consideration as well.
What should you do about your domain name?
I stick to my opinion that branding goes over meaning.
Call it whatever, 2 words, a made up one and a keyword one.
Get a good logo done.
Use that logo everywhere and plug your name + the most important keywords.
Let Google sort things out. Find some sites that can use your traffic and ask them to return the favor.
Having said this, if anyone of you has a site about frogs and needs some traffic, contact me on my forum.

Mike

Got your attention?
Good!
This comes from this blog post and this thread .
I don’t believe Ouch’s decision was right and the votes on DP … well … I would like to know of more hot female bloggers to be honest. You if you want to nominate one, do it on Blogger Talk and if the list is good, I will email all 10k members with my upcoming newsletter asking them to vote!
Nominate your favorite female blogger.

Mike