Frequent visitors to my blog and network sites over the past few weeks probably noticed a lot of ‘downtime’. The recent issues with my server forced me to cancel my account with JetNet and find hosting elsewhere. After submitting several support tickets (which JetNet was very good about responding to), they determined my server was fine and the problem was at the datacenter. JetNet would then send tickets to the datacenter, and they would respond with an ‘everything seems fine on our end.” The problem was never getting solved, so I had to leave.

I believe JetNet though that the problem was at the datacenter. I would look at my server in WHM and everything really would be fine. O well, I guess. I am now running all of my smaller sites (like this one) on a VPS hosted with ServInt and I’m running one of my bigger sites on a dedicated ValueBox from Spry. Both these companies are outstanding, as I have used them before and been very pleased. And best of all, by leaving JetNet and signing up with ServInt and Spry, I’m saving $10/mo!

Moving websites can be a complete pain in the arse, especially if you have 20 of them like me. It took me a couple of days to get everything transferred and sorted out.

It always seems like I have server/hosting issues. I really hope this is the last of it for at least a year. I would love to be able to sit back and have my websites just always be up and running without me having to be so involved.

If you have any questions about the hosting companies I’ve worked with, simply shoot me an email or contact me on MSN. I’ve already referred one person to ServInt (I get 50% off my bill for 2 months for each person I refer).

Well the much awaited and anticipated PageRank update finally happened. I don’t really care about pagerank anymore. It’s pretty much been worthless, except when it comes to selling links (which by now you should all know is against Google Law). Give me traffic and SERPs any day over a high PR.

But for those of you who are still interested, I’ll go ahead and post some of the updates across my network. Most were negative, but a few were positive.

Lithman.net: PR5 –> PR4

TebowZone.com: PR0 –> PR3

Mugdish.com: PR0 –> PR3

FightSongLyrics.com PR4 –> PR3

GatorEnvy.com PR4 –> PR3

MassEffectForum.com PR3 –> PR2

RyanHoward.info PR3 –> PR2

JoeMauer.info PR4 –> PR4

PhilipRivers.net PR3 –> PR2

So as you can see, every one of my established websites went down in PR. The only sites that went up were new since the last update.

I took the first few steps towards reinclusion into Google for one of my websites today. As you know, my two biggest websites were hit with huge Google penalties resulting in thousands of indexed pages just disappearing from the SERPs.

I had already removed Text Link Ads from both sites. This morning I worked on cleaning up site #1. I removed several links that contain ‘questionable material’ and added nofollow tags to several others.

After that was complete, I went ahead and sent Google a letter asking for reinclusion. I stated what I had done wrong, and the steps I took to fix the issue. According to Matt Cutts, it can take up to 6-8 weeks for sites with severe penalties to be reincluded. I would think that my penalties count as ’severe’ because I lost so many pages, I didn’t just lose a few or drop in rankings. They were completely wiped out.

I also am going to add Google Analytics to my sites, instead of just using Statcounter. Maybe Google likes sites running analytics better. Hopefully this helps some. I’ll be sure to keep everyone posted on the progress of my sites.

Well it was bound to happen at some point I guess. So many people I know have been hit by the Google ban, resulting in a loss of thousands of rankings and keywords. It finally hit me… either this morning or late last night. My two biggest sites which brought in a bit over 10,000 uniques/day combined were murdered by Google. My big time Keywords that I used to rank #1 or #2 for, are now nowhere to be found in the first 30 pages. I quit looking after reaching page 30. Everything I’ve spent the last year or more working towards went down the toilet just like that.

What did I do wrong?

• I lived by the Google. You can’t rely solely on Google for traffic. You just can’t.
• I sold text links. Matt Cutts of Google has said time and time again that you can’t sell text links on your site. I ignored those messages and did it anyways, namely using a bad company called Text Link Ads. I think this is the biggest reason why my sites were penalized. I’ve read so many stories on DigitalPoint of people running TLA and getting banned. Once again I was blinded by the green dollar instead of provided quality links for my visitors.
• I linked to bad sites. Using the Bad Neighborhood Tool, I discovered that I had several links on my sites that were not friendly. If you link to sketchy sites, you will get penalized.

What will I do now?

Other then close up shop and quit the internet business (which I will seriously contemplate if I don’t see improvements by January 2008), there isn’t much to do then just wait. I do recommend reading David Airey’s post on How to reverse the Google penalty. I will take the following actions to help my case.

• Remove TLA from all my websites. I’ve actually done this already. While it just cost me $150/mo, it was something that needed to be done. And what sucks is TLA won’t pay you for the 3 weeks I’ve already ran their ads. Only if you do it the whole month.
• Add rel=”nofollow” to bad links. I’m going to go through all my links and anything that comes up as bad, I will add rel=”nofollow” tags to them.
• Remove the word ’sponsor links’ or ‘featured links’ from my sites. I will then just put those links in my blogrolls or link lists.
• Optimize my websites for Yahoo and MSN, so I do not completely rely on only Google for traffic.
• Never sell text links again, unless you use rel=”nofollow”.
• Don’t ever ask people to link to me. Let them come natural.
• File a reinclusion request in Google Webmaster Tools. Once I have completed all the steps above, I will request to be reinstated. I’ll admit what I did wrong, and include the steps I took to correct my situation.

Getting penalized by Google will cost me thousands of dollars. I was so close to reaching that point where I could quit my job and work online only. The penalizing came at a good time though. I’m glad it hit me now then say 2 weeks after I quit my job. Then I’d really be screwed.

I’m going to do things the right way now, even if it takes a lot longer to achieve results.

The night I’ve been waiting for all year is finally here. Monday Night Football. The Indianapolis Colts vs the Jacksonville Jaguars. Peyton Manning and the 5-0 Colts are coming to Jacksonville Municipal Stadium to face the 4-1 division rival Jaguars in a heated battle for first place in the AFC South. Nothing is better then Monday Night Football on a cool October night.

I’ve been a Jaguar fan since the day the first took the field in 1995, and I have to say that this is one of the best, if not the best, teams we’ve ever had. I was hoping Freddy Taylor would break the 10,000 rushing yard barrier tonight, but it looks like he’s about 190 yards away… so barring a miracle, he’ll have to wait another week or two.

It’s going to be an awesome game. The entire city is pumped up. I’m bringing my camera so I can grab some pictures. If I get anything good I’ll be sure to post them. Be sure to turn on your TV to ESPN at 8:30 for kickoff. I’ll be in the stadium on the 42 yard line, so take a look for me!

This is not some super secret method to get free backlinks, but it’s something a lot of webmasters aren’t doing. I’m talking about setting up a couple of free Blogger accounts for the sole purpose of giving your main site free backlinks.

So let’s say you run an arcade site. Why not set up a free blogger account to promote your arcade. Everyday you write a simple 3-4 sentence blog post about a particular game on your arcade. Something like:

“Today’s game of the day is Frogger. Frogger is a game with a little frog in it. The purpose of the game is to cross the street without getting killed. Play this classic game at David’s Aracde.”

It’s that simple. Just place the proper links in there.

If you make a blog post every day, the amount of backlinks you have will build up very quickly. And best of all, you know these links are quality. There really is no difference doing this vs. submitting your site to a ton of new, free directories.

From what I’ve heard, Google loves blogs on Blogger. Just give your newly created blog a handful of backlinks and Google will find and crawl it quickly. Just rinse and repeat this process for some of the sites you own and track the progress for the keywords you select.