Michael Kane

So i’ve been MIA lately, except for blogging on here every few days. Reason is because, well one word, WIRED haha. No further comment lol. Anyway i’ve had a ton on my mind even though life is on cruise control right now, just taking it easy and it’s going pretty good for me.

So what’s been on MK’s mind? Meh, i’m upset with how politicians are acting, nothing new there, and I don’t want to dive into detail, in all honesty those worth electing are not running for presidency so what’s the point right? But as a good friend once said, ‘we owe it to ourselves to vote’ at least choose the lesser of both evils sort of thing.

Designer Jeans rock. What can i say, women should really take care of themselves, and most ‘mothers’ and so on forget to buy themselves some nice stuff from time to time, they should. A nice hot pair of jeans shorts like those, damn. Do it! Go buy yourself some now. That’s a fucking order. And guys, seriously, nice button up shirts are your friend, loose baggy tshirts are ok around the house, stop wearing them to the cafe and what not. Just stop.

5fifths image hosting rocks even though it’s not even finished yet?

Anil Dash rocks. And the anil dash post went sour because HaRRo was born with a stick up his ass (mental note to self; ban HaRRo’s IP :P).

Matt is doing better now, his condition is stable and Doctors say he’ll make a full recovery.

The BlackHat SEO Forum will be active again, soon, with a twist though, less BH SEO related more something else, so yeah, keep an eye out for it

Guys, go to Trendy Shoppes now, and buy your girl something nice, now. Oh and buy some damn Litter Bins for your car while you’re at it!

A domains for sale search engine is in the works, damn, this will DEF shake the domain industry and get buyers more active, what a great idea too, i’ll link you once I get notified that it’s up and running, there’s also a new Domain Auction live Chat application/site in the works, i’ll be sure to let you guys know about that.

HOT NEW BLOG CMS coming real soon, no database required, thousands of themes, drag and drop styling, super simple to use and SEO pimpified. It, will, rock. Period.

Muffin is still on my mind…

Yeah, some of you are that clueless, but it’s ok, I’ll educate you real quick. Anil Dash is probably one of the greatest bloggers of all time, second greatest, ok maybe third, but he is, in my personal opinion one of the greats. Now sure, some of his posts are all business oriented and a way to market some of sixaparts products, but when you read his personal blog, you automatically know this guy is a hardcore blogger, simple as that.

Now, Anil has been blogging for almost a freaking decade, that’s a long ass time to be blogging, part of the reason why he’s up there with the best, shit 10 years ago I was surfing all day and riding my motorbike wondering how i’m going to nab my dads credit card this time. So what is this all about, really it’s a reply to one of Anil’s tweets. No shit, no I know he could care less about this, so I’ll go on and not even direct any of it at him personally, just my thoughts on this comment;

Dressed up and looking sharp, went to a great restaurant with good friends. Being grown up beats the *hell* out of being young and broke. 07:55 PM September 06, 2008 from web

Ok, let me just state something real quick, dressing up, and looking sharp to go out with good friends is truly something I love to do, heck who doesn’t right? So that’s obviously not what bothers me with Anil’s tweet (which I know is his own personal opinion and should not bother me, though it does, so as it’s a public tweet, and probably read by tons who I doubt had the nuggets to comment on, I shall, because to be honest, yeah i’ve been there and know how some would feel).

What bugs me is the next part that states; Being grown up beats the *hell* out of being young and broke. Now before some of you start with the ‘oh im so fucking smart’ comment, and point out that anil was most likely referring to a state he was in before ‘growing up, making money and what not’ let me point out that to many, it does not read like that. Rub it in their faces, something I do sometimes but not like that I guess.

Anil, no hard feelings, I’m just putting this out there for some of my forum members to comment on rather than crowed up the prvt sections with Anil did this and Anil did that, seriously, take it out on here, because I’ll promise you he’ll see this, he’s good like that.

Anil is a cool guy, cool friend, says it how it is, and lives in New York too now, so it’s all cool. I just think somewhat public figures, like Anil, should watch some of the things they say, hey im not getting in his face about what he’s free to say and not say, just giving ‘my’ opinion, which you’re all welcome to drill holes in if you like I mean the comment above is not the same thing as reviewing Yahoos new mailing servers or whatever the heck it was anil was doing there, think he just doesn’t like Canadians that much I can’t blame him tbh!

I’ve told Jeremy, Marcus and HaRRo about this, as well as others, when you have a large following online, watch how you go about it, show that much respect to the people that keep your jobs alive, to those that respect you and give you a reason to blog and be online. Anil, you’re a stand up sort of guy, wicked personality and an all round nifty blogger, i just had to get some of those guys out the ‘anil dash does it again’ threads

I mean that sounds fine, but some can get as young as 12 years old, most 14-17?! Dressed n skimpy looking clothes, sometimes a single piece of cloth wrapped around their more than likely to be anorexic boddies, something about sends signals flying, like, wtf is going on with the fashion industry? Come on, what we selling tickets to pedobears to come watch a fashion show now? Front seats and all? BullShit. Yes, BullShit.

So yesterday I was invited by a friend to come hang out with her while she does a photoshoot, being an ex-model herself she usually works in that part of the industry, so I got there and watched Alexis Cooper doing her thing. Very very impressive, I’m sure she’ll update her site with some of the shots she can share but damn, impressive. I took some of these young models…ha sneaking into the dressing room will def not go down well with anyone I’m sure, but fuck it. Blog worthy shit is ‘bullet in foot’ worthy these days.

On the upside, I got to take photos of this one model, she looked legal ha! I did not ask though, figured what I didnt know could not hurt me! So below is a couple pictures, first one of Jess I took, I know, looks like some professional dude took it right? HAHA! I kept saying ’say cheese’ and I guess that was super corny or something, had most laughing, fuck them, I did good! I got real close and zoomed a lot at times but hey, this was the only one that turned out good out of maybe 30 I took, yeah I know! Other pix below of these young models, one looks 14, no doubt….what do you guys think about this, honestly now? I mean some of the cloths they were wearing, well damn it, sexy to say the least and im sure that’s purpose but 14year olds skimpily dressed like that? Something about that strikes me as odd? Then again I’m by no means familiar with how this industry functions, maybe with time I will, meh.

My shot of Jess, standing in front of a wall because Alexis was busy using that whole star wars setup thing with lights and screens and stuff! In her hot ass cow boy boots, HAHA! Ok, this was the only publish worthy one out of like freaking 30, and I swear it looks hot, she didnt want it though, I sent her a tiny version via MMS, she’s like, no thanks keep it Whatever! pffft. (PS: girl has nice teeth ha! )



This one is of the dressing room, behind the scenes sort of thing, ha so glad none were actually changing, that would have been wrong I suppose, ha! Ok so I mean take a look for yourself, what do you think? Am I over reacting? She’s got to be 14? 15? heck even 16 ? and it’s not young kids modeling that bothers me, suppose they have baby models these days, it’s more what they get them to wear and stroll around there and all…yeah suppose it could be issues I have against the fashion industry exploiting these young girls (and sometimes boys) which when put into context like that, sound even worse….
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Oh well, I do have something else to add to all that, what the hell is wrong with fashion designers these days? I mean take a look at this next pile of…I mean, do you guys think this sort of thing is cute? hot? pretty? what? It honestly looks like someone plucked a peacock there and glued stuff onto a top you know? Whatever….fashion my ass.

Years ago in Michigan, I met a friend, one of my cousins best friends had moved to live 5 blocks from where I was. We became close friends even though we were both living different lives, we could always let go and just be ourselves. Matt is a great son to his mother, he is his brothers keeper, there for his friends no matter what and when his country cried out for help, he put his life on the lines so you and I could sleep at night knowing the bravest are over there at their doorsteps protecting us. Fighting for what this country stands for, freedom…but it all just does not seem right.

Matt loves everything about life, got by with studies all the way to graduate, worked hard and loves his girl friend with all his heart. A loyal man he is, a loyal friend and a caring son. He stood by his mother for 2 years till she won the fight with cancer, came out a winner, told me without her baby boy, she would have never had the courage to go through it all. His younger brother follows in his footsteps, Matt was and always will be there to guide Jake right, that’s what brothers are for.

As loyal a friend as he is to my cousin growing up, he is someone I know I can forever depend on.

Matt was hit twice in the leg, and once the shoulder in the midst of a hail of bullets exchanged by our boys and rebels wile on escort duty. His brother said, he was told that Matt is in critical condition, but fighting, and that they are doing everything they can to keep him alive. I remember him saying “Mom said she wanted to break my legs so I don’t go. She understands why I need to do this, but she hates me for leaving her like this. She’s afraid, I’m afraid.” (parts too personal to share were removed from this conversation, quoted to the best of my memory).

Come back home damn it Matt….

The reality of the war in Iraq has suddenly become all too painfully real for Matts family and friends, and we are once again reminded of just how serious the situation in Iraq has become. Yet we do nothing about it but speak out in disapprove? Are we that insignificant? Are we that weak? Useless? Are we, the American citizens not the ones fueling this war with tens of billions a month?

You are to blame for this. I am to blame for this. Unless we do whatever it is we can to make a difference, the slightest difference, however insignificant, then we shall forever live with the fact that, we are indeed aiding this treacherous inhuman act against what we do stand for, our freedom, our brothers, sons, fathers, friends freedoms, those risking their lives every second, for what? For who? Us? We would rather they do it on their soil, where they were born and raised, right here.

I love you matt, bro, I still owe you a beer mother fucker, and I plan to pay it up. Get well soon.

God bless our soldiers.

Car Console’s are a must, yeah. What am I on about? The Car Console is what I’m on about. Little car bins that make everyone’s life easier. I ordered one recently because of the damn mess I was making in my cars, the SUV was becoming more like a huge dumpster on wheels and I wont even go on about the others. Let’s just say this little car bin did wonders. For what,? $20? come on that is so insanely sexy! I get a bin to throw my junk in! Such a useful little gadget (if i can even call it that, um how about Auto accessory ? yeah sounds better) to have in there, and if you add like a little plastic bag in there it makes cleaning the bin even easier, specially if you spill something in there.

If that was not enough, it’s such a sexy design, go check it out over at http://www.autobin.com ! It’s simplicity at its best.

Now I don’t have to lean down to the passengers side and chuck empty soda cans back when someone gets in to go for a ride with me or something ha! I know, so bad! So yeah, i’m helping you here, so go ahead and get yourself a little bin, and if you do then let me know, if you don’t you honestly suck

Get a bin and come ask me for a PR9 backlink for cleanliness! Ha! I’m so serious, this is my fav car accessory of the month, and I KNOW all you dudes need it to impress the ladies as much as you ladies want it to clean up after your kids. I know, i’m just that good

Several years ago, my mother passed away after 3 failed breast cancer operations. It was/has not been easy ever since, it’s like losing a part of you, the biggest part of you. She never once let her smile fade away, she never once lost hope, she never showed signs of weakness, except physical signs that were obvious at times.

She taught me everything I know, she taught me how to survive and how to make the best out of anything life throws my way, no matter how devastating or heart breaking. My mother is and forever will be in my heart.

To all those that have gone, or are going through the same, my heart aches for you. You have to stay strong, you’re their support, there for them to lean on in time of need.

Spread the awareness, help us get the message out by using this simple wordpress theme till the end of October (or longer if you wish…)

You can read a little more about it and download the theme at Design Pride

Now that I setup a new Music Message Board that also has a regularly updated music news blog I think it’s time to publicize it. What I plan to do is update you guys with 3 or 4 blog posts that includes my process of going about this. So I’ll talk you through what I do to get a site traffic, targeted traffic at that and you’ll see how simple it is to make a forum truly active (Yes i’m going to be assuming you’re running a music forum too…this applies to any other sort of forum too). Now if you have questions about something I post here, feel free to comment with it but I usually get around 800 spam comments a day and like 50 actual comments in between so it’s messy for me to sift through, if I see it i’ll accept it.

First thing is first, build a little bit of content before marketing your forum, and just make sure it’s firmly indexed in Google. What’s firmly indexed? Make sure you have a couple decent backlinks and wait a week to see if your new music forum / music site gets SB’d… if it’s still good or it’s an old site you converted into a music forum then you’re good to go. Content is important, make sure you have unique content, and at least 200 pages worth, on a forum this means no more than 30 decent topics with some good replies.

Now make sure your url structure is optimized and keyword rich, basically do all on site SEO before marketing, so it’s content, links, keyword density and so on, and don’t forget to use different anchor text targeting a wide selection of keywords in the backlinks anchor text like I for example will target things like ‘music forum‘, Music Board or even Music Discussion, I might even link to boards within my music forum and target keywords such as Classical Music Forum, this tells Google that people are sifting through your site and still finding quality content, plus it helps get everything indexed. This should go on for a couple weeks, when you’re done with this focus on getting ‘QUALITY’ backlinks, and not many are needed at first, blog post backlinks are really good as they get crawled almost instantly on half decent blogs. Make sure the content is somewhat related to forums or music, that’s always a plus.

Next step is the most important step, generating targeted traffic. It’s like herding sheep really, you need to find them and show them the way to your forum (you best have decent content, a good design too to keep them there).

So how do we get this targeted traffic? That comes in the next post when I start doing it myself

Are there more successful male webmasters than there are female ones? See I know this topic has probably been discussed before, but I know who my blog readers are, and for the most part, cute stalker girls aside, they’re a very intelligent bunch of both genders. So here’s me asking you guys what you think on the matter?

I wont make this a long blog post as I’m more interested in what you guys have to say on the matter, but this is how I see it; Both men and women have a shot at making it in their industry of choice. It’s those that want it bad enough that have the upper hand. I think it’s more about different people excelling in what it is they are good at, more passionate about. If i’m to look at the male VS female web presence online today, I’d have to say that it looks like males are dominating the stage. Disagree? Let me know why!

Oh and another thing, I think this country would be in turmoil if a female president was ever elected.

Friend of mine has been busy blogging over at consideropen.com only to be slammed by the phenomena I like to call ‘retarded CEO of LoopFuse comment shower’, whos marketing and sales automation software sucks, not that I even care to read about it really. CEO of LoopFuse, Roy Russo has proven several things by commenting the way he did, one being that he has zero people skills. I’m not only going to go on about how rude, immature and fucking stupid this dickhead was in replying the way he did, I’m also going to talk about how NOT to promote your product, LoopFuse can learn from this, really, they can’t get any worse so here goes.

This guy is beyond being a complete fuck up, he’s arrogant, has an ego that needs to be chopped down a notch and owes Lauren a fucking apology for the way he acted in a LoopFuse Review . Once he publicly apologies to her on her blog post, this will go away. Otherwise, get ready for a little ripple that I like to call, pin the tale on the moron. What do you think 1400+ unique blog posts about how crap a service LoopFuse is, not to mention how crap a personality it has running it will do to his company? Yeah, I see this going to the shitter pretty fast too.

“LoopFuse is a Marketing Automation Suite, NOT a web analytics package. Hence the price, hence the “extra functionality”.

… and you can view the click-stream. Trial’s are free, brain-cells aren’t.

Thanks for the plug, though. ;)”

You like sarcasm Roy? Guess what, there are over 37thousand BH’s/SEOs/Webmasters in my personal network alone that would love to share their sarcastic comments with you. I KNOW you’re thrilled to hear that.

It’s no secret, my people skills are pretty fucking awesome, you don’t get invited to the googleplex every day for having shit for skills, to talk at seminars if you were not good at what you do, but when something bothers me, when someone gets under my skin, i’m NOT afraid to say so, and I will tell it how it is. I don’t mind throwing around a few threats either, and like I’ve told many before, call my bluff if you think it is one, do it, make my day that much better.

So promoting yourself online, well one point you need to keep in mind is to never ever lash out at negative reviews, conduct yourself professionally online, or as my friend Jeremy over at shoemoney.com once said, ‘blog comments travel faster than the speed of light’…whada ya know!!! He was right

Keep in mind, not all publicity is in fact good publicity. If you get 500 people chanting the same review, you’re most likely going to get shit for clients if those reviews start ranking, sure one or two wont matter much, but when word gets out, you’re in the dog house. Period.

Always remember that it’s the client that feeds you, just because you have made enough off past clients, that does not mean you’re safe to bash new ones, on the contrary, ‘what makes you, can break you’ and in this case, it’s your paying customers and potential ones. Bashing them means you’re simply hacking away at your own life chord.

Guys, use LoopFuse’s poor behavior as an example, instead of effectively tackling the review and spinning it around to their advantage by possibly changing the reviewers mind about the product, or at least fixing it with a professional discussion so users reading both the review and the comments side with you, Loop Fuse went ahead with a piss poor job of a come back and insulted not ONLY the blogger in question, but all the blog readers.

Roy, ray, whoever you all are, fix this or take it to another level by slamming me with a sarcastic reply too Go on, make my fucking day, and Lauren, don’t worry, we bloggers stick together no matter what!

I rarely even read online web related interviews with the different SEO and Web developer/designer personalities out there, mainly because I could care less about any of them. But when someone really close to me does something that impresses me, I show respect, and here’s how. I landed an interview with Johnny of JustaGuyandaGirl.com a great friend, practically related to me, he’s like that guy in the mirror. On top of being able to relate to him, I think he’s a great SEO/Designer/Developer.  So, let’s get started with the first part of this really fun interview. Hope you like it.

Michael Kane: What’s good man?

Johnny: It’s all good MK, how are you?

Michael Kane: Fine bro doing great. So tell me, what have you been up to lately?

Johnny: Taking it easy, doing what I have always been doing like working on my many projects and starting a few new ones here and there. My latest is www.justaguyandagirl.com which I setup with Blondie, a good friend of mine. I have some plans for the site but I’m waiting for it to reach a fork in the road before I expand it into a money spinning project, as of right now, it’s all in good fun, a place me and Blondie get to share our ideas and not get hassled too much about doing so.

Michael Kane: Great, i’ll get to justaguyandagirl.com in a bit, but tell me what you mean by ‘fork in the road’ ?

Johnny: Well the blog for now is just a place me and Blondie can vent, be random, and have fun. Later on I want to expand it into a podcast oriented blog and then go live with live streaming (online radio’ish like) which might end up with us not only having live streaming audio when we’re on but possibly live streaming video too, a sort of reality blog that’s live and kept updated pretty much 24/7. Like I said, that’s in the future, right now we’re focusing on taking it one step at a time and hopefully building a big enough readership count to think about bigger and better things. Turning the blog into a Super Affiliate blog is also another idea I’ll spin Blondie’s way soon, it’s just what comes to mind really, it’s not too planned out at all.

Michael Kane: So for the record, Johnny is your Alias right? You are however a super affiliate correct? I believe a year or so ago you were mentioned as one of the top Super Affiliates online today but a lot of controversy was sparked around that, am I warm?

Johnny: Yes, ‘Johnny’ is a nickname i’m going by for now, I’m not trying to be mysterious but I want justaguyandagirl.com to succeed for what it is, not who’s blogging on it, Blondie really is my other half when it comes to blogging, scary how I can say that about a women, as you know all women have issues and are psycho and she puts up with me, and we get along almost too well, so I believe we’re the ultimate blogging team here, and the blog will succeed because of that, not because of my personal readership online.

Yes, early in 2007 I was contacted via email for an award I wont name, but I was working under the radar (much like you do most times) they had very little to go on as far as contacting me personally, I refused to give them an appointment as I did not want to become another public SA icon, I just wanted to keep at what I was doing and simply left alone. They did not appreciate that and canceled the award even though I offered to have someone appear as a representative, that did not go down too well with them and I was scratched off the affiliate  list for that year. However, I am planning on making a public appearance later this year at more than one convention, I wont say more on that.

Michael Kane: Reading your blog posts I can’t help but think there’s more to some of the things you’ve posted, not to mention posting about naked monkeys and using similar crazy titles for posts like I do. Are you slipping hidden messages directed at certain people or something? I mean your latest post about SEO personalities obviously attacked Doug Heil, a very well known SEO and then you went on complimenting shadyseo only to bash a blackhat? Not to mention bitching about WP even though you use WP yourself?! What gives Johnny?

Johnny: It’s not about me attacking anyone personally, I’m just giving my own opinion and posting assumptions, all of which are mine alone. Doug to me was not targeted in that post he was just used as an example mainly because he straps the word ETHICS to his back and runs around telling people how to run their businesses, sure he’s highly respected in the SEO industry and I give him credit for what he’s accomplished, but he’s not a competitor, nor is he someone I need to worry about in my own industry, however when I think of a ‘white hat seo’ I think of him.

Shady SEO to me is just someone doing what needs to be done to rank without being an out right Google hater and believing that the most popular search engine in the world hasn’t a clue when it comes to ranking sites. Black hats, well, I’m no Doug Heil but one thing I agree with him on, is that to me most black hats, or at least those calling themselves black hats are simply immature and are for the most part involved in online criminal activities. Hurting competitors and attacking their ad campaigns or faking adsense clicks and stuffing affiliate cookies is stealing which every 5 year old knows is wrong.

I actually voted for G.W.Bush, but I was one of those protesting a while back when my youngest cousin was sent to Iraq, he was killed in a road side bombing 2 weeks before he was to come back home. Anyway that’s besides the point, Wordpress I use, but it does not mean I have to accept it’s flaws, and I stated that in my recent post on justaguyandagirl.com

Michael Kane: Hey Johnny, tell me something I don’t know about SEO, wait that is tricky i’m sure, tell my readers something they may not know about ranking? A tip, trick? Anything they have not read about a million times online before.

Johnny: Spam is all bad, but there’s something known as Smart Spam (SS), I think you originally came up with the term and technique, it gets the average webmaster around 200-1000 targeted unique users in traffic a day, which is a nice boost in targeted traffic for 60% of sites out there today.

Simply visit a warez forum such as forumw.org, register and browse it for topics related to your niche with a product that’s up for download, something users are going crazy over (find a few for best effect) take the rapidshare links, download the products then re upload them on a page on your site, or simply upload them to rapidshare and add the link on a dedicated page on your site . Consider using a proxy so you don’t get in trouble for re distributing software or whatever the product is, then go onto a more popular forum, such as warez-bb.org for example. Post the new to your page with the download link on it.

Usually you get around 200-400 visits if it’s rush hour on big forums in the first hour of publishing a new post, if you develop a good reputation multiply that by a thousand at least. People fail when they think of spam as a method to simply help their rankings in the search engines. Props to you for coming up with similar techniques a few years back Mike.

Michael Kane: A lot of techniques we used to rank and generate traffic 4 years ago are still as effective today, just not as widely used. It’s like a current, it swept a lot of the creative effective ideas we once used to come up with, I remember the irc message spam bot that used to slam irc channels worldwide with over 50,000 messages an hour or day, can’t remember that part. Now that was hardcore.

Anyway, I want to split this interview into two parts, have this as an intro and the next 10 questions all SEO/Marketing/Blogging/Traffic Generating related, up for round two?

Johnny: I think I am, let’s have them!

Part 2 of this interview will follow soon.

(parts of this interview have been edited but in no way effect/alter the integrity of the answers or questions.  Mainly re formated and spell checked to better go with the blog format and my blogging style)