Are You Just Another Dumb Blogger? @FoxNews Might Think So!

Have you ever stopped and thought about what people outside of the blogging world might think about you and what you are doing online? As bloggers ourselves we understand that power and influence that we have online, and some of us have even built profitable brands and businesses out of what we have accomplished online. However it’s important to remember that we are just a speck of sand compared to the outside world who is used to working for the man and running 9 to 5 jobs.

So the question is…

What do NON bloggers and internet users think of bloggers?

It’s an interesting question to ask ourselves. When is the last time you ask someone what they did for a job? In most cases you probably have an idea of what their do and maybe even how their day to day operations take place. Now flip sides and think about all the time someone asked what you do, then you go on to talk about blogging and internet marketing… most times they will have no idea what you are talking about.

P.S. please wait a few seconds to pass the silly ads!

Last week I had the privileged of speaking at BlogWorld in New York City. This was the fifth time I’ve spoke at BlogWorld and it’s definitely one of my favorite events to attend. It’s more than just blogging, and it also brings in a whole new world of attendees and speakers together. I was also fortunate enough to catch up with Fox News on the exhibit floor and do an interview with them, which aired earlier this week on The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News network.

Fox News went on to interview a few attendees and exhibitors at the event, then they put together a fun little sketch for the show. Instead of focusing on the benefits of what BlogWorld has accomplished over the years, and the potential in making a side income and business through internet marketing and blogging, they decided to “spin” the story in a slightly different direction.

While being interviewed I was asked a multitude of questions, everything from blogging, to making money online, how technology will influence us in the future and of course politics. I know I have legitimate answers to all of my questions, and I’m sure others did as well, however Fox News made a spin out of it that bloggers were more of the basement dwelling people who have no knowledge of the world around them.

Going back to our original question… as a blogger what experiences have you had with talking to people outside of the internet world and getting their reactions to what they believe blogging and internet marketing really is?

It was awesome to be interviewed by Fox News and get exposure on national television again, and I truly appreciate it! I really would have just liked to see blogging and BlogWorld placed in a better light. If you feel the same way, be sure to visit the Fox News web site and watch the full video, then shoot Bill O’Reilly an email at oreilly@foxnews.com and let him know they missed out on a great opportunity to make a positive and influential story for their audience, instead of just a humorous segment that will be forgotten by the average viewer.

Famous Bloggers is Back!

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you probably already know that FamousBloggers.net’s domain name was stolen from my GoDaddy account. After four long days of pain. Finally, FamousBloggers is up and running, thanks to God and the great blogging community, without your support; this story would have been written in a completely different scenario, and the hard work we put together to build this site could become history.

Domain name theft is not new, it happens everyday, crackers are out there hunting domains and blackmailing site owners.

What Happened?

According to GoDaddy, the domain thief hacked my GoDaddy account, he logged in and did a transfer to two of my domains names to another registrar Active Registrar Inc.

Right after that, he sent me an email telling me he purchased my domain names, and he is offering them for sale, he asked for 999 USD for both. (so basically this is a blackmail).

I have exactly 31 domain names with GoDaddy, the strange thing is I found out that only two domain names was stolen FamousBloggers.net and ThesisAwesome.com, so it appears that the domain thief picked only my valuable domains and left the rest. He also didn’t change anything in my account at all. However, I didn’t get any email notification of domain transfer, which doesn’t make sense, and also GoDaddy can’t explain it, which lead me to think the same way Gerald Weber pointed out on his comment (Is it possible that this thief has someone on the indside of Godaddy helping him make the stealing of domains easier?) which also keep me wondering… Is GoDaddy’s the two-step authentication safe?

How he got my account password?

I am not sure, and I really don’t know! But I can say that no one hacked my Gmail email as the account activities show, I just think that my GoDaddy’s password wasn’t strong enough. So, I admit it, I am sharing part of the responsibility.

Also, I use to Sucuri.net to monitor my hosting and DNS changes on almost all my sites, but for some reason I didn’t check their latest warnings, maybe because JectPack plugin (which I am installing on my blogs) do a lot of changes to their scripts and this leaded to several email notifications by Sucuri, so I just didn’t pay attentions to these notifications in the last coupe of months. (my bad)

Now, let me tell you how I actually got my sites up and running in only 4 days, and got a deal with Active Registrar Inc. (the gainer registrar) to request a reverse of domain transfer back to my account.

How I got my Domain Names Back

I’ve got a lot of requests from my friends and fellow bloggers to tell what I did exactly to bring back my domain names so quick, so I will try to make it short and straight to the point, hofully the steps I’ve taken could help someone out there, and save them some time!

Here is the steps I did when I first heard that someone else is taking over my domain names:

1. I called my domain registrar by phone, which was GoDaddy and reported to them.


2. They asked me to file a Request for Dispute on Transfer Away.


3. I started to read about other domain stolen cases. Make sure you read this ICANN page.


4. I took the whole story to the public, published about it, and share it everywhere!


5.  I asked my friends for help, advice and spread my story.


6. I was reading and studding every single advice was given to me in comments & social media.


7. I reported to the FBI (fbi.gov)


8. I filed a dispute to Active Registrar Inc.


9. I report abuse to dnsadmin@afraid.org (free DNS service that my domain names was pointing).


10. I kept updating my post with hourly break down of events. (I almost didn’t sleep for 4 days)

Documents I needed I provide to Active Registrar Inc.

1. Scanned copy of my valid driver license and ID.


2. Copies of domain purchase orders and payment proof.


3. Emails that were sent to me from the domain thief.

Things that helped me to speed up the process

• I sent a link to my blog post to all involved parties to show them how serious this community is.


• The social media buzz (an average of a tweet/10 minutes was made to @GoDaddy from my fellows)


• FBI report was a good idea (maybe they can put the thief behind bars)

Just for the records

GoDaddy failed in reaching Active Registrar Inc. on their first attempt, Active Registrar Inc. have told me they received  only one dispute request from GoDaddy.

This could cause a tragedy!

Anyways, when GoDaddy told me they have to wait for 5 days to heard back from Active Registrar Inc. I decided to contact Active Registrar Inc. by myself because I am not stupid to wait for 5 days, plus I can’t play the waiting game for 5 days!

That’s why I felt that GoDaddy’s staff are way far from being professionals in solving such problems, at least this is what shows in my case.

Special thanks to everyone who supported me!

To everyone who supported me in this hard time, I really can’t thank you All enough, I know who you are, without you I couldn’t make it!

Thanks to all those who provided me with honest and helpful advice.

I couldn’t hold back my tears when I saw your comments, tweet, shares.. pushing  and encouraging me to continue my fight!

You are just amazing… Amazing!

Special thanks to Active Registrar Inc.

I can’t thank enough the team over Active Registrar Inc. for their understanding, timely respond, and effective decisions.

• In 24 hours the domain names was suspended!


• In 48 my domain names was pointing to the correct DNS.


• And, a domain transfer reverse was placed!

Read the full story and hourly breakdown of events.

How my Business and Sites were affected?

It seems that 4 days down time is not that bad, but I can tell that my online business was affected so badly in the last 4 days when my domains was stolen and sites were down, I can’t afford to have my sites down for 4 days, this is too much time, really!

Speaking about Business…

By looking to my income reports, I estimated my loss to something around $1600, needless to speak about the lost opportunity and those deals I were working on with some partners (which I’ve already lost).

How this affected my site traffic and rankings? Is it coming back?

I can clearly see that Google dropped a huge percentage of indexed pages during the last 4 days, this wasn’t good because FamousBloggers.net gets more than 50% of its traffic from search. So, this is a huge traffic loss.

Here is a screenshot of FamousBloggers stats today (Monday, July 30, 2012):

FamousBloggers has exactly 1,233 posts at the time of writing this post. It’s hard to tell at this point if traffic is coming back or not, I see that Google started to re-index the dropped posts again, but now I am not sure if the boots will reach deeper and re-index them all back.

Speaking about rankings, I see clearly that I’ve lost almost all my best ranking posts and reviews, which will affect my income in the coming couple of months or so, I hope it won’t be a big loss.

My PayPal account is on hold!

I Just got off of phone call with PayPal, I just found out that my account has been under attack, so PayPal locked it so quickly. They’ve told me that someone did several failed trying to login to my account, so the system locked it till I can verify it. And guess what?! Even the customer service can’t verify my account!

PayPal customer service told me that: It looks like your account was on hold at the maximum security, so the only way to verify your account is phone call verification which can be done through a land line. (who still have one of these?!)

Now, I am forced to apply for a land line to verify my PayPal account. I called ComCast and ordered the land line, but appointment is set for next Friday, what a nightmare!

The results is I won’t be able to pay any affiliate commissions for ThesisAwesome.com affiliates till I solve my PayPal issues and remove the account hold! (thanks to the cracker)

Is GoDaddy Secure?

The short answer is “Yes”, how? simply because they have two-step authentication, which was not enabled in my account that time when my account hacked, and probably that’s why the domain thief (the Cracker) was able to hack my GoDaddy account and figure out my password.

Why I will Move From GoDaddy?

Note: What you are about to read below is only my personal opinion based on my bad experience with GoDaddy.

I will move my domains and cancel my hosting account with GoDaddy for several reasons, the most important reason is they didn’t really help me out getting my domain names back, yes they did what they can, what that wasn’t good enough!

If you follow my story, you will see clearly that GoDaddy:

• Didn’t protect me as a client!


• Didn’t show any responsibility!


• Didn’t take a quick action (I was much faster than them)


• They fail in making the first dispute reach Active Registrar Inc.


• Complicated things (they work officially but unprofessionally)


• Didn’t respond to my request to provide required data to Active Registrar Inc.


• Was about to delay the whole thing for months.


• They were “almost” about to take it personal (because Active Registrar Inc ignored their late request).


• They were the last who knows that I got my domains back! (Really?!)

Here is some other reasons why I will move from GoDaddy for good:

1- Their support sucks

I’ve been with GoDaddy enough to tell that their support really sucks compared to other web hosting companies.

FYI, I have worked with HostGator and BlueHost a lot in the last couple of years, and I am able to solve 90% of my clients’ issues without having an access to their hosting accounts. How?

I contact their support, I tell them about the problem, they simply respond and solve it! (It’s not a rocket since, it’s business)

Dealing with GoDaddy’s support team is a different story, NOT all the team members are qualified to provide a proper support for clients, if you are lucky enough you will make it from the first phone call, but in most cases it takes more than one phone call to solve a simple problem.

2- Almost 100% of GoDaddy’s employee can’t make decisions or take actions

You see, in our speedy world, I think companies tend to give more power to their employee and encourage them to make business decisions and take quick actions. The age of hiring dumb people who just made to be followers ended a long time ago! Now, companies seeks people who solve problems.

Personally, I never met someone at GoDaddy who can take a decision towards the client’s business or provide a good solution for a problem, I met only with those who give excuses, apologize a lot, and say “they can’t do anything about it”.

3- Their marketing guys make me feel sick!

Once I got contacted by email from one of GoDaddy’s marketing managers, he mentioned an exclusive discount for FamousBloggers’ readers, and try to convincing me to work with them on the affiliate program to promote GoDaddy’s domain names. I decided to discuss with him because I like to give discounts and free stuff for FamousBloggers’ friends and readers, and because he promised me a big exclusive discount especially for domain names.

I thought this will be easy because he is the one who contacted me, so he must give me a good offer. Needless to say, our discussing took more than two weeks of ping pong emails because each time I sent him an email, he reply to me that he have discuss with his manager and get back to me (WTF? I thought he is a manager from the title in his email signature)

Latter, I discovered that he was offering me the same discount that GoDaddy give to all affiliates. So, I told him if you can’t get me in the exclusive discount coupons for domain names then we better end this discussion. What a time waste!

Why you offer me something that you can’t give?

4- Too much upsells and tons of promotions hit you on the face.

Yes, they can give you good domain prices, but it’s insanely crazy how they designed the checkout process, how many times you have to say “NO” to the stuff they push on your way just to simply checkout and leave?!

Also, it’s well known that when you search available domain names in GoDaddy today, in some cases you just find them unavailable in the next day, you will be surprised that you have to pay extra to get those specific domain names. Some people think that GoDaddy do a trick to charge you more money to get those domains you were looking for. This happened with me, and also to other people who I know.

5- They suspend your hosting for whatever reason!

Basically because their shared hosting is one of the worst ever, and of course because shared hosts has 100 to 200 sites on the same server, you could easily get hurt by any bad code on any of those sites who share same space. When problems happen you will discover that you must to take off your shirt to get GoDaddy’s attention!

At the end all what you get from GoDaddy is: “This is not our responsibility“!

Where I will host my domain names?

I won’t put my domain names in one account anymore, I will probably have more than one registrar, I am between NameCheap, and Active Registrar Inc. (Let me know which domain registrar you recommend, I am hearing you).

Soon, I will transfer my domains away from GoDaddy.

Who shared the story?

A few of my fellow bloggers shared the story of my stolen domain names, and provided great advice and tips for blog owners to help them secure their domain names, web hosting, and their valuable business. I am so thankful!

1. Famous Bloggers Founder Loses Domain Names - SmallBizTrends.com


2. Blog Stolen from GoDaddy Account - JustinGermino.com


3. Think Before Buying or Hosting your Domain on GoDaddy! - PratikDholakiya.com


4. Is GoDaddy still secure? - ToStartBlogging.com


5. Protect your Domain Name From Low Life Thieves - LetsBuildWebsites.com


6. Stolen Domains: A Horror Story of Being Hacked - ITPixie.com


7. A Shout out for FamousBloggers - IBlogZone.com


8. How to Increase Domain Name Security : Avoid Domain Theft - WPHostingDiscount.com


9. Domain Theft: Is Your Domain Name Safe from Hackers? – BloggingTips.com


10. FamousBloggers.net is Stolen - PRLInternetMarketing.com


11. Hacked Account - Lawmacs.com


12. Enable 2-Step Authentication on GoDaddy to Protect your Domains - TechWalls.com


13. Domain “Famousbloggers.net” Hijacked Over The Weekend - NetProEarnings.com


14. @hishaman @FamousBloggers Net Nightmare Over! - Dave-Lucas.blogspot.com


15. One Man’s Fight for his Stolen Domains - HajraKvetches.com


16. How To Make a Better Password - VinnyOhare.com


17. The 10 Things You Need to Know to Secure Your WordPress Site - ManageWP.com

The story was shared and mentioned through social media extensively, I imagine the reach went to more than a Million people who knew about this story (because I can’t really calculate it), but here is a quick reach stats based on TweetReach.

So, that’s only Twitter, I can’t measure other social networks, private shares, emails, word of mouth… etc.

What I’ve earned!

You see, I now believe in the blogging community more than ever, it doesn’t matter what I’ve lost, really! Because what I’ve won and eared is much much more!

I just can’t explain it with words, only my tears can tell, it’s more than love!

Stay safe.. and.. a BIG…

Image © Subbotina Anna, Lina_S - Fotolia.com

CommentLuv Premium Discount

Hey everyone, this is really exciting news from the CommentLuv Premium author Andy Bailey, if you haven’t got a premium version of CommentLuv yet, then this is you best chance! Next week you will be able to get CommentLuv Premium for big discount, yes… CommentLuv Premium will be yours for a very low price, only $21 for multi licenses, so you can use it on all blogs that you own.

CommentLuv Premium Discount

The reason for this big CommentLuv discount is celebrating the premium version’s anniversary, so yes, it has been a year since CommentLuv Premium has been released.

CommentLuv Premium Discount

You got to see this awesome video by Andy telling the story of CommentLuv, announcing the exciting news, and the coming big discount.

The Story of CommentLuv

Click below and signup for the early birds discount

CommentLuv Premium Discount

Image © Brad Pict – Fotolia.com

Google’s New App Developer Rules: No more room for Spam or Malware

Attention all computer monitoring software and cell phone spy apps! For happy days are gone now and gloomy nights are here again!

Google altered its rules to a great degree regarding app developers that they must follow while submitting mobile applications to its app store “Google Play“, most of the issues being centered on addressing spamming and malicious attributes concealed within apps.

The updation by Google regarding the new developer policies is meant to cut out spam apps from Google play app store.

Android Central published an email, in which the Google Play Team clarified that its updating efforts were meant to change developer policies such that unhealthy behavior is dealt with. Such behavior includes spammy notifications and app names that were intended to be deceiving.

Apps and Ads…rules are rules!

Several changes have been put forth and amongst them are the recent restrictions placed on the icons and names of apps that resemble too closely some other apps, in order to avert confusion and while bringing safety, clarity and confidence to the users.

Furthermore, Google play team said it is providing a lot more detail on each kind of app that will not make it through to Google including the ones that expose personal information of the users without their authorization.

Google explains how it is giving additional examples of ways in which the spam policy is violated, as expounded in the email. The company is also adding a new section addressing the same behavior in applications. Initially, it is made clear that the same rules are applied to the application as well as the ads. Additionally it is also significant for the company to make sure that ads do not affect the user experience by deceiving them or stymieing their access to apps and linking up to other ads thereby make use of disruptive methods.

Caught and Crucified

“Find and Call” is one of the apps Apple and Google got rid of their app stores, in July after it was realized that the app was sending users contact information to its server remotely located in order to spam those contacts with a plethora of messages. On the other hand the claim made on the flip side by the app was that it was constructed such as to aid the users in terms of the organization of the address book.

Google has been playing the tech superman for quite some time now, in that, it also successfully warded off the early reports in July about an Android botnet spamming its several innocent victims after learning about the issue from blogs by researcher from Microsoft and Sophos. Google also ellucidatedin response that these spammers were making use of infected PCs and fake mobile signature for the purpose of bypassing anti spam features for email.

In any case, it’s a must that you protect your self by download cell phone spy software. For example, if you are using blackberry then try the blackberry spyware.

Google puts forth the rule (among others in its policy) that the applications should be prohibited from collecting information on the user without user request and that bthe applications must be non-malicious. Apps will also be banned from sending texts, emails or other messages on the behalf of the user without the user’s confirmation regarding the recipient and the content.

Final note: for any further queries,  resource link.

Arab Countries Boycott Google And YouTube… The Search Engine

It’s heating up all over the Islamic World these days regarding to an offending short film called “Innocence of Muslims“ that mocked the Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.).

The low-budget film has been produced and hosted recently on YouTube in the name of “freedom of speech”.

Activists called on 1-month boycott of Google and all its services hoping they can cause a huge revenue loss to Google, and hoping that Google shares the would see a decline.

Organizers said they:

” expect that Google will lose about $210 million in revenues if Internet users in the Arab world boycott its search engine and that its stock price will drop.” (Source)

It looks like there is a big respond -from what I see- on Facebook and especially Twitter: #BoycottGoogle, however there is also people who do not agree with the boycott and describe it as a waste of time. (I personally agree with the second group).

Google and YouTube Boycott

Google and YouTube Boycott started yesterday September 24th and will ends today 25th, 2012, and the main reason is that Google refused to the request of removing the anti-Islam film, which proof the YouTube double-standard community guidelines.

Google should also know that the end date to this double-standard has just been defined and therefore compliance is a most for Google and its services to continue to exist as a reputable and responsible business! (Source)

I personally (disliked and reported) the film because I think that it tells 99.99% lies, and I couldn’t agree more with Hillary Clinton when she described it as a disgusting film.

Google’s respond to the boycott

In response to the boycott, a Google spokesperson told Al Arabiya English on Monday:

“We believe in everyone’s right to express themselves freely, but at the same time, we know that users are aware of the role Google plays giving them universal access to information.” (Source)

Interesting results in Google Stock

The really interesting thing is that Google stock hits all-time high yesterday, and it’s still going even higher today:

It seems that Google received an unexpected huge benefit from the boycott campaign!

Internet Usage in the Middle East

The explanation for this is Internet Users across the Arab countries are around 3.3% of the World Internet Users according to InternetWorldStats.com:

The number of boycotters could stretch across the entire Muslim world however, with Muslims in Western and Asian countries also taking part, according to social media users angered by the film. Arabs and Muslims account for about 8 percent of internet users in the world. (ICT industry expert who spoke to the Jordan Times).

Perhaps putting a dampener on the boycott, the analyst forecasted that the planned move “will not have an impact on Google,” adding that less than 0.5 percent of Google’s profits are generated from the Arab and Muslim world.

The Question is…

Well.. actually I have more than one question…

Why you care for a stupid low-budget film that won’t change any fact?

Why would you cut a valuable source of information while you actually need it?

Why don’t you try to find other solutions rather than the boycott that doesn’t work?

Google is Winding Down AdSense for Feeds, No More Profit from FeedBurner AdSense

Google is winding down some of its features like AdSense for Feeds, so no more FeedBurner AdSense earning starting from Oct. the 2nd, 2012.

For some people, this is really bad news, especially for those who are making profits from displaying AdSense in their blogs feeds, as they will see a drop in AdSense revenue next month. But, well… Google says they want to focus on what matters, so they will be taking off a few services in the coming months.

From the Google Blog:

• AdSense for Feeds was designed to help publishers earn revenue from their content by placing ads on their RSS feeds. Starting October 2, we’ll begin to retire this feature—and on December 3 we’ll close it. Publishers can continue to use FeedBurner URLs powered by Google, so they won’t need to redirect subscribers to different URLs.


• Classic Plus is a Google Search feature that lets people upload or select images to use as a background on Google.com. Users won’t be able to upload new pictures starting from October 16, and we’ll turn the service off in November 2012. You’ll continue to have access to any images you’ve uploaded.


• Google storage in Picasa and Drive will be consolidated over the next few months, so users will have five GB of free storage across both services. If you’re paying for storage, your free storage will now be counted towards your total. So if you buy a 100GB plan, it will give you 100GB of total storage instead of adding to what you already had. We believe this approach will make it much easier for users. For both free and paid storage, people at or near their current storage limits will have the same amount of storage after this change.


• Spreadsheet Gadgets were designed to allow people to add customized features to Google Spreadsheets. But most popular gadgets have now been added directly into charts in spreadsheets. So we will slowly start turning off Gadgets in Spreadsheets next year.


• Starting on October 15, we’ll stop issuing and displaying Google News Badges, as well as showing Recommended Sections. People can still tailor their Google News experience by adding custom sections or adjusting the frequency with which news sources appear.


• We’ve merged Insights for Search into a revamped Google Trends. You can now see search trends and compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties in a single place: google.com/trends. We will no longer support Trends for Websites, which allowed people to compare traffic to and audiences of different websites.


• Places Directory was an Android app that helped people find nearby places of interest. We’ve removed the app from Google Play and are taking down the Places Directory site because users can find everything in Google Maps for Mobile, which offers a much better user experience.


• We introduced +1 Reports in Webmaster Tools to help publishers measure +1 activity on their pages. Given that webmasters now use Social Reports in Google Analytics to get a wider view of social activity (including +1’s), we’ll be discontinuing the stand-alone +1 Reports on November 14. Measuring social media remains a priority for Google Analytics, so stay tuned for future improvements.

The questions is

Knowing that: Whenever Google decides to drive the final nail in the service’s coffin, it will hopefully make it easy for publishers to switch away, but it will probably be a pretty painful process. (TechCrunch)

When Google will turn off FeedBurner? and how this will affect bloggers and publishers?

Should we start looking for FeedBurner Alternatives?

Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2012 Deals for Bloggers

Hey all, we are getting ready for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I hope you are too. While people planning to go out to purchase their targeted products and enjoy discount and big savings, you can get all you business goodies without leaving home, this is what I enjoy most.

I remember last year, I brought a lot of products during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Good Deals for Business!

It was really good deals because I’ve secured some awesome themes membership and a few plugins that I wanted to have access to, even though I didn’t have any particular use for these products the time I made the purchase, it came pretty handy today as their prices went higher, and now I am using most of them on my sites and some of my client’s sites as well, that’s because I go always for the best value, mostly a developer membership or option.

This explains how important is it to be ready for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, it’s the right time to purchase your business needs.

Product Deals and Recommendations

I will take you now to the page I’ve prepared for the discounts and deals… I am sure you will say…

Here is where you can access the best Black Friday & Cyber Monday sales and coupons.

P.S. I will be updating this page with more awesome products and great savings, so make sure to visit it over… and over, you will be surprised!