08.01.08

My blog was hacked!

Posted in Blogs & RSS, General, SEO at 3:38 am by Alok Jain


Yeah… someone hacked this very blog you’re reading. And I had no clue of it for about a month. I know it makes me sound like a duffer, but hear me out.

It wasn’t like the hacker defaced my blog or had any weird messages scrolling all over it. But he did hack into my wordpress files and flooded it with all sorts of scam links - pharma stuff for enhancement, for shrinkage.. you name it.

And it affected me bad. The scam links/text were visible all over Google whenever my blog posts showed up in their results. So the title in the Google results would say “death of affiliate marketing” (just an example), but the description had glorified explanations and offers on the pharmaceutical marvels of today.

It didn’t take Google long to drop me in their search rankings and remove most of my pages from their index. At the time of writing this post, my blog has only 29 pages indexed in Google. Just 2 months back, I remember seeing 300+ pages from this blog in their listings.

I don’t think I need to explain how much that affected my blog traffic. All because some automated script created by some hacker injected 1000s of scam links to my Wordpress header and footer files.

After a lot of research and reading dozens of blogs and forums, I traced the problem (?) and deleted these scam links from the header and footer files. I felt good, thanked Google for leading me to all the useful information and cursed the hacker one last time.

Or so I wished…

The very next day, the scam-links were back… in all their glory and in bigger numbers this time. I was demolished. I cursed - cursed technology, cursed Google, cursed the hacker, cursed anyone who came in front of me then. I was at a complete loss.

But even in that situation, I had no one else but Google to go to. There I was again, asking Mighty Google for the root cause of my problem. And like always, Google had answers. Every single time - the wonders of the Internet :)

This time around, I was supposed to upgrade my Wordpress installation. I was running an older version which was plagued with bugs. Upgrading a software that my web host had installed at the click of a button seemed like an uphill task. But Fantastico (the automatic installer application that comes with most hosting accounts) made it a walk in the park.

So here I am, all upgraded to Wordpress 2.5.something in under 15 minutes. And hoping it keeps them hackers at bay!

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06.05.07

Hello & Welcome

Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Blogs & RSS, General, Google Adsense, Internet Marketing, List Building, PPC, SEO, Viral Marketing at 8:08 am by Alok Jain


Hi there,

This blog had been on the cards for quite some time, but the last 3 months were so hectic (and exciting) that I just couldn’t make time for it. But now, I am glad to launch my blog - “Internet Marketing - My Way”.

The purpose of this blog is to share with you ideas, tips and techniques on different aspects of Internet Marketing. As a full time Internet Marketer for over 4 years, I have learnt a lot in this vast and interesting field. And I want to use this blog to share my knowledge and experience with you.

There’s a small problem though and I need you to help me through it. You see, I don’t know where to start. I want to write about the hidden tricks & techniques, the gaps and loopholes in the Internet Marketing industry and my favorite topics, Viral Marketing and List Building. There’s a lot to write about, but I have no clue where to begin.

So please use the comments section of this post and let me know what areas in Internet Marketing interests you the most - Affiliate Marketing, PPC, SEO, List Building, Traffic Generation, whatever. Are there any specific topics that you are unable to learn through other blogs and content sites? What are the most pressing issues?

Your comments will help me create a meaningful blog - so please help me out. Once I have some inputs, I will set the ball rolling!

Thanks,

Alok

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