The story:

1. Last night I got a Google alert for “wordpress mistakes“. (Yes, I set up such alerts to track where my products are mentioned.) The alert said this site

http://www.libanonchat.org/socialnetwork/view/post:1576

is mentioning “wordpress mistakes”… And it does, indeed.

2. By a closer look it was clear the site is just subscribing to the RSS feed of another site where the real mentioning of my work happened:

http://www.sub-url.eu/?p=1351

It is a blog providing hundreds of links to stolen, copyrighted works. Many of them solod at tyhe same place, in the Warrior Forum WSO section where my work is also available for a discounted price for fellow forum members.
The domain was registered on August 8, 2009 in Germany by an individual having the email address: ali.fawaz@gmx.de at Cronon AG (cronon.net)
The domain is hosted by STRATO Berlin at the IP address: 85.214.24.127

Just with a few quick search queries you can learn all the above data about domains and their owners: use whois databases; whois hosting type searches etc.

2a. Strato has their own terms and conditions for host clients here:

http://www.strato.de/agb/

Thanks to my German-speaking friend I now know that section 2.2 deals with copyright infringement:

2.2 Der Kunde ist dafür verantwortlich, dass seine Domain(s) und seine Inhalte weder gesetzliche Vorschriften noch Rechte Dritter verletzen. STRATO weist darauf hin, dass gegebenenfalls – insbesondere bei internationalen Domains – andere nationale Rechtsordnungen zu beachten sind.

DMCA type notice sent to STRATO.

Here comes the twist: that “clever” domain owner at sub-url.eu (Ali?) is providing a link to both the sales pages and to direct downloads. However, both links are “shortened” by a short URL service offered by

http://finanz-partnerweb.de/shorturl/

The way it works: clicking on the link you see the finanz-partnerweb.de website for 16 seconds and then you are redirected to a shabby business domain: uploading.com

At this moment I am not sure the URL shortener’s owner and the sub-url.eu owner are the same… However, they use the same WordPress theme on their sites and they are both hosted at the same host under the same IP address: STRATO Berlin at 85.214.24.127 — Coincidence?

After further digging: the shortener guy is located in Hammeln, Germany:

Name: Carsten Ulrichs
Organisation: Internet Service e.K.
Address: Linkworth 5
PostalCode: 31789
City: Hameln
CountryCode: DE
Phone: +495159810310
Fax: +495159810319
Email: cu@ulrichs.de

On the stolen-material-promoter sub-url.eu site there is a Facebook link to its FB page under “Find Us on Facebook” title… Pretty lame, if you want to remain anonymous!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Business-Tips/218228814912274

Location info from that FB page:

Basberg Str, 31785 Hameln, Germany
About: Web Sevice info busines & tips Seo Marketing Make Mones Online
Description seo marketing free web service submit url business & tips free download programe softwear make money online
Email: ali.fawaz@gmx.de
Phone: 05151-500500
Website: http://www.sub-url.eu

Ali lives very close to Carsten and they seem to work together!

3. Believe it or not, these German guys could all claim they are innocent, they just discovered a “great resource” website and pointed to it. (In a SOPA world just because they link to a site that is distributing illegally copyrighted material, i.e. my ebook, they could be shut down, too, together with the real criminal.)

The real criminal in this case is the domain uploading.com – they permit to upload stolen material to their server! Although they have an abuse report page:

http://uploading.com/contactus/abuse/

… no matter what you do, the form will never be submitted, just goes into a perpetual “loading, loading, loading…”

Of course, they have a section in their Terms of Use referring to copyright:

“8.5 Proprietary rights and trademark legislation

Uploading.com Service can be used with lawful purposes only. Transfer, distribution or storage of any materials breaking laws or lawful acts, including laws on export regulation, are forbidden. This includes materials protected by patents, laws on copyright, trademarks, service marks, trade secrets and other intellectual property rights. The client is obliged to receive the preliminary consent of the author in cases when such materials are to be used. By using the Service, you declare and guarantee that you are the author and owner of copyright and/or the owner of due licenses for the represented information. You also declare and guarantee that your information does not break trademark laws and other rights of the third parties. Uploading.com reserves the right to suspend or terminate the transaction that breaks or is thought to be breaking the Agreement or any of the laws described above.”

As it seems nobody is really eager to enforce it because the site is full of stolen copyrighted material!

This domain is registered with namecheap.com and is using their famous privacy protection option: you need to be some kind of law enforcement agent to make them to reveal the real identity of the site/domain owner.

However, based on their IP address, they are hosted by LinkShop and I am sure they are hiding behind the following info (the abuse report address for their domain/IP)

person: LinkShop Abuse Team
address: Room 606, Fook Cheong Bldg, 63 Hoi Yuen Rd
address: Kwun Tong, Hong Kong
phone: +852 8170 1439

Today I was sending take down notices to everybody: registrars, hosts for ALL the websites and domains mentioned in this post. Including Google – because the sites are using G. ads.

Yes, it is annoying to deal with imbecile thieves and jerks. But this site would not be the first that went down because I went after them. In all my correspondence with the registrars and host services I made them aware: their answers would be made public in this blog.

Now I am just waiting… If you have similar stories, please share them in your comments!

Despite all this – I am still against SOPA!

UPDATE (one day later)
The illegal copy of my ebook has been removed from uploading.com. However, if you have a good product, chances are it has been uploaded to that thief site – so check it out!

Since I wasn’t around in November when my birthday was, I decided to have a huge WordPress Combo Holiday sale now. As some of you may know last month I’ve been in Europe, visiting my home land and family and after that I went to Spain. There we visited Madrid, Toledo, Cordoba, Granada (and Alhambra), the Southern Cost and, finally, Barcelona. A few old friends from various countries joined me there to celebrate my birthday.

The internet was on and off, so I didn’t risk to start a sale from there and not being able to deal with eventual technical glitches. Now we have a late birthday sale or an early Christmas sale – whichever works for you better.

I put up a new sales page for the two best selling WordPress products of mine in one single package: the “combo”. It offers the Profit Crushing WordPress Mistakes and the WordPress 3 MultiSite videos for one low price. Check it out here! Those are the products advertized here in the sidebar.

There is good news even if you own them already: you can sign up for free as an affiliate and promote it to your list. You have a list, don’t you? Sign up, start promoting it and make some more money for the holidays!

Once again: here is the link to my Holiday WordPress Combo!

Next, as my earlier posts can prove it, I don’t engage in personal attacks. This post will be no exception, either: I don’t have anything with the people, only with the methods and publicly available statements.

One more thing, before we discuss the comments from my Spam folder. I consider all the hype around SEO (search engine optimization) to be voodoo science, to say the least. Make no mistake, I do think and do believe there are certain common sense settings and methods to help search engines finding and properly indexing your web pages (including WordPress sites). I just dismiss all that “hocus-pocus” promoted by SEO-products sellers and shady SEO-services that want you to think they are the best thing since the sliced bread. So, I might be biased against SEO plugins promising all that BS but I’ve never said anything publicly against them. Till now.

The reason for posting this is a new WP plugin, called SEOPressor. More exactly the methods used for promoting it and the contradiction with its promises.

No, I am not going to link to it. It is claiming that it can promote your website to position number one in Google search result pages (SERP). Maybe, maybe not. I am not going to analyze the mistakes promoted by the plugin, like the obvious lack of knowledge about semantic HTML coding when it comes about headings… That’s beyond my point.

However if it is so powerful that it can be used on any WordPress site to get on page #1 in the search engines, then why do that promoters of the plugin, both the original site owners and their affiliates need to post spam comments on my blog to get some backlink juice?

Isn’t it ironic? Here is a script (tool, software, plugin) and its sales page and video states it can help you to get on page #1 in SERP… yet, instead of using it to do what it says, they all go around and post spam comments on WP related blog posts.

Some of the spam comments link directly to the sales page, others to affiliates’ pages. I don’t really care where they point, since all of the comments ended up in the spam. (Yes, Akismet is doing a good job.) It happens that sometimes I look at the spam comments, either out of curiousity or because they are flagged as “pending”. Well, no more ‘pending’ — they are clearly spam.

A side note for the affiliates: any decent marketer promotes only products that they bought, tried and are convinced it works. Which means, if you bought the product, put it to work and it does what the sales page says… you don’t need to spam my blog because you are on position #1 in the SERP, aren’t you?

You should click on the image above: it’s a screenshot taken of my spam comments with all the links highlighted!

Final thought to all the WP/SEO gurus out there: you can create and sell whatever magic product you come up with, I don’t care. If you can sell it, go for it… Just stop spamming my blog! Otherwise I will go publicly after you, as I did above.

First of all: I love you all who signed up to download my free stuff! I love you because by signing up to my list when I needed some assurance that my chosen path into the marketing world was right – you provided the feedback I needed. You made me think I was offering something of value: a report or some tutorials, sharing my knowledge and experience. At that point we all were happy: you got a free resource, I was watching my list growing.

But then, being a novice marketer, I didn’t know what to do with you. I mean what to do with your email that I had in my list. Somehow I felt uncomfortable blasting out indiscriminate affiliate offers to you; i.e. to suggest buying stuff in order to get commissions if you buy. So, I neglected you. Didn’t send out anything… because even in real life I firmly believe in the mantra: talk only if you have something to say. I now know it was a mistake — you completely forgot about me and that you signed up to my list(s).

Later, when I had a new report of mine to offer — I’ve sent out a cheerful message: look, what I made, I wrote another short book, get it free. Some people unsubscribed. Obviously, you didn’t, since you are reading this. Others, and I hope you were not among them, brainlessly clicked on the “spam” button. Spam? You put your name and email address in the form because you wanted my intellectual property for free and you even confirmed your intention to receive further notifications from me.

We were still cool. Then I sent you a call to participate in some charity drive, to raise funds for one or two noble causes. Some of you complained again. WTF is wrong with these people, I started to ask myself…

Finally, I put together a few excellent products, and all related to the topic of the list you have signed up. Let’s make it clear: you signed up because you wanted to pick my brain, knowing I am one of the best WordPress experts you ever met. So, I produced and released top notch WordPress related products: videos, e-books, guides. Most of the time I offered significant discount to you as my valued subscriber. Now I have to ask:

Was it YOU that reported my discount offer as spam? You can’t be that dumb. It must have been someone else…

Now I didn’t expect that all of you would run to purchase my bestseller. You may have other priorities and I understand that. Or, maybe, you feel entitled to never-ending freebies and get offended if a valuable resource is offered to you in exchange for your hard-earned money. (I won’t even mention that you could also earn some money as an affiliate, promoting the same product you were not interested in…)

Here comes the important part: if you are not interested in my offers (free or paid), please, please find the UNSUBSCRIBE link in my last email message and click on it. Unsubscribe! – I beg you. Do it now. Let’s say good bye to each other and go in peace. No hard feelings…

From now on everything will be the other way around: you will need to buy something first in order to get freebies. My paying customers will get my free reports, my free updates and all the discounted offers.

While I enjoyed having your “company” during your subscription period, I need to clean up my list(s) to get rid of those that complain about my messages. You are on a marketing list and you agreed to receive email from me. I don’t blame you for feeling abused by so many unwanted email offers. However, you specifically asked me to send you more information. And when I did, you reported it as spam. Honestly, I will not tolerate it. Would you?

Again, find the unsubscribe link in my last message and click. Do not click on the spam button! Have a nice day and good luck in all your endeavors.

P.S. A last chance… You can get all my WP related products and a few hundred more (over $4,000 in value). Watch the video to learn how!

Now, I have a soft spot for talented people from Eastern Europe. Actually, I do know quite a number of very talented artists: when I look at their work (portfolio) I am always blown away. Wow!

Then we start talking about my needs and knowing I would pay in good dollars, they promise to make everything I need and want. However, the end result is far from what I have seen in their portfolio. No, I am not saying those works were fake or not made by them because I know them and I know for sure it’s their work.

When I started to think about my unlucky adventures with them I went back in time and told to myself: the great artists of the Renaissance era were able to work for “sponsors” (or customers, if you wish), yet producing genial pieces of art. Think Michelangelo, Leonardo and all that “gang”… with their wonderful craftsmanship!

Then around the 19th century with the Romanticism came this (crazy) idea that the artist doesn’t give a sh*t about the customer because they wanted to ‘express’ themselves. The art became important i n itself. The artists got attitude. The image of this exuberant, Bohemian, eccentric artist became the standard.

I reckon in all my attempts I met only this Romanticist type of artist. Not one Renaissance man…

So, if you have issues with your graphic guy, ask yourself whether he is a Renaissance man or a Romanticist artist?

P.S. Still looking for a Renaissance man…

1. I am an old fashioned marketer and truly believe that a WSO (Warriors Special Offer) should be special, i.e. discounted, which means there must be a non-discounted version for the rest of the world.

2. I know some marketers don’t like to promote products from that forum and I wanted to give them a chance, too.

So, without further ado here is the direct link to the salespage:
http://imtools4you.com/wp_mistakes/

If you are interested in promoting it, just sign up as an affiliate by clicking this link or see the yellow ad below the post.

P.S. If you are already signed up as an affiliate for my Dream Tool videos, you just need to login and you will see the new product, too.

Initially, I planned it as a free report… but then it grew bigger and bigger; I also added some additional items, like a mind map and another surprise bonus – and decided to offer it at a very low price.

Without going into too much details, the e-book itself discusses those mistakes that could be easily avoided when planning to set up a new WordPress powered site.

The first reactions are very positive, as you can see in the forum thread.

But I would like to read your opinion, too – so, leave a comment and share your thoughts!

I don’t pretend to be a .htaccess expert, although I know exactly what it does and how it works; I can even do simple modifications on such a file and for more complicated tasks I’d ask for help from one of my programmer (server expert) friends. Or, simply outsource it.

Most WordPress users hear the first time about this file when they try to set their “nice” permalinks. The nice permalinks is a simple concept: instead of having an URL pointing to a blog post, like
example.com/?post=345
it will make that URL more human-readable and, eventually, more relevant for search engines, e.g.
example.com/your-post-title-in url

Depending on your host’s settings, WP will either able to create the .htaccess file for you or you will need to upload an empty file with this name (notice, actually, the file does NOT have a name, just an extension!) and make it writable (chmod 666) and let WordPress to place the necessary code in it. The code will perform one of the basic tasks of the .htaccess file: doing a redirect from the “ugly” permalink (permanent — direct — link to your post) to the nice permalink of your choice. In the Settings area there is a Permalinks subpanel that lets you define the structure of your links.

This redirect function is used quite often by webmasters when they have to move content from one domain to another one and they prefer that the existing incoming links (from other sites or from SERP, a.k.a. search engine result page) to be redirected silently to the new location.

In a similar fashion, webmasters can use the .htaccess file to allow or deny access to certain parts of their websites, to ban different automated bots to sniff around their websites etc.

Except the permalink issue, there is no case when you must have a .htaccess file on your WordPress installation.

I wrote these general guidelines above as an answer to a comment posted by one of my customers:

Hi Istvan
I have your WordPress 3 training. I came across this site on htaccess:
[...]
I don’t think I have one from a fresh WP install. Should I go ahead and generate one? Or should I just have a blank htaccess file uploaded on public_html folder?
I also came across this article on protecting us from spam bots and content scrapers:
[...]
Should I be doing this, or there is no need to bother? Please let me know your thoughts, thanks!

So, no, you do not have a .htaccess file on a “virgin” WP blog. And if the permissions on your sever will not let WordPress to create one, you need to upload a blank one and let WP do its job.

As for the second part of the question: the necessity of such protection may depend on the niche you work in. The more competitive the niche the more chances somebody would try to steal your content. Of course, nothing is 100% proof, they can always manually copy any content… but such methods the article referred to may prevent the automatic scraping.

For spamming scripts there are quite a number of good plugins, including the one that comes with any WP download.

Any more questions?

A while ago (last year?) my good friend and colleague released a fascinating ebook: From Pain to Pleasure: The Proven Pathway to Happiness. It is meant to plan your individual pathway from pain to stress-FREEDOM – based on simple happiness practices of the Epicureans. (The real Epicureans, i.e. the followers of the Epicurean philosophy have nothing to do with the “gourmands” as many people use the word, wrongly.)

Again, I want to emphasize this: the book is about finding your stress-freedom. To be stress free.

Now imagine yourself as the author of this book. You “preach”, no, you teach people how to become stress free. Some accept you as their stress-freedom guide, others sit on the fence. And one day you are told you got a rare type of skin cancer and your chances of survival are… well, less than 100%. If that’s not enough reason to be stressed out I don’t know what is.

I watched my friend, Stefan, closely as he went through all the examinations, biopsies, more doctors, radiation therapy and all that jazz. Believe me, since I have in my family cancer survivor – I know exactly what toll can the stress take on the whole family’s life. However, my friend figured

Being diagnosed with the rare but aggressive skin cancer Merkel Cell Carcinoma (MCC) I had to reschedule my priorities. Rather than write my next book, working title “ECOLOG – Epicurean Conduct Of Life Orientation Guidance”, I will use my disease to document my application of Epicurean tenets, attitudes, life skills as a way of self-medication

Please, stop for a moment and think about this…

1. You wrote a book about how to live free from stress.
2. Then you got cancer: quite a stressing event in your life.
3. And then you say: I will apply what I wrote and will even document it!

Neither my friend nor I want you to go through such a life-threatening experience to find out how much you can stand behind your product. I just told his story as food for thought. If you are a product creator – I hope you found something in this post to contemplate about.

Here is Stefan’s blog where the stress-freedom guide documents his life. (You should get his free report, too!)

And here is the direct link to get his book: From Pain to Pleasure: The Proven Pathway to Happiness.

GO GET IT!

What about you? Are you doing the same? Making the most common profit crushing WordPress mistakes? — I am afraid you are.

When I used to work with clients setting up custom WordPress sites often I had to literally fight with my clients in order to help them to avoid these fatal mistakes. I have never had ready-made, “boxed” solutions for any of them. When we started to work together I always wanted to understand first their business, to get an idea of how the web site will fit in the overall marketing plan and so on. The smart customers thanked me later because quite often it forced them to really think about the objectives, the plans… the whole big picture. It was beneficial for the customer and it made my job way easier: after going through a brainstorming and clarification process I could come up with a unique solution and design.

I rarely work anymore with individual clients but I still help people occasionally. Just getting tired seeing the same mistakes made over an over when they start setting up a WordPress site. Am I too mean when it comes about WordPress mistakes? Am I judging new (and seasoned) users too harshly? Maybe not. Because it’s not about the technical insider knowledge that I have vs. their less than perfect understanding of WordPress itself. It is mainly about the “WordPress mistakes” that could be easily avoided; it is about a flaw in the preparation process. If you wish: it’s about approaching the issues from the wrong end…

The other day I just was so fed up with trying to convince somebody about it that I gave up. I gave up on the person but not on my readers and subscribers. So I started (and almost finished) a short guide about the profit crushing WordPress mistakes. I will make it available for my subscribers first, probably, in a couple of days. I just need some quick formatting and images added to the text.

If you had the chance to own my other WordPress related products you know that this WordPress Mistakes report will be of the same quality. I always do my best to provide the most useful information.

Stay tuned: I will announce here when the Report is available.

P.S. In the meantime get lots of free stuff by clicking below