Freelancing at Home

So I got a lovely surprise right before I went to bed. I was settling in, turning on Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters and an e-mail popped up. My laptop screen was slightly tilted so that I couldn't quite read it, but I could see what appeared to be my Mary Kay blogger link. I rolled out of bed, opened my finicky Yahoo mail (no idea why I still use that) and was absolutely stunned to see my Mary Kay blog was deleted as spam. Now, mind you, I don't even work for Mary Kay anymore so there is no way I was advertising a Mary Kay webpage or my products. I also very rarely used outside links, used one affiliate link (listia.com, because I love that site a lot) and usually posted unique information that directors were not sharing out in the open if they were sharing it at all.

I freaked to say the least. I started bawling. I don't even make anything off that blog (less than .50 cents its entire life so far), but I really liked that blog. I was selflessly helping people! - I know, unheard of and unexpected from me, right? But I was. I put ads on the page just as icing on the cake and help out a little bit, not because I expected to be rolling in dough.

My Mary Kay blog is still locked right now, but after what happened next, that seems utterly inconsequential.

I go to look for what I'm supposed to do, as the deletion e-mail has absolutely nothing in it except a link to my deleted blog, a link to the TOS and a link to the content policy. I found this explanation of three steps (hope that link doesn't get this blog deleted as spam). Well, step one says that something else should have been in my e-mail or on my dashboard. Nothing was in the e-mail so I went to the dashboard.

Oh wait, no, I didn't, because my dashboard was disabled! My entire Google account was disabled at 1:00AM!

I bawled harder. I called my dad to try and cry about it. His answer: "Wait until tomorrow and as eHow about it." Yes, that's right. Even my dad, a person without Internet at all, thinks Google and eHow are in bed together (and no, I did not put that thought into his head). Of course, that answer didn't help and because I was staring at not only a frozen blogger account but a frozen Adsense account, I was too riled up to sleep (actually still am, hence why I'm writing here instead of sleeping for my classes tomorrow).

I bounce around. I try desperately to figure out what to do. Google has to be one of the least user friend companies ever when you're in trouble. Oh, if you're having a good time and all is working then Google is awesome; the site is so easy to use. But if you need help... I hope you like no lube and all sandpaper up your bum.

Finally, somehow, I manage to get to this screen that tells me I can verify my account by receiving a text message. Well I don't have text messaging for free. Costs me 10 cents a message or something like that. So I try calling around. Of course, it's 1AM and no one is awake. I end up sending the message to myself anyway. 10 cents is worth getting my account back. Except when I enter the code on the site, I am given a "the service you requested is temporarily unavailable" error page.

That's right. Add insult to injury and make me waste 10 cents.

Well, I finally tried again an hour later and got my account unlocked. I can access all my Google stuff again.

My Mary Kay blog is still locked, but now that I've almost had a heart attack about losing part of my livelihood - a large part of it behind eHow - a single blog that doesn't earn anything, that I only kept up to be a good person, doesn't seem all that important.

That'll teach me to be helpful!

Just a little more weirdness. After being disabled, I am now a follower of all my blogs that had at least one follower on them.

Google has made some changes to their system - and really, when are they not constantly tweaking and poking at themselves? If you've noticed a drop off in some of your site's traffic, or if you've even noticed a spike - and if you have then good for you! - then the new Google SEO and backlink changes may be what's affecting you.

Take a look at this video to learn what the changes are all about and what you can do to get started raising your PR rating and search engine ranking.

This video is by Michael Roberts, one of the creaters of Traffic Bug. I've been using Traffic Bug for about 4 months now and I have to say I love it. It's a program that does all your backlinking for you and it does it in a slow, methodical way so that it doesn't appear to be being done by anything but a human.



Need backlinks - especially after watching this video? Try out Traffic Bug.