Once you do, you get all kinds of neat facts, statistics and advice on what you can do to improve your website’s score.

Just to give you an example of how this website works – Mitchelaneous got a score of 97 – which I think is pretty darn good.  So what does that mean exactly?

A website grade of 97/100 for www.mitchelaneous.com means that of the millions of websites that have previously been evaluated, our algorithm has calculated that this site scores higher than 97% of them in terms of its marketing effectiveness. The algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data , website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others.

Some of the places where it says I need improvement are the fact that I have "too many images" on the website, which I don’t really see as that much of a factor.  Also, I need to apparently renew my domain this year.

Now, like with any automated service – you have to learn how to take the advice you are given.  No website can take the place of learning the ropes when it comes to learning how to really create a fantastic website – however Website Grader can get you pointed in the right direction.

To give it a shot on your own website, be sure to go visit websitegrader.com.

Everyone is a Marketer brings you some of the most popular advice, suggestions and tips I have shared with you in the past year all together in one convenient spot for you to download.  Within the 22 chapters, you will be able to learn really simple marketing techniques that anybody can use.  I do not care if you are starting out on day one of your business or day 141, I have suggestions and help here that can do anybody who reads it some good.

Go learn more about the eBook and download it (in the handy PDF format).

• Get the Free Marketing eBook for Beginners!

I would also love to hear your feedback too.  So if you have any reviews, thoughts or your own marketing tips you would like to pass along – be sure to send them my way.  I might even publish them here for the world to see.  This holiday season, I know we are all looking to save a buck or two – so let me give you this eBook for free.  The only thing I ask in return is you let me know what you thought of it once you’ve unlocked all the marketing secrets that are within the pages.

Making the right connections in business is a big part of the marketing game.  You don’t need to have a multi-million dollar advertising campaign.  You don’t even have to get a $2 advertising campaign going.  One of the best marketing techniques out there is to simple stick your foot in the door.  Make friends with people in businesses that can help you succeed.

Not to get into some circle of life mumbo-jumbo, but we are all connected. What you need to do is to find people and make friends that can help you out with your own marketing needs. Think of this as old school social network marketing.

As an example – lets say you are an artist.  To broaden your reach and to give yourself chances to get your artwork published or bought elsewhere, you might become friends with the guy who runs the art exhibit at the local museum.  You might become friends with local interior decorators to see if you can get your artwork picked up as something people would like to hang in their homes.  There are so many different professions out there that are interconnected, you really can’t throw a stone without hitting somebody in the back of the head who can help you.  You just have to sometimes think outside of the box.

The power of having a good social network of your own to lean upon  can do wonders for anybody’s marketing needs.  Not only can your friends help you with your business needs, you might also be able to return the favor, as well.

The most important thing you can do is set yourself apart for the crowd.  You might still do the same thing, however doing it in your own way. For example, there are a lot of different ways you can climb a mountain.  Just because 99.9% of the population wants to use hiking boots and rope doesn’t mean you should toss out your idea of creating the world’s biggest ladder.  Your still climbing that mountain – you just found a way to do it that will draw a little more attention than the rest.

Now, since we all will not be climbing a mountain today – lets bring my example down to size.  Everybody is getting an account on Twitter these days to post about news, their thoughts on life, and more.  Now, truth be told – you need to stay "with the times" and get yourself on Twitter.  You might handle your Twitter account a little differently though, that will bring you more attention.

You could for example:

• Handle the Twitter account in the persona of your company mascot
• Repost positive feedback your company has gotten, to share with the world
• Post fun facts about your genre of business

I could go on and on. As discussing as it might sound – there are several different ways to skin this cat, and it is up to you to find the most creative way.

So remember, don’t be afraid to do things differently.  You are not really taking a different path – you are just finding a new and different way to go through the path, to draw more attention to yourself.

If you have been working in any online capacity these days, you have more than likely run into a few social media douchebags.  Now, not saying that everybody trying to earn a buck helping companies find their way in the social networking landscape are this way – but many are, and it is comically annoying.

At a former job, I was told that one of my replacements being brought in was somebody who had a degree in social marketing.  The thought of this gave me a chuckle, because for one thing – that sounds like a degree you would get out of a Cracker Jacks box.  The other thing that was slightly annoying about the thought was that this person was probably going to get more attention because of it – even though, I probably knew just as much about Twitter and Facebook as they did. 

One great website that pokes fun at the idea of being a social media douchebag is socialmediadouchebag.net.  I would highly encourage everybody to check it out, to get a good idea at how crazy the world of social media experts is these days. 

Anybody who knows me knows I am a big believer in teaching yourself, and there are enough resources to learn from out there that nobody really needs to hire somebody that has "social media expert" on their business card. 

You tell me though, are social media marketing experts this generation’s version of a search engine optimization snake oil salesmen or do you think it is a real business?

You can do great things, but if nobody knows – did you really do them at all?  After reading a recent interview with Richard Branson, on building a brand for your business, something he said really made me think.

Here is the quote from the British industrialist:

The key to improving sales is to make sure your business or product stands out in the marketplace. We have always tried to ensure that Virgin products are innovative, that they offer good value and that there’s a great attitude about service. When you have those basics right, you need to make sure people know about your business: Too many great businesses remain "well-kept" secrets for too long and never get the attention they need to grow and thrive.

You have to let people know about your business, and what it is you are doing that they might be interested in knowing about. This might seem like an obvious point to make, but sometimes features are overlooked because one man’s boring detail is another man’s press release worthy note.

I want you to make a list of features your product or company might have that are unique. For example, I could say some of the differences Mitchelaneous has with other blogs out there are:

• I am a one man team, doing the designing, writing, and editing
• This blog has been around for six years, which is pretty good if you count it in blog years
• I cover a wide variety of geeky topics that tickle my fancy

Now, let us take a look at this quickly made list.  You might have known I did all of the work on this website and that I write about a geeky variety of topics.  You might not know that I have been blogging here since the year 2004.  So if I was to market one of those three facts to new users, it would be the fact that I am a better established blog than most, because I have been around longer.

So go out there and create some attention for yourself today.  Spread the word about something that is unique to your business, website or project – and make sure people know about it.

WooRank is an impressive new web site analysis tool worth singing the praises of.  I have several of these types of online tools bookmarked, and I have written about most of them.  The thing that separates WooRank’s analysis of a domain over any other tool is the plethora of information they provide to you.

After submitting mitchelaneous.com to the site, I found out tons of information I can turn around and use to make my web site even better.  Here are some of the details this online tool provides to you:

• Visitors
• Content
• In-Site SEO
• Home analysis
• Inside analysis
• Website compliance
• Off-Site SEO
• Popularity
• Directories
• Social Media
• Usability
• Website information
• Server
• Domain
• Related websites

WooRank is definitely my new favorite tool to find out how I can make my web sites better.  I got a WooRank of 53.1.  Can you beat me?  Plug your own domain name into WooRank.com and see what score you get.

I have spent a lot of my free time the last few months playing Fat Princess, a PlayStation Network game for the PlayStation 3.  Over time, you come to lean a few things you should do – and a few things you probably shouldn’t do, to keep the experience enjoyable.

Things to Remember in Fat Princess

Here are the things that you should do, or might come in handy:

• Work with your team, rather than going out on your own.  Pay attention to the map, and if there is anybody with a microphone – listen to how they are trying to organize.
• Unless there are bombs around, best to use the fire mage rather than the Ice mage – since it charges faster.
• The ice mage does come in handy when slowing down somebody with a princess, however don’t freeze the person holding the princess if somebody like a warrior is attacking them.  You’ll end up protecting the princess thief with your freezing on accident.
• Join a clan if you are seriously enjoying the game.  There are a lot of different groups out there that schedule different training games and battles between the clans.
• Watch and learn.  If your lucky enough, you might get put on a team with some experienced players – watch what they are doing, to find the best ways to play.

Don’t Do These Things in Fat Princess

Here are a few things you should stay away from doing, at all costs:

• Study up on some of the glitches people like to do, and usually suggest you don’t do.  If they don’t mention it in the game, some of them can be found on the PlayStation forums.
• If you have a microphone, you can ask and maybe advise on what should be done – but don’t be a little Fat Hitler.  Saying, “Build those damn doors, or I’m calling you out!” is just silly. Remember you are on a team.
• Speaking of microphones, keep your conversation at least kinda remotely related to the game.  Not even your friends care what you had for breakfast.
• Never give up!  Just because the countdown clock starts doesn’t mean all is lost.  I’ve seen many games where a save was made even in the last second.
• Don’t be that guy everybody hates.  Sure you might get your jollies out blowing up your own doors, or playing polka music at full blast over the microphone – but you’ll soon be muted or by yourself, as other players find another game without you.

I am by far not an authority on the game, I just enjoy playing.  If you have any suggestions on your own tips on what to do or what not to do, share them in the comments.

Fat Additonal Tips

Update – Just posted about this topic and article over at the Fat Princess forums for some more feedback, be sure to check out some more tips and suggestion here.

From neoitvaluocsol - Ice is so awesome if someone is trying to make a jump/wall climb.  I remember icing someone when they were tyring to make a jump in the top of coco cliffs and it made them fall off and die, or by that spot in hot sauce you freeze them and they can fall in the lava sometimes and not get back out haha.

From bblow_up – I like your point about using fire over ice, but I think you should mention that it also does more damage as well as knockback (which is great when you’re fighting on cliffsides and lava levels and whatnot).

Fat Resources

Here are a few more resources for you before I send you on your way:

• Fat Princess Strategy via the Titan Studios blog
• The Official Fat Princess PlayStation 3 forums

Also, I’ll toss in there – if anybody ever wants to play with me, my PlayStation Network ID is cheasym.  I’d love to run around and rescue the princess with any of you out there.

I think you have engaged in a classic example of overthink. URLs are resolved right -to-left. In other words, xyz.com.com is requesting the subdomain xyz of “com” of the .com TLD. If you pop com.com into WHOIS you will likely discover it too is owned by cNet.

I hadn’t even thought about that. Many thanks to Reese for the solution!

The Original Post

I have spent the last few hours troubleshooting a really odd problem.  To kind of get my thoughts in order on what I have done and could do, I thought I would spell everything out here.  The problem is that whenever I enter any domain name and put the extension twice (like mitchkeeler.com.com) it redirects me to a search.com search page for it instead of giving me the normal error message.

To give you a little more information ahead of time, my DSL provider is AT&T (or Yahoo! AT&T to be more specific).

Here is where I would be redirected for that:

http://domainhelp.search.com/search?q=mitchkeeler&d=mitchkeeler.com.com

I always use Firefox, so first thing I checked was the other browsers I have installed right now.  Both Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 7 gave me the same results.

So then I thought, well maybe I have some sort of odd malware or virus on my PC.  So I tested another PC, running Windows XP and it gave the same problem.  So I thought, maybe it could be a Windows problem or it had spread to that machine?  So I turned on my laptop – which is running Kubuntu – and it gave me the same result.

Going out on a limb, I wanted to try something different – so I fired up my PlayStation Portable and tried to recreate the problem it it’s browser.  It sent me to the same result.

So now, you would think – well, there is a problem with the router or the connection from AT&T, right?  So I unplugged my PC from the router, hooked the DSL line up directly to my PC (taking the router out of the mix) and I still was given then stupid domainhelp.search.com page.

Now I decided to do a traceroute to the badly typed domain to see how it was redirecting.  That traced back to cNet, which owns the search.com domain name.

That is where I am at now, and I am kinda out of options on where to look next.  If you have any ideas, let me know!  Would love to hear ‘em.

Update: Also posted about the problem here on broadbandreports.com!

Bonus!  Bad Live Chat Support from Yahoo! AT&T DSL!

As a bonus – for those of you still checking in on this issue, here is my chat transcript with a Yahoo! AT&T DSL support member:

Mickey: How can I help you?

Mitch: Hello, I noticed that when I mistype a domain name such as adding an extra .com at the end, I am now being redirect to domainhelp.search.com

Mitch: Instead of getting and error page

Mickey: That is normal.

Mitch: When did this redirection start?

Mickey: Well, when did you try to put an extra domain?

Mitch: Well, just noticed it today, for example if I type in google.com.com by mistake I am taken here: http://domainhelp.search.com/search?q=google&d=google.com.com

Mickey: Just do not put any weird domain if you do not want to be directed.

Mitch: But, just to confirm – this is a “service” provided by AT&T, correct?

Mickey: All ISP do that.

Mitch: Alright, thanks you for your time.

Gather Your Facts

The first thing you must do is collect as many facts about the problem as you can.  Be sure to write down dates, important information and anything else that might have happened before, during or after the problem took place. 

For example, if you were working on your web site, changed a template file, and then the web site wasn’t working, you need to be sure to write down the dates each change was made (the best you can), the files that were edited, what you did (if you can remember) and the error codes or problems you had afterwards.

Be Upset, Not Angry

It is alright to be upset when something is so bad, you have to go ask or report it to a support team, however getting angry isn’t going to help get the issue resolved any quicker.  I’ve seen many people who think, “Well, if I just yell at them enough – they’ll get the message” and that is actually the worst thing you could do.  Keep a calm head on your shoulders, and remember – even when asking for help – you’ll catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar.

Explain Your Entire Problem the Best You Can

You don’t have to write a novel about the issue, but do make sure that you explain your situation the best that you can.  If somebody request support, and just says – “Hey, (insert object here) is broke, FIX IT!” that is not going to cut the cake.  Present the facts that you have gathered in a way that anybody could understand it. 

You might have to write it, re-read it and make sure it makes your case.  Explaining things well the first time will keep you from having to go back and forth as the tech support worker tries to recreate the situation on their side, so they can find a fix for you.

If you can master those three things, then the next time you contact any support team for any reason, your situation is going to be a much better one indeed. You will get a better support experience (in most cases) and get the result you are looking for quicker as well.