Dear Mr. Australian Sex Toy Dude,
Hi there! Just wanted to drop you a quick line to thank you for the minor upheaval you brought down upon my life over the past few weeks.
You remember, don’t you? First you contacted me about the possibility of advertising on my site. The email was marked by the system as “spam” but I replied anyhow with a quick offer to send along my rates on the chance that the inquiry was legit. It certainly seemed to be, as you wrote back directly describing the sort of ad you wanted. You agreed to pay the necessary fee, and because the links you wanted seemed a bit more complicated than most, I decided to post the ad for your approval before sending a bill.
Alas, my first attempt did not make you happy. But no matter, thought I. It had taken a mere twenty minutes the first time through; the corrections were completed in approximately the same amount of time. Within a day I’d fixed things as requested and sent off an email noting the changes and requesting payment via PayPal.
Then as things happen, I got busy. Kids, work, gorgeous weather, books and sex displaced any focus on unpaid invoices for a matter of days, until such a time that I glanced at my main page and realized that no notice had arrived to inform me of a payment received.
‘Tis only a small thing, I thought. You surely just forgot or became entangled in your own frenetic life. I emailed again to request payment, and after thirty-six hours you replied. So sorry, you wrote. Google Page Rank for your inner pages shows only a gray bar. Google must be penalizing your site in some way. I do not want to advertise with you after all.
Livid as I was, I checked out your assertion. Sure enough, only my main page and the photos page showed a Google Page Rank, and I had no idea what a gray bar meant. All I knew then was that you’d agreed to pay for advertising, I had posted the advertising, and still hadn’t gotten paid. In short you received a goodly chunk of publicity and work from me. Doing free work for friends? This I enjoy. Doing free work for unknown Sex Toy Dudes half the world away? Not so much.
I wrote you back a terse note as I’m sure you will recall. I told you I was not very happy with this turn of events. You reiterated your claim that there must be something wrong with the site to cause my inner pages to have no rank.
After stewing for a while, I’d like to let you know that I did a little research. In fact I did a lot of research. I learned through the miracle of the internet that a gray bar for Google Page Rank means very little, especially if the pages in question are indexed by Google. Along the way I consulted a couple of my favorite Google-knowledgeable pals, who reminded me never to accept any but prepaid advertising and that page rank in the big scheme of things means very little. Thank you pals, and thank you as well for suggesting some invisible but useful tweaks which I hope will eventually improve performance around here significantly.
And now it occurs to me, Mr. Australian Sex Toy Dude, that this small issue perfectly recapitulates the whole of life, wherein each of us is faced with inescapable challenges both major and minor, chronic and acute, singular and repetitive. With every problem we have the option of helplessly flinging up our hands or instead making the necessary modifications so as to handle such predicaments more effectively in the future. The difficulty you created prompted me to make changes and for that I am grateful. Without your impetus I would likely have floated along with no real reason for improvement.
Mr. Australian Sex Toy Dude, you have my appreciation for providing the latest in a never ending series of conundrums with which I am able to encourage myself toward some imitation of perfection. Thank you.
Sincerely,
–aag
“When someone is a little bit wrong — say, when a waiter puts nonfat milk in your espresso macchiato, instead of lowfat milk — it is often quite easy to explain to them how and why they are wrong. But if someone is surpassingly wrong — say, when a waiter bites your nose instead of taking your order–you can often be so surprised that you are unable to say anything at all. Paralyzed by how wrong the waiter is, your mouth would hang slightly open and your eyes would blink over and over, but you would be unable to say a word.”
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Yo there AAG, greetings from Ibiza :)
just wanted to say thanks for the link and congratulate you on a fine choice of theme.
and yes just ignore the grey bar its meaningless from what we can see unless it happens to the main domain for any length of time.
and some people eh?
Hi there,
Yes as a web designer / seo / and all other stuff, I get this all the time.
Pagerank does mean little, however, it is the buzzword that plenty of SEO folk like to bandy around as reasons for charging you exhorbitant amounts of money.
Better to focus on your placement in the search engines.
He only wanted the highest PR possible pointing to his site.
We have a saying here in New Zealand:
“Same old Australians, always cheating”
OK, as an Aussie I’m a little concerned. I’m concerned because I THINK I know which it might be — an online sex toy shop that I’ve used before and liked. I’ve just recommended it to a friend, who’s looking for her first sex toy, as a great place to get something discreetly. If they’ve screwed you over, though, I’ll retract the recommendation.
Can you post just the first letter of the domain? That will help me know if it’s them or not.
That, or email me on the address I’ve left with this comment — I seriously don’t want my friend to drop a couple of hundred bucks with them if they’re dodgy. Thanks!
Dear Paul,
I’ve never mentioned or taken ads from this company before. Feel free to email me the name of the company you used and I’ll let you know if that’s them. But I seriously doubt that it is.
:)
May I say that you are most gracious. And Australian Sex Toy Dude is most undeserving. And not a really good businessperson. Who doesn’t check out their advertising venues BEFORE placing the ad? Duh.
I am interested to know if Mr Australian Sex Toy Dude responds. Did you send him this? I love how well you put him in his place :)
xo~Sadie
Should I send it to him? I haven’t yet…
I think the email took more time than he was worth to generate, would have just pulled the ad and severed contact. But that is just me.
Do tell.
I want to go and click on this guys links everywhere, and often. Not to buy anything, just a passive-aggresive way of costing him a bunch of money by making him pay for click-through that never results in a conversion.
C’mon, tell us who the jerk is.
Ha! It was to be a flat-rate ad, but your suggestion is pretty funny. :)
As an Australian and as an Advertiser on your great site I’m really sorry to hear of your struggles with this ‘Dude’. Some ppl get some kind of satisfaction out’a making business harder then it has to be, I’ve never understood it :(
I hope you get this resolved asap.
- David
Eh, it’s perfectly resolved, as far as I’m concerned. He got a little of my time, I got a post. We’re square.
:)
I read this and had to laugh, because this dude seems like he reads -alas- too many of those dreaded pro-blogger blogs that rave on about page rank and google this, that and the other, like there is a definitive formula for creating a blog and, over time I may add, establishing readers and traffic.
You have more patience than me :) and I’m in Australia. I’ve had one one issue with an Aussie based company that became bossy, if it wasn’t one email, it was another. I ran out of prominent places I could put them on (they were never happy with a right top sidebar, and a page devoted to their launch) my previous -no defunct – blog and they still busted my chops, so I told them, in the only way an Aussie understands, to eff off. It wasn’t worth the stress.
What a git! Sorry :p
I hope you haven’t sent it to him!
I decided not to.
:)
Well AAG. Some people will always want a free ride. I bet he is not even really Australian. Mr Dundee is rolling over in his grave (well he’s not dead) but if he was, he’ be rolling.