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It is sort of embarrassing to admit, but for whatever reasons Google may have, they were ranking my LinkedIn.com profile #1 in google for a “Collin LaHay” search. For those of you who don’t know yet, Collin LaHay is my name. 
It seemed odd that I had received a pagerank 5 and having an extreme amount of trust on my domain, that Google wouldn’t think I should rank the top result for my own name. It just goes to show that you should register your name, as well as your companies, and possibly even your competitors as users on many of the web2.0 websites because they are growing so fast and the search engines give them so much authority.
My LinkedIn profile had only 41 backlinks to it, while my blog has over 10,000, yet Google still considered it to be the most trustful result for my search.
Since it was my account, I was not too worried about it, but the thought that worried me was what if someone else registered the LinkedIn name “Collin LaHay” and was using the profile to make me look bad? Since LinkedIn.com doesn’t know who you are, you could potentially register some honest persons name and have a bunch of racist URL’s as your homepage, and Google would think that since the page was on LinkedIn.com, it should rank really high. Can you imagine what kind of annoyance this would be?
Well, thankfully my blog now ranks #1 for my name, but the lesson that YOU ALL should take out of this is to register your name on any big social media website that you can think of, even if you are not planning on using the website. You will thank me 6 months down the road before a competitor grabs your name and tries to blackmail you or make you look bad… A 30 minute fix now can save your reputation (or that of the businesses you are affiliated with) down the road.
Has anyone had any bad experiences like this one? It would be a very lame thing to do, but I know there are people out there who have tried it.
My name is Collin LaHay, and this is my blog. I am a young entrepreneur (age 18), and unlike most people my age, I earn a living from the web. I am living proof that anyone who has the will and determination to succeed can make money online, and I hope to inspire you to do the same. This blog is all about sharing my coveted website marketing strategies that few (if any) other self-proclaimed professionals would keep to themselves or sell. I strongly believe in sharing techniques and branding myself as someone who helps other people before himself. My main focus is teaching you how to increase website traffic, search engine optimize your content, and combining that with link building and other promotional techniques. I am hoping this blog will be beneficial to you, whether you are new to internet marketing trying to make your first dollar online, or are a seasoned professional looking to continue dominating your niche. I plan to show you every trick that the other big guys would keep to themselves.
I started this blog in November 2007. I am only 18 years old but already have more experience than most adults when it comes to internet marketing. I was initially going to start this blog when I started my first website, but before I ran a blog teaching others about internet marketing and building traffic, I wanted to be able to do it myself. I made it a personal goal to run my own websites for exactly one year before I could consider myself a professional internet marketer. In the last 15+ months, I have gone from knowing next to nothing about making money from the web, to becoming an expert in search engine optimization, link building, viral marketing, and maximizing traffic. I started off running simple websites like web proxies because they were always in high demand, but have since sold those and moved onto websites that benefit others while at the same time will help me pay for my college tuition this Fall.
I am one of the twelve contestants to compete on the Top Affiliate Challenge reality internet TV series this July, and look forward to networking and learning from a lot of the industries greatest minds. I plan to share everything I learn with my readers, so if you are someone looking to start making money online, or someone who owns a blog/website and is looking to increase the amount of visitors that come to it, this blog is right for you. Stop wasting time and subscribe to the RSS feed or get your updates via email. The subscribe button is to the right of this post on the sidebar.
