What's up with your help articles and directory?

Why bother?

by Dave McAwesome

Why indeed. I'm going to briefly explain why we offer a directory and help articles on a site that deals mostly in vomiting action figures, questionable relationship advice and wonton disregard for the general betterment of humanity. (And when I say "we" offer, I mean "me." I didn't see any other members of Team Awesome throwing in a helping hand when I was up researching and coding at 3am. Gimme a Mountain Dew, fer cryin out loud!)

So...let's start in with your likely questions:

Why bother setting this stuff up?

When I started MaximumAwesome.com in January 2005, I knew practically nothing about getting listed in search engines, getting people to check out my site, or why people buy the George Foreman grill. Sorry, dude, but that grill sucks. It was impossible to clean, left a huge mess of fat drippings everywhere and made the meat taste . . . uh . . . off. Grilled chicken, in particular, was a combination of dreadful and awful. It was drawful.

Back on topic, I didn't even have a web designing program. I knew a few basic html codes, opened up an old HTML for Complete Asstards book, and built the site in Notepad. You know, Notepad--that stupid little program that comes on every PC but nobody uses. That Notepad. Impressive, eh? No, you're right, it's not too impressive. To show you something REALLY impressive, you have to be female and we both have to be naked. Whoops, see what I did there? That's frat humor. You will NEVER see that kind of lame-ass crap on this site. Frats suck. Frat humor sucks. Your stupid pledge ring or whatever the hell trinket you still have from your frat sucks. You are a stupid, bootlicking sheep for joining a frat. Baaaaaaa! Baaaaaaaa, I say to you.

Now that the unpleasantness has passed, allow us to proceed. (And again, by "us" I mean "me." That's MY byline you see up there, kiddo.) Anyhoo, I didn't know squat about web building, but I kept reading and surfing a lot of sites and internet articles. I found out all sorts of junk about why links to your site are good and why some sites show up when you type a particular word and others do not. Several months later, a couple of friends asked me how they could set up their own site. They were where I was when I started: nowhere. And I thought, damn, it took me hours to learn all this useless crap about search engine optimization, page rank, link builders, and such. . . . why should they have to go through the same nightmare? (Why "nightmare?" In case you haven't heard, for every issue on the internet, there are precisely 72 differing and contradictory positions about it.)

I had been asking questions on various message boards, tag boards, emails . . . you name it. I got a lot of good feedback, so I figured I'd try to give something back. So I set up the Awesome Directory and Blog Thunderdome. (I once had a banner exchange and a link builder, but these have been discontinued due to the amount of time they sucked up.)

Are they free?

Yep.

If I sign up, will my site get a Google PageRank 10?

Dude, I have no idea. Anyone who promises that is a liar. All I can promise is that if you sign up for these services and read (and follow) the handful of helpful articles in my "Misc" section, your site will probably show some increase in traffic and PR. But honestly, the best advice I can give you is create good CONTENT on your site. Don't buy into all these "get rich off the internet" scams. Focus on your content, ignore the jingling of chimeric change-purses and you should pull through fine. My services and advice will at least make sure more than just your immediate family members will read your site.

Are they really free?

You just asked that. What's wrong with you? Of course they're free. Are you trying to catch me off-guard or something?

Oh, come on. You must be getting something out of this. Advertising or something, right?

None of my services place advertising on your site. All I get out of this is a link from your site to mine. And, of course, the lukewarm, vaguely satisfying feeling of helping out a fellow website person. It's strange, because I never set out to do this stuff. I just wanted a humor site where I could write whatever nonsense struck me. Now, look at me. I'm actually helping you troglodytes. Face it, most people are petty, brutish louts. Me? I guess I'm a goddamned humanitarian. You're welcome. Ladies, you may buy me a beer.

Thus concludes the McAwesome Guide to--

Whoa! Hang on there, chief. I get to say that.

Thus concludes the McAwesome Account of Maximum Awesome's Splendiferous Services. This way, you no longer need to email me about them so that I may spend more time writing what we call "The Funny." Yay.