Last October I entered a link building contest for Pink Internet Marketing, where the winning prize was a cute, fluffy bear. Amazingly enough I won the contest, and after Danielle emailed me to let me know I won, I sent her my address, though I left my name out for the sake of privacy.

After that, I never heard from her again. After receiving no bear for about a month, I sent her a friendly email, then sent another one to a different address of hers a week later just to see what was up. She hadn’t been updating her blog regularly, so I figured she must have been really busy, and let it go at that.

Then she updated her blog yesterday, so I left a comment in a Ashton Kutcher fashion, “DUDE! Where’s my bear??” I honestly thought she may have just forgotten and needed a reminder.

She deleted the comment. WTF???

For someone trying to create a successful internet marketing business, it doesn’t really help your credibility to run a link building contest, only to scam the contest winner out of his prize and ignore his repeated inquiries, ya know? Unless this is just a blackhat SEO technique I happened to be an unwitting victim of.

I wish I knew what went wrong. Maybe she changed her mind and simply couldn’t part with her beloved teddy. Maybe I wrote something on my blog that somehow offended her. Maybe the bear got lost in the mail. Really, I would have accepted virtually any explanation and been ok with it. It is just a bear after all.

But this silent treatment really pisses me off, and damn if it isn’t typical of how women usually treat me. One day you’re humming along, all is fine in the world, the birds singing, the flowers blooming, and then without warning, phone calls suddenly go unanswered, emails get ignored, and you’re left in the rain to wonder what had horribly gone so wrong.

Ah well. I guess I’ll just have to grin and “bear” it.

I won a prize! No, it wasn’t money. No it wasn’t a date with Jessica Alba. So what did I win you ask? Lookie here:

Yep, in what I am now convinced is a global conspiracy to obliterate whatever ounce of manhood I had left over from 31 years of pain, agony, and surviving Backstreet Boys mania, Danielle from Pink Internet Marketing has declared me the random winner of her fluffy pink bear.

Still, I will accept this cuddly bundle of cuteness on Danielle’s promise that it will someday help me win over the heart of my future honey pot bon bon bunnycakes, whoever she may be.

Assuming of course, she can get past the fact that the studly man of her dreams now keeps a pink teddy bear in his bedroom.

My BackLink Contest has finally concluded, but alas, alas, only one can walk away with the prize. May I have the envelope please…

And the winner of the $100 Amazon Gift Certificate, chosen by random number generation is……. Julia Adamus!

Hope you enjoy your prize Julia. Try not to spend it all in one place.

Thanks to everyone else for participating. I’m sorry I couldn’t offer more, but sadly this contest was pretty much a flop for me. I was hoping to get at least 100 bloggers to join in and link back to my site, but only 16 people signed up overall. Oh well, it was a learning experience for me at least, and if I’m to create a successful blog with a respectable amount of traffic, then I have to accept that there are certain risks I sometimes need to take to put myself out there. One thing’s for sure though, I ain’t never running a contest like THIS again, or I’m gonna end up completely broke, and then I’ll never be able to get a girl to wub me and hug me.

Update: I made a goof and ended the contest one day earlier than I mentioned because I thought the 24th would be a Tuesday. I’m obviously an idiot (or maybe just sleep deprived). I was intending to end the contest on Tuesday anyway, I just had the date mixed up. It’s the number 23 I’m telling you, it’s EVIL. EVIL!!!!

My blog is ruined.

I resisted for as long as I could, but I finally succumbed to the pinkness. Danielle at Pink Internet Marketing recently offered up a chance to win a Pink SEO Bear for bloggers everywhere, and being enticed by promises that the bear would help me get girls (not to mention the fact that I simply can’t resist a cute face), I decided to enter as well.

But let’s get one thing straight here. I HATE the color pink. HATE it, a’ight? I mean it’s just sooo… well… pink. Me, I dig dark colors. Blackness defines me. My car is black, my computer is black, my hair is black, and my leather jacket (when I get one) will also, of course, be black. Being ensconced in the darkness makes me seem more mysterious, more manlier, and maybe, just a bit more dangerous too.

But now I just HAD to go and pinkify my blog didn’t I. Ugh… It’s ok though, I’m sure this will wash off eventually, and my blog will soon return to its normally dark and mysterious self.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a sudden urge to go window shopping for some Prada shoes.

Update: The contest has concluded. Thanks to all those who participated!

I’m forever looking for ways to boost my Technorati rankings, but without much success, so I’m gonna try something new here: if you create a backlink to my site from your blog, you’ll be entered for a chance to win a $100 gift certificate for Amazon.

I hate to get sucked into entering yet another blogging contest, especially when they are usually transparent efforts to build backlinks to their sites, but this one was too good to pass up.

David Airey is a graphic designer who, oddly enough, specializes in logo and graphic design, and is currently running a contest giving away $4,000 worth of prizes on his blog, which by the way covers the niche of… wait for it… logo design.

That should provide enough suitable context links to make Airey happy and get me into the contest, but just to boost my chances of winning, I’ll list most of the nifty prizes that’s being offered by his sponsors here, but only if y’all promise not to enter the contest too and thus diminish my chances of winning.

The gold (grand) prize offers a free… wait for it… logo design (from David Airey of course), a WordPress theme design by Nate Whitehill, a personal marketing and advertising plan from Dosh Dosh, one year of free hosting and blog setup from I Love Typography , and a signed copy of Blogging Tips by Lorelle Van Fossen, which I already have a copy of being the Lorelle groupie fan that I am.

One thing I really want out of that list of goodies is Nate’s offer of a theme design. That’s worth several hundred bones right there, and I could really use an expert to fix some of the more grating issues that’s been plaguing my theme since I started blogging. Rather than clean up my own mess though, I think it’d be nice to have somebody else do it for me. :hubahuba:

As for the other prizes, I thought I’d have a little fun here and list them to the tune of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire.”

Logo designs by Roskell, whose name I think does ring a bell, site critiques by Randa Clay, who’ll tell you how to find your way, one hour SEO, linkbaits and promos, $60 worth of books, a problogger who’s not a crook…

Logo design, (not again!), blog optimizing, blog reviews and blogging tips, blogging that and blogging this, WordPress designing, what to do, what to do, never fear, help is here, Brian will take care of you!

We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world’s been turning!
We didn’t start the fire, no we didn’t light it but we tried to fight it!

Podcasting studio, from affiliate and marketing, Mom Gadget , free money, isn’t she a real honey, 3 USB sticks, help you get your hacking fix, Terenia in Edinburgh, they’ll thank me for this little blurb, blog reviews in Blog-Op, WordPress themes from Aaron Russell, Mareddy and her WordPress skills, Marketing Tools Review, hopefully provide a clue, blog writing consultations, all this and more frustrations, time to take a long vacation!

We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world’s been turning!
We didn’t start the fire, no we didn’t light it but we tried to fight it!

Coaching creative professionals, they’ll coach and coach and tell it all, business growth consulting, contract negotiations, a mediator and conflict coach, to keep you all from getting poached, always room for blog improvement, will all this even make a dent???

A banner day for banner ads, all on Blog Experiment, image ads, here and there, don’t have to pay a red cent, a guy who’s Smart Wealthy Rich, providing such a healthy kick, still won’t help me find my niche, but he’ll grant an advertising pitch!

We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world’s been turning!
We didn’t start the fire, no we didn’t light it but we tried to fight it!

Contest Blogger, Freelance Folder, getting bolder, and getting older, lifetime membership, with tips, tips, and more tips, WordPress SEO, just sit back and watch the show, but lookie here, there’s no one here, cuz I ran out of prizes, now I’ll gamble with a ramble, to the end of a blogging age, taking this, all the way, WHAT ELSE DO I HAVE TO SAY???

We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world’s been turning!
We didn’t start the fire, no we didn’t light it but we tried to fight it!

Yahoo, Google too, keyword stuffing, splogging too, stumblers, tumblers, and MySpace with its stalkers, Facebook and API, everything for you and I, search bots hits all the spots, del.icio.us, please stop the dots, Adsense, earning cents, Diggsters and their nonsense, carnivals, reddit geeks, podcasting, YouTube flings, text link ads, are they bad, hope it’s not another fad, show me where to find the door, CUZ I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!

We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world’s been turning!
We didn’t start the fire, no we didn’t light it but we tried to fight it!

We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world’s been turning!
We didn’t start the fire, no we didn’t light it but we tried to fight it……..