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sanchoyo · 3 years

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danny phantom season 2, ep 12-16 thoughts! these episodes, in comparison to the first 10 or so, felt way more laid back and low-stakes, which I appreciate sometimes. I didn't appreciate how lazy jack's halfa design was in masters of time, it made me so annoyed I redesigned it. 👎🏻 u_u

see prev episode thoughts in this tag <3

-'picking a fight with me and my upgraded form!' 'you upgraded to a mullet?' DANNNNY. YOU CANT SAY THAT TO TECHNUS. YOUVE HAD A MULLET TWICE NOW ('fun' split danny, and evil future danny BOTH HAD THEM). I HAVE THE RECEIPTS.

-danny seeing technus hurting valerie and yelling I AM GOING TO BREAK YOU IN HALF. SAMEEEE <3

-axion labs is now a part of vladco. FUCK YOU VLAD. hes not even really IN this episode, but just thought I'd throw out a nice fuck you anyway.

-'capable of blasting a single person into space in (2) minutes!' tucker. that would kill someone. i mean yeah they might get to space, but theres NO WAY THEY WOULDNT CATCH FIRE, OR THEIR ORGANS WOULDNT LIQUIFY BECAUSE OF THE STRAIN. THEY'D PROBABLY PASS OUT BEFORE THEN, BUT. ...no, okay, I get why vlad bought this company. this is RIGHT up his alley.

-danny KNOWS VAL DIDNT DO THIS, THAT SOMEONE STOLE THE SUIT. AND SPENDING ALL NIGHT CHATTING WITH HER. <3 and val is a 9TH DEGREE BLACKBELT?? danny's mom is, too!! omg and she hunts ghosts, his parents would love her. and her fav fruit is kumquat bc its a funny word. im so with danny val is amazing. I love her and I Do Not Want To Hear It From Sam.

-I knew danny wanted to be an astronaut, but the bowling tidbit is like. yes give me more useless info abt these characters, I love tiny details that make them feel more human, and im glad hes got hobbies aside from ghost stuff, we dont really see a lot of that!!! (I mean, we knew 'fun' danny from when he split himself in half liked bowling, so obv it makes sense he LIKES it, but hes very GOOD at it. so proud of him, bowling king) val calling him neil armstrong and them teasing each other. LOVE THAT.

-technus you are my favorite grandpa for setting this up. SAM WHY ARE YOU BEING SO CREEPY BE HAPPY FOR YOUR FRIEND!!! STOP SPYING ON THEM!!! who actually cares if technus did 'set them up' together, theyre having fun and enjoy each others company!!! 'you think the universe wants you two to be together?' 'i dunno, but maybe /I/ do!' EXACTLY DANNY!!! SOO TRUE.

-and valerie being happy sam said she wants to try and be happy for them and make room at the lunch table for them. and hugging sam over it. VAL NEEDS MORE FRIENDS.

-VAL GOING AFTER TECHNUS IN HER SUIT WITH (1) MILK, AND (1) TREE BRANCH AND KEYS!!!. I LOVE YOUUUU BEST GIRL. her new suit kicks ass

-dannys like 'HEY IM AN ASTRONAUT :D' AW. ...HES IN SPACE... the fact he's actually intending to give her the ring. with SAMS NAME ON IT?? IM CRINGING DANNY NO. YOU CANT DO THAT...thank god he didnt. thank god valerie cut it off and said they can just stay friends for now. tbh, they both have a lot on their plates!! they obv both still like each other...it can be a future thing!! when she knows about phantom! youre 14 theres no need to rush. I just want her to have friends and be happy :(

-...danny struggles to do (1) pull up. SAME. but all the ghost fighting in phantom form REALLY doesnt carry over at ALL? that sucks

-sam being as fit as she is, is not just a goth. shes a goth jock.

-honey I Shrank Our Kid, One of his Enemies, and his Bully: the episode

-dash's crush on phantom is So Obvious. fitness buddies :) watching them interact always makes me laugh. also, phantom, with PANTS. 'how many costume changes you gonna go through, what is this, vegas??' DASSH DJKSFHASKDF

-MADDIE GOING AFTER THE MOUSE WITH A BROOM, WHAT THE FUCK. AAAH. JUST BUY SOME KIND OF MOUSE TRAP.

-danny likes lime and vinegar chips. which sound very good.

-'our boy finally has the physical prowess of a 60 year old president!' ...poor danny LMAO

-'what's wrong with beauty pageants' oh tucker you sweet naïve child. what ISNT wrong with them. who approved this for a high school?? (I mean, yes. unfortunately child pageants exist, but...) also danny and tucker once again treating the pretty girls like objects. I need to meet the grown man who wrote this, I just want to talk...

-prince aragon's dragon form reminds me of maleficent (color scheme wise) which is always a bonus. considering the episode is called beauty marked, I feel like the sleeping beauty references are deliberate

-sam with the fake fangs. once again her accessories never miss. hate the 'not like other girls, girls who get sucked into this kind of thing are all shallow and all want to be carbon copies' bs tho.

-sam trying to be the Worst Bride, being rude as shit. DORA IS GOING TO GET KILLED. DID YOU MISS THE PART WHERE SHE SAID THE PRINCE WILL HAVE HER HEAD IF YOU ARENT THE IDEAL BRIDE. YOU /KNOW/ DANNY WILL COME SAVE YOU. JUST ACT CHILL UNTIL THEN. even if you were doing fine to get him to take off the crown, consider maybe not letting his poor sister get punished also?? sure, she could also take off the crown and has dragon powers, but did you know that for sure?? dora didnt even really realize it until you guys talked!! (or at least, she was scared to stand up to him. you had no guarantee she would...) but. good for dora. ANOTHER friendly ghost to add to the List :)

-tucker is so under appreciated in his time. if he was doing a tech-based campaign today he'd have a better shot. people in 2004 had NO IDEA how much tech would be a part of our day-to-day lives...altho. tbh if you're going to be running for student council president, maybe you should..focus on things to actually improve the school? since he's going for a tech angle, he could say like, he would be running fundraisers for the schools computers to be upgraded, etc? we've already SEEN he can be good at money-making entrepreneur type stuff!!

-oh my god wait. this episode is JUST YUGIOH?????! A REBORN PHAROH USING A TEENAGER AS A VESSEL?? YESSSSSS

-tucker using his new minion to feed him grapes and carry him. AND LOCUSTS ONTO THE BULLIES. I love how when he's possessed, he gains winged eyeliner.

-this episode is giving me big 'plankton makes everyone in bikini bottom his slaves and build monuments of him from the spongebob movie' vibes. and the pharaoh has a traitor who works for him? VERY big yugioh vibes. aknadin confirmed

-I like that danny is still completely exhausted after using ghostly wail. (still patiently waiting on him to get duplication)

-LOVE the fenton's 80s outfits. I get hes 14 and embarrassed by everything they do because theyre his parents, but. cmon, this is one objectively cool thing theyve done. love 80s fashion.

-...was vlad just standing on that streetlight waiting for danny to come out? how'd he know they'd be coming out the back? how long has he been up there???

-oh, wait, his ecto-acne has flareups? that SUCKS. danny was...well I dont want to say he was LUCKY HE HALF-DIED, but he was lucky his was pretty instant (I'm assuming that had to do with the power/scale of the portals being different?) I remember in the ep we met him, vlad made a point of saying he was stuck in a hospital for a long time, so. that really actually sucks and I feel bad. not that it excuses anything he's done...but like. it does suck.

-vlad being so sure danny wouldnt help him he made it somehow contagious to his friends to make sure he'd get help? danny is a nice boy, he wouldve helped if it was anyone else. the only reason he wouldn't have is because of the shit vlad did to him, on purpose. vlad 100% dug his own grave by being the biggest asshole, so it is very hard to feel bad for him.

-clockwork is back!!! and making danny learn lessons The Hard Way. Uhhh, okay. I kind of get Danny’s logic, that time traveling this far back would prevent vlad from becoming a halfa also, ergo no arch nemesis or ectoacne to worry about. But the fact that was basically the first solution Danny came up with to solve this problem is actually so funny. It’s so extreme

-APPRICIATION FOR THESE 80S LESBIAN BG CHARACTERS.

-vlad telling maddie in the lab (in the 80s) he has something he's wanted to tell her 'for a long time'...how long have they known each other? I assumed they met in college, since jack always calls vlad his college buddy/roommate, so jack and vlad for sure met in college, but did vlad know maddie longer? thats surprising if so. Tho we don’t know what year of college they’re in so they could mean they met as freshmen and a few years have past…speaking of maddie shes crushing the 80s look.

-vlad blames jack, but. maybe dont stick your face 2 inches from the portal??! THIS FEELS LIKE LAB SAFETY BASICS. IF SOMETHING HAS POTENTIAL TO BE DANGEROUS, DONT GET NEAR IT. WITH YOUR FACE UNPROTECTED IN ANY WAY. (altho jack didnt really give a Big Warning besides screaming BONZAI. so. also that, but cmon.) also, they need gloves, goggles, and to pull all of their hair back tbh. but fuck lab safety, I guess!

-cryyyyinnng at how lazy they were with jack's ghost form design, its just plasmius' design on jack!!! you couldve given him his own design!!

-there. I did that in about 10 minutes and its somehow less lazy than what made it into the show. embarrassing! better yet, I think the episode would've been better if maddie would've gotten the ectoacne. or maybe its just me, wanting to see her design! anyway. I'm sure people have already done redesigns of them both as halfas. I have to go look after I finish this watch through. Also mildly frustrated jacks resentment and bitterness is basically also a copy paste of vlads backstory. They’re different characters, I really don’t think jack would stew in bitterness and jealousy the same way vlad would!! I also don’t think he’d give up after one time of trying to hunt ghosts and getting laughed at. Our canon timeline says different…I dunno, I get it was for laughs, but I’m annoyed because the POTENTIAL this plot has…

-did vlad really wear a stupid cheese hat to his wedding. ok actually that kinda rules. and the cheese door knocker. the dairy-only buffet table. vlad still got rich, just on being the New Dairy King. (Assuming that means he owns a lot of dairy businesses?) ok! this actually is great. hope maddie isn't lactose intolerant!

-'no matter how hard I tried, I could never get rid of my ghost half, the half I knew Maddie could never accept' ohh, ouch, what a horrible thing to say to her HALF GHOST SON. 'YOUR MOM WILL NEVER ACCEPT YOU' BASICALLY.

-maddie strapping danny to the table with a lazer pointed at him in a secret lab she keeps from vlad that she makes a point of saying is sound proof so he can scream all he wants...CHRIST. DANNYS POOR PYSCHE.

-also, not to feel bad for alternate vlad (because, he did lie to maddie saying jack blames her and never wants to see her again...) but. being married to a woman 20+ years and she immediately goes back to jack? if she didnt love vlad and feels like she had to hide shit from him, and says she wasted her best years with him, WHY MARRY HIM. it feels like leading him on!!! cannot believe im feeling bad for vlad, but. this alternate timeline vlad is significantly Less Horrible than Our Vlad. did she not think she'd get funding for her ghost stuff? (which, fair assumption since they're considered 'ghost fanatics/nuts in canon...but...) why did she think jack or vlad would be her ONLY OPTIONS? be like your sister. be single. Actually, this au could’ve been really interesting if after the accident, vlad lied to her and said jack never wanted to see her again, but she stays single. Imagine how much that would bug vlad… like, in her mind, it was never a competition it was jack or no one type situation…

-danny being like 'leave him ALONE' this jack is a HOMEWRECKER, DANNY. let them go to court and settle this at the least. ...or just throw vlad into the portal. (100% human, defenseless vlad) CHRIST, MADDIE THATS BRUTAL. THATS MURDER.

-danny seeing his mom immediately accepting him and his dad being half ghosts in this universe, if I was him this would be a great sign that his universe's maddie would also.

-*maddie voice* "clockwork will help!" *2 seconds later, with clockwork* "I will Not Help." TOUGH LOVE KING. YES LET DANNY SEE THE SODA HIMSELF AND DEVOLP BETTER OBSERVATION SKILLS.

-when clockwork ""reset time to the way it was"" just before danny "meddled"" ...did he really erase a whole alternate timeline? ...damn. because maddie and danny both called it an alternate timeline by name, it splitting when the college incident went different, so it wouldnt have really mattered if he reset it, right. like because danny's timeline is on a different stream? why didnt clockwork just. show danny a replay and not Reset That Timeline. wh...I wonder how many people that Erased From Existence. Anyway! once again stating clockwork is casually terrifying!

#danny phantom #dp thoughts #sanchoyorambles

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gothvince · 5 years

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i wanted 2 redesign some of lydias classmates and i’m NOT tagging this bc they look awful and they’re super quick drawings but. just wanted to ramble abt my decisions for this and?? fuckin????? infodump baby thats what i do. i put the art under a cut bc 1. this post could get long and 2. ghhhh its bad

SO i’m british and my high school had pretty much the exact same uniform as the gals at miss shannons school. and like... i can VIVIDLY remember what people would consider cool back then. rolled up sleeves, jackets tied around your waist. top button always undone. for some reason we’d roll down our socks and that would be considered cool?? and also... really short and fat ties. so since claire is the popular mean girl trope, i wanted to make sure she wore her uniform in all the ways that seemed cool at that age. she’s also big on makeup and jewellery, both of which are banned, but Cool Kids Wore It Anyway.

i think i might change her earrings to be a lot smaller, but for the most part i really like her design!! her hair is similar enough to the old show that it’s recognisable but i wanted to change it up a little just to show that this is like, a reboot. claire in general is really... bossy and mean and confident in herself so she’s not exactly afraid of all these dress code violations. and her parents are probably rich doners to the school so she rarely gets in trouble for it.

also she’s... very insecure in herself! my hc for her is that her parents are really neglectful and not very present in her life - she has money and all her needs are provided for but there’s not that emotional attachment kids need from their parents. as a result she sort of latches onto things that other people consider cool so they’ll think she’s cool and admire here, yknow?? like a shallow substitute for the love she isn’t gettin from her parents. her family’s very... strict and hate anything they’d consider “other” so in an effort to live up to her parents expectations claire takes on the roll of bully 2 people considered “other” like lyds, bertha and prudence. also she’s gay and has a crush on lydia and picks on her a lot bc of that bc she doesn’t know how else 2 deal with her feelings.

i have a whole. goddamn redemption arc in my head for claire and i love her SO much. a lot of it involves learning from lydia and BJ that it’s okay to be weird and and it’s okay to be yourself and... she struggles with it but she does eventually learn how to be herself regardless of what her parents think. YES lyds/claire is endgame and YES i’m emotionally attached to that ship

also i have her listed as 17 here but i think im gonna lower it to 16 bc i want all the gals to be around the 15-16 age. it’s older than the 12-13 age range in the show but i feel like i can write better from tht age range cuz i BARELY remember what i was like at 12 but all that teenage angst stuff is fresh in my mind

MOVING ONTO BERTHA, she wants to be as popular as claire so she imitates a lot of stuff that kids consider “cool”. like. untucked shirt, small amounts of jewellery, make up. the difference between them is that bertha is more encouraged to be herself than to conform to any kind of... standard or whatever. so she’s a little weird and dorky, but in a super endearing way. her parents are from the relatively poorer part of town, her uniform is second-hand from her older sister, so it’s kind of loose and ill-fitting. all her make up is from the dollar store so it’s the really bad kind that exacerbates her acne and doesnt really cover it up.

bertha’s tall and skinny but in a more awkward way than anything, and she has braces and acne and she wouldn’t really be considered conventionally attractive in the way claire is, but she’s so unabashedly herself that her confidence shines through that and makes her generally super likeable. she’s on good terms with pretty much everyone outside of claire’s friend group! she’s been best friends with prudence since they were kids so the two are super close, and since prudence is a lot more reserved and shy, bertha’s taken it upon herself to stick up for her and make sure she’s okay.

and prudence!! i honestly didn’t change her design too much from the show but like... she’s tiny and VERY neat and tidy. not concerned with being cool or anything - she just likes to follow the dress code exactly. she’s quiet and shy and studious and spends a lot of her time w her nose in a book. her grades are amazing. she’s from a somewhat middle class family who want her to do well, her parents are a bit strict on homework and studying and that kind of thing which can sometimes get really stifling for her, but they mean well and only want her to succeed. she enjoys hanging around with bertha and lydia because it gives her the chance to let loose a little. being friends w/ the two of them has really helped her come out of her shell, and we see her become braver over the course of the series!!

bertha/prudence is CANON and i LOVE THEM and they’re so goddamn cute together. they go to every single school dance together and have study dates once a week where it’s just the 2 of them. bertha’s out to her parents and they’re very accepting so a lot of their study dates happen at bertha’s place. prudence isn’t out, but she’s not so far in the closet that she’ll pretend she’s straight. (her parents just think she and bertha are friends but when prom rolls around and they’ve coordinated their outfits and bertha comes to pick prudence up, it hits them that they’re dating and they’re supportive when they do find out)

GOD. CLAIRE AT PROM. she’s so goddamn gay she doesn’t end up getting a date to prom because she doesn’t like any of the guys in her town. lydia goes with betty as like, a friend thing, but there’s. a part of the night where claire is watching bertha and prudence dance and she looks to lydia and just... works up the courage 2 go and ask her to dance. and they DO and they share a really shy awkward kiss at the end of the dance. meanwhile betty is NOT happy about it

i have a full prom episode written in my head............. a full goddamn series in my head... i think a lot abt these characters all the time and i REALLY wanted to go more in depth with them! claire especially bc she’s SO one-dimensional in the show i just rlly wanna explore. her whole vibe. shes heavily inspired by pacifica frm gravity falls if u couldnt tell

#this is 11 paragraphs long #fake reboot tag

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domesticangel · 5 years

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ok ive been wanting to do an OC redraw/redesign for a while now and uh, well here it is !!! top is obv the revamp and bottom is these three’s original designs ,,, the bottom pic is 9 years old (holy smokes) so i made them during my middle school emo/scene phase when i was like 12 so thats why they're.........Like That lmao but left to right in both pics is jude, elliot, and skipper!!! this was? so fun honestly

ummm lots of info/backstory about them under the cut lol

so in the original pic/designs… if I remember correctly jude and skipper were in police academy training to be cops and elliot was some punk ass kid theyd end up seeing around a lot cause he was in and out of holding for Delinquent Things, and ofc they magically became friends. Im pretty sure they were all 16/17 when I first made them which makes no sense at all (teen cops??? Ok) but like when ur 12, teenagers are Practically Adults BUT none of that is Canon TM anymore. In their redesign they range from early to late 20’s; I usually peg jude around 26-27, elliot is probably 23-24, and skipper is 21.

jude was the very first oc I ever made so shes always had a special place in my heart… I started churning out rapid fire ocs when I was in middle school that id toss when I was bored with em but shes the one that always stuck around!! Shes been a big honkin lesbian ever since her conception, so id use her a lot to express BabyGay feelings I didn’t really know how else to process. design wise I kinda just simplified her look; I have no fucking clue why she used to have an eyepatch and cat ears (I mean, I do, its because I was a weeb) but I got rid of those along with the scene hair and gave her longer hair with more natural waves and some freckles from spending a lot of time in the sun. her gray eyes and hair were always kind of her signature, so those got to stay! She mostly just wears anything that’s easy enough to move around and get work done in; tank tops, loose long skirts, etc. think futch hippy. anyways jude is now just a simple plant witch who uses her skills and connection with the elements to run a modest local farm, and even though shes fairly content in her lifestyle, she wants nothing more than a gf/wife that she can work hard to give a good life to :3c shes a hopeless romantic and has a bad habit of falling a little bit in love with every woman she meets, but shes mad shy when it comes to flirting, so more often than not shes just a sweaty ball of pining and infatuation. Whenever shes feeling some type of way about a girl she either obsessively takes on projects around the farm or house to distract herself or rants to her plants about how shes too afraid to express her feelings. RIP useless lesbian jude. Anyway shes the oldest of the trio, so shes very protective of elliot and skipper in a mother hen kind of way. She gets embarrassed when she realizes shes lecturing them like a cranky old maid, but they secretly don’t really mind it and often come to her for general life advice. I think her sign would be Taurus :3c (and probably an air moon since she’s kind of a space cadet)

elliot was REALLY FUN to redesign bc I honestly just wanted him to look like one of those people who had a HUGE scene phase way back when and just… never completely grew out of it lmao so I gave him the two-tone mullet he deserves, grown out roots hes definitely not gonna bother to re-bleach and re-dye, and piercing scars under his lip from where he used to have some tacky ass snakebites that he probably had to take out to get a job or something lol. he couldn’t completely give up piercings though, so the labret and gauges got to stay. Dudes not COMPLETELY stuck in 2007, but he does still enjoy a lot of the OG emo/punk bands and the fantasy of making it big in his own band and touring the country in a fashionably clunky van. He doesn’t exactly have a band, but hes working on that. Hes halfway decent on vocals and a guitar so he spends a lot of time combing through the local college town he lives and works in in hopes of finding some people who’d wanna play some gigs with him. But in the mean time, he works as a barista in a local café, which usually hooks him up by letting him do some acoustic sets at night every now and again. Hes a very warm and upbeat person, and will happily engage and talk the ear off of anyone close enough for him to do so, stranger or otherwise. He also regularly reminds jude and skipper how much he loves both of them and how glad he is that theyre all friends; He doesn’t really have much in the way of embarrassment or apprehension when it comes to what hes feeling. Hes the official unofficial “plan-maker” of the friend group and is able to bring them all together for quality time, because hes not at all passive like jude or skipper, and… usually has the most free time out of all of them lol. elliot is pure Leo and that’s about all there is to that

And finally, congratulations to skipper, who against all odds, looked normal enough that I didn’t really have to change anything at all about his design! Just had to ditch the uniform for your typical Tired Gay mustard sweaters. Skipper is an English major in his sophomore year of college who, like most people in their 20’s in liberal arts programs, is desperately trying to figure out what he wants out of life and also doesn’t know what sleeping or self-care is. He really enjoys writing, but doesn’t really know if he wants to do it for a living or if he even could. He grew up with pretty cold and distant parents, so on top of knowing they don’t really approve of his major, he pretty much always operates under the assumption that if hes not working himself to death hes not justifying the space hes taking up or the air hes breathing. Emotionally speaking hes more emo than elliot will ever be and his blood is probably 75% caffeine. He having kind of a rough time tbh but hes gritting it out in hopes that things become more clear eventually. He’d be way worse off if he didn’t have jude or elliot, who hes more thankful for than he can ever bring himself to express. They were essentially his first real, close friends, and despite skipper being incapable of asking for help, they always seem to know when he needs someone to talk to or even just a brief distraction; Jude has an open door policy for her farm and will let him come over and cuddle some rabbits or sit and talk over tea on her porch whenever he needs to, and elliot cant remember the last time hes made skipper pay for anything he ordered from the café, or the last time he even had to ask skipper what he wanted. Because hes the youngest of the three its sometimes their instinct to protect him, which embarrasses skipper out of his mind, but he knows they mean well. Hes the physical embodiment of Just Doing His Best and is a stone cold Capricorn

They’re still besties but basically met just from living in the same town; jude and elliot met when jude started providing the café’s local roast from the coffee beans she grew on her farm so elliot saw her fairly regularly and of course was like Oh Friend? Jude always liked how forthcoming elliot was as it complimented her generally reserved nature, and elliot always thought living on a farm and growing your own food was pretty punk rock and therefore pretty dang cool in his book. They both got to know skipper because he came to the café every. single. day. to ingest ungodly amounts of espresso and study all day, and when elliot took an interest in skipper, jude suggested he invite him to one of his gigs since the poor guy kinda looked like he needed a break. Skipper initially kind of politely shot elliot down, but jude took a chance and found skipper later to tell him how much itd mean to elliot, and that if it made him feel better she’d go with him, since going to events like this was different for her too. skipper apprehensively agreed at that point, and the rest is history !!! they all kinda hit it off after that

tl;dr

#art #oc #original character #i even named the redraw frensiswhenyouhaveabud.jpeg #i think about this sentence almost daily #jude #elliot #skipper #redraw

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onlinemarketingcourses · 5 years

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PIN’s: The Future of Private Link Building

1,116 Comments 20 minutes

What I’m going to reveal in this blog post is a strategy that will likely weed out a certain section of the ViperChill audience. In other words, I’m fully aware that this blog post will make a particular type of person unsubscribe from ViperChill and likely never return. It’s certainly not going to end up on the homepage of Inbound.org.

If you are loyal to Google guidelines, the teachings of blogs like Moz and love playing by the book, then you’ll probably realise with this article that we possess a very different perspective. When I first started my internet journey – where I spent day and night trying to make a living online – I tried and tested more website ideas and angles than you would believe.

Today, I’m still pushing the boundaries to see what works. These boundaries most often pertain to SEO, since it’s what I’ve enjoyed the most over the last 11 years.

I’m in the fortunate position that my business it not tied to some employer who dictates how I have to do things when it comes to promoting web properties. As such, I’m always willing to ignore everything I previously thought about marketing and to be open to new ideas and opportunities.

This blog post details one such opportunity, but I realise it will not be for everyone. Not everyone is the position to implement it for their online business, and even if you are, you may question the ethics of what is coming up.

With that disclaimer out of the way, today I’m going to introduce you to the world of PIN’s. Just before I do that, I want to talk about why I think they’re necessary.

I Predict We’ve Got Four to Five Years Left to ‘Do SEO’ As We Know It

This isn’t some “SEO is Dead” article you see go viral in the SEO blogosphere every six months, but a genuine prediction based on how Google search results have evolved over the last few years.

Google make all of their money via ads so quite simply want more people to click on them (and more often). The less success people have with SEO, the more likely they are to move to Google’s advertising platform.

Long gone are the days when we’re presented with just 10 blue links on a page.

The White Space Between Search Results Has Increased

It’s known that the higher up the page a search result, the more clicks it will receive. Therefore, when organic search results are pushed further down the page they’re going to be receiving fewer and fewer clicks. Not only are they lower down now in mobile results due to spacing, but the change is being tested across desktop results as well.

The search result on the left includes the new extra spacing with the ads taking up far more vertical space than the search result on the right (graphic via SEMPost).

There Are More ‘Featured Snippets’ Than Ever Before

There isn’t much to say on this one besides feature snippets are to be found for millions of search queries in every industry imaginable. What, when, how and why questions are often answered with a featured snippet box.

This not only pushes ‘organic’ search results further down in search results, it also attempts to give you the answer right from the results page. We can argue whether or not it’s useful for searchers, but for SEO’s, it gives new meaning to having the top result in Google.

‘Map Packs’ Completely Changed Local Search Results

Some call them ‘map packs’, some ‘the local pack’ and some even call them the ‘snack pack’. Whatever your term of choice, after being introduced a few years ago SEO’s have been trying to figure out how to get themselves and their clients into the pack to compensate for a lack of expected search results.

After all, these local listings take up a large portion of screen real estate.

I’m not complaining about this change; I’m simply pointing it out. There’s no doubt it makes search results more useful and that is Google’s aim (usually) after all. While Google did reduce the listings from seven to three back in August of 2015, the redesign of the listings with adding spacing means not much changed in terms of organic results being seen.

Those Map Packs Now Contain Ads, Too

We’re not going back to Google updates of a few years ago to make a point about Google evolving. Just last month Google announced that the map / local / snack pack would now include ads, as shown below.

This image is a mockup by Barry Schwartz, though the real thing looks very similar

It’s interesting to follow both PPC and SEO guys on Twitter and see the difference in reaction. PPC guys are over the moon since it gives them more traffic opportunities for their clients and SEO guy’s, well…I’m sure you can guess the reaction.

Based on how Google’s past, it’s not one of surprise.

They Have All The Answers

The knowledge graph was released in May of 2012 and it’s almost disappointing when you don’t see it for queries when looking for quick answers. For example, when I want to see how my football team, Newcastle, have fared against Liverpool, I literally don’t have to click anywhere.

Whether you want to learn about how old someone is, what 12 x 56 is or who discovered Radium, Google has the results right there for you. As a searcher, I love these quick answers, but as an SEO, it’s just one more thing which has lessened the likelihood of people clicking on my website if it doesn’t appear in this box.

They Continue to Make People Scared of Link Building

Google are great at making people fearful of performing any type of SEO. After all, this was the company that introduced the rel=”nofollow” attribute so we could link out to websites without giving them “link juice”.

That isn’t the real headline for the article – I’ve got to have some fun in these serious posts – but Google have publicly cracked down on pretty much everything when it comes to link building. The list includes, but is not limited to:

Guest posting for links

Using directories for links

Utilising private blog networks

Adding links to website themes

Adding do-followed links to widgets

They literally created a ‘no-follow’ tag

That’s not all; they openly share how much human intervention is involved in finding people abusing the guidelines, rather than algorithmic. This tweet speaks volumes.

Anglo Rank was a small network being promoted on the Black Hat World forums.

Just think about this for a second. One of Google’s first employees (and former Head of Web Spam), worth millions of dollars, dedicated his time to actively targeting a tiny little network on some private forum just to scare other people away from doing the same.

The simple fact is that Google can’t figure out with absolutely certainty which links are earned, or bought, or manipulative, very effectively.

Now I’m not taking anything away from Google here. Their company is worth hundreds of billions and mine, well…isn’t. They have undoubtedly created the world’s most sophisticated search engine.

But as I said earlier, it’s far easier for them to get us to police ourselves than it is for them to police us.

Big Brands Dominate the Long Tail

As SEO becomes increasingly difficult and searches are more and more dominated by big brands, the long tail will be the final frontier of search traffic opportunities.

When I said we only have a few years left to do SEO as we know it, the long tail will be where the majority of SEO’s focus their time through on-site SEO changes and content marketing.

While we’ll still have opportunities for SEO to ‘work’, long tail search results just don’t seem to be as diverse as they were in the past. It makes sense to me that Google have some kind of ‘filter’ whereby if they’re not sure what to list for a search result, they simply show more results from an authoritative site to be on the safe side.

Logically, this makes sense, but as an SEO, it could be a worrying sign of things to come. You can see this lack of diversification above in my screenshot of the map packs as well, with Yelp dominating the first three organic search results.

The Lack of Diversity in Search Results Will Only Get Worse

If you’ve only found ViperChill recently then it was likely because of my recent article, How 16 Companies Are Dominating the World’s Google Search Results. It has been shared thousands of times on social media and been read over 40,000 times, making it one of the most popular articles I’ve ever written here.

In the article I highlighted how Hearst Media were using their brands like Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan and Woman’s Day to point footer links to a new website of theirs, BestProducts.com.

That strategy, which would get the rest of us penalised, continues to work incredibly well.

“Just follow the Google guidelines.” Why?

Since that post, I was also contacted by a few people associated with the brands I had featured. One of those people I talked with was Tre who works in the growth department of About.com. I had already mentioned in the article how About planned to spin off into many more verticals over the coming months, which he confirmed.

I admit I’m being a little pedantic with my highlighting, but when you’re Director of Growth for About.com you’re going to share which terms are driving traffic to one site with the team that is in charge of another.

I appreciate Tre’s replies and I’m sure there’s only so much he can say, but About.com’s real goal with their spin-off’s is to no doubt own ten search results, instead of one.

PIN’s: My Version of Fighting Back While I Still Can

When I talked about why I started using private link networks and then continued to use them after Google’s “crackdown”, my primary reason was very simple: Writing quality content and getting ‘whitehat’ links wasn’t working for me. I was being outranked by people with crappy link networks who could build their own ‘relevant’ links on a whim and I decided to fight back.

You could view PIN’s in a similar light. I am utilising them because we’re not competing on a fair playing field, and what is supposed to work is very rarely what ranks, at least in the industries that I operate in.

While I don’t wish to reveal those exact industries, let me give you an example closer to home, with ViperChill.

I will say in advance that this is a search term I really don’t care about ranking for. I have no idea how many times it’s searched for each month and honestly, I doubt it gets many searches at all.

Here are the search results for the query, ‘Future of blogging’.

My site is usually either in 10th or 11th for that term, yet by every SEO standard metric I should be number one.

I have more links to the page ranking than anyone else

I have more ‘domain authority’ than most other pages

My title tag seems more relevant than half of them

Yet in order to get more traffic for this search term, which I think I ‘deserve’ from a 10,000 word article which took me weeks to put together, all I have to do is one thing.

It’s not getting more links. It’s not improving my on-site SEO. It’s not building better connections with influencers.

All I need to do to get my traffic back is to add a sentence to the start of the article which says ‘Last updated: July 25th 2016‘.

This is a search result where how recent an article was posted is more important than whether it’s actually a good page to rank.

I don’t actually have to update the article; I literally just need to make it appear to Google – thanks to that one sentence – that my article was updated recently. This one sentence, this ‘trick’, would bring me back the ranking I feel I deserve. (Though, again, I doubt this even gets searched for. It’s just an example).

This is not theory. If you look at the first sentence of my WordPress SEO guide that’s exactly what I’ve done before, with great results.

This little change is not too dissimilar to what I need to rank in other industries. I don’t need better on-site SEO. I don’t need to build natural links from relevant sites through content marketing. I simply need to add more domains to my private link network and write more guest blog posts.

Yes, these are both tactics that are looked down upon by Google, but they still work incredibly well. In 2014 when I covered Google’s crackdown on private blog networks I did mention that they would now be less likely to care about private link networks.

In my exact words:

What I expect to happen is that Google will ease off looking into private networks. The damage is mostly done.

Why? Because they’ve already made people scared to build them. The best way to deal with people trying to game the system is essentially making us as a community police ourselves so we don’t try to game the system in the first place.

The continued use of private link networks and guest posting for SEO is part of the reason why I will get a lot of criticism from this post. How to implement these tactics more effectively, which I’ll talk about later, will be the larger reason for criticism.

The Approach to Take

One of the first ideas I had when I started out online was to assemble a team of people who could work together to build a huge website. At the time I was following the growth of TechCrunch and Mashable and saw how quickly they were able to grow thanks to having a team of writers.

My idea was to essentially connect a team of people who all worked on one website and in return everyone had a percentage ownership. The logic being that working as a team would result in the site growing faster and even if revenue or a sale price was split, we would have more success than working on our own.

It’s a similar idea a number of ViperChill readers had after reading my last article on the small number of brands dominating Google search results.

While it’s a nice idea, in theory it doesn’t work so well.

Some will want to dictate the direction of a site that others don’t agree with and more importantly, some people will put in far more work than others. If you’re writing more content than others and your articles are getting better traction, you’re going to want to increase your ownership compared to someone barely putting in any effort.

There is another option you can utilise if you wish to team up with others though, and that’s a PIN.

It comes with all of the benefits of creating your own team, without the downsides of worrying about who is contributing what work.

What the Hell is a PIN?

A PIN is a play on the acronym PBN, which is commonly referred to as a private blog or link network.

I’ve received my fair share of critics over the years for talking about PBN’s and their success – and continuing to build them – but there’s a reason I do: They work.

I simply don’t believe that playing by Google’s rules is always going to get me the results I want. In some industries I wouldn’t make the money I do without them. I don’t use them for clients, but do for my own websites.

Going forward, I think PIN’s are going to be crucial to my success in certain industries, and I think they are going to be crucial to a number of people reading this as well.

PIN, stands for Private Influencer Network.

Before you think that just means making some “friends” online and building up your connections, allow me to continue.

I define a Private Influencer Network as a group of people looking to rank their websites in Google in similar industries (but not the same) who work together to help each other reach their objectives.

Essentially, they use any opportunities they have to build links (such as private blog networks, guest blogging, interviews, blogger round-ups) to send backlinks to other people in their network. In return, other people do the same for them.

The end result is that for the work you would do to build ten backlinks, you can get twenty to forty (of the same quality) in return.

A $100,000/m PIN Operating Right Under Your Nose

I first came across a Private Influencer Network a little over a year ago. A few ‘influencers’ in a particular field were using their private blog networks to – quite simply – link to each other.

I didn’t think much of the tactic at the time, until I found another example of this happening just a few months later.

Then three months after that, I found my third example. This time it really got my attention.

A group of just five people (from what I could tell) were ranking in one of the most profitable industries online and undoubtedly making over $100,000 per month in the process. I operate in the niche, which is how I found their collaboration, and know the numbers very well.

This is when I started working on building my own, PIN.

Finally, the idea to write this blog post came to me when I found yet another PIN. One of the members of this network is one of the most well-known SEO’s on the planet and is reading this article. He already “knows I know.”

If you follow the SEO blogosphere, you’ll undoubtedly know who he is.

One of the sites they are promoting also very likely also makes more than $100,000 per month. I’m not involved in the niche, but I know others who are and with the rankings they have, those numbers wouldn’t surprise me.

I reached out to the owner of the ‘money site’ they had all teamed up to promote. I keep a private database of paid link opportunities and one of them costs more than $10,000 per year. I found their website there, so sent the main owner an email.

One months revenue spent on link building is a small price to pay when you’re doing huge numbers thanks to gaming Google.

While some would view four to five guys linking to each other to make more than $100,000/m from a one-year-old website as shady and unethical, I’m personally impressed at how well they are crushing a very competitive niche so quickly.

While there is a chance that a PIN could be “outed”, the last two examples I found were so well put together that I’m almost certain I was the only person who connected the dots.

If you’re not trying to rank in an obvious industry that’s constantly monitored by SEO’s – like blogging and internet marketing – the chances of your PIN becoming uncovered are relatively low. Much lower than having your private blog network discovered.

As you’ve probably already figured out more succinctly than I am at getting to the point, members of a PIN use any opportunity they have to ‘link out’ to take care of their whole team.

While I’ve been fairly slow on the uptake to building my own PIN, I have been slowly building them in a few industries over the last few months and I’m excited to see what the future holds.

I didn’t want to write this blog post until I had a better understanding of how to build and manage them, because managing them is actually the most time-consuming part.

You have to make sure everyone in the network is pulling their weight and giving (and getting) equal opportunities. Opportunities, of course, is code for links.

A Real-World Example of How a PIN Works

One of the websites I find myself checking for ideas and inspiration is Entrepreneur.com.

I recently found an article on the website, published by a contributor and not a staff member, which could serve as a great example for how PIN’s work.

Let me say it in bold (for those just skimming) that the example below is totally legitimate.

I’m highlighting it because it’s natural, but could have been used in a non-natural way.

While the screenshot below might be the longest ever embedded by me into a blog post, there is something much more important that I have to say about it.

There is no specific reason I have singled out this article. It was simply the first article on Entrepreneur.com when I was looking to give an example for this post. Proof of that is the date. This article is going live on July 25th whereas this article I’m featuring below is from July 22nd.

It just happened to be a great example to see a PIN (or what could be a PIN), in action.

I made the article a little shorter than the original (the screenshot was long enough, I know) but you can see the majority of it here. The first thing you’ll notice is four mentions of Weekdone. Unsurprisingly, these are all links to the company that the author works for.

A good guest article, utilised for a PIN, will link to other recommended resources that are connections of the author. The links should be relevant, but also to other people in your network so that you are ‘owed’ a link back.

Now on the surface (without my large logos stuck over the text) this looks like a totally normal article (albeit with a little overuse of linking back to the authors employer). If you do a little more research, you’ll learn that the other two highlighted companies, Zlien and Mavrck, are actually clients of Weekdone.

In other words, Weekdone likely earn some bonus points from their clients for mentioning them in an article on Entrepreneur.com. I see nothing wrong with this and it’s a one-off occurrence so it’s not done for SEO manipulation; I’m just trying to show how a PIN link looks without actually revealing one.

Essentially everything looks natural until you look under the hood. It’s normal for a client to talk about a company they use, as shown below where the relationship continues.

Once again, I’m not saying they’re doing anything wrong here. It was one of the top articles on Entreprenuer.com as I was finishing up this article (the post is only three days old) and happened to make a good example.

The truth is that Entrepreneur.com, along with Forbes and the business sections of the Huffington Post, are great resources to see mini PIN’s in action. The people who write content for these sites generally try to get as much out of writing for them as possible.

They link to their friends, and their friends link to them.

A PIN in Action

I wanted to create a graphic for this section but your understanding of the concept is far more important than your ability to decipher my poor Photoshop skills. Before it gets a little bit crazy, I have assumed that there are just two ‘influencers’ in your private network.

The yellow box is your money website (the website you wish to rank in Google).

The brown boxes are private blog sites you own (optional).

The grey boxes are link opportunities you’ve created through guest posting or similar.

While the graphic is admittedly not the prettiest (I did warn you), the concept is very simple.

Some of your private network domains will point links to the other influencer in your network, as will some of your guest posts on other websites.

In return, the other influencer will do the same for you.

Once you start adding more people to your network, things get a little bit more messy, but the principle remains the same.

When I try to visualise this with four influencers as part of your PIN it gets a little ugly, but here goes.

The golden rule you need to remember is this: If you receive a link from someone from a specific source, you need to replicate the link in kind.

So if you receive a link in a guest post from someone in the network, you need to give them a link from a guest post you write. Essentially meaning that the work you do for 10 links for yourself gets you 30-40 links in return. This number varies because sometimes it’s a bit risky (such as using blog networks) to link out to the same sites which are linking to you but you still receive more links than you would have without your network, for essentially the same work.

The Types of Links Which Are Shared

I originally tried to write these guidelines as if there were four people in a PIN but it became a little bit too complicated to read (and write). Instead, I’ll assume there are only two people in your PIN and show you what types of links you could generate or other ways to help each other.

If there are more people in your PIN, which I highly recommend, then understand that Influencer #1 will sometimes link to #2, while #4 sometimes links to number #3 and so on. It’s basically just varying the following link opportunities to keep things fair for everyone.

The types of reciprocation that can take place.

You can tweet or Facebook share an article from another influencer

You can retweet or publicly thank another influencer for mentioning you

You can utilise a guest post opportunity to link to a relevant quote or article from another influencer

If you use build private blog networks, you can use some to link to other influencers

If you find articles where comments drive traffic to your site, you can inform other influencers

When being interviewed you can link to a relevant quote or article from another influencer

Sharing link opportunities you find on your site they can utilise for theirs

Offering website design advice

Utilising Web 2.0 properties to give links and get the same in return

If performed properly, there is no reason to hide that you have a connection with other influencers in your niche. The only thing you would have to care about is that the obvious mission for having these connections is to help each other’s search engine rankings.

If you are outside of the internet marketing world you don’t really have to worry about other people finding your private link networks, but always keep a few rules in mind to avoid footprints.

Ready to Build Your Own PIN? Here’s My Advice

If you see the benefits of utilising a PIN for your own search engine rankings, and actually getting more than rankings in return, then here’s my advice for setting one up.

A PIN Must Have a Leader

As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t want to write about this topic until I had attempted to do it myself.

My short but relevant experience tells me that there has to be one person (or two at most) who is in control of the group you gather together to make sure that everyone in the team is pulling their weight.

In other words, you need to make sure that the people who are receiving links are doing their part in giving them as well.

The leader must also make sure that members of the team are active. It’s no use everyone playing along for the first few weeks while the idea is hot and then dropping off the map.

Bringing Together Your Team

While some of you may be excited about getting started on this – and some horrified that I’m even talking about it – there’s one important caveat to keep in mind.

Do not bring anyone into your team who has never shown any self-drive in terms of search engine optimisation.

If someone:

Doesn’t already have a website they wish to rank

Doesn’t regularly produce content for their own sites or others

Doesn’t have at least a basic knowledge of SEO fundamentals

Don’t invite them to be part of your network.

I assumed this would be the case from the start of building my own, but I’m even more sure of it after trying to get other people excited about the idea who weren’t actually willing to contribute to the rest of the teams’ success as a whole.

A simple test to see if someone would be right to join your network is to send a candidate over to this article and have them read about this concept for themselves.

If they don’t immediately “get” the idea and they don’t reply with something like “I can see this working well” then it’s not someone you want on your team.

You shouldn’t have to convince anyone to work with you. They should see it for themselves. If they’re against it because of ethical reasons, then that’s totally fine (and understandable) but again, it’s a sure sign that they’re not someone you want in your team.

As far as communication goes, there are a few platforms out there that would be useful.

You could create a Skype group where people get together. I certainly recommend that everyone get on a call together at least some point to make sure you all understand each other’s roles.

Slack is another good option, as you can keep up to date via their mobile app and have a history of previous agreements.

A private Facebook group is another good option.

Both Slack and Facebook allow there to be a leader who can add or remove members to the network.

The platform is really up to you. My only recommendation is not to lay out all your plans in Google Docs ;).

Take One Step Back from Your Current Niche

It should be obvious but I’ll state it anyway: You don’t want to work with people who are targeting the same keywords as you.

However, you still want to connect with people who are in a relevant niche (I’ll give you the chance to connect with ViperChill readers at the bottom of this post). For instance, if you’re promoting your real estate website then it makes sense to team up with other realtors, just not for the same region.

If you’re in the weight loss niche then it makes sense to collaborate and grow your audience with other people in that niche, but target different keywords and / or promote different types of products and services.

Whatever niche you’re in, imagine you’re shopping for that specific industry on Amazon but go back one category to find people to work with. Again, I’ll give you the opportunity to find PIN partners at the end of this article.

Footprints are Hard to Find, But Still Be Careful

From the PIN’s I’ve discovered and the ones I’m working on myself, I’ve found you really don’t have to be too careful when it comes to leaving some kind of footprint. After all, it doesn’t ring any alarm bells when Copyblogger keeps mentioning Problogger or Mashable keep linking to TechCrunch. It’s “natural” and something you can expect from the owners of websites who have developed friendships with each other.

Where you have to be careful is primarily with private blog networks and not creating footprints of clearly linking back and forth to each other from the same sites at all times. Of course, you don’t have to use private networks, but remember for each link you give out, you can get three to four back, so it can dramatically speed up the process of ranking your site.

You Need to Know How the Microphone Works

And how to sing.

One of my favourite authors, Daniel Priestley, said the following in his book The Key Person of Influence;

You don’t need to know how the microphone works, you need to know how to sing.

He was referring to the technology behind the microphone and how, when it was first invented, your time would have been better spent learning how to sing than how a microphone worked, if you wanted to reach a lot of people.

When it comes to ranking in Google, I don’t think that’s the case. You need to know how the microphone works and how to sing.

There are going to be people who worry I’m encouraging armies of people to come together to take over the Google search results.

The truth is that I don’t believe people who can’t sing – in this case, can’t produce great results for search engine users – will have much long-term success.

There’s no point putting all of the work into your PIN if the end result is going to be a crappy website.

The third example of a PIN that I mentioned earlier now easily does in excess of over $100,000 per month. What I didn’t yet tell you is that they built a fantastic resource for their industry. The site doesn’t have many pages (less than 50), but each one genuinely solves a question that a particular searcher is looking for an answer to.

I don’t view utilising a PIN as a way to “sneak” up the Google results and send thousands of visitors to an ad-riddled website.

Instead, I see it as a way to help you start getting great content noticed that could attract natural links once it is.

I mentioned at the start of this article that I would likely weed out some of the audience of ViperChill. I want to make it clear though that I’m not trying to help people with shitty websites rise to the top of Google.

While I believe there is a great opportunity here, it isn’t easy. Turning the concept into reality sounds much easier on paper (or in a blog post).

The truth is that when it comes to making money online, most people are, quite simply…lazy.

They may be excited about this idea for a few weeks but if you’re going to use this to rank in an industry worth ranking for, you should be aiming for keywords that take a few months to get any serious traction for.

Links Aside, The Connections You Build Can Be Invaluable

I’ve already briefly talked about the other benefits this kind of network can have, besides link building.

You can connect with people who have a genuine passion for your industry who in turn spur you on to put more work into your site and help you improve your online ventures. Whether that’s giving advice on your design, your writing, your strategy or anything else.

Working online can seem lonely at times, especially if your offline friends don’t have an inkling to do anything online. When you’re aiming to make money from your web projects it’s nice to find other people on the same journey.

In my future of blogging post a few years ago, one of the most popular on the site, I mentioned how some bloggers had worked together to help grow their respective audiences in the same industry.

TechCrunch and Mashable grew incredibly quickly at the same time while investors were putting more and more of their money into web-based projects. They mentioned each other thousands of times.

Smaller operations – though still huge – like Copyblogger and Problogger would guest post on each others’ sites, promote each other’s products, send traffic to each other via their email lists and essentially enhanced both of their own images through their connection.

I took the time to actually figure out how many times some sites mentioned each other, which you can see in the graphic below.

While links were a key factor in all of these partnerships, I wouldn’t essentially class them as private link building. Most of the links didn’t include any specific anchor text and they weren’t to random affiliate sites or anything like that. All of them were trying to build authoritative online businesses and found someone with a similar passion on the same journey.

While TechCrunch and Mashable were almost in direct competition with each other, they still highlighted the stories that the other site got to first. Michael Arrington later sold TechCrunch to AOL for $25m. Pete Cashmore is still the CEO of Mashable though according to Politico.com, is trying to sell the site for around $300-$350m.

That’s a partnership that certainly paid off for both of them. Pete holding out six years on his sale seems to have been a smarter choice, however.

A Facebook Group to Find PIN Partners

For what is probably a very limited time only, I’m giving access to a private Facebook group where people can assemble together to potentially build their own Private Influencer Network.

I don’t want the comments here to be full of pitching opportunities, so let’s take this elsewhere to see what industries you’re working with. To be approved for the group you must leave a comment here with your Facebook name or put your Facebook initials at the end of a comment. Facebook will likely recommend the group to people who have no idea what PIN’s are and I don’t want to do a lot of moderating.

Don’t reveal your exact niche when you start a discussion, just simply zoom out of your niche and reveal a higher category that you would like to work in. You can find the group here (remember to comment to be approved).

Thank you, as always, for reading.

Send Me Exclusive Tips

Enjoy this post? Please leave a comment below…

Comments are my number one indicator as to which posts people enjoyed the most, so your feedback really does help me. If you have any questions, feel free to ask those as well…

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aowanders-blog · 6 years

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A rugged laptop that is life proof

I want what the computer industry calls a rugged laptop, or what I call a “life proof” laptop! A rugged laptop that I can throw out the window of a moving a vehicle off a bridge into the raging river below without practicing my best turrets impersonation, kicking the dog or going clinically insane because I just lost 8 years’ worth of files & photos. I don’t want to travel around the world carrying a fragile laptop that broke the bank, and constantly be worrying about replacing it. I need a laptop that is life proof, and doesn’t cost a years’ worth of income to acquire or replace. I need a rugged laptop!

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Dell Rugged Laptop Tablet

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$2579 View At Tiger Direct

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I am not a tablet kind of guy because my first tablet was an Ipad. Which had no keyboard, no usb ports, no hdmi port and no storage for my 5 terra bytes of movies. But with the computing power of a desktop, and the mobility of a smartphone this rugged tablet is on my radar for good reason.

The Dell Latitude 7212 Rugged Extreme Tablet is easily the most rugged tablet on the market today. Dedicated GPS keeps you connected at the most critical moments even in the most remote locations which is perfect for a backcountry adventure lifestyle like mine. With optional shoulder strap, soft handle, chest harness or even the crash-certified vehicle docking station this rugged tablet has maximum mobility. With a 7th generation i5 processor, 16GB of RAM and optimized mobile connectivity its 2x faster than any other tablet on the market. This rugged tablet also comes with 5MP(mega pixel) front webcam, 8MP rear cam & dual microphone. A USB type-c & 3.0, mini serial RS-232 and combo mic/headphone make up the slots & ports on this rugged tablet. It doesn’t have an HDMI Port or come with a keyboard, but I have a USB HDMI adapter. You can purchase a Dell keyboard from Amazon or any Bluetooth keyboard will work to turn this into a powerful rugged laptop you can take anywhere. Thats its only knock for me is the ala carte keyboard.

Extreme Rugged Laptops

2. Next up is the Dell Latitude 14 7404 Rugged Extreme 2 in 1 Nickname: The pioneer of Dell’s rugged laptop models

$1660 View At Affiliate

Not Available View At Tiger Direct

$2250 View at Walmart

If someone asked me to define a rugged laptop I wouldn’t use terms like: military standards, reinforced bumpers, shock absorbent or magnesium alloy case. I would simply say a laptop that can fall out of my vehicle without braking, or take on a camping trip that sees rain for a week and still works.

The Dell Latitude 14 Rugged Extreme 2 in 1 is the easily the most rugged laptop on the market today, and while it’s Dell’s pioneer of rugged laptops available to the public for a few years now. Its rugged design meets modern military standards (MIL-STD)! The Dell latitude 14 Rugged 2 in 1 Laptop provides a 5 mega pixel camera both front & rear. Two USB 3.0 ports, Two Serial Ports, Headset/Mic & SD Card reader as well as biometric security features.

This base model may not be a computing juggernaut, but its shock absorbent case, magnesium alloy build & IP65 certification against sand, dust, extreme temperatures & even water will allow it to withstand more of life’s curveballs than your average computer. It’s a shame that it weighs so much, but to protect some pretty beefy internals you’re going to have to compromise somewhere.

Im considering buying this base model because it allows me to test drive a rugged laptop and see if it fits my lifestyle or computing needs without having to pawn a kidney. And like all Dell laptops you can customize them to fit your computing needs. So if you come to love this base model upgrades are only a click away for your new rugged laptop.

Dell Latitude E6420 XFR Rugged Extreme Laptop has my attention & respect! Nickname: Extreme rugged laptop

Low Supply

$1099 View at Amazon

Not Available View At Tiger Direct

$177 View at Walmart

This rugged laptop is a few years older, but the Dell Latitude “real-world” Rugged E6420 XFR laptop comes encased in a trademark protective ballistic armor casing independently tested to MIL-STD-810G, UL1604 and MIL-STD 461F. Read more about military standards, requirements & rugged laptop certifications. Basically, these independent tests say you can use this rugged laptop as a shield in a sword fight or as an underwater camera while snorkeling in the Caribbean. Making the Dell Rugged extreme laptop XFR a contender to be crowned the most extreme rugged laptop you can get your hands on. With a redesigned bumper system, rugged chassis, and a rigorous five foot drop test that requires 78 passing drops without damage to acquire a 6 foot MIL-STD certification making this one badass tough laptop.

With ingress protection the Extreme Latitude E6420 XFR handles life without hesitation. This rugged laptop is designed with die-cut compression gaskets giving it a MIL-STD IP65 level of protection against water, dust & sand. This rugged laptop XFR by Dell keeps your system safe, and offers extreme performance in extreme environments.

While I was researching I found this on Amazon for only $320

Panasonic Toughbooks

Pansonic Toughbook CF-33 Nickname: The original rugged laptop

$3,602.56 View at Amazon

Not Available View At Tiger Direct

$3475 View at Walmart

I’ve been looking at the Panasonic Toughbooks for years now. They’re always too expensive with subpar computing power. But with Dell creating its line of rugged computers at affordable pricing it has forced Panasonic to beef up its computing power. Which makes me want a Toughbook more than ever now. All the reviews are positive. Great resale value. You rarely find a used one on Craigslist, Amazon or Ebay. And Panasonic has had 22 years to perfect its “life proof” Toughbook!

The first ever rugged laptop available to the public was in 1996, and called the Panasonic Toughbook CF-25. Which was designed to withstand vibration, spills, extreme temperatures, rough handling and of course drops. Leading to healthcare, law enforcement, oil, telecom, gas, defense, emergency service personal & government agencies around the world lining up to get their hands on a Toughbook.

Twenty-two years later Panasonic has one of the most powerful rugged laptops on the market in its CF-33 model. From high-end graphics card, touchscreen, digitizer, superfast processor, built in wifi, SD Card reader, USB ports and the only rugged laptop to include an HDMI port the Panasonic Toughbook CF-33 is the ultimate 2 in 1 touchscreen rugged laptop. Its tablet mode is remarkable, but attaching the keyboard for document work is effortless. It’s expensive and heavy, but comes with a 27 hour battery life making it the only 2 in 1 laptop truly designed to live in the trenches life. If you need a “life proof” laptop with all the bells and whistles the Panasonic Toughbook CF-33 is the only rugged laptop you need to consider.

Affordable Rugged Laptops

2018 HP ProBook x360 11-G1 EE 11.6″ The Laptop with a rugged personality

$367 View at Amazon

$549 View At Affiliate

$331 View at Walmart

The HP ProBook x 360 11 G1EE Notebook is the worst name for a laptop ever!! Whoever thought of this name was probably toilet trained at gunpoint, or lives in a bunker in the suburbs. And created one of those sneaky amazing internet deals you have to know what you’re looking for to find. While it may look like just another laptop on the shelves. With its Gorilla Glass touchscreen, spill-resistant keyboard, and rubberized body it’s a deceptively unclassified rugged laptop.

It won’t meet any military grade standards or requirements. You won’t find it in the back of an ambulance or the front of a squad car, but its built to withstand more drops, spillages, and knocks than any other laptops in its class. It’s not designed for dangerous environments, cliff diving or rock climbing. But its more life-proof than my Microsoft Pro was. You can put this rugged laptop in the bag and not pull out a shattered screen a day later. The HP Probook may not be the most rugged laptop on the market and missing some points on the power scale, but this little guy is perfect for the casual user. It won’t withstand an extreme life but will defend against a regular life for a long time.

Lenovo Thinkpad 11e Rugged Elements for business class

$178 View at Amazon

$633 View At Tiger Direct

$673 View at Walmart

I spend $100 at the bar before tip. $200 on any poker game! $2-$300 on ski goggles without hesitation! For the cost of a decent hotel room you can own a rugged laptop with plenty of computing power to handle your daily tasks. The Lenovo ThinkPad 11e meets military requirements with reinforced corners, covered ports and can withstand vibrations, temperature changes or drops from up to 3 feet. The most affordable rugged laptop that can still handle everyday tasks is the Lenovo Thinkpad 11e!

It’s forgiving on bank accounts, and perfect for students! It can handle spills and drops. As well as make movies, edit photos or type term papers. My favorite computer was an Acer Netbook which they don’t make anymore, but it was compact, powerful & affordable. I took it everywhere: hiking, skiing, climbing, camping, airports, work, road trips & even fishing. It lasted 5 years in environments it wasn’t intended for, and the Lenovo Thinkpad 11e reminds me a lot of my Acer Netbook.

Of course, there are other options available, but for my computing needs, these are my front-runners. I am not sure if the Panasonic Toughbook is practical at this price point, but if it lasts me 10 years it definitely is. But if the Lenovo could last 10 years at $178 I’d be an idiot not to go that route. Especially when I back up everything to externals and clouds.

All I do is write blog posts, check email, edit pics, check social media, and surf the web. How much computing power do I really need? I just need protective computing power not circuit breaking power.

Maybe you don’t need a rugged laptop you just need to toughen up your existing laptop. There are options, and I wish I would have known about them before my Microsoft Pro became unusable. From researching a replacement laptop I found a number of things I could have done to prevent my shattered screen. Which is my next blog post so check back soon to find out how you can toughen up your laptop, and don’t forget to pin me or comment below.

I Used Amazon To Buy My New Rugged Laptop A rugged laptop that is life proof I want what the computer industry calls a rugged laptop…

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