Rackin' frackin' hackin'...

So, regular readers may have noticed there's been a definite slow down in the posting routine at The Man Sphere in the last couple of months.

It turns out the template we were using on the site had actually suffered from a fairly intrusive hack. Now, what happened was the hackers somehow got into the template files and added a whole bunch of invisible URLs to the home page. These URLs would turn up on search engines, allowing the hacker to claim them as backlinks to their websites.

Their many, many websites.

Well, Google caught hold of this, and apparently having dozens of hidden links with invisible text on your website is a violation of their advertising policy. To this end, they shut down our entire account (as a publisher, that is). This is the only explanation we can think of, because Google has the ability to cancel your advertising account without warning, and without having to actually provide an explanation as to why they're doing it. It means I'm never allowed to participate in their ad programs again for as long as I live (nice, eh?)

Anyway, in addition to this, we also found an extra web page that was added to an inactive Wordpress theme that was apparently redirecting people to a fake Citibank phishing site. Derp! This page went entirely unnoticed by us or the hosting company. The net result was we got spanked way down the search engine rankings, and as a result we've been playing catch up like mad just getting the housekeeping done.

New passwords, new databases, new template, and new ad platforms. And no new articles. In short, it's been a bit of a nightmare.

But all that's about to change. As you know, we've put out a stack of new products, and will be rolling out more in short order. In addition, we've just launched the Man Under Construction Project, which is the most exciting development.

The Man Under Construction Project is designed to be a six-month e-course for men recovering from divorce, or who are just trying to get their lives back in order. The trial run is happening right now on The Man Sphere, and will be free for the remainder of 2013. Just swing over there, get signed up, and you'll be in the loop.

That's exciting stuff, because it's the project I've been working on for the better part of the last four years...and it's finally coming to life! So if you're a regular reader, and a regular dude, I encourage you to have a look at the course, and come along for the ride. You'll be glad you did!