• Barter For Business – Cost Free Trading

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: General | Response: 0

    Whether you are a designer, traffic broker, content provider or, web host the one thing that will connect your business in some form is that other webmasters at some point, will want the services and products that you offer. With this in mind, you are instantly at an advantage the reason for this advantage will become apparent in this brief article.
    Bartering Goods And Services.

    Bartering is a business practice that is as old as mankind itself, from the stone age right up to the present day individuals have been trading their goods and services for other goods and services of like value. This is where your advantage comes into play. Perhaps you are a web hosting company in need of design work or, perhaps you are a designer in need of traffic, either way, there will always be other webmaster who want the services you offer and, in return they will offer services that you require. This is the absolute fundamental basis of the barter system, trade one product or service for another in order to improve the way in which you do things.

    Finding A Company To Barter With.

    The problem that so often arises when bartering is involved however is finding a vehicle for you to start the bartering process. More often than not you can find someone on a message forum that will be willing to barter your services however, this is not always the case and so, you should turn to email to instigate the initial contact.

    Asking For A Barter – How To.

    First and foremost, before sending an email or making a post asking to barter your services or products you should compile a list of items that you need, this could be content, advertising, graphics work or even web hosting, either way, by having a clear concise list of what you are in need of and, more importantly, what you can offer in return prior to sending an email will help you out immensely.

    Now that you have your list of services you require and what you can offer in return it comes to the initial contact, the first thing you should do is explain what it is you are proposing as clearly as possible, explain why a barter with you will become a win/win situation for the both of you as well as making sure you drop a compliment or two about their company in the email. Also, you should prove why offering your services in exchange for theirs will be a fair trade, by doing all of this at the first point of contact you stand a much better chance of them accepting your trade proposal.

    Bartering – Recap.

    Bartering is a strong tool that can help you build your business from the very second you start it however, with this strong tool also comes the opportunity for it to become a strong negative when running your business. To much time concentrating on bartering services can take away from running your business to its fullest, rather than trying to barter services all the time, ensure you build a good capital up so you are able to invest in services to build your business. Either way, whether you choose to barter or not, this method has been proven in success for thousands of years, why not try it out for yourself?

    Article written by Lee.

  • Marketing Anime Sites

    Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

    Anime and the various styles associated with it, such as Hentai, Manga, Comics and Toons is one of the hottest niches on the net.  It is presently experiencing a huge growth, with many of the larger companies launching sites dedicated to the genre.

    When someone unfamiliar with Adult Anime and Hentai hears the word Anime, they tend to think in terms of Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon or Speed Racer (if they are of my generation.) Make no mistake; what we are discussing today is NOT for children.  Adult Anime and Hentai are as different from the example above as Disney Movies are from HomeGrown Video.

    Targeting and marketing to the anime surfer is not that much different from any other niche, with a few notable exceptions.  Taking the time to learn a little about the subject matter will make a difference in your profit margin. Even though you are still selling “sex”, or more accurately “hentai” (more on that later), with anime the “sell” is more in the fantasy aspects than reality. Anime characters can perform any way and do anything that the surfer wants, even the impossible. So you must use more creative text links and graphics to create the right feel for the surfer and lure him in, and not treat the art as if it were just mere cartoons.

    True anime fans do not consider anime to be cartoons. You will get fans that like it for its sexual aspects and yet others who have a love of the art form itself.  If you make light of the art or fail to create the fantasy for them, you may lose surfers. Anime is truly an art form; each picture is unique in its beauty and in its style.  Each artist will render a vision of his or her own, and the variety is as wide and varied as one’s imagination.  This is the appeal of anime, that and the fact that in Anime a surfer can have a character created to fulfill his fantasy, no matter how outrageous.

    Bear in mind while designing, targeting and eventually linking your anime site, that this particular genre covers all age groups and appeals almost equally to woman as to men. It is also a niche that will attract surfers from many countries. It is extremely popular with your North American surfers, but a great deal of the anime surfers come from Australia, Europe and Japan, for some reason these country’s surfers love their anime!  So make sure to expand the scope of the Search Engines you normally submit to, if you are not already submitting to Japanese, Australian, and other foreign SE’s. A great place to find a list of these SE’s is http://www.beaucoup.com/1geoasia.html.  Don’t forget to look at alternative link lists as well, though many of the “big” list have anime and toon sections, you will definitely want to get listed on lists that are targeted to the niche, some examples would be:

    http://www.toonplaces.com
    http://www.hentaikitty.com
    http://www.hentaiseeker.com

    To help you understand a bit more about the Anime niche I have listed some descriptions of common anime terms:

    Anime: In the US and many other western nations, it is limited to meaning Japanese animation (AKA Japanimation, although a lot of people don’t like that term). Characteristic features would be large eyes, funky hair colors, and often, er, accentuated physiology. In Japan, anime means animation in general, Warner Brothers, Disney as well as Macross and El Hazard.

    The modern-day anime style is an adaptation of Disney style (introduced to the Japanese after WWII, by the American occupation), most notably the large eyes. However, unlike animation in America, animation or “anime” in Japan is not just for kids and the subject matter can range from deep, action packed science fiction stories to slapstick humor to even soap-opera-ish romance. In short, the only real difference between anime and other television shows and movies is that they are animated. While it’s true that in recent years there have been several American animated shows that have been aimed at a broader audience than your Saturday morning cartoon crowd, such as Titan AE, and the soon to be released Final Fantasy, the Japanese have actually been doing this for quite some time.

    Japanese law formerly banned the depiction of genitals or pubic hair in art; as a result, most of the true Japanese images you’ll see distributed in Hentai Anime circles have either been censored by the Japanese government prior to distribution or auto censored by the artists themselves in compliance with the law. Underground artists have been known to produce full, all out, no holds barred uncensored works and of course not all Hentai Anime comes from Japan. Artists who were not Japanese citizens were not bound by Japanese law so uncensored Hentai Anime usually came from those countries.. The law has since been repealed. (See the book Dreamland Japan by Frederick Schott for more information on this law.)

    Although the law has changed, people’s attitudes are slow to change with it and many Japanese artists continue the practice of censoring or avoiding depictions of the genitals or pubic hair. However, now that it has become legal, such depictions are sure to become more common. Sometimes, net artists will take it upon themselves to uncensor mosaic images, however, it isn’t easy to find someone who does this arduous job well, so even these are uncommon.

    Hentai: The classical meaning is “metamorphosis, transformation.” It later came to mean “abnormality,” and in modern colloquial Japanese is used almost exclusively to mean “pervert” or “perversion.” When a woman insults a man in anime, she generally uses on of three terms: hentai, sukebe, and ecchi. Sukebe implies “oversexed” rather than “deviant.” Ecchi can be quite mild in some contexts, comparable to “lewd” or “Fresh!” These three terms are often used interchangeably, especially when someone is stringing together insults.  In adult anime, hentai normally would lend itself to what we consider hardcore images, such as the very popular bondage anime images.  In the Adult market Anime has come to signify more softcore images and Hentai hardcore.

    Manga:  This is what comics are called in Japan. The artist Hokusai coined the word manga in 1815, usually translated to mean “irresponsible pictures.”  Traditionally drawn in black and white, sometimes with blue inks mixed in, Manga can be action comics, love stories or even hardcore fantasy.

    Doujinshi: Amateur/underground Manga that often parody existing Anime or Manga.  Usually done in small print runs and often Hentai in nature. They are frequently “proving grounds” for aspiring “professional” Manga artists.

    Yaoi: Male homosexual relationships, or Anime or Manga stories about relationships between “beautiful boys” (bishounen). Comes from “YA-ma-nashi O-chi-nashi I-mi-nashi” (No climax, no punchline, no meaning)

    Shoujo: Shoujo anime is anime originally aimed at young girls. “Shoujo” literally means “little girl”. Shoujo anime includes such series as Sailor Moon and Magic Knights       Rayearth.  Also referred to as Bishoujo, “Beautiful Girl”

    Shounen: Shounen anime is anime originally aimed at young boys. “Shounen” literally means “Little Boy”. Shounen anime includes such series as Pokemon, Speed Racer and DragonBall Z.  Also referred to as Bishonen, “Beautiful Boy”.

    It is important that you educate yourself on the difference in definitions for the various styles of art.  Using the wrong phrases could attract children to your site and responsible use of terms is extremely important.

    As with any Website, knowing your subject matter and the surfers that view it is essential.  This niche is growing more popular everyday.  Many sponsors are realizing it’s potential and adding it to their sites as well as building sites specifically for this traffic.  There are TGP’s and link lists dedicated solely to these sites, and legal content is available. The Anime/Cartoon surfer is an extremely loyal breed; once they discover quality sources they keep coming back.  I hope this   sheds some light on this highly unique niche and that the information will help webmasters market their sites to higher profits.

    Article written by Bestat

  • Quick Loading Pages Plus Saving Bandwidth

    Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

    Have you noticed how many of the sites out there are trying to make themselves look better than they actually are by using heavy graphics and media files? The fact of the matter is this, most surfers who visit your we pages are viewing them on a screen that is between 15 and 19 inches wide, can only see 216 colors and, are on a connection of 33.6 kb per second (If they are lucky).

    What Does All This Mean?

    What does this mean to you as a webmaster? Simple, try this test.

    Connect to the internet on a 33.6 connection, type in your url and, hold your breath. Does the page load before you need to start gasping for air? If so then you are designing your sites correctly, if not, your pages are far to big in file size.

    I’m pretty sure that some of you can hold your breath for a long period of time so, here is a basic rule of web design. Your pages should, be no larger in file size than 50k in fact, I would even go so far as to say try getting your pages under 30k in size.

    How Can I Get It Under 50K? 30K?

    First, all your graphic images should be as small as possible. Try to get them smaller than 4k. Going up to 6k is reasonable. When designing a graphic for the web site keep in mind the number of colors being used.

    I know, from designing banners myself, it was hard for me to go from millions of color to only 216. Yes, 216 is the number of colors you have on a web safe color pallet.

    Use solid colors when designing your image. PhotoShop has made the gradient such a popular tool. It looks good to fade things in and out. I always see a background border made up of this gradient. I always right click on that image to see the size. The 8k-12k is not worth the space. The problem with the gradient is it uses many colors and dithering. Both take up big time K. The more color you have in an image the bigger it’s going to be.

    Use design more, graphics less. For a web page to be successful it needs to download quickly and look good.

    Here is the dilemma download quick or look good? Instead of designing graphics and taking pictures and turning them into jpgs to make your web page look good, try using color schemes. Use cell colors to make borders. Use the negative space on your web site. What is not there is just as important as what is there.

    Remember sometimes less is more. When in doubt think of a typical visitor coming to your web page. Would that extra graphic sell them or keep them coming back again and again. If the answer is yes, by all means keep it. If the answer is “well maybe” or “it just looks good there”, yank it.

    Your surfers will appreciate not waiting more then they have to. The web is here to make our life easier not to sit in front of a screen waiting for heavy web pages to download.

    Article written by Lee

  • 10 Killer Advertising Sentences

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: General | Response: 0

    10 Killer Advertising Sentences.

    Tell your readers what they are probably thinking, feeling or doing as they read your ad copy. This strategy will usually trigger their own subconscious mind to bring out these feelings or actions.

    You can add these sentences into any ad copy. You may have to change one or two words so it relates more to the product or service you’re selling.

    1. As you keep reading this ad copy, you are feeling more and more compelled to experience all the benefits of our product.

    2. The more you understand just how valuable our product could be to your life, the less you think about delaying this important purchase.

    3. After you read this short ad you will feel like your problems are almost completely solved, all you will have to do is order.

    4. As you’re skimming through this, you’re beginning to think you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying out our product.

    5. As you’re scanning over this ad copy, you are beginning to imagine using our product and enjoying all the benefits it brings.

    6. The more you keep reading our ad the more you feel it would be a waste to let this opportunity slip by.

    7. The more you review our ad the more you begin to find yourself getting very excited about our product and starting to feel the urge to buy now.

    8. You don’t know it yet but, at the conclusion of this ad, you will feel driven to order and experience all the benefits of our product.

    9. You don’t realize it yet but, in a few short minutes you’ll realize that you can’t put off this vital purchase and then you’ll be yanking out your credit card.

    10. As every word you read travels from this ad to your brain, you start to understand just how much our product could benefit your life.

    I hope this article has given you some insight as to how we, as webmasters, can actually ‘manipulate’ the surfer into doing what we want them to and, ultimately, into making us money.

    Article written by Lee.

  • What Is The Golden Ratio?

    Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Sponsors | Response: 0

    Its a little known marketing technique that say that, as long as the longest side on any oblong is 1.6 times the length of the shortest side of the same oblong people will be more likely to prefer that shape over any other shape.

    Why do they prefer this size? Because it occurs naturally and, subconsciously EVERY LIVING PERSON is attracted to this trait.

    An example of this is as follows:

    1) Stand Up
    2) Measure the distance from your head to your feet and write this measurement down
    3) Measure the distance from your Navel write this figure down.

    The length of your ENTIRE body is 1.6 times longer than from your Navel to your feet!!

    The same is also true for the length of your arm from shoulder to finger tip, then from elbow to finger tip.

    The same is true for credit cards, the longest side is 1.6 times longer than than the shorter side!

    Think about this for a second, banner ads, what shape are they? Oblong except, they don’t employ the ‘golden ratio’ what if, just what if, you used some banner ads that employed this ‘golden ratio’ who says banners have to be 468×60 in size?

    Why not try making some ‘basic’ banners in paint or a decent graphics program utilizing the 1.6 rule and see if your click thru’s increase, personally, I will bet my earnings last month that they will.

    On the same way of thinking towards marketing, table ads, money bars, etc, why not incorporate this idea into them also? It cant hurt and who knows it may just work.

    the math to work this ‘golden ratio’ out is as follows for Image a above:

    shortest side (60) x 1.6 = (90) Longest side

    You don’t even need to be a genius to make your own ads using this method as the people at Microsoft supplied you with a calculator.

    Article written by Lee

  • Search Engine Themes!

    Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Search Engine Optimization | Response: 0

    It’s safe to say that the ‘pay-per-inclusion’ model is rapidly catching on with today’s search engines and directories as they are forced to become profitable in a hurry. But there’s also another trend that’s come to the fore.

    ‘Theme indexing’ is a process used by search engines to determine an entire site’s primary theme. In other words, your complete set of Web pages is indexed as one, and defined as one.

    This is why sites with multiple product lines and subject content often get poor rankings today. To learn how to combat this, let’s first look at the theme indexing process from the search engine’s point of view.

    According to Search Engine World, the theme indexing search engine follows this basic 5-step progression as it ‘weighs’ what a particular site is about:

    1. Page Titles
    2. Meta Tags
    3. Page Headings
    4. Page Content
    5. Links

    This is a general overview of the approach – each search engine is unique, and no one has the ultimate read on every search site. But to date this has proven to be true of AltaVista, Google, Excite, Lycos and WebCrawler.

    All of these belong on the ‘Who’s Who’ list of major search sites today. If it’s important that your Web business be found among them, today you must write your site with theme indexing in mind. Here’s how:

    The concept itself is simple. Focus your entire site like a laser beam on a single, potent theme.

    The process is ruthless. Get rid of the deadwood. Set up additional sites as needed for each individual product and service ‘family’.

    In the same way that you must now invest to get indexed on Yahoo, LookSmart, Inktomi and other top directories, you need to invest in separating your activities by theme into multiple Web sites. Kick out unrelated content, links and affiliate programs that don’t relate to your market niche. Build new sites as needed, with each focusing on its own unique selling proposition. This is the first step to take in the optimization copywriting process.

    Having done this, here’s how to write each site to get the best possible positioning on theme indexing search engines.

    Focus Your Key Phrase.

    Determine what key phrase your entire site is about – a key phrase people use often on the search engines. To pick heavily searched, popular key phrases, try Word Tracker: http://www.wordtracker.com/.

    Write Your Copy. Throughout your site play variations on your key phrase theme. Every element counts: page titles, meta tags, page headings, page content, links. Remember to write for people first. Search engines are robotic, but people always want to know what’s in your site for them. Tell them what qualifies you to help, and what you have to offer. Balance using your key phrase with the benefits you deliver.

    Once you’ve written your copy, search your text for generic phrases like ‘our product’ and substitute your key phrase. Use long copy where you can. Not only does it outsell shorter copy – it also makes it easier for you to write keyword-rich text.

    Format Your Text.

    Use key phrase bullets. They break up text copy and serve you as mini headlines with an entirely different look and feel.

    Use multiple headlines to create immediate context when a visitor explores your site. Make these headlines specific by using your key phrase. Tag headlines in your source code – <H1>, <H2> or <H3> – to highlight your theme.

    Write your links as mini-headlines. Often people scan pages by jumping from one link to another. Link words look very much like headlines, or highlighted words, and should deliver your primary message and key phrase.

    Measure and Test.

    Conventional wisdom tells us that the ideal keyword density is somewhere between 3-7%. To check this before you submit, try the free Keyword Density Analyzer: http://www.keyworddensity.com/. For a more accurate read on individual search engines, do a search under your key phrase, then take the top 3 returns, enter their URLs and try to match their percentages before you submit. Track your placement and adjust accordingly.

    This is the initial approach to optimization copywriting for theme indexing search engines. Keep it simple: start here.

    Article written by Lee

  • Building A Surfer Trap – Stage 1

    Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Traffic | Response: 0

    The last 2 weeks I have had a LOT of webmasters email and ICQ me regarding traffic and, not getting any sales.

    So, I thought it would be a good idea to make a step by step tutorial on building your own surfer trap.

    Now these are some of the arguments I have heard why people haven’t already built one over the last few weeks…

    * To complicated to follow.
    * I want surfers returning to my site.
    * Don’t have the time.

    The first two however seem to be the ones that I hear over and over again.

    First of all, a surfer trap IS NOT complicated, in fact, it is probably one of, if not THE easiest type of site to build.

    Secondly, Why get a surfer visiting your site over and over again if they are not paying for trial memberships? All you are doing is wasting your bandwidth.

    Thirdly, A surfer trap can be built over a period of time, my very first trap was built within 1 hour my next was built in a day and my next one was built in a week.

    So onto the start of building our surfer trap…

    The first thing that I want you to do is to look at the Multi-Site FPA’s that ARS in the marketing section and choose ONE of them.

    Download it, optimize the keywords on the FPA, make sure you add meta tags, titles descriptions and Alt tags on all images.

    Once you have done this, you now need to search through ALL of the single site FPA’s and download and optimize one for each of the ARS sites that you have on your Multi-Site FPA. (Even the gay sites!)

    This should take you 2-5 minutes for EACH FPA, any longer than that and you are doing TOO much work!

    Once you have all of the single FPA’s downloaded, optimized and uploaded onto your server that is the first stage completed.

    Article written by Lee

  • Domain Name Transfer Agreement

    Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Domain Names, Forms & Contracts | Response: 0

    Domain Name Transfer Agreement

    For most people, buying and selling domain names is a fundamental income provider for their business model, as such, you should ensure that when buying or selling domain names you should have a legal contract to assist in the transfer of sale.Domain Name Transfer Agreement.

    This Agreement is made on the Day of 2001 between:

    (1) [Your name and address goes here]. (hereafter referred to as the assignor) and;

    (2) [The buyers name and address goes here]. (hereafter referred to as the assignee).

    RECITALS:

    (a) The parties have been in discussion concerning the transfer to the assignee of the registration of the designations ‘[full domain name goes here]’ and ‘[further domain name goes here]’ (whether in lower or upper case) hereafter referred to as (the “domain names”) as website addresses on the internet.

    (b) The parties wish to reach a mutually acceptable arrangement in relation to such discussions.

    Now therefore, in consideration of the parties’ mutual covenants and undertaking, the adequacy and sufficiency of which are acknowledged, the parties agree as follows:

    1. The assignor hereby agrees to assign, and/or cause to be assigned, to the assignee the domain names. The assignor shall do such things and execute such documents as reasonably requested by the assignee at the assignees expense to perfect such assignment and shall comply with the standard requirements of [insert domain name registrar here] as in force at the time of this agreement.

    2. In consideration of the parties mutual obligations under this agreement the assignee agrees to pay the assignor the sum of $$ [Amount in words goes here] [currency goes here, Dollars, Sterling Etc] immediately following notification that all of the domain names within this agreement have been recorded at the relevant registries as in the ownership of the assignee thereby evidencing the transfer of the domain names to the assignee.

    3. The assignor, whether through himself, any alias and/or his servants or agents shall immediately cease and desist from and shall not resume using the domain names or any other designation whether a trade or service mark, trading name or domain name that contains words colourably similar to that of the assignee.

    4. The assignor further agrees that he shall not, directly or indirectly, individually, through any alias, or in conjunction with any person, firm or corporation, apply to register any trade mark, service mark and/or any other word or words colourably similar to any such trade names or marks.

    5. The assignor further agrees that he shall not, directly or indirectly, individually, through any alias, or in conjunction with any person, firm or corporation, apply to register any trade mark, service mark and/or any other word or words colourably similar to any such trade names or marks, cause enable or assist any third party to do the same.

    6. The assignor represents and warrants that it has not, directly or indirectly, through any alias or in association with any other person or entity, filed, reserved, received or granted a transfer of license of any domain name that contains the trade marks or any word or words confusingly similar thereto in any country or federal, local government, region or state authority, or with [insert domain name registrar here], or any other internet registration agency. The assignor covenants that it will not, whether through himself, any alias, through his servants and/or agents undertake any such registration, filing, or reservation or cause or assist any such registration, filing, or reservation to be made, by itself, or in connection with any other person or entity.

    7. The assignor represents and warrants to the best of its actual knowledge, as of the date of its execution of this agreement, that:

    (a) The assignee has the right to dispose of the domain names;

    (b) The assignor has not received notice of any existing or threatened claims or proceedings by any third party other than the assignee relating to the assignors use of the domain names;

    (c) The assignor has not received notice that the domain names are subject to any outstanding order, decree, judgment, stipulation, written restriction, undertaking or agreement that would prevent the assignor complying with this agreement;

    (d) The domain names are not subject to any lien, charge, security interest, mortgage, third party interest or other encumbrances;

    (e) The assignor has not granted any licenses to or authorized any third parties (including any affiliate of the assignee) to use the domain names or any other confusingly similar domain names; and

    (f) The assignor, does not own directly or indirectly through any alias, third party or likewise any other domain name containing words similar to that of the assignees.

    8. Each of the parties hereto warrants and represents that the person (s) executing this agreement on its behalf has full authority to execute this agreement and bind it as a party to this agreement.

    9. The terms and conditions of this agreement shall be maintained in confidence. No party may disclose such terms and conditions to any third parties other than to the attorneys, accountants, officers or members of the boar of directors of the assignee or assignor or otherwise without the express written permission of the other party.

    10. This agreement shall be binding upon and inure to the benefit of the parties hereto and their respective heirs, clients, licensees, representative, successors, predecessors, and assigns. In this agreement words denoting persons shall include bodies corporate and unincorporated associations of persons and vice versa.

    11.This agreement incorporated herein constitutes the entire agreement of the parties. It may be modified only in writing signed by both parties. This agreement may be executed in one or more counterparts, all of which shall constitute a binding agreement when one or more counterparts have been signed by each of the parties.

    12. This agreement shall be construed in accordance with the laws of the [Your country goes here, United Kingdom, United States, Etc], and the parties hereto submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the [Your country goes here, United Kingdom, United States, Etc].

    13. Both parties acknowledge that if either party violates all or part of this agreement the other party may seek legal remedies to restrain any further violation of this agreement and in such a case, the violating party will be wholly liable for the cost of any such order.

    Signed by: ……………………………….. Date: ………………………..

    For and on Behalf of [Your company / legal name].

    Signed by: ……………………………….. Date: ………………………..

    For and on Behalf of [Buyers company / Legal name].

    Article written by Lee

  • Using Basic Server Side Includes (SSI)

    Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

    Server side includes are what their name sounds like.  A way to include the contents of another file into your current web page BEFORE the web page gets sent off to the surfer.  Not only does this include contents of a static file but you can also include the results of a CGI program and on some web servers, you can even have it display the current date and time.

    Now, many web hosts do not normally have server side includes turned on. You will have to ask your host if they have SSI turned on and if they do, what is the file name extension for SSI.  By default, SSI files have an .shtml extension.

    Sometimes, you can turn SSI on yourself.  If you host doesn’t have SSI turned on for you already, you can try adding the following two lines to your .htaccess file.  Then create a file with the .shtml extension, include a SSI command and see if it works.

    AddType text/html .shtml
    AddHandler server-parsed .shtml

    When you use SSI commands, you place them exactly in the location within your web page where you want the output of the SSI command to appear when you finally browse the page.  If you have SSI, then you can use the following command to include a file.  When you include a file, you can either give it a path name to the file or you can give a URL to the file. I’ll list both here.

    <!–#include file=”/some/path/above/my/web/to/my/header.html” –>

    This is an example of how to include a file based on its path name.  Now,
    here’s the same file put included with its URL.

    <!–#include virtual=”/to/my/header.html” –>

    And this is an example of how to use a URL.  With a URL however, it cannot be a complete URL such as http://www.somesite.com/somefile.html.  It has to be within your current website.  You can also use the URL method to run a CGI script!  Here’s an example of that:

    <!–#include virtual=”/cgi-bin/somescript.cgi?myfirstarg=1amp;mysecondarg=2″
    –>

    As you can see, we can even pass arguments to the CGI script just as if you typed it into your browser!  There is also another way of running a CGI script but this is not as widely used any more and you should use the #include virtual method instead.  Here is the same example so that you will know what it means when you see it.

    <!-exec cgi=”/cgi-bin/somescript.cgi?myfirstarg=1amp;mysecondarg=2″ –>

    As I mentioned earlier, you can use SSI to display the current time and date. Here’s how:

    <!-echo “$DATE_LOCAL” –>

    This will display the current date and time. SSI is usually used when you  want to have a standard header or footer on each page.  It’s also used for displaying rotating banners or page counters. As you see above, you can also  use it to display the current date and time or the date when the page was  last modified.

    SSI has also been used for cloaking and some tracking  software uses SSI to track each incoming hit to the web page.  If you would  like more information about SSI, go to
    http://www.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_include.html.  This is the definitive guide on SSI on the Apache web server.

    Most other web servers that use SSI also follow these conventions.

    Article written by Lee

  • International Billing Alternatives – Online Check Payments

    Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: Billing Solutions | Response: 0

    In my previous article i discussed the value involved with Premium Rate Phone billing as an option for your adult surfers and, staying on the topic of payment processing this article will take a closer look at the Online Check payment method or, ACH as it is commonly referred to.

    ACH (Online Check Payments) – What Is It?

    An online check payment is a method of allowing your customers to pay for their goods using their check’s online, in order for your customer to pay via a check they need to have available certain items these are, a current checking account, a valid routing number (found on the check) and, an account number. Funds paid via online checks are automatically debited from the customers bank account.

    Online Check Billing – How It Works.

    Online check payments are processed in real-time, surfers are automatically accepted and authenticated via their current billing address, social security or, driving license number, once they have been authenticated their payment details are then sent to the ACH (Automated Clearing House) system where this information is automatically accepted as long as the details provided are verified as correct.

    Online Check Payments – What Are The Costs?

    Utilizing the online check method of billing your customers is actually just as, if not more, cost effective as using online credit or debit cards, in effect, you are guaranteed the funds of the check once they clear as, in all reality, the surfer will not have such an easy time declaring the purchase as a ‘charge back’ because the information needed to pay via an online check is information that in reality, only they have access too.

    So, as with our previous articles, lets say your paysite membership fee for one month is US$35, a surfer signs up to your site using an online check, you make, approximately, US$33 from this membership for each and every month the customer (or surfer) chooses to renew their membership.

    The one main advantage with online checks however is that, surfers will often feel more ‘secure’ in using them to pay for 3 or 6 month memberships and, as long as their check clears your account, you are almost certainly guaranteed the funds.

    Online Check Billing – The Main Benefits.

    As mentioned above already, the primary benefit of the ACH payment method is that the customer will almost certainly have funds available in their online checking account to be able to meet the cost of the paysite membership, after all, they wouldn’t give out their banking details if they were not sure the payment would go through. In addition to this advantage there are also several other advantages to using Online Checks as a payment method for example:

    Increased Sales.
    Reduced Order + Billing Costs.
    Faster Payment.
    Reduced Credit Card Charge Backs.

    ACH Check Payments – Overview.

    Whilst ACH check payments are a good alternative for US surfers the one major drawback is that, in today’s global market place they are not a method of payment for international surfers unfortunately, at this time, there are no companies who can offer this service to my knowledge to the ever growing global population.

    That said, there is a place in the industry for check processing for adult payments and, with Visa breathing down our collective necks more and more, now would be an ideal time to take an in-depth look at this processing method.

    I hope this article has provided you with some useful information regarding the online check payment method.

    Article written by Lee

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