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Personality Plus
I have been selling to the gay market now for 5 years. And one trend I have noticed that works best in ANY marketing attempt is to make it personal as possible. Now this is true in any marketing venue; however, the same tactics of Personality I have used in the straight market were not enough for the gay market.
The gay market is better served when the surfer BELIEVES, not just feels, you know him and know what he wants. This goes back to my previous comments on knowing your niche.
I really believe that the “1 to 1 dialogue” you can have with your surfers is more important than just high traffic averages when making sales. Giving him the sense that he matters to you, a sense of community, a sense that you are here just for him is all accomplished by adding your own personality to your work.
In many avenues I have said “talk to the surfer”. I have said it so much you are all probably sick of hearing it. But it WORKS. With many of my straight sites, I attempt to speak quickly and to the point, because while I know straight people I don’t know what is going to fly all the time. In those cases, though, instead of saying, “Click Here for Great Sex Sites” I will probably phrase it as “The best site on the net and Cheaper than a six pack of beer”. Am I being heterophobic with my lack of enthusiasm? Maybe. It is how I approach it and it does work.
On my side of the fence, I would talk the talk, differently. While the basics remain the same, “talk to the surfer”, I approach it in a more personal manner… Again, instead of using “Click Here”, I would go with “Hmm, Hmm … I followed this yummy thing to Absolutely Male. I have to tell you, I had more fun here than anywhere else on the net. Made my toes curl and then some…” Enough of that now, huh? = )
I do not stop at just the marketing. I do the same thing when it comes to the body of my sites. I will add statements that include a recent trip to the local gay watering hole, the men I saw on the beach, my own experience with a man in uniform, and so on depending on the theme of the site. And, yes since I’m not a total sex fiend, I do make things up as I go along ; )
Recently, I have received letters from webmaster who have worked the personality approach. They have found a lot of success. However their bigger complaint was they now had a lot more bookmarkers than before. That’s great, as far as I’m concerned. This means they have been to glean a following of loyal surfers. And if you can work it, it is that loyalty that can make a HUGE difference. I think I will save how to work that loyalty factor for a future article or post.
The gay adult net has gone full circle. In the beginning, personality was the KEY to success. Then we followed suit with most of the adult web and moved away from it to a “here’s some porn now buy something” attitude. Right now, when the going seems to be getting tough, our surfers are looking for the exact thing that made us different to begin personality and community.
Article written by Gary-Alan
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The Web Safe Color Palette
The “Web Safe” palette is a bit controversial. It is a set of 216 colors that are, supposedly, guaranteed to appear as intended on all graphical displays when used in HTML, CSS, and images embedded in Web pages. Many Web developers believe that sticking to these colors is one of the holiest commandments in the Web design scripture.
This was mostly a concern when most computers had 8-bit color displays; these days, most people run at 16-bit or 24-bit color. Although these bit-depths render the Web Safe palette pointless, dithering and quantification bugs in browsers and operating systems still cause problems in 16-bit displays (16-bit display, also known as “High Color” mode or “Thousands of Colors,” is generally problematic). Extensive testing has led to a new palette, called “Really Safe,” whose colors are guaranteed to appear correctly on all displays and all browsers.
If you use different colors than these, you might see images and backgrounds of the same color appear at a slightly different tint, so that a “box” will be visible around them if the background extends beyond the image’s edges.
Below is the table of ‘Web Safe’ and ‘Really Safe’ colors, you will see some of the color hex codes are in red, these are ‘Really Safe’ colors.
Code Color Code Color Code Color Code Color Code Color Code Color 000000 000033 000066 000099 0000cc 0000FF 003300 003333 003366 003399 0033cc 0033ff 006600 006633 006666 006699 0066cc 0066ff 009900 009933 009966 009999 0099cc 0099ff 00cc00 00cc33 00cc66 00cc99 00cccc 00ccff 00FF00 00ff33 00FF66 00ff99 00FFCC 00FFFF 330000 330033 330066 330099 3300cc 3300ff 333300 333333 333366 333399 3333cc 3333ff 336600 336633 336666 336699 3366cc 3366ff 339900 339933 339966 339999 3399cc 3399ff 33cc00 33cc33 33cc66 33cc99 33cccc 33ccff 33ff00 33FF33 33FF66 33ff99 33FFCC 33FFFF 660000 660033 660066 660099 6600cc 6600ff 663300 663333 663366 663399 6633cc 6633ff 666600 666633 666666 666699 6666cc 6666ff 669900 669933 669966 669999 6699cc 6699ff 66cc00 66cc33 66cc66 66cc99 66cccc 66ccff 66FF00 66FF33 66ff66 66ff99 66ffcc 66FFFF 990000 990033 990066 990099 9900cc 9900ff 993300 993333 993366 993399 9933cc 9933ff 996600 996633 996666 996699 9966cc 9966ff 999900 999933 999966 999999 9999cc 9999ff 99cc00 99cc33 99cc66 99cc99 99cccc 99ccff 99ff00 99ff33 99ff66 99ff99 99ffcc 99ffff cc0000 cc0033 cc0066 cc0099 cc00cc cc00ff cc3300 cc3333 cc3366 cc3399 cc33cc cc33ff cc6600 cc6633 cc6666 cc6699 cc66cc cc66ff cc9900 cc9933 cc9966 cc9999 cc99cc cc99ff cccc00 cccc33 cccc66 cccc99 cccccc ccccff ccff00 ccff33 CCFF66 ccff99 ccffcc ccffff FF0000 FF0033 ff0066 ff0099 ff00cc FF00FF ff3300 ff3333 ff3366 ff3399 ff33cc ff33ff ff6600 ff6633 ff6666 ff6699 ff66cc ff66ff ff9900 ff9933 ff9966 ff9999 ff99cc ff99ff ffcc00 ffcc33 ffcc66 ffcc99 ffcccc ffccff FFFF00 FFFF33 FFFF66 ffff99 ffffcc FFFFFF Hopefully, you will find a use for the two different color palettes that are now available and, you can begin designing for your surfers, regardless of which browser they use.
Article written by Lee
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Basic Bookkeeping For Adult Webmasters
Knowing how much you are spending on expenses for your online enterprise each month can be a very powerful tool. Taking out that shoe box at the end of the year and giving it to the Accountant is one way. But a very simple bookkeeping system can provide you with exactly how much you made each month after all expenses. In this article I will provide you with the knowledge to setup a simple system to track your revenues and expenses. Not only will you then know exactly what your Net Income or Loss is each month but at the end of the year you will have a nice neat little package to hand your Accountant. Which will result in lower accounting fees at tax time.
The first thing you need to do is find a way to file all receipts. Your receipts are the backup for all your transactions. Go to your local office supply store and buy an accordion file labeled with monthly slots. Each time you receive a business related receipt, file in correct month. Remember you need to file all your receipts for your numbers to be accurate. When you receive an email receipt for content or hosting print it out and file it. File sponsor cheque stubs, credit card receipts, ISP bill, etc. At the end of each month take out all your receipts and divide into revenue and expenses. Remember you must have a receipt in order to claim the expense. The receipt should show the detail of the purchase, vendor, amounts and date. Ensure that the expenses are needed or used to generate revenue for your business.
Now the next step depends on how much detail you would like.
Revenue-Expenses=Net Income or Loss. For a quick snapshot of the month add up the revenue receipts, staple all receipts together and put the total on the front either adding machine tape or handwritten. Repeat with all your expense receipts. You can put a quick summary of the month in a spreadsheet program. Or for a very small investment you can setup a computerized tracking system. I recommend buying a very inexpensive software such as Quicken. Most major banks, credit cards and even paypal are setup to download transactions to Quicken. You can purchase the Personal Finance version of Quicken for around $70. There are several other inexpensive personal finance software packages that you can purchase that will work as just well. But I personally prefer Quicken. The software you choose will have a list of business accounts already setup. For an adult enterprise you will need to customize the account names. This is very easy and quick to do. Add in accounts for content purchase, hosting, isp, traffic purchase, etc.Once a week you will open up your program download your transactions from your bank account, credit card, paypal etc. If you have an expense that you pay cash for you will need to add that transaction in. I am assuming that all your sponsor cheques are being deposited into a bank account or paypal. If you receive a check and cash it, manually add the transaction in. After you have finished entering your transactions for the week ensure that the receipts that you have balance to what you have entered in the software.
You will be amazed at how simple it is to use a software package such as Quicken to track your revenue and expenses. These software packages come with pre-made report tools. Such as income statement, analysis of expenditures, cash flow projections. You can even setup budget numbers for your business.
If your business consists of a lot of transactions in a month you might want to consider using a bookkeeping/accounting service. There are many online and locally owned businesses that charge a very low rate for doing small business bookkeeping. Remember you don’t need an Accountant to do general bookkeeping. Many small business owners think they need an Accountant to do the monthly bookkeeping. This could result in unnecessary fees. Depending on the size of your enterprise and your passion for numbers sometimes employing a bookkeeper to do the data entry can be a blessing! Most bookkeeping providers will even provide customized reporting based on your needs.
Article written by Lorna
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European Surfers – Porn High On The List!
Adult web sites were visited by 3.8 million home Internet users in the UK in June 2001, according to Internet monitoring company Net Value. This accounts for more than a quarter of the entire UK home Internet population.
UK visitors to adult websites spent more than 45 minutes on these sites each in June. Adult sites make up 41.2 per cent of all the sites visited in the UK with a significant audience. Students (23.2 per cent), manual workers (15 per cent), and professionals (12.8 per cent) are the largest groups of UK visitors to adult sites.
However Germany has the largest audience for online porn in Europe with more than 5.3 million Germans visiting an adult site in June. They also spent more time on these type of sites than any other nationality – each German visitor spent almost an hour on adult sites in June. Net Value data also showed that more than half (52.3 per cent) the websites visited in June by a significant number of German users were of an adult orientated nature.
Spain has the greatest proportion of visitors to pornographic sites – 40 per cent of Spanish home Internet users visiting a pornography site in June 2001.
“Pornography has become a lucrative online business, with many companies now recognizing it as a valuable additional revenue stream,” Net Value’s Alki Manias said. “And this would seem to be a stable business area – the popularity of online pornography continues unchecked.”
Adult sites are also popular amongst the earliest adopters of the Internet. People who first got online at home before 1997 account for 18.5 per cent of visitors to adult sites, though they only make up 14.1 per cent of the whole UK online population.
In the UK, Lastminute.com has just introduced an auction for adult toys and aids, whilst in Germany, Freenet.de and T-Online are also moving into the adult business.
The following charts detail various demographics relating to European surfers usage of adult sites:


Number of adult websites visited, June 2001
Number of adult websites visited Total number of Websites visited* % of websites which have adult content Germany 4,140 7,909 52.3 Norway 3,847 7,756 49.6 Denmark 3,675 7,661 48.0 Italy 3,131 6,579 47.6 Sweden 2,419 5,231 46.2 Spain 3,069 7,019 43.7 UK 3,879 9,411 41.2 France 4,348 11,845 36.7 * Sites with a significant reach
UK visitors to adult websites by occupation, June 2001

As you can now see, we, as adult webmasters, have a considerable chunk of the online adult industry sitting in our laps and, we should concentrate on tapping into this market as more and more American companies are realizing the importance of these figures we will inevitably reach a stage where the European market will be passed across to our US counterparts.
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Gay Industry Networking – The Gay Boards
Gay Industry Networking – The Gay Boards.
With so many ways for webmasters marketing straight sites in the adult industry to network I started to look at the various alternatives available to those webmasters who market gay sites to network and, although there are a few different ones about, they still seem to be few and far between.So What Boards Are There For Gay Webmasters?
Presently, to my knowledge there are four dedicated gay boards that webmasters can utilize for networking purposes in the adult industry with several straight orientated resource sites having a gay board also these are as follows:The Gay Boards:
Rock Me Hard
Triple X Gay
Gay Webmaster Chat
Gay Wide WebmastersThe Straight Sites With Gay Boards:
Obviously my favorite is The Gay Board at Gay Wide Webmasters but i am slightly biased towards that seeing as its one that we own privately however, the other boards are almost certainly worth a visit in addition to the GWW community forums.
So what do these gay boards offer those marketing to the gay surfer that the straight boards cant? Simply put, it can offer you a place to network without fear of ridicule from your colleagues and peers in addition you will find that a lot of these gay boards have a wealth of information about the gay market being posted on them on an almost daily basis.
It is also worth mentioning however that just with the numerous straight orientated message boards, the gay boards do have their own individual feel to them, for example, Rock Me Hard is what I would personally classify as a ‘fun’ board and Shelmal does a great job keeping the spirit of the board going likewise, Gay Webmaster Chat is more a board geared towards webmasters who operate traffic sites such as TGP’s and Link Lists which becomes apparent after reading a few threads. Gay Wide Webmasters is more a board with a wide reach but, primarily, it is a business orientated gay webmaster community and Triple X Gay, because it is fairly new is still, imho, trying to identify the direction it wants to take but non the less, a lot of the forum members posting there also post on GWW.
The Gay Board – An Overview.
When all is said and done, no matter whether you are gay, straight, black, white or any other demographic, focusing your attention to one type of board can become counter productive after a while, I mean how often can you hear from the same people over and over again before being given the same information again and again? Diversify your posting activities to include some of the gay market community forums and at the same time, you will also diversify your business knowledge which, im sure you will agree, is good for everyone, especially you and your bank account.Article written by Lee
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Geo Targeting – What Exactly Is It?
As the adult industry reaches further and further across the online global community we are beginning to realize the importance of our foreign surfers, gone are the days of shifting them off to a dialer site instead, we find more and more companies actually using geo-targeting techniques to filter and monetize this profitable traffic more but, how does geotargeting work and, more importantly, is it any good? They are the questions we will look at in this article.
GEO::IP – The Basics.
The Geo::ip module is a relatively simplistic database of IP addresses and, the matching country to which the IP address belongs. This means that the GEO::IP module can be used for a variety of purposes including automatically selecting the language and countries of your visitors, for credit card fraud detection, and for software export controls.Geo Targeting – The Basics.
As described above, the GEO::IP module is what drives any and all forms of geographical location targeting system (geo targeting). Geo targeting is the method most commonly used in the adult industry to either send a surfer to a localized version of a paysite or, send them off to a dialer in an attempt to monetize them it works by checking either the surfers browser language, country ip address or, both of these.Putting Geo Targeting To Work.
Despite what most webmasters may think about the complexities of geo targeting and the GEO::IP Module for Perl they are easy to use and implement and, furthermore, there are cost free and highly effective ways of using geo targeting on your sites to monetize your international traffic. Lets look at two easy free solutions for webmasters to geo target their traffic.JavaScript.
Using JavaScript you could add the following code between your HTML <head> and </head> tags to redirect international traffic to a specific url on your server:<SCRIPT LANGUAGE=”JavaScript1.2″>
<!– Begin
if (navigator.appName == ‘Netscape’)
var language = navigator.language;
else
var language = navigator.browserLanguage;if (language.indexOf(‘en’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘english.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘nl’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘dutch.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘fr’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘french.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘de’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘german.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘ja’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘japanese.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘it’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘italian.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘pt’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘portuguese.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘es’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘Spanish.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘sv’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘swedish.shtml';
else if (language.indexOf(‘zh’) > -1) document.location.href = ‘chinese.shtml';
else
document.location.href = ‘english.shtml';
// End –>
</script>Php.
Using .php you can add the following to your sites pages to redirect traffic based on their browser language.
<?
$user_lan = $HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE;if($user_lan==’de’) {
## German
$redir_url = “http://www.germanlanguagepageurl.com”;} elseif($user_lan==’fr’) {
## French
$redir_url = “http://www.frenchlanguagepageurl.com”;} elseif($user_lan==’it’) {
## Italian
$redir_url = “http://www.italianlanguagepageurl.com”;} elseif($user_lan==’es’) {
## Spain
$redir_url = “http://www.spanishlanguagepageurl.com”;## US traffic or Rest of world not defined above
} else {
$redir_url = “http://www.yourmainpageurl.com”;}
header(“Location: $redir_url”);
exit;?>
As you can see from the above two examples, monetizing your international foreign traffic is a relatively easy step and, with the right sponsors to send this traffic to you will be able to reap the profits of countries that other webmasters are not targeting yet.
Geo Targeting – Overview.
When all is said and done geo targeting can be a cost effective way to increase your bottom line profits, whether using a free method as described above or, using one of the many filtering services available on the net you should start to monetize your global surfers. One thing you should also consider however is that far from sending your international traffic to a dialer you should search around and find a good mix of adult affiliate programs with a variety of localized paysites, this in itself will enable you to see just how much traffic you have been wasting by using dialers in the past and, it will also allow you to realize the full potential of your new found geo targeted adult traffic.Article written by Lee
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Foreign Search Engines
‘Suchmaschine’ | ‘Moteurs de Recherche’ | ‘Motores de Busqueda’ ? Or, to you and I ‘Search Engines’.
Well what if I told you there was a huge chunk of the market (again I know) that your missing out on because, frankly, you haven’t attempted to get into it?
What is this wondrous market? Simple.. Foreign search engines.
I would say that AT least 80% of my traffic comes from the search engines, Google, AltaVista, etc, etc however a large portion of this se traffic is from countries whose language even some of my translators don’t know.
So, how do you get the foreign search engine traffic? again that’s simple, there are several ways to get it, you can:
1) Submit to your favorite search engine and wait, and wait, and wait… or 2) You can submit to your favorite search engine then, instead of leaving the page, go to the foreign equivalent of that same search engine!
Guess what, if you submit to Google in English then go to google.de the submit form asks you exactly the same information as your submission on the English form would do…so, ya don’t even have to speak German to submit to google.de, isn’t that handy?
In my previous article a few weeks ago I mentioned what countries were top of the ranks for surfers in Europe, well, this week I want to run some figures past you again about which search engines ‘seem’ to be sending a decent amount of foreign traffic.
So here goes, we have the top 6 search engine referrals for December 2001:
http://www.crawler.de/
http://www.lycos.de/
http://www.infoseek.com/Home?pg=Home.html&sv=ES
http://search.yahoo.co.jp
http://www.excite.co.uk/
http://www.infoseek.com/Home?pg=Home.html&sv=FR
As you can see infoseek (which has an English version) sends me lots of foreign traffic although, in reality, this is only for English pages, don’t ask me why but I guess the Spanish and French surfers love surfing for porn in English..
On a separate note, for those of you who are either to stubborn, lazy or, stupid to try submitting to the foreign search engines we will shortly be releasing a foreign search engine submission chart on European Webmasters which will tell you step by step what to put in each of the boxes on the submission form, so even you have no excuse!
Of course, the foreign traffic is going to mean you will need to pay more attention to your sites, perhaps offering these surfers a site in their language to sign up to or, before sending them off to a dialer, trade these foreign surfers off for some ‘English speaking ones via the use of a toplist. Admittedly, I haven’t found sending them to a toplist productive myself however, you might get different results to me.
Basically, if you start to get the traffic, hell, the chances are your getting foreign traffic now and don’t even know about it… USE IT!
If you want to ask questions specific to the foreign market that’s what our forums on EW are there for, we would gladly spend all day everyday answering your foreign traffic questions however, as yet, very few US based webmasters are taking the initiative to investigate further this GREAT source of revenue so, I guess ill just have to go back to my foreign search engines and get a bigger chunk of the ever increasing foreign porn surfer for myself.
Article written by Lee
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Using Mainstream Sponsors On Adult Sites
With the adult industry moving more and more into the mainstream web every week that passes as late i thought it would be an idea to show you guys how it is possible to use mainstream sponsor programs on your adult sites to build up a steady commission check even when a surfer going to your adult site doesnt actually buy anything from your adult sponsor.
Mainstream Sponsor Programs – The Choices.
The first thing that you need to do is to choose a mainstream sponsor that offers you a good choice of products / services to market to your surfers mainstream affiliate programs such as Click Bank, Commission Junction and, Amazon.com are all good places to find a selection of mainstream products and services you can offer your surfers in addition to the adult sponsors you currently use.Mainstream Affiliate Programs – Setting Up.
The first thing that you need to do however in order to offer the mainstream affiliate program products to your surfers is to register a generic, non-adult domain name and, instantly get this domain setup on your current web server.This will be the domain name you use for all correspondence between the mainstream affiliate networks and yourself in addition, this will also be the ONLY domain that you utilize the mainstream linking codes on.
Using Mainstream Sponsors – Getting Started.
The first thing that you need to do now you have your domain and mainstream affiliate networks sorted out is to build a couple of specific ‘doorway pages’ on your new generic domain name. This could include something like an article or product review or perhaps something as simple as an image of the product and a short description which you can use to lead the surfer into the mainstream affiliate programs site, either way, the idea is to have the root of the domain 100% free of adult content and utilize specific doorway pages which you can link to from your adult sites.Generating Mainstream Traffic.
Onto the really easy part, your current free sites all have an enter and exit link correct? If so then you are already half way finished, all you now need to do is to ensure that EVERY SINGLE exit link goes to your mainstream doorway page for a specific product or group of products. Make sure that you do not link to the root of your generic domain at any time but only to specific doorways and, that each of these doorways has a link to the root domain.By linking to your generic site in this way, you are enabling the surfer to choose whether they first of all, want to look at your adult site or, they want to leave the site and go to your mainstream affiliate network sponsor in the process giving you the potential of making a sale at the mainstream affiliate program.
Mainstream Sponsor Programs – An Overview.
By utilizing mainstream affiliate programs in this way you are not only potentially increasing your bottom lines but, you are also utilizing every single click that you get both to and from your site, to often webmasters send their exit links to places like disney.com or google.com and in doing so, they lose out on potential incomes, hopefully when you start marketing your exit links in the manner explained above you will begin to see the benefit of how both adult and, mainstream sponsors can be used in conjunction with each other in order to increase your bottom line profits.Article written by Lee
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What On Earth Is CGI?
Let’s unlock a little bit of the mystery about something called CGI. If it helps any, CGI means Common Gateway Interface.
This is a method which is used to swap data between the server (the hardware and software that actually allows you to get to your web site) and a web client (your browser). CGI is actually a set of standards where a program or script (a series of commands) can send data back to the web server where it can be processed.
Typically, you use standard HTML tags to get data from a person, then pass that data to a CGI routine. The CGI routine then performs some action with the data.
Some of the more common uses of CGI include:
Guest books – The CGI routine is responsible for accepting the data, ensuring it is valid, sending an email acknowledgement back to the writer, perhaps sending an email to the webmaster, and creating the guest book entry itself.
Email Forms – A simple CGI forms routine just formats the data into an email and sends it back to the webmaster. More complicated routines can maintain a database, send an acknowledgement and validate data.
Mailing List Maintenance – These routines allow visitors to subscribe and unsubscribe from a mailing list. In this case, the CGI routine maintains a database of email addresses, and the better ones send acknowledgements back to the visitor and webmaster.
A CGI routine can be anything which understands the CGI standard. A popular CGI language is called PERL, which is simple to understand and use (well, compared to other languages). PERL is a scripting language, which means each time a PERL routine is executed the web server must examine the PERL commands to determine what to do. In contrast, a compiled language such as C++ or Visual Basic can be directly executed, which is faster and more efficient.
Okay, in a nutshell (and greatly simplified), here’s how it works:
1) You (the webmaster) specify a form tag which includes the name of the CGI routine.
2) You create HTML tags which retrieves data from your visitors.
3) Each of the input tags includes a variable name. The data which is retrieved from the visitor (or directly set if the tag includes the “hidden” qualifier) is placed in the variable name.
4) When the visitor presses the “submit” button, the CGI routine which was specified in the form tag is executed. At this time, the CGI routine “takes control”, meaning the browser essentially is waiting for it to complete.
5) This CGI routine can get data from variable names. It retrieves the data and does whatever action is required.
6) When the CGI routine finishes, it returns control back to the browser.
Some important things to remember about CGI routines:
You can install CGI routines on your own site if your host allows it http://www.webair.com is an example of a web host which allows for CGI routines. Some web hosts do not allow you to install your own routines but do provide some pre-written ones to you. If these are not sufficient for your needs, you can find a remote hosting service to provide the necessary functions.
Generally, if you install your own routines they must be installed in the cgi-bin directory of your site. This is a special location which allows scripts and programs to be executed.
CGI routines work best on Apache-style servers. Windows NT and Windows 2000 does support CGI, but it tends to be slow and problematic.
If you use a remote hosting service, you must remember that although they appear to be giving you this for free, you are actually paying a price. Usually they want to display advertisements, although some of them actually take visitors away from your site.
When you write a CGI routine, you have the choice of a scripting language like PERL or a compiled language such as C++ or Visual Basic. Anything which can execute on the web server is acceptable.
I hope this short introduction to CGI has cleared up some of the mystery.
Article written by Lee
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Pay Per Click Or Search Engine Optimization
What would you choose to run your business? Well each has their own benefits and drawbacks over one another.
PPC or SEO The Breakdown.
Pay Per Click or, PPC as it is most often referred to looks to the novice to be the better option for ‘immediate’ traffic results, you enter your desired keywords, place your minimum / maximum bid amount and you are set for top PPC engine listings for as long as you can maintain the balance in your engine account.Search Engine Optimization or, SEO on the other hand, is the more traditional way of attaining high ranking search engine pages. Either you or an SEO expert optimizes your websites pages and random other elements of your website and hopefully within a month or two, you achieve high rankings in the major search engines.
So Which One? PPC or SEO?
Generally speaking, SEO work is most commonly more cost effective to your business than utilizing PPC results to gain your traffic, you could pay an SEO expert anywhere from $500 plus to optimize your site and get high rankings indefinitely or, you could put that $500 into a PPC engine account and get high rankings until such time as your account balance runs dry.But lets look at this in terms of actual traffic…
Say you get 1000 visitors to your SEO based website which you paid $500 for, each visitor has cost you $0.50c now lets say your site remains at the top of the engines for a few months perhaps even years each month you receive another 1000 visitors to your site, you have basically cut the cost of each surfer hitting your site down to less than a penny per hit (not taking into account bandwidth costs obviously).
Now, on the other hand, you want to attract 1000 visitors from your chosen keywords via the PPC engines, most Pay Per Click search engines have a minimum bid amount of $0.05c per hit so right away in your first month, you could receive a potential 10k hits however, as most of you who have already tried your hand at the PPC engines will know, getting 10k hits for one or more keyword at a cost of $0.05 is hard to do, in fact, some would say almost impossible. Non the less let us keep going with this minimum bid amount for the time being.
Immediately, you can see that you are already restricted to the actual amount of traffic you can receive from the PPC results to 10k hits however, this isn’t the case with the SEO traffic, you could potentially hit your top chosen keyword and stay there until another site out-optimizes you or, your site needs to be optimized again.
Ultimately, the reasons you will choose over one or the other will be for either ease of traffic generation, PPC will allow you to gain almost instantaneous targeted traffic form the second you open your PPC account up until the point when your account funds empty whilst, SEO work will give you long term targeted traffic over time and, in most instances, this SEO traffic can last for years making the cost of the initial SEO work minimal.
In Closing..
Search Engine Optimization can last you years and years whilst Pay Per Click results can diminish in a relatively short amount of time depending on the amount of bid needed to achieve top listings.However lets look at a third option, using both PPC results and SEO results in conjunction with each other to minimize the traffic you lose from your SEO work and, to minimize the traffic you lose from your PPC results this will afford you the time to see what works with your Search Engine Optimized sites whilst being able to play with the targeting of keywords on your PPC traffic, once you have both types of search engine figured out, you can put them both together and use them to increase the traffic to your site for years to come.
Article written by Lee
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