HTML Page Load Times – Making Them Quicker

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

Surfers on the web are here for one thing and one thing only, they want information, they want it to be correct and, more importantly, they want it now. We cant always help when it comes to getting the information however we can help them so far as making sure that when one of the surfers clicks on our pages they load quickly.

Taking Control Of Speed.

For many webmasters hand coding their HTML pages is an often timely and costly method and, because of this they turned to the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You get) editors such as Dreamweaver and Frontpage to create their pages for them however, even this in itself requires some manually intermission on the webmaster part. Many of the older style WYSIWYG Editors added a fair amount of un-needed code to the HTML so, spending a few minutes after you have your pages created to physically go through the HTML code and clean up the junk html can in effect, cut down your page size by up to 25% in some instances.

HTML Quotations And Hyphens.

In addition to un-needed HTML tags you may also want to consider removing any quotation marks or hyphens from your HTML code, both of these can quickly clutter up a page and laden it down with more code than is actually required.

For example, ‘HTML Coding’ makes just as much sense as me telling you HTML Coding when read in sequence. The trick with using quotations and hyphens is actually knowing at what point in your text you can ‘get away’ with removing them and, this is only something you will know yourself after proofing your completed page.

Hyperlinks.

If you are only going to provide links from one page of your site to another then, why use absolute paths? http://www.domain.com/linking.html is the same as /linking.html when you use it in a link from one page on your site to another and, well, in all honesty you have increased the load time of your page by only linking to the relative url instead of the absolute and that’s what we are trying to do here right? Make our pages load faster.

White Space.

White space on a web page can be a good marketing tool however, white space in your HTML code is a bad thing, placing spaces between certain parts of your HTML code can quickly bog down your load times instead, try to use the tab key to separate certain parts of code likewise, keep the use of &nbsp to a minimum, this can quickly become the most relevant term on your page if used in excess.

One other benefit of making your pages as small as possible is that a webmaster wanting to steal your HTML code is going to have a harder time finding the exact piece of coding if the HTML is all on a single line than they would if the code was laid out nicely however, this in itself is only a deterrent and it wont stop those webmasters determined to steal your HTML code.

Page Load Time Overview.

Hopefully this brief article has given you some idea of ways in which you can practically reduce the load time of your pages without affecting the overall look and feel of your site and, who knows, if your page loads quicker, then you have a better chance of your surfer getting to your sponsor quicker.

Article written by Lee

Adult Hosting Glossary

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Hosting | Response: 0

Adult Hosting Glossary.

With so many adult hosting companies looking for our business all of them telling us we need a variety of applications and software packages to run our sites, just how do you know what you do need and, more importantly, what you don’t?

Below you will find a list of a variety of common terms used in relation to hosting your website and, hopefully, you will in turn, discover what your requirements are when looking for a new or alternate hosting company.

Alias
A name that points to another name. Aliases are used to make the original name easier to remember or to protect the site’s identity.

Applet
An applet is an embedded program on a web site. Applets are usually written in the coding language called Java. They are normally used for creating a virtual object that may move or interact with the web site. An applet is like a small piece of executable code that needs a full application to run it.

Active Server Pages (ASP)
Active Server Pages allow web developers to make their sites dynamic with database driven content. The code is mainly written in VB Script, and it is produced on the server of the web site instead of the browser of your web site visitors. The server reads the ASP code and then translates it to HTML.

Audio Streaming
The process of providing audio content on a web site. This takes up a large amount of bandwidth, especially if you get a lot of visitors at your site. Some hosts do not allow audio or video streaming because of this.

Auto Responder
An automated program that acknowledges receipt of an e-mail message, and then sends back a previously prepared email to the sender, letting them know it was received. Once you configure your auto responder, it sends e-mail with no further action required on your part, making your web site interactive around the clock. Most hosting companies let you set this up through their control panel.

Availability (Uptime)
Refers to the amount of time within a 24 hour period a system is active or available for servicing requests. For example, if a hosting company says it is available 99.9% of the time, they are claiming that your web site will up all the time except for about 8 seconds each day. Over the course of a year, in this example, the hosting company is claiming that your site will only be unavailable (couldn’t surf to it) for 48 hours.

Backbone
A high-speed line or series of connections that forms a major pathway within a network. The term is relative as a backbone in a small network will likely be much smaller than many non-backbone lines in a large network. In general, the better the backbone of the hosting company, the better the availability of the web sites that run on their computers.

Backups
Web hosts back up data on their servers. Many host packages offer backups every 24 hours. This is supposed to prevent the loss of data should something happen to the server. . If you think you may need to restore old data in case of a disaster, it may make sense to choose a hosting company that performs regular backups.

Browser
This is the client software that displays (interprets) the HTML code it receives from the server. All browsers work slightly different and one may not display the pages correctly if the code was developed exclusively for another browser. Today the two main browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape.

C +/++
C+ and C++ are programming languages. Some hosting companies provide access to C+ and C++ class libraries if your web site contains these types of program modules. Once your web site has been constructed, you will know whether access to C+ or C++ will be required.

CGI (Common Gateway Interface)
A CGI is a program that translates data from a web server and then displays that data on a web page or in an email. CGI involves the transfer of data between a server and a CGI program (called a script). This allows HTML pages to interact with other programming applications. These scripts make web pages interactive. Page counters, forms, guest books, random text/images and other features can be driven by CGI scripts. Some servers have pre-installed/pre-defined CGI scripts, meaning that the scripts are already installed on the server for you to use on your site. Some servers permit user-defined or custom CGI scripts, which means the site owner creates his/her own CGI script and runs this custom made script on the web site. Not all servers allow user-defined (custom) scripts for security reasons. Almost all hosting companies offer CGI today. If you think you will need forms on your web site, CGI could be a key requirement.

Chat Server / Software
Some hosting companies allow you to develop a chat room or other type of chat service for your visitors. Be sure to check with the web host company about the details of the chat services offered. Some servers permit you to configure the service, and others pre-configure everything for you while others do not allow chat rooms at all.

Click Through
This term is used to describe the ratio of clicks to impressions on an advertisement, usually a banner ad. If a banner has been shown 100 times and 3 people click on it, it will have a 3% click through ratio.

ColdFusion
An application which simplifies database queries by allowing for a simpler programming language to handle functions between the user’s browser, the server, and the database. After you have developed your web site, you will know whether ColdFusion is a requirement. If you have not used ColdFusion to develop your site, you should ignore this feature.

Co-Location
Co-location means housing a web server that you own in the facilities of a hosting provider. This option is perfect if you want to own your own server, but do not want the hassle or security risk of maintaining that server.

Control Panel
An online package of tools permitting easy site management and editing. Almost all hosting companies provide this option today. It is a very important feature to have. By having your own control panel, you can maintain basic information about your site, mail boxes, etc. without having to send emails to the hosting company or call them on the phone.

Cookie
A message given to a Web browser by a Web server. The browser stores the message in a text file called cookie.txt. The message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. The main purpose of cookies is to identify users and possibly prepare customized Web pages for them. When you enter a Web site using cookies, you may be asked to fill out a form providing such information as your name and interests. This information is packaged into a cookie and sent to your Web browser which stores it for later use. The next time you go to the same Web site, your browser will send the cookie to the Web server. The server can use this information to present you with custom Web pages. So, for example, instead of seeing just a generic welcome page you might see a welcome page with your name on it.

Credit Card Billing
What is a merchant account? Why do I need one? A merchant account gives a business the ability to accept credit cards as payment for the company’s goods and services. It provides your customers with an extremely popular payment option, beyond cash and checks. This is usually done via a 3rd party provider such as Ibill.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
Used to add more functionality to simple HTML pages. Internet Explorer 3.0 and up support a good portion of CSS, while Netscape 4.0 and up supports a small amount of CSS – a fully compliant browser does not exist yet.

Database Support
If your web site will leverage a database to store information, database support by the hosting company will be required. After you have developed your web site, you will know which database will be required. Some commonly used database programs are SQL Server, MySQL, Access, Oracle, and FoxPro. Databases can be difficult to configure properly. Before you sign up with a web host, first inquire if the host can support your database needs.

Data Transfer
This is the amount of data that is transferred from an account as visitors view the pages of the web site. If you have a web site with lots of video, audio, and images that gets many visitors per day, you would have to make sure that you choose a host that will allow large amounts of data to be transferred. If you choose a host that only allows 200 MB of data transfer per month, and your site transferred 500 MB per month, then the host may stop half of your visitors from viewing your site and you could lose potential customers. Your best bet is to try to find a host that offers unlimited data transfer or at least a Gig of transfer. A gig is more than enough for most web sites. As a general rule, 500 MB of data transfer is equivalent to 20,000 page views.

Dedicated Server
A more expensive type of account in which the web hosting company provides you with an entire hosting setup including your own server hardware that only you can use. This usually means a much faster loading time for your site because the entire computer is “dedicated” to running the server software. This is different from most other hosting accounts in which your web site will share space on a server with many other web sites, called a virtual server. A dedicated server makes sense for web sites that require higher availability and higher data transfer rates.

Disk Space
This indicates the amount of disk space that will be available to you on the hosts server to hold your web site files. Normally because HTML files are small, a web site (unless it has extensive graphics or database functionality) will be small, as low as 1 or 2 MB in most cases.

Domain Parking
Many hosting companies give you the option to ‘park’ your domain name without actually having your web site up and running. This is a nice option if you want to acquire a domain name for your web site well ahead of having the web site itself designed and constructed.

Domain Name
The unique name that identifies an Internet site. Domain Names always have 2 or more parts, separated by dots. The part on the left is the most specific, and the part on the right is the most general (adult-hosting-companies.com). Technically, the domain name is a name that identifies an IP address. To most of us, it simply means www.yourname.com. Because the Internet is based on IP addresses, not domain names, web servers depend on a Domain Name System (DNS) to translate domain names into IP addresses. Simply stated, domain names allow people to find your web site by name rather than by its numerical (IP) address.

Domain Name Registration
Often a hosting company will offer to register your domain name at the time you sign up for a hosting plan. This normally incurs an additional charge but may be cheaper and more convenient than using a separate domain name registration service. We recommend that you go ahead and register your domain name as soon as possible, especially if you think it will take some time to develop the site itself.

Domain Name System (DNS)
A model for tracking other machines (that contain web sites) and their numeric IP addresses. Translates domain names (for example, www.adult-hosting-companies.com into a numerical IP address). When a computer is referred to by name, a domain name server puts that name into the numeric IP address assigned to that computer. So when you buy a domain, say www.yourname.com, it does not become accessible until it gets assigned an IP address from a hosting company. Once the IP address is assigned, a cross-reference record (DNS record) is created that points your domain name to the numeric IP address.

Email POP Account
POP (Post Office Protocol) is an actual e-mail account on your web host’s e-mail server. Think of each POP account as a unique email address (lee@adult-hosting-companies.com, advertising@adult-hosting-companies.com, etc.) Before you choose a specific hosting plan, you should know exactly how many email accounts are required to meet your specific needs.

FrontPage (Microsoft)
Front Page is an HTML editor made by Microsoft. It is commonly used to create web sites

Frontpage Extensions
Frontpage extensions can be thought of as “mini programs” that allow features of a web site created with MS Front Page to operate smoothly. It is possible to use MS Front Page to create a web site and host that site on a server that doesn’t offer FP extensions, however some of the powerful features of the program cannot be used in these web sites. See Microsoft’s Front Page site for more information. After you design your web site, you will know whether FrontPage extensions will be a requirement.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
A way of transferring files (uploading and downloading) across the Internet. Most web sites are uploaded to the Internet by means of an FTP program. This is how the web site you create on your computer at home is transferred (uploaded) to the Internet. Some software, such as Microsoft Front Page, does not require use of an FTP program but the use of most any other HTML editor requites the use of and FTP Program. There is a free FTP program called WS_FTP and you can download it at download.com. There are many Internet sites that have established publicly accessible repositories of material that can be obtained using FTP, by logging in using the account name anonymous, thus these sites are called anonymous FTP servers.

Host (Name Server)
When you hear the term “host” in the Internet world, it is referring to an Internet company that has the required servers and software to connect domain names to (IP) Internet Protocol numbers so that your site can be viewed by the public when they type your domain in their browser window. Basically this is where you house your site, and you usually have to pay a monthly or annual fee for this service.

Host Country
Specifies which country the hosting company resides. The internet is a very complex web of server computers connected through telecommunications devices. In general, it is best to host your web site in a location closest to the users that access it. For example, if you plan to deploy a web site that will attract mostly German visitors, it may makes sense to choose a hosting company located in Germany.

Host Platform
This is the platform of the hosting providers servers. Hosting companies will typically having a hosting platform based upon Windows 2000 (Win2K), Windows NT or Linux. If you have a basic web site that does not make use of server side applications such as a database then you do not need to worry which platform is used.

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
Stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. This is the code that web pages are written in and the browser interprets to turn into the web page you view on the screen.

Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP)
The protocol for transferring hypertext files across the Internet. Requires a HTTP client program on one end, and an HTTP server program on the other end. HTTP is the most important protocol used in the World Wide Web (WWW). You see it every time you type a web site in your browser http://…

IP Address
A unique number used to specify hosts and networks. Internet Protocol (IP) numbers are used for identifying machines that are connected to the Internet. They are sometimes called a dotted quad and are unique numbers consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, They would look something like this 111.222.333.444 Every machine that is on the Internet has a unique IP number – if a machine does not have an IP number, it is not really on the Internet. Most machines also have one or more Domain Names that are easier for people to remember.

Internet Service Provider (ISP)
A company or institution that provides access to the Internet in some form, usually for money. They will usually allow users to dial up through a modem, DSL, or cable connection to view the information on the Internet Access is via SLIP, PPP, or TCP/IP. Picking your ISP is an important decision but has more to do with how you access the Internet rather than which host you choose.

JavaScript
A scripting language which enables web designers to add dynamic, interactive elements to a web site.

Java Servlets
A servlet is an application or a script that is written in Java and executed on a server, as opposed to on a client. It is analogous to CGI, although servlets are more than simply CGI scripts written in Java.

Mailing List Software
A mailing list is a discussion group based on the e-mail system. You may want to set one up – they’re very useful promotional tools. Even if you don’t want to host a discussion group, you can use a mailing-list program to distribute a newsletter similar to http://www.adultwebmasternewsletter.com. Many companies have mailing-list software available for their clients to use — if so, ask whether there’s an additional cost, how many mailing lists you are allowed to have, and how many members per list

ODBC Sources
Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a generic way for applications to speak to a database. ODBC acts as an interpreter between an application (say a Cold Fusion or ASP application) and a database (like Microsoft Access). By using ODBC, a connector can be created that will allow a web application that you create to read data from and insert data into an Access database that you’ve created. An ODBC source is a directory entry that specifies database information. This ODBC source (or DSN Source) allows your site to point to the correct database located on the web server.

It is possible to connect to a db without ODBC, but it is a safe bet to assume you need 1 ODBC connection per individual database you will have.

Perl (Practical Extraction and Report Language)
Perl is an interpreted language optimized for scanning arbitrary text files, extracting information from those text files, and printing reports based on that information. It’s also a good language for many system management tasks.

PHP
PHP is another scripting language. Like ASP, it’s commands are embedded within the HTML of a web page. The commands are executed on the web server, making it browser independent. The web browser only sees the resulting HTML output of the PHP code.

Post Office Protocol (POP)
This is a method of retrieving e-mail from an e-mail server. Most e-mail applications (sometimes called an e-mail client) use the POP protocol, although some can use the newer IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). There are two versions of POP. The first, called POP2, became a standard in the mid-80’s and requires SMTP to send messages. The newer version, POP3, can be used with or without SMTP. The newest and most widely used version of POP email is POP3 email. You will see the term POP3 in most of the web hosting plans available today.

Price
The monthly amount that you will have to pay a hosting company to provide the hosting services requested. Paying monthly is normally perfectly acceptable, but discounts may be available by paying quarterly or annually.

Reseller Plans
Many hosting providers allow you to be a reseller of hosting space earning a commission off of each sale. If you intend to be a provider of hosting services, you should investigate this option as you decide where to host your web site. Many hosting companies offer discounts (in addition to revenue opportunities) to companies that wish to remarket their web hosting services.

Root Server
A machine that has the software and data needed to locate name servers that contain authoritative data for the top-level domains.

Setup Fee
Some hosting companies charge a one time setup fee to set up your hosting account. It is worth to also take this into account when looking at the monthly fee.

Server
A computer, or software package, that provides a specific kind of service to client software running on other computers. The term can refer to a particular piece of software, such as a WWW or HTTP server, or to the machine on which the software is running. A single server machine could have several different server software packages running on it, thus providing many different servers to clients on the network. More specifically, a server is a computer that manages and shares network resources.

Shell Account
Something experienced computer users often request. Permits you to edit your files online in real-time, rather than making changes to your site offline and then uploading the changes. Unless you intend to manage the web server your site runs on, a shell account should not be needed.

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
The main protocol used to send electronic mail on the Internet. Most Internet email is sent and received using SMTP. SMTP consists of a set of rules for how a program sending mail and a program receiving mail should interact.

Server Side Includes (SSI)
Commands that can be included in web pages that are processed by the web server when a user requests a file. The command takes the form <!–#include virtual=”/path/to/file”–>. A common use for SSI commands is to insert a universal menu into all of the pages of the web site so that the menu only has to be changed once and inserted with SSI instead of changing the menu on every page.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
A protocol designed by Netscape Communications to enable encrypted, authenticated communications across the Internet. It is used mostly (but not exclusively) in communications between web browsers and web servers. URL’s that begin with “https” indicate that an SSL connection will be used. SSL provides 3 important things: Privacy, Authentication, and Message Integrity. In an SSL connection each side of the connection must have a Security Certificate, which each side’s software sends to the other. Each side then encrypts what it sends using information from both its own and the other side’s Certificate, ensuring that only the intended recipient can decrypt it, and that the other side can be sure the data came from the place it claims to have come from, and that the message has not been tampered with.

Shopping Cart Software
A software program which acts as a “virtual store front”. Such software typically allows a web site user to create and manage a virtual shopping cart to which items can be added or removed. Once a customer is ready to “check out”, this same Shopping Cart Software typically includes interfaces to allow customers to pay with their credit card directly on the site. Shopping Cart Software is critical for those web sites that intend to sell products and services directly over the Internet without human intervention.

Statistics
Many hosting companies run software on their web servers that collect usage information about your web site and compile it in a user-friendly, easy-to-read format for you to analyze trends about your web site. Having access to statistics is critical if you need to know how many visitors are coming to your site, which web pages receive the most attention, and how much time people actually spend browsing your site.

Support
Telephone or e-mail technical support provided to a web hosting company’s customers. When there’s a problem with your site or your e-mail, you want to be able to get an answer promptly by e-mail or on the phone. Some hosting companies offer email only support, telephone support, or a combination of both. Some hosting companies provide 24hr 7 days a week support (24/7). This is important if your site is an e-commerce site with a lot of daily visitors.

TCP/IP
This is a set of communications protocols to connect hosts on the Internet.

Unix
A computer operating system designed to be used by many people at the same time (it is multi-user) and has TCP/IP built-in. It is the most common operating system for servers on the Internet.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The standard way to give the address of any resource on the Internet that is part of the World Wide Web (WWW). www.adult-hosting-companies.com is an example URL.

Unique IP Address
In many hosting plans, you share an IP address and you will be able to view your site through your domain name only. Obtaining a unique IP address (see IP Address) provides a one-to-one relationship between your domain name (www.yourname.com) and an IP address.

Video Streaming
The process of providing video data or content via a web page.

Virtual Server
A web server which shares its resources with multiple users. It’s another way of saying that multiple web sites share the resources of one server. If you do not need your own web server (i.e. your own server class computer), you will use a virtual server to host your web site.

Article Written By Lee.

Adult Webmaster Conventions

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: General | Response: 0

Networking Overload

So That’s What It Means!

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: General | Response: 0

Often you will hear other webmaster talking about things such as unique hits, banner exchanges and, AVS systems. The article below is a simplified glossary of those and many other terms that you will begin to hear day in and day out of your working life as an adult webmaster.

AVS (Adult Verification System)
The protection system that was designed to prevent minors from accessing adult sites. AVS services usually also have a large network of sites that adult surfers can access with one password. You can find a list of Age Verification Systems at Adult Sponsor Programs

AVS Site
A site that uses an AVS system.

Banner Exchange
A program that enables an exchange of traffic between a whole variety of adult sites. They provide you with some coding which you put in your HTML in order to get additional visitors to your adult site. You can visit: Porn Client for a highly respected Banner Exchange System.

Blind Links
When you place a misleading link on a site that will encourage the surfer to click on it. They will be sent to a new site that has nothing to do with what they expected to see. For example, if you had a text link saying ‘Free Porn’ and they get sent to a paysite when they click on the link.

Browser
A program that displays and navigates web pages you are using a browser now to view this page.

Chargeback
A chargeback is what happens when a surfer changes their mind or decides they don’t like the site or service they signed up for and tells their credit card company they will not pay the fee for your sponsor or paysite charges. Chargebacks are bad for everyone concerned because do you not only lose income for the sale, penalties are applied and sometimes they are applied to you.

Click-Thru Program
A sponsorship program that pays you an amount of money for each and every single visitor you send to their site. You can also find a list of per click sponsors at Adult Sponsor Programs.

Content Provider
A company that offer adults pictures, video clips for sale or lease. For a complete list of the best content providers head over to http://www.adult-content-providers.com.

Dead Or Broken Link
A link that is no longer valid or isn’t working. When you click on the link you get a page not found error.

E-Zine
An E-Zine is in simplified terms and online magazine.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
You need to upload (FTP) your web pages from your computer on to the web for everyone to see. One of the most well known FTP clients is Cute FTP.

Hits
Number of times your page was viewed over a specific period of time.

Hit Counter
Tool used to track the number of surfers that click onto your adult site. A good hit counter can be found at: http://www.sextracker.com

Hot-Linking
When someone links to an image on your server to display it on their site instead of linking to the image on their own server. You can prevent Hot-Linking by having a .htaccess file on your server.

HTML (HyperText Markup Language)
This is the language used to write web pages. This page is written in HTML.

ISP
Your internet service provider. AOL is a well known ISP.

Java
A programming language used by programmers to build and create programs. Not to be confused with JavaScript (see below).

JavaScript
A scripting language you can directly insert into HTML documents. They only work with surfers that have Java enabled on their browser.

Legal Content
Adult content for which you have rights to display on your site.

Model Release
Document that a model signs at the time the photographs of them are taken.

Message Board
A message board is a place where you can ask and offer advice about the industry or just generally chat with other adult webmasters for example the message board at: http://www.europeanwebmasters.com.

Newbie
A new adult webmaster.

Partnership, Sponsor or, Affiliate Program
A revenue program that pays you a percentage or fixed price for every member you send to your sponsor’s site.

Pay Site
An adult website where surfers have to pay a fee for access.

Pic Post
A site where you can submit a picture and your ad on a daily basis.

Plug In
A plug in is a ready-made type of web “CONTENT”. Many plug in providers will even host the content on their servers and allow you to change colors, Fonts and, add a logo graphic, so the plug in matches your site. Plug In content is generally more expensive than image content.

Ratio
A ratio like this refers to click throughs and actual sales made from them. When a webmaster says they got a 1:250 ratio, they mean that out of 250 people who clicked on his sponsor banner, one of the surfers paid for memberships.

Signup Ratio
The amount of surfers that paid to view your adult site (See the example above headed RATIO).

Spamming
Promoting a site or service to newsgroups or e-mail addresses that have not given you permission to do so. Spamming can also mean posting your referral codes on message boards constantly inn order to get other webmasters to sign up beneath you.

TGP (Thumbnail Gallery Post)
A site where you can submit your gallery pages. They in return put up your gallery and send you additional traffic.

Thumbnail
A smaller version of an image used to link to a larger version of the same image.

Turnkey Site
An adult site that is already designed and finished with logos, content, billing solutions and, hosting. All you have to do is maintain the site. Newbies often make the mistake of buying a turnkey site before they properly know how to market them.

Traffic
The term used to refer to the amount of visitors to your adult website over a specific period of time.

Uniques
Number of visitors to your site. If 10 surfers visit your site on any given day and 2 of them click onto your site 3 times the same day, it will be referred to as 8 unique visitors for that day.

URL
A web address. Actual address to a page would be a URL. For example: http://www.adultwebmasternewsletter.com is the URL to our Adult Webmaster Newsletter Site.

Warning or Entry Page
The page before a surfer sees the main content of your site.

Web Host
A company that will provide you with a hosting account so that you may upload your website on their server so that surfers may see your site. For a reputable host you might like to try http://www.webair.com.

Article written by Lee

Tips For Submitting To TGP’s

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: TGP | Response: 0

One of the most popular ways for getting traffic to sites these days is to submit galleries to TGP’s and because it is so popular there is a lot of competition for getting listed. If you like, it is a buyer’s (TGP’s) market, with the supply of galleries exceeding the demand. For example, at Richard’s Realm we only list about 60% of the galleries submitted and that’s after we’ve filtered out unwanted free hosts, free email addresses and submission bots. If we didn’t do that we would be listing about 20%-30% of all submissions.

Before you begin

Submitting to TGP’s is a numbers game. It’s all about volume and percentages. The amount of money your gallery generates can be estimated using a formula with 4 elements:

Total Hits To Gallery X Click Through Ratio X Signup Ratio X $ Per Signup = Total Revenue

So, for example, 1 in 25 surfers to your gallery clicks on a banner or a link, you use a sponsor paying $30 a signup and you have a 1:400 signup ratio with them from your TGP traffic. The formula then becomes:

Total Hits To Gallery X 4% X 0.25% X $30 = Total Revenue

You can see now that the only thing remaining that will affect your Total Revenue is the Total Hits To Gallery. If you increase the Total Hits To Gallery the Total Revenue will also increase.

Of course, experienced TGP submitters also know that you can work on improving the other elements of the formula to improve Total Revenue. They tweak their galleries and change banner and link placement to maximize the Click Through Ratio. If it is improved and rises from 1 in 25 (4%) to 1 in 20 (5%), their Total Revenue increases overall by 20%.

Building the gallery

Examine the formula above and you will see that two elements can be manipulated at the gallery building stage: Click Through Ratio and Signup Ratio.

It is always said, and surprisingly often overlooked, but select a sponsor for a gallery which complements the gallery’s content. For example, if you build a big tits gallery use a big tits sponsor. With more and more TGP’s becoming categorized people surfing the big tits category will be looking for bit tits and are more likely to be interested in a big tits sponsor!

In addition, be sure to use sponsors which are not overly-used, sponsors which are little known. If you go through a TGP you will see the same sponsors and banners showing up all the time. If a surfer sees a banner 10 times they are only going to click on it the once. So even if you build the perfect gallery with top notch banner placement and pictures, if the surfer clicked on the same banner on the previous gallery they’re not going to click on yours!

Selecting TGP’s

There are hundreds of TGP’s you can submit to. It is usually advantageous to select TGP’s that only post your type of gallery, as well as the more generic ones. For example, submit to TGP’s which only list big tit galleries or galleries with one-legged midget lesbians (if that’s your niche). The more targeted traffic will usually result in better click-through ratios and better signups, especially if you’re using a new or little-known sponsor for the particular niche.

TGP’s with a moderate level of traffic that send a few hundred hits tend to be quite good. Admittedly, to get any real volume you need to submit to quite a few, but consider using TGSW to do the bulk of it. My reasoning for using the smaller TGP’s is that they tend to list fewer pages and the surfers tend to be less “professional” and adept at dodging banners.

Submitting your gallery

There are no real tricks to this bit, but it is very important to remember that TGP’s usually get far more submissions than they need or want. You must try your best not to give them a reason to reject your gallery:

• Read the rules carefully and follow them. The TGP webmaster doesn’t put them there for fun and if you break them it’s possible you will be blacklisted.
• Look at the galleries already listed on the TGP to get some idea of what the webmaster likes.
• Don’t try to be smart and use different names and email addresses to avoid the per webmaster submission limits. Although galleries can look very different, reviewers have a good memory and can often recognize designs, layouts and descriptions. If they spot you trying to cheat you’ll probably end up getting blacklisted.
• Take a look at their TGP and see what kind of description they like, Adult Buffet have very different descriptions to Richards-Realm. This might not determine whether or not you get listed, but it’s a chance to get a good description of your choice and, hopefully, more hits.
• Select the right category for your gallery. If you submit your gallery to the “Teens” category and it should be in the “Mature Women” category it will get put there or rejected. If you get the gallery listed in the wrong category you may get more hits, but if a surfer is expecting a nice young lady in the pictures he’s just going to hit his back button and look at the next gallery in the list – probably not even giving your banners a chance to load.

Monitoring your gallery

Once you’ve submitted your gallery you should keep an eye on how it performs. View the stats to see who listed you, how many hits they sent and how much you made from the gallery. It is even worthwhile to create galleries dedicated to specific TGP’s, so you can monitor their performance even more closely. If a TGP sends lots of hits but no signups it’s probably worth no longer submitting to them or changing the gallery to see if you can improve the click throughs or signups. Compare before and after stats if you make changes in the gallery layout or sponsor to see if they’re working.

Whatever you do keep tweaking and monitoring your galleries to get the best possible performance for each of the elements in the revenue formula.

Article written by Richard

Censored Gay Adult Pornography

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: General | Response: 0

You’ve heard it said over and over “Make them pay for the pink” or in the case of the gay market “make ’em pay for the MEAT”. But how far can you get without hardcore on a gay site?

Depending on the method you use to get your traffic softcore verses hardcore can make a big difference. If you’re working the SE’s, you set the tone by way of your descriptions and keywords – and you hope that they get you the rankings and the surfers. On the other side of the fence, when you use link lists and categorized directories, their categories will dictate where your site will go. Thus, you are totally out of the loop when it comes to its placement.

For the past six months I have been conducting a test. I built ten free sites, all to derive their traffic from link lists. Five were strictly softcore and the others a mix of softcore images and “selective” hardcore images. Each had 40 pics in order to play to the larger LLs and directories.

Let me give you a little background. The reason I started this test was to track the traffic trends in the gay market as it applied to the notion of “make ’em pay for the meat”. It was something I had done with my straight sites, but something I totally avoided with my gay sites. The reason for that one a statement I made a while back “If I wanted to see softcore I could look in the mirror when I got out of the shower.” While this is a totally narcissistic comment, it does demonstrate my ongoing point about selling to gay men.

Now don’t get me wrong in the scheme of thing I do like softcore images of the right person, but as a surfer who is looking to get off, I want what I can’t normally have. And that idea is going to send me to a site that will has what I want, OR in the case of this test, THINK that I want.

Now back to the test sites. For my softcore sites, I took various images of single men in different phases of undress from stripping to provocative poses. For the hardcore I was much more selective. I used what I call US Cable or Int’l Tele guidelines. What that means is, what do I see if I turn on a cable station or one of the satellite channels from around the world. I found “simulated sex”. Just like an R rated movie, there were scene where two guys are together with no close ups of actual penetration. So, when I went through my web images I looked for similar scenes. The images were sexual but nothing so blatant as up close penetration but suggestive enough to arouse a surfer – the taunt factor I would need to sell my sponsor sites.

With my distinct sets of sites, I began to submit to the Link Lists. 99% of the sites were accepted for each of there categories (the one that didn’t get accepted had a hardcore description and softcore images – oops). But after making the correction it was accepted.

The traffic started to come in. In the first day, the difference I anticipated was right there. I decided I wouldn’t effect anymore change in traffic so I didn’t submit to any other link lists. I wanted to test this out. At the end of the month the trends I expected were in fact there. The total of all the traffic generated 10% came in to Softcore sites. The remaining 90% came in through the hardcore sites. So this tells me that most gay surfers are hitting the hardcore categories on the LLs. It confirmed my previous assumptions.

What’s the sense of doing all of this and not watch all avenues, right? Now having scrutinized where the traffic was coming from and how, I wanted to trace how it was going out.

I used an older cgi program to track the hits out. It’s one of those standard programs that I learned to use years ago and can’t get rid of. Now remember, all of the sites are pretty much the same with wording, sponsors, color schemes, etc. The only real difference was the pics.

Based on the numbers collected from the program I found that approximately 75% of all the traffic coming into the softcore sites left on a link to one of the link lists. I had 20% go out on a sponsor’s link and the remaining 5% did not resolve (which in this program I was using tried to count the click but was unsuccessful).

Now reviewing the information from the hardcore sites, I found a distinct difference. I will not lie to you. I expected a difference. I don’t want you to think I was awestruck LOL. But, I was surprised with what I found. This time the majority went out to my sponsors – 50% went to a sponsor site, 20% went out to the reciprocal links, 19.9% went to a free gay email site (which wasn’t enough to mention on the softcore sites), 5% did not resolved. The remaining 5.1% I have no idea – they probably whacked off and logged off (I hope it was good for them LOL)

While it is not the point of this article, I will add that the traffic produced reasonable well at the sponsor end.

Let me say that my “trends in gay adult traffic” research is by no means complete. However, over the period of six month these ten sites were enough to say there is marked difference between softcore and hardcore sites. So does “make ’em pay” work in the gay market? For now, there is a definite factor depending on where you get your traffic. If links lists are your specialty, then the answer is yes.

My next step in the evolution of this is to submit these sites into the search engines. With all things considered, I’m looking forward in tracking that information. I’m off to submit. I will share the data I collect from that test soon.

Now, I just hope DMOZ doesn’t give me a hardcore time ; )

Article written by Gary-Alan.

Why Go Adult?

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Hosting | Response: 0

When choosing a hosting company why choose an adult host over a mainstream one?

Simple, They provide above other things, a better quality of service, affordability and, most importantly, reliability.

Adult hosts face a variety of technical and support issues, this coupled with the points mentioned above makes them a far superior choice to standard mainstream hosting providers. This is one of the main factors why more and more mainstream internet based companies are now turning to the adult business forum to provide their hosting solutions.

Mainstream going adult? Yes that’s right, more and more mainstream companies are turning to our industries hosting providers for the fast speeds, security and, reliable infrastructures they can offer after all, adult sites are amongst the most prolific on the internet on average gaining more daily hits to their sites than mainstream websites so, they need to be cost efficient, not only to the hosting companies but, also to their clients, the webmaster.

Our industry strives on the use of heavy graphics, coupled with streaming media files to secure sales and longevity, this is why the adult hosting companies need to be able to provide not just a single, heavily laden server but tens of them, sometimes even hundreds all producing gigabytes of traffic on a daily basis.

Adult hosting companies are constantly upgrading their equipment in order to improve not just their servers, connectivity but also the smaller things that are often overlooked by webmasters, hubs, routers, switches and the likes along side the not so technical aspects of running a host, The staff.

Along with all of this technical equipment they also need to maintain a high level of technical knowledge, after all, not just anyone can install operating systems capable of running multi-million dollar industries. They need the knowledge to maintain, upgrade, repair and sell their services to the best of their capabilities.

What does this mean to you? Well, we all want to make money and, through the use of faster servers, e-commerce solutions and the technical support your hosting provider can give you, you will be fattening your wallet on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.

Adult hosting, quite simply, is the crème de la crème of the hosting world, they offer solid, solutions whether you are starting in the adult industry or, operate a mainstream e-commerce site.

So how do you choose a host that is right for you?

You need to ask some basic questions of the host and, do your homework. Not only should you find out what hosting solutions they can offer you but, you need to find out what their support service is like, how affordable they are in comparison to other companies who can offer similar or the same service. Whilst on the subject of hosting support, before you sign on the dotted line, give your host a call out of office hours, if they answer, then you can almost be certain they are a good hosting provider.

Of course, not all hosts will have 24 hour phone support, however, that said, some offer 24 hour icq support, email support and more.

Another sure fire way to find out if a hosting company is any good is to ask on the heavily traveled webmaster message boards, after all, you are not the only webmaster out there who will have tried this company, if they are no good, someone will know about it and point you in the direction of a reputable host like http://www.webair.com.

Hopefully, this article will have given you some insight into the world of adult hosting companies and, will assist you in making the right choice of host for your site, whatever type of website you might be hosting.

Article Written By Lee

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.

Domain Name Extensions + SEO

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Search Engine Optimization, WebDesign | Response: 0

With a slew of new TLD (Top Level Domain) extensions being launched in the first quarter of 2004 in addition to the hundreds already available how many of us actually take time to consider that when we register a .com, .net or, .org domain how will these sites help or hinder us with our search engine work? This is what we will take a closer look at in this article.

Domain Name Extensions – What Are They?

First of all, before we look at how the extensions of our domain names can assist us in running our search engine optimization methods we need to understand what the TLD’s themselves are actually for. Domain name extensions are essentially a way to recognize specific locales via the usage of domain names so for example, the domain name extension .com were primarily set up as commercial domain names however, with the commercial use of this extension it has also become, without a doubt the most popular extension for individuals or companies registering new domain names. In addition to the TLD extensions there are also a selection of domains extensions ranging from industry specific extensions such as .aero to country specific extensions such as .co.uk.

Domain Name Extensions And Search Engines.

Now we understand what the domain name extensions were put in place for we can now start to look at how they may benefit us in terms of SEO (search engine optimization) for example, head across to http://www.google.com and do a search on something such as ‘penis pills’ you can see from the results shown (01/01/04) that the first 10 results are evenly spread across a range of domain name extensions ranging from .com to .net and also some smaller .go.ro domain extensions. This would lead us to assume that at the current time, Google specifically is not paying to much attention to the extensions of the domain names we are using however, given the recent updates of the last month or two across Google this has also cleaned up a lot of the results that were present 2 months prior to this search in which the .biz extension was highly populated in the rankings.

Domain Name Extension Abuse + Spam.

With this slew of new domain name extensions being launched what seems like yearly this also opens up a whole lot of new problems for the webmaster primarily that of the domain name spam. Because domain names can be registered for as little as $5 per year many webmasters have taken to purchasing them, using them to spam the search engines and then, once the search engines discover the spam and remove the offending domains, the webmaster then moves on to new domains in effect, making domain names a disposable commodity to them. Whilst this method will certainly garner traffic for the search engine spammer it will also in turn mean that the traffic that honest webmasters receive from the search engines will be lower.

Domain Name Extensions And Optimization.

Hopefully this brief article has given you a little insight into how domain name extensions can both benefit and also detriment your business, by choosing your domain name extensions carefully and, making sure you do your best not to spam the search engines you can make some serious income from pure search engine traffic however, once you start to buy domain names with lesser known extensions to purely spam the search engines you are not only wasting your own money but, are also potentially wasting other hard working webmasters money too.

Article written by Lee

Niche Marketing – What Is A Niche?

Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

The first step as webmasters we must take to become successful is to discover what our niche specialty is however, many webmasters still do not realize exactly what a niche is.

In fact, from the webmasters I have spoken to it would seem that a ‘niche’ is just another word for the main topics of pornography, Teen, Asian, Fetish, Gay, Straight, the list goes on and, whilst this list is never ending they are all niches in themselves however, you need to look beyond the top level niche and start to develop a feel, a stance of your own as to what niche you will work on for example, Asian Midgets, you probably cant get more niche than that in this day and age however, realistically, the chances of you a) being able to find the content for this niche and b) Being able to find a sponsor are remarkably thin.

That said, if you can find a niche that you like personally, whether that be she-male, midgets, straight or, gay, this will give you a solid foundation to market your sites on especially if you build on your already vast knowledge of what turns you on.

Now, onto breaking down the niche you are comfortable working in..

Lets say for arguments sake that you have chosen to concentrate on the ‘Gay’ market,, within this market (as with any other) there is a remarkable amount of ‘sub-niches’ and, these are what you need to build your business around whether you want to or not, the ‘sub-niches’ of any given adult market is where the $$$ can be earned.

Now using the gay market as an example the first few niches that come to mind are:

Twink’s – Young looking hairless 18 – 20 year olds.
Bear’s – Hairy men over the age of 20.
Hunk’s – Muscular looking guys in the age group of 20 – 30 .
Straight Guys – Yes, that’s right, gay men get off on looking at straight guys.

As you can see from the above four examples we can now start targeting our market audience a lot better.

The next thing we need to do now that we have found the niche and the sub-niche we will be working is to look for a sponsor that complements the niche of our choice, this is the hard part. Many webmasters will go directly to the highest paying sponsor and throw links up to their ‘sub-niche’ pay site not even looking at the sites tour or members area. This is a huge mistake, the first thing you NEED to do is to look over the sponsors paysites and, more importantly, the sponsors site tour AND members area. What point is there sending your surfers who are after Twink’s if, your sponsors tour has images of a load of guys over the Twink age bracket?

From this point on and, after you have chosen a suitable tour to send your traffic to you need to build up a flow of ‘niche’ traffic the chances are, if you submit your TGP gallery to an ‘all gay’ TGP that you will receive a substantial amount of unfiltered traffic making your hard work in choosing your sponsors tour worthless.

So how do you choose a traffic source that is right for you? Simple, you need to experiment, start of with your niche TGP’s, Top Lists, Links Lists etc and see what happens, how much traffic are you being sent from your chosen traffic source and, more importantly, how much of this traffic is actually clicking through to your sponsors tour. Once you can get an idea of what traffic you are being sent from what traffic source you have won more than half of the battle already.

Record EVERY possible detail about your traffic sources that you can, how much traffic they send a day, how many visits your sponsor gets, how many sales you made, what content you were using etc, etc.

Once you have a working list of data to use you can start to abuse and filter your traffic like you would have not thought imaginable, if one of your sponsors has a higher payout on Bear traffic, then you instantly know what traffic source gives you traffic for that niche and, you can utilize that information to your benefit.

The most important thing to remember however when marketing a niche is that you need to have patience, you need to use a process of trial and error and, more importantly, you need to experiment, just because TGP A sends you 100,000 hits of Twink traffic one day, it doesn’t mean you will get the same quantity of niche traffic the next.

Article written by Le