The Next Big Traffic Craze – Thumbnail Link Lists

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Link Lists | Response: 0

As adult webmasters are constantly thriving to create the next craze in traffic sources to garner sales from their sites it comes as no surprise that there is already talk amongst the ranks of the next big thing, what is this new idea? The Thumbnail Link List.

Thumbnail Link Lists – Re-Inventing The Wheel.

As the past year and a half have taught us as webmasters, regular TGP’s have almost become a thing of the past with more and more thumbnail TGP’s being created and submitted to daily, why then, has it taken so long for someone to think up the idea of the Thumbnail Link List? Quite simply I think it has been a case of to much has happened over the last 12 months in the adult industry for webmasters to think this idea up.

So What Is A Thumbnail Link List?

A thumbnail link list is in effect a way of displaying free sites on your own standard Link List by utilizing small thumbnail samples of the images contained within the free sites galleries, in fact, much the same way that a thumbnail TGP works however, instead of only listing single image galleries your link list will consist of links to individual free sites.

Much like the Thumbnail TGP traffic source, the thinking behind the Thumbnail Link List is that by showing your surfers what type of pictures the sites within your link list contain they will be more likely to visit the free site thus improving your CTR to your webmaster submitted sites and, ultimately, your site overall allowing you to manipulate the traffic to garner more sales for yourself as the Thumbnail Link List owner.

Submitting Your Site To A Thumbnail Link List.

Looking at the Thumbnail Link List idea from a webmaster who would be submitting your free sites for listing (and ultimately traffic) how do the rules of the Thumbnail Link List differ to that of the regular link list which we are all used to seeing, well for a start, the main difference will be that you either need to submit a thumbnail yourself or, enter the url to one of your gallery pages in addition to the main entrance to your free site, this will actually be the only significant change in how you operate your link list submissions compared tot he current link list method, however, as each Thumbnail Link List owner will have their own individual rules you should check before submitting as to what is required from you as a submitter.

Thumbnail Link Lists – Overview.

The whole Thumbnail Link List idea is one that, in all seriousness should mean more traffic not only for the submitters of the free sites but, also for the Thumbnail Link List owner themselves, by offering the surfers a preview of the content contained within the free sites they will be visiting they can simply reduce the amount of sites that do not appeal to them and focus more on the sites that do meaning that the webmasters who submit highly niched free sites to the links lists will now be able to benefit from a larger traffic base and ultimately, more sales.

Article written by Lee

Building Your Brand – Business Basics

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Branding | Response: 0

Many online businesses have a good solid brand name attached to them already for example, ARS (http://www.adultrevenueservice.com), Webair (http://www.webair.com) and, WEG (http://www.wegcash.com). These companies have worked long and hard to build up their own brand name on the internet and, specifically, in the adult industry where, it almost seems that everyone is out to make a name for themselves so, how do you as a small business owner get a piece of this branding pie?

Branding Basics.

The word ‘Brand’ or ‘Branding’ can refer to several items when used as a noun to describe a company name, product, service or, trademark. Branding started centuries ago when cattle ranch owners used to place their unique insignia on their cattle so that surrounding ranch owners knew who the cattle belonged to and, so that the owners of the brand knew if their cattle were being stolen by others.

Starting The Branding Process.

From the very first site you build you should start working on your own inimitable brand name or logo, perhaps it will consist of a small logo on top of every page you build or even a simple text link for your sites domains, either way, the one thing that is important in recognizing a brand is being able to place it to a product instantly.

Building Your Brand Name.

Now that you have started the branding process how can you continue to grow your businesses brand name or product even further? This is what we will take a look at next.

Domain Name Registration.

Buy the domain name that is representative of your ‘brand name’ if your brand is going to be 123pornosex then go and register 123pornosex.com be cautious though, just because you think of a brand name, you should ensure the domain is available to register BEFORE you start using that brand in detail.

Getting The Word Out.

This may seem like the hardest of tasks at first but, once you make a start in branding your site or, yourself this is relatively easy to keep up on an ongoing basis.

Visit the boards, use your tagline as often as possible and, either mention your brand name in the tagline or, link to your brand names website. This is especially easy to do if you run a TGP or some other site that needs to attract webmaster traffic in order for it to succeed.

Start your own newsletter, this may seem an odd way to build your brand up but, if you name your newsletter the same as your brand name for example you might have a text link saying:

Join the BRANDNAME Newsletter.

This keeps the branding process alive and well. The next step you should take it to ensure that the sender address of the email is something like brandname@brandname.com again, even though you have collected the email addresses by sending out mailings from an address like the one above you have more of a chance of your brand name actually staying in the mind of the newsletter recipient.

In addition to a newsletter, you might also like to consider having a designer make you a logo or button you can use on your site/s this will come in handy for several uses for example, if you own a traffic site you can use this logo as a reciprocal link, you can use it in your signature on message forums and, you can even include it on sites you build.

You might also like to consider writing articles for other sites to use, usually the sites that publish your articles will place a link or a small bio to you or your site, this is another way to increase the ‘exposure’ of your brand.

Branding Overview.

All in all, building a brand name for yourself or your business need not be a hard and tedious task in fact, if you start off almost immediately building up name recognition for you and your sites. Regardless of what type of product, service or site you operate getting your brand name recognized by both webmasters and surfers can lead to a lot of money long term, start now and reap the benefits later in your career.

Article written by Lee.

Mirroring Adult Sites – Stage Two

Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: Promotion, Tutorials | Response: 0

Ok, in stage 1 of this tutorial we learnt the basic ‘setup’ for our multisite generation now we have to start putting the rest of our puzzle together.

At this stage in the tutorial we should now have a 50 pic free site, all of the images are in the appropriate folder on our HD along with the HTML in their own folder. If you have not already done so, you need to ensure that when you add/added the links to your individual HTML pages that you call the images like this:

/FreeSite/Images/pic1.jpg

The Thumbnails like this:

/FreeSite/Images/Thumbs/thumb1.jpg

The gallery links like this:

/FreeSite/Galleries/gallery1.html

And the FPA from the warning page like this:

/FreeSite/FPA/fpa.html

Why are we calling the links like this and not like, http://www.mydomain.com/FreeSite/Galleries/gallery1.html I hear you ask, well the answer is simple, in order to use this site TEMPLATE over and over again, we need to ensure that there is a standard way of calling the links, this way, once we decide duplicate this site on a different domain, all we do is upload the folder to our server with a different set of images and we have another set of sites built.

Ok, we now have our free site but, we have some empty folders that need filling up, here is how we are going to achieve that.

What we now have to do is re-open the Gallery Pages, DO NOT change the image calls or the thumbnail calls however, what you will need to do is select 15 TGP’s that you would like to submit to, download the recip buttons for these TGP’s and save them in the /FreeSite/Images/Recips/ folder.

Now we have the gallery pages open we need to modify them like this..

Take the top text link that you created and replace that with a 3 cell table. In this table for the first gallery, you need to call the first 3 recip links for the TGP’s you want to submit to and link them to the appropriate recip url for each of the TGP’s again, calling the recip images like this, /FreeSite/Recips/recip1.gif. Also, you will need to modify the text link at the bottom of your gallery pages, I would suggest creating an 8 cell table, containing 8 niche text links, four of which should go to your Single-Site FPA’s (as created for the surfer trap) and the remaining 4 text links should go directly to your sponsors site tour page.

Now save this newly created page as tgp1.html in the /FreeSite/TGP/ folder. Do the above again for the remaining 4 gallery pages but calling a different set of recip links each time. each time you modify a gallery page save it in the /FreeSite/TGP/ folder so gallery2.html would be renamed to tgp2.html, Gallery 3 would be called tgp3.html and so on.

What you should now have is a single 50 pic free site with 5 galleries of 10 pics, all pics going to the larger image on a HTML page and, 5 TGP galleries.

This is as far as we go with the tutorial today however, in the next stage we will continue to fill in the rest of the puzzle pieces.

Article written by Lee

Fighting Back Against Computer Viruses

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: General | Response: 0

Only 10 years ago, the only way that a virus could have infected your computer was through you physically putting a floppy disk into your hard drive and running the program file that initiated the virus however, today’s viruses have become more complex in how they operate and, can spread like wild fire if they are not recognized as a virus doing damage not only to your computer but that of your associates and peers.

So how do we minimize the risk of virus infection on our computers which, lets face it, for the Adult Webmaster are our livelihood and, need to be protected at all cost. This is what we will take a brief look at in this article, how to minimize the risk of getting a computer virus and, heaven forbid, how to deal with a virus if you actually have one on your machine already.

Computer Viruses – A Little History.

1981 – The first widely accepted computer virus is recognized. The ‘Elk Cloner’ virus was spread through floppy disks and, whilst by today’s standards, it was not a high risk virus it, non the less was still a virus, in fact, all this first virus did was to display a message on your computer screen.

1991 – The ‘Tequila’ virus was the first recognized ‘polymorphic virus’ meaning, it was the first virus which actually altered its state once on your machine in order to remain undetected.

2001 – 2001 saw the spawn of several highly potent ‘worm’ orientated viruses from the ‘Gnuman’ virus, the ‘LogoLogic Worm’ and the famed (is that the right word?) ‘Nimda worm’. These ‘worms’ were the first of their kind to actually spread themselves across the World Wide Web through infecting users email clients (specifically Outlook Express) and sending itself to every email address the infected machine had in the address book.

Virus Infections – Prevention Better Than Cure.

So we now have a little background on the main viruses over the last 20 years we will take a look at the ways in which we can prevent viral infections on our computers after all, as the subtitle for this paragraph says, a prevention is far better than having to find a cure.

Here are a few simple ways you can help to prevent the spread and infection of computer viruses.

1) Install a good anti-virus software package on ALL of your computers, Norton and, Mcafee, both have some good products to aid you in preventing viral infections of your PC. Also, you should ensure the software package you do install has updated virus definitions, a new virus is created almost every week so you need to ensure your software keeps up-to-date on the latest infections.

2) Scan any and all email attachments you receive, irrespective of whether you know the sender or not, anything that you get sent in an email should be scanned, as mentioned above, there are complex viruses that can ‘send’ themselves from other peoples email address book, what happens if you are on the address book of an infected users computer? Can you afford not to be online?

3) Ensure that, once you have an Anti virus program installed on your machine that you have it setup to start each and every time that your computer boots, the first thing that should be loading on your machine is an anti-virus program, you only have one chance to prevent infection.

4) Avoid downloading .exe and .com files to your desktop unless, you know the person you are downloading the files from and, even then, before you launch or open the files ensure you scan them independently.

Virus Prevention – Overview.

Hopefully this article will have given you some insight into how you can protect both your computer and the computers of your associates and peers from computer viruses and, hopefully, by following the guidelines within this article your time spent online will be productive and virus free. One thing you should remember however is that no matter how hard we all try to remain virus free, someone will create a new program that ultimately, could infect our machines no matter how hard we try.

Article written by Lee

Community Forum Scripts

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Scripts | Response: 0

Whether you have little or much traffic one thing that will enable you to benefit greater form this traffic is giving your surfers the sense that they are part of a ‘community’ much like the message boards built around adult webmasters have the feel of a community to them your surfers will end up staying around a lot longer if you can give them a reason to come back to your site over anyone else’s.

That said, one of the main factors in starting your own little porn community is the need to have a place where all the ‘action’ take place. What better way than you own message forum.

However, we hit our first problem, having never thought about starting a forum up before you wouldn’t know where to go to look for scripts or, what the best one is. That’s the reason behind this little guide.

Below you will find a short breakdown of the more commonly used message forum scripts along with a short list of features each one has to offer you when choosing to build your own online community.

VBulletin http://www.vbulletin.com

This is actually quite a good forum script, most of the main forums on the web use either VBulletin or PhpBB when it comes to threaded forums. VBulletin uses MySQL and .php to run the actual forum and, set-up of it can become a little tricky if you want to customize it to your exact needs and color scheme. That said, once you overcome the initial complications in setting the forum script up it is easy to handle and, with a price tag of only $160.00 its an affordable option for many.

Ultimate Bulletin Board http://www.infopop.com

Unlike VBulletin UBB uses Perl programming for the forum script which, means you can install it on any cgi enabled host. However, the one main drawback with this script is that it uses flat text files to store all the data which, can sometimes bog down your server with unnecessary file calls. The cost of $199.00 however can be a bit to expensive for most webmasters.

Ikon Board http://www.ikonboard.com

Ikon board is a nice little threaded forum script and, the fact that it is free to download makes it even more so however, even though it uses MySQL for the backend or, choose to store your data in flat text files this script just seems a little to ‘basic’ looking for my personal taste. That said, there are many types of site using IkonBoard so the script must be good enough for them to be using it. Then again, maybe its the price tag of $0.00 that has made this a popular choice.

PhpBB http://www.phpbb.com

PhpBB is probably the most well known free forum script on the web today, its easy to customize (within reason) supports php and MySQL functions yet seems to offer nothing in return. The basics of a forum are there however, every webmaster and their closest friend seems to be using this script. The whole idea of building up a community is so that your site can stand out from the crowd, in my humble opinion, the script does what it is supposed to but, it doesn’t offer any redeeming qualities to your site.

Site Net BBS http://www.focalmedia.net

Sitenet BBS, formally known as Netboard, is probably one of the better Perl based forum scripts on the market, it price tag of $69.00 makes it an affordable choice for almost everyone and, the installation process itself is VERY simple to understand. The one drawback that i have found with this forum script however is that it stores the data in flat text file which actually slow the server down quite a lot making connections to the forum time-out on numerous occasions. However customization of the script is very easy using only HTML based templates you do not need any additional programming skills and, it has a nice interface with a few good features. For the price it is well worth a look. They also offer a freeware version however the links on the bottom of the forum become annoying after a while.

In summary there are a lot of popular forum scripts available for webmasters to start using some are free other require payment ALL have a range of different functions available in them.

Before looking at installing any of the scripts you should always try a demo first to see which one has the features and benefits you would like to offer your community members.

If you can get your base community built up on a forum they enjoy using then all the rest of your marketing should pay off in dividends long term.

Article written by Lee.

Time Management – Organizing Your Content Purchases

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Content | Response: 0

From time to time it is inevitable that as adult webmasters there will be two things that will happen:

1) You will buy some licensed content.

2) You will use this content for a gallery.

However, unless your content is organized you can end up spending to much time to make a 10 pic gallery page. This article is going to offer you some sound advice on how to organize your content from the second you take delivery of it which, will save you a lot of time long term.

So we have taken delivery of our adult content either by download or, on cdrom what next, we could just file it away on cdrom but, by taking a little extra time to organize your content from the start you will end up not only building sites MUCH quicker but also saving time all round.

Here are some helpful hints to get you on the way to content organization.

1) Unzip all your content sets and, if applicable, separate them into model and niche sets.

2) Create folders for each model and, each set of 10 images within the main model sets.

3) Rename all your images in the 10 pic sets starting from pic1.jpg through to pic10.jpg.

4) Crop, compress and thumbnail each image within each set of 10 that you have.

5) create a html page that calls your thumbnails and main pics using relative urls i.e. /set1/gallery1/image1.jpg for the larger image and /set1/gallery1/thumb1.jpg for the thumbnail image.

6) Inside each of your 10 pic/thumbnail folders place this HTML page you have just created.

7) Burn each of the gallery folders to cdrom.

Lets now look at what an hour spent has enabled us to do.

Instant Galleries.

Say we want to build a 10 pic gallery to add into a free site or an AVS site that we are building, we know we have all the galleries already made, its just a case of finding the correct gallery and uploading it to our server.

Image Swapping.

What happens if we need to swap an image from one of our pages to a more appropriate one for the niche we are marketing to, simple, you go to the image set you want, look for the image name and simply change the image without having to upload it as, you will now know the EXACT location on your server of the image you are changing to e.g., /set6/gallery8/image9.jpg would change to set24/gallery2/image2.jpg.

There are of course other ways this can benefit you for example, you can plug in your galleries to any site you own if you have them all uploaded to a central content location domain.

The benefits of organizing your content from the instant you take delivery are endless, the above is just a sample of how I have successfully saved time and effort by becoming more organized, the only limitations you have with your organizational skills are those that you impose on yourself.

Article written by Lee

Penis Enlargement Pills

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Sponsors | Response: 0

Well if you’re a guy who had to shower after gym class, or woman with a boring husband or a gay man looking for Mr. Right we all know SIZE Matters!

Do I a have your attention? Good! Now, let’s get on with it!

Like many people, I have always experimented with secondary or even tertiary sponsors for my free sites. In my case most of them do not only pertain to a site membership. I have found success with things like, Viagra online; security programs to remove you net affairs; sex toys and videos; and, today’s’ latest a greatest is penis enlargement remedies.

I’m finding some astonishing success with these herbal penis enlargement products. I’m SELLING it not USING it! LOL. Some of us don’t need it <wink>. But I’m finding lots of my surfers do need it, or at least want it.

A couple of months ago after seeing an influx of email to Gay Wide Webmasters for hints on selling penis enlargement medications, I decided it would only benefit my member and myself to experiment. I used a sponsor on Gay Wide Webmasters, Albion Medical who boasted great returns and high payouts. Well what I was in store for was BETTER than I expected. By the way, here’s a little secret; I do sign up for my own sponsors but under my real name, so unless they really look hard, they do not know it’s me. I don’t go boasting with out proper backup = )

Amid my salesmanship attempts for surfers to “Sign Up!” I sprinkled my secondary ads for Penis Growth among the pics with lines like “Become Mr. Right – turn your dick into a DONG” or “Make your manhood massive… Even straight guys will look!” And to my surprise, it worked wonders. I know there is an attitude in the gay male community to seek perfection physical most of all. And it definitely came clearer to me with the number of sales.

It’s funny how many different ways you can approach selling things that will enhance a person. To me, telling me I need something to make me better pisses me off. Don’t try selling something to me by TELLING ME I’m not right. Or what I have is wrong. I’m definitely a person who marches to the beat of his own drum. And then there are people who NEED to be told they are not everything society expects them to be. That they are doing or have something wrong but it can be fix and you have the solution.

Like the examples above, “Become Mr. Right…” I took the effect that I was letting the surfer make up his own mind. Does he have an issue? It was entirely up to him to decide. Let me tell you, it works well on gay traffic. Let the gay surfer decide yes or no.

NOW, I tried a different approach and gauged the success/failure. I popped in text links like “Aren’t you upset by how small your penis is?” “Remember the guys making fun of you in the showers after gym?” or “Are you sick that you don’t fill up you the front of your briefs?” Well let me tell you the number of Emails I rec’d was “enlarged”! For the most part I was getting mail from men who felt I was exploiting them, even making fun of them. I made them feel inadequate and they lost their hard-on. My site was meant to entertain not disdain them. All I could say was WOW! I didn’t expect that kind of response. I will tell you that I was very happy that I didn’t do it across all of my sites and only a few. So I moved everything back to my “Let him decide” campaigns.

The affect of the sales on the “insulting ads” was evident. According to my traffic program it was apparent that these ads were NOT getting clicks. Instead the surfers clicked on my email link to voice their disgust.

The bottom line of all this? With the proper motivation, the right marketing approach, surfers enjoy the seclusion of buying penis enlargement aids online. It is a great addition to your web site income among other avenues.

Article written by Gary-Alan

Source Code – Eliminating HTML Margins

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

Since the inception of the very first HTML document, margins existed that surrounded the document, like in the case with this document.

The margins are there to act as a cushion between the edges of the browser and the contents of the page, so it’s easier to read the content.

As good as margins are, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to eliminate them in some cases, where the design of the page calls for their termination? While most webmasters think it is not possible to “flush out” the default margins of a HTML document, it actually is, although only possible in IE 3+, and NS 4+. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how.

Eliminating The Document Margin In IE 3+

To get rid of the document margin in IE 3 and above, so content presses right against the edges of the browser, use the IE exclusive “leftmargin” and “topmargin” attributes:

<body leftmargin=”0″ topmargin=”0″>

It’s as simple as that!

Eliminating The Document Margin In NS 4+

To get rid of the document margin in NS 4 and above, use the NS 4 exclusive “marginwidth” and “marginheight” attributes instead:

<body marginwidth=”0″ marginheight=”0″>

Putting It All Together.

By putting the two techniques together, we can create a document that flushes out its’ margins in both IE 3+ and NS 4+:

<body leftmargin=”0″ topmargin=”0″ marginwidth=”0″ marginheight=”0″>

Try out the above coding on your page, and you’ll see what I mean.

Article written by Lee

Obscenity – Put It To The Test

Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: Writing | Response: 0

Regardless of how long any of us have been an adult webmaster we all need to be
aware of obscenity laws and, in particular how they affect our businesses
whether we think a hardcore photoset is ‘obscene’ or not ultimately, if you get
taken to court on obscenity charges the one thing you should be aware of is how
the courts will decide whether the images you are using will be classified as
obscene or not.

Testing Obscenity – The Miller Test.

The Miller test was developed in the 1973 court case of Miller vs. California
and in comprises of three parts ALL of which MUST be satisfied on order for
something to be deemed obscene by the courts. The Miller test is the ‘official’
method used by the United States Supreme Court for determining whether an
expression or a speech can be determined as obscene and, if deemed obscene, it
is not protected under the First Amendment and is therefore prohibited by law.

The Miller Test – Part One.

Part one of The Miller Test states something may be obscene if ‘the average
person, applying contemporary adult community standards, would find that the
work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest’ In essence, this
means that if the ‘average’ person on a jury or on the bench finds the work to
be deemed obscene then, it is. However for the court to rule something as
obscene it also has to be deemed obscene by the standards set in part two and
part three below.

The Miller Test – Part Two.

Part two of The Miller Test states that something is potentially obscene is
‘the average person, applying contemporary adult community standards, would
find that the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual
conduct’. Basically this is saying that if the images or speech is something
which is not practiced in a manner befitting your local community standards
then again, it may be obscene. However, as with part one of The Miller Test for
a court to find something obscene it needs to fall below the standards in part
three below.

The Miller Test – Part Three.

Part three of The Miller Test states that something is potentially obscene if,
‘a reasonable person would find that the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious
literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.’ This is pretty much where
you could potentially come unstuck after all, everyone has different sexual
tastes and because of this, just because something that may be widespread such
as ‘bare backing’ (to use as an example) could potentially be considered as
obscene if you happen to have a jury who are devout practicers of safe sex.

The Miller Test – Overview.

In essence The Miller Test is a useful guideline for webmasters when it comes
to operating our sites and specifically, when it comes to choosing the types of
content we utilize on them however, for the most part The Miller Test itself is
outdated. Since the early 70’s when this test was devised there have been many
sexual practices that were once deemed obscene that have become more a part of
everyday life and accepted in to society as whole thus, what once would (or
could) have been deemed obscene would no longer be in the same sense as
something that may be deemed obscene today could be found not to be in 5 years
time.

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.