Everybody’s Going Gay

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: General | Response: 0

The past few months in the online adult industry have seen some rather dramatic changes happen from Visa charging additional fees to accept their credit cards online, Paypal no longer processing adult and, several large companies going out of business. However, one thing that also seems to be changing for the better is the amount of webmasters looking at new niches to promote. Surprisingly, the one niche that many webmasters are looking at is that of the gay niche.

Where The Money’s At.

For years, the adult webmaster community has been split amongst themselves, those that are only focused on straight niches and, those that focus on gay niches however. As of late, more and more of those webmasters from the first group are looking to make additional income from the gay niche. With this inevitable surge in gay adult sites coming online, there are bound to be some knock-on effects, and those webmasters just starting to look at the gay niche, will return to what they know. However, for most, i think this is going to be a fruitful encounter with one of the industry less socially accepted markets. Many of the webmasters who have been concentrating solely on the straight market for their income are going to realize just how much money they have been losing out on for all these years. And with this realization, comes its own set of problems for the industry as a whole.

The Gay Market.

Whether you are a straight webmaster or a gay webmaster the one thing that will become apparent is that your sites are going to reflect you in both, how they look and, the marketing techniques you use. More importantly, the attitude you have towards your gay surfers will in fact show through. Many of the straight webmasters whom, perhaps are not as tolerant towards this niche will, almost certainly fail before they can really get going. Marketing gay adult sites is far different than marketing straight adult sites. You have to know the surfer, understand what they want and, more importantly, know the terminology in the gay market. Many times a post can be seen on various message boards belittling those webmasters who are openly gay – often accompanied by terms such as ‘fag’, ‘queer’, ‘homo’, etc along with with images being posted that, quite frankly, would turn most people’s stomach.

The gay niche is much more than just a single online market, it is a whole lifestyle unto itself. While this lifestyle is affluent (having an abundance of readily available money to spend) it will take a lot of work and perseverance to ensure you get your share of this market.

Starting Points.

As I mentioned above, the main thing many webmasters are going to have to learn are the terms of the gay market, what is a twink? A bear? A cub? What products work well on gay sites? Despite what most people think, you cant just throw up some banners with naked men on them and turn a profit. Match your content to a niche and then, match your advertising to your content, what use is it having bears on a site if, the paysite you are promoting features Teens ‘n’ Twinks?

Similarly, your text links, ‘Click Here For Hot Gay Action’ might get you a few clicks but, by targeting your surfers even more, you will see how some of the gay niches can really turn a profit. The trick is this, get the surfer to your site and actually give them something that you think will suit their desires. This may mean making a 10% commission on a sex toy sale as oppose to a $35 commission on a pay site membership. And so be it. Those 10%’ers start to add up after a few sales.

In Summary.

To summarize, the gay niche will make you money however, to make money you will need to invest something that, perhaps isn’t for everyone – a lot of time and understanding. Marketing the gay niche isn’t for everyone, we have seen this too many times. However for those who are, spending time adding a gay market portfolio to there straight, with a little time increase your overall income significantly.

Article written by Le

Why Cant I Get Indexed By The Search Engines?

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

Unfortunately, this is an all too common question. If it makes you feel any better, you’re not the only one frustrated about the length of time it takes to be indexed, or the many pitfalls involved. It often takes anywhere from two days to as much as six months to be listed on a search engine. For example, last month Excite finally updated its index for the first time since last August! Luckily, Excite is the most extreme case lately, but waiting several weeks to a month can also be extremely frustrating especially when your livelihood depends partly on these search engines.

The Web Position Submitter report will give you current time estimates for each engine so you’ll know what to expect. However, an engine at any time could choose to delay their indexing beyond the “norm” for maintenance or other reasons. On the flip side, you could get lucky and submit just a couple days before an engine does a complete refresh of their database. Therefore, submission times can never be an exact science since we’re all ultimately at the mercy of the engine.

If you’ve submitted your site and have waited the estimated time to be indexed and there’s still no listing, what do you do now?

Here are 16 tips that should help you solve this problem:

1. First, be sure you’re not already indexed but just don’t know it. Unfortunately, none of the major engines are kind enough to e-mail or notify you as to if and when you’ve been indexed.

The method to determine if a page or domain has been indexed varies from one engine to another, and in many cases, it’s difficult to tell for sure. Never assume that you’re not indexed just because you searched for a bunch of keywords and you never came up in the first few pages of results. You could be in there but buried near the bottom.

In addition, it’s not very practical to check the status of a number of pages on each major engine each week. Fortunately, Web Position has a URL verification feature in the Reporter that makes this process much easier. Each time you run a mission, it will report which URLs exist and do not exist in each engine. If you’re using Web Position and are not finding your URLs after submitting, be sure to see this page for common pitfalls to watch out for:

http://www.webposition.com/urlnotfoundhelp.htm

2. Make sure you have uploaded the pages to your site before submitting them. This one seems obvious, but submitting a page that does not exist or submitting with a subtle typo in the URL is a goof we might all make at one time or another. If you’re using Web Position’s Submitter, there’s a checkbox on tab 2 that forces Web Position to verify that all your URLs are valid before submitting them.

3. If you have information inside frames, that can cause problems with submissions. It’s best if you can create non-framed versions of your pages. You should then submit the non-frames versions of your pages which can of course point to your framed Web site. Alternatively, you can enter your relevant text within the NOFRAMES area of a framed page which most search engine spiders will read.

4. Search engine spiders cannot index sites that require any kind of registration or password. A spider cannot fill out a form of any kind. The same rule applies regarding indexing of content from a searchable database, because the spider cannot fill out a form to query that database. The solution is to create static pages that the engines will be able to find.

5. Dynamic pages often block spiders. In fact, any URL containing special symbols like a question mark (?) or an ampersand (&) will be ignored by many engines.

6. Most engines cannot index text that is embedded in graphics. Text that appears in multimedia files (audio and video) cannot be indexed by most engines. Information that is generated by Java applets or in XML coding cannot be indexed by most engines.

7. If your site has a slow connection or the pages are very complex and take a long time to load, it might time out before the spider can index all the text. For the benefit of your visitors and the search engines, limit your page size to less than 60K. In fact, most Webmasters recommend that your page size plus the size of all your graphics should not exceed 50K-70K. If it does, many people on dial up connections will leave before the page fully loads.

8. If you submit just your home page, don’t expect a search engine to travel more than one or two links away from the home page or the page that you submitted. Over time they may venture deeper into your site, but don’t count on it. You’ll often need to submit pages individually that appear further down into your site or have no link from the home page.

9. If your Web site fails to respond when the search engine spider pays a visit, you will not be indexed. Even worse, if you are indexed and they pay a visit when your site is down, you’ll often be removed from their database! Therefore, it pays to have a reliable hosting service that is up 99.5% of the time. However, at some point a spider is going to hit that other 0.5% and end up yanking your pages by mistake. Therefore, it pays to keep a close eye on your listings.

10. If you have ever used any questionable techniques that might be considered an overt attempt at spamming (i.e., excessive repetition of keywords, same color text as background, or other things that the Web Position Page Critic warns you about), an engine may ignore or reject your submissions. If you’re having trouble getting indexed in the expected amount of time, make sure your site is spam-free.

11. If your site contains redirects or meta refresh tags these things can sometimes cause the engines to have trouble indexing your site. Generally they will index the page that it is redirecting TO, but if it thinks you are trying to “trick” the engine by using “cloaking” or IP redirection technology, there’s a chance that it may not index the site at all.

12. If you’re submitting to a directory site like Yahoo, Open Directory, NBCI.com, LookSmart, or others, then a human being will review your site. They must decide the site is of sufficient “quality” before they will list it. I recommend you read the submission guide on the directory tab of the WebPosition Submitter. It contains tips to improve your chances of obtaining a good listing on these directories.

13. A number of engines no longer index pages residing on many common free web hosting services. The common complaint from the engines is that they get too many “junk” or low-quality submissions from free web site domains. Therefore, they often choose not to index anyone from those domains or they limit submissions from them. It’s always best to buy your own domain name (very important) and place it on a respected, paid hosting service to avoid being discriminated against.

14. Some engines have been known to drop pages that cannot be traveled to from the home page. HotBot has been rumored to do this. You may want to consider submitting your home page that links either directly or indirectly to your doorway pages.

15. Make sure you’re submitting within the recommended limits. Some engines do not like more than a certain number of submissions per day for the same domain. If you exceed the limit, you may find that all your submissions are ignored. Fortunately, WebPosition’s submitter will warn you regarding current limits and recommend you stay within them. Some submission consultants feel it is dangerous to submit more than ONE page a day to a engine for a given Web site. For those who wish to be ultra-conservative in their approach, the Web Position Submitter includes a checkbox to limit submissions to one URL per day per engine.

16. Last but not least, sometimes the engines just lose submissions at random through technical errors and bugs. Therefore, some people like to resubmit once or twice a month for good merit in case they do lose a submission. Certainly if you’ve followed all the “rules” and are still not listed, re-submit! Sometimes a little persistence is all that’s needed.

If any of the above scenarios apply to your submission, you should make the necessary adjustments and re-submit. If that still does not work, you should consider e-mailing or calling the search engine and asking them politely why you have not been indexed yet. Sometimes they will reply back with “Sorry, there was a problem with our system and I’ve now made sure you’ll be indexed within the next couple days.” Or, sometimes they’ll tell you why you were not indexed. In other cases, they will ignore your e-mail and you’ll have to keep e-mailing or calling them until they respond. Still, it’s definitely worth the effort to get your site listed with the major engines assuming you also take the time to optimize your pages so you’ll achieve top rankings.

Article written by Lee

How To Claim Back European V.A.T

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Billing Solutions, General | Response: 0

With the recent legislations requiring US businesses to charge Value Added Tax to EU Member state customers for purchases of digital product / image downloads there are many new questions going around enquiring how companies and small business owners can claim the VAT back this is what we will look at in this brief article – The basics of claiming back your VAT from Europe.

What Is V.A.T?

Value Added Tax (VAT) is a consumption tax levied on goods and services in many countries across the globe. Over the last decade, legislation in the tax systems of Europe, Canada, Japan and South Korea allow for a refund for the majority of non resident entities, worldwide to a refund of VAT in most instances however, especially in the business world, registration must be achieved prior to claiming back your VAT and, preferably before the purchase of Vat able goods takes place.

Who Is Entitled To A VAT Refund?

Most businesses will be entitled to receive a VAT refund however, as the laws vary from country to country, the best way for you as a business owner to find out the laws as they affect you is to contact your company accountant who, should be knowledgable enough to inform you of what you need to claim back from each of the EU member states where V.A.T has been charged.

What Products Can I Claim V.A.T Refunds For?

Most typically value added tax recoverable expenses can take form as one or more of the following items:

Business Property Expenses.
Transportation Costs.
Inter-company Billing.
Marketing + Promotional Services.
Exhibitions, Conferences + Business Meetings.
Importation V.A.T.
Digital Downloads (Business Related).

How Do I Register For V.A.T?

When a company inside the domestic US conducts transactions in the EU countries where value added tax registrations may be required the registration for the VAT refund should be done prior to the transaction taking place however, on occasions which vary from individual EU member states this registration process may be done retroactively. By becoming registered to claim your VAT back the company is legally required to d the following:

1) Register for the VAT in the EU country where the transaction takes place.
2) Account for VAT on all invoices or receipts issued to your European customers.
3) Deduct the V.A.T incurred from your European suppliers of goods or services.

Value Added Tax – An Overview.

When all is said and done, other than the obvious need to increase your pricing structure for certain global markets registering for and, charging value added tax actually has a great deal of benefits. You now get to claim addition refunds from any expenses that you incur from the day to day running of your business, your promotional activities become vat’able so you can now increase the level of global marketing you do and, claim full value back from the EU member states (where applicable). basically, registering in the EU member state will enable your business to grow on a global scale and, at the same time, afford you the luxury of being able to market your goods and services to a greater client base at virtually no cost to yourself this is a good thing especially when you take a look at the growth that international internet usage is making each month.

Article written by Lee

Viral Marketing – Catching The Marketing Bug

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Viral Marketing | Response: 0

The term viral marketing is offensive. Call yourself a viral marketer and, people will often take two steps back. I know I would do. It is a sinister thing, the simple virus is fraught with doom, not quite dead yet not fully alive, it exists in that nether region somewhere between horror movies and disaster films.

That said however, you have to admire the skills of the viral marketer. They have a way of winning by sheer weight of numbers alone. They piggy back on everyone else and use their resources to grow their own. In the right circumstances the viral marketer can grow exponentially. A virus doesn’t have to mate, it just replicates itself again and, again and, again increasing its power, doubling its effect with each replication.

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I I
I I I I
I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I

In a few short generations, a viral marketing population can boom as seen in the diagram above.

Viral marketing defined.

What does a virus have to do with viral marketing? Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for mass growth in the messages exposure and influence.

Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to hundreds, even thousands in a relatively short period of time.

Before the advent of the internet viral marketing was often referred to as ‘word of mouth’. However, for better or for worse, the term viral marketing has infected.

One classic example of this marketing technique is Hotmail.com one of the first free web based email services. Their strategy was simple.

Give away free email addresses and services.
Attach a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out.
Watch people email their friends, colleagues and family.
Watch these same friends colleagues and family join up to their service.
See the message propelled to an ever increasing audience, all for free.

In closing viral marketing is like watching the tiny ripples of a single pebble dropped pond, one small splash can create ever increasing circles which in turn could create ever increasing revenues.

Article Written By Lee

Adult Webmaster Health

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: General | Response: 0

Sounds to me like you are a webmaster. Most of us realize that working at a computer everyday can and often is, bad for our health in one way, shape or, form. However, how do we alleviate these potential problems with our health?

Well in this article I will detail some of the things that can often affect the webmasters in our industry and how they can be solved.

RSI (Repetitive Stress Injuries) are the results of, as you may have figured out already, the effects of constantly doing the same movements over and over again using specific parts of your body. One of the most common of these that webmasters are aware of is CTS (Carpal Tunnel Syndrome) which is a result of typing a lot.

So, how do you combat the effects of CTS? First and foremost, if you experience any form of pain at all, your first port of call should be the doctor, the pain you are feeling could be an indicator of a bigger problem. If you think your pain might be caused by use of the computer then an occupational therapist might also be a good person to visit.

CTS is often attributed to use of your digits and poor hand positioning when you type one way to solve this problem is to go to Office Depot and purchase a wrist rest, this will ensure your wrist has ample support whilst you are working throughout the day.

You might also like to try re-positioning your monitor, as a general rule of thumb, having your monitor placed about 20 inches away from your face will usually result in good posture and that in itself can often be a solution to the potential medical problems. One other thing on your posture, get a good chair, one with a high back may be good, these generally offer you more support and, can stop that awkward habit of leaning into your keyboard when you type.

Eyestrain, Eyestrain is another common problem that the webmaster faces, often it leads to things such as excessive headaches, fatigue and, blurry vision, the most acceptable relief from eyestrain is the use of screen filter that will reduce the glare your monitor emits.

There of course, some other things you can do to alleviate this problem such as, Adjusting your monitor so the top of the screen is no higher than eye level, as already mentioned, keeping the monitor a safe working distance from you, usually between 18 and 30 inches is recommended by doctors.

We know computers are machines and tend to forget that our own bodies are complex machines which, should be looked after just as our computers should be, we often forget that sitting at the PC building what was meant to be a 10 minute site can turn into an hours worth of ‘online work’. Take some time every now and again to stand up and walk for 5 minutes, even if it is just to the local store to buy some more smokes, you are actually getting some exercise and, even though the tar in your smokes will end up killing you anyway, you’ll at least be able to work a little longer without getting any problematic computer related medical symptoms.

This article is not meant as an alternative to visiting your physician and, should you think that any of the above are relevant to you then it is recommended that you visit your doctors without delay and follow any advice that they give you.

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.

Protecting The Kids – Europe’s Role

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: 2257 | Response: 0

As adult webmasters we have certain obligations we must fulfill daily whether these be, legal or moral.

One issue that is constantly cropping up in our industry is that of minors (Children) accessing adult websites and, more importantly, the ease of which they can do.

Recent figures released by one of Europe’s top internet analysis companies show that children in Europe and, specifically within the United Kingdom are more likely to visit a website and that, ‘showing that around one in five Internet kids (290,000) check out the sex sites’.

These figures are certainly alarming to say the least, bearing in mind they are specifically talking about the United Kingdom, that leaves a vast majority of Europe, as yet, un-analyzed.

We should all adapt to new methods in order to protect minors from accessing our site whether that includes placing your sites behind AVS systems which, in my opinion is one of the best ways and, most profitable of protecting minors or, utilizing ‘web safe’ software packages that are available to block access to adult sites completely we all need to adopt these practices.

The fact of the matter remains that, in this day and age, no matter what precautions we take in order to prevent access there will, undoubtedly, be a majority of children who can and will, get access to adult sites.

Does that mean we should compromise on the quality of our sites? No
Does that mean we need to think harder about how we develop our sites? Yes

It takes very little effort to subscribe to the services to block access and, you can get a single line of code to place within your html from ICRA which will at least, deter underage surfers from accessing your sites.

In addition to the above mentioned service, you can also place a link on your warning page/s to the following services for parents to block access from children to our sites, SAFESURF, CYBERPATROL, NETNANNY and, SURFWATCH amongst others. Its not just about utilizing software and ratings on our sites though, we can go much further than that and, for instance, using nothing but softcore content on our sites will protect to some extent the materials available to children but, in addition you will also notice your conversion ratios will go up! I have and, I’m sure you have, heard it time and time again.. Make them ‘Pay for pink’ and, by using softcore images on your sites that’s exactly what you are doing.

I for one certainly hope that you take heed at this article, protecting our children is paramount if, we are to succeed in the business, it is getting harder and harder to control who accesses our site but, we can at least take a step in the right direction.

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.

Using Email Auto Responders To Build Traffic And Sales

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Opt-in Mail | Response: 0

Auto responder programs are just that, they are set up to respond automatically with a pre determined email when a blank email is sent to a specific email address.

For example, have you ever seen something along the lines of:

‘For A Free Guide To ** Whatever** send a blank email to somename@somedomain.com’

The email address in that address belongs to an auto responder script and when someone sends an email to the script, they receive a pre written email back within seconds that has information pertaining to a specific topic or selection of topics.

Basically, autoresponder programs are email on demand scripts which makes any information you want available to your surfers 24/7 and, furthermore, not only can they drastically increase your traffic but, they WILL also benefit your sales income.

Email Auto Responders are extremely important tools when you need to automate your marketing. You can easily manage in excess of 10k email requests on a daily basis without ANY effort on your part at all.

Auto responders are used primarily for three main purposes these are:

Sales Letters.

Suppose you post to a selection of forums and newsgroups on a daily basis, you could offer free information about a specific topic and, in the same email, you can also promote your site and, better still, you didn’t have to do a thing.

Customer Support.

The use of auto responders for customer support is beneficial to sites that have a lot of queries from its visitors, autoresponders allow you to set up predefined answers to the most likely questions and, this can cut your service requirements by upto 50% in some cases. For example, most hosts will have some form of autoresponder set up to answer your basic questions or tell you about a support issue you have mailed them about even if its just to let you know that your email arrived and has been placed in the queue for completion. This saves the host a lot of time enabling them to work on things that actually need to be done and not spend countless hours each day sending emails to hundreds / thousands of webmasters on a personal basis.

Email Gathering.

This is by far the best feature of an autoresponder, everyone who sends you an email to the auto respond address will have their email address stored in a database, which, in turn, will enable you to follow up with the interest they have in your site and, some auto responders can even be configured to send out emails on a weekly basis to the email addresses in this database from again, pre determined messages that you have already set up.

Autoresponders are truly amazing programs, not only will they enable you to be more productive with your time but, they will assist you in helping your site visitors and, furthermore should increase both your sites traffic and sales figures.

Article written by Lee

Becoming A Webmaster – Communication Home Truths

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: General | Response: 0

Ok, we are ALL guilty of the things that are going to be mentioned in this article in one way or another, this article isn’t going to be a ‘see I told you so’ session rather an explanation of how and why certain things happen from time to time in the adult industry and, how they can be overcome.

Get ready, his may make you realize the way you have been managing your time this far has been completely and utterly wrong.

Message Boards.

A great tool to the webmaster, virtually every resource site owner and their friend has one but, there is one thing that you are not being told as often as you should about them, they ARE counter productive to YOUR work schedule. Think about it, how often do you access a discussion forum on a daily basis? Two, three, four times? maybe more? That time you could be using more effectively, coming up with new ideas, putting sites together, tweaking your traffic sources etc.

I would whole heartily agree that there IS a need for forums but, at the same time, what would happen if every time we went to post a message we left it and posted a selection of them in some time put aside for doing so? Another thing regarding message boards, they are there to benefit the webmaster, we can let our sponsors know when we have issues, we let other webmasters know when we have issues with them and, we also ask for help and advice, as I say a great tool to the webmaster but also one that should IMHO be used with a little modicum.

Instant Messaging Clients.

Again, another great global communications tool for webmasters, we get in touch with our sponsors, our peers and our friends and family but, how many of us spend countless hours a day conversing back and forth about things that, quite frankly, are of little or no importance? Who can honestly say they have time set aside each day to purely log onto your messaging client to just communicate with people? I know I am guilty of keeping my client on 24/7 and answering messages almost instantly whilst also bugging my peers for idle chit chat.

Email.

The Bain of every webmaster, speaking from personal experience, if I don’t check my email 50 times a day I check it 100, first thing I do in the morning, check my email, last thing I do before I go to bed? Check my email. I realize there is absolutely no need for me to do this but, non the less I do, its almost as if I have become addicted to checking my mail. I’m sorry to say it but, again, this is one thing that we probably couldn’t live without but, we can certainly cut down the time we check our email each day. If I never had to reply to an email again, I would be happy, as it is I get close to 200 business related emails on a daily basis and, lets be honest, I rarely reply to them the same week.

Sponsor Statistics.

Again, another GREAT tool that we are kindly given by our sponsors but, again, even this simple tool can become a Bain to the webmasters workload. How many times do you check your stats on a daily basis? Hell, even I will admit to checking them 3 times a day and, yes, I know even this is to many times. Some sponsors now have stats by email, again, this is better than logging into your stats each day but, it also adds tot he problem with email checking above. Basically, there is only a need to check your stats once a day if that. I used to check them every hour then, for whatever reason, I checked them once a week, then I slowly got back into the phase of checking them morning, noon and, night. The stats are still there every time I look so why do I bother? I guess that’s one of the mysteries of life but, I know I spend far to much time checking them and waiting to see an additional sign up or two on top of what I already have.

Anyway, I’m going to leave this article alone at this point, as, the above would seem to be the most popular methods of wasting time on a daily basis, we all know we waste our time and we all know that what we need to do is manage it better but, how and when, getting our time management sorted out takes time in itself.

Article written by Lee