TGP Posting – Automating Submissions Responsibly

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: TGP | Response: 0

TGP Posting – Automating Submissions Responsibly.

Many an experienced webmaster has endured first hand the labor intensive process of manually building a submitting large quantities of image galleries to TGP’s in an effort to drive traffic, whether it be to their own site or a sponsors, in a bid to generate money. One quickly learns that creating a gallery template is the way to go, whereby one can more quickly and easily swap out the reciprocal links for the TGP’s, which means building customized galleries is more efficient, before going off to submit them to all the relevant TGP’s…

But this is only the beginning of the story. Manually visiting and posting to all of the TGP’s (there are literally thousands of them) takes a lot of time. Moreover, one must stop and read the rules for each TGP to ensure one is staying within the specified guidelines…

There is an easier way! Enter the Thumbnail Gallery Submission Wizard (TGSW). It takes much of the labor intensive work out of producing galleries for, and submitting them to, TGP’s. Available in both desktop (PC) and server (Perl based) versions, TGSW has gained rapid and widespread acceptance as the de-facto TGP gallery automation tool. Some of it’s features include:

Fully Customizable Gallery Templates.

You can create templates on a niche by niche basis, inserting appropriate sponsor codes and images. For the thumbnails and images they link to, you simply insert some intuitive ‘placeholder tags’, which are interpreted by TGSW at run-time and replaced with the appropriate images. You can be flexible as to how many thumbs/images you would like displayed per gallery to meet your own personal preferences.

Automated Reciprocal Link Insertion.

You can also insert placeholder tags for the automatic insertion of reciprocal links. At run-time, TGSW will insert a specified number of reciprocal links in the positions you have inserted those tags in your templates.

Customizable Filenames.

You can specify filename options so that when TGSW generates galleries, the filenames it uses are unique to your galleries.

FTP and ‘Free Host’ Support.

Do you host your galleries on a free host? Or simply on another of your servers? TGSW can be configured to FTP the completed galleries (along with images and thumbs if necessary) to a server of your choice. There is also a lot of support for ‘free hosts’ that don’t have FTP, but instead used a browser-based upload manager.

Automatic Gallery Submission.

TGSW will then automatically submit all of the galleries it generates to all of the appropriate TGP’s. It even sends an email to the TGP’s that require submissions via that method! TGSW can even be configured to place all of your submissions via a proxy server, so you can mask the IP address from where you submit.

Extensive Reporting.

There is an optional reporting feature that you can turn on or off. When turned on, TGSW logs all of the submission information at the point of submission, which you can review at your leisure at a later time.

Regular Updates.

TGP’s come and go, so TGSW offers an auto-update feature, whereby it will download the latest copy of the database from our site. We usually update at least once per week, sometimes more often, to keep your database current.

Of course, due to the personalized nature of your galleries, there will be some significant configuration work to do before one can hope to achieve any real results with TGSW. One of the key points is that we do not ship the product with any TGP’s enabled – this way, you are responsible for your own usage of TGSW, and are forced to at least visit the TGP’s in question – we do this in an attempt to remain responsible.

If you have neither the time nor the inclination to configure the TGSW TGP database yourself, then I highly recommend http://www.tgswupdates.com. They have spent extensive time configuring the current TGSW database for 55 niche categories, and offer fully-configured updates very soon after we release a new auto-update – not only will you be up-to-date, but you will also have all of the available TGP’s enabled, along with all of the reciprocal link images ready to start posting!

Article written by Robert Purdy.

Resource Forums – The Changing Face Of The Adult Industry

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: General | Response: 0

Online adult webmaster resource sites are becoming a thing of the past instead, we have witnessed a new breed of resource site being birthed in the adult industry, the resource forum. It seems like almost every major adult sponsor and webmaster has their own resource forum as of the current time however, what is making these forums stand out from one another and, more importantly, can you actually learn anything valuable from them.

Webmaster Resource Forums.

Back in the day there were only a handful of resource forums made available for adult webmasters to educate themselves further, these included such sites as Ynot Masters, Netpond (then The Condom Chronicles) and Porn Resource, however, to date there are no less than 200 webmaster resource forums floating around the internet for adult webmasters to post on.

With this amount of resource forums available to webmasters it seem impossible that many webmasters cant be making a profit however, upon closer inspection a disturbing trend seems to be taking place.

Resource Forums – Webmasters Posts.

With the sudden surge of webmaster resource forums in the last 6-12 months there is one thing that is apparent, most of, if not all of the resource forums to have spawned during this time have one thing in common, the webmasters who post on them, often, these webmasters are posting for a single reason, to get other webmasters to click on their signatures, nothing more, nothing less.

It would appear that the adult industry is heading towards a meltdown of the adult resource forums, with more and more webmasters grabbing free scripts such as phpbb to load onto their domain and launch their own resource forum it would appear at first glance as if the industry is a thriving community of webmasters all willingly helping each other out however, this is not the case, instead, we find post after post duplicated across multiple resource forums in the effort of making the longest thread, getting the most page views and, ultimately, getting the most signature clicks.

Webmaster Resources.

So with all of this going on what’s happening to the actual resource sites? Well they are still around and, they are still being used however, these have now become second place to the message forum, often as mentioned above, webmasters will post the same message on several message boards and get several replies of exactly the same answer from exactly the same people. Whilst this in itself is a good thing (the exchange of information) my personal feelings are that we are heading towards an excess of resource forums and, whilst communication is needed, there also becomes a point at which you can get an information overload, new webmasters entering the adult industry will see the variety of forums made available to them and start posting however, in doing so they forget the one thing that they actually should be doing, working.

Webmaster Resource Forums – Overview.

I think within the next 12 months we are going to see one of two things start to happen, either the resource forum phenomenon will continue as it is doing now or, the resource forum will become a thing of the past whilst a new medium takes its place, one thing is certain though all these webmasters posting on forums to get sig views and post counts are not doing the one thing they should be, making money and, this becomes all to apparent after watching the same old posts, make the rounds to the same old forums time and time again.

Resource forums can be great help to the adult webmaster however, at the same time, they can also become a webmasters biggest downfall, remember why resource forums are there, to help you when you need it and to socialize when you have to, at what point to do you stop getting help and start becoming a post whore? Well only you can answer that question.

Article written by Lee

Basic Bookkeeping For Adult Webmasters

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Forms & Contracts | Response: 0

Knowing how much you are spending on expenses for your online enterprise each month can be a very powerful tool. Taking out that shoe box at the end of the year and giving it to the Accountant is one way. But a very simple bookkeeping system can provide you with exactly how much you made each month after all expenses. In this article I will provide you with the knowledge to setup a simple system to track your revenues and expenses. Not only will you then know exactly what your Net Income or Loss is each month but at the end of the year you will have a nice neat little package to hand your Accountant. Which will result in lower accounting fees at tax time.

The first thing you need to do is find a way to file all receipts. Your receipts are the backup for all your transactions. Go to your local office supply store and buy an accordion file labeled with monthly slots. Each time you receive a business related receipt, file in correct month. Remember you need to file all your receipts for your numbers to be accurate. When you receive an email receipt for content or hosting print it out and file it. File sponsor cheque stubs, credit card receipts, ISP bill, etc. At the end of each month take out all your receipts and divide into revenue and expenses. Remember you must have a receipt in order to claim the expense. The receipt should show the detail of the purchase, vendor, amounts and date. Ensure that the expenses are needed or used to generate revenue for your business.

Now the next step depends on how much detail you would like.
Revenue-Expenses=Net Income or Loss. For a quick snapshot of the month add up the revenue receipts, staple all receipts together and put the total on the front either adding machine tape or handwritten. Repeat with all your expense receipts. You can put a quick summary of the month in a spreadsheet program. Or for a very small investment you can setup a computerized tracking system. I recommend buying a very inexpensive software such as Quicken. Most major banks, credit cards and even paypal are setup to download transactions to Quicken. You can purchase the Personal Finance version of Quicken for around $70. There are several other inexpensive personal finance software packages that you can purchase that will work as just well. But I personally prefer Quicken. The software you choose will have a list of business accounts already setup. For an adult enterprise you will need to customize the account names. This is very easy and quick to do. Add in accounts for content purchase, hosting, isp, traffic purchase, etc.

Once a week you will open up your program download your transactions from your bank account, credit card, paypal etc. If you have an expense that you pay cash for you will need to add that transaction in. I am assuming that all your sponsor cheques are being deposited into a bank account or paypal. If you receive a check and cash it, manually add the transaction in. After you have finished entering your transactions for the week ensure that the receipts that you have balance to what you have entered in the software.

You will be amazed at how simple it is to use a software package such as Quicken to track your revenue and expenses. These software packages come with pre-made report tools. Such as income statement, analysis of expenditures, cash flow projections. You can even setup budget numbers for your business.

If your business consists of a lot of transactions in a month you might want to consider using a bookkeeping/accounting service. There are many online and locally owned businesses that charge a very low rate for doing small business bookkeeping. Remember you don’t need an Accountant to do general bookkeeping. Many small business owners think they need an Accountant to do the monthly bookkeeping. This could result in unnecessary fees. Depending on the size of your enterprise and your passion for numbers sometimes employing a bookkeeper to do the data entry can be a blessing! Most bookkeeping providers will even provide customized reporting based on your needs.

Article written by Lorna

Converting German Adult Traffic – The Niche Paysites That Work

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Traffic | Response: 0

With the rapid development of US companies and webmasters looking to attract a larger percentage of international surfers and, wanting to make money off these surfers I thought it would be an idea to share the most prevalent niches for each of the international markets country specific surfers. In this first article we will take a look at the niches which convert best on German oriented surfer traffic.

German Traffic – Dispelling The Myths.

First and foremost I think it would be a good idea to let you know that, strangely enough, not all German surfers are looking for kinky, in your face sex, in fact, they pretty much have the same tendencies towards their online porn as US based surfers do, with that in mind, lets take a look at some of the niches that do convert well on German traffic.

German Traffic – The Niches.

As with any type of surfer the best way of getting them to convert is to start targeting them from the second they hit your site using Full Page Ads, localized text links and, consoles, over the last 3 (three) months we found that the niches which converted best on German porn surfers were as follows.

Amateur.

The German adult surfers we sent to several amateur sites, including live web-cam sites and paysites converted exceptionally well, it would certainly seem from the last three months of stats that German porn surfers like the ‘amateur’ porn angle when it comes to satisfying themselves online.

Teen.

As with the US adult surfer, it would appear that the teen niche is truly a global requisite in fact, the teen niche was one of our best converting niches across the globe when we analyzed our international traffic conversion ratios.

Gay.

To our surprise the little German traffic we did send to localized German gay sites converted at less than 1:75, bearing in mind that the best converting niche for us was Teen and, that the specific site we sent the teen traffic to converted overall at around 1:138 we will be targeting a lot more German gay traffic in the future.

Fetish.

No mystery here, when we started our filtering process we ensured that the various fetish niches were high on our filtering list, after all, everyone seems to know that German porn surfers are looking for the hard to find hardcore scene and, the general fetish niche seemed to work wonderfully.

Ebony.

The ebony niche was a vary profitable one for the traffic we filtered to it, in summary, my personal feelings are that it converted so well because ebony men and women in Germany are very few and far between, again the results for this niche would seem to back-up the fact that giving Germans access to something that might be ‘taboo’ in their country converts their traffic well.

Other Niches.

In addition to the above niches which converted above and beyond the others we used we did get a few sales to some more micro-niched paysites for example, BBW, Asian, Cumshot and General Hardcore sites had around 3-5 sales per site, per pay period. Given that we did not target this type of traffic as effectively as we could have done and, that the traffic was from TGP’s and Geo Targeted Traffic Brokers we were happy with the results we saw.

German Adult Traffic – The Results.

It would seem, given our results from the 3 month test we ran on our traffic that the top converting niches for German adult surfers are the Amateur, Teen and Gay niches. Although, the rest of the niches we filtered out our traffic to did not convert as we would have hoped we still saw a good rate of sales month on month from the previous pay period.

When all is said and done, as long as you have German porn surfers on your sites you would be wise to start spreading and filtering this traffic to some niches that, perhaps you wouldn’t have ordinarily targeted after all, a sale is more money in your pocket, whether you know the niche or not.

Article written by Le

Are Your European Surfers Male Or Female?

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

In Europe, the domain of the Web still belongs to the younger generation, with nearly 80% of European surfers under the age of 30. This is not surprising, as Europe is culturally quite different from the US.

The older generation in Europe has typically been slower to adopt new technologies and habits compared to their American counterparts, and we can’t see this trend changing anytime soon. Cultural differences will limit Internet penetration among the older age groups.

Female Internet usage still lags in Europe, with slightly more than 20% of Web users being women. Although this difference is less pronounced in the UK, on the Continent, males still dominate the Web scene.

Our Target Audience

What does this tell us? Well, first of all, it tells us that the European audience is growing more and more each and every day but, we already knew that, what we didn’t know however, until now, was just what percentage of European surfers could be persuaded to buy porn memberships or related goods from one of our sites.

Most paysite owners will tell you that, on average the ages of their members range from 25-30 and, as such, the European market could potentially supply a vast majority of these signups if, they got the overall balance of their sites right.

The Solution

As you should already know by now, the European porn surfer has different expectations to its US counterpart, they wont give out personal information as readily as American surfers, this includes their email address so, this rules out sending them to ‘For Free’ programs, they are also getting really pissed-off at having to download dialer programs to access porn, heck, the average phone bill in Europe is almost double what it is in America, why antagonize these people even more? They know they are overlooked when it comes to porn surfing so we need to stop neglecting these surfers, get a site translated into a foreign language, broaden your horizons, tap into an as yet ‘untamed market’ I feel certain that if you take a few basic steps your bottom line can be increased significantly, it all comes down to this…..

Do you have the balls to try something new?

Article written by Lee.

Domain Name Transfer Agreement

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

Domain Name Transfer Agreement

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

This Agreement is made on the Day of 2001 between:

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

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

RECITALS:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Article written by Lee

The Adult Internet – More Than Just Porn

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: General | Response: 0

So you have several adult websites up and running and, if you are one of the lucky few in this day and age you have already started to make money from your adult sponsor programs however, there are so many other ways that webmasters can make money in the adult industry in addition to their regular ‘porn site’ sponsors yet, many webmasters do not realize there are vast opportunities awaiting them.

Lets spend a few moments to look at the alternative sources of income that we can use in the adult industry and also take a look at the basics of each type of affiliate system.

Email Collection.

Opt in email is big business, there is no denying this fact so why not jump on the opt in email collecting bandwagon? Most email collection sponsors will offer you anywhere from $0.50 per email collected to $2.00 per email collected and, better still, to start making money from your existing traffic base all you need to do is include a small email collection box.

Software Programs.

Many of the larger adult affiliate programs now offer their webmasters a range of software products to generate additional income, many of these products are good for use not only in adult but, also in mainstream. For instance, Anonymous browsing software, history deletion software, IE Toolbars and even submission programs are all good ways to generate additional income either on a per download or, per sale basis. Best of all, you only need to add a new banner to the sites you currently have in order to get a share of this lucrative market.

Herbal Products.

Penis Pills, Breast Enlargement, Vitamin Supplements, you name it you can sell it on adult traffic. Whether you run a TGP, Link List or your own collection of free sites, these herbal products can often sell much better than ‘porn sites’ and, for the most part, the payout levels are the same, if not higher than what your regular ‘porn site’ trial will make you. Again to get started with this type of sales all you need to do is add a text link or banner to your existing sites.

Casino Sites.

Gambling makes BIG money, just look at Vegas for the example, millions of people a year visit Nevada to gamble and millions more simply can’t get there for a range of reasons however, almost every home in the United States has a computer and internet connection so why not start using this to your advantage? Many of the larger casino affiliate programs will pay based on the amount of funds credited to a new users account and, to get started making money from casino sites it is quite literally as easy as adding a banner or text link to your existing sites again.

Pre Paid Services.

Such as Credit Cards and the likes, selling these types of products to your adult surfers not only offers then ‘anonymity’ on the web when they do make online purchases but at the same time when your surfers sign up or one of these pre-paid credit cards you will be making some money in the process. Often however you will find that these types of affiliate program do not payout as much ‘long term’ as they are pretty much a first time deal as far as, once the surfer spends money to initially ‘charge’ their pre paid card with funds, that is when you will make money and not again. Still, even if you can make $50 by selling one of these cards, its still an additional $50 you wouldn’t have made otherwise.

Adding To Your Profits.

As you can see from the above, there are a wide range of products and services you can offer your surfers and, as we all know, the more things we can offer our ‘customers’ the more chance we have at one of them buying something. Of course, as with anything, the more effort we put into marketing these products and services the more chance e have at making a sale however, unless we try to sell the surfer something other than porn, how will we know whether they will buy or not?

Article written by Lee

Favicon.ico – What Does It Do?

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

Favicon.ico is the name of the graphic Internet Explorer 5+ uses in the address bar and when someone views their favorite bookmarks. There should be one beside the address of this page now if you are using IE5+. If you want to see favicon.ico in action among your favorites bookmark our site now by right clicking and selecting ‘Add to favorites’.

Internet Explorer looks for this file in the same directory as the HTML page currently being displayed, if it cant find favicon.ico it will then display the default Internet Explorer icon in the address bar. As for viewing of favorites, IE will check its temporary folder to see if favicon.ico is there again, if it is not located it will display the default white background with a blue ‘e’ icon.

For a webmaster there are three main advantages to using the favicon.ico ‘trick’.

The first, is that it helps to brand your site with a nice little icon that is easy to recognize.

The second, is that it makes your website more professional.

The third, is that your entry will stand out in surfers bookmarks over the others. This is especially good as, if you can get a surfer back to your site then you have another chance at making a sale.

Many internet users have a multitude of site bookmarks so, you need to use favicon.ico to give you an edge. I highly recommend using it and, now I’m going to tell you how.

First, you will need to create an icon file which is exactly 16 x 16 pixels. If the icon is larger or smaller IE5+ will just ignore it. As for the colors in it, 16 is standard. You can use more colors if you want but, the more colors you use, the larger the .ico file becomes and, the longer it takes to load.

You now know the standards the favicon.ico file has to be, now to actually create this file you can take one of two routes.

The first is to convert and existing 16 x 16 BMP or GIF graphic with 16-32 colors into an .ico file using converter software making sure to save it as favicon.ico.

You know the standards the favicon.ico file has to be, now to actually create favicon.ico . The easiest way of creating a favicon.ico file is to convert an existing 16 X 16 BMP or GIF graphic with 16 – 32 colors into a .ico file using converter software making sure to save it as favicon.ico.

Once you have created your favicon.ico file all you need to do is to upload it to any directory on your server that contains html pages. This way, when IE5+ searches for favicon.ico it will be bale to find it regardless of which page you are on.

That’s nearly all the areas of favicon.ico covers apart from, what if you want different icons for different parts of your website? Can this be done? The answer is yes it can. All you have to do is place the following HTML code between the <head> and </head> tags of your web page.

<LINK REL=”SHORTCUT ICON” HREF=”differenticon.ico”> (SHORTCUT ICON should be kept in uppercase).

Now when someone adds a web page with that code to their favorites, IE5+ will not look for favicon.ico but will look for differenticon.ico and if it’s there it will display it, if not the default icon will be displayed.

Using favicon.ico or the SHORTCUT ICON code is nice way to add a unique touch to your site, and of course will result in more repeat visitors than if you were not using it – which is always good for any webmaster.

Article Written By Le

Online Adult Laws – Privacy Policies

Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: General | Response: 0

To many webmasters and companies working online the fundamental basics of their business is to turn a profit through effective online marketing campaigns and promotions however, within all of this profit making there is a side of business that is so often overlooked or, forgotten entirely, what is this business practice? The law.

In this brief article we will take a look at one such law that comes into effect in California on the 1st July 2004 namely, that all ‘web sites that collect any personal information from consumers to post a privacy policy’. Whilst this in itself is the first law of its kind in the United States it is worth mentioning that this is only a State law that affects California however, that said, where one state starts, others are sure to follow especially considering the huge potential left for the growth of the internet.

Privacy Policies – How Does This Effect You?

The main factor that you must take into consideration with this new law from California is that, because the Internet is truly global, you have no way of telling where one of your surfers are coming from thus, a surfer entering your site from California, may be making you break the law by not displaying a privacy policy should you collect their information. Incidentally, this new privacy policy law does not state what ‘collected’ information requires you to post a policy however, it would seem that personal information such as addresses, phone numbers and email addresses would be the primary target of this new Californian online law.

Privacy Policies – The Basics.

So what is a privacy policy, in essence, it is a document informing your site visitors / customers that any information you collect from them, including user submitted information will be used in a specific way, this might be a case of solely being used by yourself or, specifically if you rent out this information you need to tell your surfers / customers exactly who you are renting this information to.

Privacy Policies – Overview.

Whether you collect personal information from you site visitors or not the one thing that makes sense is to have a page created ready for the 1st July 2004 so that you can have it online for when you need it, perhaps storing this page on a central domain and linking to that page from all of your other web sites would be the best method to go as far as ensuring you are covered from prosecution or, perhaps creating a keyword rich privacy policy which you can get listed in the search engines is the way to go after all, just because this will become a legal requirement for you it does not mean that you cant profit from the potential traffic going to that page.

Article written by Lee

Robots.txt – Control The Robots That Crawl Your Sites

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

By writing a structured text file you can indicate to robots that certain parts of your server are off-limits to some or all robots. It is best explained with an example:

# robots.txt file for general use on web servers.

User-agent: webcrawler
Disallow:

User-agent: googlebot
Disallow: /

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin
Disallow: /logs
The first line, starting with ‘#’, specifies a comment.

The first paragraph specifies that the robot called ‘webcrawler’ has nothing disallowed: it may go anywhere.

The second paragraph indicates that the robot called ‘googlebot’ has all relative URLs starting with ‘/’ disallowed. Because all relative URL’s on a server start with ‘/’, this means the entire site is closed off.

The third paragraph indicates that all other robots should not visit URLs starting with /cgi-bin or /log. Note the ‘*’ is a special token, meaning “any other User-agent”; you cannot use wildcard patterns or regular expressions in either User-agent or Disallow lines.

Two common errors:

Wildcards are not supported: instead of ‘Disallow: /tmp/*’ just say ‘Disallow: /tmp’.
You shouldn’t put more than one path on a Disallow line (this may change in a future version of the spec)
Ultimately, without the use of robots.txt files on your servers/domains, you are risking a variety of potential problems including, unauthorized access to your cgi directory, unauthorized viewing of your site stats, possible spamming of the search engines by accidental crawling of doorway pages.

One distinct advantage however of having a robots.txt file on your server is that, quite simply, you will be able to tell when and where your site has been indexed or potentially indexed as, all robots will automatically call for the robots.txt file BEFORE any other page on your server so, as long as you keep an eye open for any calls of this file, you can see who is knocking at your site for indexing purposes.

Below is a robots.txt example that you can copy and paste into a text document to use on your own server:

<!–Start Copy Below This Line–>

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin
Disallow: /logs

<!–End Copy Above This Line–>

The above will allow all spiders to crawl all of your site except the subdirectory’s ‘cgi-bin’ and ‘logs’ which, may be altered to suit any subdirectory’s you do not wish the spiders to crawl on your server.

Article written by Lee