Using Basic Server Side Includes (SSI)

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

Server side includes are what their name sounds like.  A way to include the contents of another file into your current web page BEFORE the web page gets sent off to the surfer.  Not only does this include contents of a static file but you can also include the results of a CGI program and on some web servers, you can even have it display the current date and time.

Now, many web hosts do not normally have server side includes turned on. You will have to ask your host if they have SSI turned on and if they do, what is the file name extension for SSI.  By default, SSI files have an .shtml extension.

Sometimes, you can turn SSI on yourself.  If you host doesn’t have SSI turned on for you already, you can try adding the following two lines to your .htaccess file.  Then create a file with the .shtml extension, include a SSI command and see if it works.

AddType text/html .shtml
AddHandler server-parsed .shtml

When you use SSI commands, you place them exactly in the location within your web page where you want the output of the SSI command to appear when you finally browse the page.  If you have SSI, then you can use the following command to include a file.  When you include a file, you can either give it a path name to the file or you can give a URL to the file. I’ll list both here.

<!–#include file=”/some/path/above/my/web/to/my/header.html” –>

This is an example of how to include a file based on its path name.  Now,
here’s the same file put included with its URL.

<!–#include virtual=”/to/my/header.html” –>

And this is an example of how to use a URL.  With a URL however, it cannot be a complete URL such as http://www.somesite.com/somefile.html.  It has to be within your current website.  You can also use the URL method to run a CGI script!  Here’s an example of that:

<!–#include virtual=”/cgi-bin/somescript.cgi?myfirstarg=1amp;mysecondarg=2″
–>

As you can see, we can even pass arguments to the CGI script just as if you typed it into your browser!  There is also another way of running a CGI script but this is not as widely used any more and you should use the #include virtual method instead.  Here is the same example so that you will know what it means when you see it.

<!-exec cgi=”/cgi-bin/somescript.cgi?myfirstarg=1amp;mysecondarg=2″ –>

As I mentioned earlier, you can use SSI to display the current time and date. Here’s how:

<!-echo “$DATE_LOCAL” –>

This will display the current date and time. SSI is usually used when you  want to have a standard header or footer on each page.  It’s also used for displaying rotating banners or page counters. As you see above, you can also  use it to display the current date and time or the date when the page was  last modified.

SSI has also been used for cloaking and some tracking  software uses SSI to track each incoming hit to the web page.  If you would  like more information about SSI, go to
http://www.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_include.html.  This is the definitive guide on SSI on the Apache web server.

Most other web servers that use SSI also follow these conventions.

Article written by Lee

Building A Surfer Trap – Stage 7

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Traffic | Response: 0

Here we go with Stage 7 in this Surfer Trap tutorial.

We should by now have a rather complex looking surfer trap, pop up consoles and blur consoles on all of the pages within it, all of these same pages interlinking each other indefinitely.

So, we are starting to get some traffic to this beauty from our existing sites and the counters we implemented but, how can we get some more traffic for FREE?

What I suggest we do next to this little baby is to add a banner exchange code to EACH of the FPA’s we have and also, onto the larger table console we created.

You should sign up for one banner exchange code for this trap, you might like to search around for a banner exchange that lets you have a decent ratio of impressions.

Once you have signed up for your banner exchange code, you now need to copy this coding into the BOTTOM of all of your FPA HTML pages including the Multi-Site FPA.

Now you have the banner exchange code on your site you are earning credits. Your account may not be activated for a day or so but, what this means is you are earning credits the entire time you are showing banners on your Surfer Trap.

Now we have the banner exchange code on our sites we only have one further step to take in order for this project to be completed.

Making sure it works how it is supposed too along with fine tuning this little beast.

If you have any further questions or comments please post on the forums here and one of us will be able to help you.

Article written by Lee.

Marketing Campaigns – Testing Your Variables

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

Irrespective of the medium, an online advertising campaign needs to be tested and optimized constantly in order to provide you with the optimum results. This is where advertising testing can play an important role in your marketing strategy. Despite the advantages to testing your online marketing campaigns, relatively few companies actually go out of their way to see what what works, what doesn’t and, more importantly, why.

Steps To Testing Your Ad Campaign.

1) Set expectations as to how you envisage your campaign to perform. This in itself will guide you’re optimization methods. An example of this is, if you expect your ad medium to get a 15% click thru rate or a, 10% conversion rate, you have justification in making adjustments to your campaign if the creative you are using does not perform to your level of expectation.

2) Don’t get tied into a campaign, If you are going to be purchasing an advertising campaign on a resource site, ensure you have an ‘out clause’. This out clause will enable you to terminate the campaign as long as it has run for a set amount of time, usually, many resources will be happy to give you an out clause especially, if after testing your marketing materials, the results you were hoping for have still not shown themselves.

3) Consider the variables in your ad campaign, usually, webmasters only think of the one variable in their advertising campaign – Price. However, there are many more variables to be looked at for example, if you are doing a mail drop, the subject line of the email, format and, copy text of the email body itself, all of these things can have a drastic effect on any given advertising campaign, at any given time and often, these can, and most probably will, fluctuate from site to site where you are purchasing ad space.

4) Stats tracking, tracking your campaign makes it easier to test and review how your advertising medium is working for you, many sites offer live stats for your ad campaigns however, some still do not, where this isn’t a problem in itself as, most companies you choose to advertise with will be more than happy to provide you with statistics as and when you need them after all, you are paying for their services and support.

5) Pull the plug on campaigns that are not performing, however, ensure you have changed your creative several times before doing so, often, you will find a simple change such as a new creative can drastically increase your marketing efforts. Also, do not just pull advertising as you feel like it, if your campaign has only been active for a week, don’t expect hundred / thousands of hits instantly, often it takes webmasters a while to realize there are new ad mediums running on the sites they visit so often.

Online Advertising – Review.

By constantly assessing and testing your advertising campaigns you can pull some interesting figures which can help you long term however, don’t rush into pulling campaigns that you have only just started. Give it a few days, change your copy text and creatives and, if that doesn’t work talk to the company, they will be able to offer you advice and help on improving your sales from your advertising medium after all, they want to keep your business.

Article written by Lee

SMS Marketing To MMS Marketing – WAP Billing Solutions

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Billing Solutions | Response: 0

MMS Billing (Multimedia Message Billing) is going to be one of the next huge leaps forward for the online industry’s, with more and more surfers firing up their cell phones to visit our sites and properties we need to start looking at the ways in which we can ultimately bill these types of customer and this is where MMS Billing comes into play.

MMS Billing – What Is It?

MMS Billing is a method of charging surfers using cell phones for access to your sites and services. Much like how the SMS Billing model works however, rather than solely billing for text or images, you can utilize MMS Billing on a wide range of rich media applications including movies, sound and, flash applications.

MMS Billing – What Are The Costs?

The costs for MMS Billing can vary greatly depending on your MMS Billing provider however, as a rough guideline, you can expect to pay anywhere between $0.10 and $0.50 per purchase through the MMS Billing method.

MMS Billing – An Overview.

MMS Billing is still in its infancy across the internet however, with more and more sites becoming WAP enabled and, more and more surfers turning their cell phones on to browse our websites this billing model will soon grow to what the current SMS Billing model is today.

Article written by Lee

The Death Of The AVS – The Birth Of The AEN (Adult Entertainment Network)

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: General, Promotion, Sponsors, WebDesign | Response: 0

Well after a long and tedious few months of speculation, rumors and facts being presented to those of us in the adult industry working on AEN sites (Formerly known as AVS sites) it seems that Visa has put a strain on AEN companies to start re-working and, renaming their sites to fall under the ‘Adult Entertainment Network’ name. What does this mean to us as webmasters and, more importantly to the industry as a whole? This is what we shall address in this article.

A Little Visa History Lesson.

This whole mess started in October of 2002 when, jointly, CCBill, Epoch and, iBill issued a new set of operating guidelines that had been passed onto them by Visa. In effect, this meant that 3rd party credit card processors had to be re-classified as an ‘IPSP’ or ‘Internet Payment Service Provider’ this also in turn meant that webmasters needed to start paying ‘fees’ to Visa (via their IPSP) in order to continue charging their surfers for access to products and services by using Visa issued credit and / or debit cards.

In addition to the initial $750 however, there is also a need to pay an ongoing fee of $375, two thirds of this fee goes directly to Visa and, the remaining balance goes to issuing banks and IPSP’s for administrative charges.

Shortly after this announcement was made the industry then got dealt another blow by the processing companies, this time, in the form of Paypal announcing they would no longer accept any adult orientated payment through their system. This went into effect on May 12th 2003 and, after initial speculations as to what could and could not be charged to Paypal accounts, it seemed to be the final nail in the coffin for some of the smaller webmasters.

However, the adult industry is strong and rallied together getting as much information as possible about alternates to both of the above situations and companies such as Stormpay and off-shore IPSP’s started to see an increase in revenues from adult payments.

As The Waves Settled – The Next Blow.

Given all of the financial troubles of the previous 10 months in respect of online adult payments the industry as a whole started to settle itself again, of course there was the usual posting on forums, conversion ratio and shaving discussions happening on the main forums as there always was but, in addition to these conversations more rumors started, this time, regarding the AVS business model.

Almost as quickly as these rumors started however, they seemed to have fizzled out into nothing but a distant memory but, two months later after the first round of initial conversations on the adult industry message forums, the same AVS business model was dealt another devastating blow.

It seems Visa has its sights set on AVS (Age Verification Service / Systems) with a press release being issued first by Sex Key, then by Free Age Card, which was followed by similar announcements from Global Male Pass and Gay Passport informing adult webmasters that they had 2 days to make their current AVS sites conform to the new requirements set down by Visa.

These requirements were that.

1) Adult webmasters can no longer use the term ‘AVS’ on their sites.
2) Adult webmasters can no longer use the term ‘Adult Verification Service’ or ‘Age Verification Service’ on their sites.
3) Adult webmasters can no longer state that surfers joining up to their AVS will have ‘Access to thousands of other AVS protected sites’.

As usual Adult Webmasters started to question the reasons behind this sudden and apparent change of AVS rules on almost every forum and, whilst most questions went unanswered the one thing that was answered (honestly) was that these new rules had been set down by current AVS IPSP’s who, had had these rules issued tot hem by Visa.

So, webmasters started to change out their tour page text to conform to these new rules and, for the most part, it seemed like that was all that was needed to be ‘safe’ working the AVS business model. Little did they know…

One Last Blow To The AVS Webmasters.

Several days after the initial press releases from some of the top AEN (Formerly AVS) companies was made it seems that in between all of the posting ont he boards yet another issues comes to light – That Visa is aiming to have AVS webmasters now pay a $750 fee for the benefit of being able to keep using this business model as stated by Craig Tant (Sex Key) ‘we believe is that every site will have to be registered and pay the $750.’

This beleif, although somewhat vague tends to draw conclusions that, through no fault of their own, the AVS / AEN business model in the adult industry as we currently know it is changing and, changing for the worse. If webmasters are forced to pay Visa a $750 registeration fee per AEN system or per AEN site then a lot of todays industry leaders are going to come unstuck, especially those that focus solely on the AVS / AEN model for the primary source of income.

Adult Entertainment Networks – What’s Next?

This is the question that is currently being asked by many webmasters and, the truth of the matter is simply that nobody knows – Except for Visa, the next few days, weeks and months are going to be telling on the industry as a whole from what happens to current sites inside the AVS / AEN companies websites to what happens when surfers start to propagate back onto the adult internet looking for their fix of high quality porn, two things however are definitive throughout all of this, Visa is homing in on the adult industry and, every webmaster needs to be concerned about what will happen next.

Article written by Lee

What’s In A Niche?

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: General | Response: 0

Many webmasters realize what the different ‘fetishes’ the surfers have are but, how many of us realize these are actually niches and, how many of realize that these niches can be broken down into smaller sub niches of the particular fetish the surfer is looking for?

Lets take an example of say, the ‘lesbian’ niche.

Of course we all know what the lesbian niche entails, two women getting naked with each other right? Wrong.

There is much more to it than that, for example, obviously lesbian sites appeal to, well, they appeal to guys who want to fantasize about getting it on with two women but, what about the female surfers? Sure, some women probably join lesbian paysites too.

That’s one ‘sub-niche’ of lesbian right there, this can be broken down even further though for examples, Ebony Lesbians, Teenage Lesbians, Mature Lesbians, the list goes on and on and on.

So how do we choose a niche to market in adult?

The first and foremost thing you should try when choosing ‘your’ niche is to try something that either excites you or, appeals to you in a non sexual manner, if you are into Lesbian Midgets getting it on, then start off with that for your niche.

Likewise, if guys getting down and dirty is the thing that floats your boat, choose that as your niche, you should already know enough about the niche you choose primarily to be able to sell something to the surfer. If it excites you, it will more than likely excite a surfer and result in a sale.

Of course, the above statement isn’t always true, I know plenty of straight webmasters who market the gay niche VERY successfully, they have found a method that works for them and developed their business from there it probably wasn’t easy at the start but, nothing easy will make you the ‘real’ money that there is in adult.

You need to experiment, constantly adapt and change the way you do business, if you try something and it doesn’t work, ask yourself why, what could you have changed that might have made a difference and, instead of changing it on the first site you built, change it on your next one, that way, even though it may not work at this moment in time, you will no doubt find it will work at a later date just as you will find that something that works well for you now may not work at all later on in your business career.

Once you have mastered a general niche you should then think about trying some of the sub niches that are available to you, there is more to teen than than just cute teenage girls lying naked on a bed and getting screwed rotten by some guy. just as you saw there was more to the lesbian niche above.

Take your sponsors tour for ideas, often you will notice things that spark some though and, once you have that spark, you should ensure it develops into a flame.

Even something as simple as a tattoo on a model or a piercing can be the tart of a whole new niche, look at the things that other webmasters may not be, just because there isn’t a proliferation of teenage pierced lesbian sites, doesn’t mean that someone doesn’t want to join one and, who knows, that weird sexual fetish you build a site for now may become popular in 6 months time.

Basically, what I am trying to say is that as adult webmasters we need to investigate all aspects of the niche we want to or, currently do market, just because a surfer comes to the front page of a lesbian site, doesn’t mean that they wont also be interested in an ebony site, its all down to how we market our sponsors paysites as webmasters.

Article written by Lee

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

Adult Webmaster Conventions – Remember When?

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: General | Response: 0

Most webmasters who have been working in the adult industry for a year or two have attended an adult webmaster convention of some sort and, those of us who had the privilege of attending our first webmaster show three to four years ago will know one thing that many others don’t, there used to be a time when you could attend a webmaster show for example, the one held at Disney World (how many of you remember that?) when apart from being relaxing, you would also get a lot of business done alas, times have changed.

Fighting, Drug Taking, Getting Drunk, Rape Accusations, Theft and Criminal damage would be the headline in the national press should one of these reporters attend today’s webmaster convention, instead of a relaxing atmosphere in which you can get business done you find a slew of webmasters who, well, lets be honest here, are only attending these shows for one reason, to get drunk (for free) and to have a laugh.

Of late there seems to have been an influx of people (notice I used the word people and not ‘adult webmasters’) joining the adult industry who would appear to think that our business model is one of all night partying, sordid sex sessions and drug taking, whilst, I will be the first to admit this has gone on in the past it would certainly seem that the last 2-3 years has seen more than its fair share of the negative events happening at these conventions.

Take for example the recent Hollywood Internext Expo show, one incident that comes to mind was the fool who decided it would be a good idea to smash the mezzanine canopy above the hotel lobby, to my knowledge the culprit was never found however, I am sure there are those out there who knows who it was and well, lets be honest, they quite possibly you could be reading this article.

So what happened? How did these shows change so drastically? Quite simply I think it was the sudden onslaught of press coverage about how the adult industry makes so much money for everyone and, whilst there is a lot of money to be made in the industry, it takes a lot of work to achieve making the reported figures by the press.

To many people are entering the adult industry thinking that the ‘norm’ is that of what you can find on your average day of visiting GFY and whist, this is perhaps true for the circle of webmasters who do frequent boards such as GFY for the vast majority of hard working webmasters in the industry, the behavior of those webmasters couldn’t be further from the truth.

So where is all the business being done at the shows? It would appear that event after event the open invite list of parties are being cut down to be taken over by more intimate and sociable private parties in fact, as a company we our ourselves holding several smaller invite only parties for those people that we actually want to do business with on both a personal and a professional level.

So what does the future have in hold for the adult industry events, in all honesty I do not know however, one thing is for certain, if things continue on their current route, things are going to become a whole lot worse before they get any better.

Article written by Lee.

Seasons Greetings For The Adult Surfer

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: General, Promotion, WebDesign | Response: 0

How do the national and, international holidays affect our sponsors sales? More than you would think especially if you can offer your surfers something ‘seasonal’ when they hit your site. However, that said, when should you start planning for these holidays and, more importantly, how can you ensure that once you have implemented your seasonal marketing campaigns that they actually work?

Seasonal Marketing – The Basics.

Seasonal marketing is, in effect a method of changing your marketing approach around different times of the year to affect both the volume of sales you make and, more importantly, the uniqueness of the product you are offering your surfers. A good example of this is at Christmas time, many of the sponsors will provide their webmasters with banner with a holiday feel to them, perhaps using scantily clad men in Santa outfits or half naked women in elves costumes. By offering a seasonal marketing approach to your site surfers you actually increase the chances of making a sale.

Holiday Porn.

One of the best ways to offer your surfers a fresh marketing angle is to ensure that you plan for all of the major holidays throughout the year in advance so for example, as mentioned above, Christmas is a big holiday as are, New Years, Easter, Thanksgiving (US), Independence Day (US) and, Halloween. By building sites specifically for these holidays you are increasing the chances not only of building your sales but, of gaining additional traffic that you might otherwise lose out on. It has been said certainly over the last four years i have worked in the adult industry that many webmasters experience an increase in search engine traffic searching on keywords such as ‘Christmas Porn’ and, ‘Ghost Porn’ around the various holidays, build now for next year and, when the holiday season arrives, you will be one step ahead of your competition.

Seasonal Marketing Overview.

As already mentioned the holiday season especially Christmas time, can be a great way to gain additional traffic, not only from those surfers specifically looking for Christmas Porn but, also the newbie adult surfers who have perhaps only just got their first computer on Christmas day, by adding to your collection of seasonal porn sites year after year you will not only learn a lot about the way the various holidays and seasons affect your sales but, you will also be able to profit from your surfers in a way that not many other webmasters do.

Article written by Lee

Protecting Your HTML Code With JavaScript

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Scripts, WebDesign | Response: 0

We all know that source code theft is wrong and covered by copyright never the less some webmasters will inevitably try to steal the work that the honest ones amongst us create.

Unfortunately, there is no sure fire way to stop people from stealing our HTML code but, we can make it hard for them.

The following JavaScript coding, when placed in your <body> tag can make it harder for the opportunistic webmaster to steal your coding.

Simply copy and paste everything below into your body tag and change the text in the var message=”” field.

<!–Start Copy–>
<SCRIPT language=”JavaScript”>
<!–
var message=”Copyright 2000 by Your Site. WARNING ! All content contained within this site is protected by copyright laws. Unauthorized use of our material is strictly prohibited.”;
function click(e) {
if (document.all) {
if (event.button==2||event.button==3) {
alert(message);
return false;
}
}
if (document.layers) {
if (e.which == 3) {
alert(message);
return false;
}
}
}
if (document.layers) {
document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEDOWN);
}
document.onmousedown=click;
// –>
</SCRIPT>
<!–End Copy–>

Whilst this is not a sure fire way to stop the occurrence of HTML theft as mentioned already it will deter those webmasters who perhaps were there for the simplistic reason of viewing your source code.

Article written by Lee