Thinking Of Starting An Adult Website In The UK?

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: General | Response: 0

We all know that there are many foreign / international adult webmasters and there are some very well known ones based in England however, before you start building your online empire what are the legalities regarding the type of content you can and cant use on your adult pornographic sites?

To be honest with you, there are no ‘defined’ laws in England (At the time of writing this article) regarding the use of online media to promote adult activities however, it is a commonly held belief that as long as you stay to the same standard as what most ‘top shelf magazines’ or ‘R18 Videos’ have in them you shouldn’t go far wrong.

So what are these standards? That’s the information that I am about to give you.

Content that IS NOT acceptable.

1) Any material which is in breach of the criminal law.

2) Material (including dialogue) likely to encourage an interest in abusive sexual activity (e.g., pedophilia, incest) which may include depictions involving adults role-playing as non-adults.

3) The portrayal of any sexual activity, whether real or simulated, which involves lack of consent.

4) The infliction of pain or physical harm, real or (in a sexual context) simulated. Some allowance may be made for mild consensual activity.

5) Any sexual threats or humiliation which do not form part of a clearly consenting role-playing game.

6) The use of any form of physical restraint which prevents participants from withdrawing consent, for example, ball gags.

7) Penetration by any object likely to cause actual harm or associated with violence.

8) Activity which is degrading or dehumanizing (examples include the portrayal of bestiality, necrophilia, defecation, urolagnia).

As you can see from the above, there ARE very specific guidelines regarding water sports, animality and, some of the more ‘out there’ fetishes.

Now you know what you cant use on your adult sites, lets take a look at the list of sexual activities that you can use. Its no surprise that the list of what you can use is considerably shorter.

Content that MAY BE acceptable.

1) Aroused genitalia.

2) Masturbation.

3) Oral-genital contact including kissing, licking and sucking.

4) Penetration by finger, penis, tongue, vibrator or dildo.

5) Non-harmful fetish material.

6) Group sexual activity.

7) Ejaculation and semen.

It also worth noting that the above guidelines are not distinguished between heterosexual or homosexual activities.

So, that’s the low down on what the current status of affairs are with regards to the use of adult content on websites in England and Wales. Actually, that’s not to bad just ensure that you stay within these guidelines and, more importantly, that you do consult a solicitor before commencing any form of adult business after all, that’s what they are there for, to give you SOUND legal advice instead of basic ‘guidelines’.

Article written by Lee

Newbie Webmasters – What Is A Newbie?

Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: General | Response: 0

Newbie Adult Webmasters are something that is good for the adult industry as a whole. As more Newbie Webmasters join the adult industry the way in which things are done change and, more importantly, the way in which the newbies themselves get taught changes however, just what is a ‘Newbie’ when it comes to the adult industry? This is what we will take a look at in this brief article.

Adult Webmaster Newbie – The Differences.

Irrespective of what anyone tells you, everyone in the adult industry is a newbie its just a matter of figuring out what they are a newbie at. For example, personally i have just taken to learning PHP as a programming tool, i have never coded anything before so, i am officially a php newbie. Likewise there are webmasters who have never built a TGP gallery, they are TGP newbies, in fact, every facet of the adult industry has its own newbies some of them have been around for days whilst others have been around for many years. Going by the ‘true’ meaning of the word however, a newbie is someone who knows very little about very little.

Message Board Newbies.

At some point or other every webmaster will want to start posting on some of the industry’s message forums, whether this is to make friends or ask advice you will instantly be branded a newbie from your first post, if this isn’t the case, make sure that you give a brief history about what you do in the adult industry and, more importantly, how long you have been doing it, don’t go overboard however, just give enough information to let others know what it is you are doing on the message forum.

Newbie Adult Webmasters – Overview.

The perception of newbie webmasters is that many of them do not know what they are doing however, just because someone hasn’t heard the name before on a specific message forum this doesn’t mean the webmaster is in fact a true ‘newbie’ we all need to ensure that when using the term newbie we don’t make ourselves look like newbies in the process.

Article written by Lee

Converting Chinese Adult Traffic – The Niche Paysites That Work

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Traffic | Response: 0

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

Niche Marketing – What Is A Niche?

Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Article written by Le

How To Become A Gay Porn Star

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Employment, General | Response: 0

A quick look across the gay side of the adult industry will show it is lacking in one thing that its straight counterpart has in an abundance, amateur male models with their own adult porn sites. With that said, if you wanted to tap into this market how could you go about doing so and, more importantly, could you make money from working on the other side of the camera for a change? This is what we will look at in this article.

Becoming A Porn Star – The Basics.

Any web cam model will tell you, to have your own porn site will take a lot of persistence, time and, more importantly, personality, not least from the webmaster side of the industry however, in my opinion I think the pressure that a webmaster may face breaking into the gay male porn side of the adult industry might just be a bit harsher than what the bubbly web cam girls have to contend with, not only because as a male you will be appearing in content but, because your primary traffic base, whether you like it or not, will be a mixture of women and gay males.

Male Amateur Sites – Getting Ready.

Before you start to even put your first ideas down on paper you need to do one thing, spend some time to research what is needed in order to start your own amateur porn site. In doing so, you will see that not only is everything in the two paragraphs above true but, you will also learn a little about yourself and, more importantly, about other webmasters and your surfers. Now you have the fundamental questions you need to ask yourself these are, What equipment do you need to run a male amateur site? What amount of investment in both time and money do you need to put into building your site? How much will you charge your surfers for access to your site? and, Is this going to be a long term commitment from yourself that could be possibly better spent elsewhere? Answer those questions as honestly as you can before proceeding and furthermore, think long and hard about the answers.

Gay Amateur Web Sites – The Alternatives.

So lets stop for a moment and consider that you have realized you do not want to build and maintain your own male amateur site but, you would still like to be male porn material, where do you go from here? Well there are companies who can put you on their books and give you work from time to time such as http://www.redbagproductions.com a male modeling agency for the adult industry, this will in all likelihood be the place for you to start your search, find out how many places there are that can get you talent work and, what type of modeling work you will be required to do.

Becoming A Gay Porn Star – An Overview.

With sites online such as Every Stag and the slew of other male modeling agencies finding a medium to start your modeling career wont be hard but, with this career comes uncertain hours, hard work (in more ways than one) and, to some extent, fame amongst the gay adult porn surfer. If this is something that you feel you can devote the time and energy towards and, are able to cope with the voyeuristic side of your personality then go for it, if however, you are still unsure after reading this brief article, perhaps becoming a gay pornstar isn’t for you?

Article written by Lee

Gay Industry Networking – The Gay Boards

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

Gay Industry Networking – The Gay Boards.

With so many ways for webmasters marketing straight sites in the adult industry to network I started to look at the various alternatives available to those webmasters who market gay sites to network and, although there are a few different ones about, they still seem to be few and far between.

So What Boards Are There For Gay Webmasters?

Presently, to my knowledge there are four dedicated gay boards that webmasters can utilize for networking purposes in the adult industry with several straight orientated resource sites having a gay board also these are as follows:

The Gay Boards:

Rock Me Hard
Triple X Gay
Gay Webmaster Chat
Gay Wide Webmasters

The Straight Sites With Gay Boards:

Ynot Gay Board
Xbiz Gay Board

Obviously my favorite is The Gay Board at Gay Wide Webmasters but i am slightly biased towards that seeing as its one that we own privately however, the other boards are almost certainly worth a visit in addition to the GWW community forums.

So what do these gay boards offer those marketing to the gay surfer that the straight boards cant? Simply put, it can offer you a place to network without fear of ridicule from your colleagues and peers in addition you will find that a lot of these gay boards have a wealth of information about the gay market being posted on them on an almost daily basis.

It is also worth mentioning however that just with the numerous straight orientated message boards, the gay boards do have their own individual feel to them, for example, Rock Me Hard is what I would personally classify as a ‘fun’ board and Shelmal does a great job keeping the spirit of the board going likewise, Gay Webmaster Chat is more a board geared towards webmasters who operate traffic sites such as TGP’s and Link Lists which becomes apparent after reading a few threads. Gay Wide Webmasters is more a board with a wide reach but, primarily, it is a business orientated gay webmaster community and Triple X Gay, because it is fairly new is still, imho, trying to identify the direction it wants to take but non the less, a lot of the forum members posting there also post on GWW.

The Gay Board – An Overview.

When all is said and done, no matter whether you are gay, straight, black, white or any other demographic, focusing your attention to one type of board can become counter productive after a while, I mean how often can you hear from the same people over and over again before being given the same information again and again? Diversify your posting activities to include some of the gay market community forums and at the same time, you will also diversify your business knowledge which, im sure you will agree, is good for everyone, especially you and your bank account.

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.

Building Your Brand – Business Basics

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Branding | Response: 0

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

Branding Basics.

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

Starting The Branding Process.

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

Building Your Brand Name.

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

Domain Name Registration.

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

Getting The Word Out.

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

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

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

Join the BRANDNAME Newsletter.

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

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

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

Branding Overview.

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

Article written by Lee.

Using TITLE Tags effectively

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

Microsoft Internet Explorer has supported the TITLE attribute for links since version 4.0. Netscape began supporting it in version 6.0

The TITLE attribute allows you to enter descriptive text about a link that’s displayed when the mouse moves over the link. For an example, move your mouse over the link below:

The HTML source code for this link is shown below:

<a href="http://www.europeanwebmasters.com"
  title="Click Here To Learn Foreign Adult Marketing">European Webmasters</a>

If your browser supports the TITLE attribute you should see a small popup box appear, similar to the way alternate text for images is displayed when you move your mouse over the image.

This attribute is similar to the ALT attribute for the IMG tag, both in its appearance and its limitations. The value of the attribute must be inside quotation marks, and it can only contain plain text (no HTML tags). You can include carriage returns in the title, and these will be displayed in the text. The maximum length of the TITLE text for Internet Explorer is very large; we’ve tested it with over 500 characters. Try to keep your descriptions below 25 words, though; any more than this can be hard to read and, because the search engine spiders can read this text you may be considered as spamming the engines.

The TITLE attribute is useful in places where your HTML design limits the length of your link text. That’s often the case for links in a navigation bar, especially if your page has a multi-column layout. Try using the TITLE attribute to give your visitors extra navigation information.

In addition you can also use the TITLE tag on standard text for extra information where you just don’t have the space to be as affluent as you would like. An example of this is shown below:

Use of the TITLE tag on plain text

The HTML code for this is also shown below:

This attribute is part of the HTML 4.0 standard. Internet Explorer, Netscape 6.x and Opera (Version 3.0 or higher) support it. However, the attribute degrades gracefully, visitors with non-supporting browsers (like Netscape 4.x) would see the link as if you hadn’t used the attribute.

As you can see from the above examples by using the TITLE tags effectively you can double, if not treble your use of keywords however, caution should be paid when using these features of the tag so that you don’t inadvertently spam the search engines.

Article Written By Lee