Over The Rainbow

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: General | Response: 0

So why is the gay community over the rainbow? As promised today I’ll finish up on the symbols that are prevalent in the gay community. Last week I mention the Pink Triangle and it’s political emergence. And technically, the rainbow flag has a similar political beginning.

I always love answering a question with another question (it is one of those annoying habits I have). So, when I am asked the “what does the rainbow flag stand for?” I look forward to the response when I ask, in turn, “what do YOU think it means?” Here are my top three favorite answers:

1 – “It’s colorful and gay people like colors.”

2 – “It’s a dance party thing”

3 – “Judy Garland sang Over the Rainbow you guys loved her a lot.” (This has to be my all time favorite.)

Well like any political symbol, it is a way to distinguish ourselves. But this time we look not to a place in history but we look at the world in general. No matter where you are, whether it is on 8^th street in NYC or Rue du Champe in Paris, there will be a gay person somewhere. Now, some may argue that not all cultures and societies will have homosexual present. And I say, “BULL”. They are just in the closet somewhere.

So in essence, gay men and women cross every racial and religious culture around the world. We come in all shapes, sizes and colors. So what better symbol to show that with than a rainbow, all colors coming together as one – as one community. No matter how culturally diverse our world is, the gay community is made up from a piece of each.

The rainbow flag and the uses of the rainbow, in the gay community, are diverse. If you see it flying outside on a restaurant wall, and it means it is a gay or gay friendly establishment. See a set of rainbow rings around a friend’s neck, it’s gay fashion accessories. And see a political march with rainbows on posters and flags, it’s a gay assembly.

Last week I insinuated that the pink triangle was not a symbol to over use in design. Well, in my opinion, the opposite is true with the rainbow and the rainbow flag. I am NOT saying run out and re do all your sites with rainbow backgrounds. No! But, I am saying that the nature of this political symbol is somewhat more flexible. We ourselves took the rainbow and made jewelry, publications, tee shirts and such. And just as the pink triangle, the rainbow will say that it’s ok to be here, you have friends inside or you have nothing to worry about here – be yourself, this place is for you.

So what have we learned? What some people think as silly symbols that gay people use, actually have an origin – and, a potent origin at that. I still ask, for your own good, that you use them wisely and not over do it. The more you throw symbols around willy-nilly, the more people will think you do not know what you are doing. And the more that the surfers thinks that, the less likely you are to make the sale and get your business to grow.

Article written by Gary-Alan

Using .htaccess Effectively

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

The .htaccess file is an ASCII text document that can be placed in any directory on your site. It can be used to control access to files and directories, and customize some server operation in your site. A .htaccess file can be created in any word processor but must be saved as text only. You must use FTP software in ASCII mode to upload or edit your .htaccess file. For the examples provided here, place the .htaccess file in your root directory.

There are a variety of functions that you can control using .htaccess some of the more useful of these are explained below:

Custom Error Messages.

Add the following to the .htaccess file::

ErrorDocument 404 /notfound.html

After “ErrorDocument” specify the error code, followed by a space, and then the path and filename of the .html file you would like to be displayed when the specified error is generated, each specific error code is detailed below with the recommended codes to be used in the .htaccess file in bold :

200 OK
206 Partial content
301 Document moved permanently
302 Document found elsewhere
304 Not modified since last retrieval
400 Bad request
403 Access forbidden
404 Document not found
408 Request timeout
500 Internal server error
501 Request type not supported

Using the codes above your error section of the .htaccess file should look like this:

ErrorDocument 301 /notfound.html
ErrorDocument 400 /notfound.html
ErrorDocument 403 /notfound.html
ErrorDocument 404 /notfound.html
ErrorDocument 500 /notfound.html
ErrorDocument 501 /notfound.html

Redirect to a Different Folder.

Add the following to the .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/oldfolder(.*)$ /newfolder/$1 [R]

This redirects the user from /oldfolder/anyfile.html to /newfolder/anyfile.html, when the .htaccess file is uploaded to the otherwise empty “/oldfolder” directory.

Denying User Access.

Add the following to the .htaccess file:

<Limit GET>
order allow,deny
deny from 000.00.00.
deny from 000.000.000.000
allow from all
</Limit>

This is an example of a .htaccess file that will block access to your site to anyone who is coming from any IP address beginning with 000.00.00 and from the specific IP address 000.000.000.000 . By specifying only part of an IP address, and ending the partial IP address with a period, all sub-addresses coming from the specified IP address block will be blocked. You must use the IP addresses to block access, use of domain names is not supported

Redirect a Machine Name.

Add the following to the .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteBase /
# Rewrite Rule for machine.domain-name.net
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} machine.domain-name.net $
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !machine/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ machine/$1

This will redirect requests for the machine name machine.domain-name.net to the directory machine on the site domain-name.net.

Different Default Home Page.

Add the following to the .htaccess file:

DirectoryIndex filename.html

Then a request for http://domain-name.net/ would return http://domain-name.net/filename.html if it exists, or would list the directory if it did not exist.

To automatically run a cgi script, add the following to the .htaccess file:

DirectoryIndex /cgi-local/index.pl

This would cause the CGI script /cgi-bin/index.pl to be executed.

If you place your .htaccess file containing the DirectoryIndex specification in the root directory of your site, it will apply for all sub-directories at your site.

Preventing Hot Linking.

Add the following to the .htaccess file:

# Rewrite Rule for images
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} <URL of page accessing your domain>
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://<same as above URL>

You would replace the <URL of page accessing your domain> above with the domain name and path of the page that is referring to your domain. For example: www.theirdomain.com/users/mypage/

The RewriteCond directive states that if the {HTTP_REFERER} matches the URL that follows, then use the RewriteRule directive. The RewriteRule directive will redirect any reference back to the referring web page.

Using the above you should, safely be able to publish your sites on the internet knowing that you will not be privy to bandwidth thieves via hotlinking and also, that you will not lose any traffic through pages that are ‘not found’.

Article Written By Lee

Marketing Anime Sites

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

Anime and the various styles associated with it, such as Hentai, Manga, Comics and Toons is one of the hottest niches on the net.  It is presently experiencing a huge growth, with many of the larger companies launching sites dedicated to the genre.

When someone unfamiliar with Adult Anime and Hentai hears the word Anime, they tend to think in terms of Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon or Speed Racer (if they are of my generation.) Make no mistake; what we are discussing today is NOT for children.  Adult Anime and Hentai are as different from the example above as Disney Movies are from HomeGrown Video.

Targeting and marketing to the anime surfer is not that much different from any other niche, with a few notable exceptions.  Taking the time to learn a little about the subject matter will make a difference in your profit margin. Even though you are still selling “sex”, or more accurately “hentai” (more on that later), with anime the “sell” is more in the fantasy aspects than reality. Anime characters can perform any way and do anything that the surfer wants, even the impossible. So you must use more creative text links and graphics to create the right feel for the surfer and lure him in, and not treat the art as if it were just mere cartoons.

True anime fans do not consider anime to be cartoons. You will get fans that like it for its sexual aspects and yet others who have a love of the art form itself.  If you make light of the art or fail to create the fantasy for them, you may lose surfers. Anime is truly an art form; each picture is unique in its beauty and in its style.  Each artist will render a vision of his or her own, and the variety is as wide and varied as one’s imagination.  This is the appeal of anime, that and the fact that in Anime a surfer can have a character created to fulfill his fantasy, no matter how outrageous.

Bear in mind while designing, targeting and eventually linking your anime site, that this particular genre covers all age groups and appeals almost equally to woman as to men. It is also a niche that will attract surfers from many countries. It is extremely popular with your North American surfers, but a great deal of the anime surfers come from Australia, Europe and Japan, for some reason these country’s surfers love their anime!  So make sure to expand the scope of the Search Engines you normally submit to, if you are not already submitting to Japanese, Australian, and other foreign SE’s. A great place to find a list of these SE’s is http://www.beaucoup.com/1geoasia.html.  Don’t forget to look at alternative link lists as well, though many of the “big” list have anime and toon sections, you will definitely want to get listed on lists that are targeted to the niche, some examples would be:

http://www.toonplaces.com
http://www.hentaikitty.com
http://www.hentaiseeker.com

To help you understand a bit more about the Anime niche I have listed some descriptions of common anime terms:

Anime: In the US and many other western nations, it is limited to meaning Japanese animation (AKA Japanimation, although a lot of people don’t like that term). Characteristic features would be large eyes, funky hair colors, and often, er, accentuated physiology. In Japan, anime means animation in general, Warner Brothers, Disney as well as Macross and El Hazard.

The modern-day anime style is an adaptation of Disney style (introduced to the Japanese after WWII, by the American occupation), most notably the large eyes. However, unlike animation in America, animation or “anime” in Japan is not just for kids and the subject matter can range from deep, action packed science fiction stories to slapstick humor to even soap-opera-ish romance. In short, the only real difference between anime and other television shows and movies is that they are animated. While it’s true that in recent years there have been several American animated shows that have been aimed at a broader audience than your Saturday morning cartoon crowd, such as Titan AE, and the soon to be released Final Fantasy, the Japanese have actually been doing this for quite some time.

Japanese law formerly banned the depiction of genitals or pubic hair in art; as a result, most of the true Japanese images you’ll see distributed in Hentai Anime circles have either been censored by the Japanese government prior to distribution or auto censored by the artists themselves in compliance with the law. Underground artists have been known to produce full, all out, no holds barred uncensored works and of course not all Hentai Anime comes from Japan. Artists who were not Japanese citizens were not bound by Japanese law so uncensored Hentai Anime usually came from those countries.. The law has since been repealed. (See the book Dreamland Japan by Frederick Schott for more information on this law.)

Although the law has changed, people’s attitudes are slow to change with it and many Japanese artists continue the practice of censoring or avoiding depictions of the genitals or pubic hair. However, now that it has become legal, such depictions are sure to become more common. Sometimes, net artists will take it upon themselves to uncensor mosaic images, however, it isn’t easy to find someone who does this arduous job well, so even these are uncommon.

Hentai: The classical meaning is “metamorphosis, transformation.” It later came to mean “abnormality,” and in modern colloquial Japanese is used almost exclusively to mean “pervert” or “perversion.” When a woman insults a man in anime, she generally uses on of three terms: hentai, sukebe, and ecchi. Sukebe implies “oversexed” rather than “deviant.” Ecchi can be quite mild in some contexts, comparable to “lewd” or “Fresh!” These three terms are often used interchangeably, especially when someone is stringing together insults.  In adult anime, hentai normally would lend itself to what we consider hardcore images, such as the very popular bondage anime images.  In the Adult market Anime has come to signify more softcore images and Hentai hardcore.

Manga:  This is what comics are called in Japan. The artist Hokusai coined the word manga in 1815, usually translated to mean “irresponsible pictures.”  Traditionally drawn in black and white, sometimes with blue inks mixed in, Manga can be action comics, love stories or even hardcore fantasy.

Doujinshi: Amateur/underground Manga that often parody existing Anime or Manga.  Usually done in small print runs and often Hentai in nature. They are frequently “proving grounds” for aspiring “professional” Manga artists.

Yaoi: Male homosexual relationships, or Anime or Manga stories about relationships between “beautiful boys” (bishounen). Comes from “YA-ma-nashi O-chi-nashi I-mi-nashi” (No climax, no punchline, no meaning)

Shoujo: Shoujo anime is anime originally aimed at young girls. “Shoujo” literally means “little girl”. Shoujo anime includes such series as Sailor Moon and Magic Knights       Rayearth.  Also referred to as Bishoujo, “Beautiful Girl”

Shounen: Shounen anime is anime originally aimed at young boys. “Shounen” literally means “Little Boy”. Shounen anime includes such series as Pokemon, Speed Racer and DragonBall Z.  Also referred to as Bishonen, “Beautiful Boy”.

It is important that you educate yourself on the difference in definitions for the various styles of art.  Using the wrong phrases could attract children to your site and responsible use of terms is extremely important.

As with any Website, knowing your subject matter and the surfers that view it is essential.  This niche is growing more popular everyday.  Many sponsors are realizing it’s potential and adding it to their sites as well as building sites specifically for this traffic.  There are TGP’s and link lists dedicated solely to these sites, and legal content is available. The Anime/Cartoon surfer is an extremely loyal breed; once they discover quality sources they keep coming back.  I hope this   sheds some light on this highly unique niche and that the information will help webmasters market their sites to higher profits.

Article written by Bestat

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

Marketing to Foreign Surfers

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

Marketing to Foreign Surfers.

What would you do if I told you that there are 3 million plus new surfers last year that you did not market too? You probably marketed your product or adult site to those that could read English well enough to be searching with English terms. How about the growing numbers of surfers with English as their second language?

According to Nielsen/Net Ratings, from September 2000 to 2001, Italy’s online population grew by 3,540,970 users: about one new user every ten seconds. Italy is just one of the non-English speaking countries that is coming online at lightening fast speed.

Are you relying on these surfers searching for your English keywords? Are you thinking that every language uses the words “porn and hardcore” and what about the finer niches like “bisexual and titties”? The best conversion is with newbie surfers just online for the first time and wanting to see adult sites and products. Those that have been around a while find out about the plethora of free porn. This means that websites do their best marketing with search engine placements of their main sites or feeder sites. If you are on your money, you are trying to work every engine for every related keyword. Now think of the keywords that you could be going for in all the worlds’ languages!

Do a bit of research in some of the common languages. If I was Italian and new to the net, the first place I would be searching is in an Italian search engine. Go to http://arianna.iol.it/ and search using the word porn and you will find 10 listings come up all in Italian. Not one is English. Even http://it.yahoo.com/ Yahoo Italia does NOT serve up your English porn site in its results.

So how do you get a piece of this pizza pie? You need at least a doorway written in Italian. You need to visit a site like http://www.adult-site-translation.com/ and find out how affordable it is for a doorway page that is put together by a foreign translator. Not only is the text for your doorway sites or even complete tours with the proper keywords but the graphics are redone where necessary. You really cannot rely on a text translator. We all have been on a site where it was obvious that the webmasters first language was NOT English and felt bad for their awkward use of words. This is not how to make a sale.

You need to be careful that you choose a professional service for your translating needs. You need to know that the translators are top notch and can not only translate your existing page/site keeping your marketing angles but they can also advise you on such things as proper wording and what a surfer from that culture would find erotic. Languages do not translate word for word. A service like Adult Site Translation has hired translators who also know how to market adult sites. They will tell you the search terms your page should be listed under and can assist you with foreign search engine optimization.

Remember the days where you were the only site in a category or niche? It was like being a pioneer and it was very lucrative. Do you want to be first to market to these growing pockets of millions of new surfers? There are new frontiers out there and finally sites like Adult Site Translation can assist you to conquer them successfully!

Article written by Susanna

Designing Your Site With Link Popularity In Mind

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Traffic, WebDesign | Response: 0

To get good traffic, your website needs to be popular, to be popular, your website needs links, to get links, your website needs to be popular. Annoying isn’t it

Almost everyone agrees that link popularity is critical for your website’s visibility, traffic, and thus successfulness. It is something you need to have. As I pondered the ways of establishing and improving one’s “popularity”, eventually all come back to one central issue, your website must be designed to be popular.

Link popularity is a basically the measure of links pointing to your website and is meant to be a measure of the best websites. Theoretically those websites that have the most links pointing to them must be important and thus worth the visit. Unfortunately, there are a lot of folks out there that have created programs to “boost” your popularity artificially and all they have done is create Spam and muddy the overall picture. The search engines and directories are keeping a close eye on these programs.

Design: When getting a request or thinking about making one for a link exchange with a website, look thoroughly over the website first. The website’s theme or topic and general layout is the first thing to look at. Sites with themes or topics that are related to or compliment yours should be your main link partners. You do this to get targeted traffic.

Just as you evaluated someone’s website, others will be doing the same to yours. Make sure you know what your theme or topic is and that it clearly encompasses the whole website. Stay focused; do not try to cover everything.

Next, check out the links page or resource area. If they do have one, is it easy to find within the site? Does it seem to be part of the site or just a page off to the side? Are their linking rules available, clear, and easy to follow? Do they accept links from any website or are they choosy? Being part of someone’s well constructed links program, no mater what size, can be a very beneficial thing indeed.

Again, the same goes for your website. You want to let other webmasters know that you want to exchange links and which type of website you will accept requests from. Make it easy for others to link with you.

The last set of questions to ask yourself about any website is:

Is it easy to navigate
Does it have too many graphics (slow loading)
Is it pleasant to the eye
Does the information seem to be organized in a logical fashion

What has been covered so far deals with what the visitors see; if visiting the website is a pleasant experience then people will stay and look and possibly come back. The final area to cover is what the search engines see.

The underside (the source code) of the website is just as critical when designing or linking with a website. The search engines are the ones that read this and if it is not done properly then the website can not succeed. Below are a few things you need to consider in your source code and any potential site that has asked to be linked by you.

Does the website contain frames
Does it use the headers, titles, meta-tags, and alt tags properly
Do the keyword location(s) and density seem appropriate and “optimized”

The latter two issues mentioned above are critical, for they are the backbone to traffic production.

Content: The information you have is just as important as how you set it up on your website. The more popular websites or the ones with good link popularity are those that have valuable information or resource(s) for its audience after all, they fill a niche! People will visit, stay, return, and recommend a website if it has the content they want or need.

“Content is king.” A well-designed and organized website might look good but if it does not deliver anything of value, it will not be successful. Whatever subject matter you have on your site, make sure you have something of interest and importance to add to the subject, if you do and you promote it well, you and your site will be successful. In this context, it (content) does not just refer to images, why not add some stories or interesting links to news articles to improve your sites ‘popularity’.

In addition to information, resources like mailing lists, surveys, polls, classified ads, forums, etc. are all things if used appropriately can add value and fresh content to your website which, in turn will assist you in interacting with your sites visitors.

In conclusion: Take the time to design and optimize your website properly for the search engines. Make sure you have something of value or importance to add to whatever area your website is in. Provide resources and other tools, which your visitors could use and will make them come back. Be proactive and interact with your visitors. Websites that are dynamic and active are the best ones. All of this might take a little more time to get your website up and running, but it will be worth it.

For yours or any website to be popular, it needs the links and to get the links, it needs to show the other webmasters that it is worthy of a link. It seems everyone today has a website, but not everyone has put together a website that adds value to the Internet community. Take a critical look at your website and any website you might link to and ask yourself…………….

Would you bookmark it?

Article written by Lee

Quick Loading Pages Plus Saving Bandwidth

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

Have you noticed how many of the sites out there are trying to make themselves look better than they actually are by using heavy graphics and media files? The fact of the matter is this, most surfers who visit your we pages are viewing them on a screen that is between 15 and 19 inches wide, can only see 216 colors and, are on a connection of 33.6 kb per second (If they are lucky).

What Does All This Mean?

What does this mean to you as a webmaster? Simple, try this test.

Connect to the internet on a 33.6 connection, type in your url and, hold your breath. Does the page load before you need to start gasping for air? If so then you are designing your sites correctly, if not, your pages are far to big in file size.

I’m pretty sure that some of you can hold your breath for a long period of time so, here is a basic rule of web design. Your pages should, be no larger in file size than 50k in fact, I would even go so far as to say try getting your pages under 30k in size.

How Can I Get It Under 50K? 30K?

First, all your graphic images should be as small as possible. Try to get them smaller than 4k. Going up to 6k is reasonable. When designing a graphic for the web site keep in mind the number of colors being used.

I know, from designing banners myself, it was hard for me to go from millions of color to only 216. Yes, 216 is the number of colors you have on a web safe color pallet.

Use solid colors when designing your image. PhotoShop has made the gradient such a popular tool. It looks good to fade things in and out. I always see a background border made up of this gradient. I always right click on that image to see the size. The 8k-12k is not worth the space. The problem with the gradient is it uses many colors and dithering. Both take up big time K. The more color you have in an image the bigger it’s going to be.

Use design more, graphics less. For a web page to be successful it needs to download quickly and look good.

Here is the dilemma download quick or look good? Instead of designing graphics and taking pictures and turning them into jpgs to make your web page look good, try using color schemes. Use cell colors to make borders. Use the negative space on your web site. What is not there is just as important as what is there.

Remember sometimes less is more. When in doubt think of a typical visitor coming to your web page. Would that extra graphic sell them or keep them coming back again and again. If the answer is yes, by all means keep it. If the answer is “well maybe” or “it just looks good there”, yank it.

Your surfers will appreciate not waiting more then they have to. The web is here to make our life easier not to sit in front of a screen waiting for heavy web pages to download.

Article written by Lee

Community Forum Scripts

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Scripts | Response: 0

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

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

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

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

VBulletin http://www.vbulletin.com

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

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

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

Ikon Board http://www.ikonboard.com

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

PhpBB http://www.phpbb.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

Article written by Lee.

Why Have More Than One Index Page?

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Search Engine Optimization | Response: 0

The first thing you should do when you start designing a web site is to create an index page. You would think that this is a basic knowledge in web design, but I still encounter web sites that are lacking in this.

If there’s no index page, and if the web host server has not set a directory access limitation, any visitor will see a directory listing of all the images, html pages, CGI-scripts, and other files in the directory. Everything will then be accessible for reading and downloading, and the CGI-scripts will also be executable!

So, for a basic security it is most important to have an index page in all your directories, whether they contain only pictures or garbage. In the directories that are private or containing things other then HTML pages, the index pages need only to print out a text like “access forbidden” or something in that spirit. In the directories containing one or more HTML pages, one of the pages must be named “index.html,” whether it is a page with real content or for security reason.

If you have a directory specifically for CGI-scripts, it will run a higher security risk, because most of the times these directories are called CGI-bin, or a variant of that, and anyone who is after your scripts is undoubtedly familiar with this and can access the directory by typing the directory name in the targeted site’s URL, if it’s not properly protected by an index page. Imagine the horror when someone uses your mailing list program to Spam all your subscribers or decides to sell your email list. It’s quite a big business in selling email lists. A large email list is worth thousands of US dollars nowadays.

I could have done all these things if I had any bad intentions when I accidentally bumped into an unprotected site. Actually, I bumped into two unprotected, huge subscribers lists in the last two months, which prompted me to write this article. But of course, I did the proper thing and emailed the web sites’ webmasters about their oversight. You would think that these professional looking and operating web sites with email lists of respectively 8,000 and 15,000 subscribers would know better.

Even if your site is made by a web design company, make sure all your directories are protected. In fact, one of the two unfortunate web sites I uncovered is a web design company. So, check out your site for this unnecessary security gap, right now.

Article written by Lee

Marketing to European Surfers

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

Marketing to European Surfers.

Today we’ll try to answer couple of questions regarding dialers and how to market them to European traffic.

How to get traffic to your European market targeted site?

Pretty much the same way as for all the other sites, lets German market for example (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) use SE’s, German link-lists, TGPs,… feed site with your own traffic, and don’t forget to use exit-consoles.

Is your site translated into specific language?

Yes, of course you won’t get far using English template on German/Spanish.. sites… You can always contact Adult Site Translation if you need help with translations.

What sponsor should you use?

That is pretty hard to say. Practically since almost every European based sponsor offers dialers so it doesn’t really matter which one you choose. It’s the same with per sign-up sponsors: It depends how good you are in sending traffic to them. And as always try couple of them and see which one works best for you. Most of the sponsors will offer to your surfers to pay by CC, bank account and dialers.

Me personally, I don’t really advertise dialers. I go for sign-ups because most if not all European sponsors are recurring and it brings more money in the long run. But if a surfer wants to pay the (admittedly) high phone bills – that’s fine with me In fact, sometimes I get more money from a 0190-number (dialer number in Germany starts with 0190) than I’d get if the surfer would sign-up with his CC and would cancel his membership after the first payment.

Why are dialers so successful in the German/European market?
Well, I can think of 3 reasons for this:

1.) 0190-numbers are very common in Germany. Many support-hotlines use them, you can download logos for your cell phone via 0190, you can get health-tips via 0190, fax-numbers, etc… Germans see those numbers everywhere and get used to them. Of course they know that they are expensive but I think they tend to forget this because they are so common.

2.) Much of my income from dialers is from Swiss and Austrian people. Especially surfers from Switzerland LOVE dialers (Some of them spend hours/nights with dialers and in the end if i get 50% of that for me is not bad, isn’t it? I think they love dialers because they hesitate to give out the information on their CC (if they have any) and they can’t/don’t like to transfer their money via bank transfers. So dialers are actually their only way to get into the members-area.

3.) Credit cards are not very common in Germany. I would guess only some 30% have one and many who have one don’t believe that CC transactions on the internet are secure. So most of the surfers have only 2 options left: Paying by bank account or using a dialer. The bank account has 2 disadvantages in the eyes of the surfers: 1st “The sponsor knows my name, my account number, where I live and that I’m a greasy little wanker who pays for porn. -Maybe this sponsor is going to tell my neighbors about it-” 2nd “How can I explain this to my wife?” On the other hand the dialer has advantages: 1st It is anonymous. Nobody knows who and where the surfer is. 2nd The dialer is faster than typing all the necessary information needed for a bank transaction. A few seconds for a 35kb download and the surfer is ready to go. 3rd You can always find a reason why there’s this 0190-number on the phone-bill. “Well darling, you know, I had problems with my new graphic card and I had to contact the customer-support. Those damn bastards are on a 0190-number what what can I do?”

Article written by Lee