It’s happened before, and I’m certain it will happen again - one of my sites got hacked. This time it was a Wordpress blog, similar to this. I was wondering why I was getting ads for Viagra showing up and didn’t have anything relevant to that posted. After viewing the page source, tucked away in the footer of my blog were hundreds of links to far eastern websites selling knock-off drugs.
Word to the wise: Keep secure, and keep an eye on your websites.
I was recently approached to do a review of the web hosting related website - www.mybestratedwebhosting.com. At first I thought this was a web hosting website but it is actually a blog that dives into the best of web hosting companies.
I’ve seen plenty of blogs that like to whip together a few posts and call themselves a web hosting blog, this site appears to go a lot further in putting together detailed information about many different web hosting outfits so that the user can determine which hosting firm will best suit their needs. Although not a site I will bookmark, or perhaps even ever visit again, I found it quite informative. I learned that the Best Ecommerce Hosting Company is not what I thought it would be.
I was surprised to see POWWEB listed as #2 in the Top 5 Budget Hosting companies. When I built my first website, I hosted it on POWWEB and thought they sucked. Maybe if you need a dedicated server, or only have one site you’re running.
There were other articles that stood out such as the one that talks about Top Small Business Web Hosting.
As for the layout of the blog, I found it easy to navigate and plenty of archives to read from. For a webmaster who may be in the market for a new web host, mybestratedwebhosting.com is an excellent blog to read through.
I recently learned a valuable lesson regarding VBulletin forum script licensing. A couple of years ago, I started a forum using the VBulletin script. I paid for the license and everything was fine, then recently I decided to cut bait with the forum. I needed some cash so I unloaded it at a near give-away price.
When I sold the site and attempted to transfer the license, I ran into trouble. I learned that even though I bought and paid for a full license, in order to transfer the license I had to be “current”. My active status expired 1 year after purchasing the license. I had to shell out more $$ to get the license active again, so that I could transfer the license.
A valuable lesson indeed, rather a costly one as I more or less gave the site away.
Currently, I employ Maxbounty, Azoogle and CJ as my affiliates but decided that I should try to expand a little bit and see what else is out there. Instead of going by what everyone else says is good, I’ll take a look see for myself.
Last night I applied to Primary Ads, and after I applied I was sent an email from them that I’ll be approved within 24 hours, and that I should try out their sister affiliate, Kolimbo. I did. I applied to Kolimbo, and after I was automatically approved, (felt a little wierd) I started browsing through the merchants.
One of the first things I noticed with Kolimbo, what that every merchant that I browsed had a low payout limit of about $25. Does this mean that I have to generate $25 from that merchant in order to get paid anything? I think it does. Screw that. Oh-by the way - After I came back later I got an email from them, stating:
Welcome to the Kolimbo ‘I Need Help!’ email series. This is a series of 30
short emails which you’ll receive everyday. Each one contains a small
nugget of information to help you succeed in becoming an effective
affiliate and earn revenue from your web properties.
I’m not much for spam either, so I probably won’t mess with this one.
As you may or may not know, I run a blog directory and receive thousands of requests for addition to the directory. I have some rules, and one of them is that it has to be an actual blog.
It amazes me how many people register a quick blogspot url, copy and paste a couple of articles, plaster it with tons of ads and call it a blog.
While dictionary.com describes a weblog as
(wěb’lôg’, -lŏg’) n. A website that displays in chronological order the postings by one or more individuals and usually has links to comments on specific postings.
I think it should be taken a little bit further. Sure sites are technically blogs, but I like Dictionary.com’s other definition better.
Splog:
Definition: a fake web blog containing links to sites affiliated with the blogger, set up to boost the search engine rankings and ad impressions for those sitesExample: The purpose of a splog can be to increase the PageRank.
Definition: a web blog created solely to spread spam; spam links added to the comments section of a blogExample: Report splog to help protect and clean up the blogosphere one splog at a time.