Multiple Amazon Elastic IP’s, Single Instance
Posted in Hosting by DB
I recently blogged about Amazon’s Elastic IP offering and how this would impact Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud. By addressing one of the more pressing issues with EC2, Amazon has shown that it is willing to listen to their users and with the release of the Elastic IP and Availability zone features, Amazon will see a far greater acceptance of their EC2 platform.
That said, I would still like to see one more addition/enhancement to the Elastic IP feature. I believe by doing this Amazon will see a far greater rollout of their computing cloud vision.
Don’t get me wrong, Elastic IP’s are great and much needed. Moreover Amazon gives you by default 5 Elastic IP’s to use per account with the option of increasing it to a 100. The key constraint though is that you can use only one Elastic IP per instance. So if I had to use all my allocated 100 then I would need to have a hundred instances running. At about $75/month for every small instance running 24/7 I would be looking at close to $8000 each month with all associated costs thrown in.
What I would like to see is the ability to associate more than one Elastic IP’s to one single instance. Many of the applications that I deal with or write do not get traffic that would justify a separate instance but it is important for me to run each application on a separate IP address and not use a shared one. I believe there are quite a few developers and hosts out there that simply love the fact that they can use Amazon’s infrastructure for their hosting needs but the same infrastructure quickly becomes expensive when you try to host all your websites and applications especially if each require a separate IP Address.
While they acknowledge that this is how things stand as of today, that statement itself gives me hope that they are indeed working on making this more flexible and open. I cannot wait for this feature to be available as I will for sure start moving more and more websites from my current hosting account onto Amazon EC2 and S3 platform.
Do You Have A Backup Plan For Your Website?
Posted in Hosting, Starting Out by DB
We all know in theory that backing up data is really important but how many of us actually do it? I’m guilty as hell. Even now I have so many important files on my laptop that I have absolutely no backup of and I still continue to procrastinate about it. If we are so lax about our personal systems imagine our attitude towards our hosting server. If your server provider or hosting provider provides you with a backup solution then you are good to go but seriously how many actually do it. Even if they do, how many of us actually sign up for that data backup solution? Oh and having a RAID setup is not good enough.
Folks, understand this, nothing is guaranteed. Mechanical systems fail all the time. The best hosting companies are not immune to failed hard drives. It is absolutely vital for your business to ensure that you are indeed backing up your data. From mission critical data to plain old static website html files, they still drive your business revenue along with your reputation and of course your online success. The loss of data can be disastrous and the loss of reputation and your business might be difficult to recover from.
The best preventive measure would be to invest in a backup solution that is right for your company and your finances. This will not only protect your data, but peace of mind knowing that you have just eliminated a potential business and financial risk. Unfortunately many clients do not bother with a simple plan B, either because they are ignorant or the cost is prohibitive. And God forbid when the day comes when they do indeed need a backup they curse the hosting company for all their issues. All the webmaster forums are littered with posts complaining about hosting and dedicated server providers losing their data
Top 4 common reasons to sign up for a data backup plan
- A failed hard drive.
- You request an OS reload and do not bother backing up your server hard drive.
- You accidentally delete all your data.
- One account of a shared hosting server causes the entire server to crash.
Oh yes, trust me, accidents happen and files get deleted and yes you can get a dedicated server. The first reason however is out of your control. While a failed hard drive could be put down to fate, less than perfect hosting companies do contribute to the failure rate. How? By using hosting servers that are built from salvaged parts or parts way past their end of life. This increases the rate of failure by a factor of ‘X’. As a customer you do not know if your website is running on a brand new server or the server version of partzilla.
Backup solutions vary in complexity, function and price. Ask your hosting company about all your options and select the one that best suits your needs and budget. While it may seem a bit indulgent, you will thank your lucky stars if and when something goes wrong. If you are serious about your business, you will.
Do come back for more tips on website hosting and if you are new, do subscribe to this feed.
Start Building Your Back Links Today
Posted in SEO by DB
I’ve been posting about SEO of late on Website Hosting and optimization and wanted to quickly touch upon back links in today’s post. ( It really goes to say what I’m busy doing at the moment. 
)
Anyway back to today’s topic. Back links, incoming links or whatever you want to call it is a pretty big factor among the 200 or so odd factors that the Google algorithm takes into account when determining your PageRank and consequently your position on the search result pages.
Every back link is analyzed and the weight of a particular back link again depends on many factors. Today’s post is to look at one of those factors.
The age of the back link
The older your backlink the more points you get. It’s as simple as that and quite effective too as far as Google is concerned. Google tracks and gives more weightage to websites that have back links that are older. Again remember this is one factor that works in conjunction with many other factors but an important one nevertheless.
What does this mean to you and me? What this tells me is to start working on getting my back links and permanent ones at that as early as possible. Yes you need content to even start your link building but it is equally important to plan and pull in links as early as you can. Concentrate on content but the minute you have the basics in place then it’s time to start your link baiting or solicitation and don’t worry Google themselves say it is ok to approach other related websites for a link back as long as it is not a paid link.
Have you often wondered why it is not really that difficult to rank on page 2 for your keyword but is so freakin difficult to upset the top 3 positions on page 1? This is the one advantage you will always have if you get into a particular niche early enough and dominate it from the start. Build a good portfolio of incoming links right off the bat and continuously keep adding more. This will become your strongest ally when you have a competitor breathing down your neck.
Buying an existing website with relevant content and the right anchor text as well as aged backlinks is a whole lot more difficult than buying an aged domain. This is why the age of a link is an important factor in the search engines algorithm. Everything else can be easily or quite easily manipulated, be it authority domain links, domain age, relevant anchor text etc etc.
The sooner you realize this and act accordingly the better you and your website are off in the long term. Look and solicit links that are permanent.
Keep coming back for more tips on website hosting, optimization and monetization and do subscribe to my feed. Have a great weekend, what’s left of it anyway. Cheers !!!
Why And What To Look For In An Aged Domain?
Posted in Domain Names, SEO, Web Master by DB
Domain names!!! How much time do you spend on an average trying to find that perfect domain name. I don’t know about you but I’ve spent a lot of time (a really lot of time) trying to find the perfect domain name. Why does it take time? Because pretty much every name you can think of is already taken. I even built an application to help me find available domain names quickly and easily.
That said, of late however I find myself using my own application less and less. Why? Not because I’ve reduced my domain registration rate but because many of the websites I’m building these days are all targeted towards organic traffic and the quicker I get my domain ranked high the more money I make.
Before you say “You lost me dude” let me explain. A brand new domain as we all know has to build trust in the eyes of the search engines (read Google) before you can get it to rank high on the SERP’s. Now depending on the keywords that you are targeting this can take anywhere from 6 weeks to 12 months before these filters are lifted. (Out of Jail or Sandbox as it is more popularly known)
This is simply too long from a ROI perspective. Let’s say I’m setting up a BANS store. Can I afford to wait that long for a competitive keyword? Heck no, I want to be able to compete and convert as quickly as possible. So what’s the answer? Pre Owned Domains of course. Now there are quite a few places where you can pick up decent domain names. Personally I’ve always found GoDaddy’s after domain market a great marketplace to find used domain names at great prices.
Again folks if you are starting a new company or launching a brand then the age of the domain is not that big a factor though some would argue otherwise. Anyway, it is the brandability aspect that is of prime importance and in many cases a brand new domain will work just fine. What I’m talking about in this post is to find and register domain names that are for one purpose only. Make money from organic traffic as quickly as possible. To do this I must try to get all the aces up my sleeve. Remember the competition is fierce and there is no love lost between competitors. Once you identify your main competitors you are constantly engaged in a battle of one-upmanship. You always go tooth and nail at each other trying to oust the other. While you can work on your SEO strategies continuously you cannot change your domain history and starting with a handicap is simply not worth it.
All right, enough of selling me the virtues of an aged domain. Tell me how I go about picking a domain name. These are a few positive factors that I look for in a domain name.
- Domain name must have your keyword in it.
- Domain Name has privacy protection turned on. (If the domain privacy protection turned on then changing ownership is kept hidden from the all important Google.)
- Domain Name registrar is one where I already have an account. (Keeping it within the same registrar will not trigger any alarm bells or any Google filters.)
- Domain Name renewal date is atleast a year away. (The further the registration renewal date, the higher are the chances of avoiding the Google filters/sandbox)
Of course it goes without saying that you do a thorough check on the Internet Archive, search engines itself (both Google and Yahoo) and verify if the PageRank if any is valid before you bid or buy the domain.
The following are good to have factors but not critical.
- The domain Name has a valid PageRank
- The domain has a website associated with it.
- The domain name is indexed and has a decent number of pages cached in Google along with a good number of incoming links.
How about you? What is your domain name strategy? Do you buy brand new domains? Maybe being a little impatient is a good thing? Only time will tell.
Keep coming back to read more tips about domain names and web hosting tips and tricks and don’t forget to subscribe to my feed.
How Do I Rebuild An Expired Domain?
Posted in Web Master by DB
About a week ago I mentioned here that I picked up an expired domain from an auction. It took a week but finally I got an email from GoDaddy telling me that the domain was finally in my GoDaddy account. Whew!! That was one long week. The original buyer could have still renewed the domain even though the auction was completed.
So what now? Well, I bought the domain for several reasons and one of them was to learn and better understand how Google reacts to expired domains and the best process to manage and rebuild an expired domain.
Now IF I was trying to pull wool over Google’s eyes, this is what I would do starting today. (If anybody from Google is reading this, please note I said “if”)
- Turn on Domain Privacy protection. Not much point but will keep my personal details from all the other folks that bid on the domain and from the previous owner, whenever he finally realizes the fact that he does not own the domain anymore. As far as Google is concerned, the best case scenario is Google is not 100% confident that the original owner did not renew the domain. That said, the minute the domain enters the redemption period filters would have already been applied on the domain.
- Change my name servers to my hosting account nameservers. I would have ideally liked to avoid this but I’m loathe to use GoDaddy for anything but for domain registration and that too only when I absolutely have to. I prefer to do all my website hosting either on my dedicated servers or on one my reseller accounts.
- Do a search on Google and recreate each and every indexed page of the previous website by looking at the cache. This is a time consuming and a painful activity especially if the domain has a lot of pages in Google’s index.
To elaborate how one would go about doing this.
- Open Google.com on your browser and type your search as “site:www.DomainName.com”. Replace DomainName with the name of the domain name you want to check.
- Google will list all the pages that it has currently in its index. Click on the “cache” link on every result and you will get to see the cached page. Copy the main text content and recreate the page with the exact same url.
- Start building content on the domain. Start slow in the beginning and slowly pick up the pace.
- Do not even think of using Google Analytics or registering the website on Google Webmaster. I have no idea if Google keeps track of account information but I’m paranoid as hell and so I’m gonna avoid it as long as I can.
- Start building links. The current static toolbar PR3 is sure to get wiped off in the next update. But will go down with a fight. Try my best to get good authority incoming links to the website as I can.
It sure is going to be interesting going in the next few months and IF I indeed do any or all of the above, rest assured I will keep notes and share my findings when the time comes. Till then keep reading more website hosting and optimization tips and keep linking and lastly don’t forget to subscribe to my feed.
What Is A Good Link and What Used To Be A Good Link?
Posted in Optimize And Monetize, SEO, Web Master by DB
How do you go about link building? Every website owner at some point or the other must have wrestled with this problem. Do I use a link baiting service? Do I look at social media sites to improve my inward link count? Do I simply concentrate on content and let the world find me? How about if I use text link ads and the like?
Google has come along way from the days where you could game it by buying a large amount of links. These days the Google search algorithm looks at more than just the link count. TrustRank is the new buzzword and getting Google to trust your website is what matters in today’s world.
I’m going off track now. This post is not about TrustRank or even about Link Relevancy but a quick summation of the type of links that used to matter but carry little weight now and the links that matter a lot. Don’t get me wrong, a link is a link and when all else is equal then any link, yes even the links below do matter. But the weight from these links is diluted at best and non existent at worst.
Here they are starting with zero link weightage
- Links that come after Sponsored, Paid, Advertisements etc etc
- Forum signature links
- Blog roll links
- Widgets like Top Commentator and the rest.
- Sitewide links
What used to work in the good ole days do not work anymore. If you still are caught in a time wrap then its time to throw all your previous link building strategies out of the window and look to build solid incoming links that will help you. If you are really serious about building authority then look to avoid limit your time, effort, strategies and money in trying to get links from the above mentioned list.
I know, you probably are wondering by now “So what kind of links should I be looking for?” Let me end the suspense and point you in the right direction. The best kind of link you can ever hope to get is
- From an Authority Website.
- From the same niche, meaning it has content that is relevant to your website.
- Single link is buried deep within the site content.
- The link has the perfect anchor text (The right keyword you are trying to target)
- Has few or no outgoing links on the same page.
- The link is a deep link to your website.
The second list should be your focus. If you can manage to get a few of these back to your website, before you know it you will have outranked your competitors that have thousands and thousands of incoming links from the earlier list. Keep this in mind the next time you start thinking or planning your link building campaign. Good luck!!
Now how about a link back to this page? No I’m serious. Thanks!!
Work On Long Tail Keywords to Drive Organic Traffic
Posted in Optimize And Monetize, SEO by DB
When was the last time you analyzed your website hosting traffic stats in detail? I’m not talking about constantly looking at your stats to see if there are new visitors, I’m talking about a more in depth analysis. How much of your traffic is driven by Search Engines? When did you last analyze the keywords that were used to find your website?
These keywords are a rich source of information. Recognize it and act upon it. This is free data at your fingertips that you can use to grow your blog content umbrella and use it to bring in more and more traffic to your website. This is particularly important if you are just starting out. As a new blog you ideally want to cast a wide net around your niche subject and go deep at the same time. The more you do this the more long tail keywords you will see showing up in your referrer stats.
This tactic is not new and is used by many successful bloggers in the blogosphere today. They did it in the beginning when they were starting out and they continue to do so. Make a concerted effort to look at your stats weekly and then make a list of topics that you can cover in more detail. Maybe there is a current hot topic in the market that you haven’t really covered in detail. Note it down and write a few follow up articles.
Remember if your blog is new then this tactic will help you land some good organic traffic. Realistically speaking the only traffic you can expect until your blog has built some trust in the search engine eyes are from long tail keywords. You will almost never get any traffic for your main keywords and for good reason. Your blog is new and you don’t have the authority to rank high. By fleshing out a topic you will bring into play all those long tail searches. Continue to do this and soon you will become an authority and before you know it you will soon starting pulling in more and more organic traffic.
I’ve been guilty in the past of ignoring my stats. My blog posts are more influenced by what I’m doing at the moment rather than a planned topic or series. One day I’m working on EC2 or with eBay, the next day I’m busy link building and dabbling in SEM. Of late I’ve started pulling in a lot of organic traffic (I’m thrilled by the way) and everyday I see some interesting facts and data on the keywords people use to find this website.
Let me give you an example. I recently posted about the Amazon EC2 framework and the launch of Elastic IP’s. Actually it was more of an update, nothing in depth and nothing planned. What has surprised me was the amount of traffic that particular post has pulled in and continues to do so to this day. This tells me that there are a lot of people that are looking for information about the Amazon’s EC2 framework. Don’t be surprised if you see a whole lot of posts about Amazon EC2 and S3 from me in the near future.
The next time you are on a popular blog and of course assuming that the blogger is smart, you will notice how a particular topic is nearly beaten to death by the blogger. This is not because the blogger has nothing else to say, its just making sure that he has covered every single long tail keyword he possibly can and by doing so has increased his chances to be on that coveted first page on the SERP’s. Though pretty obvious many bloggers fail to see the potential of this approach. Use this tactic wisely and you will reap the rewards.
SEO Techniques Vary With Situations. What Is Your Approach To SEO?
Posted in SEO, Web Master by DB
I’ve been obsessed with Search Engine Optimization for a while now. I’ve been consciously trying to train myself to think like a search engine for pretty much everything that I do related to websites and website hosting. The amount of reading one must do and ofcourse filtering out the bad from the utter rubbish to imbibing the good is a time consuming process.
While reading definitely will help you understand and learn from the experiences of your peers, there is nothing more fulfilling than putting to test some of that knowledge and seeing the results for yourself. It is particularly fulfilling when you try out some of your own theories and they hit the bull’s eye. To learn and excel in SEO you have to be willing to learn and adapt. Remember search engines are constantly tweaking and changing their algorithm. What worked yesterday will not work today. General theories and statements that you read may have more to it than you think.
Let me take an example. Google and its PageRank are primarily driven by links. Please note that I said primarily. Yes there are other factors but let’s look at incoming links for now. Soon everybody started to acquire links and buying links led to the formation of a whole new market. Google soon enough reacted and forum after forums are filled with people wondering what hit them. Now you have TrustRank coming into play along with link history, the quality and relevancy of the links and much much more. Most of us understand this but can this be applied uniformly to every single situation.
Assume a situation where you are trying to rank highly in the SERP’s for a not so popular keyword. Infact there is no competition at all. In this case how will Google place your website if you went ahead and got about a hundred links all keyword targeted but not from relevant pages? How long can I rank high before I need to supplement those links with more? Do I need that highly relevant link or will a dozen keyword optimized Squidoo and HubPage links do?
I hope you see where I’m going with this. For every SEO nugget you read or theorize, you need to try it out and understand its impact across different situations. Every website, every keyword is different. It is these variables that make the life of an SEO interesting. I hope you see how important it is to have a practical understanding to confidently work on yours or your client’s website and take them to higher and more lucrative position on the SERP’s
One last thing, while it is good to experiment be practical as well. Anything too good to be true is usually is. Be wary from whom you learn from and whose advice you decide to follow. If possible try it on a website that you can afford to lose. If you offer SEO services then you must have an arsenal of sites that you can try out all your theories on. Trying it on a client’s site should never be thought of much less attempted.
Use your judgment wisely, anything you are not a 100% confident of can and will get you into trouble. Black and Grey hat techniques are simply not worth it, Do NOT I repeat Do NOT try and push the envelope and go all out for glory. If you do then be prepared to be dump the website or be banned.
Bought An Expired Domain. I Wonder How Google Will React.
Posted in SEO, Web Master by DB
It’s been an eventful day today. I had planned to spend some time tweaking the home page of Website Hosting but instead spent the entire afternoon in auction bidding for a domain that had recently expired. Finally did manage to get it, paid a tad more than I thought I would but what the hell. Technically i still need to wait for a week to get it. In the meantime I’m hoping the previous owner does not wake up or have a change of heart.
I stumbled across this website a few days back when I was doing my research (don’t ask for what) and when I clicked on the domain it took me to an auction landing page. What was appealing was the fact that this domain was already listed in Yahoo directory. Yes, the same one where most of us have to pay $300 for a review with no guarantee of acceptance and if accepted it becomes a recurring amount every year. A small percentage do get listed for free but don’t hold your breath.
I’ve been trying to find out with no success on how to determine if a listing in the Yahoo directory is a paid or a free listing. If the domain I just bought is a paid listing then by the end of the year term a mail will probably go out asking to renew and when that happens my domain will get delisted because I’m not going to get that mail now am I? Until then I’m gonna keep my fingers crossed hoping that this was a free listing. I know, fat chance!!
The second plus point was that the domain name had a keyword that I’m interested in. All said and done, branding and marketing expert advice aside, having your keyword in your domain name adds weight to your SERP’s listing and the keyword in this case is in a very competitive industry.
Finally the domain was a PR3. Note that I list this as the last of my plus points because the PageRank you see in your toolbar is in reality only a snapshot of the real PageRank of the website in time. Google in all probability would have already reset the PageRank back to 0.
One of the trickle on and probably the biggest reasons was to understand exactly how Google reacts to an expired domain. Knowing in theory in one thing but actually experiencing it, if it is indeed true is valuable knowledge. I’m getting ahead of myself now, let me backtrack a bit.
Google ever since it became a registrar of domains has had better and direct access to all publicly available domain name related information such as the date of registration, registration term, the domain owner information, nameserver information to name a few. Yes, you can use a privacy protection service to hide the ownership details but the rest of the data is still available. Side note, I believe using a privacy protection service will reduce your website trust factor (still a theory of mine). This information is then used and has an influence on your website ranking in the SERP’s. How big an influence is anybody’s guess but it definetely forms a part of the 200 odd factors that make up the Google search algorithm.
Back to the domain I bought, I ran a quick Google cache query and it showed me the domain auction page which means Google has been active on the site and knows for sure that the domain is up for auction. The next few months will be interesting. I expect the site current PR3 ranking to go to 0 and not rank very highly for competitive terms. But you never know, sometimes we give Google a lot of credit, too much infact, let’s see how this one plays out.
Do remind me to post an update on Website Hosting tips on how things turned out in a few months from now.
Do Blogs Make Money By Running Ads?
Posted in Anatomy of a Blog by DB
As part of Website optimization and Hosting, I’ve been talking about how important it is to recognize, understand and plan your monetization strategies over the last few posts, actually over the past 3 days. Yes I know, I really should tie them all up in a series. Maybe I’ll just do that by the end of this post. Anyway if you are reading this and haven’t yet read my previous posts I would urge you to read those first before you proceed with this post.
So far I’ve covered “Making Money Indirectly From Blogs” and the first sub category “Making money from Affiliates“ under “Making Money Directly From Blogs“. Let’s look at the final sub category “Making Money By Running Ads“. Again as in the previous sub category I club any paid to post earnings and the like that bloggers do as part of this sub category.
Monetize your blog by running Ads
By far this is the most difficult and the most under estimated routes that the majority of bloggers take in their route to reach that elusive blogging fame and fortune street. Unfortunately you see thousands of blogs start up each day, slap on the same 125 x 125 affiliate ads on the sidebar, setup an advertising page and wait for the money to flow in. Infact I’ve had people asking me why I don’t spice up my blog with advertisements and images. By images they are talking about the big sign that says “Free eBook available for download”.
Folks here are the facts. You can fool people into believing that those flashy images on your sidebar are Ads but apart from a handful of bloggers most of the blogs out there have nothing but affiliate links all over their blogs. After some time you get to see a pattern, the BlueHost and SEOBook Ads are the most common. The rational is that while you wait to build your blog traffic you might as well make some money selling affiliate products. The other completely ridiculous justification I’ve heard is “Prepare your readers. Don’t spring ads on them one fine day”
Let me give you a good reason to not muck up your entire blog with affiliate links in the beginning. “Gooooooooogle”. Let me say that again “Google“. You stand a better chance to build authority and trust with Google if you don’t jump the monetization bandwagon the minute you launch your blog. And really folks what’s the point, you don’t have any readers and very little content in the beginning anyway. So concentrate on building and improving that.
Ok, so what are the key areas to focus on, again in order of importance
Blog Content
The most important aspect to building a successful blog in this category is to have good recurring traffic. The only reason you will attract visitors and repeat eye balls is if you have good content. So it is vital that you can churn out good content at fairly short intervals to keep readers coming back to your blog for more. Word of mouth matters a lot and someone will refer or subscribe to your blog only if they connect with your writing and content.
SEO
No matter which category your blog falls into, Search Engine Optimization is one of the top factors that will directly affect how successful your blog is. You are working to get the maximum eye balls for your site, you need more and more visitors coming in and search engines love fresh, good content. Write good content, build links and soon you will see traffic landing on your site. Ofcourse there is a whole lot more to SEO which is why it’s important that you start learning and start using it on your website.
Network and grow your blog
Social media, networking with similar bloggers, commenting on other related blogs, forum postings, free eBook, blog contests, viral campaigns are some of the activities you will need to seriously consider to bring in traffic. You can see that it is a time consuming and rocky road with no guarantees for success.
Blog Design
A profession design will go a long way to help you stand out apart from identifying and maximizing your screen real estate for running your ads. While you are at it ensure you also bring up SEO during your discussions with your designer.
All said and done folks, nobody will advertise with you if you do not provide them with a decent ROI. Write this point down. Even if you have a couple of thousand RSS subscribers and about 40 – 50 thousand page views, if your advertisers do not see click throughs and conversions you will soon be back to running that 125×125 affiliate ad all over again.
Once again this is most difficult route to take to successfully monetize a blog but by no means impossible. Pick your blog topic wisely and be ready to put in the long hours to make your blog a success not just in terms of traffic and fame but one that brings in a decent sized check at the end of the month.
Good luck with your blog. I wish all the success and do come back for more Hosting and website optimization tips.
