Entries from February 2008 ↓

Here’s the scenario, I have two domains, xyz.com and exact-keyword.net…

1. xyz.com has been registered since 2004 and exact-keyword.net is only a few months old.
2. exact-keyword is a small site (a handful of pages) all centred around the keyword
3. xyz.com is a ‘blog and I made one post with the url http://xyz.com/exact-keyword/
4. All other aspects are fairly similar, eg. meta tags, title, keyword density, etc,.
5. Both sites have no link backs
6. Both sites have been indexed by google

In this situation, xyz.com is ranked #11 in google for “exact keyword” whilst exact-keyword.com is ranked 45. What this tells me is that google has severely dropped the significance of the keyword in the domain name and is looking firstly at the age, and then the keyword in the path after the domain name. I thought this was strange but here’s a clearer example that I can show you. If you google for “domainholics”, you will notice that the first entry is my domainholics.com site is #1 but it’s not the root domain listed, it’s actually my inner dot com auctions page - http://www.domainholics.com/dot-com-auctions/. Now do another search on a highly competitive keyword “loans“. You will see that the top entry is http://www.moneyexpert.com/Compare-Loans.aspx … ie. no keyword in the domain name at all.

How bout that… maybe I don’t need to be registering 1000 domains and all I need is a really old domain with 1000 pages :) I’ve got my eye on officialdealers.com which is 9 years old and is being auctioned on eBay with me as top bidder @ $1.74

Popularity: 7%

This has got to be the funniest rants I’ve read for a while… probably made funnier because I share ’some’ of the same views.

Link to Wicked Fire Post: John Chow, Shoemoney, Super Affiliate Mindset Camels

I don’t visit WickedFire much so I don’t know who this Jon guy is but it seems he is an admin so he could possibly be the owner of WickedFire which makes the post / views even more worth reading.

All of these *** guys are NOT experts at anything, except for marketing their blogs and convincing the world that they matter in the industry. I am so tired of people talking about them, like what they blog about or say on their over-exaggerated radio shows/podcasts/vlogs is the most amazing thing in the world, aahhhhhhh!!

This is a bit of the tall poppy syndrome where some of us are just a little bit jealous of how successful these guys have become. You’ve got to give credit where credit is due - even if they faked it before they made it, they’re still way more popular than what 99.999% of us will ever be. That’s some hard work there!

None of them are “super affiliates”. I promise. They aren’t. Never have been, and never will be. Well, that is unless Photoshop crumbles and dies.

I never thought John was a super affiliate, in fact from following his posts very early on, he hardly knew what blogging was. Amit looks so obviously faking it. If he made so much money, why is he still so fobby (F.O.B = Fresh Off the Boat). Shoemoney on the other hand, looks legit to me… until I read this…

Aside for getting caught lying about Dmoz banning him (when Shawn Collins - a former Dmoz Editor proved right here on WickedFire, that Shoemoney did in fact offer a BRIBE to Dmoz.org only to be banned for doing so),

wow.. come to think of it, this guy pushes ringtones like there’s no tomorrow. Ringtone offers are being regulated by the industry because they trick young people into signing up for what they thought were ‘free’ ringtones, only to have their unsuspecting parents fork out expensive monthly bills. Any one with half a conscious would stay out of ringtones.

or that with AuctionAds he magically lost all of the revenues from referrals (we had over 100 here, and then one day, poof, gone and never to return!).

I didn’t know about this one. That’s huge. I’m surprised there was not much more uproar about this! Lucky for me I never gave his auctionAds much more than a few days run.

No wonder Yahoo banned him from sending over what had to have been the SHITTIEST traffic, EVER! Doesn’t anyone even realize that if that were to happen to me, that last thing I would do is blog about it, because he was pretty much announcing that he had the scammiest traffic ever because they were all REFUNDS AND CHARGEBACKS!!!

yeah. I read about this one to. And the guy posts about it like it’s Yahoo’s fault. In case you missed it, yahoo banned him because…

The results showed that 65% of your traffic is signing up for YSM with stolen or unauthorized credit cards.

You’ve got to wonder… dodgy..! This is more dodgy than the stumble & digg exchanges, the click my adsense ad groupies, but coming from the ringtone king himself, did you expect anything less?

Ahh… now for the John Chow rant… we know he “really is a nice guy. He doesn’t lie. He’s well mannered” but really he is just a newb with an evil eye for taking full advantage of opportunities.

Since when does someone like John Chow, who asked me about a year ago on AIM, of “what exactly is affiliate marketing”!!!!!!!!!!

That just about kills it. The truth is though, it doesn’t take a genius to read about all the concepts of affiliate marketing, seo, adsense, sem, whatever. The beauty of the internet age is that you can become an expert in anything you want to read about. John doesn’t pretend to be better than everyone else but he does take advantage of his massive reader base and flaunt his limited knowledge. At the end of the day John’s a nice guy trying to make a quid online, abeit with some hype and ego inflation.

The funniest part of the rant goes to …

This Super Affiliate Mindset from India. Where the hell did this douche come from? I mean, aside for OBVIOUSLY having the greatest fashion sense in the entire industry, not to mention, he is definitely an expert in picking the gayest photos of himself on his own blog… oh no, you’re married to a woman, of course you are Amit, no one would ever think otherwise…

Bam! Does this guy have an eye for really expensive art pieces for his wall or what!

Hahaha.. pictures speak a thousand words. I bet people just visit his blog to have a laugh - I know I do :)

Popularity: 7%

You’d think they could have come up with a better job title than this…

Jobs.Guardian.Co.UK

Popularity: 3%

The dot asia landrush has opened and a huge number of domains have already gone. All the big companies (like Accenture and Telstra) have secured their trademark domains and most of the generics (travel.asia, hotels.asia) are gone - Here’s the complete list of domains applied for so far (updated at registry.asia 8 / feb / 08 )

Total of 266,663 Applications Received on First Day of Landrush

Hong Kong, 21 February 2008 – DotAsia Organisation, the registry operator of the “.Asia” Internet domain, is happy to announce the successful launch of its Landrush period. A total of 266,663 applications were received by the registry within the first 24 hours, demonstrating great interest from around the world to stake claims in the most prestigious cyber real estate in Asia. Including Pre-Sunrise, Sunrise, Pioneer programs and the first day of Landrush, the total number of domain applications to date is 298,861. .Asia Landrush opened Feb 20 and will close on March 12, 2008.

Unlike conventional first-come-first-served processes, DotAsia is utilizing a model that treats all applications received equally no matter if you submit the application within the first second or on the last day of the Landrush period. For domains receiving two or more applications, an auction will be held between the applicants. Domains with only one application will be allocated directly without auction. It also means you must apply during the Landrush period (Feb 20 – Mar 12, 2008) in order to be eligible to participate in the domain auctions.

“We are very excited about the smooth launch of Landrush. The volume of interest demonstrates strong demand for .Asia. Unlike conventional opening rushes where the best names are snatched in the opening seconds, you still have 20 days to submit your application without losing out,” says Edmon Chung, CEO of DotAsia. “We are also excited to see strong participation from Asia, with 5 out of the top 10 registrars coming from Asia.”

Over 35% of the Landrush applications received came from Asia, with 40% from North America and 24% coming from Europe. A total of about 28,000 domain names received more than one application on the first day. The top 10 registrars in the first day, in order, are: Dotalliance Inc. (www.dotalliance.asia), EuroDNS S.A. (www.asiadns.asia), Communigal Communications Ltd., GoDaddy.com, Gabia, HiChina Web Solutions Ltd., Key-Systems (www.domaindiscount24.asia), NamesBeyond.com, DomainPeople Inc. (www.domainpeople.asia), eName Corp..

The COO of NetNames, Jonathan Robinson, makes a good point that there isn’t as much interest in .asia as there were in .eu

“Only 30,780 applications have been filed for .asia domain names so far compared with 330,000 at the same point in the launch of the .eu domain name,”

Given that .eu is a flop, I’m going to tread .asia very carefully. I hate the uncertainly of auctions anyway so I’m going to wait til the end of March for when the official free for all opening starts and I’ll see what names are left over then. Given that there are still some ripper dot coms available, I’m sure there will still be lots of niche’s untouched come 28th March.

Popularity: 6%

I’ve been following the startup of the Indian Premier League with intrigue. This is a major stepping stone for Cricket. The sponsorships are huge and with the likes of James Packer in the picture (he owns one of the teams), it’s only going to get bigger.

The auction for players was held yesterday. Rather than having a lottery system to allocate players, they had a closed auction where teams were only allowed one bid per player. With a $5 million dollar salary cap, this meant that some players have received some extraordinary bids with 8 players becoming instant millionaires (if they weren’t already). Three of those were ‘marquee’ players who received an automatic salary of 15% more than the highest paid player on their team.

Mahendra Dhoni (Ind) $1,650,000
Andrew Symonds (Aus) $1,470,000
Sachin Tendulkar (Ind) $1,223,600
Sourav Ganguly (Ind) $1,184,500
Rahul Dravid (Ind) $1,128,150
Sanath Jayasuriya (SL) $1,064,000
Ishant Sharma (Ind) $1,030,000
Irfan Pathan (Ind) $1,010,000
Brett Lee (Aus) $982,000
Jacques Kallis (SAf) $981,000
RP Singh (Ind) $950,000
Harbhajan Singh (Ind) $927,000
Yuvraj Singh (Ind) $927,000
Virender Sehwag (Ind) $911,950
Robin Uthappa (Ind) $875,000
Chris Gayle (WI) $872,000
Rohit Sharma (Ind) $821,000
Gautam Gambhir (Ind) $793,000
Adam Gilchrist (Aus) $765,000
Kumar Sangakkara (SL) $764,000
Brendon McCullum (NZ) $763,000
Manoj Tiwary (Ind) $740,000
David Hussey (Aus) $740,000
Mohammad Kaif (Ind) $738,000
Albie Morkel (SAf) $737,000
Shahid Afridi (Pak) $736,000
Jacob Oram (NZ) $736,000
Suresh Raina (Ind) $711,000
Mohammad Asif (Pak) $709,000
Shantha Sreesanth (Ind) $681,000
Daniel Vettori (NZ) $681,000
Muttiah Muralitharan (SL) $656,000
Herschelle Gibbs (SAf) $627,000
Shaun Pollock (SAf) $601,000
Dinesh Karthik (Ind) $573,000
Cameron White (Aus) $546,000
Shoaib Malik (Pak) $545,000
Anil Kumble (Ind) $526,000
Yusuf Pathan (Ind) $519,000
Mahela Jayawardene (SL) $519,000
Graeme Smith (SAf) $518,000
Shane Warne (Aus) $492,000
Zaheer Khan (Ind) $491,000
Mark Boucher (SAf) $491,000
Shoaib Akhtar (Pak) $464,000
Murali Kartik (Ind) $460,000
Ricky Ponting (Aus) $436,000
Piyush Chawla (Ind) $435,000
VVS Laxman (Ind) $410,000
Matthew Hayden (Aus) $409,000
Ajit Agarkar (Ind) $382,000
Stephen Fleming (NZ) $381,000
Michael Hussey (Aus) $381,000
Glenn McGrath (Aus) $381,000
Lasith Malinga (SL) $380,000
Parthiv Patel (Ind) $355,000
Nathan Bracken (Aus) $354,000
Dale Steyn (SAf) $354,000
AB de Villiers (SAf) $328,000
Munaf Patel (Ind) $300,000
Tillakaratne Dilshan (SL) $273,000
Joginder Sharma (Ind) $246,000
Farveez Maharoof (SL) $246,000
Younis Khan (Pak) $245,000
Ramnaresh Sarwan (WI) $245,000
Simon Katich (Aus) $218,000
Shivnarine Chanderpaul (WI) $218,000
Justin Langer (Aus) $218,000
Chaminda Vaas (SL) $217,000
Makhaya Ntini (Saf) $215,000
Scott Styris (NZ) $190,000
Loots Bosman (SAf) $190,000
Ramesh Powar (Ind) $185,000
Wasim Jaffer (Ind) $164,000
Kamran Akmal (Pak) $164,000
Umar Gul (Pak) $163,000
Dilhara Fernando (SL) $163,000
Nuwan Zoysa (SL) $120,000
Chamara Silva (SL) $109,000

What’s interesting is that Ricky Pointing, Matthew Hayden, Glenn McGrath, and Shane Warne faired miserably considering their status on the Aussie World Championship team. What’s even funnier is that David Hussey is worth twice as much as his brother Mike even though David can’t break into the Australian International Team.

It’s still no where near as huge as the English Premier League but it’s a good start :)

Popularity: 4%

It’s been a few months since I moved this blog to jerryhuang.com. In those few months, I noticed that I was not ranking in Google for as many new long tail search phrases as I used to. This has forced me to move back to brilliances.com which I’ve had registered since early 2002. Google absolutely loves this domain… probably because it is a high value dictionary word and that it’s been active for 6 years. It is almost effortless for me to rank for terms like “tag sunglasses” and “guess mega millions today”.

If you subscribe using http://feeds.feedburner.com/MegaMillions, you will not need to change anything you will need to change it to http://feeds.feedburner.com/brilliances. If you used jerryhuang.com/feed, please update it to the feedburner feed. JerryHuang.com will continue pointing back Brilliances.com for another few weeks to allow me to work out which permalinks to selectively redirect.

As you can also see, this blog is getting a makeover. The mandigo theme has gotten too popular and I’ve been seeing it EVERYWHERE. I’ve finally decided to get off my ass and differentiate myself with my very own custom theme. It’s not ready yet but I’m starting off with the famed copyblogger theme and I’ll slowly personalised it as I get time. Chris Pearson’s themes are a gem - He’s also made the cutlines theme which I’ve also used before. Cutlines, however, was bought over and is now managed by someone else so I’m hesistant to use that as my base. Having used my fair share of themes now, I’ve found Chris Peason’s to be consistently clean coded. Some other themes may look more snazzy but they work like a dog in the backend.

Popularity: 16%

As is widely reported around the web, the adsense dollars dramatically dropped in January. I was getting clicks that were, on average, worth 20-30% of what I have gotten for them last year. This could be because of the US financial crisis or it could be that Google is taking a bigger slice of their pie and handing out less and less to the publishers - how bout a web writers strike… anyone? :P

Anyway, lucky for me, I was able to increase my earnings by

1. mupress parking more than 20 new domain names
2. flog two of my domains

   * StumbleMe.com - $110
   * ThemesWordpress.com - $50

   In my mind, these two domains are worth at least double that but I wanted to have a go a selling some just to prove to myself that the domains I’m registering are worth more than what I’m paying. I’ve got another domain auction underway and snazzed up my domainholics site to showcase my domains.

3. and… channel more traffic to the HottestGirlOnline.com site via a snazzy new youtube promo:

   It’s been rated 4 stars and has over 1000 views! - not bad for two hours of work :D

So what was my earnings for 2008? A good o’ total of $296.59. How sweet is that? Even though the adsense click value dropped immensely, one of my brand new domains is raking in at a healthy 45% CTR on average - HUGE! I’m hoping Feb will be an even better month - wish me luck! :D

Popularity: 6%

This is what you can do when you are the richest man alive.

but he still doesn’t spend money on a proper haircut.

Popularity: 4%

The next logical step after getting wordpress mu to work with multiple domains is to tell google all about your sites via google compliant sitemap.xml files. If you’re anything like me, you would have searched through the mu forums and come out more confused than what you started with. There’s about three attempts to make a mu plugin over at wpmudev.org and they all fail dismally. This is so not typical of wordpress as normally, there’s a plugin developed for just about anything you can think of. With such a gap in the mu works, I’ve had to hack my own sitemap plugin to get my domain parking mu working. Luckily, Arne Brachhold’s plugin for the normal wordpress is very nicely coded and has all the bells and whistles that you’d ever what a sitemap plugin to have.

The first problem with Arne’s plugin is figuring out where to put the sitemap.xml since you have so many blogs running off the one wordpress. If you put it in your root directory, it will be overwritten by every blog as they are all pointing to the same location. The first hack is to default the location of the output to each blog’s individual upload folder (ie. /wp-content/blogs.dir//files/) and to create it if it doesn’t exist already (wordpress only creates the upload folders the first time you try to upload something)

Edit the InitOptions() function in the sitemap.php file


//JH brute force - set the sitemap location to manual mode
$this->_options["sm_b_location_mode"]="manual"; //Mode of location, auto or manual
//workout what the upload directory for this blog is
$upload_dir = ABSPATH . UPLOADS;
//create the directory if it does not already exist
wp_mkdir_p($upload_dir);
//preset the manual directory and url
$this->_options["sm_b_filename_manual"]= $upload_dir . "sitemap.xml";
$this->_options["sm_b_fileurl_manual"]= trailingslashit(get_bloginfo('siteurl')) . "sitemap.xml";


Next we want to force it to output a robots.txt file every time so that the search engine spiders know where to find the sitemap. To do this we set the robots flag to true in the same initOptions function.
$this->_options["sm_b_robots"] = true;

There is also a bug in the GetRobotsFilePath() function in that it is not putting it in the same location as the sitemap path. Another dirty hack is needed:

function GetRobotsFilePath() {
//return trailingslashit($this->GetHomePath()) . 'robots.txt';
//JH brute force
return ABSPATH . UPLOADS . "robots.txt";
}

That’s it for the sitemap.php file.

The next hack is to wordpress itself. Wordpress mu is only up to v2.3.1 of wordpress and there is a bug in one of the functions to write to a file. Whilst we are waiting for mu to update, this silly line needs to be commented out from one of the functions.

function insert_with_markers( $filename, $marker, $insertion ) {
//return;

Yep, that’s exactly right. Someone’s put a return statement as the first line of code so that this function exits straight away without actually creating and editing the file. This function is used to create your .htaccess file and the sitemap plugin reuses it to write your robots.txt

We’re almost there. Google doesn’t like your sitemap.xml file to be anywhere except your root directory. It is currently sitting in http://yourblog.com/files/sitemap.xml and we want to actually trick google to see it as http://www.yourblog.com/sitemap.xml. To do this, we need to edit the .htaccess file on your root directory:

#uploaded files
RewriteRule ^(.*/)?files/$ index.php [L]
RewriteRule ^(.*/)?files/(.*) wp-content/blogs.php?file=$2 [L]
#sitemap
RewriteRule ^sitemap.xml$ wp-content/blogs.php?file=sitemap.xml [L]
RewriteRule ^sitemap.xml.gz$ wp-content/blogs.php?file=sitemap.xml.gz [L]
RewriteRule ^robots.txt$ wp-content/blogs.php?file=robots.txt [L]


Those three lines under #sitemap will redirect calls to the files to your blogs upload directory. The blogs.php file is mu’s handler to redirect to the right blog directory depending on what domain you are accessing.

Phew that’s it! Hope I didn’t lose anyone. It could have been a bit cleaner but it’s a hack specifically for my wordpress mu so it doesn’t need to be pretty :) All that there is to do now is to login to your wordpress, enable plugins for your blog, activate the sitemap plugin and generate your first sitemap.

O. And when you submit your sitemap to google’s webmaster tools, you should use the meta tag option to verify your site rather than the file option. This avoids having hundreds of google2143293udsf0.html files in your root directory. An easy way to do this is the Add Meta Tag plugin. Remember, both the add Meta Tag plugin and the Sitemap plugin go in the wp-content/plugins directory as they are just normal wordpress plugins.

Update 26/6/2008: I’ve finally gotten some free time to clean up this hack and upload it so that you don’t have to edit the code anymore. Download it here on my new bitminds software site.

Popularity: 26%