New Google PR Update October 30, 2009
Google has finally updated page rank. Many webmasters have been expecting the update since mid September but per usual, the big G doesn’t want anyone catching on to a pattern or having a rhyme or reason to believe they know exactly when the update is coming. Most of my PRs stayed the same.
Still Having Trouble Logging Into DigitalPoint? Here’s How I Log In
In one of my previous posts, I talked about the frustration of not being able to login to digital point. I think I have the answer for you this time. If you can’t seem to login to digitalpoint, try clicking remember me the next time you enter your screen name and password. This has worked for me every time and no I have no problems logging in to my account.
Is it a Scam? Click2Sell.eu Affiliate Program Review
If you’re thinking about using Click2Sell.eu, it has the make money online blog seal of approval. Click2Sell is an affiliate program just like ClickBank is except the merchants pay you directly. You can get paid by paypal or moneybookers. The bad side is it’s a little light on programs to market – don’t get me wrong there are several 100s if not more, but it’s just that ClickBank still has the market share.
Another point I’d like to make on this Click2Sell review is that Click2Sell has better technology than ClickBank. I know ClickBank just recently underwent an upgrade but Click 2 Sell is probably still more advanced. Oh I almost forget, they have stats! This is one thing I hated about ClickBank is you never saw the click-through activity on your website. One bad aspect is I’ve noticed their are more merchants that payout less money – for example 40% is not unusual. There are some high figures like 70% but you will see a lot of 40%ers.
Click2Sell reviews – This affilliate program is also free to join for affiliate marketers but does charge merchants a fee. I’m not selling anything right now so I didn’t check closely but I think it’s free for the first product and then $29.99 on the next . International members are welcome so it’s not US only. Also, you can operate an advertiser and merchant account off the same account. Another cool feature of Click2sell.eu vs. Clickbank is their marketplace hosts both tangible products and subscription services.
I think it will be better than ClickBank once it gets bigger if it’s not already. I sold 1 freaking product on Clickbank and eventually they just started feeing me to death until my sale evaporated. I absolutely hate the fact that they lose sales so I stopped selling from them. In conclusion if you were asking, is click2sell.eu a scam? – no it is not. So far I haven’t had any sales in 4 days but I’ve gotten 4 clicks and it seems like a good affiliate program. It’s also free to join so you won’t lose anything by signing up (sign up takes about 3 minutes).
If my click2sell.eu review helped you, please sign up through my click2sell link.
PS 1 tip while you’re signing up – make sure to get a professional looking username so your affiliate links don’t start with Zackmeister24 or CaliLollipops87.
Why You Can’t Edit Your WordPress Files: The MagPie Hack
I had trouble finding information on this when I was looking so I thought I would write about it on my make money online blog for all those that might be going through this. Starting about 2 weeks ago I noticed I couldn’t edit my wordpress templates. Every time I would try to edit the files on wordpress I would get an ‘authenticate’ login screen. I would put in my username and password, but nothing would happen and I couldn’t ever change the files. I thought this was something with my host. I chatted with someone online and they say they’d submit a ticket. Never heard back. I chatted with another person a few days later and he didn’t know what was going on either. Finally, I submitted a support ticket and they told me I had been hacked.
When I read about similar hacks, I found out how clever the hack was. The people that were doing this would leave everything in place except there just seemed to be a gliche. So you couldn’t edit the code but you could still post. To top that off, the way they made money was anytime someone searched for your site and found it, they would be redirected to a parked page with on topic links. As an added detriment to you, if Google sees this happen, they’ll drop you way down or out of the search rankings altogether. I was extremely mad when I realized this. I mean it’s the same thing as someone picking up your wallet and spending your money.
The alarming thing is even some of the wordpress blogs on another of my servers had the same malicious code, but this time I still could edit the files. So I would have never known! I don’t know if they had carried out there master plans yet, but I know at least one of my site’s traffic was being diverted because I tested it out myself. The hack was again smart because I never search for my website through the search engines – even if I’m looking to see where it’s at – because I don’t want to skew my Google Analytics. While I give these criminals credit for cleverness, keep in mind, I know they are still scumbags.
You may have this malicious code embedded in your wordpress and not know it. This was a complete pain in the ass for me to learn and then go down the row of all my blogs – I ended deleting several unused ones before even starting. Here is what you should do:
1. Login to your control panel.
2. Go to my php admin.
3. Click your wordpress data base – this will look something like name_wrdp39.
4. Click to edit your options.
5. You will get a table full of options results, scroll down the list and look for something that looks like “rss_1a5f760f2e2b48827d4974a60857e7c2″
6. To the right of such text you will see “O:9:”MagpieRSS”:17:{s:6:”parser”;i:0;s:12:” or a small cluster of numbers
7. Delete all lines containing rss_#L#L#L##L#”.
8. I would delete every user except yourself from the blog unless you know who the other users are. You can do this inside your blog or in the myphp admin data base.
9. After you do this update all of your wordpress versions to the latest version – 2.71 currently. Make sure you do this for all of your wordpress websites.
10. For added security change your password.
Now I am no code expert – far from it. I had to learn all this stuff last night with a helpful blog and guessing and checking so this might not all be correct, but I think, I think this is working for me and I would have hoped that someone else would write the same if they came across this.
In case this post isn’t dated, this is blog is of May 18, 2009. Be vary careful because you can very well have what I call the MagPie Hack (some of the code has magpie in it) and not know it. I’d suggest going in and inspecting your code. One of the last pieces of advice is for you to make sure you have cleared every last strand of code from your lines. Sometimes it is lumped together and other times it is fragmented. Last tip for beginners – if you only see 30 lines showing, expand that to 300.
Good luck and if you need help, you can email me.
How To Increase Google Adsense CTR
If you want to increase your Google Adsense click through rate or CTR, there are a few Adsense guru tricks that may help turn your website into gold. One of my objectives on this make money online blog is not only to get this site generating passive income but also your sites as well. It only makes sense for me. If I make you money, you’re going to come back to this site and ultimately that helps me make money on the Internet.
Ok – “how to increase Adsense CTR”. First, the plain colors work better. Yes, the boring colors that Google adsense defaults to with the blue title and green links work best. There should be no border on this. Borders isolate the ads from the rest of your website. You want your ads to flow right into your website so that visitors will feel clicking on the ads is the same as clicking on any other link on your website.
Speaking of links, step two is to get rid of them. You should have as little links as possible. Why? You don’t want visitors escaping without making them work not to click on an ad. In other words, Google adsense should be how your website visitor sees as an exit link.
Third, position your links carefully. The best ad box is the 336×280 and secondly the 300×250. These work best. Whatever reason doesn’t really matter, the fact of the matter is these Adsense ads get the most clicks. You should attempt to put these advertisements in the left, top, center area of your website because this is the first place your eyes go when you go to a website.
Finally, a white background is optimal for clicks. Any other color with background or Adsense and you run the risk of looking “unprofessional” which makes viewers run away from your “spam” website.
As always, follow the Google Adsense policy rules and don’t get yourself banned. When in doubt, err on the side of caution and email Google if you really want to know. The guidelines above, generally, are going to help you get more clicks on your Ads. If your website doesn’t mesh with what I have listed above, consider changing your website unless making money is not important to you.
Next blog I will talk about increasing how much money you get per click. To recap, this blog focused on improving your CTR.
BloggerForum.com Shut Down
If this make money online blog looks different to you, its because it is. I decided to change the template to increase CTR. On to the real story: I was looking to sign up for a new money making forum when I came across what looked to be a really nice forum – BloggerForum.com. Unfortunately when I tried to sign up, I realized they had shut down due to being innundated with spam. I feel bad because they obviously had a good operation going judging by the amount of links they had.
I too have had to shut down some of my smaller forums because of spam and my larger money forum needs to be monitored to prevent continued abuse/spam. I have put forth so many restrictures, but like bloggerforum posts, nothing seems to matter to spammers because their time is so cheap. I fear that when my money forum gets bigger, I may be forced with a similar outpouring of spam. I still get a ton of spammy posts but I let them go because they technically aren’t doing anything wrong (the spammers flock because of my do-follow signatures).
Hopefully as technology improves, the Internet can better keep out spam to keep us productive, efficient, and making money online.
Can’t Login to DigitalPoint Forums
If you’re having trouble logging into DigitalPoint, you’re not alone. 90% of the time I login – when my password and user name are accepted – I am logged back out. I’m sure this happens to other people. The reason DigitalPoint does this is to add another measure to prevent spam from ravaging the forums.
The remedy is to keep logging back in. It may take you 6 or my tries, but eventually one will stick. If that doesn’t work, try to PM another user by clicking on their username or selecting send a private message in their user overview area. This sometimes works for me.
Digitalpoint is the mecca of the online marketplace as it has so many members available to buy, trade, and exchange links, services, domains, ideas, and information. The unfortunate part is ownership is overwhelmed by the number of users and does not attempt to bring a good environment like that of WarriorForum.com. WarriorForum is quite a bit smaller, but has a very good atmosphere and great tips available. They’ve even built an online marketplace now.
ClickBank’s New Pilot Program
This sounds like it has huge potential for the make money online community. The application process has been filled by those looking to get in on the beta ground pilot so I couldn’t join but listen to the reasons to join from the ClickBank blog:
Because of generous commissions, placing ClickBank ads on your site means you can receive much larger payouts than from traditional pay-per-click or display ads Quick and easy ad creation and insertion process Ad filtering lets you only display ads that are relevant and appropriate to your Web site’s audience Highly customizable ad layouts and formats can be easily integrated into all kinds of sites, including blogs, forums and more
ClickBank has a history of paying well, with members making thousands off their affiliate programs. This can only be good for user online advertising revenues. With more competition, Google will be forced to raise their payout rates or lose tremendous business. Thanks to ClickBank for getting in this race. You can read the ClickBank Blog for more information and updates.
How To Make Money Off a Forum
Forums typically generate some of the best return visitors ratios and when cultivated ultimately generate a tremendous amount of page views. However, many webmasters have trouble earning reciprocal revenue from their forum. The obvious solution is to advertise, but simply advertising alone will not create enough money. Maximize your message board into a money forum by adding adsense into the equation. When you do this, make sure to change the format every one to two months so you’re members don’t become trained to immediately ignore the tailored PPC links. Another way to make money is to showcase product features and charge an affiliate rate. Often times, your own members may be supplying these products. WarriorForum.com is successful at this. In this scenario, you have the community involved and there is less emphasis on “selling” a product.
A creative ideas from NamePros.com was selling their forum skin to Rick Lotana. This undoubtedly received paramount attention and at the same time generated more money than casual advertising. Another idea is charging for membership of a forum. This is a controversial technique, but with a year long renewal rate at just $5, you will constantly make passive income from your forum if you have the requisite members. If you would like to keep your forum free, you can implement a hybrid to this idea and charge only for a special, members only board while keeping the rest of the forum free.
Common Denominator In Successful Blogs
If you want to become a top blog like TechCrunch, ProBlogger, or PerezHilton keep in mind what each have in common: they all constantly update their blog – daily at a minimum. This keeps people coming back for each new story you have in store. Focus on one topic and become an expert on that. Some will disagree with that notion and have even shown exceptions in making money blogging otherwise but in general, the most successful blogs will stay on topic.
