Most of you are well conversant how important back links are to maintain Google PR of a site.
This is the free tool to check the back-links to a web page.
And this is a sample of the result you get when you check back-links for Google.com
And here is another free tool to generate HTML and XML sitemap for your website.
Here is a screen shot of the interface to generate the sitemap.
A free web host is always an option available for you,particularly if you are publishing your first website, or if it is just a hobby site, or if it is a site which is published for experimentations. Sometimes, though you may prefer free web hosting particularly to see whether your site has any earning potential or not. In case, you find your site doing well, you may switch over to paid hosting services.
With the gradually reducing hosting charges, more and more web publishers are actually preferring paid host to the free one even for their experimental sites, yet, if you like to go with a free web hosting service provider, some points you should check before taking a final decision.
1. Space/ Bandwidth Issue:
Some free web hosts provide so small space and bandwidth that it is impossible to publish a test site even with such a low space or bandwidth limit.
Though it is difficult to predict your space/bandwidth requirement, but, hosts offering 5MB space or 10 MB B/w per month is too little for any practical use. On the other hand, claims like unlimited space/ B/w are often detected as fraudulent and should not be give much importance.
2. Scripting/ Programming Support:
Be sure to check whether your web host support scripting or programming, lots of popular web hosts,do not support anything but plain HTML web pages - which is not a good thing, considering the availability of loads of free CMS based on PHP and MySQl; so scripting support is much desired even for a testing site.
3. Database support:
Quite a few free web hosts support mySQL database, and some of them support different other databases as well. In case you need some database support, be sure to check for it- before taking a final decision regarding your host. You should be informed that most of the modern CMS use mySQL as the backend database for storing content of your website. So, if you decide to use a CMS, your host must provide you database support. Some hosts implement restriction on the size of database you are allowed to use. Be very particular to figure those minute details.
4. Domain or Sub-Domain hosting:
While all the free hosts allow you to use a free sub-directory or a free sub-domain to publish your website, there are few,who allow you to use your own registered domain name. In case, you have a registered domain name, you should try to find out those free webhosts.
5. Mail Support:
PHP Mail function is disabled in most Free hosting service providers to protect spamming. Someone enables that after receiving your request but most of them will allow you to use it once you have upgraded to paid member only. In case you are starting a new forum, which involves user registration based on E-mail , you should better look for another host.
6. .htaccess restrictions:
Some free hosts do not allow you to edit .htaccess file - which is a must for most of the CMS scripts nowadays. So, if some hosts do impose restriction in this regard, that is definitely going to add a negative mark in their hat.
7. Error Handling:
This is the most annoying restriction some free hosts implement. In case, your visitors mis-spell the url of your web page - some hosts redirect your visitors to a page, which is a blatant propaganda of themselves. Your visitors do not understand at all that they have made some mistake ( As they do not see any 404 error page ) and instead of that they consider the page to be their correct destination - which results in a loss of visitor on your part.
Some Free hosts even play trick with www and non-www version of your web page, they allow either the www version or the non-www version of your website, i.e., they allow either of the www.your-sub-domain.com or your-sub-domain.com directly; Now most of the visitors do not understand the difference between the two,and in case they mis-type , they are redirected to a page of your hosting company.
It is a very painful problem that is alone enough to discourage you from continuing with a free host.
8. Server uptime and mySQL Database Load:
Free web hosts suffer from uptime problem, and, you should not complain about that ( unless it crosses every limit) as these are the part and parcel of any free hosting service.
9. Support:
Free hosting service often lacks prompt support, though there are few exception to this general rule of thumb.
10. Display Ads:
Free web hosts, in exchange of providing hosting service, often display different advertisements - mostly Adsense though, in your web site- you can term this as Ad-supported web hosting. It is better to accept such terms as it is an indication that your host knows his business and atleast has the intention to sustain his service.
There are free hosts that do not display Ads on your site at all, rather, ask you to post articles in their forums. In that case, depending upon your level of skills in writing - you may try such free hosting service, though it is very much debatable whether such services should at all be termed as free hosting service or not.
And finally there are sites which offer you absolutely Ad-free, posting-free web hosting services, sometimes for a limited period, while sometime for a longer period. But those are the most difficult service to sustain as nothing comes for FREE in this real world. You may find your website ,with all the contents, vanishing one fine morning- or your hosting company may decide to stop the free hosting service at any time.
11. FTP/ SSH/ cPanel Support
These are very much essential support and you must look for these supports before selecting any free web host. You can not upload files to your web site without FTP support.
In fine, as I have told already, free web host is still an option for experimental/ hobby sites. A careful selection of free web host may yield satisfactory experience in the long run.
I’ve all along tried to share with you guys what I’ve learnt and what I’m still learning during my stay here at internet. Site building is not that difficult today for the ready-to-install free scripts and free templates that meet up most of your needs. So, the biggest issue is how to promote a web site?
What is that Golden stick that will bring life to your web site by drawing attention of thousands of visitors each day? I searched the net a lot and ended up in dire frustration as most of those methods involve time consuming affair. But what if you need some real instant visitors?
Someone may have started thinking I’m going to talk about the age-old traffic exchange programs where you have to surf other people’s sites so that you can gain certain credits which in turn will be used to drive visitors to your site. Traffic Exchange may work for certain sites but not for every site in the internet traffic exchange is going to be useful. Also it involves a hard work or investment on your part again and the traffic driven to your site are not generic one and they are more likely to ignore your site as they are always in a hurry to surf more sites: so, traffic exchage is not the one I am going to talk about right now.
If you are loosing your patience to read upto this point, I must express my deepest regrets as I know if I would tell it in one or two lines ( it should not deserve more than that ) you will simply overlook it or ignore it. So, my every effort will be to produce a long lasting impression in your mind so that after reading this article you will also try to promote your site using the super hit formula.
When I started to observe the example site, a blog in fact, it had hardly one to two visitors per day; believe me - only one to two visitors per day. Is that enough for you? If it is enough then I’ll advise you to stop reading as I’m thinking of generating thousands of hits to your web sites. The blog was struggling hard to get some real traffic; the blogger was dissapointed but never gave up hope.
The blogger started a CONTEST. It looked like a very simple task but thrown in a very challenging way claiming that “You can’t do this, and, if you do this I’ll give you $10 as a prize money”. The blogger posted it in different forums and social networking sites.
It worked like magic.
The blog got thousands of visitors rushing at it to win that $10 contest in a single day. The blogger did not announce the name of the winner for quite some time and would continue to receive that amount of visitors per day. The blogger finally decided to declare the name of the winner - and - showed the payment proof also.
The contest was over. It was expected that the site would again start to starve of traffic, but, surprisingly it would continue to get 400+ visitors daily - the residual ones who have actually found some interesting stuff in that site.
Do I need to tell more specifically what is that “super hit formula“? If you expect me to do so, I’m sorry to say that I’m too tired after making this pretty long post.
Take Care. Good night.
It was not going well for me, I was really struggling hard to find a cheap and reliable host in recent past. Over the past few months, I have changed my web hosts a number of times - moved my web sites from one host to the other cluelessly. So, before you must switch over to a new hosts the factors you must check:
1. Make a search at DNS Stuff to learn about the host itself, I mean, particulars of the host, i.e., name, address, Email ID, Contact Phone Numbers - If you find these information rather unrealistic then you should not go on with that host. You can also verify certain factors like Email ID provided there by asking simple questions. If you get a reply, your new host may not be a fraudulant host.
Another factor that you should check is the Expiry Date of the domain name from DNS records. If you see the domain has been registered recently or due to expire within a few months, better to try for another host.
2. Once you are satisfied with the credibility of the host, now comes the biggest issue, the uptime. For uptime factor, you have no option but to read the reviews of the webmasters already have hosted their web sites in that host. You can google for review - domain-name-of-the-hosting-company.com to get some input.
3. Now the third point you must check is the support. Indifferent/ Casual Support Staff may make your life horrible . The verification of the support system is not that difficult. Simply throw some questions addressing the host and if you get a reply within a reasonable time , you can rely that host. So far as support is concerned, you must check out carefully all the available options. I’ve found three in common : 1) 24 Hours Online Support 2) Support Ticket System / Email Support 3) Live Forum
24 Hours online support is really an excellent feature to have as your simple queries/problems are likely to be resolved within no time. But if a host does not provide you 24 Hours Support system, it does not mean that he is not willing to give you any support. I’ve seen some really good support from certain web hosting companies who do not offer 24 Hours Online Support. Live and active forum support is also a great way to have your problems resolved.
4. Regarding Payments made to host - I’ll suggest you not to pay for big one year, instead of that try to pay per month basis, if such payment option is available. Paying for one/two year hosting plan in advance may apparantly appear to be lucrative but who knows if your hosting company dissappears all of a sudden!
5. What should you look for in your new host?
You are the owner of your web site, you know better than me its space requirement and traffic load - accordingly, find a host on the basis of Space, Bandwidth and Hosting Charges. Then you should look for the following features which are often ignored by many of the new webmasters:
Access to .htaccess file, Number of Webmails offered (and Space Limitations ), Access to MX Records, Number of Domains allowed, Number of Sub-domains allowed, No. of MySQL Databases allowed and Space Limitation for MySQL Databases (if any) Administrative Control Panel ( CPanel is better for ease of operation, I believe), and availability of Pre-Installed Scripts like Mambo, Joomla. There may be some other factors as well depending upon your necessity.
6. Myth about unlimited bandwidth:
Different web hosting companies claim that they offer unlimited bandwidth and some even claim that they offer unlimite space! Such hosts, irrespective of their credibility in terms of one to five above, are not at all reliable. I guess they are not going to stay in their business for long time.
7. Hosting companies that offer you hosting for $1 or $2 per month may not be that much reliable - and good for only test web sites. If you are extremely serious about your own web sites, and, in particular, if you are publishing your web sites for your valued clients - you must not rely on such web hosting companies - as your customers will not let you go FREEly.
8.Try to look for the hosts offering 15-30 Days Money Back Guarentee: confirm with their sales team whether it is unconditional or not, and, whether they will keep upto their promise in case you are not satisfied with their service or support. This is particularly crucial if you are moving your web sites from one host to the other - as for some strange reason - popular CMSs like Joomla/Mambo or Drupal may pose some problem if moved to another host; and, such host specific issues need to be resolved by the support team and not by you. If they can’t resolve an issue and if your site does not become fully functional after being moved, you have no option but to claim a money refund.
9. Forum where useful reviews of different web hosting companies are available:
10. Web site listing web hosting companies:
Wish the next time you need to swith over to a new host, you’ll check the above points thoroughly against each of your short listed hosts and take a wise decision.
You know I’m pretty busy in myLot these days. Right now I’m going to add my blog to myLot.
I’m so excited as mylot is a great community which is really growing fast.
The life of Affiliate Marketers have never been easy. You can hardly expect any positive result at all by putting some links or banner ads in your website. Unless and until you can inspire the visitors to spend some dollars for buying affiliate products -you can’t expect any good result. So, should we avoid promoting such products?And my simple answer is a big “NO”.
Why?
There are people who are actually eaning thousands of dollars by taking part in affiliate programs. So why can’t you? All you need is to follow few simple steps to claim your own profit share. For that, above anything else, you need to be creative. OK, enough is enough, let us come on to the topic. What you need to do to be a successful affiliate marketer?
1. You need to have basic knowledge of Website designing
2. You must have expertise in Search Engine Optimisation.
3. You need to do a Keyword research for finding your niche or neo-market.
4. You need to build a website for promoting products
5. You need to promote the website the best way you can do.
If you do not get result, review each of these five steps to see what went wrong. The common mistake with Affiliate marketing, as I’ve seen, is the over optimistic approach for returns. First of all you have to learn, understand and apprehend your limitations.
If you do not have the capacity to build a good looking website, you should consult a professional web designer and that is the basic need. Anyway, it is not that difficult to build a quality website as many FREE scripts are availabe by virtue of which you can make professional websites by just few mouse clicks.
You need to have a good expertise in SEO, i.e., search engine optimisation. Despite of different alternative means of generating traffic to your website, nothing pays you more than the generic Search Engine Visitors. If you can’t optimise your site, you should consult professional SEO firm.
Finding your niche is the toughest part of becoming a successful affiliate. You have to dig a lot for a good keyphrase - you need to spend lots of hours in search of a popular keyphrase and I’m afraid to say that you can hardly expect any professional help in this regard. You must have enough knowledge about the niche keyword you have chosen, that is another point to keep in mind. Successful affiliates have suggested that they have earned a PhD degree in their niche and they can freely write bunch of pages about their niche. So, their may be good keyphrases but it may not be just suitable for you.
Once you have found your niche, your job is now much more simple. Now you need to build a quality website, must be content rich, focussing on your selected niche and promote it in every possible way. You must have the patience to get some visitors coming to your site, having a trust on your site and finally making the purchase.
That’s it and it is not yet over.
Things you should keep in mind.
Instead of focussing on a large population, try to focus on small tagetted visitors. Build a small and very much targetted website.
You need to be creative.
Do not be promotional, nobody loves a blind promotion, try to be informative instead. And at the same time you have to inspire your visitors to make a purchase.
Apart from depending on Search Engine traffic, dig alternative sources like Social Networking Sites - Digg.com; reddit.com.
Take part in Forums, Use Press Release Services or consider taking part in PPC ( Pay Per Click - Google Adwords ) programs.
And a final word of caution - a desparate attempt ends up in frustration; so, plan your project well ahead, ensure disciplined hard work to achieve your goal.
Good luck!
