Domainers, for the uninformed, are people (or groups of people) that register large quantities of domains with the intent of reselling them for substantial sums of money. Have you run into a domain owned my a cybersquater (domainer)? Usually the page displayed is generic, and contains ads. Most of the time there’s also a link to make an offer to buy the domain. Yeah, it sucks that the domainers taking half of the good domains and not utilizing them, but they’re not about to stop anytime soon. They’re making hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars off the domains they sell.

So how can you get a good domain with all of this going on? You have three options:

1. Buy from a domainer
2. Come up with a creative domain that’s available
3. Look for an alternative TLD

If you just have to have that cool domain, go with option one. If you’re the creative sort, keep looking. The last option is to look for a domain with a different TLD. What’s a TLD? A Top Level Domain is the .whatever suffix on domain names. .Com isn’t the only TLD on the web. You could use a country level TLD like .us (great if you get something like www.stupendo.us), you could use .net, .info, or something else. There are plenty of alternatives.

Some counrtries have even made their country level TLDs available to the general web population, deciding that they don’t need them all to themselves. The republic of Tuvalu has made .tv domains available through several major registrars, and you can also get .fm and other country TLDs. .Tv and .fm are great for vidcasts and podcasts, as I’m sure you noticed.

Personally, I’ve been wanting a whole new TLD as a .com alternative. After years of wait, we’re finally getting one. Sometime in 2008, ICANN will create the “.web” TLD. It’s a general-purpose TLD that’s being introduced because of the overcrowded .com and .net. Finally! Of course, the domainers are going to have a field day, registering every word in the dictionary, as soon as it goes online. So you may want to keep an eye on ICANN’s website. I’ll probably register a few domains for future use, before their taken. I have some ideas for NTugo that would be better if they had unique domains.

So if you plan on starting a blog next year, but you’re not ready yet, keep an eye out for the .web domains!

Since then, I’ve contacted Blogger and AdSense, requesting that they take action. I’ve not received a response from AdSense yet (just an autoresponder saying that they’d received my message). Blogger sent an email back though. They say they won’t do anything unless I send them a DMCA takedown notice (through snail mail). I guess I’ll have to prepare one then. Google isn’t very helpful in the anti-splog department, are they?

The splog scraped my content about 11 days ago, and hasn’t come back since. Though with a name like it has, it’s probably only a matter of time. What’s the best way to stop them? I can’t find an entry in my Feedburner stats, nor in my server logs. I have no idea what IP is scraping the feed either. I assume it’s automated, but I’m not quite sure.

If anyone has anti-splog tips, feel free to post them in the comments.

Do you really think that’s possible? Looking at storage space alone, a 500GB Hard Drive costs $150. Do the math, no one can afford that. You’re paying $7/month for your hosting account ($84/year), right? Now, you’re buying what’s called shared hosting. For $7/month you have access to a small slice of a server’s resources. There are probably 100 other websites hosted on the same computer as you. So, that would mean that computer would need 30000GB of storage (300GB x 100 users). That’s 30 Terabytes, or 60 of those 500GB hard drives! There’s no way any webhost could afford that, and there’s no way their servers would accept that much storage.

So what’s going on? The hosts are overselling. Your electric company does the same thing. The servers have a certain amount of storage, say 1000GB (two 500GB hard drives). Though there’s only 1TB total, they go and tell everyone they’re getting 300GB. The company figures that no one is going to use all of the storage they’re allotted, and puts 100 sites on the same machine. So, theoretically you could hit that 300GB mark, there just would be less storage available for everyone else. The trouble is, you can’t hit the 300GB mark. The company puts a little clause in the hosting contract that says your service can be cut-off for “excessive use of resources.” Basically, they say “knock it off!” whenever you use “too much” storage. Of course, only the hosting company knows what the cutoff point is. It could be 20GB or even 5GB. It’s legal, because you agreed to it when you paid for their service.

The same goes for bandwidth. The hosting company may claim 3000GB, but are you really getting that? No. They’ll likely cut-off your service when the CPU cycles your site is consuming goes beyond a certain point. As the visitors flood in (like when a blog post you wrote gets Dugg), your CPU usage will increase. This is a nice excuse for the host to cut your service, as it doesn’t draw too much attention to your service.

Pretty much every host on the planet oversells, but some do it more than others. But what if you need a ton of storage and bandwidth? What do the bigger sites do? You have a few options, but be prepared to hand over some cash. Just note that if you’re starting a new site/blog you probably won’t run into the overselling problem, but when it grows you may need to look at different hosting options. Here are your options:

• A Small Orange: ASO offers quality shared hosting for those who want to avoid the reselling game entirely. I’ve been hearing a lot of good comments about ASO lately, and they seem like a great host. They have plans for nearly everyone. From the $25/year “Tiny” plan to the $30/month ($360/year) “Super” plan.
• VPS Hosting: A VPS, or Virtual Private Server, is like shared hosting in the fact that there’s more than one site per server, but the similarities end there. With a VPS, there are much less people on the server, you have root access generally, and you can even resell unused space to other people. RapidVPS seems to have some good options, and I’ve been considering them for a new project of mine.
• Dedicated Server: How would you like to have a whole computer dedicated to hosting your website? This is what the big web companies like Yahoo do (though they use more than one computer in a Server Cluster), and it isn’t cheap. You’re looking at $99/month or more (generally more). 1and1’s Root Servers are allegedly good, though some people have complaints about the Managed Servers.

Well, hopefully I’ve done an adequate job at describing web host overselling. It’s not entirely easy to put to words.

• 75,000+ unique visitors a month.
• 103,000+ pageviews per month.
• PageRank of 4
• $175 current monthly revenue
• 2000+ RSS subscribers, growing at a rate of 100 per week.
• 33 Posts
• Technorati Authority of 704 (rank of 4000)

The blog is listed for auction at SitePoint, and the bid has already reached $5,500. Unfortunately I don’t happen to have an extra $10,000 on hand.

NorthXEast is a great blog with an interesting style. I hope whomever buys it will

• Keep the same cool design
• Keep up the good content
• Maintain good practices, and refrain from dancing, talking George W. Bush ads.

I’m one of those 2000+ RSS subscribers who wants NorthXEast to keep going as a great blog. So, if one of you bloggers has some extra cash, and feels up to the responsibility, how about buying NxE?

First of all, why do websites run ads? To make money. I, and most other people, don’t have any problem with this. We’re used to it. You have ads in magazines, commercials on TV, billboards on highways. I place ads on my websites as well.

Why do people block ads? Because some websites cross the line between making some money, and going crazy. I can tolerate some AdSense blocks, and other unintrusive ads. However, most commercial websites are so ad-heavy you want to scream. They don’t just load their pages with banners, but they employ such annoying ads that there’s no doubt why AdBlock came into existence. Here are some examples:

• Noisy Ads. Banner ads shouldn’t talk, buzz, or otherwise utilize your sound card. If I’m reading articles online, I don’t want my speakers to suddenly come to life, screaming “You’ve just won a free iPod! Click here to claim your prize.”
• Moving/Expanding Ads. Okay, vibrating and blinking banners aren’t good. Neither are ads that aren’t contained to their original box. George W. Bush shouldn’t dance across my monitor, and I banners shouldn’t double in size when I accidentally mouse over them.
• “Brick Wall” Ads. These irritating things are shown between page loads. Visit GameSpot or PC World and see this for yourself. You see a big full-page ad, with a bar along the top that says “Click here to continue to [Site Name].”
• Pre-Roll Video Ads. If I want to spend my valuable time viewing a video, I don’t want some lunatic ad to play for 30 seconds before I can watch it.
• Pop-Ups. Yeah, what a great idea. Opening a new browser window on us isn’t going to get us to visit your sponsor. More likely we’ll just leave.
• Kontera Keyword Ads. You’ve seen those double-underlined links, right? When you mouse over them you’re greeted with a stupid box that pops-up in your face.

This is by no means a definitive list. Really, you have to wonder. Do the people who run these sites actually visit them? I’m guessing they don’t. A lot of these commercial sites are run by actual companies, and the owners probably aren’t involved in day-to-day operations that much.

I’m a webmaster, and I’m a serious web user. I spend a lot of time online, and see vast quantities of ads each day. You see, spending so much time online myself, I know what annoys me. When I place ads on my websites, I do it in ways that wouldn’t annoy me. Notice this site? No pop-ups, no “Brick Wall” ads, just some AdSense mainly. Obviously I’m not making as much money as I would if I did otherwise, but I don’t care.

The web is an information/communications network that, first and foremost, is about the sharing of information. People forget that in the early days of the internet, there was a ban on commercial traffic. Of course, that was a kind of over-restrictive, and it was eventually lifted. I like making some money off of my content, but it’s a rather stupid business model to make all of your money off ads. I think the best way is to take Ars Technica’s approach. They’re ads are at a minimum, they’re content is free, and they’re still making good money. The web isn’t print media, so stop monetizing it like a magazine. Sorry, web users just won’t put-up with digital equivalents of magazine ads.

Web sites are a new medium, and therefore require different advertising approaches. The Pay-Per-Click scheme was pretty good when it launched, though it’s effectiveness has been waning. It’s now up to the ad networks to innovate new approaches to online advertising. It’s happening, though not as fast as we’d like.

A common argument about AdBlock is that its users are “stealing.” By reading content, and not enjoying the site’s ads, the users are taking the content without paying in ad impressions. I think it’s time for a metaphor. If you’re a TV network, you’re likely making your money off commercials shown throughout your programs. Of course, most people leave the room when the ads come on. They make sandwiches, they go consult IMDB to see what else an actor has been in, and they grab a Pepsi. Unsurprisingly, the companies purchasing ads are less willing to fork over the cash required to run a TV commercial. Is it stealing to watch a TV show, but not the commercials? “No, duh” is the answer here. So why is it “stealing” to read a web page, but not view the ads?

Ad blocking is a result of intrusive advertisements invading the internet, and I believe web users have every right to block ads if they chose. Personally, I don’t blanket-block ads like a lot of people. I just zap the worst of them. If people weren’t blanket-blocking ads, I could have double the ad revenue I have currently. Sure, I wouldn’t mind having some extra cash (I really wouldn’t mind), but I’m not complaining. I think web users have every right to block online ads.

Further Reading

• If Your Blog Doesn’t Have Ads, Are You Evil?
• Don’t Block Firefox!

• Don’t Block Firefox
• MistyLook WordPress Theme
• How Much Is Your Blog Worth?
• Merging RSS Feeds With SimplePie
• Creating a Favicon
• Anything on Smashing Magazine

Linkbaiting is basically writing/making something that people are sure to notice, come back to, link to, and tell others about. I probably don’t have to tell you that this benefits you a lot. Incoming links are worth a lot in the blogosphere, especially from bigger blogs. You get traffic from the other blogs, and you get PageRank too.

So, what are the top linkbaiting techniques that we’ve seen so far?

• WordPress Themes: The MistyLook theme is a prime example. In addition to looking cool, the theme was popularized by John Chow, who used it for a while. If you can make a great WordPress theme, and get the word out about it, this is a great linkbaiting technique for you.
• Quizes: People like taking quizes and tests. If you have the expertise to code a quiz, you could get some links.
• WordPress Plugins: How many plugins are installed on your blog? How did you find them? Find a niche in the plugin world, and you’re all set (assuming you know PHP).
• Other “Tools”: The “How Much is Your Blog Worth?” calculator, AddThis.com, etc. Study them and learn.
• Lists: Make a huge list of something and submit it to Digg and StumbleUpon. Smashing Magazine only does this, and look where that got them. They’re in the Technorati Top 100!
• Controversy: Write something that people will disagree with.
• Be the first to do something: Be innovative, do something no one’s done before.
• Be the definitive resource: Wikipedia gets ton of links. Why? They’re one of the best online encyclopedias. Write a unique tutorial on something new no one else has done yet.
• News: If you can get a news story out before anyone else, you’ve struck gold (especially with Tech news).

It is possible to avoid Blogger’s Block, but my strategies aren’t infallible. It is still possible to run out of ideas if you’re not careful.

Get a Blog Notebook

My theory is that if you have enough ideas on file, and you keep adding new ones, you’ll always have plenty of things to blog. So head over to your local office supply store and buy a 5-subject spiral notebook. How you use it may vary. Personally, I have it segmented between my various websites, though it is perhaps better to do it more like this:

• Subject 1: Post ideas.
• Subject 2: Feature ideas. Features are posts that take more time and planning to write. Some blogs, like ProBlogger, separate the normal posts from the features, though it’s not totally necessary. You know, posts like this or this. Essentially, they’re your pillar content.
• Subject 3: To do. Tweaks you need to make to your template, plugins to install, sites to check-out, etc.
• Subject 4: Linkbait Ideas. Keep a list of things you could do to pull-in links. Some linkbaiting schemes could be considered Features, but not all, thus the separate subject. ProBlogger Darren Rowse has an excellent guide to Linkbaiting.
• Subject 5: Misc. Everything else that doesn’t fit in the other categories.

Whenever you’re stuck, select an idea from your notebook and write it. Also, if you come up with a good post idea when you don’t need one, enter it into the notebook so you don’t forget. I’ve been using a blog notebook for awhile now, and it works well.

Note: Some people prefer to use a three-ringed binder or a set of .txt files instead of a notebook.

Speedlinking and Other Recurring Posts

If you open a magazine, you’ll notice that they generally have “Departments” or “Columns,” which are segments of the magazine that appear in every edition, while the rest of the content changes. If you look at PC Magazine, you’ll see that John Dvorak has a column on the last page of every issue. Why don’t you apply the same principle to your blog? You can have a column of sorts that you publish every now and then, that way you have some easier content. Here are some ideas:

• Speedlinking – Once or twice a week, post a round-up of interesting links you found over the previous days.
• Weekly Comic – Add a weekly comic to your blog, no artistic skills require. If you look around the web, you’ll find cartoonists who allow you to freely syndicate their work. One example is Blaugh, the comic about blogging. Another is WeblogCartoons.com, which is separated into categories. Consult Google for more.
• From the Archives – Unless your blog is really new, then you’ll have a large archive of old posts. Why not highlight some old ones now and then? Just point your readers in the direction of a few posts. Also, it works well to highlight posts that are relevant to a current event.
• Monthly Guest Post – Let someone else post something on your blog. It benefits you and the guest. If you look at ProBlogger.net, you’ll see some occasional guest posts.
• Q&A – Let your readers ask you questions via email, and answer them in a blog post.

Look For Ideas

You have your blog notebook, but what good will it do you if you don’t put ideas into it? Look through your archives, read other blogs etc. Here are some generic ideas to help you out:

• “Sneeze Posts” – I’m quoting Daren Rowse there. Name aside, this is a great, and easy, type of post. Pick a topic, round-up some links from your archives on the subject, and post.
• Lists – 10 Ways to…, Top 20…, 103 Great Links For… Lists are easy to write, and readers like them. Tip: Digg users like anything with a huge number in the title. Take a look at Smashing Magazine and Mashable. They’re famous for their huge lists.
• Poll – Ask your readers a question or two.
• Tutorial – Teach your readers how to do something. You can pull-in some extra traffic by submitting it to tutorial directories like Good-Tutorials and Tutorialized.

Well, that’s all for now. Go buy a notebook!

For the past few days, I’ve been working on a multiple choice test. Answer the questions and it will give you a percentage of how obsessed you are. It’s only twenty questions long, so it won’t take more than a couple of minutes to complete.

What are you waiting for? Go and test your blogging obsession level (answer truthfully).

The pMetrics “Spy” tool (the main reason I have a pMetrics account) showed a steady stream of people coming in from StumbleUpon. SU has been the top traffic source on Webmaster-Source for a couple of months now, so I wasn’t too surprised about that, though the amount of people coming in was a lot more than usual.

I checked Google Analytics for the exact figures, and nearly fell off my chair. StumbleUpon was sending over thousands of visitors…all of them going to the Firefox article. I kept an eye on my stats for the rest of the day (and I watched my AdSense revenue as well). It was exciting, watching the numbers go up (and seeing real-time updates with pMetrics Spy). By the end of the day, I had a total of 7,076 unique visitors and 11,310 pageviews (quite a lot higher than normal). 10,553 of those pageviews were on the Firefox article. Just how many of my visitors that day were from StumbleUpon? 98.7%.

I got online this morning to see what he grand total was, and I checked other statistics as well. My count of RSS subscribers had more than doubled, and I’d made over $2.40 off AdSense that day (SU/Digg/Reddit people don’t really click ads that much, but still, I’d like to have a few more days like that).

Take a look at this graph for August 18th:

See, it’s in the 20-120 visits range up until a huge spike from StumbleUpon. How did that happen? When a user clicks the “Stumble!” button on their toolbar, they’re taken to a semi-random page that’s determined by how many votes it’s received. As time progressed, people voted for my Firefox article. As the votes accumulated, the article started to come up more often. It’s kind of cool (and by the way, the StumbleUpon toolbar is addicting). Where will my traffic levels go now? Probably down a little, but I’ve gained more RSS subscribers and I’ve gotten some links from other blogs. I think overall, it’s on the rise, spike or not. I’m guessing that StumbleUpon will continue sending me a ton visitors for a few more days at least, then things will calm down a bit more and we’ll see where the numbers settle.

StumbleUpon is a powerful tool that, when used correctly, can net you a lot of users. While you may not have traffic spikes like this too often, you’ll generally get a steady stream of visitors the rest of the time. SU has been my top referrer for a couple of months before I wrote “Don’t Block Firefox!”.

I’ve been spending a lot of time replying to comments and checking my stats lately, but this has been fun. Hopefully something like this will happen again soon.

Whether you’re a web designer, a PHP coder, or a blogger, it pays to know the ins and outs of CSS and HTML. Even if you’ve memorized the entire CSS Spec documents (unlikely), there’s still more to learn. CSS Maniacs everywhere are coming up with new techniques every day, and it’s a good idea to keep current on the latest methods for dodging around Internet Explorer bugs and building CSS grid layouts. Then you have a constant stream of downloadable utilities (and Firefox extensions) to aid you in your design work.

Well, let’s cut to the chase. Here are a few CSS tutorials, techniques, and resources (in no particular order):

General

• Dynamic Drive CSS Library
• CSS.MaxDesign – Home of the “Listamatic” tutorials
• Internet Explorer CSS Bug Fixes
• Macworld Secrets: CSS tricks for custom bullets
• How to Create a Block Hover Effect for a List of Links
• Mini Tabbed Pages
• 101 CSS Resources to Add to Your Toolbelt of Awesomeness
• 71 CSS Menu Links
• CSS @ Smashing Magazine
• CSS Dock Menu
• Tizag.com
• Web Design From Scratch

Rounded Corners

• Cornershop
• Spanky Corners
• CSS Rounded Box Generator
• CSS Rounded Corners ‘Roundup’

Layout

• Pullquotes That Really Pull
• CSSeasy.com – Learn CSS page layout the modern way.
• Ten CSS tricks you may not know
• Ten more CSS tricks you may not know
• Image Caption
• CSS Reset – Remove all browser defaults.
• Master Stylesheet (similar to CSS reset)
• CSS Galleries: Free Web Designs for Download
• CSS Layouts Vs. Table Layouts
• Tables Aren’t Dead Yet
• CSS Slicing Guide
• Learn CSS Positioning in Ten Steps
• From Mess to CSS
• CSS Equal Height Columns (JavaScript)

Tools

• Dummy Lipsum
• W3C CSS Validator
• Mozilla Firefox – Face it, Internet Explorer sucks.
• CSS Tab Designer
• CSS Tweak
• Standalone Internet Explorer (IE3-6) – Useful for testing.
• Layout-O-Matic

Firefox Extensions

• IE View
• MeasureIt
• Web Developer
• YSlow

Design Galleries (For Inspiration)

• CSS Remix
• CSS Dump
• CSS Reboot – A gallery powered by Pligg
• FaveUp

Books

• The CSS Anthology
• HTML, XHTML, and CSS, Sixth Edition