Webmaster Tips & Tricks - The Webmaster’s Blog

I am sick and tired of downtimes. I have been experiencing them for the last week. I spent tens of hours working on some sites to increase traffic and tune up the themes and instead of being able to work on them I have to look on ‘not found’ errors.

First I thoght I have some problems with my ISP. But no, I look at some site that monitors if a site is up and of course my result is: DOWNTIME.

Why did I chose QualityHostOnline.com in the first place? Because the price was OK .. 10 USD a month. And yeah, I was cheap. I just bought the reseller account months ago and then started seeing the problems. Here are they all. I won’t say this host is the worst you can see, but I will make sure I move my sites from there in the following hours .. let’s hope the server won’t die on me AGAIN:

• the reseller account is weird: you have a domain that “represents” your hosting (dojodesign.ro in my case, my portfolio). And then resellable space. Oh wait: the “name” site gets 50% of the resources and you can sell ONLY half of the total. And no, there’s nothing you can do. So .. from all your nice hosting account don’t think you’ll sell more than 50%. Imagine how nice it was for me to have my small portfolio (2MB the most) relax on a 1GB space, 10GB bandwidth account. Don’t bother ask them to change: it’s gonna stay like this.
• this means a lot of issues with the LIMITED resources you have: I am quite a master in getting all kinds of “changes” so that I won’t have my sites fail on me on the 20th or some, when the server says my sites are getting close to the bandwidth limit. Can you host some big sites on a 10 GB bandwidth account? Well, as crazy as it might seem you can .. I was able to.
• support .. I cannot say they didn’t respond. But in some cases it took some hours. I want instant messaging possibilities and not the OFFLINE message they always have on the site
• downtimes unannounced. Let’s set some stuff clear: I don’t have a hi5 like page with glitter and other stupidities. I run a network of sites. I am paid for links and advertising. I can lose my publisher accounts because of the downtimes. Not to mention I want to build up some traffic. The downtime for the last days was caused by I don’t know what changes on the server. HELLO: write to me. Put some backups plans. Don’t mess with my sites like this.

I am trying now resellerzoom.com .. a bit more expensive, but with way more resources. We move there .. today.

We have moved our article to the new blog.

We have moved the article on the new blog.

I read a thread on NamePros and it just gave me an idea for another rant in my blog. I could start a free hosting project too .. I have 2 reseller accounts as we speak and I could grow more as the need for more space and bandwidth would increase. Still .. I don’t even think about this … why?

1. I don’t believe in such a service myself .. anymore

Back in 2004 I would be very happy to find dhost.info .. a very good (back then) free hosting service. Good space / bandwidth ratio (maybe too good), NO ads on our pages … excellent support in the forums. It was a dream come true. A php / mysql hosting plan was pretty expensive back then and it seemed like a good solution.

As my sites grew I realized I need something more. And this is why I got paid hosting and I never looked back. I have my own domains (17 I think now) all developed with sites I am proud of.

I don’t see any reasons to get myself a free hosting service anymore. I can get a domain name very cheap and with 10 USD I can host more than 1 sites on my reseller account. I have more than 10 now on that server and it’s working flawlessly .. and yes, when you pay you do have excellent support or you just move

In 2004 I couldn’t afford a site on a paid host, now I have 17. It’s very cheap and the benefits of your own domain are irrefutable.

2. I don’t think I can give them what they want

Something that really makes me wonder: even if many people who cannot afford or are just too cheap to buy hosting have HUGE expectations from the free hosting provider. They want big space and bandwidth ..sometimes even bigger than what I pay for on my reseller account. They want all they can for free.

If I was to create such a service I’d give them hosting plans that are decent: 100 MB space and 2-3 GB bandwidth. They don’t need more on their sites and putting huge space and traffic accounts would only encourage them to abuse the system with huge downloads that would break down the server and make my bill grow sky-high.

When people look for free hosting, many look for these high numbers, even if some are conscious about the fact THEY WON’T USE ALL of it. But it’s nice to get the best for your money .. or in this case .. for free.

3. Monetization

In this case there’s another issue. There would be some ways to make money from this service and here is what I think about using them:

• force ads on their sites. NO NO NO. I dislike this and I don’t think I’d do it to my customers
• put Adsense on the support forums. This might actually work nicely if they wouldn’t start clicking on the ads to “help” me. I saw this happen to others and Google do respond fast by killing the account.
• put Text Link Ads or another type of ads on the forums. Might also work; I need to get a good PR for the forums and it would be OK
• ask for donations  .. I seriously doubt there would be too many people donating
• offer paid upgrades. I cannot understand this: if it’s free, it stays free … that’s my way of seeing this at least ..

As you can see there are some ways to make money to pay the hosting bills. But the revenue needs to come faster and be serious enough so that I won’t have to discontinue the service. With a VERY GOOD business plan and some heavy promotion I think I could make it.

Still, the reasons listed above make me to think twice about this. I do offer paid hosting at some awfully small prices. I could call them for free. Still a “free hosting” service … is not in my plans just yet.

Maybe having 17 sites does make me a bit more careful with starting new ones

I saw a post in a webmaster forum (and of course I replied) created by a user who claimed he hates seeing even a banner in a site and that he just stops reading the site and leaves. Oh really? I found this comment to be ignorant and mean and here is why.

Dear user who hates seeing ads on sites, I am sure you just started a site/forum and haven’t yet had the awesome chance to actually invest in it. Maybe you’re on a free host, “learning” to make a site, maybe you still believe that the sites need only to provide you with awesome information and not  make sure they do live the next day.

Why do us, mean people with ads, put them on the first place? Maybe we want to get rich or maybe we just like to annoy you. Or maybe we try to make sure this site lives till the next domain renewal. If you, who read this “rant”, think the same as our friend in that thread, let’s try to explain you, why we have some ads on our sites.

My network consists of 15-17 sites as we speak. 13 forums, directories, article collections. Many sites run on 2-3 scripts and provide thousands of informative posts. They do cost: 15 domains have to be renewed each year. Hosting is not free either. So that we can have as little downtimes and lags as possible we run the sites on 2 reseller accounts. Make that 30 USD a month.

The huge luck in my case was that I was able to create my own layouts. I don’t pay for the designs, but make them myself. Instead of paying thousands of dollars on the themes, I made them and saved this money.

We do have to pay for some promotion though from time to time and also for some content writing (not too much, but that comes to 40 USD a month at least).

And here we are … almost bankrupt.  For 5 years the network increased with new sites, new content and more visitors. For 5 years, the main admin (myself) has spent approximately 10 hours / day on the sites (weekends included). I stay up at night, I try to log in even at my normal job to write another article or post another support thread. Make the calculations and try to see how many dollars do all these thousands of work hours value? Are we talking thousands of dollars .. oh yeah.

But how much money do we make? Don’t be afraid, most of us don’t get rich over night. Most of us still pay from our own pocket for hosting/domains/promotion. Maybe we started earning a bit more, but all the money gets reinvested in the sites. As they grow we need to provide better support, more content and have better hosting plans.

As long as a site doesn’t overdo all the advertising, doesn’t flood you with popups, pop under ads, flash ads, referrals till you cannot see the real content anymore, don’t judge it too hard. Try to see the good content provided and understand that for this content someone loses nights, refuses to go out with friends, pays for a lot of things and is in a constant rush to offer you, the visitor/member even more good content.

If you found anything interesting in a site, stick to it and ignore the fact it displays a small banner. Don’t be afraid, that banner won’t put them alongside Bill Gates. That banner might get them 20 USD in a month or a bit more so that, when someone makes fun of the time and money they put into such a bad business, they can reply … “But I did earn some money”. Most of the time this money is so little we are far from recovering all expenses. But it makes us continue the journey and provide you with more useful content.

More than 1 year ago I have bought a domain: www.stampstobuy.com since I wanted to sell some of my stamps. Now don’t think I own a huge collection, but I have some of them that might be happier with other stamps in a bigger better collection. I started collecting stamps ages ago, but lost interest since a good collection requires money and that’s something I didn’t quite have.

Still after creating www.banivechi.com for my boy friend (a site with his numismatic collection) and taming oscommerce to work and look as I wanted, it was the time for me to create another site running on oscommerce. In a way a reason for me to create a new site. I know I HAVE A PROBLEM

After some weeks I placed the site online, put few stamps and realized I’ll never have too many of them and in the end I would better provide people with their own shop and not only my stamps. Oscommerce has a multi-shop hack, but I was reluctant to try it. Don’t know why .. my tests were’n too promising, so I was on the search for a multi-shop (mall) script or an auction type.

I hit hotscripts.com as usually and found some paid sollutions. The good thing was that I also found a free script (as it was once) called phpauction. I downloaded the old version from sourceforge and started playing with it. The good thing was that it had a decent template system (nothing awesome, but still I was able to implement my design on it) and it looked OK. Till I tried to put some test auctions and it had a problem: it would show them as ended, even if they weren’t even begun for 2 minutes.

As you can gues, I looked for a support forum. NONE. The site www.phpauction.net has no working forum. There is an unofficial forum though, with some interesting topics. I was able to find out that I should better buy the script (the cheapest version is 24 USD) and start from there.

I went back to the official site and created an account. Afterwards I contacted them since I am in Romania and sending money abroad is a tad tricky. I discussed with a woman on the email and in few days we were able to make the transaction. I paid something like 48 USD with all the bank fees and commisions in my country and the destination too. I was pleased to be able to finally have the script.

I was given the download link and started working on the site. The first errors started appearing. When I tried to click on a category I’d get a nasty “fatal error”. I got a response in few hours from a guy from the support and received a patch for the files. I overwrote the files and it was OK.

After some hours .. another thing … when I would go to a second level category the url would be weird … again .. ticket .. few hours .. response … rewrite the files .. working.

Then I wanted to send a message from a test user I made to my account so that I see the contact works .. oops .. SQL error … again .. you guessed … submit a ticket, get a patch … works again.

Now I have another issue with category list not collapsing in the admin panel. Yes, I’ll submit ANOTHER ticket and get the issue solved.

Why I would think again about getting this script?

• well, it’s buggy and without support I wouldn’t be able to make it work. I won’t purchase a “superior” package (200 USD) since this one has ALL the features I need. And if this won’t work, what gives me guarantees the other one will do? I cannot get a refund since they won’t offer this, so we need to make it work, even if someone will kill me at the support desk
• there’s no support community .. I cannot belive this. I have forums for all possible things .. why not create a forum to help us with the script? With some official patches too?
• the script is a mess .. I cannot believe I need to be given a patch each time I run into issues. Doesn’t anyone test this thing? I did only NORMAL things with it and it failed to function. Others had the same issue. Can’t anyone there make another release that WORKS?

Why am I still using it? Am I crazy?

• I am crazy .. that’s a good reason. Or .. I paid (even double) for something that NEEDS TO WORK. I cannot be refunded for my payment, nor for the time I worked on this stupid site to make it work. So .. I will keep on using it and then maybe monetize. Next step: get a script that’s more expensive and will work. So far I want to make some money out of this.
• The script is nice when working. It does have a lot of features and I like it. I was able to work on the template system quite nicely and even if it does have some issues with the css, it is a good script from my point of view. Leaving aside my problems with the errors mentioned, phpauction is not such a bad choice.
• Support: if the script is buggy at least something works there: the support. I was able to get answers for my problems in hours (I would like minutes, but it’s OK even so) and the support was … supportive

Let’s hope I will be able to make that script work. BTW .. do you have some stamps? Trade them for free on www.stampstobuy.com

I purchased a reseller account from www.qualityhostonline.com with 10 USD for a client of mine 2-3 months ago and we moved their sites there. It looked OK. 20 GB bandwidth and enough space for some sites. Since I wasn’t that pleased with the reseller account I got from Romania, I though .. 10 USD is not such a huge sum, I can aford this. So I bought another account.

I created the account and started moving some of my sites that would need a good place. The bad thing is that my bandwidth is split in 2: 10 GB I have for my main site (portfolio) www.dojodesign.ro and only 10 GB are to be resold. That’s something new for me since the previous hosting firm didn’t do this. I contacted and asked if I can manage the bandwidth in another way: let 1 GB for the portfolio (how much can a portfolio occupy?) and use the rest for the other sites. NO I cannot do that

The solution? I’ll put all my downloads in the portfolio site. This way I can use that bandwidth that’s been so wrogly allocated.

The second problem would be with some recurring SQL errors. ALL my forums have them and they didn’t have any before. I think it’s time for a support ticket … will keep you posted

There is something I always disliked: people who run like a herd of cows into a direction, just because someone made it big. This applies a lot to the internet nowadays too. We had that nice chap making the million with that million dollar home page. As you guess and even know, many others started copy-cats since they thought they’d also hit it big. We had myspace hit it and now all webmasters who want to get rich (preferably over night) want to start such sites). And the list can go on. Now we’re all huge bloggers. Trying to get people to read our words, worrying about bloglog, feedburner, digg and other similar things. Why? Because this is the new trend.

Anyone in his “right” mind has a blog. Some have more. Most are doing this to get revenue and dream about tens of thousands of visitors and subscribers. It’s an industry already. As I read on the Tehnorati main page (weird enough it’s down right now) there’s a quote something like: “x million of blogs are on the net. Some of the have got to be good”. Yes, some of them are good, most of them are utterly crap. Youtube videos streamed though the blog, yahoo news or feeds copied from elsewhere, while the owner doesn’t understand WHY oh why won’t people subscribe to the masterpiece. I won’t name here the “fake” sites on blogger for instance (1 on every 4-5 sites I visit with the “next blog” option) who sell prescription drugs or show porn or other sort of garbage we’ve been flooded with in these last years).

I tried to increase my reading list when it comes to blogs and I have to confess that I am still trying to find something worth of my time. I saw some interesting posts in some blogs (weird enough, not popular blogs) and in some huge ones, but most of the time I read the same “promotional” stuff, or arid  information and no personal approach most of the time. Maybe I come from another world, but when I think of a blog I don’t think about Google’s latest news or the fact Gates just sold out Microsoft. I want to “know” the person and read some ideas of his/hers in a given topic. I want HUMAN INTERACTION and not the same copied content and over SEO optimized content I read in so many bad article sites.

The problem is that these personal blogs are not the type to make people turn heads. Many don’t come into the searches because the owner was more interested in genuine content and feelings and not keywords to spread in the text till you just go blind. These blogs don’t sell secret “make money quick” schemes and this makes them least visited and loved. And it’s a pity since they are the true blogs …

I bow to these people and respect them for having the courage to just be themselves rant about anything as I do in my little ranting box and provide me with some REAL food for the thought

I just deleted some messages from Wtricks and I notice a new trend. A thing I call REVIEW SPAM.

What does this mean? Well the spammer is a “normal” person, who joins a webmaster forum and looks for the reviews section. Instead of having the brains to just add his portfolio link in the signature and post USEFUL comments and ideas he does something else.

He comes to the thread replying with something like:

Well, the site looks OK, nice colours etc. But I would recommend you to use a professional service provided by: and here goes that link to the portfolio.

Now .. HOW DOES THE MEMBER BENEFIT from this? Does the spammer really think someone will just jump to use his services just because he gave an improper (in the end) review? If the member really wanted a designer maybe he would have hired before. Or maybe that member is a designer himself and won’t consider this reply to be a decent one. I would really go wild if anyone told me to hire him. Now that’s rich.

What does the spammer get from this in the end? I just banned him and censored the link. That means he won’t get the link displayed anymore in the site. Instead of doing some excellent reviews and link “naturally” his portfolio he got banned and lost a chance to display the link in few threads.

Andig you really want an advice: don’t do this. It reflects poorly on your business. In the almost 3 years I run this project we had a huge traffic from forums I post in. I am active in more than 200 forums in this moment. Good messages and informative ideas .. they make people interested in your project. Some came and went. Some are members in here for a long time. A professional approach always pays off.

At the beginning of February I got to meet with a fellow web designer from my town. As you can imagine we immediately exchanged links to peep at each other’s work. The portfolio they have is a nice green one, with a lemon or something on the header and in the logo.

Then .. it hit me …

Most of us fell into this “trap”. Fresh innovative design. If I had a cent for each time I said it or read it elsewhere, Gates would come to me when needing money

2 years ago Wtricks.com was born and the main image we had was an orange. I like them. In normal life and design. They do offer the sense of freshness we try to convey. They have bright light colour, another good thing for a portfolio that wants to set itself apart from others.

Still .. just today I saw 10 more portfolios with the orange/lemon in them. 10 more portfolios with that “fresh thinggy”. Is this thing becoming SO USED it’s almost lost any meaning?

In our attempt to be ORIGINAL are we getting COMMON?

I stopped using the lemon image when re-branding the Wtricks.com site. I started using the star as related to the magician hat. It’s not as strong as the “fresh thinggy”, but at least less people use this for branding.

And the Dojo Design portfolio is lucky to be based on my passion for Martial Artists. I just didn’t notice it back then (5 years ago, when I started presenting my online work in that portfolio), but this is less used if we compare it to the oranges and lemons that “float” on all portfolio headers nowadays.

Maybe it’s time for us to leave this FRESH thing and find something really fresh and innovative. Or just try to focus on something even more important: beauty. Let’s give our clients BEAUTIFUL sites and just work on this. Freshness is overrated and in the end we are not re-discovering the wheel I am afraid. Most of use use some techniques that other thousands of designers use. Same software, same tags. The thing that sets us apart is the talent / experience / personal way to combine all the puzzle pieces and make our clients one beautiful site at a time.

I have stopped using lemons. I integrate them into my diet. Same with oranges. But for design .. I think we need to leave this path and focus on something more .. original and fresh. And then maybe renounce that too. Other thousands might use our idea and we’ll have to innovate again. And leave the crowd for our own original ways.