n00bie Challenge
- Thread starter Mike
- Start date
- Status
Really dumb question, what are feeds? Sorry I'm completely new to blogging, never read blogs, or write blogs, just started creating some for IM. I know what RSS feeds are. They can give you updates of somebody's blog, but this isn't the same thing is it?
I think I understand everything else like the simple stuff like installation and getting the designs done and what-not, but all the plug-ins stuff and feeds I haven't really looked into. So if you have links instead of explaining it that would help.
I think I understand everything else like the simple stuff like installation and getting the designs done and what-not, but all the plug-ins stuff and feeds I haven't really looked into. So if you have links instead of explaining it that would help.
Honestly the plan I laid out above has to technically be done by a certain level of cycle sites, think about it if your working on 20 sites per month trying to make at least 60 indexed posts before you sell it for maximum profit then thats 40 posts per day or one post every 8 minutes if your working 5 hours per day, sure 16 minutes for a 10 hour day but thats a fucking headache to manage that many sites at once by yourself.
You've got to automate the process a bit differently when you automate the sites you plan on flipping, for instance you want to get as much indexed without getting the site banned, a proven fact well as far as I know your site won't get banned for 10,000 videos, so a cycle video site could do well but it also won't get indexed that easily without lots of unique comments.
However a bunch of videos mixed with duplicate news stories and some unique articles here and there could do well, fuck these days its like 10 bucks for shitty 1000 PLR rights articles, sure there not unique but most are more unique then what you'll get from a simple Google search.
It really boils down to keeping the site un-banned while keeping it automated, get at least 100 unique per day stable (Preferably more), and around 1,000 backlinks will show that the site has potential to become something. Also helps a ton if people are actively commenting, so how do you get active comments from RSS Feeds, well you post full text feeds instead of summaries, sure there a lot harder to find but there out there.
Basically when flipping your only trying to stay un-banned while raking in the traffic as much as possible, your not trying to make a full blown indexed site (Yes it helps and will be 10 times more profitable but its also 10 times harder and takes 10 times longer).
Really though your final selling feature lies in how much potential the site could have, while providing proven traffic stats and again even better profit stats.
Not hard think about it .50 cents per day = $20 per month, so tell the buyer the site makes $20 per month (Your being honest), now most are willing to pay at least $60 for a site making $20 per month, the investment is good but there willing to pay $200 or more if the site makes $20 per month with the potential to earn tons more.
See how that works haha.
The term feed is short for RSS feed just like RSS is short for Really Simple Syndication.
I know how you feel. I've been working on something completely different for a while now but I knew I would need to dive into blogging someday. SEO Mikes post was perfect timing as I had just started with a blog. I hadn't really heard much about wordpress MU so I decided to try that as well. But after that I'm at a complete loss for what I should be doing next. I'm looking at plug ins and rss feeds but so far I haven't had much success (just look at thefirstgentleman.net I have this big white blank spot in the middle of the page where the adsense plug in should be showing ads) I got really frustrated last night and my husband made me take a break (I think he was a little scared of me as I looked something like this :glowingeyes_sml
I think this really is a thread for the more technical newbies, which is great because I'm sure there's alot of them out there.Anyway, here I am again today too ignorant to be able to figure all this out fast enough to completely follow along with you guys but to godamned stubborn to quit.
Turbolapp, if the technical side is screwing you up, then ask us. Somebody here can help, I guarantee it. WPMU is very technical. I should have mentioned that before, if you don't have access to a WHM cPanel and your http.conf file, you CAN NOT set it up properly on your own. You WILL have to contact your host's tech support department.
For those of you that are more technical and have access to both those items, here is a great installation walkthrough: Installing WordPress MU on a CPanel/WHM Server
Again, let me reiterate, the purpose of this challenge is to get people doing something. If you've decided to do cycle sites: great, flipping sites: great, one very unique blog / site: great. It doesn't matter, just do something you are comfortable with. If you are comfortable pushing your technical limits, then do that. If you feel more comfortable working on content rather than technical, fine, do that.
For the lurkers that are still confused, let me lay done a super simple project to get you started. This will eliminate the worries about finding RSS feeds, setting up a server, etc.
Don't forget to ask questions if you get lost.
For those of you that are more technical and have access to both those items, here is a great installation walkthrough: Installing WordPress MU on a CPanel/WHM Server
Again, let me reiterate, the purpose of this challenge is to get people doing something. If you've decided to do cycle sites: great, flipping sites: great, one very unique blog / site: great. It doesn't matter, just do something you are comfortable with. If you are comfortable pushing your technical limits, then do that. If you feel more comfortable working on content rather than technical, fine, do that.
For the lurkers that are still confused, let me lay done a super simple project to get you started. This will eliminate the worries about finding RSS feeds, setting up a server, etc.
- Start with an idea, and do your niche research. Go to Google and find sites about your niche, read blogs, check Wikipedia, etc.
- Go to Wordpress.com, Blogger.com or Squidoo.com and sign up for a free account.
- Personalize your blog / site. Set your options, etc.
- Start blogging. Make it a point to get at least one new post out per day.
- Once you have some content, at least a week's worth, start dropping small ads onto the end of your posts. Squidoo is actually the easiest to monetize.
- Continue on this path until you feel you would like to start your own site on your own webhost.
Don't forget to ask questions if you get lost.
Very true. I've got about 9 or 10 WPMU installs, running over 1000 auto-content-generating blogs. Probably about 100,000 posts a day, give or take - depending on spidering activity. Let me tell you though, once you get going with it - it's worth every hassle and problem.
Turbo, I've AIM'd you offering WPMU assistance if you need it.
I agree. I think that everyone has done a wonderful job of keeping this thread on topic, and the people that have jumped in to help...well, wow!
Emp - he's the Newbie Guide for a reason. Great to have him here.
Mike Krongel - President of Copeac. Mike's one of those people that could easily say "Let others help the n00bs, I've got bigger affiliates to worry about", yet he's always right there to lend a hand to even the n00biest of n00bs.
Aequitas - Blogmaster supreme. I'm very happy that he jumped in here to lend support and help out. If you need to know anything about blogging, he's the man.
Bofu2u - Extremely dedicated and a super technical guy to know. He's helped me out with many PHP problems. Glad to have him jumping in here too.
And all the self proclaimed n00bs willing to jump in with both feet. That's the aspect of this thread that really gets me excited. I know we're just getting started, but I can't wait to start hearing about all of your successes, and to help you through the tight spots.
Last edited:
Aequitas - That post on researching keywords was excellent. I have always been a weak in that area, and following your post I found a great niche that should work well for your idea within 20 minutes. The bonus part is the cycle blog I started 2 days ago is close enough in the same niche that once it burns out I can forward the links and they will be related.
Thanks again to everyone! Off to build out that first blog
Thanks again to everyone! Off to build out that first blog
Sorry,I´m not that much into that SEO stuff but how do you actually automate backlinks? I mean isn´t it hard to automate something that is very unique for every site you build?
Brilliant post btw.
what hosting resources do you need to handle 100k posts/day?? I got a few VPS' already running with a few 100s domains and I'm not sure if I can add this on them
Thx in advance
It can be hard to find a variety of automated backlink systems, because of the uniqueness of each blog but the RSS Exploiter from RuDeDoDg is a good place to start, after that quit or squirt your site, do a couple hours of building by yourself (When you have time) and then pay $50 bucks to outsource someone like Kemesh to do 1000 directory submissions, sure only a fraction will eventually stick and count as backlinks but all of which can and will help out.
One of the hardest parts of SEO is link building, well in my mind its one of the hardest parts because its a very important part, it takes the longest, and it can be the most boaring after doing it by hand for awhile.
If someone would care to take a look at my site and give me some advice on monetization, I'd appreciate it.
ezsmiley.com
I'm a total marketing noob, but I got 800 visits yesterday and 700 so far today, and I want to know what I'm doing wrong because I've only made a couple bucks. I don't want you to give me fish... Teach a noob how to fish and he'll be able to buy fish sticks for him and his wfe for life...
ezsmiley.com
I'm a total marketing noob, but I got 800 visits yesterday and 700 so far today, and I want to know what I'm doing wrong because I've only made a couple bucks. I don't want you to give me fish... Teach a noob how to fish and he'll be able to buy fish sticks for him and his wfe for life...
Rephraser blog sparked a thought.
This blog post here made me think.
Rephraser » Blog Archive » SEO Army
He says to build a network of blog links, no two link directly to each other. I'm not so good at going to each of 50 blogs and updating the links manually so here's a little something for you.. Yeah I wrote this and yeah you can do whatever with it. I'll be mentioning it out there in the wild shortly.
In a directory, create a group of files, one for each of your hosts.
wordpress.list, squidoo.list, et cetera.
Inside each file should be a list of domains, one per line.
Run this script, and you should wind up with a group of opml files that you can import into your link manager ( for instance, in wordpress, go to links, import links ).
This isn't the final version of this script, but gives you something to start with if the thought of figuring that out on your own gives you the shivers.
russ@badger:~/work/build_network$ cat wordpress.list
wordpress1
wordpress2
wordpress3
wordpress4
wordpress5
wordpress6
wordpress7
wordpress8
They should be unique.
modify the first line of this script with your "real" path to perl.
modify the third line of this script with your list of lists
#!/usr/bin/perl
@networks = qw( wordpress blogger livejournal squidoo);
foreach $foo ( @networks ) {
@{$foo}=();
open( $handle, '<'.$foo.'.list' );
while( <$handle>) {
chomp;
$value = $_.'.'.$foo.'.com';
push ( @{$foo}, $value );
}
close( $handle );
}
# read the files need to output the files
$modulo = scalar( @networks );
foreach $foo ( @networks ) {
# clean out the old stuff.
for ( $x = 1; $x <= $modulo; $x++ ) {
open( $handle, "> $foo".$x.'.opml' );
print $handle "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"ISO-8859-1\"?>
<opml version=\"1.1\">
<head>
<title>ourFavoriteFeedsData.top100</title>
<dateCreated>Fri, 02 Jan 2004 12:59:58 GMT</dateCreated>
<dateModified>Fri, 23 Jul 2004 23:41:32 GMT</dateModified>
<ownerName>Random User</ownerName>
<ownerEmail>randomEmailWithAtSignEscaped</ownerEmail>
<expansionState></expansionState>
<vertScrollState>1</vertScrollState>
<windowTop>20</windowTop>
<windowLeft>0</windowLeft>
<windowBottom>120</windowBottom>
<windowRight>147</windowRight>
</head>
<body>\n";
close( $handle );
}
foreach $bar( @networks ) {
if ( $bar ne $foo ) {
$i=0;
foreach $baz( @{$bar} ) {
$j = $i++ % $modulo;
if ( $j > 0 ) {
open( $handle, " >> $foo".$j.'.opml' );
$opml_line="<outline text=\"something or other \" description=\"something else\" url=\"http://".$b
az."\" />\n";
print $handle $opml_line;
close( $handle );
}
}
}
}
close( $handle );
}
# close up shop
#
foreach $foo ( @networks ) {
for( $x = 1; $x <= $modulo; $x++ ) {
open( $handle, ">> $foo".$x.'.opml' );
print $handle "</body>\n</opml>\n";
}
}
This blog post here made me think.
Rephraser » Blog Archive » SEO Army
He says to build a network of blog links, no two link directly to each other. I'm not so good at going to each of 50 blogs and updating the links manually so here's a little something for you.. Yeah I wrote this and yeah you can do whatever with it. I'll be mentioning it out there in the wild shortly.
In a directory, create a group of files, one for each of your hosts.
wordpress.list, squidoo.list, et cetera.
Inside each file should be a list of domains, one per line.
Run this script, and you should wind up with a group of opml files that you can import into your link manager ( for instance, in wordpress, go to links, import links ).
This isn't the final version of this script, but gives you something to start with if the thought of figuring that out on your own gives you the shivers.
russ@badger:~/work/build_network$ cat wordpress.list
wordpress1
wordpress2
wordpress3
wordpress4
wordpress5
wordpress6
wordpress7
wordpress8
They should be unique.
modify the first line of this script with your "real" path to perl.
modify the third line of this script with your list of lists
#!/usr/bin/perl
@networks = qw( wordpress blogger livejournal squidoo);
foreach $foo ( @networks ) {
@{$foo}=();
open( $handle, '<'.$foo.'.list' );
while( <$handle>) {
chomp;
$value = $_.'.'.$foo.'.com';
push ( @{$foo}, $value );
}
close( $handle );
}
# read the files need to output the files
$modulo = scalar( @networks );
foreach $foo ( @networks ) {
# clean out the old stuff.
for ( $x = 1; $x <= $modulo; $x++ ) {
open( $handle, "> $foo".$x.'.opml' );
print $handle "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"ISO-8859-1\"?>
<opml version=\"1.1\">
<head>
<title>ourFavoriteFeedsData.top100</title>
<dateCreated>Fri, 02 Jan 2004 12:59:58 GMT</dateCreated>
<dateModified>Fri, 23 Jul 2004 23:41:32 GMT</dateModified>
<ownerName>Random User</ownerName>
<ownerEmail>randomEmailWithAtSignEscaped</ownerEmail>
<expansionState></expansionState>
<vertScrollState>1</vertScrollState>
<windowTop>20</windowTop>
<windowLeft>0</windowLeft>
<windowBottom>120</windowBottom>
<windowRight>147</windowRight>
</head>
<body>\n";
close( $handle );
}
foreach $bar( @networks ) {
if ( $bar ne $foo ) {
$i=0;
foreach $baz( @{$bar} ) {
$j = $i++ % $modulo;
if ( $j > 0 ) {
open( $handle, " >> $foo".$j.'.opml' );
$opml_line="<outline text=\"something or other \" description=\"something else\" url=\"http://".$b
az."\" />\n";
print $handle $opml_line;
close( $handle );
}
}
}
}
close( $handle );
}
# close up shop
#
foreach $foo ( @networks ) {
for( $x = 1; $x <= $modulo; $x++ ) {
open( $handle, ">> $foo".$x.'.opml' );
print $handle "</body>\n</opml>\n";
}
}
Disclaimer: I suck too at this, but here's my $0.02
The aff offers you're pushing on your site don't seem like a good fit to the demographic you're likely to get to this type of site. For example... you're metabolism ad says, "Attention women age 25-54!" buy our don't be a fat fucking waste of space anymore magic pills!
I would think your traffic is probably in the 11 - 22 yo range. i.e., middle school, high school, college, myspace and facebook types. I would say ringtone offers, free ipod touch, madden 08 zip submits, etc.
Again, I've managed to loose a bunch of money so far take it as you will.
The aff offers you're pushing on your site don't seem like a good fit to the demographic you're likely to get to this type of site. For example... you're metabolism ad says, "Attention women age 25-54!" buy our don't be a fat fucking waste of space anymore magic pills!
I would think your traffic is probably in the 11 - 22 yo range. i.e., middle school, high school, college, myspace and facebook types. I would say ringtone offers, free ipod touch, madden 08 zip submits, etc.
Again, I've managed to loose a bunch of money so far take it as you will.
Great thread - loads of useful info.
There seems to be a bit of confusion about Eli's cycle site method, especially when compared to splogs or aggregated content blogs.
From what I understand, the aim of cycle sites is to get trackback links, not to get them indexed. (Eli suggested cycling them as soon as they start to appear in the search engine results.) A splog you might slowly build up over time, submit through SQUIRT/QUIT, gain links and aim to get a lot of pages indexed... A cycle site aims for massive amounts of posts (suggested, start with 10k feeds) to gain trackbacks on small percentage of them, then 'cycle' it after a month or so - replace WP and redirect where needed.
I started on some cycle sites using wpmu (seems ideal for it imho - works well), but on shared hosting... I very quickly got IP banned from Google blogsearch! Oops! I know I need a bigger variety of feeds (and prob to put it through a proxy too) but I've now listened to everyone and will be sorting out a dedicated box soon - due to the resources these use it is generally not recommended on shared or VPS hosting and a lot of peeps have suggest min 2Gb RAM on a dedi box.
A few bluehat pennies have just dropped for me and I've taken a step back to working on building the foundation sites - massive database sites that again I don't expect to make much cash but (hopefully) generate a lot of link juice.
SEO 'empire' building is a long-term game and I don't think cycle sites are the best place for newcomers to start due to the server resources required and their aim being to build links and authority, not necessarily making any more cash than paying their rent.
If anyone has them working well on shared or VPS let me know which companies don't mind your sites keeping the servers busy! Going by the speed my first db site is running I think I'll need a dedi for them too.. although that could just be my shitty newb coding!
Aequitas... great post. What's the deal with viscript now? Who's selling it. (Sounds ideal for the vid-blogs-to-flip method.). Not really thought about site flipping before - kinda amazed at how profitable it can be! Nice one. (Another thing added to the ever-growing list!)
I've only been in the game about 6 months and very much consider myself a noob, one of the big problems I've found is staying focussed on one project. It's often been the case of start something, hit a wall, go back and learn more.. then get distracted and move onto something else! Eli's 'SEO Empire' strategy has helped me focus more and see how all the bits can fit together - definitely recommended reading!
I'm still fighting the temptation to stop my very slow database site building and move to focussing on something which will make cash now....
There seems to be a bit of confusion about Eli's cycle site method, especially when compared to splogs or aggregated content blogs.
From what I understand, the aim of cycle sites is to get trackback links, not to get them indexed. (Eli suggested cycling them as soon as they start to appear in the search engine results.) A splog you might slowly build up over time, submit through SQUIRT/QUIT, gain links and aim to get a lot of pages indexed... A cycle site aims for massive amounts of posts (suggested, start with 10k feeds) to gain trackbacks on small percentage of them, then 'cycle' it after a month or so - replace WP and redirect where needed.
I started on some cycle sites using wpmu (seems ideal for it imho - works well), but on shared hosting... I very quickly got IP banned from Google blogsearch! Oops! I know I need a bigger variety of feeds (and prob to put it through a proxy too) but I've now listened to everyone and will be sorting out a dedicated box soon - due to the resources these use it is generally not recommended on shared or VPS hosting and a lot of peeps have suggest min 2Gb RAM on a dedi box.
A few bluehat pennies have just dropped for me and I've taken a step back to working on building the foundation sites - massive database sites that again I don't expect to make much cash but (hopefully) generate a lot of link juice.
SEO 'empire' building is a long-term game and I don't think cycle sites are the best place for newcomers to start due to the server resources required and their aim being to build links and authority, not necessarily making any more cash than paying their rent.
If anyone has them working well on shared or VPS let me know which companies don't mind your sites keeping the servers busy! Going by the speed my first db site is running I think I'll need a dedi for them too.. although that could just be my shitty newb coding!
Aequitas... great post. What's the deal with viscript now? Who's selling it. (Sounds ideal for the vid-blogs-to-flip method.). Not really thought about site flipping before - kinda amazed at how profitable it can be! Nice one. (Another thing added to the ever-growing list!)
I've only been in the game about 6 months and very much consider myself a noob, one of the big problems I've found is staying focussed on one project. It's often been the case of start something, hit a wall, go back and learn more.. then get distracted and move onto something else! Eli's 'SEO Empire' strategy has helped me focus more and see how all the bits can fit together - definitely recommended reading!
I'm still fighting the temptation to stop my very slow database site building and move to focussing on something which will make cash now....
Great point LazyHippy about the Cycle Sites. I neglected to explain them much previously because I assumed (uh oh) that everyone would read Eli's post and understand that they are build-fast-die-young-get-you-backlinks type of sites. I guess I need to be more careful about what / how I post. Thanks for that!
- Status