Dreamhost offers secure hosting by default on their new ‘Happy Hosting’ plan which is $9.95 per month with no setup fee if you sign up for a year.  (They recently ditched the previous tiers including the Crazy Nutter Unbelievable Astonishing Domain Insane - well OK, they didn’t really call it that).

However you do need both a static IP (”unique IP”) which runs under $50/year from them - and you can’t BYO plus you need an SSL Secure certificate - $100/year but you can BYO.  Dreamhost’s support wiki has a good explanation of the types of SSL cert.

So basically for shared hosting, the lowest cost would be about $270/year with DreamHost.

1&1 includes a GeoTrust SSL certificate in the “Developer” package which runs $20/month.  Or it can be added to their other packages from the $4/month “Beginner” to the $10/month “Business” for $50.  There’s no setup fee when paying 6 months ahead.  The 1&1 setup process does appear to be simpler - no worries about adding in a unique IP for example.  Good thing
really given the lack of documentation on the process.

So the cheapest 1&1 SSL enabled solution is just under $100.

Come tax time, I want all the right information in front of me quickly so that I can get it all stuffed in TurboTax and be done.  So how easy was it to handle taxes from various different income and expense streams? 

CJ

Dear old Commission Junction sent me a 1099-MISC so that was easy.  CJ advertisers were the most profitable income stream for me in 2007… so I was glad this was seamless (I’d filled a W-9 for them with my SSN earlier in 2007).

Adsense

Google Adsense also sends 1099’s so that’s easy too.  Good so far.

Expenses

Now to expenses… doing business on the web isn’t free as you know… and I have many miscellaneous expenses through the year.  Basically it’s up to you to keep tabs on it all but I figured that at least for my hosting providers I’d be able to pull a report.  Sadly not so.

Thanks DreamHost

DreamHost pulled through - I was able to pull a summary invoice for 2007 which itemised the monthly payments and the total paid during the year.  Thanks DreamHost.

1&1

1&1.  Sorry guys, you completely flunked this test.  No way to pull invoices for just one year, no way to print out a summary with a total.  Sorry 1&1 but this sucked.

Adwords.

Adwords was a slam dunk.  Just like DreamHost I was able to pull a whole year of invoices with a total paid through the year.  The printout also showed the remaining total owed as well but this isn’t relevant for the tax forms - we only need be concerned about payments.

Now time to add up all those little suckers….!

Can you use a brand name or trademark inside your domain name such as google-help.com or ebay-buying.com or could Google or eBay shut you down?

It’s best to avoid using trademarks in a domain name - that’s the purpose of trademarks - to protect the use of the name. There are valid uses but even having a valid use can land you with a lawsuit. It’s up to you whether you whether you want to risk it.

Example: Perfume Bay eventually lost their lawsuit (sued by eBay) and are renaming their business to BeautyEncounter. Perfume Bay made a name for themselves via this escapade (unfortunately under their old name) and were featured in Inc magazine, Entrepeneur magazine and numerous online blogs and news stories.

You can read the whole story at MakeNoScents where the owners of PerfumeBay finally (in 2007) decided to start blogging the lawsuit initiated by eBay in 2004.
The blog is at http://www.makesnoscents.com/

Apparently eBay sued AutoBay, RentBay and even CoinBay.

If you choose a domain which is designed to confuse or mislead because of a trademark in the name, at the very least expect some attention from the trademark owner. At least be prepared to fight or give in when the lawsuit arrives! And if you use or mis-use a trademark which is actively pursued by it’s owner (eg eBay, Apple, iTunes, Google, etc) then anticipate the letter sooner rather than later!

Assuming you’ve spent time and money SEOing a decent engine position for your site, you’ll kick yourself if you have to throw it away.

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AOF SEO Site Verifier plugin version 1.3 is released

AOF SEO Site Verifier Wordpress plugin allows you to quickly and easily verify your Wordpress blog with Google, Yahoo and MSN Webmaster tools.

Download version 1.3 of AOF SEO Site Verifier here: AOF SEO Site Verify version 1.3

AOF SEO Site Verifier documentation and installation instructions are here.

Version 1.3 auto-detects Wordpress version and uses the appropriate functions to auto-detect the front page. Version 1.1 did not detect the front page on some blogs where the front page was set manually.

AOF SEO Site Verifier Wordpress plugin allows you to quickly and easily verify your Wordpress blog with Google, Yahoo and MSN Webmaster tools.

Download version 1.1 of AOF SEO Site Verifier here: AOF SEO Site Verify version 1.1

AOF SEO Site Verifier documentation and installation instructions are here.

Ya can’t.

Well, OK, you can force it by using ‘.php5′ as the extension for all the PHP files. This works if you’re writing all your own shit but not much cop if you’re installing scads of downloaded ‘.php’ files.

What bollocks. Dreamhost makes it easy in the web panel - you simply select whether you want PHP5 or PHP4 as default for a particular domain. (Current options being PHP 4.4.7 or PHP 5.2.2)

And while I’m on the subject of figuring out why my DOMDocument wasn’t working, 1&1’s documentation blows compared to Dreamhost’s combination of support Wiki and forums.

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Google launched mobile Adwords yesterday - and they aren’t charging for click-throughs until November 19th.  In other words - free trial for the next week!

 http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=72226

 Landing pages need to be mobile optimised.

Shareasale was closed today in memory of the innocent lives lost on 9-11 and in honor of the heroes that day.  Affiliates and merchants could still log in and tracking continued.  Shareasale offices close each year in rememberance.

A moment of silence.

Many of us were stunned and shocked that day.  America changed and the world outside came into much closer focus.  Take a moment.

 Thanks.

One of the quickest ways to kill your search ranking (page rank) with Google is to have duplicate content posted at two domains.  For example, exactly the same pages posted at www.site1.com and www.site2.com.  Unfortunately Google treats subdomains as separate domains - so if www.site1.com and flop.site1.com have the same content they are treated by Google as duplicate content on two domains.  Goodbye pagerank and goodbye search visitors.  And Google does not normally treat www. as a special subdomain.  So again, content at www.site1.com and site1.com appear to Google as separate domains and hence can create the duplicate content rank killer.

The problem is easy to fix but fix it before it’s a problem!!  You can wait weeks for Google to re-index to the point where your search ranking returns.  On a cash earning site which relies on search visitors that’s instant death and there is nothing you can do but wait.

0) Decide!

No matter which tools you use, the single most important thing to do first is to decide whether you want “www.” or not.  Then don’t change it.  Trust me, it hurts.

1) Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster tools allow you to select whether www.site1.com or site1.com appears in it’s index.  Again, never ever change this once it’s set - this can cause Google to double index as it re-indexes your site, hence creating the duplicate content problem!

2) 301 redirects

There are numerous tools and scripts (including WordPress plugins) which you can use to perform a 301 redirect from the prefix you don’t want to the prefix you do want.  Doing this ensures that Google knows which is the permanent page and therefore which one to include in it’s index.

3) Use your host

Both 1&1 and dreamhost allow you to set the 301 redirect automatically.  Dreamhost’s redirect control panel options are mind-numbingly easy to use:

In summary, pick one and stay with it.  As you grow incoming links, you also want them coming in to the correct prefix.  So pick early, fix the problem before it happens and enjoy the income without that horrible sinking feeling that you screwed your pagerank.

I have Adsense email me daily reports broken down by web site.

To do this I:

1. Set up URL channels for each of my web sites
2. Set up the report:
   • Go to Advanced Reports
   • Select Yesterday (don’t select Today - see below)
   • Click “Channel data” and select all channels.  Then group by channel.
   • Click display report.
3. Save the report and set it up to email you
   • Under “save as custom report” type “channel data for the day” or something similar and save.
   • Then click over to the Report Manager and set the frequency to daily and select the appropriate email address for the report to be delivered to.

Reports are sent just after midnight - so selecting the report for “today” only captures up to an hour of clicks at the time of generation.  But selecting “yesterday” captures the whole previous day.