WebZhop.Com

This is a guest post by the founders of FlippingPlanet.com, Bryan O’Neil and Thomas Smale. Bryan and Thomas are both experienced buyers and sellers of online businesses and have been active in the industry for over two years.
In recent years, the potential return from buying an online business has bought a lot of new people into the industry who are often inexperienced online.
While buying a site may seem to be as easy as logging on to Flippa, finding a website that generates enough revenue and traffic for your liking, placing your bid and hoping it’s the winner, there are actually quite a few other aspects to consider to avoid getting burned.
In this article, we’re going to list the 7 most important things every buyer should consider before investing in their newest online venture.
1. History of the WebsiteTo start off, you need to carefully analyse the history of the website that you’re about to purchase. Similarly to brick-and-mortar businesses – the longer it has been in existence, the more likely it is to stay that way. Often enough, you will find sites that have existed for mere months before getting sold, in which cases it becomes extremely important to make sure that the revenue the website has been generating is indeed sustainable and not just a “one-time thing”.
2. Revenue StreamsThere are number of different ways a website can make money. The most common sources of revenue are Pay Per Click ads (Google Adsense), Affiliate Income, Product Sales, and even banner ads that advertisers pay for on monthly basis.
As a buyer, it is your job to evaluate the risk associated with different revenue streams. For instance, a website that is earning the majority of its revenue through Google ads is much more likely to continue doing so than one that depends on only a few direct deals with advertisers.
Another thing to keep in mind is “more is better”. You should always look for sites that have multiple independent revenue streams. This way, even if something happens with one you will still profit and not be left with empty pockets.
3. Revenue TrendsIn addition to revenue streams, you also need to pay attention to trends. Has the site’s revenue been in constant decline? Is the site selling something that is seasonal? Did the owner of the site create a huge hype around the product the site is selling and tries to sell the site before the “hype madness” wears off? Has the site’s revenue increased considerably shortly before it was listed for sale and is it possible that it was artificially inflated? These are all things you need to think through before making your decision.
4. Traffic QualityThis is an important factor, especially with sites that generate little or no revenue but (seem to) get high amounts of traffic. The “Traffic = Money” equation tends to be true, but it’s crucial to understand that there’s a difference between traffic and traffic.
For instance, traffic from some countries may be considered as much as 10 times less valuable (in terms of how well it can be monetized) than traffic from other countries. Similarly, getting 10,000 kids per month looking to play video games is quite obviously much more challenging than getting 10,000 home owners looking to insure their house.
On a positive note, most sellers nowadays provide buyers with rather thorough statistics, allowing you to take a close look at the demographics of the traffic the website is getting, and to make your buying decision based on this.
5. Replication PossibilitiesIt’s no secret that not only buyers and sellers frequent marketplaces such as Flippa. An often overlooked crowd is the ones looking for ideas. To put it more bluntly, these people look at websites that are for sale with the sole purpose of replicating these sites on their own.
Often enough, sellers choose to disclose information that shouldn’t really be made publicly available. Has the seller provided full information about their traffic sources and are the traffic sources limited in terms of how many visitors they can provide? Is the site operating in a small, but “untapped” niche that may easily lose its value as soon as a competitor comes along? These are things worth thinking about before placing your bid.
6. Time and Expertise Needed to Maintain the WebsiteThis is an aspect that most buyers tend to leave out of their equation – only to end up extremely disappointed after their first purchase.
While picking up a website that earns you a cool extra $300 per month may seem like the best deal ever, you need to evaluate and understand how much of your time you have to invest into keeping the site at that level. Is the extra $300 per month still a good deal if you need to spend an hour each day maintaining the site and producing new content? By doing this, you’re effectively “hiring yourself” at a salary of $10 an hour. Hardly something most buyers are looking for.
Many sites require regular maintenance. This is especially true for blogs and “content sites” that need to be fed with fresh content at all times or the traffic figures would start going down rapidly. Based on this, it’s important to decide how much of your time you are willing to invest into keeping the website up and to make sure that the site you’re about to buy matches these expectations.
7. Accuracy of Provided FiguresIn the perfect world, all people would be honest and there would be no lying or deceiving. But unfortunately, we don’t live in the perfect world and hence we always need to have our guard up for cheats and scam artists.
Before placing a bid, make sure that you have requested enough proof from the buyer to be absolutely sure that the figures that they have provided are actually truthful. There is also a wide variety of Due Diligence tools provided by Flippa – these tools are there for a reason and as a buyer you should always take a close look at the results that they provide. They are by no means foolproof – but cross referencing different statistics vs. seller’s claims is never going to hurt.
As a general rule, if something looks “dodgy” then more often than not it is best to simply stay away and move on to another opportunity. This is especially true in the online world where people have the ability to stay much more anonymous than in the real life.
Last but most certainly not least, make sure to take a look at the seller’s history on Flippa, as well as their Feedback Score. If the seller has been active for years and has a lot of positive feedback then chances are that they are worth dealing with. If, however, their previous buyers have given negative feedback about them, it’s usually best to stay away.
ConclusionWhile all of the above is based on real world scenarios, it’s also important to understand that even though the risks do exist, most sellers are still honest and there is no reason to feel discouraged or to “expect” landing on a bad deal.
I urge you to think about what’s pointed out in this article, utilize it, and by doing this stay on the safe side and place those bids without having to worry about what happens next.
To learn more about Due Diligence and Buying and Selling Websites in general, you can sign up at FlippingPlanet.com – an online community for sellers and buyers alike.

11 Quick Tips: Securing Your WordPress Site

WordPress is the most used open-source platform nowadays for any type of websites: whether it is blog, CMS or any other custom solution. WordPress is naturally based on PHP (among other languages), so, as a PHP developer I always make sure to cover/apply some tips for WordPress to make secure and speedup the site which I develop. In this WordPress tutorial you will find tips and tricks for securing WordPress and otimizing your WordPress blog.

This section will going to cover the tips related to securing your WordPress site. Tips includes protecting files, login restriction, WordPress admin restriction, database protection, etc.
Security Tip 1: Stay Updated
The most important tip for securing the self hosted WordPress websites is also the most obvious; WordPress provides updates with security fixes all of the time. When you get the notification in admin panel, don’t ignore it! It’s the single most effective way to secure your site from attacks, and yet so many people leave their site (and their client sites) un-updated for fear of breaking their themes and/or plugins.
Here’s the real tip though: If you themes and plugins don’t work with the latest version of WordPress, they’re probably not all that secure to begin with
Security Tip 2: Create Custom Secret Keys for Your wp-config.php FileAll of the confidential details for your WordPress site are stored in the wp-config.php in your WordPress root directory. Secret keys are one of the bits of information stored in that file… so make sure you change the default secret keys to something else.
If you are not sure for what to place in the default values, go to this link, and it will generate the random keys for you.
Security Tip 3: Change the Database PrefixA lot of the basic setup stuff for WordPress is the same across lots of sites… especially if you use a one-step install wizard through your webhost. This is super convenient, but lots of common setup values like, your database prefix(es), are known to hackers as a result. If you don’t change the database prefix, the table names of your site’s database are easily known to the person who trying to hack your site.
Security Tip 4: Protect Your wp-config.php FileAs mentioned earlier, the wp-config.php file contains all the confidential details of your site. So it’s pretty important that you protect it at all costs. An easy way to protect this file is to simply place the following code in your .htaccess file on your server.

1.
2. order allow,deny
3. deny from all
4.

Security Tip 5: Protect Your .htaccess FileWe can protect our wp-config.php file as mentioned above, but what about protecting the .htaccess file itself? Don’t worry, we can use the same .htaccess file to protect itself from being preyed upon. You just need to place below code in your .htaccess file.

1.
2. order allow,deny
3. deny from all
4.

Security Tip 6: Hide Your WordPress VersionAnother good idea is to remove the generator meta for the WordPress. This meta shows the version of your WordPress site. If you have enabled the WordPress version, then hackers will know the security lacking of your website. If you absolutely can not update your WordPress version (tip #1), this is a good failsafe to at least hide the fact that you’re not on the most current version.
To do this you need to place below code in function.php of your active theme.
view plaincopy to clipboardprint?

1. remove_action(‘wp_header’, ‘wp_generator’);

You can go one step further and additionally remove it from RSS feeds using this:
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1. function wpt_remove_version() {
2. return ”;
3. }
4. add_filter(‘the_generator’, ‘wpt_remove_version’);

Security Tip 7: Install WordPress Security Scan PluginThis is a good plugin which scans your WordPress installation and give the suggestion accordingly. This plugin will check for below things:

* Passwords
* File Permissions
* Database Security
* WordPress Admin protection

Download the plugin from here.
There are other security scans as well – for instance, VaultPress (which we’ll mention below) will do this as well as part of a much bigger package of security services.
Security Tip 8: Limit The Number of Failed Login AttemptsThis nice plugin can limit the number failed login attempts; Useful in case of someone is trying to guess your password manually or using a robot.
You can download plugin from here.
Security Tip 9: Ask Apache Password ProtectHere is one more good plugin provided by the Ask Apache. which gives you more control over your blog in terms of security.
You can protect your site with 401 authorization in easy steps. All these you can manage from the WordPress admin panel.
You can download this plugin from here.
Security Tip 10: Don’t Use “admin” As Your Username (and Pick Strong Passwords)This one’s perhaps the easiest of them all – WordPress normally will setup your main admin account name as “admin”, so it’s usually the first username that hackers will try using. As of version 3.0 you can change this during the initial setup, but it’s easy to forget that you can go back and change it even if you setup your site before version 3.0. So, pick a new name other than admin
Additionally, picking strong passwords for all of the users on your blog (and your MySQL database) are fundamental ways to boost your security. Use the Strong Password Generator if you can’t come up with one on your own.
Security Tip 11: Last but not Least, Backup!I have placed the backup as the last item here. but don’t consider it as a less important. Regular backup of your site will make you fill safer than any other above. There are several plugins available for WordPress which manage the backup for you.
Here are some free plugins for WordPress backup.

* Backup WordPress
* WP DB Backup

But if you are more serious about the backup for your blog then you should go with the paid solution. The two biggest premium solutions out there right now are Backup Buddy and VaultPress.
ConclusionThere are many more tips and tricks to go with this, but I’ve tried my best to present the best “bang for your buck” tips for anyone out there just looking to get started with WordPress security. Be sure to check out our other WordPress security articles for more information! Share your thoughts on this below!

Google Alerts is a free service that sends you email as and when something of interest takes place on the Internet on a topic which is being monitored by you and which appears newly in Google results. You can monitor developments on the Internet about your own personal name, any developing news story, latest news about any celebrity or almost anything on the Internet. If you own a website or a blog, you can even use Google Alerts to update you by email as and when somebody links to your website. Thus, in this manner you can monitor new backlinks to your website.
To get email updates from Google Alerts when people link to your website, proceed as under:
(1) Visit Google Alerts website. In the search box, type link:wikipedia.org [replace wikipedia.org with your own domain address or URL for which you want to monitor the links]. In Type, select Everything; in How often, select As-it-happens (or Once a day or Once a week, as per your choice); in Volume, select All results. Now, enter your email address at which you want to get the Alerts when people link to your website. See the following picture for these settings:
Create a Google Alert to get email updates when people link to your site
(2) As you select these settings, Google Alerts automatically shows you the preview for the Alert for Today (you can also manually click Preview results button), as shown below:
Preview results showing Alert for Today – when people link to your site
(3) Now, click Create Alert button.
You’ll get the success message informing you that Google Alert was Created. It will also inform you that a verification email has been sent to your designated email address and that you “will not receive Google Alerts on this topic until you click the link in the verification email and confirm your request”.
So, check you email account and in the email received from Google Alerts, verify the Google Alerts request by clicking the link. This email also contains the link to cancel this particular Google Alert if you decide to cancel it in future.
That’s it! Now your Google Alert has been set up. Now onwards, whenever people link to your website, and when that link gets indexed by Google, you’ll get an email update from Google Alert.
Please note that creating a Google Alert does not required you to login with your Google Account; what you require is merely any email address. However, if you use your Google Account and sign in to Google Alert with it, you’ll be in a position to better manage all your Google Alerts.
It may be noted that you’ll get the email update only when Google has indexed the web page that has linked to your website. However, as you’re aware Google is quite fast in indexing web pages. So, usually, you should get the email update of new links to your site on the same day or may be next day.

By David Bynon

If you are stuck and need help creating a good name, there are a number of fantastic tools you can use. Here are some websites that you can use to get your creative juices flowing.
Domainr — If you’re finding it difficult to get a dot com name that isn’t a mile long, maybe it’s time to go trendy. Domainr is a popular website naming tool designed to help you explore top level domains (TLD’s) other than dot com that put popular websites like ping.fm and del.icio.us on the map. Domainr also shows popular TLD’s that are available, so it’s a wonderful tool for brainstorming.
Dot-o-mator — Here’s a domain name suggestion tool that lets you mix and match with a list of popular prefixes and snazzy suffixes. It’s a real lifesaver when you need to find a perfect name for a keyword targeted niche site. The Dot-o-mator tool also lets choose from a list of popular website categories that use prefixes and suffixes.
BustAName — This is a feature-rich name finder. They use some sort of linguistic data to help you identify names. What’s really cool is the ability to save, manage and organize your research. It’s a time saver, and I really appreciate their “List of Words” feature. It identifies similar words that you can then use to do more digging.
Domain Tools — This isn’t as much a name finder as it is a domain research tool. Domain Tools helps you uncover relevant information about domain names you have interest in. You’ll like the “Whois” search feature that provides all the registration information you need. Plus, they offer a basic suggestions search to help you find similar names as well as names that are for sale or at auction.
DomainsBot — This is a domain search engine containing an advanced search capability that allows you to conduct customized and highly refined searches. For instance, you can tell it the highest number of characters you will accept. You could also tell it to exclude any names containing a hyphen.
StuckDomains — If you’re after a used name, StuckDomains is for you. What they offer is a database that’s full of expired names that fell out of their renewal period. It’s worth checking out because its an opportunity to find a name that is available now or about to come available. I have snapped up a few hot names this way.
Nameboy — Okay, I’ll admit it, Nameboy is a shameless exploit of the Gameboy name, but it’s a popular name generator just the same. Nameboy asks for a primary keyword and a secondary keyword that best describe the topic of your website. It then whips up a long list of names for you to consider.
Your domain name is a very important business asset. Take the time to make the best choice the first time. Once you begin building your website, changing the name has many challenges that will take a lot more of your time to recover from than investing the correct amount of effort upfront. If it takes you a day, a week or a month to find the right domain name for

Getting started with domains
Before you blow past this post because the headline infers that this is “Domains for Dummies”, let me tell you that there are some basic concepts here. However, even seasoned web developers haven’t realized some of these tips and it’s worth it if you want to make your job easier.
ble of Contents
1. Domain concepts
2. Ideal configuration
3. First time setup
4. Changing web hosts/servers
5. Just for fun

Domain conceptsRaise your hand if you purchased your domain with your web host. Don’t worry, we’ll get through it together.
The basics of website ownership are domains and servers. Think of your website as a house. It’s where everything physically stays. Your website essentially has two home addresses: the IP address and the domain name.
Picture the scenario where you move across the country. All your stuff moves with you and your home is made up mostly of everything it was before. The same can be said of your website moving to a new server. The physical things move and your address changes. Now you have to notify the postal service and everyone else of your new address which takes a while. But what if your address never changed and you never had to notify anyone you moved? For your entire life your address could be yours. Well, that’s what a domain allows you. Even if you physically move, your domain allows you to keep the same address.
And here’s where the mess begins. Most people end up having to move their website to a new server as well as notifying the world (via DNS transfer) of their new address. You domain is hosted with a domain registrar. If you purchase your domain with your web host they are the registrar and web host. When it’s time to upgrade to another host then you have to move both of those facets. Moving comes down to transferring domain ownership and DNS records, which is usually a 48 hour process at the minimum and can cause some headaches.
Ideal configurationSo what are you supposed to do?
Register your domain with a domain registrar that is not your web host. GoDaddy, for example, is a domain registrar. This company is where you’ll register all of your domains to keep them organized in one place. A further goal here is to keep domain ownership in one location for ease of management even if you have 100 domains and 5 different web hosts.
The biggest reason to separate your domain registrar from your web host is to make web host/server changes seamless.

1. Changing hosts may only require updating an A record.
2. You maintain all existing DNS records, including MX, CNAME, etc. records.

First time setupIf you’re buying a brand new domain or want to re-organize, follow these steps.

1. Register or transfer your domain with the registrar of your choice. I use GoDaddy because they’re cheap and fast.
2. Transfer your DNS hosting to your domain registrar if you’re moving the domain. This may take 48 hours to take affect around the world.
3. Copy all DNS records from your web host to your registrar.
4. Create or update an A record and use the IP address of your server. This enables hits to your domain to be redirected to any IP address you specify.

Changing web hosts/serversNow that your domain and web host are separate you can make a clean, quick switch to a new server.

1. Update the A record at your registrar with your new IP address.
2. Wait a few minutes to an hour and you’re done!

Just for funNow that I’ve driven home this web host vs. domain registrar concept, how about a third facet? I’ve been a big fan of Cloudflare, a company which Michael Arrignton said is like, “muffler repair for the Internet.” Cloudflare isn’t a domain registrar, but they are a DNS host. How this works into our setup is that you have your web host, domain registrar, and a DNS host. Cloudflare manages all of your DNS records, while the registrar simply leases you the domain name.
Cloudflare does many things, and I’ll spare the sales pitch beyond the basics. It makes your site faster and more secure. Just check it out.
The bottom line here is that website ownership doesn’t have to complicated forever and if you do things right the first time you’ll make it easier on yourself down the road.

Anchor text is perhaps one of the most important aspects ofSearch Engine Optimization but it is also one of the least talkedabout.This one element of SEO is important to understand because it canhelp your page get ranked for a target keyword and also help youevaluate your competition more precisely.The latter is critical and, in fact, if you don’t take anchortext backlinks into proper consideration when looking at thecompetition for a keyword you could be missing out on some hiddengems that are easy to rank for.What Is Anchor Text?Anchor text is the hyperlinked text you see on a webpage. It isthe visible words that you can click to take you to another page.Anchor text html code looks like this:Your Anchor Text)On most websites, you typically see this as blue text that isunderlined and when you click on it with your mouse, you aretaken to the corresponding url.How Bloggers Use Anchor TextBloggers and website owners use anchor text naturally to point toother pages on their website as well as pages on other sites thatthey find relevant to what they are blogging about. You’veprobably even done this yourself when writing a post where youreferenced another post on your site, an affiliate product oreven a post on another site.Usually a blogger will use a phrase that indicates what the pageis about in the anchor text, as opposed to a url, so that thesentence reads correctly.The anchor text in these links helps both the visitor and thesearch engine spiders figure out what the ‘linked to’ page isabout.How Search Engines Use Anchor TextSearch engines use anchor text to help them figure out what thehyperlinked page is about. So, as you can see, getting anchortext backlinks with relevant phrases in the anchor text is prettyimportant if you want the search engines to rank you for aparticular keyword phrase.In fact, anchor text is such an important factor in ranking apage that pages can rank for a keyword phrase even when thatphrase does not appear in the url on the page!There are several cases where this has happened, but perhaps themost famous is where the Adobe Reader download page ranked number1 for the search term ‘click here’ for many years even thoughthose words were nowhere on the page. So many people had linkedto that page using the anchor text ‘click here’ that it got tothe number 1 spot without any on page SEO for the term.Search engines place a large importance on external anchor text(links coming in from other sites) and some importance oninternal anchor text (links from within your own site) whenranking a page so it stands to reason that you should makegetting anchor text backlinks with your target keyword phrases apriority.One important thing to note is that it is widely thought that iftwo links on the same page target the same url, that only thefirst link is counted by Google so you want to be sure that youuse your desired anchor text in that first link.How Anchor Text is Important When Judging Competition for aKeywordIf you think about how important anchor text is to the searchengines when determining ranking for a keyword, then it’s easyto see why it is a critical component of analyzing thecompetition for a particular keyword phrase.Google even provides you with a search operator to do this -the allinanchor operator. You can use it by typing the followinginto the Google search bar:Allinanchor:”your keyword phrase”This will return the pages which have anchor text pointing to itthat contain the quoted keyword phrase.I hope you can see how powerful this is – first of all, Googlemust think it is an important element of a page because itprovides the allinanchor operator. Just the existence of theoperator would seem to indicate that it uses the anchor text whendeciding what a page is about and ranking it.Secondly, using this operator will show you which pages areoptimizing for your chosen keyword phrase!It makes sense that only the pages that have anchor textbacklinks with your phrase are the ones optimizing for it so youcan forget about searching for your phrase in quotes or any ofthat nonsense.Not only that but, you can take a look at the actual backlinksfor each of your competitors and see how many of them have thatanchor text and what the strength of those links are to make amore educated guess as to how difficult they will be to beat outfor that top spot.Anchor Text “Best Practices” For Your WebsiteNow that you know how important anchor text is to your rankings,I’m sure you will want to pay more attention to it in your SEOefforts but you don’t want to go hog wild and create tons ofanchor text backlinks all with the same keyword phrase or youmight find that your efforts don’t yield the results you want.Here are some things to consider:1. Vary Your Anchor Text – We all know that Google prefers itwhen people link to you naturally and when that is the case, theydon’t all use the same anchor text. So, when you are linking toyour site from your articles or web2.0 properties you want tomake sure you don’t always use the same phrase as well. Usingyour target phrase in about 50% – 60% of the links is probably agood idea.2. Links From Relevant Pages – For the best results, you wantyour anchor text backlinks to come from pages that are relatedto your topic. This is what would happen naturally if peoplewere linking to you and it would most likely be from a blog poston the same topic.3. First Link On Page – Don’t forget that Google only countsthe anchor text from the first link that it sees so if youhave more than one link to the same url on a page, actaccordingly.4.Plan For Natural Linking – There’s nothing better thanhaving people just naturally link to one of your posts but, ofcourse, you can’t control the anchor text they use when theydo. Since most people will naturally use your headline as anchortext, you want to be sure to consider that when coming up withthe title for your blog posts.Anchor text is crucial to both your SEO efforts as well as whenanalyzing the competition for a keyword phrase. Taking the timeto use it properly can be the difference between ranking in thetop 3 and not ranking at all so it’s in your best interest tostart putting better anchor text practices to use in yourbusiness today!

Securing your blog is one of the most important things you could do.Producing content is essential, and so is promoting it, but if yourblog is not secure, you could lose everything overnight (literally!).In this email I will share some security tips that you should applyin your blog. 1. Backup, Backup and Backup!In security circles people always say that if someone wants to breakinto your site, with enough time and determination eventually hewill. In other words, no website can be made 100% secure. If that is the case, your first line of defense are your backups.With functional backups someone could erase everything in your server and you would be back online in a matter of hours.So remember to backup your blog often (preferable daily), and to have backups in at least two different physical locations (else atheft or fire could take both your site and the backup…).2. Change The “Admin” UserOne of the most common methods to break into a website is the bruteforce one. That is, the malicious person will try to guess the nameof the admin and, once he finds that out, he will use scripts to trythousands of password combinations with that user name. If the admin user in your blog is called “admin”, well, you just facilitated things a lot.Luckily changing that is quite easy. Simply create a new user foryour blog, and give it “Administrator” privileges. Then login withthat user, and delete the “admin” user. If you have posts publishedwith “admin” WordPress will ask you if you want to move those postsunder a new user.3. Obscure Your WordPress VersionAnother common saying among security geeks is “security throughobscurity.” This is related to the fact that the fewer things a malicious person knows about your blog or server, the harder it willbe to break into it.By default WordPress broadcasts to the world the version that youare running, and this information can be used against you, becausehackers know the security holes on each WordPress version.Hiding that information is not difficult though. First of all you want to disable the “generator” meta tag. You can do that by addingthe following code to the functions.php file of your theme:function hide_wp_vers(){return ”;}add_filter(‘the_generator’,'hide_wp_vers’);There is another place where hackers can find the version of your WordPress, and most people forget to deal with that. It is the readme file that comes with all WordPress installs. Simply accessyour server via FTP to delete that file.4. Disable Folder BrowsingAnother thing that you should obscure in your site is the contentof your folders. If people can browser your folders, they will be able to collect a lot of information, including what plugins you arerunning, what themes you have installed and so on. Needless to saythat such information can be used to find security holes in your site.If your web hosting is based on Linux, you can easily disable folderbrowser with a .htaccess file placed at the root of your server. Either create that file or open the existing one and add the following line:Options -IndexesThat is it. If your hosting is not based on Linux, you can still protect the content of your folders by uploading a blank index.htmlpage inside each folder. 5. Always UpdateWordPress is an open source software, so its source code is public,and anyone can have access to it. This means that hackers can scrutinize the code looking for security holes. Sometimes they find them, but the WordPress community usually responds quickly and releases an updated version protected againstthe new threats. If you always run the latest WordPress version, therefore, you willbe minimizing the chances of having problems. Want more WordPress tips? Check the “WordPress” category I have on http://www.dailyblogtips.com , I am sure you’ll like it.

Domaining is not just for domainers
Over the years on forums and blogs there seems to be a disconnect. Domainers seem to be upset or not understand that everyone is looking to make money.
Parking companies, Registrars,Registries,Secondary exchanges and on and on. It seems selling domains is honorable and everyone else is shady, a scam or a rip off.

A lot of domainers will tell you that the new tld program is a money grab. What is the name for their domains for sale ? I mean no one needed you to register them, by that logic you regging a bunch of domains is just a money grab. Its not a money grab on any side, its just business. Hopefully its done legit and everyone can make some money.
There also is some hierarchy, domainers have always felt they were at the top of that chain. Afterall they were the ones with the genius to register these bits of data.
So when domainers look at extensions where they cannot make money, the extension sucks. Well maybe for the domainer but not for the registry or registrars. Both imo are higher up on the ladder.
I have been involved with .tv for a long time. It amazes me that some in 2011 are still talking about 2004 issues.
There still exists premium pricing and some legacy .tv for renewal. Verisign does not care what the domainer thinks. First .tv is a small part of Verisign. Second they are happy with their way.
Well can’t say I agree with the stock analogy but then I have never agreed with that. Each name is unique.

Owning a registry is being the king of the extension, and its good to be the king.

Verisign does not care, you can only get a company to do something if you hold some leverage. You don’t like legacy premiums ? Ok, drop them, Verisign actually would like that you did. You have no leverage.
This is my opinion of how a call to Verisign would go:
Legacy Owner: “Hello is this Verisign ?
Verisign: Yes
Legacy Owner : I don’t like premium renewal, you better change it or else
Verisign : Or else what ?
Legacy Owner: I will drop the name
Verisign : Great, because all those other domainers you think are on your team (hahahah you sad deluded fool) They are fighting to be first for the back order. So you drop it and have a good day.
Legacy Owner: ehhh, I mean,ehhh, wait, what ?
Verisign: Thank you for calling Verisign
As the industry matures domainers will have to work harder and smarter. Frank Schilling did not like what was going on with parking. For the moment Internet Traffic looks to be a game changer for big domainers with traffic domains.
More people are going to come into this industry looking to make money. They may not always be asking domainers for their opinion, so domainers need to hedge their bets and stay on top of their portfolio.

Securing your blog is one of the most important things you could do.
Producing content is essential, and so is promoting it, but if your
blog is not secure, you could lose everything overnight (literally!).

In this email I will share some security tips that you should apply
in your blog.

1. Backup, Backup and Backup!

In security circles people always say that if someone wants to break
into your site, with enough time and determination eventually he
will. In other words, no website can be made 100% secure.

If that is the case, your first line of defense are your backups.

With functional backups someone could erase everything in your
server and you would be back online in a matter of hours.

So remember to backup your blog often (preferable daily), and to
have backups in at least two different physical locations (else a
theft or fire could take both your site and the backup…).

2. Change The “Admin” User

One of the most common methods to break into a website is the brute
force one. That is, the malicious person will try to guess the name
of the admin and, once he finds that out, he will use scripts to try
thousands of password combinations with that user name.

If the admin user in your blog is called “admin”, well, you just
facilitated things a lot.

Luckily changing that is quite easy. Simply create a new user for
your blog, and give it “Administrator” privileges. Then login with
that user, and delete the “admin” user. If you have posts published
with “admin” WordPress will ask you if you want to move those posts
under a new user.

3. Obscure Your WordPress Version

Another common saying among security geeks is “security through
obscurity.” This is related to the fact that the fewer things a
malicious person knows about your blog or server, the harder it will
be to break into it.

By default WordPress broadcasts to the world the version that you
are running, and this information can be used against you, because
hackers know the security holes on each WordPress version.

Hiding that information is not difficult though. First of all you
want to disable the “generator” meta tag. You can do that by adding
the following code to the functions.php file of your theme:

function hide_wp_vers()
{
return ”;
}
add_filter(‘the_generator’,'hide_wp_vers’);

There is another place where hackers can find the version of your
WordPress, and most people forget to deal with that. It is the
readme file that comes with all WordPress installs. Simply access
your server via FTP to delete that file.

4. Disable Folder Browsing

Another thing that you should obscure in your site is the content
of your folders. If people can browser your folders, they will be
able to collect a lot of information, including what plugins you are
running, what themes you have installed and so on. Needless to say
that such information can be used to find security holes in your
site.

If your web hosting is based on Linux, you can easily disable folder
browser with a .htaccess file placed at the root of your server.
Either create that file or open the existing one and add the
following line:

Options -Indexes

That is it. If your hosting is not based on Linux, you can still
protect the content of your folders by uploading a blank index.html
page inside each folder.

5. Always Update

WordPress is an open source software, so its source code is public,
and anyone can have access to it. This means that hackers can
scrutinize the code looking for security holes.

Sometimes they find them, but the WordPress community usually
responds quickly and releases an updated version protected against
the new threats.

If you always run the latest WordPress version, therefore, you will
be minimizing the chances of having problems.

Want more WordPress tips? Check the “WordPress” category I have on
http://www.dailyblogtips.com , I am sure you’ll like it.

More than five million domain names were added to the Internet in the second quarter of 2011, bringing the total number of registered domain names to more than 215 million worldwide across all domains, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief, published by VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN), the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world.
The increase of 5.2 million domain names marks a growth rate of 2.5 percent over the first quarter. Registrations have grown by more than 16.9 million, or 8.6 percent, since the second quarter of 2010.
The .com and .net Top Level Domains (TLDs) experienced aggregate growth, surpassing a combined total of 110 million names in the second quarter of 2011. This represents a 1.8 percent increase in the base over the first quarter of 2011 and an 8.3 percent increase over the same quarter in 2010. New .com and .net registrations totaled 8.1 million during the quarter. This reflects a 2.0 percent increase year over year in new registrations.
The top TLDs in terms of registrations remained largely unchanged between Q1 and Q2. The only change in the order was .cn (China) moving up one slot to become the world’s eighth largest TLD, and .eu (European Union) dropping one slot to become ninth largest. Taken together, country-code TLDs (ccTLDs) worldwide added a total of 2.9 million names in the second quarter.
Verisign’s average daily Domain Name System (DNS) query load during the quarter was 56 billion, with a peak of 68 billion. Compared to the previous quarter, the daily average declined 1 percent and the peak grew 1 percent.