Google Webmaster Tools is a great resource for you. Your website’s visibility can be improved in Google’s search results with its help. It informs webmasters about how Google is interacting with their website. It’s free to use, just like Google Analytics.

The first thing you’ll need is a Google account. If you use other Google services, you can use the same login. If not, you can sign up for a free.

Once you add your sites (yepp, sites – you can add as many as you want) to the Dashboard, each site have to be verified. If you can’t verify your site, Google won’t be able to get an insight.

You can check how Google crawls and indexes your website, when your site was last crawled and which pages are already indexed by it.

The Overview page shows you how many errors Google noticed. You can check restricted and unreachable URLs and you can see the broken links which lead to 404 error pages. You also can find the referrer sites where these links are. I hope you feel how powerful it is – you can fix any problems that prevent Google from indexing your pages.

If you have broken links that are coming from inbound links, a 301 redirect can be setup on your site to fix the problem as soon as possible. It’s sometimes easier and quicker than trying to contact the referrer site to update the link.

Google displays restricted URLs as errors. Some pages are restricted by the robots.txt file for a reason (e.g. you don’t want your redirected affiliate link to get indexed or you want to prevent duplicate content) and you don’t need to fix them.

The Statistics page is where Google tells you how it sees your site, which top search queries drive traffic to your site, etc. Top search queries are phrases people looked for and Google displayed your site in the results. This is great information about how people are searching and how they’re finding your site. You can see phrases you never think of 

One of my favourite parts is the What Google sees area where you can understand what Google thinks of your site and how it see your content. This is where you can find the reason your site can’t rank well for certain keywords. You can view comprehensive data about your internal and external links to your site.

You can upload an XML sitemap to help Google crawl all of your pages and to learn which pages are the most important to your site. You can specify your preferred domain name. You can choose how you would like to see your domain name in Google’s search results.

Google Webmaster Tools is a great resource to see how Google is interacting with your site. You can learn more about the issues, the linking structure, the keywords people use. If you don’t know why your site doesn’t appear on the first page on Google, this tool might help you detect what is the problem.

Are you using Google Webmaster Tools? Is it useful for you?

Most of the websites can be accessed by typing the domain name with www (like http://www.fatbanker.com) and without www (like http://fatbanker.com).

Try to avoid using both of them. Choose the one you prefer and stick with it because if you have a preferred domain and you promote this one, Google doesn’t have to give separate PageRank for URLs that point to the same site.

Opinions differ. Someone says use your domain with www because most people type URLs starting with it, others use it without www because it’s something like a subdomain. Choose whichever you think is best for you, just make sure you only use one format from the beginning.

Add a 301 redirect using mod_rewrite

Once you have selected your preferred domain, you can force everyone to use that domain. Simply add a 301 redirect with Apache’s mod_rewrite. It’s necessary to create or edit your existing .htaccess file. You will find it in your sites root folder – usually located in public_html folder.

If there is already an .htaccess file, create a backup.

Prefer your domain with www?

If you prefer to use www before your domain, you can copy and paste the following code to your .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^(.*)\.fatbanker\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.fatbanker.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Of course you will need to replace fatbanker.com with your site URL. Now when your surfers access a URL like http://yourdomain.com they will be redirected to http://www.yourdomain.com. The above code redirects all yourdomain.com to www.yourdomain.com including directories and files. E.g. yourdomain.com/contact.html will be redirected to www.yourdomain.com/contact.html.

Prefer your domain without www?

If you want everyone visiting your website to do this without www in the URL, simply add the following lines to your .htaccess and upload it to your server:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]


The above code redirects all www.yourdomain.com to yourdomain.com.

Some hosting provider might not show the .htaccess file or have them in read only mode. In this case you can ask them to set the 301 redirect. They will help you.

If you mess up your current .htaccess settings, you may get a 500 server error code when you try to access your site. In this case just upload the previously backed up file.

Let Google know about your decision

It’s time to tell Google which domain format you want to see in the search results.

Login to your existing Google Webmaster Tools account (or register for free) and set your preferred (canonical) domain. Some days later you will see that all of your pages are displayed in the format you wanted to see in the search results.

It’s great, everyone uses your preferred format and you ensure linking consistence. Having 50 incoming links to the preferred domain will receive more weight than having 20 inbound links pointing to your site with www and 30 links without www in URL. In the second case you present Google with two pages.

Are you using your domain with or without www?

Bounce rate is used in website traffic analysis to represent the percentage of visitors who come to your site and immediately leave without visiting any of the inside pages. Everyone wants this number to be as low as possible because we want our visitors to stay longer on our website.

How do you know what your bounce rate is? The simplest way is register for a free Google Analytics account, list your site and paste some HTML code on your pages. Analytics will you provide free in-depth reports.

Some web analytic software (just like Google Analytics) helps you to find out what bounce rate should be considered as normal. For static websites anything under 40% and for a blog or websites with lots of outbound links from 50% to 60% should be normal.

Is your bounce rate higher than it should be? I’ll show you 5 ways to lower it.

1. Provide good content
   Maybe the most important. Many of us put too much time and energy into the design of the site and not enough into writing effectively. Not giving the surfers what they are looking for is the best way to get them to leave your site immediately. Content is king!
2. Make sure your website loads quickly
   You have seconds to grab your visitors’ attention. It’s really important to ensure your site loads as quickly as possible. Optimize your site – don’t use too many or heavy images or Flash. Choose a reliable host.
3. Make your pages easily available
   Keep your navigation simple, clean, easily readable and user-friendly. Make sure your site is easy to use and well-organized. If your visitors can’t find what they are looking for quickly, they will leave your site. Surfers are impatient. They need information right now.
   Make sure you use the same menu on the whole website and provide an easy way to get back to your home page. This might sound like a no-brainer, but many folks get it wrong.
4. Use internal links
   Give people internal links (links that are pointing to other pages of your website) that will lead them to other pages of your site. Make sure you are linking to other pages that are relevant to the page you are linking from.
   Using good anchor text will help you. Let your anchor texts grab your visitors’ interest and let them dive further into your content. Never use click here – nobody will see it.
5. Take note of traffic sources
   Where is the majority of your traffic coming from? Direct links, search engines, social networking sites? The quality of the traffic will contribute the overall bounce rate being higher or lower. The more targeted your traffic is, the lower your bounce rate. Focus on traffic source that convert better.

Bounce rate is an important measure of your website’s effectiveness. There are also people who believe it plays a role in how search engines rank your site. If it is true it gives you some extra motivation in working on improving it.

If your site has been loosing visitors as fast as they enter, it’s time to make the necessary modifications on your site and then give it a few weeks to see the difference. The difference should be that your visitors will be staying on your website for longer periods of time. Run tests to see if it improves over time.

Are you using Google Analytics? What is your bounce rate? Are you satisfied with it? Do you know how people interacting with your website?

I sold one of my domains on Sedo (for $60 – what a shame) yesterday. The buyer has submitted the payment and I should prepare for the domain transfer.

It’s my first domain regsitered on GoDaddy that I want to transfer out. I’ve logged into my GoDaddy account and turned the locking function of my domain off. It was easy…

Previously I just pushed domains to Sedo’s GoDaddy account. It was faster and easier. But this time we transfer the domain to the buyer so we need the EPP code (also called authorization code) for this domain. The buyer needs this information to transfer the domain name into his/her possession.

Finding your GoDaddy domain’s EPP code isn’t so easy. It seems they don’t want me to transfer my domains out It took me more than 20 (precious) minutes to find that **** link.

Once you are logged in to your GoDaddy account, go to your domains overview and click on the domain you want to transfer. There is a link at the bottom of the left column saying “Authorization Code: Send By Email”. Click on the link and they send an email with your authorization code to the administrative contact email address for your domain. Look at the image below:

GoDaddy is a good registrar but I don’t really like their upselling style and looking at Danica every time I go there Anyway their support is great and I like their auctions where you can buy second-hand domain names for $5.

I hope this post will help you save your time.

After the catchy headline I have to tell you that the free offer is only for 3 months. But it’s free and everyone likes free things.

As I mentioned around a week ago I recommend to get your own website with your own domain. If you promote an affiliate program, one of the things you have to consider is having your own website.

Having your own website makes you look more professional and costs you less than $10 per month. And now here is your chance to get 3 months of Jumpline hosting for free.

Let’s see… What do you get with this free Jumpline offer?

• 10 GB disk space what is more than enough for 10-20 websites! Simply amazing.
• Have you ever wanted sub-domains, just like helpdesk.yourdomain.com? You can host up to 16 sub-domains with one account.
• Do you want to have more than one website? Host unlimited pointed and parked domains! It means you don’t need to buy other web hosting packages – just buy some domains from $0.99 and host them on the same account.
• An average website is around 1MB. With 500 visitors daily (that’s more than enough you to earn $100 per day) you need around 10-15GB of monthly data transfer. Jumpline offers 100 GB monthly data transfer for you!
• I’m sure you want to look professional, so you need your own email accounts, just like yourname@yourdomain.com. You can have up to 100 of these kind of email accounts.
• Do you want to build a blog or forum? Do you need dynamic pages? Jumpline support PHP language with MySQL databases what is a requirement now.
• You can manage your databases from the PhpMyAdmin.
• Couldn’t you set up a WordPress blog or a forum? Just a few clicks and you can use over 30 integrated applications, just like WordPress, phpWiki, phpAds, phpBB etc
• Did you do something wrong and don’t know the reason? With the daily backups you can restore your website as soon as you want.
• Do you have any problem with your account or website? You can contact the support team immediately! They are available 24/7.
• The availability of your webtime is a major concern. Jumpline offers 99.99% server uptime – for a 30 day month it’s less than 5 minutes when your site is unavailable. Please note there is no web hosting provider can have 100% uptime.

It sounds good. But is it really free?

Yepp, you are not required to make a purchase. You have the option to cancel the free offer at anytime and you will not be billed after the free offer expires. You can simply cancel the free offer inside your online Customer Manager.

Your free web hosting account will be set up within a few hours. Jumpline can assist you in transferring your domain name to their nameservers.

You will have access to 24/7 email ticket support. You will also receive toll free phone support Monday-Friday 9am-9pm.

Jumpline.com requires a valid credit card to secure the free hosting offer. However you will not be billed unless you choose to keep the webhosting service after the free offer expires in 3 months. You must cancel the trial before then.

This special offer only works if you click the link below on this site and do not block the referrer.

Sign up for the free Jumpline account!

They honestly do not charge your credit card when you sign up with it.

Grab a cheap domain name and host it for free!

I’ve just received an email from Sedo saying “Payment took place!”. I like these emails especially this one – I’ve sold a domain for $800.

I registered this domain on 1and1.com for $3.99 about 5 months ago. It’s a hyphenated 12 characters long .com domain. I wanted to use it for an affiliate program (oh, what a surprise!) but I never made any sales from this site.

So I decided to list the domain for sale on Sedo marketplace with a $60 asking price. I usually list my domains for $60-$100 and sell them for $60-$200.

Some weeks ago I received a $60 offer for my domain and of course I took the name to auction. An auction period runs for seven days. On the seventh day I received an email saying: “We are pleased to inform you that the auction of your-domain.com has ended with a closing sale price of 800 USD.”

Err… Not again! Another non paying buyer… (Well sometimes it happens on Sedo – I just had a transaction cancelled due to non payment from the buyer.)

On 5th May I received another mail saying they had received the escrow payment. Yeppp, the buyer paid the amount and fortunately it was a very smooth transaction. I have received the amount today:

Quick tip: You can add your bank details to your Sedo account if you want to avoid Paypal fees for receiving the money.

Have you found the right domain name? Think you are ready to buy this domain?

There are hundreds of registrars available and most of them offer domains for less than $10. But you can’t choose…

As an affiliate you may need full DNS management, URL/domain forwarding and masking.

This post is just a quick overview of some of the best registrars that I have worked with over the past few years.

1and1 Internet

This is a large web hosting company that also provides one of the cheapest domain name registrations. For .com, .org, .net, .biz domains you are charged $6.99. They also offer .info domains for $0.99.

Do you need privacy? The above fees include private domain registration, which means that your particulars are hidden from public view. You get full DNS management, domain forwarding and masking. Both credit card and PayPal payments are accepted by this registrar.

Do not buy hosting from this company, there are better and cheaper solutions. But if you are looking a cheap domain registrar, you can try them!

Dotster.com

Dotster provides cheap prices and easy-to-use web interface to manage your domain settings. They are a Top 10 ranked ICANN accredited domain registrar.

You get email forwarding, URL forwarding, full DNS management, domain locking, web hosting, email boxes. The prices are from $3.99. Both credit card and PayPal payments are accepted here.

Moniker.com

This domain name registrar allows domain name registrations for plenty of TLDs, including .com, .net, .info, .mobi, .biz, .us, .co.uk, etc. The full list is too long to store in my database… Prices for domain names differ, depending on the choosen extension.

They charge $7.97 for .com, $6.29 for .net these days.

Their interface allows you to manage your DNS settings, URL forwarding and everything else you may need. Both credit card and PayPal payments are accepted by them.

GoDaddy.com

This is an extremely popular registrar. They offer .com domain names for $9.99 (plus 20 cents ICANN fee).

They have an easy-to-use web interface to manage your domains. Both credit card and PayPal payments are accepted.

I also like their auctions where you can buy ’second hand’ domains for as low as $5 (but you have to pay for the renewal). I bought some great, old domains here with backlinks and PR2 pageranks…

Almost forgot to mention… Don’t buy hosting from GoDaddy I’ve found GoDaddy to be a great domain registrar, as long as you host somewhere else.

Your web hosting provider

Yes, it’s another great way to regsiter a domain. Some of the hosting companies offer free domain registrations with annual plans.

Once you’ve decided, you should not hesitate to click on that purchase button. I’ve lost more than 5 domain names by hesitating.

Stay one step ahead of your competitors!

If you are planning to promote an affiliate program, one of the things you have to consider is having your own website.

Why do you need it?

Having your own domain makes you look professional, build trust and a big plus that the advertising networks / affiliate networks take you more seriously. Some of the networks out there won’t accept your application unless you have your own domain name.

I’ve seen some people who started with a free domain / web hosting, build some quality backlinks, good Alexa and PR rank. But once they move their own domain, they have to start everything over.

So it’s really important to start with your own domain!

But what domain name should you have?

Finding a good domain name is hard these days but not impossible. First of all you need a Top Level Domain (TLD), even better if you can go with a .com TLD. If you target a certain country, you can buy a Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD). E.g. if you are targeting the UK, you should buy a .uk (.co.uk) domain.

The simple one-word domain names are sold or held by domain brokers. You have to be creative. Combine simple (key)words in a unique fashion. Create a list of basic words that describe your niche or the product(s) you promote then add a positive word that will make your name stand out.

Pick a short domain name that is easy to remember. It has to be short enough to type. Having the right keywords in your domain name would give you better chances to getting targeted visitors.

Once you come up with some great domain name, check their availability.

Where can you buy a cheap domain name?

There are some great domain name registrars you can choose from. You can buy domains for as low as $0.99.

The next step is finding the right web hosting for your website, at a good company, and of course at a reasonable price.