I was in the market for a web hosting service. After hours of research, I tried to sign-up for a hosting company called iPage. Within 24 hours, I knew that I made a mistake. How did I know that it was a terrible hosting company?

Here goes my list of “signs of a bad hosting company”:

• If the ticketing service isn’t straightforward. For example, not getting any response for over an hour is bad in my book. On top of it, charging for “Premium Support” is just plain awful. Why make your paying customers feel that they need to pay extra just to get decent service?
• There’s no proper documentation on how to get set-up. I got a couple of initial emails, and they weren’t helpful at all in helping me to get set-up. And, going to the website didn’t provide any better answers.
• The lack of documentation is even worse when you have an account management interface that isn’t familiar to most people. CPanel is popular, so that may not need a lot of documentation, especially for folks who have been on the web a long time. But, if the web hosting company has a not-so-popular account management system, then the least they can do is provide adequate documentation.
• If there are issues in setting up FTP and other matters, they don’t help to get them sorted within 24 hours.

There were only two things that saved iPage for me: One is the fact that when I managed to get a hold of someone via their “live chat”, I started getting quicker responses to my Support Tickets. And, the other saving factor: They had a refund policy that I managed to take advantage of. They also waived any additional charges in cancelling my account. So, thank goodness for that. I have had some bad hosts before who charged me for cancelling even though they had a 30-day money back guarantee.

What about you? What kind of bad hosting service experiences have you had?

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Web Hosting: The Crucial First 24-Hours

Over the last 10+ years, I’ve tried many web hosting solutions. Sadly, there’s not one that I can recommend 100%.

Out of all those that I’ve tried, there’s only one that I’ve stayed with from the start of my web project until now. That’s ICDSoft. I’ve been using their services for about 8 years or so now. Mind you, it’s not because they’re great or that they’re good value. Not at all. They’re reasonably priced and has decent features, but they’re not the cheapest nor are they feature-packed. However, one of the best things about them is that they’re quite reliable. Plus, the customer service folks are generally decent. So, even though I have contemplated on leaving them once a couple of years ago, I retracted because the place I was migrating my site to showed less-than-impressive service. I haven’t tried leaving them again since.

Having said that, I only have one site hosted with them. I have more than half a dozen web projects all over the place. Out of all those projects, I have about 3 other hosts I’m working with. 2 on shared servers and 1 on VPS. Out of those 3, I’m not keen on any of them for different reasons. The only reason I haven’t tried moving all of my sites is due to the difficulty of transferring sites to a new host smoothly.

Unfortunately, that kind of task is inevitable sometimes. I’m planning on dropping one of those hosts and moving my site to a different host soon. That’s why I’m on the lookout for a better web hosting solution. I’ve been doing more research lately, but haven’t really found anything that I find appealing enough (i.e., not too scary due to bad reviews I’ve encountered).

What about you? Do you have your own web host for your website or blog or e-commerce shop? What would you recommend — and why? How long have you been with your web host? What’s the best thing about them – and what’s the worst? I’d really love to hear/read your recommendations!

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Which Web Hosting Company Will You Recommend?

When I first wrote about Domain Cash Parking, I wasn’t quite sure how it all worked. But, ever since then, I experimented with various domain cash parking services like Sedo and GoDaddy, as well as Chitika’s domain cash parking service. And, so far, I must say that I haven’t really seen any benefits from this practice. There must be more to it than what I’m doing, though. So, I decided to give it another go.

When I saw that Google Adsense is now offering the Google Adsense for Domains service, I immediately decided to sign-up a couple of my undeveloped domains. Since it comes free with my existing Adsense account, I thought, why not?

These are the basic steps that you need to take to get your domains on to the Google Adsense for Domains service:

1. Sign in to your existing Adsense account (or start one if you haven’t got one yet).

2. Go to ‘Get Ads’ tab and select ‘Adsense for Domains’ in the list of services.

3. Click on ‘Add domain’ and follow the instructions that Adsense will give you.

4. Instructions include signing in to your domain registrar and making changes to the account information. Adsense provides detailed information on how to do this with most popular registrars.

5. Once you’ve set-up your domain according to Adsense’s specifications, wait until it gets approved.

6. When your domain’s approved, you can then edit some of its settings (palette and keywords).

7. Wait for the money to roll in! (or not! )

I’m curious to see if domain cash parking with Google will be different. I’ll have to see and let you know.

What about you? Have you tried domain cash parking just yet? Have you looked in to Google Adsense for Domains? If you have, do let us know what you think of it!

Here’s a sample domain on the Google Adsense for Domains service.

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Google Adsense for Domains

Remember the .ME landrush? Well, that’s all done now and tomorrow, the auctions will begin. Yes, it looks like there were several people who became interested in similar domains, so now GoDaddy’s going to auction the popular domains off.

I reserved 5 during the landrush. And, all are going on auction. I’ve decided not to bid on them.

Why?

Well, 3 reasons:

1) At $49.99/year, those domains are already too expensive for me to maintain.

2) GoDaddy made it a bit difficult to participate in the auction, having to come up with different logins and all that; and

3) The whole domain auction thing just doesn’t suit me.

So, chances are, I’ll lose those domains. That’s fine with me. I’m just looking forward to getting my initial deposit back and investing the money elsewhere.

I’m curious to see, however, if any of these domains will eventually take off and make money for those who end up investing in and owning them.

What do you think? Did you buy some .ME domains? Are they going on auction? Are you planning on participating in the auction?

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Why .ME isn’t going to be for me.

JMMO Reader Alex Arencibia asked here: I have a quick question about your cash parking experience. I recently took one of my parked domain names and built a website around it. For some reason, Google will not pick up the domain name under any of the keywords we are marketing it with. The site is well designed and full of features that attract search engines and keyword searches. Yet, I am wondering if the fact that the domain names was Cash Parked for about 4 month, if google somehow has it listed or tagged as a Parked site and will not allow it to be marketed? Any help would be appreciated.

To which another JMMO Reader, Leonard Holmes, shared this response: “I believe that google does not want to index parked pages, so they will indeed try to weed these pages out of their search results. If a site is later developed they usually do pick it up eventually. I imagine that they are slow in doing this because they intentionally do not spider parked sites very often.”

I’d be interested to know what other people think about this as well.

—————–
NOTE:
It’s always great whenever I find interesting comments from readers and visitors to this blog. And sometimes, I wish to refer to those tips and ideas. So, I decided to feature some of the best ones that I found here on Just Make Money Online.

Image: Microsoft Stock Photo; Edits, Shai Coggins

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Reader Advice: On Parked Domains Turned In To Sites and Google Search

One of the things I’ve started to learn more about lately is domain cash parking. And, ever since I blogged about it, I realised that it’s a subject that a lot of people want to learn more about. But, other than the usual suspects with domain cash parking services (Sedo, Godaddy, etc), I wanted to find out other options.

A few days ago, I found out that Chitika offers a similar product/service, wherein you can redirect your domain name to a pre-made Chitika shop site. If you already have a Chitika account and an available domain name, you simply choose that service on your Chitika account management area. Then, you input your domain name and your chosen keywords. It will then generate a shop site. You then update your domain’s nameservers to point to Chitika’s nameservers. If you have some domain names that you’re not using, this might be worth exploring.

To see this in action, check out Crafty Toys.

Have you tried using this yet? Let me know what you think of it!

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

DIY Domain Cash Parking on Chitika

There’s a new domain extension in town! Yes, the extension .ME has arrived recently.

New extensions don’t usually excite me, since I’m mostly a .com kind of domain purchaser. And, I’ve only experimented with .net, .tv, .info, and .biz before. I generally avoid purchasing alternative domain extensions.

However, today, I’ve decided to give .ME a big go. Yes, even though at the moment, it costs a whopping US$49.99/year to register a .ME domain (w/minimum of 2 years per registration) at GoDaddy.

During this time called a ‘landrush’, anyone may apply for the domains. After the landrush, domain names that are requested by one or more individuals will be auctioned off between those who made the request. The landrush ends on 26 June 2008.

I’m not sure if it’ll pay off, but I ended up with 5 new .ME properties today (pending approval). Actually, I had 10 that I really liked. But, shelling US$1,000 was out of the question at this stage for me. So, I cut my choices in half.

Now, how do I make money off these properties? Well, I have to wait and see. But, I’ll keep you posted.

How about you? Ready to jump in to the domain pool with .ME properties too? Do you think it’s worth investing in? Do you believe it’ll take off?

Some domain names that I checked that were already gone/unavailable include: Teach.Me, Bite.Me, Buy.Me, Money.Me, Feed.Me, and Give.Me.

Also See:

• Top 5 Things To Consider When Getting a New Domain Name
• Poll Results: How Many Domain Names Do You Own?
• Open Mic: Domain Name Registrars
• Domain Cash Parking

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Will You Invest in .ME?

In the post, Top Things To Consider when Getting a Domain Name, JMMO reader Missy wanted to know the following:

1) Can a domain name be too niche?

My response: It depends on the niche – and what are the monetization expectations from the said domain. Some niche topics are definitely worth pursuing.

I’ve created mini sites and programmes for certain niche topics after investigating the topic’s potential income. And, some basic ideas literally do pay off.

Ultimately, if you’re really passionate about that niche, you’ll find a way to make it work one way or the other, even though actual benefits may not always come in the form of Adsense cheques or affiliate sales.

2) Which tool to use to check on the income potential of a domain name?

This was the question that I was stumped to begin with. But, I guess, I can just share my own process in analyzing a domain name’s monetization potential. And my process includes: checking keyword relevancy, scouting for affiliate linking, competition analysis, and advertising potential.

Depending on what kind of data I wish to have, I use different tools with every area of the process. For example, I use different keyword research tools when analyzing relevancy. I use Google a lot, when looking at competition, affiliate links, and ad potential.

Other people will most likely have different approaches.

If you have other tools that you use in your own research, I’d love to hear about them too.

3) What type of domain names are better to use when using ad programmes like Adsense? And what types of domain names can be used for affiliate marketing?

To me, the question is not about matching monetization strategies with domain names. At least, not to start with. I prefer to think of matching domain names with my vision or plans for the domain first. What do I want the site to achieve? What’s the best way to maximize the use of the domain?

Do I wish to start a blog on it? An online magazine? A directory? A mini site? A forum? A community? A service? A sales page?

Also, another thing to consider is: Where will your audience come from? Will they be primarily geared for search engine referrals, inbound links, or through subscriptions?

If you want to get a lot of search engine traffic, keyword-rich domain names will most likely work better than ‘branded’ names. If you want to develop a following or a fan base, then ‘brandable’ domain names will be great.

If your site will rely heavily on search engine traffic, contextual ad programmes like Adsense will probably do well. Affiliates can be effective too, but people tend to want to buy things from people they feel that they already know. So, having subscribers/followers/fans will be useful if you want to make money from affiliate programmes.

So, what about you? Do you have any other tips and thoughts for Missy and other folks who might be wondering about the same things?

Image based on photo by Pierre Amerlynck
From sxc.hu

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Money Chat: Monetizing Domain Names

So, you want to buy some new domains. It may seem simple enough to choose one that you like and go. But, some folks take some basic things in to consideration when purchasing one:

• Branded vs Keyword-Rich – It’s always tricky to figure out whether to get a domain name that can be branded (e.g. Dosh Dosh) or one that’s keyword-rich (Just Make Money Online). There are pros and cons to using either one. Branded domains can be remembered and can be shorter. But, some folks may not know exactly what it’s all about at first glance. Keyword-rich domains tell folks immediately what the topic of the blog or site is going to be. But, it can become a mouthful – and a bit generic.
• .com vs .net vs. others – Which one do you go for? Most folks say that having a .com is still the best way to go. Most people think of websites as .coms still. But, there are still non-.com-sites that have also gained huge popularity, like Problogger.net (incidentally, Darren ended up purchasing the .com version too).
• With or without hyphens? – There are different points of view when it comes to this issue. Is it better to get just-make-money-online.com or justmakemoneyonline.com? To me, it depends. If it’ll visually help to separate the words (or the alternatives are not available), then I think hyphens are okay. As long as it doesn’t become too long. Digital-Photography-School.com is an example of a blog site that uses hyphens.
• How long is too long? – When it comes to domain names, the shorter it is, the better. But, most good short domains have already been taken. So, it’s not always possible to get them. Besides, long domains can still be usable, as long as they’re not too long – and there aren’t a lot of opportunities to make spelling/reading mistakes.
• To localise or not to localise? – You know those domain names that have .uk (for Britain), .au (for Australia), etc.? Is it good to get them? If you think you’re going to serve primarily local audience, yes. Otherwise, if you’re trying to serve a more global market, then you’re still better off with a .com. Unless you want to have a more local feel (e.g., you’re a Philippine merchant wishing to sell local goods overseas, but your goods are primarily Philippine items, then a .ph still sounds good).

Do you have any other domain name tips and ideas?

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Top 5 Things To Consider When Getting a New Domain Name

If you’ve been holding back on starting your own website or weblog, then why don’t you give Top Hosting Center’s contest a go? You can win a year’s worth of free hosting and domain registration. It’ll give you that head start with making money online, if it’s something you’ve been wanting to do.  Three different hosting packages are up for grabs (1st, 2nd, and 3rd prizes).

Tip from Home Biz Notes

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

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