The Webmaster Place

I was up until 3:30 AM moving a client’s site to a new server. Then I was back at the computer at 7:30 AM to keep working out the problems.

Am I crazy? At 37 I must be too old for this. Who works until 3:30 in the morning for their clients? Lawyers? Doctors? I doubt the client would have worked so hard on it himself if he was doing the work.

Should I have quit at a decent time and just let the site be down for an extra 12 or 24 hours? I try to give a better level of service than that but maybe I am far enough along in my career to say no.

Regardless, this is why I much prefer building my own sites than managing other people’s sites. My own sites pay much more and I rarely have anything urgent enough to spend the night working on it.

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I has some down time away from the computer and used it to begin rereading the Rich Jerk ebook which I had printed out. I read it all in one sitting the first time since it is only 49 pages including some fluff like the cover and Contents. Since it is so full of ideas I admit that I forgot many of them and so rereading was a good idea.

I would add these comments to my original review of the book:

1) First of all, this ebook is worth reading and rereading. As I found, the reading some of the ideas a second time was a good reminder. But more importantly I thought about some ideas more/differently than I did the first time and now I think I can implement some that I thought were “not for me” the first time. I am hoping to try to implement two such ideas this week.

2) Second of all, it should be made clear that the author is somewhat “morally challenged”. I certainly will not be implementing at least one of the ideas in the way suggested as the author is more interested in “what works” than what is the right thing to do. If you are unable to take the bad with the good DON’T buy the book.

3) Otherwise, I would upgrade my recommendation to “strong buy”. I was actually laughing at how clever some of the stuff was in the book. I also realized that some of the things that I may have thought would be too hard for me to do may not be. If the Rich Jerk can do it so can I, probably, even if I tried it before and it didn’t work the first time. Knowing the tricks can be made to work will help me be more persistent.

The bottom line: If you are an experienced webmaster with your own site(s) it shouldn’t be too hard for you get your money’s worth and more from this book. You can find it at The Rich Jerk.

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Today one of our message boards was hacked. We are running phpBB2 and apparently there is a security hole in our version as this has happened before. (I should be fixing the problem instead of writing this message but it this is easier and less annoying.) We will probably have to upgrade to a current version and hope it is less vulnerable.

BUT, the good news is that we have a backup of the database from last week. If we need to we can just revert to that and we will be back in business. We will lose a few day’s worth of posts but I can live with that.

My advice regarding backups is: Back up, Back up, Back up! I back up our sites and databases and also the data on my hard drive as often as I can stand it. Actually backing up the sites and databases is a big job so I gave that to my assistant. For him it is not mere drudgery and so he does it much more regularly than I used to.

So it is boring and tedious, yes, but sooner or later it will save you and you know that. Even a backup that is 6 months old can be a big help.

Where possible, keep multiple copies on your server, your hard drive and burned to CDs or tapes which should be located in a different location if possible. That gives you multiple places to recover from, some more convenient than others. And it increases your chances of having something, somewhere when you need it.

One more thing — make sure you are really getting everything when you do your backups. We recently recovered from backup for another phpBB2 board that was hacked (see a pattern here?) but we had several serious bugs in our backup script and it turned out our best backup was over 6 months old. Yikes! Our boards are not critical, but if you have something that is you should make sure you can actually recover from the backups you are making.

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If you are interested in Internet marketing and you haven’t been hiding in a cave, you have probably heard about the Rich Jerk. This guy (or maybe it is a woman, nobody seems to really know) has written an eBook on how to make money online.

I bought the book and read it. It is quite short, some might say skimpy — only 47 pages including the table of contents. Is it worth the $97 price tag? $2/page?

The answer to the question is: Yes, IF you will make the money back and more. That should be the normal way you decide whether to buy something like this.

Do you think you will get at least one idea from this book that will make you some money?

This book is short, yes, but it is too the point. The Rich Jerk won’t teach you how to build a web site or give you any tuturials. He gives you the information on what can be done and assumes you can implement it, or find someone else who can (as he recommends you do). If you are a newbie DON’T buy the book, at least not until you know what you are doing.

But if you know your way around the ‘Net and can get things done, this book can help you. Let me tell you, I have been on the Web for years and years and I got plenty of good ideas from it. Even the ones that that I can’t capitalize on right now really opened my eyes. And yes, I am going to easily get back the money I spent with the one idea I already implemented, if I haven’t already.

Look, the mere fact that this person was able to get so much attention for his product is basically proof that he knows something. It is probably worth your while to find out how it can be done. The book WILL tell you more or less how he does it.

You can find out more about the book here: The Rich Jerk

Enjoy!

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I recently posted that I had signed up for Yahoo’s new Yahoo!Publisher Network, which is competition for Google’s AdSense. Read more about that here.

I am still waiting for a response to my email to Yahoo! on the subject. Which brings me to the point of this article.

Google has obviously cornered an enormous share of the market with very few serious contenders even in the game. Sure Yahoo! can overcome that in no time by offering a better bottom line, meaning more money to publishers. But I am guessing that the guys are Google are smart enough (as they are VERY smart) to be competitive no matter what Yahoo! does. So how can Yahoo! possibly hope to compete?

The answer is simple. Match everything that Google has to offer and give more. What would this entail?

1) Matching Google:

a) Great revenues for publishers
b) Lots of tools and different ad formats
c) Great technical support

2) Beating Google:

a) How about telling us the revenue share we are getting? Google’s secrecy on gross pay-per-click and revenue splits was tolerable when they were the only game in town but publishers would like to know more about what is really going on.
b) Better reporting: Which ads are getting clicked on? Which pages get the most traffic and clicks? Google’s system of AdSense channels is both cumbersome and limiting. It shouldn’t be too hard to offer more.

Unfortunately I can’t comment on Yahoo’s revenue share disclosures and reporting as I haven’t gotten in yet. Perhaps someone who is on the “inside” could leave a comment? My guess is that they will do a better job than Google here; it is not that hard to do so. (And then maybe Google will improve to stay competitive, which would be great!)

I also think that Yahoo will provide solid revenues to publishers and plenty of ad formats and tools. If not they are going to get laughed out of the competition and dissatisfied publishers will not use them.

IMHO that leaves Technical Support as a major hurdle for Yahoo!. For years and years Yahoo has been the 700-pound gorilla that didn’t need to be bothered answering emails, phone calls, or phone messages. Submitted your site to Yahoo? If you wanted to know if your site was accepted you just had to wait around for a few months until the Yahooligans got around to reviewing it… or maybe not. You would never know if it was reviewed unless it was accepted, and if it wasn’t, good luck finding out why not. Until they came up with the great idea of charging hundreds of dollars for the priveledge of being reviewed, which to this day the spider-based engines (including Yahoo’s) basically offer for free.

I might add that Overture’s attitude was very similar, at least for publishers if not advertisers. If you are HUGE, maybe we will talk to you. If you aren’t, fill out this form and if we get back to you, we get back to you. If not, sorry, it’s only because you are a loser and we are Overture.

Truly the Yahoo!-Overture merger was a merger of like-minded cultures of “We’re the biggest, and we don’t have time for anyone who we don’t deem to be worthy of us.”

My feeling is that Yahoo’s big stumbling block is going to be the need to change that culture. Google is making billions by catering to lots and lots of little guys. Their tech support is fantastic and they give the idea that they actually care about us mere mortals. To get in on the action Yahoo! is going to have to do the same, and fast. That will be 180-degree turnaround. I hope they will be able to do it.

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Well, my “vacation” has come and gone. My sites are still there. At least I think so.

The truth is that I still checked my email just about every day. I also occassionally checked that our various message boards didn’t explode (sometimes the people fight and it really gets out of hand). But I actually did very little. I also filed all the newsletters that I get for later reading (i.e. never).

So it wasn’t a bad vacation. Apparently it is possible to take some down-time, staying in touch and being responsible without overdoing it.

Stay tuned — I want to give the guys at the Yahoo! Publisher Network some good advice in my next posting. I think it will be well worth reading.

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Believe it or not I am going on vacation starting tonight. Even webmasters deserve vacations, no?

The great thing about the Web is that it is always there, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. The bad thing about the Web is that it is always there, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year… At least that is bad for the webmaster who is responsible for making sure his sites are always up and running.

As a webmaster responsible for maybe 70 web sites, I can never take a total vacation for very long as ultimately I am responsible for all those sites, even if I can delegate some of that responsibilty.

So yes, I am going on vacation, but I will be checking me email and the status of my web sites pretty much daily, just to be sure.

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The problem with the term “webmaster” is that it has been used so often that it has lost it’s meaning. What does a webmaster do?

1) Original site design, from the graphics, look-and-feel and navigation.

2) Text layout, editing, conversion from other formats. Of course some webmasters have to create the content from scratch as well.

3) System Administrator: even if the webmaster has a really cool cpanel to help him/her along, there is still a lot to do here from setting up email account to making sure there are regular backups.

4) Programming: JavaScripts, ASP/PHP, interaction with databases like MySQL, eCommerce

5) Search engine optimization: Gotta somehow keep up with the latest news on how to get and keep your site(s) at the top.

6) Salesperson and psychologist/sociologist: for for-profit sites the webmaster needs to be able to guide the visitor to and through the sales process, or figure out how to get him to look at the site’s ads.

7) Marketing and joint-venture (JV) expert: bringing in new visitors through joint deals with other sites or shrewd advertising.

8) Manager: If lucky, the webmaster will have some help, meaning people that have to be managed.

9) Accountant, bookkeeper, billing department, sales office, human resources, bank liason (check depositor) and more: for those of us who run our own companies, the web site itself is just part of the process, though the most fun part. Keeping the business running often takes more time than actually working on sites.

Quite a lot of hats to wear! I can tell you from experience that I have worn and continue to fulfill all of the above roles. So let’s return the real meaning to the work “webmaster” — it means master of the Web, in all (ok, many) of its different parts.

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Hi. I was recently accepted into the Yahoo equivalent of AdSense. Sort of. The link they sent me to sign in unfortunately didn’t work. Maybe because my spam filter caught the email and it took a while for me to actually see it. Has this happened to anyone else? I emailed them for help. Is there any chance they will respond quickly like Google wouldl?

I have been trying to get into the Overture program for years already. This could be very exciting if it works out.

Update #1: Got an autoresponse from Yahoo, but still waiting for a human being. Grr.

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Thanks for visiting our new blog. We plan to update it regularly.

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