Useful Talk http://www.usefultalk.com Let's talk about making money online, monetizing, domaining, marketing, buying & selling online, blogging, CMS, web development and technology Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:09:03 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 en We are retiring AdSense Referrals, Finally! http://www.usefultalk.com/adsense-and-adwords/we-are-retiring-adsense-referrals-finally http://www.usefultalk.com/adsense-and-adwords/we-are-retiring-adsense-referrals-finally#comments Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:04:11 +0000 Ethan http://www.usefultalk.com/adsense-and-adwords/we-are-retiring-adsense-referrals-finally I don’t know about you, but I didn’t make 1 cent from the Google AdSense Referral program. So, when I got the email today from Google about retiring their AdSense Referral program I was not surprised a bit.

In case you did not get this email from Google, here you go:

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]]> http://www.usefultalk.com/adsense-and-adwords/we-are-retiring-adsense-referrals-finally/feed Mashup of Gmap into your Drupal website http://www.usefultalk.com/cms-wikis/mashup-of-gmap-into-your-drupal-website http://www.usefultalk.com/cms-wikis/mashup-of-gmap-into-your-drupal-website#comments Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:51:56 +0000 Ethan http://www.usefultalk.com/cms-wikis/mashup-of-gmap-into-your-drupal-website Recently I had to setup a Drupal website (Drupal 5.7) that needed to display pages with a location and a Google map. I could achieve that by editing node.tpl.php but I wanted to use Views and Panels instead.. Here are the instructions on how to get your Gmap view to work with the Views module and the Panels module.

Before we start I assume that you have installed the Views, Panels2, Gmap, and the Location modules.

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]]> http://www.usefultalk.com/cms-wikis/mashup-of-gmap-into-your-drupal-website/feed A New Google AdWords Policy Change Will Affect You! http://www.usefultalk.com/adsense-and-adwords/a-new-google-adwords-policy-change-will-affect-you http://www.usefultalk.com/adsense-and-adwords/a-new-google-adwords-policy-change-will-affect-you#comments Wed, 28 May 2008 00:16:37 +0000 Ethan http://www.usefultalk.com/adsense-and-adwords/a-new-google-adwords-policy-change-will-affect-you As if paying for increasingly pricey Google Ads wasn’t enough, yet again Google has announced a new policy change that will likely prevent you and me from getting the top Ad spots through their AdWords program.

For a long time, the Internet has acted as a leveling force where one person could compete with large corporations for Internet real estate, traffic, sales and ads. The recent Google strategy and vision will definitely have a negative impact in this arena. In the coming weeks, as this strategy is rolled out, Ads will be scored and ranked similarly to web pages. The new strategy relies heavily on the speed of landing pages (landing page load time).

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]]> http://www.usefultalk.com/adsense-and-adwords/a-new-google-adwords-policy-change-will-affect-you/feed Google Analytics Lost Data Late April http://www.usefultalk.com/miscellaneous/google-analytics-lost-data-late-april http://www.usefultalk.com/miscellaneous/google-analytics-lost-data-late-april#comments Mon, 26 May 2008 02:40:22 +0000 Ethan http://www.usefultalk.com/miscellaneous/google-analytics-lost-data-late-april If you’re like me and use Google analytics for all your domain names, you may have noticed some irregularities a couple weeks ago. Google Analytics is one of the best free tools that Google has, I have about 15 websites being tracked by Analytics and I love it.

Not to worry though, the service is back up and functioning perfectly. I mean, it’s FREE people, so the fact that it works and offers as much as it does is pretty awesome.
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]]> http://www.usefultalk.com/miscellaneous/google-analytics-lost-data-late-april/feed Israel.com Starting at 5.5 Mil http://www.usefultalk.com/domain-names-profit/israelcom-starting-at-55-mil http://www.usefultalk.com/domain-names-profit/israelcom-starting-at-55-mil#comments Mon, 26 May 2008 02:16:13 +0000 Ethan http://www.usefultalk.com/domain-names-profit/israelcom-starting-at-55-mil Moniker.com is currently holding a domain name auction that started on May 23rd. One of the domains is Israel.com, with the highest starting bid in the group at $5.5 million.

Some of the million-dollar and up domains include pay.com, yachts.com, AffiliateProgram.com, and Portfolios.com. Moniker CEO Monte Cahn expects to see these domains in the $1 million to $5 million range.

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]]> http://www.usefultalk.com/domain-names-profit/israelcom-starting-at-55-mil/feed My GoDaddy Cash Parked Domains Update http://www.usefultalk.com/cash-parking/my-godaddy-cash-parked-domains-update http://www.usefultalk.com/cash-parking/my-godaddy-cash-parked-domains-update#comments Wed, 07 May 2008 03:19:36 +0000 Ethan http://www.usefultalk.com/cash-parking/my-godaddy-cash-parked-domains-update Over March and April, I mad $12.52 from my cash-parked domain names. Most of the money came from a domain name that used to be an online retail store that I owned.

As the April numbers show, the income from that URL have gone down. Probably because people have noticed that the store is no more, and perhaps some incoming links were removed from referring sites.

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]]> http://www.usefultalk.com/cash-parking/my-godaddy-cash-parked-domains-update/feed Website Page Rank 101 http://www.usefultalk.com/search-engines/website-page-rank-101 http://www.usefultalk.com/search-engines/website-page-rank-101#comments Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:46:36 +0000 Ethan http://www.usefultalk.com/search-engines/website-page-rank-101 The term Page Rank is well known amongst savvy website owners. Page Rank, PageRank, or PR all refer to the same thing and are usually associated with the Google search engine. Google is not the only search engine that utilizes Page Rank algorithms. However, the term ‘PageRank’ is a Google trademark.

So what’s PR exactly? Simply put, PageRank is an estimation of the relative importance of a certain web page. This estimate is derived from complex measurement algorithms that analyze links found on websites and then assign a numerical weight to each web page giving it a measured importance within the context of the rest of the all the WWW web sites.

To put this differently, a PageRank is similar to a popularity contest or a ballot result. This ballot is amongst every page on the internet and every hyperlink to your page counts as one vote of support in this ballot. More inbound links to a web page indicate more support for that page online, and in this case support indicates popularity.

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]]> http://www.usefultalk.com/search-engines/website-page-rank-101/feed Blog Profit - Simply Ask For Money http://www.usefultalk.com/blogging/blog-profit-simply-ask-for-money http://www.usefultalk.com/blogging/blog-profit-simply-ask-for-money#comments Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:41:44 +0000 Ethan http://www.usefultalk.com/blogging/blog-profit-simply-ask-for-money This is the seventh article in a series I called “Blog Profit”. These articles outline strategies that every blogger looking at making cash from their blogs must know. These articles are a good starting point. While I wont grab your hand and walk you down the path of making money online, a good foundation is crucial. Here, I try to help you lay down your own foundation.

In this article I will point out plug-ins that will make it possible to be paid online. You may wonder, get paid for what? Well, just get paid by appreciative readers. If you ask for donations you may get some. If you provide useful content or services (like software, e-books, website themes or plug-ins) for free you will get a few donations. Below you will see the PayPal donations plug-ins for WordPress

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]]> http://www.usefultalk.com/blogging/blog-profit-simply-ask-for-money/feed I’m alive ;) http://www.usefultalk.com/about/im-alive http://www.usefultalk.com/about/im-alive#comments Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:30:00 +0000 Ethan http://www.usefultalk.com/about/im-alive I know, it’s been over a week since I posted here. Thanks to all my readers who continue to visit my blog, I appreciate your visits and love it when you leave comments.

Sorry for the absence, I’ve been overwhelmed with 2 things, the first being preparing my tax return (hint: I itemize and I owned a business last year), and the other large project is developing a new online community website that I’m very excited about.

Regarding the new website project, sorry, can’t share details yet, like an artist, I don’t like to show off unfinished work. At least, not while it’s all messy and mainly a sketch.

Once I have the beta version running I will post a link here for you to take a look and utilize the site.

I have exciting news, my cash parked domains did better than the previous months. I will post my last month’s earnings soon. Come back again to find out how and why this time I made a little more cash.

I am no cash parking guru. So, join me in this experiment to see how much I could generate from my ‘many’ parked domains. I’ll listen to your advice, will share my strategy, and report the outcome here.

Do you have ideas that you think could help increase cash parking income? If you think yu know how to generate more cash from parking domains, let’s see if your idea works. Tell me what your method or strategy is and I’ll apply it and let you know the results.

At this point I believe that developing a website with valuable content is the best way to generate ad income, I would however like to be proven wrong… Nothing would be better than parking a domain and having it pay for itself and hopefully produce a profit.

We will see.

Thanks

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]]> http://www.usefultalk.com/about/im-alive/feed Blog Profit - Make Money Selling With The Shopping Cart WordPress Plug-ins http://www.usefultalk.com/blogging/blog-profit-make-money-selling-with-the-shopping-cart-wordpress-plug-ins http://www.usefultalk.com/blogging/blog-profit-make-money-selling-with-the-shopping-cart-wordpress-plug-ins#comments Sun, 06 Apr 2008 03:35:58 +0000 Ethan http://www.usefultalk.com/blogging/blog-profit-make-money-selling-with-the-shopping-cart-wordpress-plug-ins This is the sixth article in a series of articles called Blog Profit. These articles outline crucial information that every person who is seriously looking at generating income from their blogs must know. These articles are a good starting point but definitely not the answer to all questions.

In this article I will point out plugins that will make it possible to sell products or services off your blog. Below you will see the Shopping Cart plug-ins that exist for Word Press.

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]]> http://www.usefultalk.com/blogging/blog-profit-make-money-selling-with-the-shopping-cart-wordpress-plug-ins/feed ASIA Domain Names for the Big Players Not for You and Me http://www.usefultalk.com/domain-names-profit/asia-domain-names-are-for-big-players-only-not-you-and-me http://www.usefultalk.com/domain-names-profit/asia-domain-names-are-for-big-players-only-not-you-and-me#comments Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:33:42 +0000 Ethan http://www.usefultalk.com/domain-names-profit/asia-domain-names-are-for-big-players-only-not-you-and-me I’ve been buying domain names for 6 years. Recently, like many other investors, I jumped over to the dot ASIA domains band wagon. I purchased some 20 ASIA domains about 3 months ago and waited for the dot Asia registry to contact me. I thought they would’ve liked to verify my overseas (Asian) contact information that I went into great lengths to provide, since every dot Asia domain needs a contact person in an Asian country and I reside in the US.

Weeks and months went by, I waited for a phone call, I waited for an email but nothing happened. I registered more domains with a different email account, but got the same silence. I only heard from the domain registrar confirming my order but not from the Asia registry. I finally found a phone number and contacted a dot Asia representative in Hong Kong. They were very nice and explained how they wont need to verify my contact information.

I also was told if any other person had applied to the same domain I pre-registered for , that domain would go into auction and I’d get a chance to bid.

Yesterday, I finally got a word back on some the domains I hoped to own. The emails came from my registrar not the Asia registry which is not surprising. Naturally, I was excited. Holey smokes, I could be the proud owner of a cool domain such as FREE.asia. However, the first 5 emails politely stated that my registration was denied by the Asia registry. No reasons were given to explain why my applications were declined, no offers to bid on the domains, nothing what so ever.. to say the least, I was disappointed.

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]]> http://www.usefultalk.com/domain-names-profit/asia-domain-names-are-for-big-players-only-not-you-and-me/feed Find Your Perfect Niche - Free Wordtracker and GTrends Mashup http://www.usefultalk.com/marketing-publicize-your-website-be-found/find-your-perfect-niche-free-wordtracker-and-gtrends-mashup http://www.usefultalk.com/marketing-publicize-your-website-be-found/find-your-perfect-niche-free-wordtracker-and-gtrends-mashup#comments Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:17:20 +0000 Ethan http://www.usefultalk.com/marketing-publicize-your-website-be-found/find-your-perfect-niche-free-wordtracker-and-gtrends-mashup A Mashup is a newer term, usually associated with web 2.0 that basically refers to the action of combining data from 2 or more sources into one web application. Google API makes it easy to mashup Google maps and other services into your website.

Wordtracker, a commonly used keyword tool that helps marketers find keywords related to you niches, has come up with a Wordtracker/Gtrends Mashup! I think this service is awesome, did I mention it was FREE?

Wordtracker / GTrends mashup looks just like the free version of Wordtracker but has an additional icon next to each keyword that takes you to the Google Trends data for that keyword.

It also displays a line graph of the search volume over time. If the graph line is green this indicates this keywords has a Google Competition of <30,000 and Actual Visitors from Google/day >100.

Enjoy.

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]]> http://www.usefultalk.com/marketing-publicize-your-website-be-found/find-your-perfect-niche-free-wordtracker-and-gtrends-mashup/feed Get Back Links Every Time You Post A Blog Article http://www.usefultalk.com/blogging/get-back-links-every-time-you-post-a-blog-article http://www.usefultalk.com/blogging/get-back-links-every-time-you-post-a-blog-article#comments Thu, 03 Apr 2008 01:34:19 +0000 Ethan http://www.usefultalk.com/blogging/get-back-links-every-time-you-post-a-blog-article Sometimes I spent 3 hours writing and researching for a blog article. The least time it takes me to write an article is 20 minutes, and I probably have gone 3+ hours on some articles. How much time do you spend? Wouldn’t it be a shame to not have anyone read your article because they didn’t know it existed?

Regardless of what you wrote or how long it took you. Unless you are a famous website I’m betting you were holding your breath and waiting for readers anxiously. As a blogger it may be worth it to make it a habit to spend a few minutes after your article is published to gain a few links to your article.

The secret to gaining these back links is to utilize social bookmarking web sites. My previous article explains what social bookmarking is and links you to the top 30 social bookmarking sites, if you haven’t had a chance to read it why not take a look now.

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