The market for blogs has exploded. Many companies do not want to invest the time in developing a blog in their respective niche, which has given rise to a whole new cottage industry, blog flipping.
Blog flipping is done in a few different ways. Some flippers buy an existing blog that has potential, but is not currently producing. They take that blog and build the traffic and sales up to a level productive enough to reap a profit from their investment, and then sell it.
Or, more common in today’s blog flipping market, is to research a specific niche, develop a domain / blog, and then sell it.
But what does “developed” really mean? It depends on the flipper. So buyers really need to do their homework (read due diligence) before investing in an “established” blog or website. Because “established” is in the eyes of the beholder, and means many different things depending upon who you consult.
In my opinion, established means that the site, or blog, is profitable. Now profitable can be defined very differently for different companies. It doesn’t mean that the site has to be making money, though it does help justify the investment when purchasing the blog. It can mean to a prospective company only that the site has traffic that company believes it can convert into sales. Not everyone can convert website traffic in the same way. So there are companies out there looking to buy blogs that have a certain, specific reader demographic that fits their market. However, these types of sales are few and far between. Companies that are buying blogs normally want to see one thing.
Profit.
Not just income, because a blog’s gross monthly income and it’s actual profit margin can be two very different things. We’ve all seen the advertisements screaming that you can make ten thousand dollars a month blogging, or with Adsense, or whatever. But the part usually left out is the investment it takes to get that income. Sometimes the cost is far greater than the income, making the blog or website a LOSER.
So what steps should you take to sell your blog if you are a would be website flipper? Here are a few factors your blog or website should have in order to get top dollar:
1. Real Web Property
Your blog needs to be a real web property. What I mean by this is that it needs to be a real domain, on hosting you are paying for. Free hosted blogs are not a viable investment for most companies and corporations. There are exceptions to every rule and I’m sure that there have been a few sales of extremely popular Blogspot blogs, but unless you have a million visitors a month, you’re probably not going to sell a free hosted blog anytime soon. Buy a domain, pay for some hosting, build something that has value.
2. Professional Appearance
Your blog or website needs to have a professional appearance. Custom design is always better, but at the very least, it needs to have a template or layout that fits that blog’s readership or market. If you have poor graphics, even if your blog has monster traffic, you’ll sell it for much less than you could have if you had professional web design. It’s sort of like house flipping or selling a used car. If you can afford it, a fresh coat of paint usually brings the resell value up substantially.
3. Developed Traffic Sources
Potential buyers want to see traffic. Not just any traffic will do for most serious investors. They want to see solid, search engine traffic and a solid bookmarked reader base. StumbleUpon and other social bookmarking websites are awesome traffic sources, no doubt. But when it comes to someone buying your blog, they want to see more than just a few traffic spikes from a front page listing on Digg. They want to see that the traffic is going to keep coming for months and years to come. Without a lot of work if they can get it.
4. Documented Traffic Statistics
It is going to take more than just the summary of “hits” screen capture from your webalizer stats to make the sale. You are going to need at least three months history of actual traffic statistics. Unique visitors, tracking cookie info if you have it, Google Analytics, etc. Numbers, numbers, numbers. Corporations want numbers in order to convince their board of directors that your blog would be a sound investment. Private investors are no different for the most part and they want to know exactly what they are buying when it comes down the actual traffic your blog has.
5. Profit and Loss
Lots of income statistics. If you are looking to sell your blog or website for real money (read more than a few bucks nabbed on EBAY) then you are going to need to show your buyer some stats about money. P&L statements (Profit and Loss) for as far back as you can go will help your buyer make his or her decision. It is one thing to tell a potential buyer what the gross income per month is, it’s a completely different thing to show them exactly what the net income is and how it is obtained each month. Keep good records of your website expenditures and what the income received from those investments are. Include every cost. Website hosting, design, redesign, employee or outsourcing costs, whatever. Include everything and show them the real bottom line.
6. Set a Fair Price
I know you love your site, I love all of mine too. So it’s easy to attach an emotional value to your blog and inflate the price. It’s also really easy to confuse a blog’s actual value with your vision of it’s potential value. What you think the site will make someday and what it’s making now are two very different things. Sorry, but what you think it will make someday has zero value to a would be investor. They only want to know what the net profit is, right now. Yes, you can take some long term income growth statistics and make profit projections, but unless you have these statistics going back a year or more, most buyers are going to dismiss them entirely.
Set a real price. In the bricks and mortar world most companies sell for 2 to 3 years of the total net income. Online, this number is usually cut down to one year. So if your website is netting $300 per month, the actual value of your blog is probably somewhere around $3600. One again, it’s easy to add an emotional price tag for all the hard work you’ve done to get that blog making $300 clams a month, but your sweat equity doesn’t mean much to a buyer.
Neither do website values created with online calculators. These sites are traffic magnets and are built totally to obtain webmaster traffic. If you search long enough and hard enough, you’ll find a website value calculator that comes up with a number you like. It still means nothing to a buyer. It’s not what your site is really worth and should have no bearing whatsoever on your sale price.
7. Where to Sell your Website
Where and how you sell your website is super important. The profit you make will be directly related. Try to stay away from auction type formats if at all possible. If your site has some real value, use a website broker. A broker will help you determine the real value of your blog or website and then help you find a qualified and interested buyer. You would call a real estate agent (read professional) if you were selling your house, right? So why would you rely on your “for sale by owner” plan when it comes to your web property? Call a professional.
Sadly, one of the main reasons most flippers don’t call in a pro is because deep down they don’t really want to know what the site is worth. They want to live in their imaginary world where their holdings are worth millions. They can put a site up for sale on Sitepoint or Ebay for whatever price they want. Creating the illusion that they are worth substantially more than they really are.
8. Pie in the Sky Promises (magic beans)
Stay away from “Pie in the Sky” promises to potential buyers. When it comes to buying a website or blog, 99% of the buyers out there are from Missouri (the “Show Me” state) and only want to see the cold hard facts. Offering to take them to some new level of income at a later date is only going to make you look unprofessional and like an amateur.
There are sales contracts that require you to assist the new buyer for a set period of time. But these are normally for sites that are currently making money and allow time for you to teach the new owner just how that income is made. These clauses in sales contracts are not designed for you to hatch your half baked plans or for time to realize “what you think” the site’s potential might be someday.
9. Accessible Communication
You need to be extremely accessible to both your broker and potential buyers. They are going to have questions. So you need to have a cell phone number and an office number where they can reach you. You need to check your email often and respond quickly. Slow response can be a red flag signaling uncertainty, and that’s something an investor just does not want to see when they are thinking about laying some cash on you. Be available to talk to them.
10. Know the Details
Communication is only effective if you have answers. If you have to stumble and stutter with your answers, it’s going to have impact on the sale. You need to have done your homework and you need to know the answers to the questions in advance.
There you have the basics for flipping your blog or website. Of course there are many more points that can increase the actual dollar amount realized when you sell your blog, these only cover the some of them.
But if you follow these guidelines and are realistic with yourself and your buyer, you can sell your website for a profit. So take the time to prepare your web property for a real sale. Writing a good sales pitch is fine, but it’s not going to be sufficient for most investors. You’re going to need to have these bases covered.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
What is a Blog?
A blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called “blogging”. Individual articles on a blog are called “blog posts,” “posts” or “entries”. A person who posts these entries is called a “blogger”. A blog comprises text, hypertext, images, and links (to other web pages and to video, audio and other files). Blogs use a conversational style of documentation. Often blogs focus on a particular “area of interest”, such as Washington, D.C.’s political goings-on. Some blogs discuss personal experiences
Before blogging, there were other ways for people to communicate online, such as chronicles, diaries, email lists, bulletin board systems, and more. When the Internet came about, users wanted a way to communicate with people all over the world. Before the Internet, many of us had pen pals to mail to every now and then. Today, we can have that with multiple people nearly anywhere.
Following the 1990s, the blog was born! The actual word, “blog”, comes from the term web log, which was eventually shortened to its new term.
In the beginning of blogs, they were mainly online diaries of people. Others could comment on the person’s blog, and therefore communicate. Now there are countless different kinds of blogs. They are still those who use it as a digital journal, but there are also corporate blogs, marketing blogs, topic-specific blogs, private blogs, and even blogs that are simply blog search engines!
There are so many possibilities with blogging. Using your imagination and creativity, there is no end!
A blog entry usually consists of a title, headline, body, post date, comments, tags, and more. One great thing about blogs is that they are almost always customizable. You can select your template (which determines how your blog looks, including its layout), which is usually provided by the blogging company you are using. You can also find other templates by searching on other sites, which I will discuss in a later article.
You can create a blog on whatever topic you like, use the template you want, and write in it when you want. Nearly all blogging sites offer registration for free. You can vent to the world, write about things that you care about, discuss your life…there is no limitation. Well, except for the terms and conditions you must agree to when you register! Blogging is fun, especially if you take joy in writing. It is a great stress reliever, and you can have it any way you want. If one blog isn’t good enough for you, create more! I currently write in four different blogs. It’s a lot of fun.
Blogging has reached new heights of popularity, with certain websites that look at the popularity of a blog through how many citations it has, or how the affiliation is has. There have even been a few lucky people who have blogged, and were contacted by publishers to write and publish a book!
Blogs are usually (but not always) written by one person and are updated pretty regularly. Blogs are often (but not always) written on a particular topic – there are blogs on virtually any topic you can think of. From photography, to spirituality, to recipes, to personal diaries to hobbies – blogging has as many applications and varieties as you can imagine. Whole blog communities have sprung up around some of these topics putting people into contact with each other in relationships where they can learn, share ideas, make friends with and even do business with people with similar interests from around the world.
Blogs usually have a few features that are useful to know about if you want to get the most out of them as a reader. Lets examine a couple briefly.
Archives – You might look at the front page of a blog and think that there is not much to them. A few recent entries, some links to other sites and not much else. However its worth knowing that there is a lot more going on under the surface that might initially meet the eye. For example in addition to the main page of this blog – at the time of writing this post there are over 520 other pages or posts below the surface that I’ve written over the past few months.
When I write a post like this one it goes to the top of the front page. As it gets older and as I add more current posts it begins its journey down the page until it disappears from it. This is not the end of its life however, because it goes into the ‘Archives’ of my blog. It sounds like a dusty dark place but its really just like a filing cabinet that is easily accessible in a couple of ways. You can read my ‘archives’ simply by looking on the ’sidebar’ (over on the left of this blog) at the ‘archives’ or ‘categories’ section. There you will see links to all my old posts which you can access either by category. You’ll see a category for ‘Advertising’ – click that link and you’ll see all my old posts on the topic of Advertising with the most recent at the top and the oldest at the bottom.
Comments – Not all blogs use comments – but most do. This blog is not a monologue but a conversation. You can give me feedback on almost everything I write simply by clicking the ‘comments’ link at the bottom of each one of my posts. This will take you to a little form where you leave your name, email and a link to your own blog if you have one as well as your feedback, comment, critique, question, essay on why you love my blog, promise of money…. etc). Try it now. Scroll to the bottom of this page, click ‘comments’ and fill in the blanks with a little introduction to yourself.
A great way to learn about blogs is to read a few. Leave some comments, ask questions and bookmark your favourites. An even better way to learn about blogs is to start your own. Ok – you might be laughing at me now – you think you are not web savy enough to have your own site? You wouldn’t know where to start? You don’t know how?
My Secret
Let me share a secret with you – three years ago I knew nothing about blogs, I had never used the internet for anything more than email, surfing and chatting to friends and I could only barely do any of that! But one day I discovered a blog and after surfing from one to another (blogs tend to link up to other blogs a lot) for a few hours I was hooked and wanted to start my own. I found that there are free blog services that almost anyone could set up in a matter of minutes. Really it is that simple. Literally millions of people blog from around the world. Its not just something for young people, or geeks, or cool folk, or Westerners, or even for people with their own computers – instead its something virtually anyone with access to a computer and the internet once or twice a week can start up.
Are you still confused? Would you like more information? Below are a few helpful articles on the topic – there are many more on the web – just do a search on your favourite search engine. Otherwise shoot me an email using my ‘contact’ button with your question and I’ll do my best to get back to you.
Update: If you’d like to start a blog I would recommend you to get a copy of the programm''BLOGGING TO THE BANK 2010 BLUE PRINT'' this program is the best blogging course on the internet and its content would be of great usefulness to both internet newbies and professional bloggers – it is specifically written for bloggers. I hope you find it helpful.
If you are new to blogging and want some hints on how to get started – keep an eye on my Blogging for Beginners Page for more ways to explore blogging
So now you know WHAT a blog is – learn how to start one and use it to build an online income with the
The possibilities with blogging are endless.
Top Stories
Before blogging, there were other ways for people to communicate online, such as chronicles, diaries, email lists, bulletin board systems, and more. When the Internet came about, users wanted a way to communicate with people all over the world. Before the Internet, many of us had pen pals to mail to every now and then. Today, we can have that with multiple people nearly anywhere.
Following the 1990s, the blog was born! The actual word, “blog”, comes from the term web log, which was eventually shortened to its new term.
In the beginning of blogs, they were mainly online diaries of people. Others could comment on the person’s blog, and therefore communicate. Now there are countless different kinds of blogs. They are still those who use it as a digital journal, but there are also corporate blogs, marketing blogs, topic-specific blogs, private blogs, and even blogs that are simply blog search engines!
There are so many possibilities with blogging. Using your imagination and creativity, there is no end!
A blog entry usually consists of a title, headline, body, post date, comments, tags, and more. One great thing about blogs is that they are almost always customizable. You can select your template (which determines how your blog looks, including its layout), which is usually provided by the blogging company you are using. You can also find other templates by searching on other sites, which I will discuss in a later article.
You can create a blog on whatever topic you like, use the template you want, and write in it when you want. Nearly all blogging sites offer registration for free. You can vent to the world, write about things that you care about, discuss your life…there is no limitation. Well, except for the terms and conditions you must agree to when you register! Blogging is fun, especially if you take joy in writing. It is a great stress reliever, and you can have it any way you want. If one blog isn’t good enough for you, create more! I currently write in four different blogs. It’s a lot of fun.
Blogging has reached new heights of popularity, with certain websites that look at the popularity of a blog through how many citations it has, or how the affiliation is has. There have even been a few lucky people who have blogged, and were contacted by publishers to write and publish a book!
Blogs are usually (but not always) written by one person and are updated pretty regularly. Blogs are often (but not always) written on a particular topic – there are blogs on virtually any topic you can think of. From photography, to spirituality, to recipes, to personal diaries to hobbies – blogging has as many applications and varieties as you can imagine. Whole blog communities have sprung up around some of these topics putting people into contact with each other in relationships where they can learn, share ideas, make friends with and even do business with people with similar interests from around the world.
Blogs usually have a few features that are useful to know about if you want to get the most out of them as a reader. Lets examine a couple briefly.
Archives – You might look at the front page of a blog and think that there is not much to them. A few recent entries, some links to other sites and not much else. However its worth knowing that there is a lot more going on under the surface that might initially meet the eye. For example in addition to the main page of this blog – at the time of writing this post there are over 520 other pages or posts below the surface that I’ve written over the past few months.
When I write a post like this one it goes to the top of the front page. As it gets older and as I add more current posts it begins its journey down the page until it disappears from it. This is not the end of its life however, because it goes into the ‘Archives’ of my blog. It sounds like a dusty dark place but its really just like a filing cabinet that is easily accessible in a couple of ways. You can read my ‘archives’ simply by looking on the ’sidebar’ (over on the left of this blog) at the ‘archives’ or ‘categories’ section. There you will see links to all my old posts which you can access either by category. You’ll see a category for ‘Advertising’ – click that link and you’ll see all my old posts on the topic of Advertising with the most recent at the top and the oldest at the bottom.
Comments – Not all blogs use comments – but most do. This blog is not a monologue but a conversation. You can give me feedback on almost everything I write simply by clicking the ‘comments’ link at the bottom of each one of my posts. This will take you to a little form where you leave your name, email and a link to your own blog if you have one as well as your feedback, comment, critique, question, essay on why you love my blog, promise of money…. etc). Try it now. Scroll to the bottom of this page, click ‘comments’ and fill in the blanks with a little introduction to yourself.
A great way to learn about blogs is to read a few. Leave some comments, ask questions and bookmark your favourites. An even better way to learn about blogs is to start your own. Ok – you might be laughing at me now – you think you are not web savy enough to have your own site? You wouldn’t know where to start? You don’t know how?
My Secret
Let me share a secret with you – three years ago I knew nothing about blogs, I had never used the internet for anything more than email, surfing and chatting to friends and I could only barely do any of that! But one day I discovered a blog and after surfing from one to another (blogs tend to link up to other blogs a lot) for a few hours I was hooked and wanted to start my own. I found that there are free blog services that almost anyone could set up in a matter of minutes. Really it is that simple. Literally millions of people blog from around the world. Its not just something for young people, or geeks, or cool folk, or Westerners, or even for people with their own computers – instead its something virtually anyone with access to a computer and the internet once or twice a week can start up.
Are you still confused? Would you like more information? Below are a few helpful articles on the topic – there are many more on the web – just do a search on your favourite search engine. Otherwise shoot me an email using my ‘contact’ button with your question and I’ll do my best to get back to you.
Update: If you’d like to start a blog I would recommend you to get a copy of the programm''BLOGGING TO THE BANK 2010 BLUE PRINT'' this program is the best blogging course on the internet and its content would be of great usefulness to both internet newbies and professional bloggers – it is specifically written for bloggers. I hope you find it helpful.
If you are new to blogging and want some hints on how to get started – keep an eye on my Blogging for Beginners Page for more ways to explore blogging
So now you know WHAT a blog is – learn how to start one and use it to build an online income with the
The possibilities with blogging are endless.
Top Stories
Monday, April 26, 2010
HANDLING DUPLICATE CONTENT IN YOUR WEBSITE
When you are building your own website, sooner or later you run into the question - how to handle duplicate content? What do I mean by that? Imagine that you have a highly visited web page, which receives most of the daily visits. You are planning to re-design the website, and give this web page a new URL and a fresh new look, but don’t want to lose all that traffic from that old page. And you can’t keep both of them online, since they will have most likely the same content text-wise - something, which is often penalized by search engines. How do you proceed from there?
The best practice is to do a 301 redirect. The 301 message on the Internet is handled by the search engine as: moved permanently. Here is how you can make a 301 redirect for your web page:
With PHP:
The code needs to be placed in the Header section of the website, so that the search engine can read it first.
Header( “HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently” );
Header( “Location: http://www.new-url.com” );
With .htaccess:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^old\.php$ http://www.domain.com/new.php [R=permanent,L]
The code above will direct all the traffic from the old.php to the new.php page.
With the rel=”canonical” directive:
If you run an online store and want to sell a custom made handbag, which is available in several colors, and decide to dedicate a separate page on your site for each color, then you have about 3 or 4 identical pages. You can use the rel=”canonical” element to direct all traffic to the page with the most popular color.
This will lead a search engine to point all the traffic from the similar pages to the page you have specified. This code needs to be placed in the header section of all the web pages you wish to lead somewhere else.
With the URL Redirection Manager in the Web Hosting Control Panel:
If you don’t like to meddle with code, or with new file creation, or anything like that, you can use the handy URL Redirection Manager available with all our shared web hosting plans, where a simple web interface will allow you to choose which pages to be redirected and what redirection code to be used.
Top Stories
The best practice is to do a 301 redirect. The 301 message on the Internet is handled by the search engine as: moved permanently. Here is how you can make a 301 redirect for your web page:
With PHP:
The code needs to be placed in the Header section of the website, so that the search engine can read it first.
Header( “HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently” );
Header( “Location: http://www.new-url.com” );
With .htaccess:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^old\.php$ http://www.domain.com/new.php [R=permanent,L]
The code above will direct all the traffic from the old.php to the new.php page.
With the rel=”canonical” directive:
If you run an online store and want to sell a custom made handbag, which is available in several colors, and decide to dedicate a separate page on your site for each color, then you have about 3 or 4 identical pages. You can use the rel=”canonical” element to direct all traffic to the page with the most popular color.
This will lead a search engine to point all the traffic from the similar pages to the page you have specified. This code needs to be placed in the header section of all the web pages you wish to lead somewhere else.
With the URL Redirection Manager in the Web Hosting Control Panel:
If you don’t like to meddle with code, or with new file creation, or anything like that, you can use the handy URL Redirection Manager available with all our shared web hosting plans, where a simple web interface will allow you to choose which pages to be redirected and what redirection code to be used.
Top Stories
How to set up a logging script
If your VPS or Dedicated Server is constantly running out of memory or its CPU usage is spiking with no apparent reason, then it’s time to track the process, which stands behind all that. Instead of constantly watching the server processes for hours, trying to see that elusive process, there is a much easier way – to set up an automatic logging script and review the results.
The following sh script can be run every minute through cron to allow you to track considerable data in the minutes leading up to a crash or a server freeze. The data is saved to a logging directory, using the number for the minute as the file name. In this script setup below, it will create 60 files, which are refreshed with new data every 60 minutes:
#!/bin/sh
TERM=vt100
export TERM
time=$(date)
min=${time:14:2}
top -b -n 1 > /home/my-home/log/$min
ps aux >> /home/my-home/log/$min
exit 0
Note that running the above script without any idea of logrotate can load up your server’s disk space in no time. The best solution would be to set the script to save data to /tmp so that if this partition overfills you can easily clean it up
The following sh script can be run every minute through cron to allow you to track considerable data in the minutes leading up to a crash or a server freeze. The data is saved to a logging directory, using the number for the minute as the file name. In this script setup below, it will create 60 files, which are refreshed with new data every 60 minutes:
#!/bin/sh
TERM=vt100
export TERM
time=$(date)
min=${time:14:2}
top -b -n 1 > /home/my-home/log/$min
ps aux >> /home/my-home/log/$min
exit 0
Note that running the above script without any idea of logrotate can load up your server’s disk space in no time. The best solution would be to set the script to save data to /tmp so that if this partition overfills you can easily clean it up
How to reduce the SpamAssassin load
If you are running a SpamAssassin ‘daemon’ on your VPS or Dedicated Server to look out for spam messages on your site, you should know that it can create multiple (typically 5) threads/processes and each of those threads can use a very large amount of memory, which can slow down the overall server performance or lead to possible Out Of Memory (OOM) errors .
SpamAssassin works very well with just one thread. So you can reduce the ‘children’ setting and reclaim some memory on your server for other apps to run with.
You can use the following shell script to do so:
#!/bin/bash
for location in /etc/default/spamassassin /etc/sysconfig/spamassassin; do
if [ ! -e $location ]; then continue; fi
replace “SPAMDOPTIONS=\”-d -c -m5 -H” “SPAMDOPTIONS=\”-d -c -m1 -H” — /etc/init.d/spamassassin
replace “\-m 10 ” “-m 1 ” — $location
replace “\-m 5 ” “-m 1 ” — $location
replace “\-m5 ” “-m1 ” — $location
replace “max-children 5 ” “max-children 1 ” — $location
done
Don’t forget to make the file executable with the following command: chmod +x /root/memmon.sh
Another thing to know about SpamAssassin is that any /etc/procmailrc entry only does one SpamAssassin check at a time. Otherwise, if you receive a batch of incoming emails, they will all be processed in parallel. This could cause your server’s CPU usage to spike, slowing down your other apps, and it may cause your server to run out of memory.
To make procmailrc run only one email at a time through SpamAssassin, use a lockfile on your recipe line, e.g. change the top line from:
:0fw:
# The following line tells Procmail to send messages to SpamAssassin only if they are less than 256000 bytes. Most spam falls well below this size and a larger size could seriously affect the performance.)
* < 256000
/usr/bin/spamc
To:
:0fw:/etc/mail/spamc.lock
# The following line tells Procmail to send messages to SpamAssassin only if they are less than 256000 bytes. Most spam falls well below this size and a larger size could seriously affect the performance.)
* < 256000
/usr/bin/spamc
Top Stories
SpamAssassin works very well with just one thread. So you can reduce the ‘children’ setting and reclaim some memory on your server for other apps to run with.
You can use the following shell script to do so:
#!/bin/bash
for location in /etc/default/spamassassin /etc/sysconfig/spamassassin; do
if [ ! -e $location ]; then continue; fi
replace “SPAMDOPTIONS=\”-d -c -m5 -H” “SPAMDOPTIONS=\”-d -c -m1 -H” — /etc/init.d/spamassassin
replace “\-m 10 ” “-m 1 ” — $location
replace “\-m 5 ” “-m 1 ” — $location
replace “\-m5 ” “-m1 ” — $location
replace “max-children 5 ” “max-children 1 ” — $location
done
Don’t forget to make the file executable with the following command: chmod +x /root/memmon.sh
Another thing to know about SpamAssassin is that any /etc/procmailrc entry only does one SpamAssassin check at a time. Otherwise, if you receive a batch of incoming emails, they will all be processed in parallel. This could cause your server’s CPU usage to spike, slowing down your other apps, and it may cause your server to run out of memory.
To make procmailrc run only one email at a time through SpamAssassin, use a lockfile on your recipe line, e.g. change the top line from:
:0fw:
# The following line tells Procmail to send messages to SpamAssassin only if they are less than 256000 bytes. Most spam falls well below this size and a larger size could seriously affect the performance.)
* < 256000
/usr/bin/spamc
To:
:0fw:/etc/mail/spamc.lock
# The following line tells Procmail to send messages to SpamAssassin only if they are less than 256000 bytes. Most spam falls well below this size and a larger size could seriously affect the performance.)
* < 256000
/usr/bin/spamc
Top Stories
What is website defacing and how to deal with it?
My site is hacked! – this is one of the most difficult questions for a customer support team to answer.
The most common website attack is Defacing . When a site is being defaced, its home page is changed to something else, usually announcing that this site is hacked by someone. While this is the most noticeable website attack type, it is also the easiest to deal with – a simple backup restore procedure will do the trick. If you have a copy of the home page, this will also help. Sometimes, it’s also possible to simply remove the responsible HTML code.
A more sophisticated form of defacing will extend not only to the home page, but to several other pages as well. Sometimes, the hacker goes so far as to put a code, which will open an HTML frame, leading to a remote content hosted on another server.
In order for someone to “deface” your site, they will need access to your account – such can be gained in several ways – via brute force or dictionary attacks on your administrative login page, SQL injections, XSS attacks or, most trivially, after hacking your email account where your account password is kept.
There are several ways to protect yourself against such attacks:
» Choose stronger passwords – this has been said many times, but it’s vital – the easiest way for someone to gain access to your site is via a brute force attack, which will try to guess your password or username, generating random characters. This means that the more complex your password is, the harder it will be for someone to hack your site. To prove my point I’ll mention that there’s even a Firefox extension, which allows anyone to launch a brute force attack from their browser!
» Keep your code updated – if you are using a CMS system, make sure that you are running the latest version possible. This also applies to any plugins you are using.
» Always keep a backup – make sure that you keep a backup of your site on your home computer, just in case. Keep this backup as fresh as possible
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The most common website attack is Defacing . When a site is being defaced, its home page is changed to something else, usually announcing that this site is hacked by someone. While this is the most noticeable website attack type, it is also the easiest to deal with – a simple backup restore procedure will do the trick. If you have a copy of the home page, this will also help. Sometimes, it’s also possible to simply remove the responsible HTML code.
A more sophisticated form of defacing will extend not only to the home page, but to several other pages as well. Sometimes, the hacker goes so far as to put a code, which will open an HTML frame, leading to a remote content hosted on another server.
In order for someone to “deface” your site, they will need access to your account – such can be gained in several ways – via brute force or dictionary attacks on your administrative login page, SQL injections, XSS attacks or, most trivially, after hacking your email account where your account password is kept.
There are several ways to protect yourself against such attacks:
» Choose stronger passwords – this has been said many times, but it’s vital – the easiest way for someone to gain access to your site is via a brute force attack, which will try to guess your password or username, generating random characters. This means that the more complex your password is, the harder it will be for someone to hack your site. To prove my point I’ll mention that there’s even a Firefox extension, which allows anyone to launch a brute force attack from their browser!
» Keep your code updated – if you are using a CMS system, make sure that you are running the latest version possible. This also applies to any plugins you are using.
» Always keep a backup – make sure that you keep a backup of your site on your home computer, just in case. Keep this backup as fresh as possible
Top Stories
The best Affiliate marketing for Nigerians
Nigeria is not known for large deposits of gold or silver, but it may well be a gold mine for savvy Internet investors. Nigeria is the largest market in Africa with over 5 million Internet users and this is only 3.57% of Nigeria's 140 million people according to the official 2007 census. Meanwhile, Nigeria's economy has been growing steadily for decades. In US dollars, Nigeria's GDP in 1997 was a mere $36.2 billion. Ten years later it grew to $265.5 billion. During the same 10-year period, the country's debt dropped from $78.5 billion to $7.8 billion in 2007. No wonder Internet giants Yahoo and Google are now setting up presence in Nigeria. Not that there aren't challenges. It is often difficult to pay for goods and services online even when buyers have debit cards, due to lack of regional payment system with capability for global access. Nigerian banks did not issue international credit or debit cards until recently, although local cards were issued much earlier by formidable pioneers like Interswitch and eTranzact. As a result, despite the burgeoning entrepreneurial spirit of Nigeria's youth there is still a major eCommerce knowledge gap that is costing Nigeria millions in lost revenue.
Those who have ventured to start an online business have had significant setbacks and are often discouraged from trying again. The average life span of a web site in Nigeria is between 3-6 months, after which it's deserted when owners are unable to surmount the numerous obstacles to paying for further ongoing maintenance and hosting. And if a site accepts payments for goods or services, there are several more layers of challenges that are rarely overcome. Even if a determined entrepreneur manages to survive, there is still the problem of finding a reliable eCommerce infrastructure that will safely and reliably handle the electronic transactions without viewing the seller from Nigeria as high risk. So bi-directional commerce is virtually not in existence in Nigeria.
The influence of online merchants is critical in ecommerce chain in that when online shopper enters debit or credit card information at the point of purchase online, the seller's Website (in some cases) captures the card information and passes it on to an eCommerce payment processor. The processor then presents that information to a payment gateway, which in turn presents it to an inter-bank network for processing by Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, etc. In this chain, sellers generally have the option to approve or decline a purchase made with debit cards whether or not it was initially approved by the card issuer. Basic economics would indicate that merchants are generally happy to have as many buyers as possible, irrespective of the location of the buyer. In fact, the broader the scope of buyers, the better for the seller. So one might well ask why a merchant would deny a sale that had already been approved?
All things been equal, a merchant would not deny such an approved sale, so long as the payment was guaranteed. However, due to the nature of existing payment systems, a seller may lose the money even though the buyer consented to the purchase - even after the item has been shipped and received. Nearly every merchant worries about chargebacks, which can occur for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with the seller or his integrity. The purchase could have come from the fraudulent use of or a stolen credit card, or the shipment could get lost in the mail, or the buyer could come up with any number of reasons why he is not happy with the product after the product has been opened or used. Most credit card companies stand behind the buyer and will issue a full refund, leaving the merchant with neither his money nor his product. Even if the buyer should send the product back, it is unlikely that it will be suitable for resale.
If the purchase originated from the US or a European country, these issues can usually be handled with minimal loss to the seller. Dealing with buyers from elsewhere, however, can be quite risky because of the time and cost of dealing with the issuing banks in those countries. This puts sellers in a very difficult position. If merchants lose too many sales due to chargebacks, the banks may penalize them or cancel their accounts, putting them effectively out of business. It is much easier and safer, from the seller's point of view, to simply deny the purchases from the so called "unsafe" countries. Contrary to popular opinion, it is more often merchants rather than the credit card companies that make the final decision to deny an order. For this reason, merchants are very important in the chain and are the most difficult to deal with from a buyer's point of view. However, this dynamic changes completely if a different mode of payment is used.
Although buyers in Nigeria have been shut out of eCommerce for nearly 15 years, this trend can be reversed almost immediately. Historically most eCommerce payment processors were regional in their outlook, but they've all expanded beyond their original boundaries. While most regions now have their own ecommerce centric payment platform, PayPal, Money Bookers, Alipay are three such examples. PayPal (acquired by ebay for $1.5b in 2002) started as a USA-based eCommerce payment processor. Money Bookers is a similar service that began in the UK and Alipay the Internet payment subsidiary of the Chinese B2B e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. Because these companies rely almost exclusively on credit/debit cards to operate, their position as an aggregator more or less puts them in the role of a merchant, placing them in the same risk as the merchants described earlier. In fact, their position is even more tenuous in that they have no guarantee of a finalized sale and no control over the product itself. Such an extended risk and responsibility is what has kept such providers from extending service to Nigeria. There must be another alternative if Nigeria is to fully participate in the profits generated from an exploding eCommerce market.
What is needed for Nigeria is a fair system to handle dispute resolution between a buyer and seller that doesn't penalize the merchant simply because a buyer lodges a complaint. Except in blatant cases where a merchant is clearly defrauding customers, sellers should be able to compromise when necessary without the worry of losing their account due to some arbitrary number of chargebacks. So far, the best solution that seems to be emerging is VTN (Virtual Terminal Network). VTN began as an experiment to see if Nigerian market would benefit from a change in merchant attitude given a proper payment solution for the region. Specifically designed for Nigeria with ambitions for the rest of the continent, VTN offers a unique blend of features that have become very popular.
First, VTN is a very simple and secure way to make online purchases, even through the use of a GSM mobile phone. Money is safely transferred from VTN account of buyer to that of merchant or person to person transfer. Recipient can withdraw sales proceeds to their Bank account at anytime. Security features include a five minute recyclable 4 digit pin that comes from atmospheric noise that flashes on users GSM for added security and the ability to lock an account if it is suspected that an account and password have been compromised. VTN account holders can even add minutes directly to their cell phones without scratch cards and there is a referral program that earns them commissions if a friend uses the service. Sellers like the cross-border payment system and a dispute resolution system that doesn't automatically blame merchants when something goes wrong.
Due to the global economic downturn, the competition for new markets is fiercer than ever. More and more merchants are following the lead taken by Google and Yahoo, as evidenced by the recent surge in merchant registrations outside of Nigeria. In fact VTN was selected to power USA-AFRICA trade mission summit held in Maryland , USA in November 2008. Merchants are now flocking to VTN, which is projected to become the dominant eCommerce payment processor in the region. After years of waiting, VTN is finally paving the way for Nigerians to join the eCommerce marketplace with minimal competition.
Nigeria has the highest penetration of Internet users in Africa and because VTN satisfies the single most important concerns of merchants outside Nigeria, and the bi-directional transaction capabilities which will assure inflow of funds into Nigeria, they have a historic opportunity to reach millions of potential new Nigerian customers and thousands of global merchants. VTN has been growing at phenomenal rates since its pre-inauguration. Its initial success has allowed VTN to recruit thousands of new merchants from around the globe, making Internet shopping more attractive and useful for Nigerians than it has ever been. With millions of transactions already processed by VTN, there has not been a single case fraud - a remarkable achievement in today's world and a positive example of what is possible in Nigeria.
For more information about the VTN Solution, visit the Website at
Those who have ventured to start an online business have had significant setbacks and are often discouraged from trying again. The average life span of a web site in Nigeria is between 3-6 months, after which it's deserted when owners are unable to surmount the numerous obstacles to paying for further ongoing maintenance and hosting. And if a site accepts payments for goods or services, there are several more layers of challenges that are rarely overcome. Even if a determined entrepreneur manages to survive, there is still the problem of finding a reliable eCommerce infrastructure that will safely and reliably handle the electronic transactions without viewing the seller from Nigeria as high risk. So bi-directional commerce is virtually not in existence in Nigeria.
The influence of online merchants is critical in ecommerce chain in that when online shopper enters debit or credit card information at the point of purchase online, the seller's Website (in some cases) captures the card information and passes it on to an eCommerce payment processor. The processor then presents that information to a payment gateway, which in turn presents it to an inter-bank network for processing by Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, etc. In this chain, sellers generally have the option to approve or decline a purchase made with debit cards whether or not it was initially approved by the card issuer. Basic economics would indicate that merchants are generally happy to have as many buyers as possible, irrespective of the location of the buyer. In fact, the broader the scope of buyers, the better for the seller. So one might well ask why a merchant would deny a sale that had already been approved?
All things been equal, a merchant would not deny such an approved sale, so long as the payment was guaranteed. However, due to the nature of existing payment systems, a seller may lose the money even though the buyer consented to the purchase - even after the item has been shipped and received. Nearly every merchant worries about chargebacks, which can occur for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with the seller or his integrity. The purchase could have come from the fraudulent use of or a stolen credit card, or the shipment could get lost in the mail, or the buyer could come up with any number of reasons why he is not happy with the product after the product has been opened or used. Most credit card companies stand behind the buyer and will issue a full refund, leaving the merchant with neither his money nor his product. Even if the buyer should send the product back, it is unlikely that it will be suitable for resale.
If the purchase originated from the US or a European country, these issues can usually be handled with minimal loss to the seller. Dealing with buyers from elsewhere, however, can be quite risky because of the time and cost of dealing with the issuing banks in those countries. This puts sellers in a very difficult position. If merchants lose too many sales due to chargebacks, the banks may penalize them or cancel their accounts, putting them effectively out of business. It is much easier and safer, from the seller's point of view, to simply deny the purchases from the so called "unsafe" countries. Contrary to popular opinion, it is more often merchants rather than the credit card companies that make the final decision to deny an order. For this reason, merchants are very important in the chain and are the most difficult to deal with from a buyer's point of view. However, this dynamic changes completely if a different mode of payment is used.
Although buyers in Nigeria have been shut out of eCommerce for nearly 15 years, this trend can be reversed almost immediately. Historically most eCommerce payment processors were regional in their outlook, but they've all expanded beyond their original boundaries. While most regions now have their own ecommerce centric payment platform, PayPal, Money Bookers, Alipay are three such examples. PayPal (acquired by ebay for $1.5b in 2002) started as a USA-based eCommerce payment processor. Money Bookers is a similar service that began in the UK and Alipay the Internet payment subsidiary of the Chinese B2B e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. Because these companies rely almost exclusively on credit/debit cards to operate, their position as an aggregator more or less puts them in the role of a merchant, placing them in the same risk as the merchants described earlier. In fact, their position is even more tenuous in that they have no guarantee of a finalized sale and no control over the product itself. Such an extended risk and responsibility is what has kept such providers from extending service to Nigeria. There must be another alternative if Nigeria is to fully participate in the profits generated from an exploding eCommerce market.
What is needed for Nigeria is a fair system to handle dispute resolution between a buyer and seller that doesn't penalize the merchant simply because a buyer lodges a complaint. Except in blatant cases where a merchant is clearly defrauding customers, sellers should be able to compromise when necessary without the worry of losing their account due to some arbitrary number of chargebacks. So far, the best solution that seems to be emerging is VTN (Virtual Terminal Network). VTN began as an experiment to see if Nigerian market would benefit from a change in merchant attitude given a proper payment solution for the region. Specifically designed for Nigeria with ambitions for the rest of the continent, VTN offers a unique blend of features that have become very popular.
First, VTN is a very simple and secure way to make online purchases, even through the use of a GSM mobile phone. Money is safely transferred from VTN account of buyer to that of merchant or person to person transfer. Recipient can withdraw sales proceeds to their Bank account at anytime. Security features include a five minute recyclable 4 digit pin that comes from atmospheric noise that flashes on users GSM for added security and the ability to lock an account if it is suspected that an account and password have been compromised. VTN account holders can even add minutes directly to their cell phones without scratch cards and there is a referral program that earns them commissions if a friend uses the service. Sellers like the cross-border payment system and a dispute resolution system that doesn't automatically blame merchants when something goes wrong.
Due to the global economic downturn, the competition for new markets is fiercer than ever. More and more merchants are following the lead taken by Google and Yahoo, as evidenced by the recent surge in merchant registrations outside of Nigeria. In fact VTN was selected to power USA-AFRICA trade mission summit held in Maryland , USA in November 2008. Merchants are now flocking to VTN, which is projected to become the dominant eCommerce payment processor in the region. After years of waiting, VTN is finally paving the way for Nigerians to join the eCommerce marketplace with minimal competition.
Nigeria has the highest penetration of Internet users in Africa and because VTN satisfies the single most important concerns of merchants outside Nigeria, and the bi-directional transaction capabilities which will assure inflow of funds into Nigeria, they have a historic opportunity to reach millions of potential new Nigerian customers and thousands of global merchants. VTN has been growing at phenomenal rates since its pre-inauguration. Its initial success has allowed VTN to recruit thousands of new merchants from around the globe, making Internet shopping more attractive and useful for Nigerians than it has ever been. With millions of transactions already processed by VTN, there has not been a single case fraud - a remarkable achievement in today's world and a positive example of what is possible in Nigeria.
For more information about the VTN Solution, visit the Website at
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