Setting up a Penpal php-based site, half done

I've started a new project, based on PHPenpals which is a small application written in PHP that ties into MySQL and performs very very basic handling of a penpals website.

I worked on it all today after finding and uploading the software to my test server last night, late.

My plan is to take this basic software and use it as a base for a very specific "pals" website that is online game-related. Instead of finding "snail mail" penpals or email penpals, the people who will be using this site, in theory, will be using it to look for new friends to play with on their online game of choice.

Today's work got me pretty far ahead and I'm very pleased with myself - after many false starts, I found an HTML template that was basic yet attractive enough for my needs (since I can only write basic HTML and cannot write an entire page, and generated pages from programs are often confusing, and don't even get me started on the confusion that are CSS sites...), and integrated that HTML template into the software's layout pages.

Then, I did some poking around and pondering on things, and came up with the information I'd like to gather from new members. This lead to re-working of the database the application had created in its installation procedures, and the creation of a simple SQL INSERT statement to test the new structure.

From there, I went to the website itself, and started working on pages in the order that people would go through them - first the Index page, then the Join page... the Join page has taken a number of the hours today, re-working the Join Form and adding new variables was half the job - tomorrow I'll tackle updating the SQL INSERT statement and test to make sure they work before moving on to the next page to update.

I'm going to start this project as a piggy back off of an already successful endeavor, and have enlisted the help of another web developer to increase awareness of the site once it launches. I'll write another entry tomorrow after I've done another few hours of work on it.

But, tomorrow I have to spend some time working on a "review" blog that I have, because I've recently received a handful of things of which I'm reviewing and wish to take pictures of and write about. So, I'll have to ration my time to make myself feel like I've accomplished enough in both.

Still Passively Earning

Hello folks! I'm still here. In the background, lingering.

Still earning cash passively through the Internet, through blogging and through Google Adsense.

Life's changed a bunch for me, however, with the seperation of my 9 year relationship and delving out on my own. This summer has been a time of renewal and re-programming.

Right now I'm in the process of going through all of my existing blogs and making a few new entries, and deciding what it is I want to do with the various blogs for the future.

Some blogs need to be moved off of the blogger.com setup and into my own hosting space, where I use Wordpress for my preferred blog server type. I need to import entries and do a bunch of low-key template adjustments - once I find a suitable template! This has proven to be challenging, but I've recently begun looking for 'wordpress theme pack' in Google and came across a few 'packs' that include more than a single theme within them. Widget-ready even!

One of my oldest blogs has over 1000 comments waiting to be filtered through and approved or deleted as spam. I'm actually looking forward to going through that content over the next month or so (I need to set a goal to get through it all, and of course new comments are being added every day) because it gives me a lot of ideas about new entries.

One of the beautiful things about blogs is that once you get them going with enough momentum and get folks leaving comments for you and asking questions, then writing the blog in the first place becomes SUPER easy, because you no longer have to worry about coming up with topics to write about. You read your comments, and topics fly out at you like crazed bats going for your hair.

This blog... I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet. I think maybe until I run into a snag I don't like, I'll keep it where it is and keep contributing to it. Or maybe I'll set up over on Wordpress.com where the tag pages do a really good job at bringing new traffic into the blog.

Hmm, for now, I think I'll make sure Technorati tags are sufficiently set up here, even though the Wordpress category tagging setup is MUCH easier to handle.

Improving monetization of my blogs

There are a lot of things I do to check on how my blogs are doing online, besides logging in to Google's Adsense page and seeing how much money or how many ad views there have been today.

One of the things I do is check the Search Engine Saturation of my sites, especially new ones or ones that haven't been fully indexed in the engines yet.

Another thing I do is use the competitive ad filter to filter out ads that I don't want to show up on my blogs for whatever reason. Generally it's not because they're "competitive" sites to me, it's because they're pretty much "spam" sites in my mind.

Take for example my online role playing game blogs - I have one for World of Warcraft and one for RuneScape at this time - most of the ads for these blogs are places you can buy gold pieces for real dollars. I personally don't like my sites to be slathered with a whole bunch of companies selling exactly the same thing, I want my ads to be a nice mix of things related to what I'm writing about. So, I do this:

1. Venture over to http://www.thebizbank.com/adsense-preview.php
2. Feed in the address of the website I want to review ads for.
3. Filter the site URLs of any ads that I don't want to have shown on my site
4. Copy that filtering information across to my Google Adsense configuration

The filter list that comes across needs a bit of tweaking to be most efficient, but not a big deal. It's just better to have

domain.com

in the filtering list instead of

www.domain.com/runescapead.html

which is a false URL btw, but represents what some of the filtered information comes across as. If you just put in domain.com then the filter is broader and more effective. Of course, if the same site offers multiple ad types for multiple things they offer, you're also filtering out those other ads as well. My assumption is that if you're selling RuneScape gold, you're not going to be offering a helpful tips and tricks website too.

I tend to go through this process whenever I notice one of my blogs take a nosedive in earnings. And for some reason that nosedive always seems to occur in the wee hours of the morning, so I wake up to cruddy results in the AM. Ah well, as long as I catch the bad ads and filter them out (ie: I was getting Title Company ads on my RuneScape site for some reason for a few days), I should be okay.

Of course, one day I'll fill up my filter list on Google and I'll have to start a second Adsense account JUST to be able to filter more!! Hopefully not soon however.

First Google Adsense EFT Payment!

Woot!

After much waiting for the PIN number, and then deciding to change my payment type to EFT immediately afterwards (but after the 15th of the month cutoff date), I've finally received my first payment from Google!

Kind of a shame I didn't get one in cheque format, but the postal system is slllllooooowwww and I just want my money :)

This payment represents my adsense revenues from August 2005 when I started my first blogs through to November 30, 2005. There were 3 main blogs contributing to this balance, 3 blogs secondary in contribution, and 4 other blogs that contributed small amounts or very infrequently.



December is approaching $600 USD on its own. I've fired up a few more blogs in the mean time but nothing is really "hitting" beyond those primary three blogs that contributed to the money I've already earned.

Those primary three blogs still have a long way to go in terms of being represented in the search engines, but they're getting better month by month and the traffic is increasing as a result, and that's what counts!