When you get to the level where you start needing VPS’ (Virtual Private Servers) it’s important to understand how they work & how you can get the most out of them. Poorly set up servers can cause you all sorts of problems like Downtime, Slow MYSQL or not withstanding the force of something like Digg.

This article will cover everything you need to do to ensure that your VPS is performing as fast as possible, which mostly focuses on optimizing your memory usage. Please ensure you make backups of your existing my.cnf & httpd.conf we will not be held responsible for any problems.

What you will need to action this guide:

1. Your server specs (most importantly Guaranteed RAM & Burst RAM)
2. Access to your Web Host Support for installation of
3. Root access to your VPS via SSH
4. FTP Access to your server
5. A brief knowledge of an editior (i.e. VI) if not I’ll provide the commands you need to know
6. How to restart mysql & apache in your server operating environment
7. Access to WHM

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I’m slightly obsessed when it comes to CTR with my campaigns, I’ll always try to push things as hard as I can to get the best bang for my buck. These strategies can be used for established campaigns or new campaigns to get some quick results.

As you know, CTR is linked to your ad quality & also the price you end up paying.

AdRank = CTR x Maximum Bid

From my observations quality score merely dictates your minimum entry into the bidding. If you have a high quality score you can eventually bring you bids down to sub 5c, however if you have a low quality score then you might have to bid $5 just to show.

Two Examples of how CTR can Reduce Cost

Stuart is bidding on the same keyword & match type as Jenny. Jenny is bidding $10 with a CTR of 3.3%, Stuart’s maximum bid on the otherhand is $5 & his CTR is 10%. Who’s ad is showing the highest?

1. Jenny: $10 x 3.3 = AdRank of 33
2. Stuart: $5 x 10 = AdRank of 50

In this situation Stuart is bidding half of what Jenny is but his ad is much more relevant therefore he’ll end up appearing higher. This is the power of really tuning & testing to increase your CTR. Read More…

Quite a while ago I wrote a post on building a lasting affiliate network, something that can potentially take 2-3 years to really achieve properly.

I was browsing through the serps recently for a new project that I’m about to launch here on Earners Blog which relates to the web hosting niche. This niche in particular really shits me, it’s as bad as the MMO (Make Money Online) niche - millions of idiots all promoting products because of their commissions rather than the value of the product to the client/shopper. But, everyone’s gotta make a buck…right?

So I stumbled across a networks of sites recently that has started dominating this niche quite well, it just so happens that it’s for all the shitty hosts that pay good commissions but provide a terrible service (how ironic?).

In this post I’m going to take apart his network & show you the things he’s done it & also the mistakes he’s made along the way (without directly linking to the sites).

The Network

Lets firstly look at one of his sites. It’s the #1 SERP for the term Bluehost Review.

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If you haven’t upgraded to Wordpress 2.7 yet then I suggest you do it sooner rather than later. There’s an exploit in earlier versions of Wordpress that are compromising installations & turning them into mass zombie DDOS machines.

How to you check if you’ve been hacked

Via ftp go to the folder /wp-content/themes/ if there’s a file there named “remv.php” then you’re one of the unlucky ones.

What is remv.php?

It’s an application called PHPremoteView, it basically allows anyone to run any php commands on your server. This could result in a wide variety of damage (lost files, password, having your adsense code changed, affiliate url’s changed etc etc).

Currently most of the compromised installs are being used for DDOS attacks. So if you notice also an unusually high load on your server this could be the cause.

What to do to fix it

1. Delete the remv.php file first.
2. Look to see which files in the Wordpress folder have been altered lately, it’s possible that your theme headers or footer could have unsuspecting spam links to pharma affiliate sites.
3. Export all your Wordpress posts via XML then reinstall Wordpress 2.7 & import your posts.
4. If you’re hosting multiple sites on your server you’ll want to check for all the files that have been modified within the time range since remv.php was created.
5. Change all your passwords, user, root, wordpress, mysql databases….everything.
6. Upgrade all your plugins to the latest versions (some might not work in 2.7 also).

Apparently now in the UK 1 out of every 200 visits to an online retail site comes from a Voucher/Coupon Code website. As this type of traffic is increasing year on year, your hard earned affiliate commissions could be getting flushed down the drain when your cookie is overwritten by these rogue practices.

How it Works

Many of the big voucher websites have one incredibly sneaky way of overwriting your hard earned cookie (There are legit ones out there that do things by the book, but I’m not naming names here).

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I normally find that the amount I post is inversely proportional to the amount of money I make therefore when I’m onto something good you might find things quiet around here. Either way, on with the show.

This post is in relation to a question I had a few weeks ago (feel free to ask questions here):

Stuart, I have a website that gets around 3,000 uniques per day (in the celebrity space) but I can’t seem to make more than $6 per day from Adsense. What advice can you give on increasing this?

So lets assume you already have a celebrity site getting a decent amount of traffic (anywhere from 1k+ visitors per day), if you don’t then check out some of my earlier posts on affiliate link building & the 2008 link building guide.

Celebrities can be a tough to crack, but you just have to persist:

• There’s plenty of niches to pick, I’m not going to go into details but there’s hundreds if not thousands
• Traffic is HUGE, millions of people unfortunately lead boring lives & need their celebrity fix. So you’ll be focusing purely on volume here then figuring out testing the best way to monetise it.
• These sites are usually littered with ads, so in other words, they also can’t make enough money from just adsense. We need to be smart about monetisation.

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So I’ve been pretty busy lately, at lot of my own projects have been brushed aside for the time being. But because I’ve been so pushed for time I’ve been forced to look for easier & quicker ways to grow my affiliate income stream.

I came across an interesting article not long ago about how one affiliate managed to dominate the Australian Ugg Boots market just as they were becoming popular (I can’t find the article off hand but if you know it kindly post it in the comments). I put this theory to the test by searching for similar items that had an international appeal but no-one was capatilising on yet. Read More…

Thanks for your emails & concern, yes I am still alive I’ve been taking a bit of a break recently, focusing on work & getting stuck into some of my own projects including finalising my Australian Residency. I try to answer all emails so just shoot me one if you have any questions.

Here’s a question from Jared:

Do you use an Adwords My Client Center? & if so what are the advantages?

If you’re managing multiple Adwords Accounts upgrading to a Google MCC Account makes perfect sense. You don’t have to log in & out to switch between them & also creating new accounts is a breeze.

I highly recommend making the jump across regardless of whether you have 1 account or several & also especially if you’re spending more than $500 a month. Read More…