What is The Immediate Edge?

The Immediate Edge is one of the longest running membership groups that Internet marketers have gone for training, tips, and strategies to build their online businesses. The organization was started by Dan Raine and Ed Dale. There is so much content and training there it is nearly impossible for me to tell you everything. Here are some of the highlights:

• Edge Blueprints – training courses about creating specific products or websites (such as making iPhone & Android Apps, creating income using Adsense, learn how to buy and sell websites and domain names, etc.)
• Training Center – how to find a niche, SEO, keyword research, link building, and more
• Monthly Newsletters
• Member Forum
• Library of useful information
• Tool – Backlink tools, article tools, keyword research tools, and more
• A Blog to keep you informed
• All of the Challenge Plus content will be here, too!

I could go on and on – but if you are interested, you can read the details for yourself. Let me just add that if you are looking for some totally unique and hard to find information about what REAL (and successful) Internet marketers are doing online, you will want to join the Immediate Edge. And, for a while there is a dollar trial – yes for $1 you can get a trial membership and take a peek inside this depository of extremely helpful information.

Get THE EDGE

Technorati Tags: Dan Raine, Ed Dale, Immediate Edge, Internet Marketing, training

Domain Registration Then and Now

When I first started to purchase domains and was learning about registering them, I felt that I had crossed over to some secret world (inhabited by possibly shady characters) and I was a total outsider who didn’t know the secret password or handshake. Becoming more comfortable with how buying domains and how to transfer them works has been a great relief to my nerves. Hosting was the next hurdle, but I am over that one too.

What I did not know was that when you “buy” a domain name. You are the owner but the names are managed by companies that called registrars. The registrars maintain the databases of all the domain names and have regulations to follow in order to allocate names as people buy them. They also have to work with the organization that gives these names the ability to be part of the internet (by giving each a IP address).

You see, most of the domains I own are registered with different companies that charges far less (around $8-10). I try to avoid the really, really cheap domain registrars because the functionality of their sites is usually not very good. Most companies have discount coupons available and special codes for those who buy bulk domains (more than 50 seems to be the amount that will get you a code for a discount on your purchases or renewals).

I have received scam letters which notified my to renew domains (for $24). Those letters I were from Domain Registry of America. The reason they are scams is because that company WAS NOT the registrar for my domains. They basically collect the domain registration data which is listed in the whois database for websites with which they have no existing business relationship. Then, they try to trick uninformed domain owners into thinking they need to respond to these “official-looking” renewal letters. Those who know better, know that the company that is in charge of the registration details of their domains will send them an email when it is time to renew a domain. And, the renewals can be managed through the registrar’s website – they are rarely done through the postal mail.

What Should You Pay for a Domain Registration?

One thing I knew for sure (as soon as I realized I still had time to transfer that domain away from the current registrar) – I knew I was NOT paying almost $35 for a year. I quickly transferred the domain to my favorite (NameCheap). And it cost me under $9* and the privacy feature (which they call WhoisGuard) is free when you transfer to them. Many companies will offer a low first-time purchase price and specials on domain transfers. Do your research if you like saving money as much as I do!

I save money when I register domain names with Namecheap. Their prices are not the rock-bottom, but their domain management system is easy-to-use and the time it takes to manage domain transfers seems to be faster and simpler than some other companies I have used.

My second favorite place to buy domains is

GoDaddy. They used to have a kind of bad reputation, but I think they have made significant improvements and I haven’t had any problems using their services for a long time.

So, don’t get ripped off when you buy a domain name – both of the companies I have recommended here are reputable and they have good support for anyone who is new at this (or nervous about it, as I was when I started).

*price is based on the fact that the domain was a .biz and I used a coupon for the transfer (SWITH2NC).

Disclaimer:

Technorati Tags: bulk, domain buying, domainer, domains, hosting, prices, renew, transfer

WordPress blogs can get hacked into fairly easily if the host has software that is outdated. Another thing that can put your WordPress blog at risk is if you don’t update the site and the plugins.

A friend of mine who is an art teacher at the local high school had her site hacked. She really didn’t have a clue how to fix it. Part of her problem was the hacker somehow got into the cpanel of the website where it was hosted (on Blue Host). Since that time, Blue Host may have increased security and they did send my friend a new, more secure password.

The hacker had made the home page say “by real_Karizma” and also made it impossible to edit any posts within the WordPress dashboard. When I logged into the cpanel, I was quite relieved to find that all the files and the databases were still there. Fixing the home page back to normal was easy. I replaced the index.php file that was in the folder of the theme that was in use. Fixing that file made the site look back like it should have when viewed in a browser. What took a bit longer to figure out was why, when logging into the WordPress site and not being able to see the entire dashboard. I was seeing the dashboard the way a user might see it if they did not have the administrator role.

I really didn’t want to take the entire site down, reinstall WordPress software and then restore the database to get all the content for the blog back on the site. My shortcut to this was to log back into the cpanel on the host and look at the database tables. (I backed up the database first using myphpadmin.)

Looking at the database tables in myphpadmin I noticed that there was data for the wp_users with the hacker’s name and email address. I deleted that user. That left the original user listed but the field code on the right side of the table had the number 2. I guessed (and it seemed to be a correct guess) that if I just changed that number 2 to a 1 that the user would have all the administrator roles assigned to them. To my delight, just changing that number in the database table fixed the problem!

The next thing to do was to update the blog to the latest WordPress version. Again, I lucked out that the plugins in use were compatible and the blog was still functioning correctly.

Technorati Tags: blog, fix, hacked, hacking, restore, undo, wordpress

The great news for you, if you have any doubts, is that you can sign up for an 11 day free trial!

Try Traffic-Bug

Here are a few more details about the features and benefits:

• Submits bookmarks to 43 of the top Social Bookmarking sites
• Builds more bookmarks than any of their competitors – Over 200!
• Rotates IP’s and social bookmarking accounts for every single submission
• Automatically rotates titles and descriptions for every single post
• Unlike other programs, you don’t have to create any social bookmarking accounts – Traffic-Bug creates all of them!
• Constantly expanding the number of social bookmarking accounts!
• Traffic-Bug submits your Blog Feed or RSS Feed to all the major RSS feed directories automatically.
• Traffic-Bug submits your site to over 138 different search engines getting you indexed even faster by Google! Below are just some of the sites we submit to:
• Traffic-Bug submits sites to 1,000+ directories, building backlinks while doing so
• We can also submit sites to micro blogs such as squidoo, hub, weebly, etc because when you build backlinks to micro blogs it builds deep, powerful 3-way backlinks.
• Most companies charge $120 per 1,000 directory submissions
• Traffic-Bug lets you submit an unlimited number of sites to build 1,000 backlinks at a low, monthly price

As you might know by now – the name of the game is backlinks to be successful on the internet. So, try this awesome tool to promote your website or blog and have every article you write bookmarked and get your site added to hundreds of directories.

Technorati Tags: backlinks, ranking, search engines, SEO, tools, traffic-bug

I think there are too many automated commenting software tools around lately. I am using the Askimet plugin and another one to stop spam called:  WP-Spam Free, but they aren’t stopping the flood of ridiculous comments. I am about to make sure I am upgraded to the latest version of WordPress.  (I am not but will be as soon as I post this.)

I’ll try to post again to see if upgrading to WordPress 3.0.1 helps at all. I really don’t want to turn off the commenting features of my blog. So, if anyone has a tip to make these dumb comments stop, please let me know! Also, if I marked someone’s legitimate comment as spam, let me know and I will fix my error.

UPDATE: I looked up more ways to stop comment spam. In the WordPress Dashboard, under the Settings, there are a couple of places to either moderate or blacklist words commonly used in spam comments or you can enter the IP address of the spammers and moderate or blacklist those! Since I get repeat spam comments from some of the same people I used this feature (that I had not tried before) and so far it has successfully stopped most of the WordPress comment spam.

Technorati Tags: blogging, comments, Plugins, spam, wordpress