My Mini-Site Examples

[whitebark]

EDIT: Updated and expanded version available:
Mini-site for the domain investor

There has been much discussion about how to best monetize our domain holdings. With so many parking companies paying less to domain owners, and/or with domain owners looking to maximize their holdings, the mini-site - adsense - made for adsense (MFA) idea has become more prevalent.

There are some companies floating adsense websites for as little as $10. IMHO you get what you pay for. I've been stressing the need for those who create websites to avoid the potential pitfalls associated with many MFA websites. Specifically duplicate content, unattractive ad clutter and low user satisfaction.

Google has been leading the way in addressing MFA websites for their users. Let's face it - nobody likes to use a MFA website. The most novice of computer user might not take much notice - not initially, but increasingly people will hit the back button rather than surf the website and click the ads. That is especially so for more seasoned Internet users. As the Internet continues to age, that phenomenon will only become more ingrained.

Google has firmly established supplemental results as one method of dealing with duplicate content. (read further on google's supplemental results on the google adsense blog to learn all the intricacies associated with it) Another method that they have employed is unfortunately dropping websites all together. And for anyone who has had this happen to them knows it can be a long hard process with no guarantee of success in getting your domain re-listed. This eventuality if it does befall you can also take away from your domain/website's overall worth when it comes to time to sell.

Google loves original content. So take the time to create some- even if it is just a few paragraphs per page. When compared to duplicate content google will place your effort above those who simply copy-paste text content.

I have seen some of my earlier small websites take a real hit on google over the past two updates. Even some of my larger websites whose articles are too full of quotes or press release material have seen those articles dropped into the supplemental results. And unless you have a very narrow niche website having the majority of your content in the supplemental results will do you harm when it comes to getting eyes on your website.

So with all that in mind i created today my quick example of a 'mini-site'. It was done in three hours this afternoon in between eating, surfing here etc - that is uploading files, installing db, editing files, testing, and finally making three quick articles. The site is built on postnuke CMS (which is honestly too much for the average mini-site but I just like using it as it is easily scalable later). www.getrichfast.ca

Doing it this way I help myself avoid any problems with google, I get original content for all the search engines, don't immediately turn users away with an obvious MFA website, and most importantly - is easy to build on later. Users can add comments (more content), sign up and partake in the forums if they wish and I can in a matter of seconds post more content.

For those not familiar with php, databases etc and want something simplier to work with - you can achieve nice results with many of the open source templates floating around the web. An html template example I made last week: www.securitysuite.ca

Just be sure to follow the other steps above and in about the same amount of time you can have yourself a nice functioning website without worry of what's coming down the road.

 

[harkster]

Canbrit,
Criticism duly noted and I have had these of comments made before on some of my projects. I like to travel a slightly different road --or-- maybe I ain't gots both oars in the water. I do have some successful sites with dark backgrounds & white/light foregrounds. I find a world of black on white sort of like watching an old black & white movies. I have sites which run the full range but few are pure white backgrounds.

I feel that it isn't so much dark/black background with white text as a matter of taste. I feel the key is background/foreground contrast. I personally dislike white backgrounds with gray text (some of the 'modernism' fans seem to like this) which causes me to squint.

Might be fun to do an inverse and run a poll. A few css changes and modify the Google stuff wouldn't be hard but the Amazon store is a different story.

<edit>Damn it is a good thing I took a file to my choppers yesterday cause that crow meat is a bit tough. I was not seeing the trees for the forest cause it was a bit 'squinty' so I made a font/size change to I hope improve things. -- looks good in ff but as usual IE craps out -- guess it doesn't like moving the body styles to a css file -- project for tomorrow.</edit>

 

[YesBrilliant]

Great information here.

Thanks for sharing!

.

 

[GIANTWEED]

What you want to do is get yourself a small Reseller hosting package to start. You then break up your account among your domains. Reseller accounts start as low as $20 per month (probably even lower depending upon features, but I really don't know).

There are TONS of hosting groups out there and they all offer reseller packages of some sort. Shop around and compare, and then once you find a few that you're interested in, BE SURE to ask your fellow NP'ers if anyone is familiar with them and can provide an opinion/first hand experience.

If you are interested, I'll also provide you with a referal to the hosting company I use if you PM me. They're not the cheapest, but they have EXCELLENT customer service - something you'll really appreciate once you experience your first major hosting problem. I can also recommend a good webmaster forum for you to da a little research on (Would post it here but I can never remember if it's OK to do so... )

Thanks TestCase!

 

[TestCase]

You're welcome!

I don't know much but I'm always willing to share what little I do. :hehe:

Good luck to you GIANTWEED.

 

[advaita]

A question about duplicate content. Obviously Google doesn't like duplicate content and apparently this can lead to problems. But is Google able to distinguish who wrote the original content and who copied it and created duplicate articles. By which I mean if you create a site full of wonderful original content which you have written yourself,then people come along and they like it so much they copy and paste parts of it into their own sites, is your original content then classed as duplicate content because it's all over the web ?

 

[TestCase]

But is Google able to distinguish who wrote the original content and who copied it and created duplicate articles.

As I understand it, that's the $64,000 question. I haven't seen anything yet on the SEO boards that says Google is able to definitevely figure this out.

This goes hand in hand with my question - "How is Google able to compare every piece of information/content found on one website to all the information/content found on EVERY OTHER website that exists in its cache?"

To me, that seems like it would take up a HUUUUUGE amount of computational power, far more than what it takes to just spider, cache and catalogue the gazillion pages that currently exist on the internet (if they are truelly doing it for evey site out there). These guys and their algorithms just amaze me!

 

[Damion]

Google will recognize the article as unique from the author who is first being indexed by Google.

Let's say i have my unique article uploaded to my website today on this exact time of my posting then subsequent postings of my unique article will be regarded as duplicate and my content will be regarded as unique.

That's why before you submit articles to article directories it's best to have it indexed first and make sure of this by checking the cache of that page.

cache:www.yourdomain/uniquearticle.html

Then proceed to submit your article.

Of course with news items you want to publish as soon as you can to bring the latest news and then things may be a little different as it is hard to understand how the unique author of this news item is being recognized as such if the site isn't as frequently crawled as a bigger site that would be publishing the same exact content.

Good question!