What a pleasant surprise, I woke up this morning to see that this blog has suddenly attained PR 4! I'm actually really surprised that this happened, since I haven't done any link exchanges in a long time. So, the question is how come?

First of all, PR stands for Page Rank for those of you that don't know, and it is a ranking system used by Google to classify the relevance value of a web page in their search results. So, a higher PR will mean you will generally show up higher up in the rankings than a lower PR site.

So... how did I pretty much instantly get PR 4, instead of climbing the ladder? Well, there's a theory called the "Google sandbox effect" which states that getting PR is dependent on time. This is because with the nature of the web, with hundreds of websites starting and falling everyday, Google wants to make sure your site is here to stay and provides "valuable" information. So, it seems our key time frame was 4 months. In fact, another website which we haven't even touched really, but purchased about a month earlier than this one, also got a surprising PR of 3, even though it's just a raw template.

The methods we've been talking about to get more influence on search engines, such as link exchanges and so forth, do still apply, but there is an inevitable wait time for Google to take your site seriously. So to all you who are making websites of your own, be patient and you will be rewarded. Plant those seeds!

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Journey to a million is our first website, and overall I think it's quite nice. Chris and I spent a few weeks making the site as cool as possible, with as many features as possible. I think we pretty much implemented every single possible feature a blog could have... but looking back, none of them were very useful; in fact, most probably put off some people. User profiles, forums, archives, even a contest... but nothing really helped.

So, I took the liberty of dumping as much as possible. What's the point of all this extra baggage if no one cares? So, we are taking a much simpler approach to the matter. I think this might project a better image.

In the hopes of rousing a discussion, I ask you: Which do you believe is better? Simplicity or Functionality?

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Hi guys, sorry about the lack of updates, but I think this post should give you an idea of what's going on with our business ventures, and where this blog comes into the mix.

So far, things are going very well. We have been brainstorming loads of fresh ideas, and working hard to polish our original plans. While doing this, I've had a few thoughts about what the internet really is.

The web is a giant garden.

From the perspective of a web entrepreneur, I think this is a perfect analogy. Think of yourself as Mr. Green Thumb. When you make a website, you are essentially planting a seed. Over time, depending on how much you take care of it, that seed will grow into a plant. Of course, this plant earns you revenue, so the larger and healthier it is, the better. The more time you spend taking care of your plant, the better it will turnout. The nicer your plant, the more people will come see it, and maybe even pay admission. Of course, there are other factors as well... perhaps a bad subject keywords is your salted soil, and a plant cannot grow in that area of your garden. So start by looking for fertile lands!

So, what is our game plan? We have a couple of ideas that we believe may be absolute winners and have massive potential; however, they take a long time to create, design, and perfect so that they can even reach that potential. So for a while, we are going to be planting some other seeds which need time to grow before becoming nice plants. Then, while developing our large projects, we will have other plants sprouting.

What I think is the most important thing to remember is that virtually all websites need time to grow, so maybe before starting that colossal project you're banking your success on, maybe do a little investigating on other smaller, less time consuming projects you can start before, or concurrently, to give them the time they need to grow. Who knows, you may end up with a few much bigger plants that you imagined!

Well as you can see, until our seeds are planted, it's kind of difficult to bring you interesting finds about earning money on the web. Rest assured though that once a few sprouts pop up, we'll have plenty more to talk about!

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Goodbye 2006 and hello future. I hope you all had a great holiday season. Chris and I had our fair share of partying and fun, but much to my surprise, we've also been working really hard. We have had many more full workdays than I thought we would have over the busy holidays, and things are going great!

First of all, I really should apologize for the lack of updates here, but we have been pouring all of our efforts into a new website project. In fact, it is already close to launch. I've added it to our current projects list, but I can't really go into detail about it, it's kind of a secret :) We have also been brainstorming a lot about future projects, and have come up with 2 more that we will also be starting shortly!

The speed in which all of this is beginning is truly exciting. All throughout the school semester, I thought constantly about the new opportunities that lay ahead. I'm amazed that it is already turning out to be better than I had imagined. Work has become fun! I don't dread a work day, I can't wait for it! Working even twelve hours straight, which we have already done a couple of times, is a pleasure. It's a great feeling to work very hard, look back at what you've accomplished and know that it could possibly create a great stream of income, and it's all yours.

Never in my life have a really looked at an upcoming year and asked myself if it was going to be special. I knew it would just be another year of school, and mostly the same old stuff. This new year's eve, as the clock approached midnight, I knew something was different. It was the end of the forced path all of us have to take as kids, and the start of something totally new and exciting. Now I hold in my hand my destiny, and just looking at how exciting and fast things are already going, I know that 2007 will be a revolutionary year in my life, and I'm ready to dive in.

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Most bloggers will have most likely dealt with spammers at one point or another, today was our day. I've spent the past 5 hours trying all sorts of methods to eliminate the massive trackback spam I mentioned in my last post. While I wasn't completely successful, I would still like to share my findings in hopes of possibly helping others.

We are using the Drupal CMS here, so it's all based around that. If you use WordPress, try Akismet as suggested by Steve from AdventureMoney.com

First, I tried the Drupal core version of Akismet. Overall, it was fairly easy to install, but you did need to get a WordPress API key by creating a WordPress account. They seem to have done this to create a global service which you can connect to and get updated spammer lists, which is of course a nice feature. The only problem, which unfortunately completely defeated the purpose, is that it only monitors node and comment spam, and not trackbacks. So, while it seems like a very good tool, it didn't solve my problem.

The next thing I tried was a set of php scripts called BadBehaviour. It has been spoken well of, and even mentions that it can be used with Drupal. The only problem was that I couldn't find a module for it anywhere. The instructions linked to a post listed on the main drupal site, but it was only a patch. Someone even posted a patched module, but that did not work either. Therefore, I was unable to use it.

Lastly, this spam module required me to upgrade to the newest version of the drupal core, but it works alright. It is able to monitor spam in all sorts of content, including trackbacks. Now of course, I told you that I wasn't successful in eliminating my trackback problem, and here's why. This module deletes spam based on urls. For example, if someone posts more than X amount of urls in a posting, the module classifies it as spam. Seemed perfect, as my comment spam is filled with bogus urls... However, my tackbacks are not. They contain simply the link back within the title, and "read more about 'title'". No multiple urls...

There is hope for the spam module yet. In previous versions, it incorporated SURBL, or Spam URI Realtime Blocklists. This is a system most likely resembling Akismet, in where there is a global spammer list that blogs compare posters with to find spammers. It was not included in the most recent version of the spam module, so I assume they could still be implementing it with the new drupal core changes.

As for now, I have enabled what's called trackback_blackhole, which came with the spam module. I believe it simply blocks any new trackbacks, and I will keep it on until a solution is found. Until then, all old trackbacks should be preserved.

If you would like to discuss anything related to spamming, feel free to comment, or create a post in our ever so empty forums, I've created a section just for this :)

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