Author Archive

Another Test is Ahead

Over the course of time, a blogger must overcome certain challenges, obstacles and generally rough times if he wishes to remain and grow; no matter how long you’ve been in the industry or what’s your current status - you will eventually face serious challenges that will test your consistency and passion.

I’m going a similar phase right now - I feel another, bigger test is ahead.
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Posted by Allen on March 20th, 2007 7 Comments

My Best Earner

After a forced hiatus I’m slowly getting back into my normal routine and hopefully the new features for March should be up soon. Today I want to talk about something everybody has been asking about: my best earner.

Over the last 3 months I’ve been reading a lot of questions and even complaints in the comments about the fact I don’t “share” my biggest earner, some have even tried to claim that I’m faking my earnings in various funny ways.
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Posted by Allen on March 15th, 2007 7 Comments

Now Hosted on A VPS

5 days after paying $500 for my new VPS from Media Temple, I finally get my sites up and working on their server. The damage done to me by the recent downtime is significant and not everything is working perfectly so far; the funny thing is - I may be moving again in less than a week! why?

- Media Temple’s primary support method is a US toll-free phone number, the number is not toll free for international callers.

- Somehow, this very important piece of information is not mentioned anywhere on their site.

- Why is this information important? here’s an email I received from their sales department after complaining about slow responsiveness for my submitted support tickets:
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Posted by Allen on March 13th, 2007 13 Comments

I Hate Dreamhost

One of the golden rules in blogging is to never get too emotionally involved, it usually leads to nothing but trouble.

But I’m going to break that rule because I’m about to go literally insane at the moment, and you know the reason. I guess I’m now learning what I’ve been told many times: You get exactly what you pay for.

Anyway, I don’t want to rant too much. I’ve just placed an order at Media Temple, I’m getting a virtual private server and hope it will be robust enough to host my sites.

The post on my biggest earner will be published after the transfer.

Thanks for understanding, I really do appreciate it..
Allen

Posted by Allen on March 8th, 2007 7 Comments

Domaining (UPDATED)

I promised March would be an even more exciting and interesting month here at AlleNation, and even though a leap into the domain market wasn’t planned, I found myself spending about $180 on 5 domain names since the beginning of the month.

When you first hear about someone spending “so much” on domain names you’d probably think it’s rather crazy than exciting or interesting; many people have hundreds of domain names in their portfolio with minimal reselling or developing potential, which makes their domaining experience futile.

But that doesn’t seem to be the case for me until now; out of the 5 domain I bought so far I parked one and put it for sale at Sedo on March 2nd, and yesterday -merely two days after- I received an inquiry about it.
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Posted by Allen on March 5th, 2007 13 Comments

Getting the Most Out of Paid Reviews

In this post we continue the series about paid reviews, it will give you no less than 12 tips on getting the most out of your reviews, whether they’re paid or not. Read the first two posts in this series before trying to grasp this one:

  • JohnChow.com Review - The Verdict
  • Should You Buy A Blog Review?
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    Posted by Allen on March 4th, 2007 6 Comments

    March Forward

    The fact February only has 28 days didn’t help my Adsense averages, but instead of whining about this and about the fact that Dreamhost was down for a whole day and loading extremely slow (have you noticed it?) for the next last 5 days, I’m putting together a recovery plan to perform better in March.

    Earnings for February
    February: the month of the slacker
    March is going to be interesting, more than you imagine. A lot more.
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    Posted by Allen on March 1st, 2007 12 Comments

    Should You Buy A Blog Review?

    In the first post of this series I took John Chow’s review of my blog as a case study, my verdict was that the review was well worth the $100 I paid. After that post a lot of people were asking if it’s worth the current price - $250. Well, let’s see.

    Before I you we answer this question, let me note that this article may be geared more towards those who are looking to buy reviews specifically from Chow, but outlines the same principles of buying paid reviews from any blog.
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    Posted by Allen on March 1st, 2007 12 Comments

    JohnChow.com Review - The Verdict

    Some 20 days after I’ve been reviewed by request at John Chow Dot Com, I think it’s time to release a much awaited verdict. This post will actually kick off our next series, which will talk about blogging reviews: whether you need or should get one, and if you do - how to make the most of it.

    But before discussing why & how, let’s see what have John’s review brought to this blog in terms of instant traffic, RSS subscription and loyal readership. Was it worth my $100?
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    Posted by Allen on February 27th, 2007 19 Comments

    3 Ways to Expand Your Potential Reader Base

    Finding the right niche is often about finding the right audience, the audience you can connect, inspire or just feed with news and information from that topic.

    Regardless of how well you’re currently doing with your own audience, expanding your potential reader base can only benefit you, delivering whatever kind of value freely to as many people as you can is they key for success, especially with blogs.

    Here are 3 tools you can use to expand your potential reader base:
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    Posted by Allen on February 25th, 2007 12 Comments