Google Webmaster Tools - Startup

Google Webmaster Tools constitute a free service provided by Google to the webmasters. It allows webmasters to add their websites and then view and analyze various Google Search Engine related statistics. Some of the functions which webmasters can perform are:

1. Submit their sitemap for Google to crawl the links in it. This also discloses any broken links.
2. View sites that link to their site and how they link it.
3. View the Search result impressions and clicks to their site.
4. View the search queries that resulted in listing of their site in the results.
5. View how Google fetches / views their site.

And much more.

It is a vast topic and we will cover it in parts beginning from the very start.

Login to Google Webmaster Tools:

To use Google Webmaster Tools, you must have a Google account. If you do not have one, just register for Gmail at http://www.gmail.com

Login to Google Webmaster Tools at http://www.google.com/webmasters/ with your Google login information.

 

Add Website:

Now you will see the text box to add your website's URL. Type in the URL and hit Add Site button

Your site will be added as shown below. However, to utilize the tools, you need to confirm your ownership of the site you have added.

 

Verify Ownership of Site:

Although, Google provides several methods for verifying that you have ownership of the site, the easiest one is presented to you by Google. You have to download a small html file (3-4 kb) and upload it to your sites root directory. Then click the verify button and Google will check if the file has been uploaded to your site. If Google finds the file, it means that the site is owned by you.

 

Site DashBoard:

After verification, you will reach this screen showing all the tools and overview of the site.

Since the site has just been added, there is no data.

Tools Home:

The next time you login to Webmaster Tools or if you click the Webmaster Tools link (when logged in), you will be presented with this screen showing the list of your websites along with their snapshot.

While at this screen, you can add more sites by clicking the red link on the right. Clicking any of the listed sites takes you to the Site DashBoard.

Submit SiteMap:

Take a look at the Site Dashboard. In the Sitemaps section, it says "No Sitemaps". You have to submit your sitemap to Google. Click on "No Sitemaps" to go to detailed view in respect of sitemaps. You can also reach here through the menu on the left by clicking on "Crawl" and then "Sitemaps".

Here click the red button / link on the right, fill in the name of your sitemap file and click the "Submit Sitemap" button. We presume, you already have Sitemap file at your site. Otherwise, go to this post about making your proxy site to know how to make sitemap of your site.

Refresh the page and Google will tell you how many pages your sitemap mentions and how many have been indexed by Google. Since, the site is new, no pages would be indexed at this time.

Come back after a few days and Google would have made progress in indexing your pages.

In a later post we will explore the various Webmaster Tools. Till then add all your sites to Google Webmaster Tools!

Google Adsense - How To Get Approval

Refer to my previous post in which I recommended a few high paying CPM advertisers. However, over there I did not tell you that in the virtual world of Internet, Google's Adsense is the king of Advertising. But getting approved for Google Adsense is not an easy task and it is becoming more and more difficult every day. This is because:

1. The number of Publisher websites are increasing at a much faster rate than the number of Advertisers.
2. Google wants that the Ads placed through it are displayed on:

• high quality websites
• websites having reasonable visitors
• websites having visitors from search engine queries
• websites having original content not copied content
• websites which have content not just pictures and movies that fill most of the pages 

3. Google also dislikes bad English, grammar mistakes, incomplete sentences and things like that.

4. Design mistakes, HTML problems also effect Google.

So, in order to get your Publisher account with Google Adsense, you have to take care of many things. A brief of these factors is given below:

Number of Pages: 

Your site must not be a one or a few pager. It should have sufficient pages so that Google can crawl and determine what types of advertisements can be displayed on these. If your site is a blog, dont apply before writing less than 35 blogs posts, each containing atleast 300 words.

Site Structure: 

The site's navigation should be easy for the visitor. There should be no broken links.

Google Webmasters: 

The site should have been verified through Google Webmasters as your own. Login to http://www.google.com/webmasters/ with Gmail ID and add your website and follow the instructions to verify. 

SiteMap: 

Your site should have a sitempap.xml file which is used by the search engine crawlers to navigate through your site. This file is also used for Google Webmasters verification. There are many free sitemap creation sites such as:

Some Required Pages: 

Your site should have pages for Privacy Policy, Disclaimer, Terms of Usage and most importantly for Contact.

Site Age: 

Dont just apply for Google Adsense on the next day of launching your site. Your site should be atleast a few months old.

Site Domain: 

Preferable your site should be hosted on your own domain not a subdomain. These days getting a domain name only costs around $10.

Traffic: 

A few thousand unique visitors per month is necessary. Google will not approve you if you dont have enough visitors. How much is enough for Google is not fixed. This would depend on other characteristics of the site. But it is clear that the number of unique visitors per month should be in thousands.

Original Content: 

Google is too smart in recognizing copied content. So be very cautious in this respect. Never copy anything. Write your own content. And remember, sites containing just pictures and animations don't get approved.

When you apply for Google Adsense, keeping in view these requirements, your chances of getting approval are quite high.

Happy earning on the Net!!

Get Visitors to Your Site

Here we will look at various ways to inform search engines about your website and create links (backlinks) to your website. The purpose is to get your site listed in search engines, improve its visibility in search results and ultimately get visitors to your site.

Site Map:

The first thing to do after creating a site is to submit it to search engines. For this purpose, create a Sitemap of your site. Sitemap lists URLs of all the pages on your website, their date of modification, modification frequency, etc. This information helps the search engines to crawl your website. There are many free online sitemap generation sites such as:

http://www.freesitemapgenerator.com
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com

Input your site URL. You can generally leave the options to their defaults. Download the generated sitemap.xml file and upload it to your sites root folder.

Ping Search Engines:

Now you have to tell the search engines about your site and its sitemap. This is called pinging the search engines. For this purpose also there are many free websites such as:

http://www.ping-sitemap.com
http://www.pingsitemap.com

By the way you can do it manually too. If you are interested, following are the codes for major search engines:

Google:

http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=http://yourwebsiteaddress/sitemap.xml

Bing / MSN / Yahoo:

http://www.bing.com/webmaster/ping.aspx?siteMap=http://yourwebsiteaddress/sitemap.xml

Ask:

http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http://yourwebsiteaddress/sitemap.xml

Just open this URL in your browser and you will get the acknowledgment of submission. 

Similarly, there are services which submit your site to many search engines for free. Utilize any one of these services to submit your site to many search engines.

http://www.submitexpress.com/free-submission.html
http://www.freewebsubmission.com
http://www.entireweb.com/free_submission

Whois Sites:

There are sites which maintain record, statistics and analytical data of all the websites. Informing them of your newly created website is also beneficial. Once again, free online tools do this for you.

http://www.backlink-generator.de
http://www.links.autobacklinkbuilder.com

All the above is mostly automated. Now come the steps requiring more manual action and time.

Niche Directories / URL Exchange:

Submit your website URL to directories and URL exchanges relevant to your site subject. For example, if you have created your own Proxy site using our previous post, you can submit your URL to Proxy Lists such as the following and many more:

http://www.bypasser.net
http://www.www.usproxies.com
http://www.everyproxysite.com
http://www.proxylisty.com

Forum Comments / Answers to Questions:

Participate in different forums and post comments there. Make your website URL part of your signature so that every comment contains it.Where possible, use HTML tag to enclose your URL in keywords.

<a href="http://yoursiteaddress">Keyword(s)</a>

Don't just spam the forums. Comment meaningfully.

Answer questions on Yahoo Answers and Answer.com. Again give your site URL in your signature.

The links you thus create make search engines to move you up in their listings.

Social Website:

Use Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc. Join groups, participate actively and always include your website URL in your writings and registrations.

Within a few months, your website will start getting reasonable number of visitors.

In the meantime, you need to register with good Advertisers to get advertisements to be shown on your website to make you some money. This topic will be covered in a coming blog. By the way, most advertisers pay your through PayPal. If you are in a PayPal unsupported country, open your PayPal account using the easy steps given in our post regarding Verified PayPal Account in Unsupported Countries.

Till then, propogate your website URL!!!

Make Your Own Web Proxy Site

Proxies are of many types and for different uses.

Here, we are talking about web based proxies which are commonly used to bypass surfing restrictions at school, office, library, etc. These are also used to access region-restricted content. For example, someone in Canada trying to see Hulu content won't be able to, because Hulu restricts videos to U.S. users only. But if they connect to a U.S. based proxy first, they can bypass that restriction. 

Web based proxy sites are easy to set up and once setup, require almost no maintenance or update.

Requirements:

• Web Host
• Proxy Script

Web Host: 

You need web server with PHP. Now a days, most web hosts support it.

Proxy sites have very high bandwidth usage. So it is better to get a paid hosting. Yet, most hosting services may cancel your account when your proxy starts using high bandwidth i.e. gets high number of visitors. However, few are specialized for proxies such as:

http://www.santrex.net
http://www.monsterprox.com
http://www.xproxyhost.com

But as a starter, you may try free web hosts such as 3owl. I also have several Proxy sites with them which are functioning satisfactorily.

Get some experience with proxy setup and promotion. Later you may switch to paid hosting.

Another aspect is the domain name. All free and paid hosts allow you to choose a free sub domain. You may use the sub domain. In this case your proxy address would be http://chosen-subdomain.webhost.com

On the other hand, you may register your own domain name and use it. Domain names are registered for around $10.

Proxy Script: 

The most used proxy scripts are Glype and PHProxy.

PHProxy is easier to setup. We will illustrate using it. However, Glype setup is also quite simple.

Since the original coder of PHProxy stopped developing it further several years ago, others have been developing it. So there are a variety of versions available.

You may get any version. Here is the link to one of these:
Caprio's PHProxy at Google Code

Next, you need to install the PHProxy on your web server.

Installation:

It can't be more simpler. Just login to your web host. Go to Control Panel. Open file manager and upload the .PHP, .CSS, .JS, .inc (if present) files to your root folder. Ignore the .txt files in the downloaded .zip file.

The uploading can also be done through FTP, login details for which will be available to you on the web host's website after login. 

Run Your Proxy:

Now just access your account URL. For example if you registered subdomain xyz with 3owl.com, your proxy URL would be http://xyz.3owl.com. URL form will come up. Enter the URL of a blocked website and click the button. You and any visitor to your site can now access all blocked websites.

Next steps would be to promote your proxy site and get advertisements for it to make some money. These will be covered in a coming blog.

Till then, experiment with setting up proxy site(s)!!!

PayPal - Verified Account for Unsupported Countries

PayPal:

PayPal is the most favored payment and reciept system on the internet. Maximum online shops and other businesses support it for recieving payments for items / services / membership purchased from them. Similarly, when a website is to pay you, PayPal is again the most usual medium.

So, if you intend to do transactions or any type of business on the internet, you must have PayPal account. But there are a few coutries which are not supported by PayPal. Residents of these countries (such as Ghana, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, etc) can not open PayPal accounts. What should they do then?

There is a easy way for PayPal unsupported country residents to open fully functional PayPal accounts. It involves four simple steps:

PayPal for Unsupported Countries:

1. Apply for Free Master Card from Payoneer:

 

Payoneer is another leading company related to online transactions. It provides you with a Master Card and US Bank Account totally free. This US account can be used to open and verify PayPal account.

 

So, go ahead and apply for free Payoneer Master Card using this link. Payoneer Free Master Card and US Bank Account with $25 Reward.Use of this link will make both of us eligile for $25 reward. Use your correct particulars at Payoneer. Don't worry, these will not be available to PayPal. You need to give correct particulars because your free Master Card will be delivered to you at your address.

Once applied, Payoneer will approve your application in a few days and inform you through email that your free Master Card is being posted to you.

2. Activate Your Free Master Card:

 

The card usually arrives much sooner than the time given by Payoneer in their email. Just wait for its arrival. Activate it and select PIN code for it on the Payoneer website. Simple instructions are available in their letter accompanying the free Master Card.

3. US Payments Services / Bank Account:

 

Within a few days of approval of your card, Payoneer will again email you that you can also utilize their US Payments Service. However, you should wait for your card to arrive and activated. Even if they dont email you, just login to their website after recieving the Free Master Card and activating it and apply for US Payments Services.

They will ask for the source of your online income. Answer with details of your website or ebay account, etc. Your US Payment Services will be approved soon and you will be provided with details of your US Bank Account.

You now have an International Master Card and a US Bank Account. All for free! Now you are ready for PayPal.

4. Open PayPal Account:

 

Access PayPal website preferably through a US Proxy such as this. US Proxy. Simultaneously, open the site http://www.fakenamegenerator.com and generate a US name address and other details with the click of a button. Use these exact details for opening PayPal account giving your country as US.

5. Verify Your PayPal Account:

 

Once opened, PayPal requires you to verify the account in order to be able to recieve and pay through PayPal.

Login to your account and click the "Get Verified" link and select verification through Bank Account out of the two options. Give the details of Bank Account provided by Payoneer.

In 2-3 days, PayPal will deposit two small amounts (less than $1) into your account. Payoneer will email you when you recieve amounts in your Master Card / Bank Account. Note down the exact amounts deposited by PayPal. These can also be seen by logging into your Payoneer Account.

Once again go the the "Get Verified" link on PayPal website and enter the two amounts.

Thats it. You now have a verified PayPal Account.

Some Precautions:

 

Dont login to PayPal unnecessarily.

Use US Proxy for accessing PayPal. US Proxy.

Dont raise a dispute in PayPal or they will want to contact you over phone or deliver mail to your fake US address.

Happy Internet Business!!!