So I’m stressing some concerns via support ticket to Chitika, which was on in mid-day on the 23rd of August (Now it’s 24th) to which I initially submitted the ticket. However their support has not replied since, I understand that they may have all the clients to deal with in the world, however some small reply saying that are working on it, would be nice, even if a canned response. You are probably saying, “But you only submitted that ticket one day ago?”, yes, I did, my concern is the web, or Google, I searched keywords such as ‘Chitika Support slow‘, I came across JenSense, (Jennifers blog) to which end she was having similar troubles with support. She also mentioned their support being ‘Non-Existant’, which gets me thinking, am I picking the right publishing program to push it onto my other sites? If I have similar problems to what I have now, how on earth do I know it’s going to be resolved?

The reason I like Chitika is because they genuinely do pay well, or pay well through click-throughs and are not like those cheap branded CPC companies. However support is a big concern and my big concern is not getting a reply. Perhaps I have not waited long enough? Maybe one day is something I shouldn’t expect a publisher provider as large as this to reply to any tickets I submit. What to expect, I guess we’ll find out, however if I do recieve a reply, I will update this post.

News 26/08/2008

So just an update here, it seems they do have support just that they are not that fast however I recieved 2 responses form Daniel telling me that there are problems with ads showing up differently to the ones they offer. - Like I described above. He said that they have engineers working on this problem and they should have it fixed. Apprently ads such as Chitika Graphical ads are showing as ‘Premium ads’ sometimes and their Chitika Multiple ad units are showing as eMiniMalls. Not to much of a problem however I’ve noticed my earnings have gone down as a result. - Which isn’t good news.

I’ve been paid by Bidvertiser once which in total was around $12, however I don’t feel they are counting all the clicks which are happening on my website. Now I don’t know if people are clicking on the ads however since I switched over one of my sites over to Chitika from Bidvertiser, a lot more clicks and revenue is coming through. At current I have exactly $9.99 in my Bidvertiser account, to which end I need another cent in order to get paid by Bidvertiser, so I’m leaving the ads on my site and hopefully in a couple weeks time I’ll earn this amount ($0.1) as I don’t believe they are counting all my clicks! Which is somewhat annoying, however I seem to be earning some good revenue with Chitika and they are to become my new revenue stream as the niche I’m in seems to be perfect for Chitika!

Once I earn that good ol’ cent I’m out of publishing for Bidvertiser as I don’t seem to be making good conversion with it, it’s either the ads they show or they simply aren’t counting clicks which come from my site; thus lower revenue is being earned. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve used them for quite sometime however they don’t seem to be the correct revenue earning stream for me. I’ve earned more with Chitika in a single month when compared to Bidvertiser. It is seriously as if they are not counting certain clicks, which is annoying and wrong. I’m not accusing anyone of anything however this is just the way it feels to me.

I’ve been looking at Wordpress Mu, and quite a while ago on the Vlexo forums, it was mentioned or suggested that we open up a blogging service and I’ve been testing out the Wordpress Mu script and so far so good and I like it; it’s also nice and easy to install. I’m thinking of integrating the original Wordpress design into the ‘new’ Vlexo design which is coming along with the service we are already adding. e.g. this page integrated into our custom design for Vlexo.com:

As you can see it’s not to bad, especially if it is added to look like the site or in other terms ‘integrated’ which at current I will be pushing for and getting someone to custom do every single image to replace the wordpress main page for the creation of blogs. However if other blogs are made they can of course have custom themes from what I’ve seen on any themes they find which are compatible for Wordpress, though I will be looking for some nice themes which can be used to get users involved in this! Perhaps some custom themes can also be specifically made for this particular service and a lot of advertising would be done. My budget for this project would extend to $500, then if it is at-all a success, in terms of it being used then it will be a great addition to the service we already provide.

With the powerful dedicated server I have, this project should be able to go forward especially with the resources I have at Vlexo. However to assess things, first things first, the design at Vlexo would be done and dusted first then we’ll move on from there. I do not believe this Project will be launched ’soon’, I guess somewhere in 2009 the Project would be launched and completed in terms of visually and i nthe back-end of things. - I also do not believe you can add domains to individual blogs, I’ve set a Wordpress Mu site up and you have the choice of choosing between ‘/directories’ or either ’subdomains.blog.vlexo.net’ which is something I like. However the choice to use your own domain would be a lovely feature to which end I’d get a coder in to do such thing as it doesn’t come as defualt or part of the script.

Hopefully this will be a succesful addon.

This dosh was made via a total of 7 clicks which isn’t too bad as the ads were/are on a small time forum that I run which doesn’t get as many visitors as some of the websites I have up and running. I also have AdBrite, so heres for a quite biased and unfair comparison of AdBrite revenue:

Bah. So not very good, especially with the amount of views I gave them, however again, this is quite unfair as I didn’t really use AdBrite as such in a big way as Chitika, even though I used Chitika in quite small way. There is also one more, Bidvertiser, this service I’ve already made $12.77 with from which I’ve been paid.

I haven’t really used Bidvertiser in such a big way, however their ads aren’t converting well for the kind of site which I have their ads on. Thus why I’m going to be trying Chitika to see if it converts well as this site has a 80% majority of US traffic from which Chitika premium ads require if you want to make some money with that particular program they have on offer.

I’m just happy that the transfer is over and that now I can have a good rest.

Looks like Britain is doing quite well with such a small percentage of Team GB members being apart of the games. Currently ‘we’ are third and are doing very well in the atheletic part of things, I also watched today on Sky TV or on the BBC channel specifically on the ‘Women’s 400m’ that Christine Ohuruogu of Great Britain won the Gold. To describe the feeling of when she caught up on the straights was just purely amazing and the power in those huge legs of hers was amazing. From what I can remember there were 3 US candidates running along side, however she came first and won the race. She started with a slower pace than all the other runners, which initially meant she was more or less ‘behind’, however it was as if a rocket were attached to her as she sprinted so fast she passed everyone within 5 seconds of the 400m ending. She won a happy gold medal last year in Osaka. So lets take a look at the results of the the Beijing 2008 Olympics:

Rank	NOC Name	Men				Women				Open/Mixed				Total				Rank by Total
		G	S	B	T	G	S	B	T	G	S	B	T	G	S	B	T
1	CHN - China	20	7	5	32	23	7	13	43			1	1	43	14	19	76	2
2	USA - United States	14	7	13	34	11	17	14	42	1	2		3	26	26	27	79	1
3	GBR - Great Britain	8	6	4	18	7	3	2	12	1		2	3	16	9	8	33	5

More: http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/INF/GL/95A/GL0000000.shtml

As you can see China is first, I wonder why, possibly as they have the best divers I have ever seen! They were absolutely flawless from my view and they are amazing at all other sports they competed with. However Great Britain (From what I again saw today) seems to be doing well in the boxing matches and one our guys have made it through to the semi-finals from which he beat another competitor (I think the guy beat a Brazilian player) around 10-2 or something like that, they had to hit each other in the head so their head would go back. (So in essense they had to hit each other hard enough to push their heads back!)

So my job today…

Is to transfer over 400 accounts onto the new swarve dedicated server I recently purchased, currently it only has 2GB of RAM however I’m looking to upgrade it to either 4GB of RAM or 6GB’s however that is if the server needs it; though I don’t believe it will unless FlickCabin.com has sudden increases or digg effects. Though if this does happen, a simple RAM upgrade which is available whenever and is always a choice with the host I purchased a server with. It’s going to take time to transfer the accounts over and set the DNS records straight so no-one has to change nameservers however it should be somewhat an easy job. I’ve been quite busy lately, with building developement and today would be the only day this month; of which I can complete the whole transfer. - However I will administer the transfer of DNS propagation (If at-all any is going to happen, as the DNS records resolve) to the same datacenter that we have been with for over 8 months.

I would initially get WiredTree to do this, as they would typically do this for you however I need to learn more on troubleshooting issues rather than getting someone else to do something for me, as that would be the easy way out. Though this shouldn’t take too long as only a few accounts are using over a gigabyte of data. Hopefully this should go well, as I will be transferring accounts in batches to prevent any data loss if the connection between both servers is sustained too long. As always the transfer will take place as such:

- Transfer the smaller sites that are under 100MB in size

- Transfer sites in the medium range of 100-500MB and above

- Transfer sites in batches of over 1GB

- Transfer any outstanding or even existing websites

I’m going to be transferring accounts from Magnet first, then Variable.

Transfer begun

Currently, I’ve transferred most of the Magnet websites/users and it’s going well, I’m hoping to get this transfer all done by today so I can cancel the VPS’ they are currently on and plus I don’t have the time to do it any other day; but perhaps tomorrow afternoon. To finish it all today would be wonderful, hopefully everything will work without a hitch - I’d be happy indeed. Though one problem is occuring, there is a big website which have files stored securely and things have to be uploaded to the new server in batches. (Such as the data files and everything like that) It’s not much of a problem, hopefully we’ll get through this as it’s taking quite a long time and I need to get it done all by today.

The account owner of this username: amazinaz, you are a big pain in the neck! - I know this account and the guy on the Vlexo forums however your account is taking me over an hour (Right now) to transfer over to the new server. No worries, seems to be going flawlessly right now. Hopefully this will all be over soon!

Magnet Data transferral complete

After 5 hours of transferring accounts over from Magnet, the work has been completed, and all sites/files are in working order and zero downtime occured. I have transferred over 200 accounts onto this powerful dedicated server, now time to transfer another 100/200+ accounts over - which I will do tomorrow morning as at the moment, I’m very tired and nackered after waiting 5 hours. Things have gone without a hitch, apart from the timing which I though I’d be able to everything in around 2 hours. Things happen and it wasn’t too bad.

Variable Data transferral complete

The data and accounts on Variable have now been succesfully transferred over to to new Quad.VlexoDNS.com server. Issues are no longer a problem so far since we are on quite a powerful server with upgrades at the ready if they are needed. It took me around 8 hours to transfer all accounts over from Variable to Quad as cPanel accounts faired much larger and more complicated.

I’m currently trying in-text contexual advertising out via Kontera’s publisher platform and I like the way that the ads are shown and they aren’t obstrusive at-all like you see with ads that are all over such as pop-ups as a prime example of being quite obstrusive. I also managed to get into CPXInteractive for one of my sites and I’ll be testing those guys out to see if I can squeeze anymore revenue out of my sites. Though a question did come to mind, “could I Kontera’s tags on my other sites?” or for a more relevant term, “could I use Kontera on more than one site”, as at the application side of things when you sign up; you only enter one website. However I’ve sent off Kontera an email to answer this question and I’ll post a follow up on this entry of my bloggin’.

As for CPXInteractive, I’ve had to confirm that I own a website by adding ‘the’ email address I signed up with to my website or a seperate file containing my email, as evidence that I’m in control of it. Hopefully I’ll receive a reply by today with login confirmtion so I can start placing their ads up. However it looks good and I’ve heard some good stuff about CPXInteractive as they are quite large as well - hopefully they will top my number one revenue source and along with Kontera we should have a great relationship to say the least.

CPX Interactive - Update

Today, I got accepted and my account was activated after waiting a few a days for CPX Interactive to review my website. However, later on today (Friday 15 2008) my account was deactivated without any notice at-all as to why. I can’t see why they would disable or ‘deactivate’ my account so ubruptly without the shortest notice via email or phone. At least with other ad publishing networks, they send you an email as to why your account has been deactivated.

(Click the image to make it bigger)

So first impressions haven’t gone to well, now the time is to find out why they have deactivated my account and if it’s an accident, then I’ll get along fine with it, however if it isn’t and they give some stupid reason, then I guess I won’t be recommending them but the other way around from my own experience. However that is the thing, they reviewed my website and after a few hours, activated my account, then as soon as I place their ads up, bam, I get my account deactivated. Well, I’ll see what they say next however this hasn’t gone terribly well.

The funny thing is, is that they are using the same control panel and design as RightMedia, who I’ve signed up with however conversion rates weren’t going to well with them, so I dropped them. - Whether they are the same company or what, I cannot tell however they do have the same control panel. Everything down to the support email option is the same. Hm. Something real interesting to look and up and think about.

…

Okay, I recieved a ‘reply’ or a reasoning as to why my account was disabled, and they assessed that I wasn’t getting enough traffic and the limit was 30,000 unique visitors. However sitewide on this website of mine which I had put their ads sitewide, it does recieve over 30,000 unique visitors (As of this month) and they assessed that it did not in the period of a couple hours with myself having these ads up. All I can say is that they aren’t very specific in monitoring traffic over a period of time; instead you have to have the right surge of visitors at the time you have their ads up. Oh well. There is a whole list of publisher networks to try. - Though the cookie in the jar would be either Yahoo Publisher Network! or either Microsoft adCenter Publisher which are both convieniently in beta and are only offering US website owners. The hunt goes on. However lest we forget Kontera, I love their ad system and I love the way the ads appear, they don’t look cheap like other ad publisher networks, here take this as an example:

Kontera

Ad Brite

Sorry for the low resolution. However I think Kontera’s looks much more inviting and much better visually and ads seems to be more relevant to the subject. Time will tell how things work out and hopefully it will be a thumbs up.

Firstly is their monitoring tab, from where you can monitor all the services you have with them. Such as bandwidth usage, statistics regarding how much RAM you are using, CPU, load average and SWAP. Server status also shows whether your services are up or down, e.g. httpd, smtp, dns, ping, pop3 and imap. So you are wondering what the IPMI metrics are all about? IPMI metrics feature in Grove is outstanding, you can remotetly monitor the heat of your dedicated server, the voltage and even the fan speeds. Click here for a small preview of my dedicated server IPMI metrics!

To make this detailed, I will post screenshots of what each of the above look like. Just click on any of the following text links and the images will be pretty self explanitory however please do post if you want more information on whatever tab/service.

IPMI metrics
Monitoring Configuration
Server Statistics
Bandwidth Usage
Server Status

There is also a remote boot, for all dedicated servers which is included free as I didn’t have to pay for it. However this feature is just great and I love the “Grove” control panel, it’s a great feature if your server or if one of your server services go down. Generally I’d contact WiredTree and they would fix it or they would automatically fix it for me. Here is a screenshot of what the remote boot looks like: (It’s nothing fancy, but then it doesn’t have to be.) - Though all these features I’m showing you are all a part of their website.

On the main page of Grove, they have this:

I hate this personally. No, not that they have the above in the main page of “Grove”, but that Plesk is actually winning, I voted DirectAdmin obviously and I hope they add it, as I’d love to play around with it and plus that it’s cheaper by a couple dollars now I think that cPanel increased prices on their VPS Optmized version of cPanel. *(I think all the DirectAdmin lovers with WiredTree should go on a hunger strike if Plesk wins outside the WiredTree office holding up boards saying “We love DirectAdmin”.) Yes I’m a little far fetched towards this!

Moving on…

They also have a DNS feature:

Now this is probably something you won’t find in your hosts WHMCS support/billing desk! It’s some pretty advanced stuff for newbies however it’s just like what your domain registrar provides in terms of editing DNS. IP Request Form comes handy once in a while, especially with the free hosting service that I provide, as I do get the occasional spammers however they are delt with usually when we of course find out they are spamming. - Though our system is pretty complex to get hosting from us which doesn’t exactly invite spammers.

That is it for now as I’m quite bored, so I thought I’d post some of the amazing features that WiredTree provide. Did I also mention their support? That is one amazing feature to have. You have replies from them in minutes and they are actually from humans not audited - automatic replies. To addon to this, I have opened at least 80 tickets with them and they have all been replied in a timely manner on average of around 10 minutes per ticket to under 1 minutes for a couple tickets or a 25% ticket reply rate. My favourite quote which I like to say about them: “They don’t just tell you the story, they tell you how it functions” which is exactly what they do! - Their staff are also pretty friendly and I have got quite acquainted with them.

So why do I recommend them so much on

Web Hosting Talk

?

To quite frankly answer that question, why not? I’ve explained it all above and I’ve given reviews. I’ve been with them for over 8 months now (I believe around the 10 month period which I’ve been with them) and they have provided an outstanding service. I’ve gone from LayeredTech, Jewlzk, Softlayer, Burst, PC-CORE to the almighty WiredTree and they have been the best dedicated/vps provider I have EVER come across. It is literally the perfect service and as always, if there were a company I’d buy with such high stature and praise from myself it would be WiredTree! I also believe that if you come across a gem, you should share it and they are a total gem in this market and they need to be heard as the service they provide is … amazing in all ways.

Check their website out: WiredTree.com for more information! Yes, these guys host this blog!

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However it’s increasing and this month in just 6 days I’ve received 323 unique visitors and this is without advertising at-all. It’s only a very small amount of traffic however it doesn’t matter, it’s still traffic and traffic is always good especially when it’s unique. So my estimates for this month is to get over 1,615 unique visitors. It’s not a huge achievement, but as said, traffic is traffic and I hope to provide more quality blog posts relating to server management and generally blogging about what the hell I feel like, I want to blog.

But damn, I never new blogging could attract such traffic, even if small and nothing to be concerned about and it seems traffic does well in such situation where I have an almost ordinary blog! Even maybe so that this domain has an Alexa rank of just below 2 million and a pagerank of 2, it doesn’t matter at-all as the traffic flowing in, as it is, is good enough for me!

So I was editing some dns information and adding as well for the new Core2Quad I ordered from WiredTree. At first the links to which I setup dNS records wasn’t working, then I thought it might be a problem with the server or the DNS part of things. Then I logged into my namecheap.com account to find the following:

(Click image to make larger):

I mean, it’s just my luck they are doing maintenance, while I’m trying to transfer over 200 accounts onto a new server I recently ordered. I guess I will have to wait and perhaps they’ll get things solved quick. Besides the point, if this domain works aeroplane.ws, then the DNS issue is solved and I’ll be able to start transferring sites over, however from the looks of things it seems I will have to arrange sometime tomorrow to get this all done and dusted and transfer complete. I still like Namecheap, they have really responsive live support and they get things done, however I’m just unlucky at this stage to have this happen to me.

Hopefully they’ll fix it by today, so I can transfer FlickCabin.com to the dedicated server!