Are these some of the feared lurkers?

[incka]

We are all scared of lurkers on the site stealing our ideas for sites and out SEO tips. And I think I've found one of them!

Company: Otherground LLC

Homepage: www.otherground.com

Sites Similar To Our Member's Sites:
Wilderness Survival - http://www.wildsurvival.com/
Home Improver - http://www.homeimprover.info/
Home Theater Systems - http://www.home-theater-systems.info/

And they made those AWS sites recently, they seem to use all Chris' SEO tips, they even copy site ideas... That's why I think they are lurking on the forum.

[Chris]

Obviously not all my advice is used. I never recommend putting so many ads on a site before it gets good traffic.

[incka]

Your ad tips is great, I think it really has improved Games2Go's traffic, since when I took them off it increased traffic, and since I got to the level you said and put them back on it has continued to grow instead of declining like it did when I had little traffic.

How come online-orienteering and fitness-training haven't got enough traffic for ads yet? I think they are very good sites and should get alot of return visits...

Also Otherground have some sites similar to Chromates.

[Mike]

I may take ads off my msn emotions site for a few months. I won't be making anything more than $300 a month, so there's no point really.

BTW, could you come on MSN Sean please?

[Chris]

Originally posted by incka
Your ad tips is great, I think it really has improved Games2Go's traffic, since when I took them off it increased traffic, and since I got to the level you said and put them back on it has continued to grow instead of declining like it did when I had little traffic.

How come online-orienteering and fitness-training haven't got enough traffic for ads yet? I think they are very good sites and should get alot of return visits...

Also Otherground have some sites similar to Chromates.

They only have about 50 articles each, not enough to bring in good traffic. 500-1000 pages views a day is all they get.

They're good for getting incoming links though.

[incka]

So they are more PR generating things... Cool.

I'm on MSN Mike.

Chris says don't do it unless you are going to make $50 a month, if you are earning $300 a month it is worth it. I think Chris will agree.

[Mike]

After earnings in the last week I doubt I'll be making half that. I started off really well, but now i'm only making like $5 a day.

[incka]

Have your site stats gone down?

[Mike]

Yes. I had one day of downtime (got upgraded to next plan free in return) and after that my stats have been down 100 uniques.

[incka]

That's why then. I'm getting about $0.05 per visitor. How about you? (Divide your earnings by visitors)

[Mike]

Just under $0.04 per visitor.

[otherground]

WARNING: FEARED LURKER ALERT!!! :rolleyes:

I'm gonna have some fun with this one ...

We are all scared of lurkers on the site stealing our ideas for sites and out SEO tips. And I think I've found one of them!
Incka, first of all, these SEO tips that I'm supposedly stealing are common knowledge to any web developer and they are clearly outlined on dozens of different web sites besides this one.

I've been in this business for 9 years, which is probably longer than you've been an adult. I've taught web development courses at Rutgers University, Mercer County Community College, Berkeley Training, DPT Business School, The Katherine Gibbs School, and Allentown Business School to name a few.

I've also done corporate Training for AOL, Dupont, Lennox, Johnson and Johnson, Mars, and many other Fortune 500 Companies that have been in business long before 'Incka Limited'.

I regularly visit more than 20 different web development forums, including this one, to keep up with the industry. I do not post very much because, unlike some people, I have more important things to do.

I post fairly regularly on sitepoint and I have emailed Chris in the past when I came across a typo on websitepublisher.net, so you didn't find me my British buddy, I have been here all along.

I think you are the only one who is "scared of lurkers on the site stealing our ideas." If Chris were so terrified then why would he even keep this site up? Why would he regularly answer questions on sitepoint helping others get started in the industry ?

Next, about me "stealing our ideas for sites" ... hmmm ... I guess you were the first person to build a site about Debt Management ... I guess you also pioneered the idea of websites about Free Online Games ... and do I even need to mention your Literature Forums ??? I wonder where you got that idea ...

And yeah, genius, I did make the AWS sites recently ... how long has AWS been around ... 3 months or so ??

It was a quote by Chris on sitepoint that got me interested in online publishing and serving ads ... The quote went something like "Doesn't have to be the first, Doesn't have to be the best" ... That coupled with the fact that I was tired of dealing with annoying people (story of my life) inspired me to create my first site to serve ads on - WILDSURVIVAL.COM ...

I picked that topic specifically because of the documented success Chris had with WILDERNESS-SURVIVAL.NET ... not to "steal" his idea but because I wanted a popular site to compare my progress against. Do you really think Chris's website was the first website about survival ? By your logic I suppose we could say he stole the idea from someone else ...

Incka, do yourself a favor, get a running start, jump as far as you can, and see if you can make it off Chris's jock for once in your career ...

If you want you can go ahead and keep flaming me, I've been participating in forum flame wars longer than you've had hair on your pecker ...

Or, we can be friends, since we have more in common than you'd like to admit, the biggest difference that I can tell is that if I have something to say to someone I contact them directly, while you go posting about them on Internet message boards. Heck, I'll even link to your sites since you like mine so much ..

The truth is, we're all competing with each other ... competing for web sites, domains names, keywords, web site traffic, and the very few available AWS categories ... but it can still be friendly competition ... your hero Chris realizes this and once you do too, you will not only be a better web developer, but a better person as well. ! JC - jc@otherground.com
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RM65 (http://www.cyclechaos.com/wiki/Suzuki_RM65)

[incka]

Sorry for sounding nasty. But I was right about you being on the site. So did you write all the sites yourself or did you pay people to write some of them, they all seem to have a hell of alot of articles on them?

I don't want to start a flame war... You have some good sites, sorry for insulting you, and you're right, I do spend too long posting and not enough time working on sites. We are all competing in some way, yes. I'm sorry for posting this, it was just because loads of people had mentioned lurkers recently.

So are you going to takes Chris' advertising tip about getting traffic first? Also, I recommend you get more PR to your sites, they all seem to have very low PR...

[otherground]

hahahaha ... its cool man ... I was just messing with you ... actually, I'll share a SECRET of my own ... from my teaching days I have experience working with Interns ... so I use Interns to help me write the articles and put the sites together ... so you can go ahead and start the Incka LTD Internship Program ... then contact a bunch of schools and let them know you have openings for Journalism/Creative Writing and Web Development/Design students ... There are alot of students out there willing to work for free in exchance for a letter of recommendation ... I've created a forum to communicate with my interns ... http://www.interns.otherground.com ... it's a private forum but you get the idea ... I must warn you that interns are a HUGE pain in the arse to deal with and answer all their questions but it's worth it if you want to get some free help ... PEACE :D

-------------------

Yea Chris is right about slamming people with too many ads and I know this ... I get complaints all the time :mad: ... but I wanted to try all the different advertising companies so right now I have lots of minimum requirements to meet and not a whole lot of inventory ... I am going to lose alot of the pop-up ads ... they actually prevent the sites from loading sometimes there are so many ... hahaha ... I've just been busy ....

And yes ... I definitely need more PR ... but its hard to get links with so many ads showing ... hahahah ... soon ... soon ..
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[incka]

I do something similar! :) At a local school I get loads of students to write things for free, in return for there name on a credits page. None of the sites they have worked on are finnished yet, but...

How long have you had your company name? It sounds very cool...


________

I would take ads off your less popular sites while you get links to them, and then when you have links and visitors put them back on. In the long term you will earn alot more.

[otherground]

Otherground has been around since 2001 ... before that I was using the name ImagineNet ... but I wanted a mysterious name because I wasn't really sure what direction my company was going to take ... With the name Otherground I can switch business models on a whim and not have to worry about the company name not matching the company ...

I have been doing client work for several years ... but I HATE dealing with clients and trying to get new ones ... I've always wanted to build the next Amazon or Google but I kept trying ideas that later I realized weren't going to work ... Once I started researching online publishing, I went full-speed ahead and started creating a bunch of sites ...

I don't know how long I'm gonna stay in the publishing business ... but I figured that if I want to get out of it I can always just auction off the sites and make a pretty penny ...

Glad to hear you are using students now ... too bad the secret is out and now we'll all be competing for interns :D ... I guess great minds really do think alike ...
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GL1200A (http://www.cyclechaos.com/wiki/Honda_GL1200A)

[incka]

There is always students around...

I want to go into the housing estate building market eventually, that is one reason why I made the name of the company flexable too...

I think we all have had dreams of creating the next google... I was going to create my own search thing ages ago but decided against it.

Actually, on your earlier comment about literature forums, there are none I've found that are independent of other websites, and Chris' online literature forums are aimed at classic literature, but mine are aimed at all types of literautre...

Nice to finally talk to you! :)

[otherground]

Yea man, you too ... I gotta get to bed tho ... it's 3:45 AM over here!

I'll make a concentrated effort to post here more often ... I could use the backlinks ... hahaha ... I've certainly learned alot from Chris and the rest of the crew here and I have some good ideas of my own as well (believe it or not)!

Speaking of ripping off sites ... this prick : http://www.worldwar2info.com ... ripped my http://www.world-war-2.info site in its ENTIRETY a few months back and is serving Fastclick ads on it ... he changed it a bit since I had his host then domain registrar shut him down ... hahahah .... but now he is actually listed on the first page of Yahoo results for the search term "World War 2" .... and I was #3 on Yahoo a few days ago until they updated ... now I'm #97 ... he doesn't even have one backlink on Alltheweb and he has a ZERO Google PR ...

I don't know what is worse ... dealing with clients or dealing with search engines ... ehhh
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S65 (http://www.cyclechaos.com/wiki/Honda_S65)

[incka]

Um, you won't like two domains I own then... They don't comtain the word info, but they are similar to yours... I've got loads of domains, and um, they include world-war-2.ws and world-war-1.ws... Sorry about 'em...


________

I also can't stand working for other people... They complain constantly and you can't get any work done because of it... I've never had much sucess with search engines... My MSN site got a tempory no.1 position, but then it and all the other good sites got dropped to a few pages in...

[Chris]

It was a quote by Chris on sitepoint that got me interested in online publishing and serving ads ... The quote went something like "Doesn't have to be the first, Doesn't have to be the best" ... That coupled with the fact that I was tired of dealing with annoying people (story of my life) inspired me to create my first site to serve ads on - WILDSURVIVAL.COM ...


Yup. You don't need to have the only/best/first site on a topic. You just need to have a site that gets enough traffic/money to make it worthwhile to keep running. Of course my survival has been #1 on nearly every engine for a couple years now... its pretty entrenched up there.

[flyingpylon]

Imagine if everyone thought Henry Ford had exclusive rights to produce all automobiles.

Otherground, I went to your Revolutionary War site and in addition to looking spammy, I got hit with a ton of popups and my anti-virus utility generated at least 3 virus alerts.

What's up with that?

[otherground]

Um, you won't like two domains I own then... They don't comtain the word info, but they are similar to yours... I've got loads of domains, and um, they include world-war-2.ws and world-war-1.ws... Sorry about 'em...
ohhhh the irony ... hahaha ...


Otherground, I went to your Revolutionary War site and in addition to looking spammy, I got hit with a ton of popups and my anti-virus utility generated at least 3 virus alerts.
hmmm ... I'm a little concerned about the virus warnings ... I dont have any dialers or browser hi-jackers on there ... just pop-ups/unders from the typical advertising companies ... perhaps your AV utility is just a little sensitive ? ... I really don't know ...
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[Mike]

I'm glad you've finally posted Otherground! :)

It's turning out to be a good thread this!

[incka]

Yeah, I'm a right hypocrit arn't I...

Chris: Wildnerness Survival isn't exactly a popular search term... Look on www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion and see...


____

Infact I'm even more of a hypocrit when you see a domain I registered... 1000 searches a day and available... I just couldn't stop myself... It is like one of the main page of someones site, not the main page, but one of the main ones...

[otherground]

I'm glad you've finally posted Otherground!

It's turning out to be a good thread this! Thanks Mike glad to be here ...


Yeah, I'm a right hypocrit arn't I...Well ... I think it's safe to say we've all been guilty of that offense at one time or another .. :D

So ... I'm off to the gym ... here's another tip for you young guys .. GET SOME EXERCISE .... 14 hours a day stressed out sitting in front of a computer starts to catch up to ya after a while ... especially in the neck and back ...
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[incka]

Just done 2 hours swimming myself... 14 hours at a computer, wow, but I suppose if I didn't have school...

[chrispian]

Otherground, just wanted to say thanks for sharing the Intern tip. What an awesome idea. I've been wondering how I could do "more" than I'm doing now and interns are a great idea.

[Chris]

Originally posted by incka
Yeah, I'm a right hypocrit arn't I...

Chris: Wildnerness Survival isn't exactly a popular search term... Look on www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion and see...

No kidding? Luckily I don't just have that one site. Still, it provides $500 or so a month in income with little to no maintenance work.

[incka]

That a nice amount. Look on alexa and compare it to survive outdoors website... I bet he is making 10 times that atleast...

Here are the search stats:

Overture
wilderness survival 182.6 /day

Wordtracker
wilderness survival 377.0 /day

[ozgression]

Originally posted by flyingpylon
Imagine if everyone thought Henry Ford had exclusive rights to produce all automobiles.

Otherground, I went to your Revolutionary War site and in addition to looking spammy, I got hit with a ton of popups and my anti-virus utility generated at least 3 virus alerts.

What's up with that?

I get virus alerts too.... plus a program that tries to auto-install itself on my PC.
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[incka]

I'm checking now, see if Avast picks anything up...

No, all that happend for me is that it refused to load, launched popups and crashed IE...

[Chris]

Originally posted by incka
That a nice amount. Look on alexa and compare it to survive outdoors website... I bet he is making 10 times that atleast...

Here are the search stats:

Overture
wilderness survival 182.6 /day

Wordtracker
wilderness survival 377.0 /day

He's not.

But Survive Outdoors does have more content pages, more medical information. Yet I think last time Kyle and I spoke, I was getting more traffic than him. Alexa simply is not that accurate, especially if the site owner uses it. If I used Alexa, just by visiting my own sites, I could increase their ranks substantially.

Really though Sean, I don't need you to tell me things I've known for 3 years. Do you think I never bothered to look up things?

[MarkB]

I'll pitch in and say that Chris is the reason I've started making content-driven revenue sites again (albeit with so-far tragic results;)).

I think the main problem, and one I've been a victim of, is thinking it's easy to replicate his success. That, and dwelling on his success rather than trying to build your own.

(Ok, I'm referring to myself mainly here!;)).

I don't think anyone here can accuse anyone else of stealing ideas, especially considering how many AWS sites have sprung up. We should instead be aiming to *share* ideas and expertise. And if you have a site you don't want competition for, then don't mention it! ;)

[incka]

Dwelling on his sucess? You have a forum with millions of posts, even if your not making as much as him you have built a massive community.

[MarkB]

Building a large community is something I've done a number of times :) Being able to monetize that community, in a way that's respectful of its users (ie, no pop-ups/unders or flashy non-relevant banners) is very difficult.