Claire's Random Thoughts

This is the first step in my guide in Developing Proxy Sites.

Developing a proxy site is much easier than building a content rich site from scratch. Therefore, not surprisingly, many webmasters start out by creating proxies.

I am assuming readers of this article have a basic knowledge in how web hosting works. E.g. setting up a hosting account, setting up DNS servers, uploading files via FTP. If not, then you may have to google a few key terms to fully understand this article.

Starting a proxy site is really quite simple, especially if you use a basic script, basic template, and don’t worry about going overboard on ads in the beginning. For example, I made a very clean and simple proxy already as my first experiment, Clean and Simple.

The first step is to download a script. For my Clean and Simple example, I used Zelune, which is based on Curl. Some other popular ones are PHProxy (also based on php). I am featuring these three scripts, because they can be installed by simply uploading files. There are others, but installation is a bit more complex, and I am trying to keep this guide as simple as possible.

I prefer the Curl-based Zelune, because it the easiest on system resources, fast, and clean-looking. There is even an option for the user to hide the browsing bar, which none of the other scripts offer. However, the downside is that it lacks an admin dashboard or control panel, and it is somewhat complicated to put ads on the proxified pages (which is where most of the revenue comes from). In the future, I might create a tutorial to show how to do this if/when I figure out how to.
Pros: Light on system resources, fast, clean, can log in to secure sites
Cons: Hard to put ads on proxified pages

PHProxy is also easy to install and quite popular. It is similar to Glype, except there is no admin control panel option. Putting ads on the proxified pages is just as annoying for PHProxy as it is for Zelune. Therefore, out of these three, PHProxy would be my last choice.

Conclusion: My overall favorite is the lightweight Zelune because it is light on resources and allows for browsing more complex pages that require secure logging in. However, if you would like to put ads on the proxified pages without doing further research, Glype would be the ideal beginner’s choice, as it is the easiest to set up for that purpose.

I haven’t had a topic worth blogging about for a while. Perhaps I’ve just been busy with my first semester at NYU Stern as a junior. Anyway, throughout this winter break, I have been reading about proxy site development and might begin to start some for myself for a small stream of cash flows. I never considered how profitable these could be until lately.

I will begin a new series of posts for developing, optimimizing, hosting, maintaining, and most importantly, monetizing proxy sites for a profit. Originally when I had series of posts, I had seven posts per series, one per day for a week. From now on, I will no longer be following this structure, as the last time I tried this, I ran out of time in the middle of the series and stopped posting. I will simply be posting whenever time permits.

Tentative Topics:
1. Picking a script
2. Downloading a template
3. Finding a host
4. Monetizing proxy site

When you try to display adsense using the original javascript code, it doesn’t show up, because wordpress posts do not have javascript enabled.

A common question has always been, how do you display adsense in wordpress posts?

The reason we would want to do this is because it is a proven fact that ads that blend in with content get clicked on more often. Viewers tend to filter out ads that look like ads, but if ads become part of the content, they will either click because they confuse the ads with a link or because they see the ad and are actually interested.

Instead of adsense, you may use this method to display any javascript code. I am just going to use adsense as an example for simplicity purposes.
It is easy to display ads in a wordpress post! See? I’m doing it right here!

A simple plugin can help you do what I just did above. Visit the Adsense-Deluxe plugin site if you wish to download it or download it directly here.

Unzip the archive and upload the adsense-deluxe.php file to your plugins directory. I am going to skip how to install the optional stuff for WYSIWYG editing, but you can visit the plugin’s site if you wish to learn how to install the extras.

After uploading the file, go to the plugins panel and activate the plugin.

To input your code, click on options, adsensedeluxe, and create an adsense block by pasting your adsense code where it says to. I recommend a half banner or something smaller so your ads can fit and blend in better with your posts. You may create multiple blocks if you wish, but I only use one. To display your default block, simply insert your code’s ID (will be generaged by the plugin) in the html editor, and your ads will show up in our post.

I’ve seriously been thinking about moving my blog to the root directory of my domain instead of having it at this domain/wordpress. I can just put the important parts of the current root directory pages as pages in the blog that are shown on the top navigation menu. It seems like my main traffic is located at the wordpress blog, and I really don’t have much in the current root directory. The main drawbacks would be losing some backlinks that are currently linking to http://clairechiang.net/wordpress which may hurt my search engine ranking. What do you guys think?

It’s been a while since my last update, hasn’t it? Instead of updating, I’ve been wasting time experimenting with Slash My Search for my regular searching in place of google or yahoo. The small amount of money that pay originally drew my attention, because I decided that getting paid for my searches, which I do anyway, isn’t too shabby. However, a few minutes after I signed up, I became more interested in the algorithm that determines how much we get paid. They say 25 cents per hour, but I still haven’t quite figured out what qualifies as an hour. An hour of searching? An hour of having their site open? What? I’ll just use their service to search over the next few days, play with the numbers, and hopefully draw a conclusion from the numbers (for those of you who don’t know, I calculate just about everything a little too meticulously). I guess this once again proves my theory. I become interested in few things at a time but seldom continue staying interested in my new hobbies for an extended period of time.

Past time wasters:
1. Chess-live (need I say more about this?)
2. Aimless IM conversations
3. Selling junk on ebay
4. Trading junk so that I have even more useless junk in my room
5. Selling unwanted media items on Amazon
6. Making websites low in quality
7. Opening credit cards and bank accounts to get that introductory gift (or as Mr. Garbosky would say, lagniappe)
8. Make a few cents online

1. I will skip ranting about that chess server for now. Enough said in the secret to my downfall. Ok, I was probably exaggerating there, but I’ve had it with online chess.

2. I think this one also stemmed from my number one time wasting interest. Since I started chatting on chess-live, I also happened to meet some people there, who I eventually started contacting through instant messengers. Pretty soon, I was hooked.

3. After I got a paypal account, I decided that I wanted to do something with it. So, I dug out some junk that I neglected the existence of to sell. I actually made a decent profit from this if you neglect what it cost me to buy the stuff. Oh well, since the stuff I sold was completely useless to me, I’ll just think of the sales as free money.

4. Less popular media items were typically difficult to sell on ebay. I decided that I wanted to get rid of them anyway, so I joined a bunch of junk trading sites. If you’re interested, then visit my page on junk trading. Trading isn’t profitable, but it helped me build up even more garbage . If you count the value of everything I traded and received, then I made a profit…

5. After I traded junk for more valuable junk, I decided that I could actually sell some of it. I did manage to get some more valuable things when I was lucky, such as a copy of Final Fantasy VII for playstation (which I paid a lot of switchbucs for) and some newer DVD movies that were decently priced on Amazon. I also sold some AP books from last year that I was planning to burn at an AP book burning party. Too bad (or too good?) we didn’t have that party.

6. I did have a brief interest in web design. I made a few sites and invested some money in web hosting, but most of them didn’t look too professional. I’m still kind of interested now, but I haven’t been updating my sites that often anymore, because I actually find web design kind of tedious. It’s a good way to kill time, though. Ad revenue has also been providing me with lunch money every day.

7. Ok, I’m a little crazy, but I’ve been signing up for credit cards or bank accounts from banks or stores that give me something for signing up. I now have 7 bank accounts and enough credit cards to give me enough of total credit potential that make me potentially high risk. Well, the truth is, there’s no way I would be able to pay everything back if I maxed out all my credit cards. However, I’m not planning to. Credit line is good to have, but I have a little bit of self control when it comes to money…

8. Yes, I’ve been doing little things online to make money. I know the pay per hour is only a small percentage of minimum wage, but each payment brings me an inexplicable false sense of accomplishment. Right now, it’s slash my search, but I was also posting in a number of paid forums.