GoDaddy was, until recently, pro-SOPA but quickly pulled support after receiving hundreds of boycott threats. Most Internet companies including Google, Facebook and Yahoo! are against the bill which is considered by Google’s Eric Schmidt as ‘Censorship’ and ‘Draconian’. In short, the bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice and the copyright holders to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. For the Stanford Law Review, the bill is ‘Unconstitutional’ and ‘Would break the Internet’.

GoDaddy being one of the companies that helped craft the bill’s current wording, many have threatened to move their domain names off GoDaddy, including big names like I Can Has Cheeseburger’s Ben Huh who has over 1,000 registered on GoDaddy. Many others have threatened to transfer their domain names on December 29th, 2011. GoDaddy pulled support for SOPA but still supports the Protect IP Act (PIPA), which is a related bill, and also publicly announced that they will consider supporting future versions of SOPA… which is why the boycott call stands.

More recently it has been reported that GoDaddy has become slow in transferring domain names to other registrars, and has even been accused by NameCheap of hindering the domain transfer process, by returning incomplete WhoIs information, which is against ICANN rules. Several reports claim that about 70,000 domain names have been transferred from GoDaddy to other domain name registrars since last week, and this only the beginning…

I personally am against SOPA as I consider this bill as being a step towards a censored Internet, which is clearly not what I want for our and future generations. This bill will also have a negative impact on thousands Internet businesses, and not just the big ones (which will be able to afford lawyers) but small ones as well which might not make it through. If the bill passes, even social network users could be held liable if any copyrighted material is distributed on their pages, by themselves or a third party.

Whether you think I’m right or wrong, feel free to leave a comment below! If you want to learn more about SOPA and the GoDaddy boycott, I suggest that you read the following articles:

Suggested Readings:

- Don’t Break The Internet (Stanford Law Review)
- How SOPA Would Affect You (CNet)
- GoDaddy Sucks (Colin Klinkert)

How to Changes Nameservers

Step 1 – First, you need to figure out what the nameservers of your hosting are. For example if your hosting provider is BlueHost your nameservers will look like this: ns1.bluehost.com and ns2.bluehost.com. Sometimes the nameservers are listed on your hosting panel (like cPanel) but if not, you should be able to find them in the documentation provided by your hosting provider. If not, you may contact them to ask them where you should point your domain name to.

Step 2 – Once you know what nameservers you should use, you must log into your domain registrar account, find the domain management section, and change the nameservers to the nameservers of your hosting. For example if you purchased your domain name on GoDaddy, you must go to: Domains > Domain Management. Select your domain, scroll down the page and click the ‘Set Nameservers’ link.

Replace the nameservers with the nameservers of your hosting and click ‘OK’. That’s it! Of course the interface will look different if you have a different domain registrar but you get the idea. I find the GoDaddy relatively easy to use, and I know that NameCheap is user-friendly as well.

How to Changes Nameservers

While your changes will appear within minutes, please be aware that it can take up to 24-48 hours for new records to propagate. However from experience it generally takes between less than a few minutes to 2-3 hours. I hope this helps! Remember, if you can’t find what nameservers you should use, or where you can change them, get in touch with you domain registrar, or hosting provider to ask them for more information.

Best Firefox Add-ons For Internet Professionals

MeasureIt – MeasureIt is a very convenient add-on that allows you to draw a ruler across any page to check the width, height and alignment of elements in pixels. With this Firefox add-on you can for example quickly check the width or height of a banner advertisement.

FoxClocks – FoxClocks allows users to easily keep an eye on the time around the world. With FoxClocks you can choose locations and place clocks in your add-on bar, so you know the time in all those locations. If you have staff all around the world, this add-on is a must have!

Alexa Sparky – With Alexa Sparky you can integrate Alexa data in your Web browser, so you can for example easily see the six-month traffic trend and traffic rank of any site in your add-on bar. This is a quick and easy way to monitor the traffic of your competitors.

Awesome Screenshot – With Awesome Screenshots you can easily capture a page or portion of a page, annotate it with circles, rectangles, arrows and text, blur sensitive information, and most importantly upload it and share it in just a few clicks. Awesome Screenshots is a great alternative to Jing and Skitch.

FlagFox – FlagFox is an add-on that displays a country flag depicting the location of the current site’s server and provides you with a multitude of tools such as safety checks, ‘WhoIs’, translation, similar sites, validation, URL shortening, and more…

FireFTP – FireFTP is an FTP/SFTP client for Firefox which provides you with an easy and intuitive access to FTP/SFTP servers. This Firefox add-on is very useful if you often have to upload or download elements. With FireFTP you can now do this from your Web browser.

SEO Toolbar – If you’re into SEO (short for Search Engine Optimization), then you should install SEO Toolbar, so you have access to a range of very useful tools. With this Firefox add-on you can for example see the PageRank or number of links indexed in Yahoo! (among many other indicators) of any page.

FireBug – FireBug is a Firefox add-on for Web developers which puts a wealth of Web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and also monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any page… A must have for Web developers.

If you have more add-ons in mind, feel free to leave a comment below!

Submit 1 Article to 15 Sites Every Day, Free

The link building service I want to tell you about allows users to submit 1 article (with 1 link in it) to 15 article sites every day, free. That’s 15 new backlinks (to any of your pages) every day, free of charge. The site is called BacklinksKingdom, and comes with a built-in article spinning tool for you to spin your articles so different versions are submitted to the 15 sites (for better results).

You don’t have to sign up to or log into any of the article sites. BacklinksKingdom takes care of the submission for you. All you need to do is enter a URL, keyword and title, paste your article in, spin it (for better results), enter a few tags, choose a category and… That’s it! Now I’m used to the submission process it never takes me more than 2 minutes (with a pre-spun article) to submit an article.

Once your article submission is fully completed you will have access to a link report so you can see how your backlinks look like. You can sign up free and give the site a try, or you can upgrade right away and get instant access to the upgraded features and benefits. With the 1st membership level (Knight) you can submit up to 3 articles (with 2 links in each of them) to 50 article sites every day, which means that you can build up to 300 backlinks every day.

Up to 1,500 Backlinks Every Day

With the 2nd membership (King, which is the top membership level) you can submit up to 5 articles (with 3 links in each of them) to 100 article sites every day, which means that you can build up to 1,500 backlinks every day. All article sites are on unique C-Class IP addresses, so you are sure all the backlinks you get for an article you submitted come from different places.

With both upgraded membership levels you get access to full link reports as well as RSS Feeds so you can submit your RSS Feeds to ping services and get your backlinks indexed faster. You also get access to a few other upgraded features and benefits including the possibility to use the submit URLs more often.

As previously  mentioned BacklinksKingdom is very easy to use. However make sure you watch the training videos and read the user guide located inside the members area before trying to submit an article. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below.

>>> Click Here to Join Now <<<
& Build 15 Backlinks Every day, FREE!

Having an online staff  has its advantages and its disadvantages… but you can minimize the disadvantages by using a set of tools that help you maximize both your work and the work of your team. Here are a few online staff management tools that should help you increase both your and your online staff’s productivity.

Online Staff Management

#1 Time Doctor (Free Trial) - Time Doctor is a task and time management software designed to help you and your staff work more efficiently. With Time Doctor you can track exact hours worked, monitor distractions and increase your and your team’s productivity. It is perfect for small businesses and contractors who do most of their work on a computer. Time Doctor is available on both PC and Mac.

#2 Dropbox (Free & Paid) – Dropbox is a web-based file hosting service that uses the cloud to enable you to save and share files with other people across the Web. I find sharing medium to large sized files via Dropbox a lot more convenient than via email. If you want to share a file with someone, all you need to do is to drop it in the Dropbox folder you share with this person. When the upload is complete, the person you share the folder with will be able to access it, and use it.

#4 Gmail (Free) – Gmail is one of the best email service providers out there, not only because it is fast and reliable, but also because it provides you with useful work tools such as Google Documents and Google Calendar. With Google Documents you can easily share work documents (text documents spreadsheets, presentations…) with your online staff. With Google Calendar you can share schedules and events so you can easily keep track of what’s important for you and your staff.

#5 Skype & GTalk (Free) – If you want to have the choice to either chat with or call someone, I suggest that you use Skype. With Skype you can also share your screen with other people, which is great if you want to show your online staff on the other side of the world how to do something. If you just want to chat, I suggest GTalk. I use the desktop version rather than the Gmail version as I think it is more stable.

Online Staff Management

Alternatively you may use an all-in-one solution like Basecamp (Free Trial). With this kind of project management software you can do pretty much everything that is described above, as well as a few other things such as milestone management. You can try Basecamp free for one month, and then from $49 / month. If you don’t think you can afford Basecamp yet, then you should stick to the online staff management tools mentioned in this blog post. By the way if you have any more online staff management tools to suggest, feel free to leave a comment below!

MySQL Upgrade

I had no idea how to upgrade from MySQL 4.1 to MySQL 5.0 so I contacted my hosting provider (GoDaddy) to ask them how I could do this and if they could do it for me. Here is the response I received:

Thank you for contacting Online Support. Based on the information provided, you would like to upgrade your database to MySQL 5.0. Unfortunately, it cannot be upgraded directly. We ask that you backup your database, create a database, and import the data into your new MySQL database. Keep in mind that this would not be a Restore in the Hosting Control Center as the purpose of the Restore feature is simply for restoring backups of a database that has never been deleted. This would be the least risky way to upgrade and move your data to a new database.

Fair enough. What needs to be done is not a MySQL upgrade but a database transfer (from MySQL 4.1 to MySQL 5.0 or higher). The process is actually pretty simple…

MySQL Upgrade

Here what I did:

1. I logged into my GoDaddy account, went to the MySQL section and logged into phpMyAdmin.
2. I exported my database file (.sql) – I saved it on my desktop.
3. I then created a new database (MySQL 5.0) – This took a few minutes.
4. Finally, I imported the database file into the new database.

Here is how it looks in phpMyAdmin:

To export your database file, log into your old database (MySQL 4.1), click ‘Export’ and save the database file somewhere on your computer. Then log into your new database (MySQL 5.0 or higher), click ‘Import’ and upload the database file you just saved on your computer. Then wait until the upload is fully completed.

Make sure you keep the existing database as it is until the transfer is completed. You don’t want to delete your old database (MySQL 4.1) until the new one (MySQL 5.0 or higher) has successfully imported the database file.

The next step is to update your wp-config file (with the new database details) and go back to your WordPress Admin Interface. After logging in, you will see a message asking you to update your database. Click the ‘Update WordPress Database’ button and… that’s it!

If you don’t know on what version of MySQL your WordPress database is, download and install a plugin called WordPress Requirements Check and check if your server has the correct version of MySQL. I hope this helps! If you have any questions, feel free to ask them below!

Further Readings:

Are You Ready for WordPress 3.2?

Must-Have WordPress Plugins

All in One SEO Pack (Free) – This plugin allows you to easily optimize your posts and pages for the search engines. With All in One SEO Pack, you can easily add a title, description and keywords to every single of your posts and pages, as opposed to a single title, description and keywords for all your posts and pages. All in One SEO Pack is easy to use and very effective when properly used.

Contact Form 7 (Free) – Everyone needs a contact form, right? You want people to contact you, but you don’t want to leave your email address out in the open… unless you are ready to receive tons of spam. Contact forms don’t protect you from spam but they can help. I tried a few ones and Contact Form 7 is the one I like the most. Easy to set up and use.

Google Analyticator (Free) – With this plugin you can set up the Google Analytics tracker code on your site or blog within seconds. I know there are some other plugins that do the exact same thing but I have been using Google Analyticator for a few years now and I have never been disappointed with it.

Google XML Sitemaps (Free) – This plugin automatically generates XML sitemaps and submits them to Google Webmaster Tools for you. Whenever you publish a new post or page, the sitemap is updated. This will get your new posts and pages indexed in Google in no time. I actually see most of my new posts and pages indexed in Google within seconds. Great stuff!

KB Robots.txt (Free) – With this plugin you can easily add a robots.txt file to your site or blog. This is very useful if there are things you don’t want Google and other search engines to index. For more information on robot.txt files, read Javascript Kit’s introduction to robots.txt: Introduction to robots.txt

Pretty Link (Free & Paid) – Because no one likes ugly links, you want to create short, nice links so you can share them without worrying about anything. Pretty Link comes in two versions: Pretty Link Lite (Free) and Pretty Link Pro (Paid). With Pretty Link Lite you can shrink and track your links, which is more than enough for most of us but if you want to hyperlink certain keywords on your site or blog, go for the Pro version.

W3 Total Cache (Free) – This plugin will help you improve your site or blog performance and user experience via caching. W3 Total Cache makes your posts and pages load faster, and because it stores static versions of your site or blog, it requires much less CPU processing than using WordPress by itself.

WordPress Database Backup (Free) – This plugin allows you to easily backup your WordPress database so you can restore it if something goes wrong. You can either download it, get it emailed to you or get it saved on your hosting. You can also schedule backups so you don’t have to worry about anything once it’s set up.

Digi Link Doctor (Paid) – This plugin allows you to easily find and fix broken links. With Digi Link Doctor you will greatly reduce the risk of losing traffic to broken links and pages that don’t exist anymore. With this plugin you can redirect people who clicked a broken link to pretty much any page you want: your homepage, your contact page, or even another site…

Must-Have WordPress Plugins

There are quite a few more plugins that I consider as must-have WordPress plugins but they are all a little more advanced. Anyhow, if you think I missed any important one, feel free to leave a comment below! What are those you think are must-have WordPress plugins?

If the search engines don’t know about the backlinks you created, they’re pretty much useless. You need to let Google and other search engines know about your newly created backlinks, and get the pages that link to your pages indexed. Backlinks will count as backlinks and have an influence on the rankings only if they are found by the search engines. If not, they have nearly no value at all. Here are a few options that you have to get your backlinks indexed in the search engines faster:

Add your URL to Google

First, you should submit the URL of the page that links to your site to Google: Add your URL to Google. To be honest with you I don’t know how effective this is, but I guess you can trust Google… Unfortunately you cannot submit multiple URLs at once, so if you have a lot of URLs to submit, I suggest that you look at other options.

XML Sitemaps

If you own the site or blog you built the page on, I suggest that you create an XML sitemap and submit it to Google Webmaster Tools. If you use WordPress as a content management platform, you should install the Google XML Sitemaps plugin, which will create the XML sitemap for you, and submit it to Google Webmaster Tools. I actually consider this plugin as a must-have plugin!

RSS Pinging

If the page you created comes with an RSS feed, you should submit it to ping services like:

- Pingoat
- Ping-o-Matic
- Feed Shark

There are many more but these ones are the ones I use and I’m pretty satisfied with the results I get. Submitting your RSS feeds to ping services will help you spread the word about your newly created backlinks.

If you use a link building service like SocialMonkee, which allows you to create up to 100 backlinks to a page of yours, you can submit the RSS feed of your URL submission, so your backlinks get indexed in just a few hours or a few days. For more information on SocialMonkee, read the blog post I published late January: SocialMonkee (Instant Backlink Builder)

Whenever you build backlinks to your pages, make sure you consider submitting the URL to Google, creating an XML sitemap (or updating the existing one) and submit it to Google Wesmaster Tools and/or submitting the RSS feed to the ping services mentioned above. This will help you get your backlinks indexed in the search engines faster. I hope this helps! If you use any other solution, feel free to leave a comment below to let everyone know!

One Account, Multiples Email Addresses

What I really like about ViralinBox is that you can have several email addresses on the same account. I have a few personal email addresses, a few other ones for work… and I find it annoying when I have to log in and log out every time I need to switch from one account to another. With ViralinBox, one email account is enough! Let’s say your ViralinBox email address is john@reply.cm, you can create john.personal@reply.cm for your personal emails, john.business@reply.com for your business emails and so on. This also means that every time you join a program, like ClickBank, you can create a new email address for it like john.clickbank@reply.cm. This way all the incoming emails are filtered automatically, there’s no need for you to create labels and/or filters.

A New Email Address For Every Program You Join

The best part is that you don’t even need to actually create the new email address when joining a new program. Even if the email address doesn’t exist yet, use it to join the program, and ViralinBox will automatically create a new box when an email is sent to that email address (soon after you’ve joined the program in most cases). All you need to do is to approve the new box, and of course you can close it if you don’t want to receive any more emails from that source. This is an awesome feature, because it means you can permanently stop spam with the push of a button!

List Building & Marketing Features

ViralinBox also comes with powerful list building and marketing features, including a downline builder, a system mailer and various advertising tools including text and banner ads and guaranteed visitors. The mailer is a very interesting feature because it allows you to send emails to random members, so you can send your offers to other online business owners and marketers like you. ViralinBox guarantees a 100% deliverability rate, because all emails are sent to ViralinBox email addresses, and members are rewarded for checking other people’s offers.

Free & Paid Memberships

ViralinBox is free to join, but you can upgrade your account for extra features and benefits. For example as a Silver (Free) Member, you can email up to 250 random members every day, up to 500 as a Gold Member, up to 2,000 as a Platinum Member, and up to 4,000 as a Diamond Member. As a Platinum and Diamond you receive respectively 1,000 and 2,000 Mailing Credits every day so if you’re after traffic and leads make sure you upgrade your account! You can also earn Mailing & Advertising Credits by simply using ViralinBox, like clicking the links in the emails sent by other members.

I started my online career with Hotmail, then switched to Gmail, and I’m now slowly but surely switching to ViralinBox! Every time I join a new program I now use a ViralinBox email address, so I know I have my mailbox under control if something goes wrong (if someone decides to send me unwanted emails for example). Anyhow, if you work online, I highly recommend that you get yourself a ViralinBox account! ViralinBox is a must-have if you’re in the online business and marketing industry! Click here to claim your mailbox!