Friday, December 24, 2010

Retirement Plans for Solo Entrepreneurs


Saving for retirement is even more important for solo-entrepreneurs because you don't have a company sponsored pension plan or matching 401K contributions to rely on. There are many retirement plans available to self employed individuals and small businesses. Which one is right for you?

Here is just a sample of the retirement plans available to solo-preneurs and small businesses:

Roth IRA – although this is not just for solo-preneurs, this is the first place you should look to save if you are just starting to save for retirement (or resuming to save after starting a business). Roth IRAs are low-cost, very flexible, and allow you to grow money tax-free as long as you follow the distribution rules. Contributions can be made up to $4,000, and can be withdrawn at any time without tax or penalty (earnings withdrawn may be subject to penalty and tax if withdrawn before age 59 ½ and certain other conditions are not met).

SEP IRA – if you're maxing out your Roth IRA, and are ready to save more, a SEP IRA allows you to save up to 25% of your compensation (20% of your self-employment income) for a maximum of $44,000 per year. Contributions are tax-deductible, and SEP IRAs have low maintenance fees. Contributions can be made for employees also, but employees cannot contribute to their own SEP IRA. This is a good choice if you just have a handful of employees and are looking for a low-cost way to save for your own and your employees' retirement.

Simple IRA – a Simple plan offers many of the benefits of a 401K, but with less IRS reporting requirements. You can contribute up to $10,000 to a Simple IRA, with an employer match of up to 3%. Contributions are tax-deductible, and Simple IRAs also enjoy low annual fees. Employees are allowed to contribute to Simple plans, and a company match is mandatory. If you have a lower salary (or self-employment income) in your small business, a Simple IRA allows you to put more away towards your retirement than other plans
Solo 401K – for small businesses with no employees, the solo-401K allows you to put the maximum amount away, with less cost and less reporting requirements than a traditional 401K. Similar to a SEP IRA, contributions max out at $44,000. However, unlike a SEP IRA, participants in a Solo-401K can contribute up to 100% of the first $15,000 of compensation or self-employment income, and an additional amount up to 25% of your compensation. This is important because it allows you to save substantially more than a SEP IRA, if your compensation is less than $220,000 per year. A solo-401K is not appropriate for small business with employees or expecting to add employees.

There's no one best plan for all small businesses. The best plan for you will depend on many factors, such as whether you have employees or not, how much you want to contribute each year, how much time you want to spend administering the plan, etc. To get more information about small business retirement plans, contact a no-load mutual fund company, a discount brokerage company or a fee-only financial planner.


in Entrepreneurs

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

How To Recover Lost Data



Computer files are a lot more important to some people than their lives because it represents their whole life's work and achievement. There are people who rely on their computers for almost everything, from their daily schedules, business and personal files and what have you. The possibility of losing their computer data is thus a horrifying thought for them.

Even a student who uses his computer to store assignments, research papers and other school data will be dismayed at the though of losing such files. What more for a computer dependent entrepreneur who relies on his computer for the day to day existence of his business. Losing computer data for both types of computer users would mean a catastrophe because once lost, computer data can no longer be recovered.

However, technological advancements have made data recovery possible depending on a lot of factors. For one, computer users are advised to make back ups of their computer data to make sure they would not be caught red handed when computer data is destroyed. For some who hold very important computer data, the back up itself should even be further backed up to make sure there is a way of recover lost data.

Fortunately, there are companies who offer data recovery services in case of an unforeseen disaster like corruption of files or crashing of a computer hard drive. People who store very important data in their computers need to have back ups but in any case, they should be acquainted with a computer company that can offer them fast and efficient services for the recovery of their lost computer data




It is thus pertinent that computer users have a way of knowing where to contact computer companies who can recover lost data for them no matter how such data was lost. There are various ways of losing precious data and one of those is carelessness. People take for granted that computers are very fast and efficient machines they can accidentally command their computers to lose or delete data in a flash.

The widespread use of internet has also been responsible for thousands of computer crashes all over the world because of viruses that attack computer hard drives. There are plenty of technical reasons why data is lost. Added to that are unforeseen disasters like fire or other calamity.

Computer users who have backed up their lost data but who discover that their back ups do not work still have a recourse. Rest assured that there are companies and software that can recover your computer files efficiently and quickly to minimize your potential losses.

Companies providing data recovery are equipped with technical people who around the globe and are more than capable of bringing back lost data. You just have to be able to know them beforehand so that when your computer data gets lost or destroyed then you have immediate access to their services.


in Data Recovery

The Other Side Of Mexican Cooking



High-quality bell peppers, summer squash and cucumbers may not have arrived in the farmer's markets yet, but they're crisp, fresh and abundant at the supermarket-and most likely imported from Mexico.

Many people don't realize that Mexico exports far more than just chiles, avocados, tomatoes, limes and other produce you think of as being in Mexican food. Bell peppers in several colors, summer squash in many varieties, and different varieties of cucumbers are just as commonly available from our warm and sunny neighbor to the south.

Mexico has exported high-quality produce to the U.S. for more than 100 years. All Mexican produce undergoes strict quality and safety assurances before it crosses the U.S. border, so you can know it's safe and fresh. Plus, it's healthy: Red, yellow and orange bell peppers are high in beta-carotene and vitamin C. Standard-sized cucumbers are just 39 calories each. And yellow squash and zucchini are an excellent source of magnesium.

Try these vegetables in salads this month, or sliced on sandwiches, or in a stir-fry. You can even use summer squash and red bell peppers in your salsa.

Zucchini & Red Pepper Salsa

2 pounds zucchini (look for small to medium ones)

2 medium red bell peppers, seeded and cut into a small julienne

1/2 cup peeled, seeded and diced cucumber

2 tablespoons finely chopped red onion

2 serrano chiles, seeded and minced

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Trim and dice zucchini, and place in a medium bowl. Add julienne of red pepper, cucumber, red onion and chiles. Dress with olive oil, lime juice and salt, and toss to incorporate. Gently stir in cilantro and serve with yellow or blue tortilla chips, round slices of jicama, or thin slices of French bread. Makes 8 servings.

Your Online EMR Software





What's the best route for your practice to take to meet and fulfill all the needs of your clients? How can you make sure that your practice stays up-to-date and on top of all the medical record procedures? Electronic medical record software can and will help your practice with the medical records your staff has to process. The best option is to determine which emr system suits your practice so that everything is able to run effectively and efficiently for your staff and clients.


EMR software provides a number of solutions to better patient care. As we all know, money is a huge concern for practices that are big and small. This software will help save time for your patients and staff and, most importantly, save money for your practice. With time saved on paper work, your staff will be able to pay more attention to your clients and their needs. It will simplify the lives of your staff as they learn to schedule, bill and do reports with this software. Not all emr systems are right for your practice. The type of software that you need depends on the size of your practice. Large clinics have different needs than those of smaller practices. For this reason, choosing the right emr functions is vital to the stability of your practice.

ASP Electronic Medical Record
For your office you need to find the emr solution that best fits your practice environment. Once selected, you can customize the software so you and your staff are on the same page. Customization will make it easier for you stuff to look up, locate, and retrieve client data. With broadband Internet connection, your practice will not have to worry about taking care and backing up the information. Servers, back-up, and IT problems are all taken care of by the IT professionals of the company's software from who you purchase it. Your practice's files are always secure and available to your staff for quick and easy processing. Switching computers is not a problem in case of a virus or crash. All information is securely stored and backed-up by the vendor. The best part about ASP electronic medical record is that it allows flexibility. It's a monthly cost and not a huge startup fee for your practice. This gives you the time necessary to use it and see how much it can help your practice reach new levels of service and efficiency.




EMR Systems
Setting up the system and having it customized to your practice is the way it should be. Have you ever had someone teach you a certain way to do something and that turned out to be harder than if you were able to do it yourself? I have and that's why customizing all the different functions to your office will make it an easier process for your staff, and they will be able to handle their duties to guarantee a smoother running practice. The less you have to worry about the duties of your staff will bring greater ease to your mind and you'll know that the job is being done right and your patient needs are being fulfilled.


in Software

How To Find Your IP Address . DNS Address . IPv4 . IPv6







Article : How To Find Your IP Address . DNS Address . IPv4 . IPv6
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IP address
(Internet Protocol address) is a unique address that certain electronic devices use in order to identify and communicate with each other on a computer network utilizing the Internet Protocol standard (IP)-in simpler terms, a computer address. Any participating network device-including routers, computers, time-servers, printers, Internet fax machines, and some telephones-can have their own unique address.
An IP address can also be thought of as the equivalent of a street address or a phone number ( compare: VoIP (voice over (the) internet protocol)) for a computer or other network device on the Internet. Just as each street address and phone number uniquely identifies a building or telephone, an IP address can uniquely identify a specific computer or other network device on a network. An IP address differs from other contact information, however, because the linkage of a user's IP address to his/her name is not publicly available information.
IP addresses can appear to be shared by multiple client devices either because they are part of a shared hosting web server environment or because a network address translator (NAT) or proxy server acts as an intermediary agent on behalf of its customers, in which case the real originating IP addresses might be hidden from the server receiving a request. A common practice is to have a NAT hide a large number of IP addresses, in the private address space defined by RFC 1918, an address block that cannot be routed on the public Internet. Only the "outside" interface(s) of the NAT need to have Internet-routable addresses.
Most commonly, the NAT device maps TCP or UDP port numbers on the outside to individual private addresses on the inside. Just as there may be site-specific extensions on a telephone number, the port numbers are site-specific extensions to an IP address.
IP addresses are managed and created by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). The IANA generally allocates super-blocks to Regional Internet Registries, who in turn allocate smaller blocks to Internet service providers and enterprises.

DNS Address:

On the Internet, the Domain Name System (DNS) associates various sorts of information with so-called domain names; most importantly, it serves as the "phone book" for the Internet: it translates human-readable computer hostnames, e.g. en.wikipedia.org, into the IP addresses that networking equipment needs for delivering information. It also stores other information such as the list of mail exchange servers that accept email for a given domain. In providing a worldwide keyword-based redirection service, the Domain Name System is an essential component of contemporary Internet use.

Uses :

The most basic use of DNS is to translate hostnames to IP addresses. It is in very simple terms like a phone book. For example, if you want to know the internet address of en.wikipedia.org, the Domain Name System can be used to tell you it is 66.230.200.100. DNS also has other important uses.
Pre-eminently, DNS makes it possible to assign Internet destinations to the human organization or concern they represent, independently of the physical routing hierarchy represented by the numerical IP address. Because of this, hyperlinks and Internet contact information can remain the same, whatever the current IP routing arrangements may be, and can take a human-readable form (such as "wikipedia.org") which is rather easier to remember than an IP address (such as 66.230.200.100). People take advantage of this when they recite meaningful URLs and e-mail addresses without caring how the machine will actually locate them.
The Domain Name System distributes the responsibility for assigning domain names and mapping them to IP networks by allowing an authoritative server for each domain to keep track of its own changes, avoiding the need for a central registrar to be continually consulted and

History :

The practice of using a name as a more human-legible abstraction of a machine's numerical address on the network predates even TCP/IP, and goes all the way to the ARPAnet era. Back then however, a different system was used, as DNS was only invented in 1983, shortly after TCP/IP was deployed. With the older system, each computer on the network retrieved a file called HOSTS.TXT from a computer at SRI (now SRI International). The HOSTS.TXT file mapped numerical addresses to names. A hosts file still exists on most modern operating systems, either by default or through configuration, and allows users to specify an IP address (eg. 192.0.34.166) to use for a hostname (eg. www.example.net) without checking DNS. As of 2006, the hosts file serves primarily for troubleshooting DNS errors or for mapping local addresses to more organic names. Systems based on a hosts file have inherent limitations, because of the obvious requirement that every time a given computer's address changed, every computer that seeks to communicate with it would need an update to its hosts file.
The growth of networking called for a more scalable system: one that recorded a change in a host's address in one place only. Other hosts would learn about the change dynamically through a notification system, thus completing a globally accessible network of all hosts' names and their associated IP Addresses.
At the request of Jon Postel, Paul Mockapetris invented the Domain Name System in 1983 and wrote the first implementation. The original specifications appear in RFC 882 and 883. In 1987, the publication of RFC 1034 and RFC 1035 updated the DNS specification and made RFC 882 and RFC 883 obsolete. Several more-recent RFCs have proposed various extensions to the core DNS protocols.
In 1984, four Berkeley students - Douglas Terry, Mark Painter, David Riggle and Songnian Zhou - wrote the first UNIX implementation, which was maintained by Ralph Campbell thereafter. In 1985, Kevin Dunlap of DEC significantly re-wrote the DNS implementation and renamed it BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain, previously: Berkeley Internet Name Daemon). Mike Karels, Phil Almquist and Paul Vixie have maintained BIND since then. BIND was ported to the Windows NT platform in the early 1990s.
Due to BIND's long history of security issues and exploits, several alternative nameserver/resolver programs have been written and distributed in recent years.
How DNS Work In The Theory :
The domain name space consists of a tree of domain names. Each node or branch in the tree has one or more resource records, which hold information associated with the domain name. The tree sub-divides into zones. A zone consists of a collection of connected nodes authoritatively served by an authoritative DNS nameserver. (Note that a single nameserver can host several zones.)
When a system administrator wants to let another administrator control a part of the domain name space within his or her zone of authority, he or she can delegate control to the other administrator. This splits a part of the old zone off into a new zone, which comes under the authority of the second administrator's nameservers. The old zone becomes no longer authoritative for what goes under the authority of the new zone.
A resolver looks up the information associated with nodes. A resolver knows how to communicate with name servers by sending DNS requests, and heeding DNS responses. Resolving usually entails iterating through several name servers to find the needed information.
Some resolvers function simplistically and can only communicate with a single name server. These simple resolvers rely on a recursing name server to perform the work of finding information for them.

IPv4:

Internet Protocol version 4 is the fourth iteration of the Internet Protocol (IP) and it is the first version of the protocol to be widely deployed. IPv4 is the dominant network layer protocol on the Internet and apart from IPv6 it is the only protocol used on the Internet.
It is described in IETF RFC 791 (September 1981) which made obsolete RFC 760 (January 1980). The United States Department of Defense also standardized it as MIL-STD-1777.
IPv4 is a data-oriented protocol to be used on a packet switched internetwork (e.g., Ethernet). It is a best effort protocol in that it does not guarantee delivery. It does not make any guarantees on the correctness of the data; It may result in duplicated packets and/or packets out-of-order. These aspects are addressed by an upper layer protocol (e.g., TCP, and partly by UDP).



The entire purpose of IP is to provide unique global computer addressing to ensure that two computers communicating over the Internet can uniquely identify one another.

Addressing :

IPv4 uses 32-bit (4-byte) addresses, which limits the address space to 4,294,967,296 possible unique addresses. However, some are reserved for special purposes such as private networks (~18 million addresses) or multicast addresses (~1 million addresses). This reduces the number of addresses that can be allocated as public Internet addresses. As the number of addresses available are consumed, an IPv4 address shortage appears to be inevitable, however Network Address Translation (NAT) has significantly delayed this inevitability.
This limitation has helped stimulate the push towards IPv6, which is currently in the early stages of deployment and is currently the only contender to replace IPv4.

Allocation :

Originally, the IP address was divided into two parts:

* Network id : first octet
* Host id : last three octets

This created an upper limit of 256 networks. As the networks began to be allocated, this was soon seen to be inadequate.
To overcome this limit, different classes of network were defined, in a system which later became known as classful networking. Five classes were created (A, B, C, D, & E), three of which (A, B, & C) had different lengths for the network field. The rest of the address field in these three classes was used to identify a host on that network, which meant that each network class had a different maximum number of hosts. Thus there were a few networks with lots of host addresses and numerous networks with only a few addresses. Class D was for multicast addresses and class E was reserved.
Around 1993, these classes were replaced with a Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) scheme, and the previous scheme was dubbed "classful", by contrast. CIDR's primary advantage is to allow re-division of Class A, B & C networks so that smaller (or larger) blocks of addresses may be allocated to entities (such as Internet service providers, or their customers) or Local Area Networks.
The actual assignment of an address is not arbitrary. The fundamental principle of routing is that address encodes information about a device's location within a network. This implies that an address assigned to one part of a network will not function in another part of the network. A hierarchical structure, created by CIDR and overseen by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and its Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), manages the assignment of Internet address worldwide. Each RIR maintains a publicly searchable WHOIS database that provides information about IP address assignments; information from these databases plays a central role in numerous tools that attempt to locate IP addresses geographically.

IPv6:

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is a network layer protocol for packet-switched internetworks. It is designated as the successor of IPv4, the current version of the Internet Protocol, for general use on the Internet.
The main improvement brought by IPv6 is a much larger address space that allows greater flexibility in assigning addresses. While IPv6 could support 2128 (about 3.4׳1038) addresses, or approximately 5׳1028 addresses for each of the roughly 6.5 billion people[1] alive today. It was not the intention of IPv6 designers, however, to give permanent unique addresses to every individual and every computer. Rather, the extended address length eliminates the need to use network address translation to avoid address exhaustion, and also simplifies aspects of address assignment and renumbering when changing providers.

Introduction :

By the early 1990s, it was clear that the change to a classless network introduced a decade earlier was not enough to prevent IPv4 address exhaustion and that further changes to IPv4 were needed.[2] By the winter of 1992, several proposed systems were being circulated and by the fall of 1993, the IETF announced a call for white papers (RFC 1550) and the creation of the "IP, the Next Generation" (IPng Area) of working groups.[2][3]
IPng was adopted by the Internet Engineering Task Force on July 25, 1994 with the formation of several "IP Next Generation" (IPng) working groups.[2] By 1996, a series of RFCs were released defining IPv6, starting with RFC 2460. (Incidentally, IPv5 was not a successor to IPv4, but an experimental flow-oriented streaming protocol intended to support video and audio.)
It is expected that IPv4 will be supported alongside IPv6 for the foreseeable future. IPv4-only nodes (clients or servers) will not be able to communicate directly with IPv6 nodes, and will need to go through an intermediary

Features of IPv6 :

[edit] To a great extent, IPv6 is a conservative extension of IPv4. Most transport- and application-layer protocols need little or no change to work over IPv6; exceptions are applications protocols that embed network-layer addresses (such as FTP or NTPv3).
Applications, however, usually need small changes and a recompile in order to run over IPv6.

Larger address space :

The main feature of IPv6 that is driving adoption today is the larger address space: addresses in IPv6 are 128 bits long versus 32 bits in IPv4.
The larger address space avoids the potential exhaustion of the IPv4 address space without the need for network address translation (NAT) and other devices that break the end-to-end nature of Internet traffic. NAT may still be necessary in rare cases, but Internet engineers recognize that it will be difficult in IPv6 and are trying to avoid it whenever possible. It also makes administration of medium and large networks simpler, by avoiding the need for complex subnetting schemes. Subnetting will, ideally, revert to its purpose of logical segmentation of an IP network for optimal routing and access.
The drawback of the large address size is that IPv6 carries some bandwidth overhead over IPv4, which may hurt regions where bandwidth is limited (header compression can sometimes be used to alleviate this problem). IPv6 addresses are harder to memorize than IPv4 addresses, although even IPv4 addresses are much harder to memorize than Domain Name System (DNS) names. DNS protocols have been modified to support IPv6 as well as IPv4.

Stateless auto configuration of hosts :

IPv6 hosts can be configured automatically when connected to a routed IPv6 network. When first connected to a network, a host sends a link-local multicast request for its configuration parameters; if configured suitably, routers respond to such a request with a router advertisement packet that contains network-layer configuration parameters.
If IPv6 autoconfiguration is not suitable, a host can use stateful autoconfiguration (DHCPv6) or be configured manually. Stateless autoconfiguration is only suitable for hosts: routers must be configured manually or by other means

IPv6 scope :

IPv6 defines 3 unicast address scopes: global, site, and link.
Site-local addresses are non-link-local addresses that are valid within the scope of an administratively-defined site and cannot be exported beyond it.
Companion IPv6 specifications further define that only link-local addresses can be used when generating ICMP Redirect Messages [ND] and as next-hop addresses in most routing protocols.
These restrictions do imply that an IPv6 router must have a link-local next-hop address for all directly connected routes (routes for which the given router and the next-hop router share a common subnet prefix).

Links:

Find IP Info: link http://www.ip-adress.com
Find DNS, IPv4, IPv6 : link: http://www.iplobster.com
Find IP Address: link http://www.myip.dk

Best Friend Birthday Gift Ideas







Whatever your age, you want to give your best friend something really special for his or her birthday to show that you appreciate their friendship. Sometimes we feel at a loss because we think that they have everything they could possibly want or use. Not so! There's always something that will have a special meaning because you gave it. Here are some best friend birthday gift ideas that you may have never considered before.

1. For the art lover. Looking for something unusual for those folks who have everything? Instead of jumping in the car and heading for the mall, keep your computer powered up and let your fingers do the shopping at the online stores of American museums and other sites that specialize in replicas of ancient and modern art.

2.For the wine lover. A gift of wine is an excellent expression of how you feel. Now, at many wine online merchants, you can have wine bottles personalized to show how much you care. It doesn't matter whether this is your friend's first time experiencing the wonders of the fruit of the vine, or if he is a serious collector with a large wine cellar. Or, consider a personalized engraved bottle of champagne and toasting glasses.

3. For the environmentalist: Eco-friendly doesn't have to mean drab. There are many, many products that are made from recycled materials of all kind – beer cans that have been made into mugs, tumblers made from recycled glass, sets of bamboo plates, etc. There are many online sites featuring wonderful gifts made from recycled things. Just browse through them and you'll come up with some great best friend birthday gift ideas!

4. For the music lover. Here's one that will top the list of best friend birthday gift ideas:
Make up a CD of #1 songs from the year they were born up to now - you can even theme it: #1 Disco Songs, #1 Heavy Metal Songs, etc. Add in a gift certificate to an online music-downloading site, and they're sure to do a little dance!

5. For the book lover. Buy a gift-card from your local bookstore (or online merchant) and make your own bookmark so your friend will never forget your thoughtfulness. Get on your computer and type up your favorite poem or memorable song lyrics, add some graphics and get it laminated at most office-supply stores. Every time your friend opens a book, he or she will remember you with a smile.

6. For the person who never has any time to herself. Create your own coupon booklet offering your services to help out the one that's always been there for you. Include "a day of gardening", "baby-sit the kids", "clean the house" and "organize the closets". Use your imagination and fit the coupons to the needs of your friend. This thoughtful gesture will be considered by the recipient as one of the best friend birthday gift ideas ever!




7. For the nurturer. Who doesn't deserve a day at the spa? Purchase a sturdy cosmetic bag and add all the fixings for a do-it-yourself spa - hand cream, body lotion, scented oils, face mask, manicure set. Make a relaxing CD to put inside and top it off with a gift certificate at the local spa for a massage on you!

8. For the sentimentalist. Look back into your photo albums and take copies of all your memories over the years. Create a "Memory Lane" scrapbook highlighting your friendship and events you've attended together. As an added touch, get other friends to write special birthday messages throughout the book.

9. For the nature-lover. Make a day of it and go for a hike at your nearest conservation area; bring along a blanket and a picnic basket and you're set an afternoon of fun and reminiscing.

10. For the golfer. Reserve a tee time at a country club that's hard to get into and make a foursome of it by inviting a couple of friends. Start the birthday off right and treat them to a special breakfast at their favorite restaurant.

11. For the movie buff. Get a year's free subscription to Netflix so they'll be able to have DVD's delivered right to their door. All they'll have to do is supply their own popcorn. Or, you can do that too by ordering (online, of course) a selection of premium gourmet popcorn.

12. For the animal lover. Forget about getting a gift designed for your friend; instead get a gift for their pet. There are many fantastic things available online for all types of pets-from jeweled dog collars to fancy bird cages and everything in between. If your friend really loves his or her pet, this could quite possibly rank at the very top of the best friend birthday gift ideas. Of course, you could get your friend a super duper pooper scooper to make the job of cleaning up after Fido much easier. This, too, you can find at the many online sites featuring pet supplies.

13. For the philanthropist. Donate to their favorite cause in their name. In this time of need for so many, this is a gift that truly will be appreciated by all those who care for humanity and/or nature.

14. For the saver. Buy a share of an up and coming stock in your friend's name. You never know-maybe in a few years you'll be getting thanks for starting someone on the road to their first million!

15. For the sports fan. Buy a pair of tickets to a local sporting event in your area (perhaps when your friend's favorite team is playing) and spend an afternoon or evening together.

How to really build backlinks and dominate google

Written by Glen, this post has 198 Comments

link-buildingWithout a doubt, the most frequent post request I’ve had on this site is a post about link building. I rarely take requests, simply because people rarely know what they really want until you give it to them, but this time things are a little different.
First of all, I have been studying SEO day and night since I was 16 (almost 5 years ago) and I’ve ranked on the first page of Google for some of the most competitive keyphrases in the world. Therefore, I like to think I know quite a bit about the topic and can provide some insights in this space.
For those of you who don’t know why links are important, let me just say that if you want to get traffic from the major search engines, they’re crucial. Links from other sites to your site are basically a ‘vote’ that tell search engines you are trusted and you are a good resource for whatever your content is about.
A large percentage of my income to affiliate sites is from traffic via Google, and the difference between ranking 2nd and ranking 1st can literally be thousands of dollars extra on my bottom line.
SEO is generally divided into two parts: on-site optimisation and off-site optimisation. On-site is changes you make to the actual code of your website to help with rankings. In my guide on Wordpress SEO I gave a lot of tips on this that you can also apply to sites that aren’t running the CMS.
Today we’re going to look at the off-site side of things, which is building links.

15 Ways to Build Links to Your Site

Instead of just telling you to do this or do that that many link building guides do, I also want to share a few principles that I believe are crucial in building a website that attracts thousands of high quality links. A few years ago you could take a robotic approach to SEO, but the web is now far too social to rely on old tactics to help your website rank higher.

Build a Site for People

I can’t remember who said this phrase but it’s one of my favourites: “search engines follow people.” Not only does following this motto steer you in the direction of build an honest, legitimate website, it’s also a very true way to get links to your site.
Have you noticed how Wikipedia absolutely dominates Google search results? I don’t believe they should be ranking for 50% of the phrases that they do, but Jimmy Wales built a site for people. It is a resource that millions of people naturally want to use, and because of that, people talk about them.
For a lot of competitive keyphrases online you’ll also find popular blogs, forums and niche social networks ranking highly. If you can get enough real people to care about what you’re doing, then you can’t go far wrong.
When people talk about you online, links follow.

Utilise Guest Posting

I talk about guest blogging a lot here but for good reason – it has lots of benefits. Not only does guest posting get you traffic from relevant websites, it’s also a great way to get links with custom anchor text around the keyphrases you want to rank for.
I have written a massive guide to guest blogging that tells you more about the practice, so read that for a detailed guide on how to get links through this process. To explain how this works in the most basic of forms, when you write articles (for free) for another website, they’re happy to give you a backlink in the byline in return for your content.

Be Useful

Pretty much every legitimate site on the Internet serves some useful purpose to it’s users. Facebook lets you keep in touch with friends and family. Google lets you find awesome websites. Digg lets you find news that you know hundreds of other people recommend. Youtube provides educational value, entertainment, product reviews and much more.
These are some high profile examples, but there are literally millions of useful sites online. This blog helps people leave the rat race and make a living online. PluginID helped people be who they want to be and deal with the issues that come up on the path to get there.
Ask yourself whether your site is helping people to fill a need. If it’s not, then why should people care about you? This might not sound great but everyone active online in any space online is generally just thinking about what’s in it for them.
If you can give people what they want, you can receive what you want.

Check Competitors Backlinks

When I talk about competitors, I simply mean people trying to rank for the same keywords / phrases as you in Google. For example, this site is “trying” to rank for the phrase viral marketing. I put trying in quotes as I’m only implementing a small number of these strategies as I’m not too bothered about ranking.
If I wanted to find great sources of links though, I could simply see which sites are ranking well for the phrase and where their links are coming from. As an example, a site ranking 2nd for me right now is a page on Wilson Web. If I take that URL and do a link search in Yahoo (they shows more backlinks than Google) I can find link sources I can also use:
competitor-links
The operator I use in Yahoo is simply “link:pageurl -site:domain.com” (no quotes) obviously changing the parts in bold for the site that is actually ranking for your keyphrase.
Check your competitors to see if there are freely available link sources that you can also get for your own site. After all, if they’re helping that site rank, they’ll probably help you.

Leave Blog Comments

Most blog comments are nofollowed (this means search engines aren’t supposed to give weight to the link, though I believe Yahoo and Bing still do) so they don’t provide much link juice directly. There is a resource for dofollow blogs where you can leave comments that give link weight, but many of them get spammed and there will only be a few that are relevant to your niche.
I like using blog comments as an indirect way to get links back to your site. For example, if I contact a big blogger out of the blue and ask them to link to my latest article, it’s probably not going to happen. Yet, if I’ve spent some time interacting with their community and leaving comments, it’s more likely that they will fulfil the request (as long as your resource is relevant, and awesome).
Blog comments also drive visitors to your site, which goes back to the point of search engines following people.

Check Flippa Auctions

One of my favourite ways to find awesome sources for links is to check the Flippa marketplace. Flippa is a place for people to buy and sell websites and has a very interactive community. Even if you’re not looking to buy or sell sites though, it can be a great way to find links.
If you take the time to look around, you’ll find a number of repeat sellers who are selling websites that have ranked well in Google very quickly. In some cases, these sites are ranking for phrases that bring in thousands of dollars, just in a few short months.
Looking at these sites and finding where their backlinks are coming from has provided me with a lot of easy-to-duplicate tactics and links that Google clearly love.

Write Awesome Content

A few years ago you could write an awesome post and it would receive hundreds of links. Look at the trackbacks on old Copyblogger or Steve Pavlina posts and you’ll see what I’m talking about. With the introduction of Twitter and sites like StumbleUpon, people are more inclined to ’share’ sites, rather than link to them from their own blogs.
The amount of links you can get for awesome content has definitely decreased, but by no means has it stopped. My post on Wordpress SEO picked up a lot of blog links and is getting new ones all the time. My friend Danny also noticed the decrease in bloggers linking out and started a mini-campaign about it.
“Awesome” content means a lot of different things to different people. In terms of this site, it might be a great resource post. For a humor blog, it may be a funny image. For your Gadget blog, it may be announcing a new product before anyone else.
If you know your niche well enough, you should know what people want.

Participate on Social Bookmarking Sites

I really don’t like this tactic if I’m honest, but I can’t deny that social bookmarking links are helping a number of my sites rank. Bookmarking sites like Delicious simply give people a place to store their favourite links an organisable archive, which is generally far more useful than your browsers bookmark bar.
They’re also available from any computer anywhere in the world, so a lot of these sites have popped up due to their usefulness. Many of these sites offer dofollow links and custom anchor text, although they aren’t the best links in the world to pick up.
You can automate the process using something like Bookmarking Demon (not an affiliate link – none of those here) or you can even pay someone on Digitalpoint to submit to hundreds of sites manually.
To utilise this tactic in a more ethical manner, simply sign-up on a few sites you really want to use and bookmark your favourite links from around the web. Just don’t forget to link to your own site as well.

Add Links to Your Forum Signatures

Unlike blogs where you get nofollow links for contributing to the discussion, most forums allow you to have a (followed) link in your signature, every time you make a post. If you’re already active on some communities online, see if you can put a link in your signature.
I really don’t recommend you sign up on lots of sites just to get links, but if there are sites that you’re really interested in and want to participate, then link back to your site. Note that if you have 10,000 posts on a forum already and add a link there, that’s not going to be anywhere near as powerful as 10,000 links where each is from a different site.
It’s far better to have links from different domains, rather than lots from the same source.

Utilise Free Content Sites

Another link source that I don’t really love but I see doing well for a lot of sites is utilising free content sites like Squidoo, Gather and Hubpages. These sites basically allow you to sign-up, write about whatever you please, and link to yourself however you want.
Hubpages is very unpoliced and they’ll basically allow anything to stay on their site, but Squidoo (owned by Seth Godin) recently removed thousands of spammy pages from their site and are constantly policing them.
If you are going to use sites like this, at least take the time to to create a good resource for users, rather than just throwing links to all of your sites in there. Not only will that make your link more valuable (more relelvant and on a page with lots of content) but its better for these communities.

Use Article Directories

A much better source of links if you want to receive them in return for your content is using article directories. There are a lot of awful, highly spammed directories out there, but there are definitely a few worth looking for.
My favourites include Ezine articles, Article Dashboard and Go Articles. Ezine and a number of other sites review articles manually first so you’re not going to be able to spam them (which you shouldn’t want to, anyway). However, if you write good content, or pay someone else to, then you can get a great link in return.
Ezine is definitely the most trusted and you’ll actually find the page you write the article on can rank quite well, quite quickly. Once you’ve inserted your article content, you’re given the opportunity to fill in an Author Box and you can put your links in there.

Collaborate with Influencers

Some of the most popular posts on PluginID were the ones where I collaborated with other influences in the personal development niche. Examples include the Face-Off series that I ran and times where I would ask the same question to multiple people.
If your idea is unique and interesting, you’ll find that the people involved are often happy to share the piece via social media sites and even link to it from their own blogs.

Interview Someone Important

Similar to the last idea, interviewing someone in your industry or someone high profile is likely to get you a lot of attention. There are two ways to gain links via this method.
First of all, you can interview people who you hope will link back to the interview from their own sites. Or, you can utilise your connections (or hustle, hard) and interview someone the average person couldn’t get to answer their questions.
I personally tried to interview Eckhart Tolle (an author who has been featured on Oprah and sold millions of books) but didn’t get very far. If I had managed to land the interview though, I know a lot of people would have linked to it naturally.

Design a Unique, Beautiful Site

There are many ways to have a good looking website. I personally like to buy templates from the likes of Theme Forest and customise them heavily (like I did with ViperChill). You could also hire a designer like Reese to create something custom that looks amazing.
Once you have a beautiful site in place, there are literally thousands of link opportunities. “Where?” I hear you ask. “CSS and design directories”, is my answer. There are tons of sites which showcase beautiful designs and offer a link to the site so people can view the real thing, rather than a screenshot or thumbnail.
Many of these have a lot of authority in Google so if you want to find some, here’s a good place to start.

Create a Great Resource

There are a number of personal development bloggers giving sitewide (links from every page) links to PluginID because I created an amazing resource. That resource was a list of top blogs in my industry, but yours doesn’t have to be the same.
Can you create a free eBook that answers a need? What about a resource on 101 ways to do ‘X’? How about a list of other sites which offer great advice on a popular topic? Think about something that you know your readers would want but would take a lot of work for you to put together.
That’s the resource you should be creating.

What Not To Do

Now that we’ve covered some of my favourite ways to get links to a site, I quickly want to run through some things you shouldn’t be doing. While search engines generally reward sites with a lot of links by giving them high rankings, there’s also a few things they don’t like.
Remember: search engines want to show the best results to their users. If you’re manipulating link counts heavily and don’t really deserve to rank for your phrase, then they don’t want you to.
Here are a few things to watch out for:
  • Building Links too Fast – Build links very quickly is usually unnatural. There may be times where write a post that gets hundreds of links overnight and that’s not going to penalise you, but just be careful about building too many links for your site as a whole. I’m not a search engine, so I can’t give exact numbers, but if you think you might be going a bit over the top, then you probably are.
  • Using Spammy Resources – Not all links are created equal. It would be far more powerful for ViperChill to have a homepage link from Problogger than it would be to have a link from Hubpages or an automated link farm. You can’t control who links to you, but just be careful where you focus your link building time.
  • Taking Part in Link Exchanges – If you want to add sites to your blogroll or resources page then add them, but don’t just do it because people are linking to you. Link exchanges worked well about 2 years ago, but are a very dated technique that search engines are well aware of.
  • Building Links Around One Phrase – You might have a phrase that you want to rank for and the best way to do that is to get links with that phrase as an anchor text, but only having links with that phrase is very unnatural. Most links help your rankings in general, so don’t be afraid to get links for different phrases or even your domain as a whole, like http://www.viperchill.com

Tips for a new year of blogging


by Andrew Spittle
The holidays make for a crazy time of year. You’re spending time with family, traveling, maybe enjoying some winter weather. All of this can help you create wonderful blog posts. :)
Here are a couple tips on how to let your blog shine as you head into the new year.

Blogging made easy


Press This is a great way to simplify your blogging experience. It lets you grab content from any blog post, article, website, or photo you find on the web. If you can you see it in your browser, you can use Press This to blog about it on WordPress.com!
It will automatically insert an image, quote, video, or link on any website directly into your blog post as well as include a link back to the source. No more having to copy and paste 5 different things. With Press This you can share great content quickly.

Drag the bookmarklet (the link that says “Press This”) from the Tools page of your WordPress.com Dashboard into your browser’s bookmarks bar to get started. This adds a handy link you can use to post content.
The next time you want to share a link, photo, or video on another site just press the bookmarklet. You’ll see a window pop up where you can add photos, video, and quotes straight from the site.


The two icons next to “Add:” let you choose which photos or videos on the page you want to insert into your post.
Combine all of that with the mobile options we featured last month and you can really blog from anywhere on the web or anywhere in the world.

Let your photos shine

After many lovely days spent with family during the holidays you probably have dozens (hundreds? thousands?!) of photos from trips, meals, adventures, and lovely winter weather. WordPress.com makes it easy to showcase these right on your blog.
Using our built-in photo galleries or slideshows you can share the best moments from the holidays. Here’s a few from my trip to Yosemite National Park in the winter a few years ago.
Between Press This and showcasing your photos you have some great toys to play with as you make your blog even better in the new year. Enjoy the holidays!

20 Top Blog Sales – Sell Your Blog For Millions



Top Blog Sites That Have Been Sold

The whole point of this post is to make you think of your end goal, where you want to go with your online business. Every day your working on your business, don’t just think about how much you made that day but how much your going to make for investing an additional day into your business when you go to sell your blog/company. Some of these guys were worth $30,000 a day – now that’s what gets me excited about blogging.
In my head, I have already decided I’m going to sell my blog network for millions of dollars. Here’s the clever thing about what I’m doing:
Here in the UK, if I make over £150,000 a year, I have to pay 50% (actually 51%) of anything over that to the government which makes it quite an easy decision to not take the money out of the company but instead to invest it in it. So my whole game plan is not take a big salary, live within my means and invest every penny into my business so that I can grow it to the point where it gets millions of visitors every month and ideally make me 7 figures a month also. If I keep reinvesting, growing my business for a few short years I will then be in position to sell the company for lets say a cool £10,000,000. On the first £2 million I have to pay 10% tax and then 18% after that. For me, the best part of this isn’t so much the financial side, it’s the fact that I would of built something amazing, something to be proud of, the money is just a bonus! This reminds me of this saying:
Entrepreneurship is about living a few years of your life like most won’t, so that you can live the rest of your life like most can’t!
Now think big and get inspired!

#1 Ugo.com – Sold For: $100 million

ugo logo1 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For Millions
Founded: 1997
Year of Sale: 2007
Approximate Daily Worth:  $27,397
The website Ugo was founded in 1997 as Unified Gamers Online  (UGO) by Chris Sherman.Action World Inc. bought them very early on and decided to rename the business. They changed the name to  UGO Networks, however the name didn’t stick for long as it was once again changed to Online Underground. Eventually it was sold on to the Hearst Corporation approximately $100 million.
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#2 Fotolog – Sold For: $90 million

Fotolog logo1 300x100 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For Millions
Founded: 2002
Year of Sale: 2007
Approximate Daily Worth:  $49,315
Fotolog was founded by Scott Heiferman, in 2002, and unfortunately the site began to have problems just 3yrs later in 2005 when the amount of visitors and members started to become too much for the websites servers. The website itself currently receives over 20 million unique visitors each month and was sold to Hi-Media Group for the tidy sum of $90 Million.
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#3 Consumersearch - Sold for: $33 million

csnew logo 300x66 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For Millions
Founded: 1999
Year of Sale: 2007
Approximate Daily Worth:  $11,301
Consumersearch was founded by co-founders Derek grew and Carl Harmaan in 1999, the pair also owned a privately held corporation at the time. The website sold for a huge $33 million and the news was first released by the New York Times Co. The buyers,  About.com are also owned by the New York Times Co. In 2009 the website was honored in the 13th annual webby awards competition.
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#4 TechCrunch – Sold for: $30 million

TechCrunch logo 270 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For MillionsFounded: 2005
Year of Sale: 2010
Daily Worth: $16,438
TechCrunch is a very well-known website publication, which is well grounded within the technology and gadget niche’s. The blog was first founded in 2005 by Michael Arrington, and the first time it was published live online was on June 11, 2005. It’s astonishing that in just five years Michael had created such a unique website which was full of valuable  content and managed to sell the website for a total of $30 million to AOL.
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#5 PaidContent – Sold for: $30 million

Founded: 2002paidcontent logo 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For Millions
Year of Sale: 2008
Daily Worth: $13698
Paidcontent was founded by Rafat Ali, in 2002, and was basically an online resource for; information, analysis and news. Rafat Ali the founder of the website, was a journalist and so the website itself was a natural progression for him. In the end the website was eventually brought out by Guardian Media Group $30 Million (2008) Ali Rafat however is still part of the website, and is currently working for the company as an editor.
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#6 Tatter and Company – Sold for: $30 million

tnc logo 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For Millions
Founded: 2002
Year of Sale: 2008
Approximate Daily Worth: $13698
Tatter and Company or TNC as it is also known, was founded by Chang-Won Kim and Chester Roh, they formed the company in 2002. Tatter and Company itself was and still is a blogging platform for the Korean nation. I’m sure it is not a major surprise that the company was purchased by  Google for the sum of $30 Million, in 2008.
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#7 Ars Technica – Sold for: $25 million

ars technica logo 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For Millions
Founded: 1998
Year of Sale: 2008
Approximate Daily Worth: $6849
Ars Technica was founded by Ken Fisher, in 1998 and quickly became one of the top and most authoritative blogs with the technology industry. The site provided a great amount of news and sometimes reviews on their chosen niche. The website was purchased by Conde Nast Publications for $25 Million in 2008,  a decade since the year it was founded.
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#8 Weblogs.com – Sold for: $25 million

Founded: 2003weblogsLogo2 300x41 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For Millions
Year of Sale: 2005
Approximate Daily Worth: $34,722
Weblogs Inc was created by Brian Alvey and Jason Calcanis in 2003, with the help of an investment from Mark Cuban. In the early days the business was initially set up for professional readership, they also had a number of other websites running alongside Weblogs, in fact there were approximately a dozen websites in total. Weblogs was purchased in 2005 by AOL to the tidy sum of $25 Million.
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#9 Livejournal.com – Sold for: $25 millionlivejournal logo 272x300 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For Millions

Founded: 1999
Year of Sale: 2007
Approximate Daily Worth: $8561
LiveJournal just as the name suggests was a virtual community where users could keep a blog or an online digital diary, through their free open source server technology. They didn’t stop there though, they had the software allowing users to easily create blogs and diaries online they even allowed for calendars, polls, and even have guest writers. The website sold for approximately $ 25 million to Six Apart  in 2007.
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#10 Bankaholic.com – Sold for: $15 million

bankaholic 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For MillionsFounded: 2006
Year of Sale: 2008
Approximate Daily Worth: $20547
Bankaholic is the creation of founder John Wu who also created CB Land Investments. The website itself was an online banking marketplace which basically provided its customers with credit card offers as well as interest rates and personal financial advice. The website eventually sold for $15 Million to BankRate and now has a hefty team of banking and financial professionals behind it so who knows where it could go? maybe it will be worth double the amount in a year or so.
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#11 Deadline Hollywood – Sold for: $14 million

Founded: 2006
deadline hollywood 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For MillionsYear of Sale: 2009
Approximate Daily Worth: $5479
Deadline Hollywood started off  as a column in the LA weekly, in 2002 by Nikki Finke. The column itself was basically an informative entertainment column based around the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Nikki decided to take her now well-known columnto the online world, and the site first went live in 2006 as a blog. She decided upon calling it the ‘Deadline Hollywood Daily’. It was so popular that in 2009 the Mail Media Corporation bought it from her in a lucrative deal with $14 million. The website has since been changed to deadline.com.
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#12 Wonkette – Sold for: $12 million

images 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For MillionsFounded: 2004
Year of Sale: 2006
Approximate Daily Worth: $16438
Wonkette is a website that was established in January 2004, it was part of the Gawker Media Network, and it’s founding editor was Ana Marie Cox, who has also been the editor of the well known website suck.com. Gawker Media thought a downturn in the internet boom was on the horizon, and not wanting to lose all the money they had poured into the website they sold it. The buyers were Ken Layne and his business partners, paying  $12 Million in 2006. It’s also worth mentioning that Ken Layne was also the editor of the site at the time he and his partners bought it.

#13 Celebrity baby blog -Sold for: $10 million

celebrity baby blog logo 300x38 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For MillionsFounded: 2004
Year of Sale: 2008
Approximate Daily Worth: $6849
Celebrity Baby blog was created by Danielle Friedland in 2004, and as you can see from the name of the blog,  the topic is pretty obvious. Yes that’s right it’s another blog about famous babies. With celebrities a current trend at the time (when are they not, right?) and her website gaining a very steady stream of visitors,  She managed to sell the blog to Times Inc in a deal worth $10 Million. Not bad for a blog based on babies, the blog has also changed names since to babyrazzi.com.
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#14 Tree Hugger – Sold for: $10 million

treehugger logo 300x72 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For MillionsFounded: 2005
Year of Sale: 2007
Approximate Daily Worth: $6849
Tree Hugger was the brainchild of Graham Hill, an environmentalist entrepreneur who knew how to use technology to his advantage. He managed to sell the blog to the Discovery Communication for a neat and tidy sum of $10 Million in 2007. You got to admit there’s probably not that many tree huggers out their worst $10 million!
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#15 Freakanomics -Sold for: $8 million

freakonomics logo 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For MillionsFounded: 2005
Year of Sale: 2007
Approximate Daily Worth: $10958
Freakanomics, was founded by Stephen J. Dubner, in the year 2005  and was sold just two years after it was first created. Stephen was a professional journalist for the New York Times, when he started the blog, which was actually created after the huge success of Dubner’s book, which was also called ‘Freakanomics’ . The website was eventually bought out by the New York Times the sum of $8 million.
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#16 The Consumerist – Sold for: $7 million

logo theconsumerist 300x70 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For MillionsFounded: 2005
Year of Sale: 2008
Approximate Daily Worth: $7305
The Consumerist, is yet another website which was developed by the Gawker Media Group, there doing quite well aren’t they? Anyway, Joel Johnson was the editor-in-chief although the site was originally the idea of Nick Denton and Lockhart Steele both of whom are highly ranked within the Gawker Media Group. They decided to sell the consumerist to Consumer Media LLC when they were offered around $7 Million. I think I may have sold for that price too!
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#17 World Hum – Sold for: $6 million

World Hum logo 300x51 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For MillionsFounded: 2001
Year of Sale: 2007
Approximate Daily Worth: $2739
World Hum is a very highly regarded and award-winning magazine-style blog which was created by Jim Benning and Michael Yessis. The pair were obsessed with travel and decided to create the blog as an outlet for their passion. Within the blog they had all sorts of various categories; how-to sections, question-and-answer sections and where the best places to travel were, as well as how to get there and where to stay once you arrive. Eventually the Travel Channel decided to make them an offer in 2007  to the tune of $6 Million, which they just couldn’t turn down. I can’t say I blame them though.
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#18 Arseblog – Sold for: $5 million

OleOleLogo 300x115 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For MillionsFounded: 2006
Year of Sale: 2007
Approximate Daily Worth: $13698
Arseblog, yes I know you’re properly all sniggering, well at least those of you in the UK as it is a bit of a naughty word but anyway,  the website was created by Andrew Managan in 2006,m due to his undying loyalty to the football team Arsenal FC (Soccer to all of you reading this in the US). In 2007 Andrew was made an offer god-father style, one he definitely could not refuse $5 million by the company Ole Ole. The site has since changed it’s name to Ole Ole.
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#19 GardenRant – Sold for: $1.3 million

gardenrant 300x101 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For MillionsFounded: 1996
Year of Sale: 2007
Approximate Daily Worth: $395.73
GardenRant was formed in 1996 by gardening enthusiast Susan Harris, mainly as a way to share her thoughts, tips and advice as well as sharing event details and special promotions. Though you may think that there wouldn’t be much value in a gardening blog it actually did amazingly well and was eventually bought out by the company GardenWeb for a rough figure of around $1.3 Million, not bad for a blog talked mostly about flowers. Never underestimate the power of any niche community, big or small!
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#20 Politicshome – Sold for: $1.3 million

logo public 20 Top Blog Sales   Sell Your Blog For MillionsFounded: 2008
Year of Sale: 2009
Approximate Daily Worth: $3561
Politicshome was founded just two years ago in 2008 by Stephan Shakespeare, who is also the founder and CEO of YouGov, which is basically an Internet-based market research company. After just one year of the blog being online, Stephan managed to sell the business in a very successful deal with Conservative politician Michael Ashcroft. The deal was worth an approximate $1.3 million.

Chitika