Whitehat VRE Empire: Preliminaries
Time to embark on our whitehat virtual real estate (VRE) adventure. The goal is to create a profitable network of AdSense sites with additional monetization via affiliate links where appropriate.
Let me state at the outset, however, that I make no guarantees as to how well such a “VRE empire” will do, there are simply too many factors that come into play. My hope is that you’ll follow along with me and build your own network, but I can’t promise you’ll make money with your network. I can’t even promise that with the one I’m about to create in front of your eyes! Although I have some strong advantages to start with — I have a couple of “old” sites with fairly high PR that I can use for linking purposes, plus a well-read blog for quick indexing, and a lot of experience building sites — the fact that I’ll be doing this all in public will be a disadvantage. I’m sure some clown will try to do some click fraud to get me kicked out of AdSense — it won’t be the first time it’s happened! No risk, no reward, though.
Sign Up For AdSense, Analytics and Webmaster Tools
If you’re not already an AdSense publisher, please go to the main AdSense page and sign up for the AdSense program. You’ll need an existing site or blog to apply, so you may have to wait. It can take a few days to get approval, so best start now.
You’ll also want to sign up for Google Analytics. Now I know some people will object to this, but if you’re using AdSense on your sites it’s not like Google doesn’t know which sites are yours. And since we’re being totally whitehat, there’s nothing to hide from Google, anyhow.
Finally, sign up for Google Webmaster Tools, a free website management center that lets you see how Google crawls your site. Same argument here as with Analytics — Google will know all about your sites anyhow, so why not take advantage of the free info you can get from Google?
Pay For Domains And Web Hosting
You can build your VRE empire pretty much for free, but there are some costs: you have to pay for domain registration and for web hosting. (Technically, you can avoid web hosting costs by building your sites on free services, but I don’t recommend that — you lose control of your empire. It’s like building on leased land. You want to own the land.)
As I’ve mentioned before, I have a strict separation-of-church-and-state policy with respect to domain registrars and web hosting services. Don’t host sites with your domain registrar. It will save you grief down the road, trust me.
For domain registration, shop around. If you need privacy on the domains, I usually recommend 1&1, because privacy is available for free and the price isn’t bad. If privacy isn’t a concern, you can go with the big players like GoDaddy. (Be sure to Google for “GoDaddy coupon codes” before paying, there’s always an active coupon code that gets you .com domains much cheaper than the stated retail price.)
For web hosting, you’ll want a hosting account that supports multiple domains, ideally an unlimited number of domains. You won’t be needing a lot in terms of bandwidth and disk space per site, so usually the smallest web hosting account that offers unlimited domains is adequate, and they’re pretty cheap. Check out DreamHost for a popular service. You might consider using a reseller account, though, which while a bit more complicated to manage may make it easier to sell a site later on. I like ResellerZoom for reseller web hosting. But shop around.
That’s it for the preliminaries. Next, though, we’re going to discuss why we’re going with a network of sites as opposed to a single site with subdomains. I have my reasons!
Tags
AdSense, Analytics, domains, hosting, virtual real estate, VRE, webmaster tools, whitehat
Comments
10 Responses to “Whitehat VRE Empire: Preliminaries”
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Based on personal experience, I would suggest you check out 1 and 1 again, and seriously reconsider recommending them as a registrar.
Hi Eric. Thanks for the tips; I am looking forward to your next post on why you prefer a network of sites. I use ResellerZoom myself, but would like to read your thoughts.
Also I agree that you should buy your own domain and hosting, rather than building a free site. Because if you own the site then later you can sell it if you wish, and at least make something back for what you paid for it (if not lots more).
Paul: I haven’t had any issues with 1&1 as a registrar. One thing I don’t like is that you can’t change the DNS for a newly registered domain right away, you have to wait a few hours, but other than that no problems. But do leave some details as to your experiences, I’m curious to hear them.
Hi Eric, I’ve enjoyed your emails for some time and am really looking forward to this series. As part of it, I was interested to learn about your ebook which I just ordered and look forward to reading it as well
Thanks for all your great help in this area! 
I had two domains with them that were due to expire and I did not realize they were set to automatic renewal. They charged the renewals to a credit card that had expired.
Rather than letting them expire as I expected, they treated it as a bad debt. When I did not respond to several demands for payment they turned it over to a collection agency. I responded within the thirty day response period that it was not a valid debt and have not heard anything more about it.
I have not pulled a recent credit report to see if anything from them is listed.
Slightly different topic. As part of evaluating a registrar, try transferring a domain away from your current registrar. See how difficult they make it to unlock the domain and find the EPP code you need for the transfer. Find out if there are restrictions on how many days before renewal the transfer must be completed. See how long the transfer takes. See if there are any charges due the loosing registrar.
Paul
Paul
Ah, interesting. Yes, by default all domains are autorenew on 1&1. I think it’s harder to disable that there than on GoDaddy. As always, good to do your research before proceeding… price isn’t everything. (Although I still don’t know why anyone would pay $35/year for a .com domain….)
Eric
Keep in mind also that things look a little different when the number of domains you manage increases. Things that were OK for 10 or twenty domains get very annoying if you have a couple hundred.
For example, we got up one morning to find a note from our hosting company that one of the shared servers had been hacked at the root level via an insecure script. We had 12 hours to get our sites moved to a different server before they pulled the plug on the compromised one. That’s when you appreciate a bulk tool which gives you a list of domains by DNS and a way to change them all at once. You also want a registrar that processes the changes quickly.
Good points, indeed. I’ve had my own share of difficulties with hosting — avoid Servage — and still haven’t moved all those sites elsewhere (laziness).
Eric
Okay.
This is what I was attempting to do, but realized because of current time constraints it wasn’t that feasible.
Also if you don’t want to haggle with adsense you can take the same approach and create a pay er post empire, but that one is dependent on you constantly writing articles instead of the passive income you fet from Adsense.