Hosted Free Sites - Sponsors Read This

[Linkster]

So that we get this all in one post and hopefully take some of the mystery out of what is meant by Hosted Free Sites and their benefits - here goes.

A hosted free site is very similar to a hosted free gallery that you provide to your TGP affiliates to put in their TGPs with their own affiliate code - it is never used (or at least should not be) by regular gallery builders to submit to a TGP, as in every case of TGP owners I know they would never accept them.

The difference with a hosted free site is that you are providing that little free site to the Link List owners to list on their lists - again it would never be accepted as a submission from a free site submitter.

If you would like to see a list of at least 21 sponsors that are already providing these hosted free sites - http://www.greenguysboard.com/resour.../database.html and click on the header that says "sites" which will put the sponsors that offer them at the top in that column.

A hosted free site is very simple to build - it consists of 4 pages total - each page would have three advertising spots for your paysites - text or banners or combo - and is merely a warning page, a "main" page and two galleries.

The warning page can have advertisements and should be the first major attempt to get the surfer to your paysite - of course should have a warning, and then a large "ENTER" towards the bottom of the page.
The main page again can have three ads, and the two links to the two galleries
The two galleries can easily be two of your "matching content" premade hosted free galleries - so most of the work is already done if you use galleries.

Why provide hosted free sites when I already offer hosted free galleries?

Take a look at the traffic you get to hosted free galleries - just use the raw/uniques and figure out your ratio of freeloaders to buyers - if my numbers on my TGPs are normal, which I believe they are, you should be getting around 1:1300 at best for hosted free galleries.

Now take that hosted free site that is well written and has quality content, put it on a Link List and, again from my own numbers, you should see way under 1:100 conversions (normally around 1:30).

Why the big difference?

Most Link Lists provide pretty highly targetted Search Engine traffic and trusted bookmarkers, wheras TGPs (in most cases) are running traffic trades and CJ to get their traffic numbers high.

Now think about the bandwidth that you are burning for the TGP galleries and think about the cost of a hosted free site design compared to a hosted free gallery (a quality hosted free site goes somewhere around average $30 each in batch purchases)

With tons of good Link Lists out here that have some good quality traffic (given its not the same as TGP trafic - but then neither is the quality) it doesn't make economical sense to not use the hosted free sites.

If you have any questions about this and dont feel comfortable posting the questions, PM myself, MrMaryLou or Greenguy and we'd be glad to explain it further.

[Greenguy]

BRAVO Linkster! BRAV-FUCKING-O!



I will add that I think a lot of webmasters - both those that run affiliate programs as well as general everyday webmasters - think that the amount of traffic that you have equals the amount of money you're making, and most of us around here know that this is NOT the case.

Link Lists, in general, have a lot less traffic than TGPs. A LOT LESS. But, as Linkster said, we have very loyal surfers & we filter the fuck out of them. Some of the biggest TGP's out there don't even have categories, but most Link Lists have realized that if you want to send niche specific traffic to the sites & sponsors that are listed, you have to sort things out as much as possible. My Gay Twink category gets fuck all for traffic as far as "big" numbers go, but I'd bet that 99.44% of the surfers on there are looking for Gay Twink sites.

Link Lists are going to always be here - we're probably going to always have less traffic, but we're also going to always have better traffic & we should be catered to just a bit more

[Linkster]

One other source of traffic I didnt mention as I really didnt want to confuse the issue too much:
The WMs that are out there submitting free sites to Link Lists (at least the ones that are doing a good sales job) also all have some sort of fake linklist or HUB that they send their exit traffic to to filter the traffic even better. They also tend to add hosted free sites to their lists in an effort to garner more sales which is a fantastic approach.

If you look at pure economics of the issue - there are quite a few Link Lists out there that do get more traffic than some of the bigger TGPs - you would be surprised at the number of Linklists that have well over 50,000 surfers a day. Now once that traffic gets filtered to categories - Using one of my Link Lists or even GGs, Tommys or Richards Realm - the hosted free sites that get listed, stay around forever - no rotation off the list like a TGP, and no replacing normally with other hosted free sites.
As a matter of fact most hosted free sites get a special place on some Linklists to get even more traffic than a normal WM submitted free site.

The next part of the equation is to look at the search engine keywords you are targetting - dont take something like "sex" or "porn" as a good indicator, because again you are talking some trash traffic compared to more targetted traffic to a specific niche.
However if you look at the results for something you are really pushing - say and example would be cumshots -
http://www.google.com/search?q=cumsh...n&lr=&filter=0
you will see that the top 20 on Google are almost exclusively Link Lists and most are their niche categories for cumshots and facials.
That traffic is Golden because youve already knocked out the people looking for watersports

Now think about the conversions of that traffic if you have a hosted free site on all of those Link Lists - and then compare it to what you might get from 80,000 people looking at you free movies on a group of TGPs - and the Link list is going to get a good percentage of traffic thats looking for good sites to spend their money( a good rule of thumb is around 5%) - wheras a TGP with CJ or traffic skimming might get a .002% conversion rate - now plug in your profit per sale - and you will see the difference - and its a major gain for those sponsors using the hosted free sites.

[MrMaryLou]

Well said Linkster Only if more sponsors would cash in on this it would be great

[Red]

Great information Linkster. Defiant and I have been talking about adding HFS to Depraved Dollars and you post just confirmed we need to do this pronto. And since we're stuck inside with this ice storm that's supposed to continue for the next 24 hours, it would be a good time to start putting them together, as long as the power holds out.

[Chop Smith]

Very well explained. Thanks for taking the time to organize your thoughts in such a way that we all can understand

[Linkster]

Red - thats great to hear - already signed up and waiting

and if ya need anything at all (any help)with the coding to pass the aff code through or anything general - please dont hesitate to ask here - we have loads of sponsors that have lots of experience with them already and they are always willing to help out

[cd34]

As per Linksters article, there are a million ways to do this. Without some serverside tricks that can make the experience automatic, you can do it with SSI (Server Side Includes) or PHP.

I am not partial to either, but I feel that the SSI method has a slight performance edge over the PHP method strictly due to the size of the SAPI handler in Apache. This article will cover both methods.

Things you need to have:

You need to know the code that you will be linking to within the pages.
You need to have the reseller ID position within the affiliate URL figured out.
You need to make sure that you know how to have the gallery pages parsed by either PHP or SSI. Most servers might require you to have the extension of the gallery page as .php or .shtml.

So, lets get started.

Lets decide which method to use. My preference is SSI, so lets do it with SSI first. We will name the file gallery.shtml, and the webmaster will send his traffic to:

http://www.domain.com/gallery.shtml?affiliateid

The code on your page will look something like this:

<a href="http://www.site.com/client,site,<!--#echo var="QUERY_STRING"-->.html">Test Link</a>

If you wanted to use PHP, the webmaster will send his traffic to:

http://www.domain.com/gallery.php?affiliateid

The code on your page will look something like this:

<a href="http://www.site.com/client,site,<?php echo $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']?>.html">Test Link</a>

Remember, the pieces <!--#echo var="QUERY_STRING"--> or <?php echo $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']?> are replaced in your html whereever you need to have the affiliates ID coded. Since the page is parsed with either SSI or PHP, it will replace the 'bad html' before it is sent to the browser. You might need to use Notepad or some other text editor to do the final work since FrontPage and DreamWeaver may see the html created above as invalid.

In any case, you should be able to start creating hosted freesites and galleries for your affiliates and watch that traffic grow.

An additional note. If you are doing this for freesites, you need to make sure EVERY link contains the code at the end of the link to pass the affiliate's code from one page to the next. Not only do you need to code the links to your affiliate program, you need to code the links to the next pag including your enter link, your gallery 1/gallery 2 links.

[MadMax]

Thanks for that post Linkster...I think it's the first time I've seen the HFS concept broken down concisely and completely

In general, I'm willing to sign up to and try out any sponsor who offers quality HFS. The only thing I would add as a note to the sponsors is :

PLEASE DON'T RE-USE THE SAME PAGE DESIGNS OVER AND OVER!!! Sure, you're going to recycle them, but many sponsors offering HFS just recycle the same 2 or 3 site designs over and over just changing the pictures. For a sponsor to offer HFS that sell memberships most effectively, there should be a broad range of site designs/layouts that are only re-used occasionally.

[Chop Smith]

Nice one, Sparky.

Originally Posted by cd34

An additional note. If you are doing this for freesites, you need to make sure EVERY link contains the code at the end of the link to pass the affiliate's code from one page to the next. Not only do you need to code the links to your affiliate program, you need to code the links to the next pag including your enter link, your gallery 1/gallery 2 links.

The passing of the aff code from page to page is somewhat tricky at first and it surprises me of the number of HFS in which the aff code is dropped after the warning page. I use php simply because I understand the coding better. After my four htmls are finished, I open them in EditPad and convert the htmls to phps using a series of replace statements. As an an example;

Replace all <a href="galleryindex.html"> with
<?php
echo "<A HREF=\"galleryindex.php?$affcode\">";
?>

It might seem a little hard at first but you can train a monkey to do it.

BTW, I have simple, detail instructions written and am will to share them. Just send me a PM.

[cd34]

that assumes that you have RegisterGlobals turned on -- which used to be the default for php, however, most hosting companies turn it off.

If you're going to use $affcode, do something like:

incoming link: http://domain.com/page.php?affcode=asdf

At the top of the page:
<?php $affcode=$_REQUEST['affcode'];?>

then, in each of your links

<a href="page2.php?<?php echo $affcode;?>">page 2</a>

[swedguy]

Here's another version of a hosted free site script I made for a sponsor some time ago. I like this way because the surfer will not fuck around with the URL itself, because they might end up not getting the free porn. If you have a "1234" in the querty string, it's easy for a surfer to delete it and thus not get tracked.
Another benefit is that the template designer doesn't have to worry about passing on the webmaster ID to the next page.

http://www.nuvisiongroup.com/fhs/site1/1234/index.html <--- "1234" is the webmaster ID and can be changed to what ever you like.
http://www.nuvisiongroup.com/fhs/htaccess.txt - the .htaccess

Feel free to use it

[swedguy]

WHOOPS!

When I copied the htaccess to htaccess.txt, I accidentally MOVED it instead of copy it

It works now. Sorry about that

[Osiris]

Ok, as co-owner of Crypt Cash I'd like some feed back on the few we have available. I know we've seemed dormant for a while, but I assure you it's all being worked on behind the scenes. New things coming from us, including more FHS.. so, before I build a lot of them I'd like to know what the thoughts are on the ones I have so I can make sure to build properly on the future ones for you guys and gals..

[docholly]

GREAT post and Great feedback..

"Ya'll" Rock!!

[MadMax]

Osiris -- I've got some of your stuff listed already, and the two HFS you've got are just fine. My one issue would be that the Goth Lesbian HFS has no nudity From my point of view, as long as you're varying the layouts, colors and graphics/banners from one HFS to the next you'll be fine, i.e. the two HFS you have use the exactly the same colors so even with the variations in layout they still look very similar. I've got some decent Goth and Vampire traffic building up so I'd love to have more HFS to list in those cats

[Osiris]

Originally Posted by MadMax

Osiris -- I've got some of your stuff listed already, and the two HFS you've got are just fine. My one issue would be that the Goth Lesbian HFS has no nudity From my point of view, as long as you're varying the layouts, colors and graphics/banners from one HFS to the next you'll be fine, i.e. the two HFS you have use the exactly the same colors so even with the variations in layout they still look very similar. I've got some decent Goth and Vampire traffic building up so I'd love to have more HFS to list in those cats

Alright, so more nudity, and varying color schemes. Does it matter if they match the site? I always felt that matching the Gallery/FS to the site you're promoting helps conversions.. But if it doesn't matter to you guys that they don't match I'll definitely make the colors different on future additions..


Would you all be opposed to having a link on the paysites that lead to a Gothic Links list with your ref codes in it? It will NOT be a pop because I don't think we'll ever put them up, but a link towards the bottom of the page like sponsors do with Mailer Boxes.. but not that big or intrusive.


---edited because I misread the nudity comment.

[Jim]

Nice job guys...I will do my best to get the word out on Tuesday

[Wazza]

Hey Swedguy - what's the source of this page?

http://www.nuvisiongroup.com/fhs/site1/1234/index.html

Great thread - thx Linkster

[swedguy]

Originally Posted by Wazza

Hey Swedguy - what's the source of this page?

http://www.nuvisiongroup.com/fhs/site1/1234/index.html

That would probably be useful

http://www.nuvisiongroup.com/fhs/site1/1234/index.txt

[MadMax]

Originally Posted by Osiris

Would you all be opposed to having a link on the paysites that lead to a Gothic Links list with your ref codes in it? It will NOT be a pop because I don't think we'll ever put them up, but a link towards the bottom of the page like sponsors do with Mailer Boxes.. but not that big or intrusive.

I think I can speak for just about everyone on this. More ways for me to make money are always good, especially if they're tasteful

If I can link to a gothic LL with my ref codes everywhere I'd list that as well on my link list

As to the color issue, while it can be argued that making a free site look similar to the paysite tour can boost sales, it's just not practical to do that too much with HFS.

[Mishi]

Linkster, AWESOME post!

I'm curious about one thing, though:

Originally Posted by Linkster

Now take that hosted free site that is well written and has quality content, put it on a Link List and, again from my own numbers, you should see way under 1:100 conversions (normally around 1:30).

Are you talking about conversions off the link list, or off free sites? If off the link list itself, I'm doing okay. If off free sites...it's time for me to start over and ask for big help.

[Osiris]

Originally Posted by MadMax

I think I can speak for just about everyone on this. More ways for me to make money are always good, especially if they're tasteful

If I can link to a gothic LL with my ref codes everywhere I'd list that as well on my link list

As to the color issue, while it can be argued that making a free site look similar to the paysite tour can boost sales, it's just not practical to do that too much with HFS.

Right on!

[Linkster]

Originally Posted by Mishi

Linkster, AWESOME post!
Are you talking about conversions off the link list, or off free sites? If off the link list itself, I'm doing okay. If off free sites...it's time for me to start over and ask for big help.

From the LL Mishi But thanks - I should have made that point

[Linkster]

Originally Posted by Osiris

Would you all be opposed to having a link on the paysites that lead to a Gothic Links list with your ref codes in it?

I know of one Sponsor that already does this on Hosted Free Sites and I love the idea