hi there.
Sure I'm a newbie, hi to you all for starters. Go fuck yourselves even
Trying my hardest to learn about this business, I've been reading like crazy the last 6 months now, checking message boards every day, tutorials and help/advice pages, trying out ideas and sponsors, building up links, email lists, tgp pages, avs pages etc etc, just gaining as much knowledge as I can about how things work. The more I read the more I get the impression that research+knowledge = power. You've got to know what you're doing before you do it. As well as shitloads of reading, I've designed a few site graphics, bought a domain, learnt some cgi stuff, search engine optimisation, checked out countless other galleries/pages/source code. I'm reluctant to dive in and expect instant riches over night cos it's not going to happen. I'm still unsure which aspect I want to push. I read good and bad about all of them.
Obviously a pay site is out, so I reckon some free sites/AVS for starters with maybe some TGP pages to funnel traffic to those sites, or to sponsors to pay for bandwidth. When I get some decent traffic going, say 5-10k a day then that can be traded with other sites or funneled to sponsors. This will build up hopefully and can then be traded off with more sites/sponsors, maybe add a TGP page to my site(s) at some point around there to encourage bookmarkers, just build it up. Its' all about the traffic. Without that you won't make money from sponsors and you have less chance of converting to sign ups.
I've been lurking on here, and a few other boards for ages. Initial assumptions are...
1) This is not something you will become rich overnight at; but
2) A lot of money can be made, if you take the time to learn a lot, experiment and put in the hours.
3) There's not as much money around in it now due to the massive amount of free porn on the net - TGP etc
4) It does involve a LOT of hard work, definately more hours than you would work in a "normal" job
5) It's all about traffic. Traffic Traffic Traffic!! The more you got, the better. Hits hits hits....
6) Reliable, well established sponsors are a must. Getting hard working people signing up under you is even better.
7) There are a whole load of shylocks, cheaters, lamers, haters and dodgy gits in general. I read daily about this person getting fucked by another. It seems to happen so often. Back watching essential.
8) Not everyone makes money from TGPs, but the big players (hun, PK etc) must make a pile of money.
9) Good contacts, networking and being nice will help you out in the long run.
10) Everyone hates spam.
I could write a load more, but I'm sure most of you know all this. I'd really like some feedback re: the above, am i right in what i say? Totally wrong? What do you think? Any opinions welcome. I see a lot of questions posted like "how much money do you make?", "You're all so loaded from porn tell me how to do it" etc which obviously pisses people off. People are generally very helpful if you're polite and don't expect them to make your money for you. So - I DO have a question, an .htaccess one, hope someone can help me out, I've read a load of web pages on it, tried out many ideas but can't make it work. I've got my 404/403 errors redirected to my sponsors that works fine, now I'm trying to add the hotlinking to the .htaccess file. Someone is leeching my images.
I submitted a gallery to a few places and its had a few hundred hits. Its being hotlinked tho, so I put this htaccess info in the dir of the gallery.
************************************************** ***********************************
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^
http://www.this_is_where_you_put_referrers.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^
http://www.or_sites_you_have_links_with.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^
http://www.your_own_site_goes_here_too.com [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(gif|GIF|jpg|JPG|mpg|MPG|Mpeg|mpeg|MPEG|rm|RM) $
http://www.where_you_want_the_traffic_to_go.com [R,L]
************************************************** ***********************************
As I understand it, anyone linking directly to a picture or mpeg in my gallery EXCEPT from the sites/domains you list in the HTTP_REFERER should be redirected to my sponsor/index page in the ReWriteRule line. It doens't work though. Why?
I tried a few other configurations, none of them worked either, and thinking about it i need to allow certain permissions on the webpage so the tgp site(s) that its listed on can link to the gallery. I don't understand - can someone point out where i'm going wrong?
And also If you are using a few rules in the htaccess file, do you just list them one under the other ie.
************************************************** ***********************************
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^
http://www.this_is_where_you_put_referrers.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^
http://www.or_sites_you_have_links_with.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^
http://www.your_own_site_goes_here_too.com [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(gif|GIF|jpg|JPG|mpg|MPG|Mpeg|mpeg|MPEG|rm|RM) $
http://www.where_you_want_the_traffic_to_go.com [R,L]
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^
http://w*\.*yourdomain.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^
http://w*\.*yourIPaddress
RewriteRule .*[Jj][Pp][Gg]$|.*[Gg][Ii][Ff]$
http://www.yourbannerpage.com [R,L]
************************************************** ***********************************
or can there only be one Rewriteengine on/Rewrite engine off included in the full list?
cheers if anyone can help
natas