I’ve compiled a delicious collection of 100% geeky goodies for your enjoyment this Halloween, take your pick! Featured are top resources on domaining from October and a few gems from yesteryear.

After you’ve received your tricks, be sure to sample the jaw-dropping collection of downloadable treats for web developers.  Have a safe and fun time out there!

8 Killer Domaining Tricks

These tips, tricks and guides on domain names come highly-recommended. If you are already involved or interested in buying and selling domains or if you’re just looking to be sure to get a quality name for your business then these are for you!

Warning: The domaining tricks below may scare you into buying better quality domains and learning more about this awesome industry.

1) Expired Domains Explained

Domainer Income published this nice looking chart quite awhile back, but there are many people who still don’t know the actual processes going on behind the scenes in the life-cycle of a domain name registration. Great info to know especially when playing the expired domain game.

2) 5 Tips on Selling Domain Names for Maximum Profit

DotSauce shares an in-depth look at being a frugal domainer. Information on finding free marketplaces, avoiding high commission fees, setting up your own domaining business and more.

3) “The Domainers Language” Guide

Arbel Arif has composed a great glossary of domaining acronyms and terms. Must know information for anyone interested in domaining.

4) Is Your Domain Name Killing Your Business?

INC Magazine delves into the world of domain names with some no-nonsense advice on selecting the right name for your business.

5) Expiring Domains Research Pro Tips

DotSauce feature 7 tips and a couple secrets for getting the most out of your domain name research. Information on selecting the right keywords, data you need to analyze and things to avoid when researching expiring domains.

6) Get Your Domains Listed for Sale in GoDaddy’s Registration Path

Andrew Alleman of Domain Name Wire recently wrote about a new feature at GoDaddy. The Premium Listing service can looks promising for getting your domain in front of targeted end-users, but comes at a price with a steep commission going to GoDaddy.

7) Advice from the Most Successful Domain Investors of All Time

Elliot Silver asked some of the most successful domain investors in the business for their advice and has kindly shared it with everyone. Follow through for a killer PDF containing advice from some industry pros.

8) Google’s Matt Cutts On Keywords In The URL

Search Engine Land shares a video by Google’s Head of Web Spam team, Matt Cutts. Confirmation that keyword in URLs lend aid to search rankings in some way. For more from Matt Cutts check out our SEO Advice of the Year feature which includes a presentation by Mr. Cutts on successful blogging.

10 Delicious
Web Development Treats

For your enjoyment, a collection of downloadable goodies and fresh resource lists. Don’t you go and try to download these all at once, your PC may get dizzy!

1) 99 High-Quality Free XHTML/CSS Templates

2) Free E-Commerce Widgets Usable on Any CMS

3) 500+ Free Download Quality Photoshop PSD Files for Designers

4) 23 Free E-Commerce Icon Sets for your Designs

5) 75 Free Icon Sets for Web Designers and Developers

6) 55+ Seriously Useful Front End Web Developer Cheat Sheets

7) 51 Web Apps for Web Designers and Developers

8) 10 WordPress Themes and Plugins for Turnkey Online Business

9) 10 Most Useful Google Plugins for WordPress

10) 10 Best WordPress Plugins for Blog Traffic

This treat bag never ends! So, be sure to pass it on to a friend!  Click here to Tweet this article.

Happy Halloween!

This article is from DotSauce Magazine.

8 Domaining Tricks and 10 Web Development Treats

Before I get into the actual solution for adding affiliate IDs to RSS feeds, here is a little background information on what led me to seek out this method as well as an example of how I am putting it into practice.

I am a big fan of the Envato web goodies marketplaces, ActiveDen, AudioJungle, VideoHive, GraphicRiver, but most especially, ThemeForest. Hundreds of fresh, high quality CSS/HTML and WordPress themes can be found from top designers.

The Envato referral program is pretty neat, earning members 30% of the first cash deposit made by anyone they refer. It is not a traditional affiliate program by any means. However, it can still be a nice bonus for little effort (the content really sells itself).

My earned cash is spent on awesome WordPress themes! I have downloaded many premium themes this way, essentially for free.

I Wonder If I Can…

I contacted Envato to request a way to add my affiliate ID to their new category RSS feeds. They replied to let me know that they currently do not have code in place to accomplish this, but would be looking into my suggestion.

I’m pleased to present that I may have saved them the trouble!

Solution for Adding Affiliate ID to RSS Feeds

I decided to find my own solution and came up with a custom Yahoo Pipe for appending my affiliate id to any RSS feed.

Using this solution I would be able to share all the beautiful WordPress themes as they are released on ThemeForest with my @ThemeHunter Twitter followers and earn some cash while doing so!

The Custom Pipe

I am using Yahoo Pipes to alter the original RSS feed and output a completely new feed with affiliate ID appended to the end of each feed item URL. Here is my custom pipe structure:

(Get This Pipe)

Customize the Pipe

Here are the simple steps you need to take to make this your own.

1. Login and Clone the Pipe so you are able to save and customize.
2. Paste your desired RSS feed URL into the “Fetch Feed” box.
3. Replace “?ref=DotSauce” with whatever affiliate ID you need to append.
4. Run your new pipe and get it as RSS!

Using my custom pipe you can create an unlimited number of revenue generating feeds from your favorite affiliate or referral programs. Embed your dynamic feeds on your site or even share them on social networks!

I hope you enjoyed this resource. Please consider sharing this article with fellow affiliates. If you have any questions or related ideas I would love to hear them. You can find the comments tab above the article.

This article is from DotSauce Magazine.

How To: Append Your Affiliate ID to Any RSS Feed Using Yahoo Pipes

If you invest in .ca domains, then you know that one of the best ways of obtaining quality domains at reasonable prices is through the TBR (to be released).  Every week on Wednesday at 2.00 p.m. CIRA releases domains that have expired and not been renewed by the end their 30 day suspension period.  Among the dropping domains are usually many gems.

I am proud to announce that my company, in partnership with the renowned Hubbard Media of DropSystem fame, has entered the TBR market by launching Dropping.ca.  What Dropping.ca does is simple – we catch dropping .ca domains – hence our name!

As expert domainers all know, your best bet when trying to obtain a TBR domain is to backorder it from as many places as possible – as you can’t know in advance who will obtain it.  I encourage you to give Dropping.ca a try and backorder the TBR names you are interested in with us.

At Dropping.ca, we provide high-touch service, combined with a simple, easy to use interface.  We are happy to help you every step of the way, and you can be assured that all your questions will be quickly answered.  We also transfer your domains to you right after payment – we don’t hang on to them and collect your parking profits while you watch your expired domains lose their rankings in the search engines.

The costs are modest – there is a minimum charge of $60 Canadian (+GST) for a domain.  Our services are no win, no fee – so you only pay for the domains we catch on your behalf.  We require a $60 bond payment as security when you set up an account.  However, if I know you, please feel free to contact me through my blog and I’ll be happy to set up a personalized coupon code for you to waive this bond.  If more than one person backorders a domain, then it goes to auction.  Given that we are the new kid on the block, you can rest assured that our auctions are not as competitive as the established players and there are lots of good deals to be had.

So, what are you waiting for?  It’s easy to get started.  Head on over to Dropping.ca and sign up.

The TRAFFIC, New York 2009 domain conference is underway and starting right now Rick Latona Auctions is broadcasting live on Domaining.com

Domains being offered today include gems like Bananas.com, Bourbon.com, Database.com, Hookahs.com, Draw.com, Referrals.com and many more.

To review all of the premium domains being auctioned today or participate in the auction you can visit the official auction page on Proxibid.

Frank Michlick will be reporting final sales prices live from DNN.com

Tomorrow, October 28th at 4:00 – 6:30 PM ET Moniker will host another live premium domain auction at the TRAFFIC conference.

Up for auction are some valuable properties including…

• Photo.com
• QB.com
• Feature(s).com
• Stuff.com
• OfficeSupply.com

To review all of the premium domains being auctioned tomorrow or participate, visit Moniker’s Auction Headquarters auction inventory. The extended online auction will continue through Nov 4.

This article is from DotSauce Magazine.

Rick Latona Domain Auction Broadcasting Live – Moniker Auction Tomorrow

I would like to share a simple yet powerful Twitter tip for finding people with your similar interests to follow on Twitter. There may be multiple ways of going about this process and I think I’ve found the quickest, but the main idea is to follow the re-tweets!

There are two things we can assume about people who re-tweet links to resources and articles. First, they are interested in the subject of that article or resource. Second, they are engaging actively with their followers and sharing. My kinda people!

I have always been a fan of Bit.ly, even before Twitter decided to use them as the default link shortening service. Their click tracking analytics and clean interface have always appealed to me. In this guide we will be using the Bit.ly sidebar tool to find and follow new interesting people.

Step 1. Register an account with Bit.ly.

Once logged in you will be able to drag the sidebar tool button (shown right) to your browser toolbar.

Step 2. Find an article of interest to you.

Popular articles will work best as we’re looking to see who might have shared this article. Consider your favorite blogs’ best posts or the latest news from your topic of interest.

You can use sites like TweetMeme, TweetMixx or Favstar to find articles that have been re-tweeted alot. Now navigate to the article page.

Step 3. Activate the Bit.ly sidebar tool.

Click the link you just placed in your browser toolbar. The Bit.ly sidebar allows you to quickly re-tweet this article, see how many visits the article has received and last but not least you can see the Twitter conversation.

Step 4. Follow the Re-Tweets!

The “Conversations” area shows everyone who has re-tweeted the article in a nice chronological list.

You can scroll all the way to the bottom and see who first shared an article and as you move up the list you see how the re-tweets progressed.

Click a few Twitter profile names at a time while holding the Ctrl key or click with your mouse scroll-wheel to open them in a new tab.

You will likely find hundreds of new and interesting people to check out and follow on Twitter using this method.

These people like to share stuff, so if you have quality tweets there’s a good chance they may be re-tweeting YOU soon!

Speaking of re-tweets, you can click here to Tweet this article.

Be sure to follow @DotSauce for live updates on future articles.

This article is from DotSauce Magazine.

How To: Find Hundreds of Interesting People On Twitter

I’ve decided to share some tips for bloggers and more than a few secrets about my top earning affiliate campaigns. Some readers have expressed interest in learning about affiliate marketing, so I hope these first hand examples will provide some new ideas for your own campaigns.

While choosing great businesses and products is important, building a following, relevant content and authority on a specific niche will help you tremendously. It’s important to establish yourself first and overall give much more than you take, so to speak.

Without further adieu, here are my top 5 earning affiliate campaigns…

1. GoDaddy

I’ve been a GoDaddy affiliate for years now. Hundreds of domainers and almost every domain industry blogger are affiliates with GoDaddy through Commission Junction.

Here is a little insight into how I’ve made GoDaddy my top earning affiliate program.

• Capitalized on the launch of .ME domains! Prior to Montenegro’s ccTLD going mainstream, I wrote several articles and kept readers updated on the landrush pre-launch and eventually the public launch. I walked away with $3000+ in commissions from the .ME launch.
• Provided high quality expiring domains and suggest subscribers to register domains through GoDaddy. Initially I published this service on NamePros, and it evolved into a private subscription service called DotSauce Premium. Recently, DotSauce Premium has been open to the public for free. Earnings are modest with this method, a few dollars every few days. Occasionally someone will make a substantial purchase, likely bulk registration and the commissions go up.

2. Hummingbird

Hummingbird is the #1 best selling software for Twitter automation, having paid out over $76,000 in affiliate commissions. My take is roughly $2,500 so far.

I wrote here on DotSauce about my experiences with the software and how it can be extremely beneficial to any online business. Hummingbird automates the process of targeting quality people, following them and tracking performance. 

How did I make it successful?

• Discount codes. The key element of my article was that I was offering a promotional discount. Traffic from search engines still comes in daily as I rank highly for key terms related to Hummingbird. Unfortunately, there are no current discount codes, but that doesn’t mean people are not searching for them daily.
• Kept the article updated as Hummingbird launched version 2 of their software.
• Recruited Twitter enthusiasts like you to sign up for the affiliate program.

3. SEOMoz

Wrote an article about the launch of SEOMoz’s  innovative new SEO research tool called LinkScape. Again, some select keywords were used here featuring a free trial promotion and I ended up ranking for the ever sought after code.

I received two large conversions who must have paid yearly because each commission check was around $400. In the end earnings have slowed but well worth the minimal effort of sharing a relevant tool from the best minds in SEO.

The SEOMoz affiliate program is managed by the Pepperjam Network.

4. Affiliate Theme

An innovative WordPress theme featuring a slick admin and built to save time creating sites. Affiliate Theme was developed  by an associate of mine, Nate Whitehill and his team at Unique Blog Designs, so I was more than happy to share the launch of his new product. I was sure my readers would be interested as well. Turns out I was right. By sharing this announcement I have earned $842.85 and still receive occasional new commissions.

• I occasionally give Affiliate Theme a shout out on my Twitter profile (@ThemeHunter) that is targeted to WordPress themes.
• Featured this announcement in a special area of my blog. (See featured article slider below)

5. TUTS Plus

This web development and graphic design membership website by the Envato Network features hundreds of high quality tutorials with included source files.

I really have to give credit for this being a success to the TUTS+ team. The price is an extremely good deal at just $9 per month and affiliates get a bonus monthly recurring commission! Here is some insight into how I made it successful.

• Referred 22 people so far which has earned me a $228.50 + 25% of what they pay every month for a year.
• Endorsed TUTS+ as a satisfied customer. The thing I am most happy about is that my own membership is covered and the people I refer are getting a quality resource.

What’s your top earning affiliate program?

If you dare to share, please leave a comment! If you have any comments or questions or even tips for me about my campaigns I’d love to hear them. Thanks for reading!

This article is from DotSauce Magazine.

My Top 5 Most Successful Affiliate Campaigns

Qualiteam Software, a leader in open source commercial shopping carts since 2001, has just released their newest product, E-Commerce Widgets or “Ecwid” for short.

Ecwid is a free and flexible e-commerce suite for selling products online and is the first to offer a 100% AJAX solution. This means that store owners can easily copy and paste JavaScript code for their products, shopping cart and other store features to be displayed on existing websites.

Store owners manage their products, sales, payments, customers and store features from a user-friendly control panel on the Ecwid website. All data is managed by Amazon Web Services, making your storefront very secure and lightning fast.

Adding Ecwid to WordPress

Within a CMS like WordPress, Ecwid code can be placed into theme files as well as directly inside posts or pages. Be sure to use the “HTML” tab and not the Visual editor.

You may want to create a new page in WordPress to become your storefront, then place the Product Browser widget code on that page. You will then likely want to place the shopping cart widget into the sidebar theme file.

Demonstration of Product Display and Checkout

Embedding individual products anywhere is also possible. Here is a demonstration of a single product embedded on the left and a checkout button on the right.

Each of these elements can be styled using CSS to match your website.

For a complete demonstration of a full Ecwid storefront and the Admin Control Panel then head over to Ecwid.com.

What do you think about Ecwid?

I am thinking of implementing it on my own domain name sales storefront at AQDN.com. My shopping cart works, but is somewhat dated and I feel Ecwid provides much better management on all levels.

If you decide to give it a go please leave a comment with your thoughts.

Be sure to share this with fellow bloggers and business owners, that’s what the open-source community is all about!

This article is from DotSauce Magazine.

Ecwid: Advanced E-Commerce Widgets Usable on Any CMS

Today, over eight thousand blogs will unite for a single cause by writing to promote awareness of the threats and effects of climate change on the Earth.

Blog Action Day ‘09 has set out to bring the issue to center stage and some high profile publications like the official Google Blog, Mashable, DailyBlogTips and more will be joining the movement today including 11 of the world’s top 100 blogs.

You can follow the movement on Twitter by searching the #BAD09 hashtag or to browse some featured blog posts visit Blog Action Day headquarters.

Check out this very cool short video introduction to Blog Action Day and the topic of climate change.

Could Blog Action Day be just the tip of the iceberg?

The Blog Action Day team has gathered 24 non-profit sponsors including former Vice President Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Change.

Gore’s organization has partnered with Dot Eco LLC (SupportDotEco.com) who is campaigning for registration of a new (.eco) top level domain (TLD) to establish an environmental related domain space.

Dot Eco will provide resources for the non-profits that are on the front lines of this really critical work. Funding for research, education and action. – Davis Guggenheim, Dot Eco Director

The .eco TLD will surely be a great source of revenue for non-profit environmental organizations, but I think it’s impact will extend farther than anyone expects.

The .eco domain space will have a massive appeal to green businesses, bloggers and organizations to create new websites about the environment on .eco domains.

I envision that these websites will grow and network with other .eco owners as well as connect with popular green websites on the .com space.  Each site sending out a ripple of good cause and expanding awareness of a need for action to millions.

Support Dot Eco Today

Dot Eco has an astounding 84,000+ fans on Facebook and 6,000+ followers on Twitter. Show your support and expect to see .eco domains take on the web and climate change in just a few years!

What do you think? Would you develop a website on a new .eco domain? Do you think the .eco domain will be as successful as I imagine? Please leave a comment using the “Comments” tab at the top of the article.

This article is from DotSauce Magazine.

The Tip of the Iceberg! Support the Upcoming .ECO Domain Space

All time best selling forum community software, vBulletin has just announced and is taking pre-orders for the release of their 4.0 update.

The vBulletin 4.0 Publisher Suite contains updated and completely new features for vBulletin forums (SEO friendly URLs, new UI, improved search, etc.) and is coupled with a comprehensive content management system (CMS) for your community.

These updates will provide the opportunity to seamlessly blend articles, content and forum discussions on one SEO friendly web space. Additionally, your members can easily create their own blogs on site.

Here are some of the highlights from this upcoming release.

• CMS Built for Community
• SEO Friendly URLs
• Community Blogs
• Widget Platform
• Redesigned Forum Interface
• Easier Style Customization

vBulletin 4.0 licenses are available at a discounted pre-order rate of $235 now until October 30th, 2009.

If you are an existing vBulletin license owner there is a discounted pre-order price of just $130 (over 50% off) until October 30th, 2009.

Visit vBulletin for complete feature details and be sure to join us on the DotSauce Forum community. I will definitely be upgrading to vBulletin 4.0 here on DotSauce as well as my Twitter Forum!

This article is from DotSauce Magazine.

vBulletin 4.0 Suite Features Powerful CMS for Communities

Usability guru Jakob Nielsen has just published a report on his latest research into the world of business on social networks. There are some amazing perspectives and insights to be gained.

Any business engaging users on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and Linkedin can put this information to use immediately and surely start seeing positive results in a short amount of time.

I would like to go over a few quotes from Mr. Nielsen that I feel are the highlight take-aways from his study.

Business messages appear in a context that’s permeated by personal messages. This context sets the stage for use.

Here we learn that messages should be personable and casual and not so corporate. However, Nielsen points out that users prefer RSS feeds to be more business like.

Users listed too-frequent postings as their top annoyance with following companies and organizations.

This is quite self explanatory. I would recommend limiting your broadcast messages to just a handful per day.

It is also noted in the report that Facebook and Twitter are often used multiple times daily whereas Linkedin and MySpace are used less so.

Plan your next correspondence, but wait to execute until the right time.

Users recognize that corporate postings are commercial — rather than friendship-driven — they do resist overly aggressive selling.

This is why I don’t recommend selling or directly marketing anything within your personal timeline (on a regular basis anyway).

Set up a unique profile for your business and provide a passive introduction to your product or service. Users run from anything that looks like an advertisement.

Messages that received the highest scores had three things in common: they contained something of substance, were timely, and provided the kind of information that users expected.

Stay consistent with your followers’ areas of interest and stay up to date!  Your followers will appreciate and find value in your messages and may be inclined to re-tweet or recommend you.

Check out the rest of Nielsen’s study for more findings on business to user interaction within social networks and RSS feeds.

This article is from DotSauce Magazine.

Study Sheds Light on Business to User Interaction on Social Networks

I’ve filtered, sorted and mined my way through literally tens of millions of expiring domains in my years as a domainer / developer.

It takes a keen eye, some handy tools and a little domainer mojo to pick the best domain names to buy in the aftermarket or register. Here are some quick pro tips on researching expiring domains to buy.

1. Look at the actual words, not the domain name itself.

It’s much easier for your brain to process spaced words rather than viewing those words crammed together as a domain.  This allows you to browse through lists at a much faster pace and clearly identify keywords and phrases.

Term extraction is definitely my favorite feature of PremiumDrops domain research subscription.

2. Avoid domains with letter repetition.

This is fairly common knowledge that having repeating letters in a name is bad for branding and usability.

If you do find some high quality keywords then be sure to buy the typo. (Example: PurpleEarth.com should also register PurplEarth.com) to capture any lost visitors.

3. Watch out for word swaps.

You may come across some domains have strong keywords, but unfortunately the word order is flawed. (Example: VideosFootball.com is not nearly as valuable or useable as FootballVideos.com)

I scan through these types of names all the time, try not to let them fool you and move on to the next name.

4. So the words add up, but what about the numbers?

Finding those good keywords is the first step. Get some confidence in your picks by seeing what the stats look like.

• Check what year the domain was originally created. Older domains can sometimes be gems.
• Do a Google search with the keywords enclosed in quotations (Example: PurpleWidgets.com exact match search would be “Purple Widgets”) You can use Estibot domain tools to get this data in bulk.
• Check the global or regional Monthly Search Volume by typing your keywords into the Google AdWords Keyword Tool.

5. Avoid hyphenated domains… Please?

I don’t care what any search marketing guru told you, hyphenated domains have many drawbacks that may not be readily apparent.  Aside from the fact that it looks un-professional, when mentioning a hyphenated domain in public it sounds awkward.

Hyphenated domains also risk losing a large portion of website traffic to the non-hyphenated namesake.

6. Set a steady scanning pace for yourself.

Get into a comfortable rhythm of browsing the domains your research has turned up. You should be reading the domains and saying them to yourself at a quick pace.

The idea is not to linger on any one domain too long so that you can browse more domains on the whole.

7. Take a break!

Staring at endless rows of text and numbers can get to be maddening after so many hours! Stretch those legs occasionally, you might even venture outside and soak up some good old vitamin D, I definitely need to!

If you find your eyes are strained and need to rest, glance away from your monitor and stare at the blank corner of a room for a minute or two. This allows your eyes to rest since they are not focusing on anything.

Have fun and may your research unviel all the best domains!

Find these tips helpful? Got some pro tips of your own to share?  Please share with us using the Comments tab above. Thanks for reading!

This article is from DotSauce Magazine.

Expiring Domains Research Pro Tips

DotSauce is now sporting a fresh new look! This new layout should help new and old readers alike stumble upon valuable articles that may not have been so easy to find before.

Our homepage has sections for the top categories as well as a new featured content slider. Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the new layout and browse some articles or categories that look interesting to you!

In other news, the DotSauce Domaining Directory will soon become an extensive collection of domain name and web development resource links.

We’re looking to tackle one category at a time over the coming days and weeks, but of course we don’t expect the links to ever end!

So far these categories are being populated:

• Domaining Blogs
• Domain Conferences
• Domain Forums

See anything you like? Be sure to rate and review your favorite sites.

If you have a favorite link that’s not been added then please join the directory project and submit as many resources as you like. We’ve got lots of great categories to fill out.

Not all websites will be approved as we would like to include only the most high quality resources.  Also, don’t worry about adding any snapshots if you decide to submit.

Any comments on the new website layout would be greatly appreciated!

This article is from DotSauce Magazine.

Fresh New Design at DotSauce + Domaining Directory in Progress!

New study is out that says internet ad clicking is down by 50%. The percentage of U.S. Internet users who click on display ads has fallen 50 percent in the last two years, according to a study by comScore, Starcom and Tacoda. (link) The big takeaway from researchers is that display ads should be measured by [...]