(Taken from memwg.com) Do You Have An "AdSense Will"? http://www.memwg.com/blog/adsense/Do-You-Have-An-AdSense-Will.html Thu Dec 14 14:34:45 CST 2006 My 7-year-old daughter asked me the other day who would take care of her if my wife and I were both dead. I don't know what prompted the question — perhaps the recent deaths of her grandfather and one of our dogs — but I knew the answer because it's explicitly spelled out in our wills. But it did make me think about a related issue: what happens to my AdSense sites when I die? The sites keep running, of course. They'll keep making money, though over the long term I'd expect revenues to go down, especially those tied to (by then dormant) blogs. That's the whole point of creating a passive income stream with AdSense and/or embedded affiliate links. The problem comes in managing it all. If I dropped dead tomorrow, my wife would have no clue what to do with my sites. Currently I use two different domain registrars and four different hosting service. I have umpteen different affiliate accounts. No one else understands any of it but me, and a lot of it isn't written down anywhere, just buried in various email folders. Even getting access to my email would be challenging because my mail client uses SSH tunnels exclusively to connect to my mail servers. I don't think my situation is very unusual, either. If, say, Matt Cutts were to take out GrayWolf, I bet Michael's wife would have a hard time figuring out all the odds and ends of his business. (Especially his MySpace accounts...) And that's the key word here: business. What I've jokingly called an "AdSense will" in the title of this post is more properly called a disaster recovery plan for your online business so that if (heavens forbid) anything should befall you, your partner/heir would be able to keep the business running if they choose. They might not understand how it all works or why you have 100 domains to your name, but with the right information they could always hire somebody who could explain or manage it for them. Or even sell it, the likeliest scenario. You need to write down all the pertinent information — or print out the relevant emails — and put it in a secure location like a safety deposit bank. You might even go so far as to include a list of instructions as to what to do immediately after your death, such as logging into your AdSense account and suspending payments until things get sorted out. Just make sure all the right details are there — it can be as simple as a list of usernames and passwords for all your important accounts. Don't worry about being too geeky in your descriptions of what's what, they'll find someone to explain it for them. It's not the happiest of topics to think about, but a disaster recovery plan will make you feel a lot better about what will happen after you're gone.
We would be in a worse position if my partner died as her income is far greater than mine, but keeping note of hosts/domain registrars/bank accounts/user names/passwords is not a bad idea. I've started to get this sort of info in order recently and had no idea how complicated my life had become! Cheers BP
You should hold your sites as assets of a limited company, your holdings in the company can then be distributed in your will. Also make sure all sites are properly and fully documented.
I have trouble keeping all my passwords organised for myself - somebody trying to clean up after I'm gone would definitely be in over their heads. Not sure what to do about it though.
I'm glad you liked it, but I'd prefer it if you asked permission before reposting my blog entries verbatim in a forum or on a site.
A very good point. I used to have one of these plans in place for my Web hosting company (the old one), but not anymore. Your post has given me the motivation to start working on this immediately!
What an interesting post this is. I don't think I will worry about my Adsense until I am making $500 a day.
I agree with deedeedum, although, when I earn a sufficient amount, I will make sure that I write it down somewhere!
oh really? i hope you make it. check out a typical age pyramid : not so many people in the top compared to lower levels... making a file where you explain what is going on with your website business, with all necessary keys and instructions in case things go wrong is indeed a good thing, once your biz has a certain value. be sure though that it won't fall in anybody's hands... green rep given to the oriinal article writer, eric giguere.
It's good Public relations for you, you know, to be quoted. He posted the link to your site and everything. (that is, if that memwg site is yours) --- I think the passwords and websites one logs into are the essence though. So I just printed those out for my files. Should be easy enough to find when I pass on. (and any potential thieves reading this: I'm not rich enough to be worth you while).
Sorry I didn't know you were here. I didn't want to take credit of the article in anyway and that's why I specifically cited the source and URL in the header itself. BTW why didn't you post your article here? The topic is certainly something that every "adsenser" should worry about.
so...if you want to be technical, ginman shouldn't have reprinted the blog entry. But he twice gives out EG's URLs, and he comments favorably on the blog. I think that's pretty exemplary behavior, considering how often on the internet people represent other peoples' work as their own.
But he was nice enough to credit you for the content and more importantly, post your URL. Very interesting topic, BTW.
Great topic. I can't even IMAGINEthe amount of work this will take, but it's something I need to do as well... We take for granted that we'll have tomorrow - Foolish thinking.
Get life insurance then just let your websites die and domains expire in their own time after your death - problem solved. Any cheques that continue to come to you will be able to be cashed by them - so make a will at least to sort the legals of that out. I wouldn't want to give my family the headache of managing an online business, nevermind a large network of websites that require maintenence or checking for the domain renewals etc. Just let them have a nice lump sum in the event of your death - at least you know the ammount you're leaving them. Pete
my wife would be just fine if I died, I set up the life insurance to pay off the house and cars. However, I have thought MANY times about getting my internet information all collected into one source. This has come up a lot since my grandfather died last summer and locating account numbers and passwords was pretty easy. He kept most of it summed up in one location for us. thanks for the thread though, kind of reminds me I still have work to do on the topic.
I think a list of login-codes plus websites should do the trick actually. Most of the info's online anyhow. Personally - since I don't have the memory to remember them all - I keep those in one file on my computer (with its own login code). Printing that out took me about a minute today. I advise NEOMEM for all such note-taking tasks.