My radical proxy move...

Discussion in 'General Business' started by mightyb, Oct 22, 2007.

  1. #1
    I always wanted to give proxy a try so last month i decided to go and buy a proxy website with a bit of daily revenue...

    Soon i realised how much bandwidth and resources these puppies take. Even though i had spare capacity on my dedicated server i could not see myself running a proxy for too long. I was thinking about selling it on but do you know what i did instead? I made my proxy site unusable...

    1) My bandwidth went from 20GB/day to 100MB
    2) My server no longer overloads
    3) My CTR went up by 400%

    New visitors come to my proxy. They realise that it does not work. Because they are desperate to login to myspace or do whatever they need to do, they move on to find another proxy. This is where Adsense comes handy displaying all the proxy links.

    So now I'm spending less and earning more...

    So you are thinking... Oh, you are losing all of these visitors... They will never come back! Yep, they probably wont but quite frankly i don't care. I'm in there for the money and to be honest returning visitors don't really convert (Adsense).

    So as long as i have a steady stream of unique visitors, I'm running the most profitable proxy in the world :D ..... that does not even work...
     
    mightyb, Oct 22, 2007 IP
  2. buffalo

    buffalo Illustrious Member

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    #2
    And we are still partners, right?? ;)
     
    buffalo, Oct 22, 2007 IP
  3. greenstar91

    greenstar91 Guest

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    #3
    how exactly did you make it unusable - how exactly does this attract more visitors?
     
    greenstar91, Oct 22, 2007 IP
  4. mightyb

    mightyb Banned

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    #4
    It does not attract any visitors. I get a steady stream of visitors from SEs weather my proxy works or not. Iv made it unusable by deleting a bit of code. When you enter a url and click run nothing happens.


    buffalo

    uhu :D I will need more input from you :p
     
    mightyb, Oct 22, 2007 IP
    buffalo likes this.
  5. Knight Rider

    Knight Rider Guest

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    #5
    Thats awesome, i should try that.
     
    Knight Rider, Oct 22, 2007 IP
  6. zaczebra

    zaczebra Peon

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    #6
    I also found this out by accident, but do not use the method because i don't get repeat visitors.....but it def works :)

    Simple way to do this is to block outgoing traffic in your firewall settings
     
    zaczebra, Oct 22, 2007 IP
  7. ColorWP.com

    ColorWP.com Notable Member

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    #7
    It's a smart move, but you drive away the visitors that are going to bookmark your site for futher use, because they see that your site is useless. :)

    BTW: Thats why I bough unlimited hosting, so I don't have to do this radical move. ;)
     
    ColorWP.com, Oct 22, 2007 IP
  8. mightyb

    mightyb Banned

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    #8
    Yea but returning visitors don't really convert much once they notice the ads unless they see something they are interested in.


    PS: There is no such thing as unlimited hosting ;)
     
    mightyb, Oct 22, 2007 IP
  9. ColorWP.com

    ColorWP.com Notable Member

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    #9
    Well, you can rotate color schemes to disable the "ad blindness" of the visitors. You can also change the template and/or ad placement from time to time. And the method I just thinked of is to make a script which rotates complete different themes/ad placements for every visitor. :) It must be tried sometimes.

    PS: Actually there is, but I mean only unlimited bandwidth and space - not server resources. ;)
     
    ColorWP.com, Oct 22, 2007 IP
  10. wierdo

    wierdo Well-Known Member

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    #10
    Would this work for forums as well? :rolleyes:
     
    wierdo, Oct 22, 2007 IP
  11. ColorWP.com

    ColorWP.com Notable Member

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    #11
    You should try it to see. Personally, I don't think it will work on forums, since visitors go there to find some new information, and if they see that it doen't have what they want, they'll just find another forum. And about the proxies, they come because they desperately need to access some site fast and they usually prefer to check the related links (adsense ads) in it, instead or googleing for another working proxy.

    As I said you should test, to see. :)
     
    ColorWP.com, Oct 22, 2007 IP
  12. mightyb

    mightyb Banned

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    #12
    Changing the colours defenetely works but considering that you are paying a bong for bandwidth its not worth it for a proxy website atleast IMHO.


    PS: Try using a petabyte of their space or bandwidth :p



    wierdo

    Why would you want to do this to a forum?
     
    mightyb, Oct 22, 2007 IP
  13. quickwebdesigners

    quickwebdesigners Peon

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    #13
    From my experience, 90% of my proxy traffic comes from direct access or I would guess word of mouth. 5% of my proxy traffic came from search engines. I'm getting out of the proxy business though...I found another trade that makes me more money.

    But yea, it is a radical move unless your traffic sources were totally different than mine wiht most of it coming from search engines and no word of mouth.
     
    quickwebdesigners, Oct 22, 2007 IP
  14. MrBrian

    MrBrian Active Member

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    #14
    First word to enter my mind: Genius.
     
    MrBrian, Oct 22, 2007 IP
  15. quickwebdesigners

    quickwebdesigners Peon

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    #15
    [​IMG]

    My proxy stats from proxy I want to sell. So basically you want those 15 visits from google and disregard those 350 visits from mouth to mouth?
     
    quickwebdesigners, Oct 23, 2007 IP
  16. filma

    filma Well-Known Member

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    #16
    Hahaha , that's fairly 'evil' though an effective idea, you must be raking it in :)
     
    filma, Oct 23, 2007 IP
  17. mightyb

    mightyb Banned

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    #17
    quickwebdesigners

    My stats are different to yours. This method should only work for those with a steady unique visitors flow.

    Out of interest... How many clicks do you get out of those visitors that bookmarked your proxy and visit it every day?
     
    mightyb, Oct 23, 2007 IP
  18. simon369

    simon369 Active Member

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    #18
    You could also try and just park the page as somebody may click on ads there e.g. park it with sedo
     
    simon369, Oct 23, 2007 IP
  19. quickwebdesigners

    quickwebdesigners Peon

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    #19
    Exactly, if the proxy does not work then why even have a proxy?

    Just park the page with a bunch of key terms and have like 30 popups...guranteed clicks from each user

    i mean do that if and only if your intention is to not care about your visitors. I could never do such a thing though to something that I know I spent time to make but its up to you
     
    quickwebdesigners, Oct 23, 2007 IP
  20. mightyb

    mightyb Banned

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    #20
    The problem with parking your pages is that you lose your SERPs. And i need SE traffic.

    Weather you agree or not the facts are there. Not only i don't spend money on bandwidth i also make 4 times as much now.
     
    mightyb, Oct 23, 2007 IP