15 Best High Paying Google Adsense Alternatives For Your Blog

Don’t want to work with Google AdSense? No problem. There are many Google Adsense Alternatives & alternative ad networks available for those who don’t want or can’t work with Google for some reason.
BEST GOOGLE ADSENSE ALTERNATIVES
Let’s look at some common scenarios in which people seek out AdSense alternatives.
Reasons to Look For AdSense Alternatives

There are many reasons to look for alternative ad networks and other ways to monetize your sites. The most popular reasons I hear are:

1. Google AdSense rejects many sites for not having enough content or if they feel your site would not be appropriate for their advertisers.
2. Getting a site approved for Google AdSense is not as easy as it was in the past.
3. If you read any of the internet marketing or webmaster forums, I’m sure you’ve see thread after thread with a title that goes something like… “AdSense banned me! Why?”
4. Google AdSense has a lot of rules and they monitor sites constantly. If you happen to break even one rule, they will not just ban the site, they will ban you and won’t let you open a new AdSense account. And even if you manage to open one somehow and they catch you later, they will ban the new account.
5. Did you know that if you even accidentally click on an ad on your site you could be banned for life?
6. Many site owners feel that Google AdSense rules are just too strict. Conforming to the many rules often leads to site design issues.
7. In some instances, you have to redesign your entire site just so you can use Google AdSense.
8. Contextual text ads sometimes just don’t fit a site’s design and layout. Other ad formats that Google AdSense does not support work better on many sites.

Types of Ads
Now let’s briefly take a look at the main types of ads available to publishers looking to shift to an AdSense alternative.
Targeted Text Ads: These ads are text-based and are usually found in groups. They are targeted to match the site’s content or the search phrase that was used on a search engine to bring them to your site’s page.

In-Text: These style of ads popup when you hover over selected text phrases with your mouse. A small box pops up and usually contains either images, text or video as well as the ad’s link.

Display: Display ads contain images, headlines, body text and other elements used to get a viewer’s attention. Sizes range from eighth page to full page ads.

Banner: These are your typical image ads you see on many sites. They can be just the image or an image with a text line above or below it. Sizes range from button size to half page and come in all orientations.

Alternative Ad Networks

Here are the top alternative ad networks that you can use instead of Google AdSense. Take your time and check out each one of them. You should find several that will work well with your sites.

1. Adsterra



Adsterra is one of the fastest growing premium ad networks and currently serves over 10 billion geo-targeted ad impression per month. They offer various popular ad formats for web and mobile devices: popunders, standard banners, pushups, interstitial, sliders, and direct links.

Adsterra is a perfect alternative to AdSense for the websites that have over 50K impressions per month. They work with website from all types of niches and have a great ad fill rate for all countries.

Publishers can enjoy on-time payments made bi-weekly via major payment systems, as well as a personal account manager and real-time statistics provided through Adsterra API.

2. Media.Net



Media.Net gives you exclusive access to the Yahoo! Bing Network. They are one of the world’s largest contextual ad networks and boast many top publishers like Forbes, ELLE, Reuters, and Good Housekeeping.

Media.Net offers publishers several ad styles. Do note however that they only allow one of each ad type to appear on a page.

The main ad style available is the content ad. These are contextual ad blocks that are available in different sizes to suit your needs.

The next ad type available is the search targeting ad. These appear the same way as contextual ads but are only displayed to search engine traffic.

Media.Net also provides web bar and mobile ads to its publishers.

I feel that this is the closest AdSense alternative currently available. But, be aware that they are known for suspending accounts and not stating the reason. So, if you use them, read all the rules and be careful to follow them.

Possible roadblock: Media.Net needs to approve each site you want to place ads on. And they’re a little strict on what sites they approve.

3. Chitika



Chitika is an online advertising network with over 350,000 publishers. They serve over four billion targeted ads per month. Chitika has several top tier advertising partners like Yahoo!, SuperMedia and HomeAdvisor.

Since the Chitika ads are search targeted, they work best with websites that get most of their traffic from search engines. Visitors that arrive at your site by other channels are displayed generic ads loosely based on your site’s title and keywords. If the majority of your traffic is from links or type-ins you may want to look at other AdSense alternatives.

They do allow you to use alternative ads that you can display to your non-organic visitors to better make use of your site’s ad space.

Publisher payments are available by PayPal starting with a $10 minimum.

Chitika is one of the few ad networks that has an affiliate program. This could bring in an additional income for you.

4. Adversal



Adversal is an excellent alternative to AdSense if your site gets over 50,000 page views per month. They have fast approvals but make sure your site meets their requirements before you apply to be a publisher.

They offer various banner sizes and types to publishers. Pop-unders and ministitial type ads are also available for publisher use.

Currently their minimum payout is $20. A PayPal option is available.

Adversal is also one of the few ad networks that has an affiliate program.

Please be aware that Adversal will reject any site that does not receive at least 50,000 page views per month.

5. Infolinks



Infolinks ad network currently serves targeted ads on over 125,000 websites. They work best on sites that contain large amounts of text based content.

Infolinks indexes your pages to determine the best ads to display. Several types of ads are available to publishers for use on their sites.

The main ad type Infolinks provides is their in-text ad links. Selected words on your page are selected and either double underlined or dotted underlined. When a visitor scrolls over one of the words, a pops up containing an ad relevant to the word appears.

These ads can appear a little spammy and get a little annoying when you accidentally move your cursor over a link. They do allow you to limit the number on a page though.

They also have an ad block called related tags. These are very similar in look to AdSense horizontal link blocks.

A tag cloud ad block is available for your use if you feel it would be suitable for your site’s layout.

Infolinks has a search widget that sits at the bottom of the screen and when a visitor moves their cursor over its bar, it slides up to display its contents.

Infolinks will not approve a site if they feel it is thin on content.

6. Clicksor



Clicksor offers publishers multiple ad formats including clickable text and targeted contextual banner ads for use on their sites.

All ads displayed to your site’s visitors are context sensitive. This way your site visitors see ads that they will be more likely to click.

They offer weekly payouts via PayPal or check. The minimum payout threshold is currently $50.

Clicksor also offers an affiliate program that pays a 10% commission.

Caveat: They’re getting more picky on which sites they accept and are rejecting many sites that are not based in the US, Canada or UK.

7. RevenueHits




RevenueHits is a fairly new ad network and looks very promising. They offer a nice variety of ad types including banner, pop-under, sliders, top and footer style banners, buttons, and interstitials.

They offer both contextual and geo-targeted ads. They are a performance-based network (CPA), not a CPC or CPM network. So make sure you understand that you are paid when a visitor to your site takes specific actions instead of being paid when they click on an ad.

RevenueHits offers payment via wire, PayPal and Payoneer. The current minimum payout is $50.

They do not allow ads to be placed on pages that do not contain content.

8. BidVertiser



BidVertiser pays you on both clicks and conversions. This could help you make more money from your sites.

Text ads, banner ads, mobile ads and slider ads are available.

They offer publishers a point-and-click ad builder tool that helps you to customize the ads to fit the look and feel of your site.

They pay monthly by check, wire or PayPal. The current minimum payout is only $10 if you choose to receive payments through PayPal.

One downside to BidVertiser is that they use an advertiser bidding system. Each advertiser bids ad placement and what sites their ads appear on. So, it may take some time for advertisers to find your site in the BidVertiser network and start bidding on your ad spots.

9. Intellilinks



Intellilinks lets you sell simple text links on your sites to advertisers for a set monthly fee. The more traffic you have and the better your search engine rankings, the higher you can set your monthly charge.

If you have a site that is ranked well and receives a good amount of traffic, you will want to take a close look at Intellilinks.

For integration, they provide a WordPress plugin or script that is easy to install. This plugin or script automates the process of adding text links to your site.

Sold links can be placed inside of content and on the sidebar as related links.

Your site visitors do not have to click these links for you to be paid.

Payments are made through PayPal on a monthly basis.

One negative thing about Intellilinks is that it may take time for advertisers to purchase links on your site.

10. PopAds



PopAds specializes in pop-under ad delivery.

They claim that their average earnings for a site that receives 1000 unique visitors a day is $4.00 a day.

You can select the minimum bid you will accept from advertisers as well as setting the frequency with which the pop-under ads display to site visitors.

One of the great features of PopAds is that you can request payment of your PopAds revenue anytime you want. If you are earning at least $5 a day, you can even make payment requests on a daily basis.

Getting an account and site approvals is easy with PopAds.

11. PopMyAds



PopMyAds is a pop-under ad network that accepts publishers and traffic from all countries.

They provide quick site approval; many times in under one hour.

This is one of the few ad networks that accepts legal adult sites. Please check their TOS for more details on the sites they accept.

Their minimum payout is just $5.00 and can be paid through PayPal or Payza. You can contact them if you need to be paid through wire transfer. All payments are processed in 1 to 7 business days. PayPal and Payza payments are usually processed within 1 business day of payment request.

12. PropellerAds Media



PropellerAds is a large ad network that specializes in pop-under ads but also provides standard banner ads, on-click ads and in-banner video ads. They also have sliders, sponsored links and other ad formats available for publishers.

If your website is in one of the following niches, you will want to check them out: Games, entertainment, movies, dating, finances, software or gambling.

They also have a great ad fill rate for tier 2 and 3 countries. So if you have site visitors from India, South Africa or Singapore, you should give them a try.

13. Vibrant Media



Vibrant Media is an extremely popular ad network that you will see at work on many popular sites. They have many premium advertisers and pay high CPC rates to their publishers.

Let me give you an advance warning though. They are very picky about what sites they accept. Any site you submit to them for approval must be of high quality and receive a minimum of 500,000 page views per month.

Vibrant use their own IntelliTXT technology that searches your pages for relevant keywords and phrases. It then underlines these and adds code needed to open a small popup when they are hovered by a visitor’s cursor.

These popup ads are interactive and draw a high number of clicks.

Vibrant also offers other ad types, including in-image and display.

Though site approval is difficult, if you do have a site that meets their minimum criteria, they are a great network to be on.

14. VigLink



VigLink helps you to monetize your sites by automatically converting key phrases and existing links into affiliate links.

VigLink supports over 32,000 affiliate merchants and pays you between 25% and 50% of all revenue earned by clicks on links converted by VigLink.

Currently they offer three types of monetization technologies.

Their VigLink Convert service takes many of your regular links to products and converts them to links that will earn you a commission if the product is purchased by the visitor clicking the link.

VigLink Insert takes keyword phrases from your site and converts then into affiliate links. This works great if your site discusses a lot of products.

The third technology they offer is VigLink Anywhere. This technology is designed for sharing links via Twitter, Facebook, email etc.

It’s easy to get approved and account activation is instant once you verify your email address.

If you have been turned down by other networks, this one is worth checking out.

15. BuySellAds



BuySellAds sells advertising space on your site to advertisers for you.

When you submit a site to BuySellAds for approval they look at your PageRank, Alexa score, inbound link count and other metrics to determine your site’s overall quality. They only accept high quality sites.

You actually have control of what you feel your ad space is worth. But, be careful that you don’t price yourself out of the market.

BuySellAds supports many ad types, including background takeovers, display, email newsletters, RSS feed ads, image plus text, text ads etc.

They pay you 75% of the revenue your ad space brings in.

BuySellAds only accepts English language sites. You also need to have a minimum of 100,000 page views per month.

Also note that you must own the domain. They do not allow sites on wordpress.com, Blogger, etc.

There are many reasons why people look for alternatives to AdSense. Getting rejected, getting banned, overly strict rules, and that sometimes contextual text ads just don’t work with a site’s design.

Now it’s time for you to explore all the options you have and pick the ad networks that works best for you, your sites and your goals.

How to Get an Approved Google Adsense Account in 1 hour ?

Today, I have got some relief and thus publishing an important article about getting an Approved Adsense Account in 1 hour. I was getting several request, Where user asked me to provide some easiest method for getting an Approved Google Adsense Account.
HOW TO GET GOOGLE ADSENSE APPROVAL

Google Adsense is undoubtedly one of the best Ad network for bloggers and Web Masters but getting an approved adsense account was never an easy procedure. However, those days are passed and now, You can get an Approved Adsense Account in 1 hour. Isn’t that unbelievable? But it is true. In this post, I will show you “How to get an Approved Adsense Account in 1 hours ?”

You can get an Approved Adsense Account in 1 hours through the help of YouTube Monetization method.
STEPS TO GET ADSENSE APPROVAL FAST

First of all, Create a New GMail Account. If you haven’t used your Old Gmail account for Monetization then you can also use your Old account as well. If your country is not supported by Adsense then choose a country like US and UK, while creating New GMail Account.
YOUTUBE MONETIZATION
Login to your “YouTube” Account by visiting https://www.youtube.com/

Visit http://youtube.com/account_monetization

1. Enable “Monetization” for your YouTube Account. The screenshot for doing the same is given below:



2. After that, You will have to “Accept” all terms and condition. The screenshot of the same is given below:



3. Finally, Click on “Monetize” Button. The screenshot of the same is given below:




4. After doing that, You will receive an EMail in your Inbox.

5. Now, Upload a Unique video in your YouTube Account. While doing that, Don’t forget to add appropriate description and Tags for videos. Wait for the upload to get completed. Once done, Publish it.

6. To associate an Adsense Account, Visit https://www.youtube.com/account_monetization and expand the topic “How Will I be Paid” and click on the link “Associate an Adsense Account“. The screenshot of the same is given below:



7. Now, You will be redirected to a screen, Where you will have to set up your Adsense Account. Click on “Continue” button for filling your other details such as Address, Country, Payee Name etc

8. After clicking on “Continue” button, You will see the below given screen. Enter all details correctly.

9. After filling all details, Click on “Submit” button. Wait for 1-2 hours. You will get an EMail containing the details of an Approved Adsense Account. Hurray….Hurray…enjoy.

Login to your Adsense Account

1. Click on “Account Settings” option on Home Page. The screenshot of the same is given below:



2. Move to “Access and Authorization” section. You will find this section at the end of “Account Settings” Page.

3. Click on “Edit” link which appears next to “Only host sites are allowed to show ads for your account” option.

4. Now, Add the url of your website(where you want to show Ads) on “Show Ads on Other Website” Page. You have done most of your work.

5. Finally, Create an Ad Unit and implement the code in your website.. Enjoy.

6. If you want to display Adsense Ads on Blogger Blog, Simply Associate your Adsense Account with blogger.

How To Make $100,000 Money Online With Google AdSense

Is it really possible to make $100,000 a year from Google Adsense (or by selling ads on your website/blog)? If so, then the real question is how much traffic do you really need to make big bucks with Google AdSense?
While it’s true that we can’t predict the Google AdSense income exactly, we can optimize the ads in different ways so as to make the most out of it.
HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITH GOOGLE ADSENSE

Also, you must make sure that your website category is advertising friendly because your AdSense income depends a lot upon the category of your website. You can use Google AdWords Keyword Planner tool to find out the competition in your industry.


If there is enough competition (i.e. if the suggested bid by AdWords for keywords in your niche is high) then we can assume that Google will fill your ad spaces with high paying ads (see how AdSense works).

For example, if you Google search “loans” then you’ll see a lot of ads so it means that if you have a blog related to personal finance then there will be enough competition for your ad space.

Now I’ve randomly added few keywords to Keyword Planner to find out its suggested bid by AdWords. Here they are:



As you can see, the competition for keywords related to “finance” is very high compared to keywords related to “food”. Of course, the suggested bid is just an estimate and the real cost-per-click varies a lot.

But still, even if it’s $5 then it means a lot. Why? It’s because the cost per click to advertise on Google is very high compared to cost per click on Google Display Network. So if an advertiser is paying $0.50/click on Google then he may be paying only $0.10/click on Google Display Network.
HOW MUCH TRAFFIC DO YOU NEED TO MAKE MONEY WITH GOOGLE ADSENSE
Let’s say you want to make $100,000 a year from Google AdSense and/or Google AdSense alternatives.

$100,000 divided by 365 = $274 a day.

So, you have to create either: 274 pages that earn $1 a day OR 548 pages that earn 50 cents a day OR 1,096 pages that earn 25 cents a day (which sounds reasonable, right?). Let’s say you have 1,096 high quality blog posts and you earn $0.25 per click from AdSense.

I have analyzed the traffic and AdSense stats (using Google Image Search) of several websites including my own blogs and websites.

From my analysis, I found that the average Page CTR is around 1% (or it’s something that we can achieve easily). But it really depends upon your niche, web site design and other factors.

In fact I have achieved a Page CTR of over 20% in 2007 for a niche website and was making $100+ a day from Google AdSense alone.
LET’S DO THE MATH TO MAKE $100,000 A YEAR WITH GOOGLE ADSENSE

Let’s assume that you have a Page CTR of 1% and your average CPC is $0.25 (I believe it’s quite an achievable target unless your keywords have no advertiser competition – e.g. a recipe blog).


Some of the top paying AdSense niches are Finance, Internet Marketing, Technology, Web Hosting, Internet & Computers, Software, Health etc. and some of the lowest paying AdSense niches are Entertainment, Arts, Movies, Celebrity Gossips, News blog, Jokes, Wallpapers, Quotes, Recipes, Photo blogs etc.

As mentioned earlier $100,000 a year means you have to earn $274 a day. If your average CPC is $0.25 then you need 100,000/0.25 = 400,000 clicks a year (or approximately 1,000 clicks a day) to earn $100,000 a year from Google AdSense. Assuming that your Page CTR is 1% you need approximately 100,000 page views a day.

Now, let’s say your “Bounce Rate” (it is the estimated percentage of visits to your website that consist of a single page view) is 100%. It means that you need 100,000 unique visitors a day itself to generate 100,000 page views a day.

In a nutshell, you need 100,000 visitors a day to make $100,000 a year from Google AdSense alone (with a CTR of 1% and CPC of $0.25).
GOOGLE ADSENSE GLOSSARY

PAGE VIEWS
A page view is what Google counts in your reports every time a user views a page displaying Google ads. We will count one page view regardless of the number of ads displayed on that page.

For example, if you have a page displaying three ad units and it is viewed twice, you will generate two page views.
CLICKS

For standard content ads, Google counts a click when a user clicks on an ad.

For link units, Google counts a click when a user clicks on an ad on the page of ads, after selecting a link in the link unit.
PAGE CLICK THROUGH RATE (PAGE CTR)

The Page Click Through Rate (CTR) is the number of ad clicks divided by the number of impressions or page views that you have received.

Page CTR = Clicks / Page Views

For example, if you received 5 Clicks from 100 Page Views, then your Page CTR would be 5%. (5/100*100=5%)
COST PER CLICK (CPC)

The Cost Per Click (CPC) is the amount you earn each time a user clicks on your ad. The CPC for any ad is determined by the advertiser; some advertisers may be willing to pay more per click than others, depending on what they’re advertising.
PAGE REVENUE PER THOUSAND IMPRESSIONS (PAGE RPM)

Page Revenue Per Thousand Impressions (RPM) is calculated by dividing your estimated earnings by the number of page views you received, then multiplying by 1000.

Page RPM = (Estimated Earnings / Number of Page Views) * 1,000

For example, if you earned an estimated $0.15 from 25 page views, then your page RPM would equal ($0.15 / 25) * 1000, or $6.00.
ESTIMATED EARNINGS

Your account balance (or earnings) for the time period selected.

Source: Google AdSense Glossary

But you are not using AdSense alone to monetize your website, right? You can make more money by selling direct banner ads, in-text ads, CPM ads, sponsored links, affiliate marketing, etc.

COST PER IMPRESSION (CPM) ADS
So let’s say you’re selling direct banner ads and is also selling CPM advertising which is again an effective way to monetize your website.
WHAT ARE CPM ADS?

CPM (Cost Per Mille) stands for Cost Per 1,000 Impressions. CPM networks pays for every 1,000 impressions you generate. If a CPM ad network is paying you $1 CPM then it means that they’re paying you $1 for every 1,000 page views you generate.

CPM Network earnings totally depend upon your traffic quality but you can expect anywhere between $1 – $3 per 1,000 impressions. So, if you generate 100,000 page views a day then you can make $100 – $300 a day from CPM Networks. Again, you can earn $100 – $300 (or maybe even more) a day by selling banner ads directly to advertisers.


Now, you can split the traffic into three as you’re earning $300 each from 3 advertising networks. It means that you need 100,000/3=33,333 unique visitors a day (with a bounce rate of 100%) to make approximately $274/day.

Again, if you have an authority blog then your bounce rate will never be 100%. In that case you can expect an average page view of 1.5 per user. It means that 50% of your visitors exit from the landing page and others visit more than one page on your website.


All in all, you need approximately 20,000 visitors a day to generate 30,000+ page views and it can earn $274 a day which translates to $100,000 a year in advertising revenues.

Need a little more help reaching that $100,000/year goal? Add commissions from Affiliate Programs as well into the equation and you can hit that $100,000 goal with much less traffic.

In fact, in 2008 I was averaging $200+ a day from less than 200 daily unique visitors with affiliate marketing. It was possible because when it comes to affiliate marketing it’s all about traffic quality and not traffic quantity.
HOW TO OPTIMIZE GOOGLE ADSENSE


You can optimize your AdSense ads in several ways. For example, you can try text ads only, image ads only, text & image ads to find out which ad format is performing better.


Google recommends wide ad formats like 728 x 90, 336 x 280, 300 x 250, and 160 x 600 as they’re more advertiser friendly.

When you use the recommended ad formats, your AdSense ads should perform well because of increased competition. Why? Because the recommended ad formats by AdSense are the most popular ad formats and hence almost all advertisers must be targeting those ad formats.

So it increases the competition naturally and Google will be showing the highest paying ads on your website. But it’s also a good idea to try different ad formats as Google is now offering a variety of ad formats (including responsive ad units).


I would recommend A/B testing on your website to find out the best performing ad formats. Like, you can do A/B testing by trying different ad types, ad formats, ad colors, and then by placing your ads at different sections on your website (above and below the fold) to find out which position is offering the best CTR).

But what if your AdSense earnings are low even though you have good a CTR? In that case, I would recommend ad controls though Google mentioned that blocking any ad will reduce our potential earnings.

Google says:


It’s a myth that filtering ads can prevent ‘low-paying ads’ from appearing, so as always, we recommend blocking only those ads that you feel are unsuitable for your users.

Finally, you can tweak the AdSense click-through-rate by using an AdSense friendly template for your website/blog. But make sure that your website is not ad heavy as it will impact the user experience in a negative way.

And as always, you can focus on creating awesome content and driving more traffic so that it increases your Google AdSense earnings (and your advertising revenues) naturally.

BONUS

I have recently published a blog post that was essentially a reverse of this topic. It’s basically about what it takes to hit your traffic and income goal (assuming a traffic goal of 1,000,000 pageviews and an income goal of $3,000 per month).

I have subcategorized the topic into:
1. HOW MUCH TRAFFIC DOES YOUR BLOG NEED TO MAKE $36,000 PER YEAR IN AD REVENUE
Tells you how many pageviews are required to generate $36,000 (that is, $3,000 x 12) in advertising revenue (affiliate income will be a bonus for you) per year based on real case studies and examples.
2. HOW MANY BLOG POSTS DO YOU NEED TO GENERATE A MILLION PAGEVIEWS PER MONTH
Tells you how many blog posts your website might need to generate one million pageviews per month.
3. HOW MUCH MONEY SHOULD YOU INVEST IN CONTENT MARKETING TO GENERATE A MILLION PAGEVIEWS PER MONTH

Tells you how much money should you invest in content creation to hit your traffic goal although it differs on a case-by-case basis.
4. HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO REACH YOUR TRAFFIC GOAL
Tells you how much time your website will take to hit your traffic goal using my own blog as a case study.

In other words, it’s written to decode:


How Much Money Should You Invest In Content Marketing To Generate 1,000,000 Pageviews And $3,000 Per Month

Here you go:
How to Increase Website Traffic and Generate 1,000,000 Pageviews & $3,000 Per Month

It’s the result of a homework that I did with a goal to increase the traffic of my blog 5x from here. So, it’s written purely based on my own traffic insights plus few case studies and traffic numbers of different blogs in different niches.

There’s every chance that the actual figures applicable for your own blog could be a lot different from mine. Needless to say, it ultimately depends upon your website’s niche, authority, and marketing efforts.

Also, your final income levels could be a lot higher or lower than the figures that I have mentioned as again, it depends upon your website and its different metrics.

Top 7 Best Proven Ways To Improve Google Adsense CPC And CTR

Are you looking for ways on how to increase AdSense CTR? If you are searching to increase AdSense CPC of your blogs, you are in the right place.
We all know that Google AdSense is the most popular PPC (Pay Per Click) network where any
website owner can use them to increase their online visibility and click through rates.
As I have been using Google AdSense for a long time now (also used for years for this blog), I know few secret tips that can help you increase your CPC and CTR rates to boost your income.
Note: I would recommend giving a try to AdNgin to take your Adsense Earnings to Next Level. Click Above link to Book a Free Demo with AdNgin Now
WHAT IS GOOGLE ADSENSE CPC?

In simple words, CPC is cost per click and it is the money that we earn for each click made on Google Adsense ads placed on our website. There are so many ways to increase your CPC rates on your websites
Create relevant ads
Create compelling ads that attract visitors to click
Optimize your ads text

And many more which we will be covering in this detailed article to improve Google AdSense CPC rates.
WHAT IS ADSENSE CTR?

Click Through rate is the percentage of people clicking Google Adsense ads on our website.

Let’s imagine your average CPC is $0.2 and if you have got 12,500 average clicks. You should receive around $5,000. Now, if your CPC had been $0.3 with the same number of average clicks, you could generate $7,500. See, just with a $0.1 increase, you are able to generate $2,500. This is the reason why you need to focus on improving your click through rates (CTR) instead of focusing on getting more clicks in the first place.

Google Adsense CPC will depend a lot on your website niche. But if you are operating in a highly competitive niche, cost per click (CPC) will be much higher on the Google Adsense ads that are placed on your website. But highly competitive niche means, you need to put in extra efforts and time to get targeted traffic to your website.

Lots of people think that the only way to improve CTR is targeting the highest paying keywords, but that will not be much productive. The key for improving Google Adsense CTR will be targeting the right niche and enriching targeted content, improving CTR and being an authority website in your niche etc. Being an Google Adsense publisher, we need to look at ways to improve our Google Adsense CPC and CTR.

So here are Top 7 Tips that will help you improve your Google Adsense CPC and CTR:
HOW TO IMPROVE GOOGLE ADSENSE CPC AND CTR

Before diving into the details, you must know few things about increasing your CPC and CTR.

How to calculate your CPC?

Your CPC will be less than or equal to max. bid, because it’s an avg of bids of all the competitors in a specific period of time. Lets get into the details without much ado on increasing your CPC and CTR rates using Google AdSense PPC ads.
1. WEBSITE NICHE
First thing that you have to do is choose a good niche for your website. Niche related to internet marketing, web development, finance, gaming and health etc are high paying as the CPC for keywords related to these niche’s are quite good. Most of the times, you would not get good CPC in case you decide to go for education or entertainment related niche’s.

It doesn’t matter how much you want to make from Google AdSense, you just have first focus on choosing a website niche that is either ever green or giving you rock solid income opportunities for a long time. Selecting your niche can determine how much money you can generate each and every month from your Google AdSense ads.


2. FIND PROFITABLE KEYWORDS

Do you want to know how to increase AdSense CTR ? Create a list of all the profitable keyword ideas in your field and start using them while creating content for your blogs.

Keyword research is the key to increase AdSense CPC. If you are looking for proven ways on how to get high cpc adsense for your blogs, here are few keyword research tips for you.
Spy on your competitors best performing keywords. One of the easiest ways on how to increase your CTR AdSense is to find out all the keywords that are being used by the top earning blogs in your field. You can do this by using tools such as SEMrush. It can really help you find out all the top keywords of any niche!
Always find long tail keywords. They are easier to rank and give you lots of search traffic to your blogs. You can create lots of content by using long tail keywords. If you are wondering how to increase AdSense CPC with long tail keywords, I highly recommend you to give a try to Long Tail Pro.
Make sure to find and use the keywords with a global search volume between 1000 to 2000 monthly searches. Using low competitive keywords can really help you increase adsense cpc.
Always write keyword rich content. Before creating any new content for your blogs, make sure to do keyword research. Only after finding the primary and secondary keywords for your blogs, start creating content around it. That way you can quickly boost your blog’s search traffic as well as AdSense CPC and CTR.
3. CREATE COMPELLING ADS THAT ATTRACT VISITORS TO CLICK

Focus on choosing your website visitors over ads. If you focus on your customers needs and wants, you will be able to create better Google AdSense campaigns to make decent passive income from AdSense ads. Use Google adwords keywords suggestion tool to come up with relevant phrases for your ads, focus on how competitive the keywords are and also analyze how much they can generate you for each keyword.

You need to ask yourself few questions before creating any campaign. Here few of them are
Are these keywords searchable on Google?
Do people really like to click on these ads without thinking much?
How much each ad can generate (per click) aka analyze your CPC

Compelling ads always generate more CTR as they don’t give any false hopes to the visitors, and compelling ads always stand out from the competition. While creating ads, don’t imagine you are creating ads to generate more money, instead think from your customers point of view to generate more clicks.

Your headline of the ad, description and URL are the 3 essential ingredients that can make or break your click through rates, so make sure to have
a powerful headline
irresistible URL and
a search engine friendly description

Ad placement is also the key.

Where you put your ads on your blog’s design plays a huge role in increasing your AdSense CTR and CPC. Here’s a simple screenshot that explains you about the ad placement.



The first block (which can be seen left side above) usually gives you highest AdSense CPC and CTR because the ad placement is so good when compared to the second block.
4. QUALITY CONTENT IS THE KEY
Quality content is one the primary reasons few websites get more CTR and CPC rates from Google AdSense ads. The websites that generate more income from AdSense focus on creating relevant content instead of writing everything under the sun.

One thing should keep in mind is that you should write contents around your website niche only. This way, you will be able to convert your website into well themed website for that niche. In case, you start writing about unrelated niche, you will see drop in click through rate you are getting on your Google Adsense Ads.

This way you may even lose lots of your existing users as they are visiting your website to see latest contents about that niche only and not about any unrelated niche. Hope you got my point.
5. CREATE CONVERTING LANDING PAGES
Once the visitor lands on your site for the first time, he will be first noticing your design elements of your websites. If your design is messy and give a spam feel, they will click exit button right away. So don’t create messy design just to generate more sales from your ads, it can kill your conversion rates.

Don’t create false promises on your landing pages and always make sure to deliver what you have promised on your headlines, or description of the ads. That way you will be able to get more CPC (cost per click) rates from your Google AdSense campaigns.

Here are few tips for increasing your AdSense CTR and CPC with your landing pages.
Always focus on creating landing pages that are less distractive. The less distraction you provide the more benefits you will get.
Use tools like GetResponse, LeadPages etc to create landing pages. They are cost effective and extremely easy to create stunning landing pages.
Analyze how others are using landing pages in your field. See if you can replicate some of their features to boost your AdSense CTR.
6. VISITORS LOCATION
Your website visitors location (geometric location such as US, UK, India) also matter when it comes about improving the CRT for Google Adsense Ads. A single click from US location can give you a CPC of $1 to $5 or even more and while the same click from Asian location will give you a CPC of $.01 to $1 only.

You should look at ways to improve traffic from US location on your website if you want more AdSense earnings. If you are targeting India as the target market, you will see lower amount of money per CPC. But if you are getting majority of traffic on your website from US, you will see much higher cost per click on your Google Adsense ad units.

So make sure to define your target market before entering into any niche. Few best niches that can send you lots of US traffic to increasing your earnings are below.
Fitness
Cooking
Real estate
Games
Technology
News
Entertainment
Gossip
Weight loss etc.
7. NURTURE YOUR SEO EFFORTS
On-page SEO and proper SEO optimization is really the key to increasing your AdSense CPC and CTR.
Make sure to use your targeted keywords within your title tags, sub headings, URL, image alt tags, links and throughout the body to make your content rank well in Google search results.

But be aware of keyword stuffing. If you use the same keywords repeatedly, Google crawlers may think your content is spam and it will penalize your rankings. Use relevant keywords instead of keyword stuffing, it can really help you boost your search rankings.

By following the above mentioned tips, you will be able to improve your Google Adsense CPC and CTR. If I missed an important tip that could help us increase Google AdSense cost per click or click through rate, don’t forget to leave your thoughts in the comments.
FINAL THOUGHTS ABOUT INCREASING ADSENSE CPC AND CTR
Improving Google AdSense CPC and CTR is not a hard task, and anyone with basic skills on how to turn visitors into prospects can generate a good average income from PPC ads. Conversion tracking is also a major factor that can decide your CTR rates as you need to focus on getting more click through rates than increasing your ad budget.

If you implement the above 7 tips, not only you will increase your traffic but also you can increase your AdSense CPC and CTR of your blogs. Just make sure to create keyword rich content by analyzing your competitors and you will soon notice better results.

Let me know if you have any questions related to improving your AdSense CPC and CTR rates.

How to Make Money with Fiverr : A Beginners Comprehensive Guide

Fiverr is the marketplace to sell products cum services at a price of $5. People find Fiverr a great place to offer services and earn more than $5 each day. One can also say that this platform comes as a handy tool in times of recession.

This website does not invite only experts to offer their services but is open to people who are confident that they can deliver a good show to their buyers. A wide range of categories from simple tips and tricks to programming and advertising are available to make a good use of and provide services based on them.

Some of the Fiverr clone websites have been designed in such a way that people can even offer offline jobs like painting, dog walking or babysitting. One of the most popular services provided among the categories is writing. You can even find people offering a new type of gig altogether instead of a copy gig.


Here are a few tips on how you can enhance the gig earnings with this popular money maker website.

Need to be a Top Rated Seller: After you have made your first sale, you need to chart out the different things that will help you become a top rated seller. Being a top rated seller invites new customers and repeat customers to your gig. A badge indicating good reputation appears on the profile or on one of the gigs of such a seller.
THE DIFFERENT THINGS THAT MAKE A TOP SELLER ARE:

1. Feedback: You need to get a positive feedback for almost all your gigs.

2. Customer service: You need to provide good customer service to your buyers. Be polite and respond to all their queries and doubts in a timely manner. Never share your personal email address with the buyers through the Fiverr gig messages. Fiverr website does not encourage this and insists on members contacting their customer service for assistance.

3. Gig Delivery: Always remember to deliver your gig on time. If you think, you haven’t completed the gig due to time factor or too many offers, suspend your gig for a day or two. This is the best solution in case of delay in delivery and you can avoid negative feedback from the buyers.

FIVERR AND GIGBUCKS:
You can enhance your gig earning with Fiverr and Gigbucks. You can sell Fiverr members’ gigs to the buyers in Gigbucks for a profit. Here’s how you can do it. If you come across an interesting gig in Fiverr, go to GigBucks and offer the same gig for $10.


When anybody purchases your offer, go to Fiverr and buy the gig from that Fiverr member and deliver to the buyer at GigBucks. This way you make a profit of $5 on each gig for referring the customer. After you try this once you will be tempted to do more.
USAGE OF TAGS:
Using tags for your gigs is essential for visibility and to increase the buyer count. A great gig goes waste when there are no buyers for it. People who require services start searching for with keywords related to the service in the Fiverr main page. The gigs which match the keyword appear and people can select the ones which suit their requirement.


In order to get the most out of your tags, look for the tags of popular gigs and also the tags used by the top seller. Use the right tags in your gig, get more visitors and earn more money.
VIDEO ADD-ON FOR YOUR GIG:
Adding a video to your gig is the next easy and free way to make more money at Fiverr. The video will act as a supplement to your gig and attract more visitors.
GUEST BLOGGING:

Promote your gigs by offering a guest post to bloggers in exchange for a link to your gigs. Keep in mind that your guest post should have valuable content that creates an interest in the mind of the reader.
SOCIAL NETWORKING AND BLOGGER:

Get more orders for your gigs and promotion on Facebook and Twitter. Create a fan page for your gigs in Facebook and know how many visited and have become fans of your fan page. Tweet about your gigs in Twitter and suggest members to follow you on Twitter.

When you create a gig, link it your personal blog at Blogger adding a sample of your successful gigs.

How To Earn With Bloggers (5) Inline Adds

In-line Text ads are CPC links that appear in the text of your content. The links are contextually targeted to keywords in the Ad Networks’ database of advertisers to show relevant adverts. Mouse over of these links will cause a small pop-up to appear showing basic details of the advert and a click from your visitor will take the visitor to the advertiser and reward you with revenue.
Here are the reviews listed : –
Adbrite
Ads Rating:Adbrite has a lot of advertisers but their contextual engine seems random and shows their network ads seemingly from random.

Views: Easy set-up if you are using Adbrite already or want to use Adbrite’s other options. Being In-line text, you are bound to get clicks and revenue especially with Adbrite’s large advertiser base, sometimes clicks at over USD1 are not unheard of.

Clicksor
Ad Rating: We ran the In-line texts with a skyscraper banner. The loading seemed a bit slow but we did not further investigate whether this was due to the banner or the in-line text ad.

Views: We believe that the CTR of the in-line text ads shows how well the engine works and Clicksor ran in at quite a low ratio for in-line text ads. Whether this was due to the relatively short period of time we had the Ad code on our site or maybe they have not optimized their ads for our sites yet, we are not sure but CPC did not seem high neither.

Kontera
Kontera is a well set up Ad Network that specializes on in-line Text Ads.

Ads Rating: Their contextual engine, ContentLink is the best out of the networks we have reviewed here as their partnership with shopping.com and Dealtime means that if they do not find a relevant keyword, they will use keywords and apply them in a partner ad .. For example : ‘Sausages’ at DealTime
Millions of products, Get the best deals at DealTime! This gives the impression to your visitors that the ads are relevant to the content and increases the CTR and experience. Views: Kontera is one of our Favorite In-Line Text Ad Networks due to its ads and also steadier revenue. For our sites we average around 4% CTR and USD3 to USD3.5 eCPM.

Advanced Shellcoding Techniques

This paper assumes a working knowledge of basic shellcoding techniques, and x86 assembly, I will not rehash these in this paper.  I hope to teach you some of the lesser known shellcoding techniques that I have picked up, which will allow you to write smaller and better shellcodes.
 I do not claim to have invented any of these techniques, except for the one that uses the div instruction.
The multiplicity of mul

This technique was originally developed by Sorbo of darkircop.net.  The mul instruction may, on the surface, seem mundane, and it's purpose obvious.  However, when faced with the difficult challenge of shrinking your shellcode, it proves to be quite useful.  First some background information on the mul instruction itself.

mul performs an unsigned multiply of two integers.  It takes only one operand, the other is implicitly specified by the %eax register.  So, a  common mul instruction might look something like this:

movl $0x0a,%eax
mul $0x0a

This would multiply the value stored in %eax by the operand of mul, which in this case would be 10*10.  The result is then implicitly stored in EDX:EAX.  The result is stored over a span of two registers because it has the potential to be considerably larger than the previous value, possibly exceeding the capacity of a single register(this is also how floating points are stored in some cases, as an interesting sidenote).

So, now comes the ever-important question.  How can we use these attributes to our advantage when writing shellcode?  Well, let's think for a second, the instruction takes only one operand, therefore, since it is a very common instruction, it will generate only two bytes in our final shellcode.  It multiplies whatever is passed to it by the value stored in %eax, and stores the value in both %edx and %eax, completely overwriting the contents of both registers, regardless of whether it is necessary to do so, in order to store the result of the multiplication.  Let's put on our mathematician hats for a second, and consider this, what is the only possible result of a multiplication by 0?  The answer, as you may have guessed, is 0.  I think it's about time for some example code, so here it is:

xorl %ecx,%ecx
mul %ecx

What is this shellcode doing?  Well, it 0's out the %ecx register using the xor instruction, so we now know that %ecx is 0.  Then it does a mul %ecx, which as we just learned, multiplies it's operand by the value in %eax, and then proceeds to store the result of this multiplication in EDX:EAX.  So, regardless of %eax's previous contents, %eax must now be 0.  However that's not all, %edx is 0'd now too, because, even though no overflow occurs, it still overwrites the %edx register with the sign bit(left-most bit) of %eax.  Using this technique we can zero out three registers in only three bytes, whereas by any other method(that I know of) it would have taken at least six.


The div instruction

Div is very similar to mul, in that it takes only one operand and implicitly divides the operand by the value in %eax.  Also like, mul it stores the result of the divide in %eax.  Again, we will require the mathematical side of our brains to figure out how we can take advantage of this instruction.  But first, let's think about what is normally stored in the %eax register.  The %eax register holds the return value of functions and/or syscalls.  Most syscalls that are used in shellcoding will return -1(on failure) or a positive value of some kind, only rarely will they return 0(though it does occur).  So, if we know that after a syscall is performed, %eax will have a non-zero value, and that  the instruction divl %eax will divide %eax by itself, and then store the result in %eax, we can say that executing the divl %eax instruction after a syscall will put the value 1 into %eax.  So...how is this applicable to shellcoding? Well, their is another important thing that %eax is used for, and that is to pass the specific syscall that you would like to call to int $0x80.  It just so happens that the syscall that corresponds to the value 1 is exit().  Now for an example:

     
xorl %ebx,%ebx
mul %ebx
push %edx
pushl   $0x3268732f
pushl   $0x6e69622f
mov %esp, %ebx
push %edx
push %ebx
mov %esp,%ecx
movb $0xb, %al  #execve() syscall, doesn't return at all unless it fails, in which case it returns -1
int $0x80

divl %eax  # -1 / -1 = 1
int $0x80

Now, we have a 3 byte exit function, where as before it was 5 bytes.  However, there is a catch, what if a syscall does return 0?  Well in the odd situation in which that could happen, you could do many different things, like inc %eax, dec %eax, not %eax anything that will make %eax non-zero.  Some people say that exit's are not important in shellcode, because your code gets executed regardless of whether or not it exits cleanly.  They are right too, if you really need to save 3 bytes to fit your shellcode in somewhere, the exit() isn't worth keeping.  However, when your code does finish, it will try to execute whatever was after your last instruction, which will most likely produce a SIG ILL(illegal instruction) which is a rather odd error, and will be logged by the system.  So, an exit() simply adds an extra layer of stealth to your exploit, so that even if it fails or you can't wipe all the logs, at least this part of your presence will be clear.

Unlocking the power of leal

The leal instruction is an often neglected instruction in shellcode, even though it is quite useful.  Consider this short piece of shellcode.

xorl %ecx,%ecx
leal 0x10(%ecx),%eax

This will load the value 17 into eax, and clear all of the extraneous bits of eax.  This occurs because the leal instruction loads a variable of the type long into it's desitination operand.  In it's normal usage, this would load the address of a variable into a register, thus creating a pointer of sorts.  However, since ecx is 0'd and 0+17=17, we load the value 17 into eax instead of any kind of actual address.  In a normal shellcode we would do something like this, to accomplish the same thing:

xorl %eax,%eax
movb $0x10,%eax

I can hear you saying, but that shellcode is a byte shorter than the leal one, and you're quite right.  However, in a real shellcode you may already have to 0 out a register like ecx(or any other register), so the xorl instruction in the leal shellcode isn't counted.  Here's an example:

xorl    %eax,%eax
xorl    %ebx,%ebx
movb    $0x17,%al
int    $0x80
     
xorl %ebx,%ebx
leal 0x17(%ebx),%al
int $0x80

Both of these shellcodes call setuid(0), but one does it in 7 bytes while the other does it in 8.  Again, I hear you saying but that's only one byte it doesn't make that much of a difference, and you're right, here it doesn't make much of a difference(except for in shellcode-size pissing contests =p), but when applied to much larger shellcodes, which have many function calls and need to do things like this frequently, it can save quite a bit of space.



Conclusion

I hope you all learned something, and will go out and apply your knowledge to create smaller and better shellcodes.  If you know who invented  the leal technique, please tell me and I will credit him/her.  

All about ftp must read

Well, since many of us have always wondered this, here it is. Long and drawn out. Also, before attempting this, realize one thing; You will have to give up your time, effort, bandwidth, and security to have a quality ftp server.That being said, here it goes. First of all, find out if your IP (Internet Protocol) is static (not changing)

or dynamic (changes everytime you log on). To do this, first consider the fact if you have a dial up modem. If you do, chances are about 999 999 out of 1 000 000 that your IP is dynamic. To make it static, just go to a place like h*tp://www.myftp.org/ to register for a static ip address.

You'll then need to get your IP. This can be done by doing this:
Going to Start -> Run -> winipcfg or www.ask.com and asking 'What is my IP?'

After doing so, you'll need to download an FTP server client. Personally, I'd recommend G6 FTP Server, Serv-U FTPor Bullitproof v2.15 all three of which are extremely reliable, and the norm of the ftp world.
You can download them on this site: h*tp://www.liaokai.com/softw_en/d_index.htm

First, you'll have to set up your ftp. For this guide, I will use step-by-step instructions for G6. First, you'll have to go into 'Setup -> General'. From here, type in your port # (default is 21). I recommend something unique, or something a bit larger (ex: 3069). If you want to, check the number of max users (this sets the amount of simultaneous maximum users on your server at once performing actions - The more on at once, the slower the connection and vice versa).

The below options are then chooseable:
-Launch with windows
-Activate FTP Server on Start-up
-Put into tray on startup
-Allow multiple instances
-Show "Loading..." status at startup
-Scan drive(s) at startup
-Confirm exit

You can do what you want with these, as they are pretty self explanatory. The scan drive feature is nice, as is the 2nd and the last option. From here, click the 'options' text on the left column.

To protect your server, you should check 'login check' and 'password check', 'Show relative path (a must!)', and any other options you feel you'll need. After doing so, click the 'advanced' text in the left column. You should then leave the buffer size on the default (unless of course you know what you're doing ), and then allow the type of ftp you want.

Uploading and downloading is usually good, but it's up to you if you want to allow uploads and/or downloads. For the server priority, that will determine how much conventional memory will be used and how much 'effort' will go into making your server run smoothly.

Anti-hammering is also good, as it prevents people from slowing down your speed. From here, click 'Log Options' from the left column. If you would like to see and record every single command and clutter up your screen, leave the defaults.

But, if you would like to see what is going on with the lowest possible space taken, click 'Screen' in the top column. You should then check off 'Log successful logins', and all of the options in the client directry, except 'Log directory changes'. After doing so, click 'Ok' in the bottom left corner.

You will then have to go into 'Setup -> User Accounts' (or ctrl & u). From here, you should click on the right most column, and right click. Choose 'Add', and choose the username(s) you would like people to have access to.

After giving a name (ex: themoonlanding), you will have to give them a set password in the bottom column (ex: wasfaked). For the 'Home IP' directory, (if you registered with a static server, check 'All IP Homes'. If your IP is static by default, choose your IP from the list. You will then have to right click in the very center column, and choose 'Add'.

From here, you will have to set the directory you want the people to have access to. After choosing the directory, I suggest you choose the options 'Read', 'List', and 'Subdirs', unless of course you know what you're doing . After doing so, make an 'upload' folder in the directory, and choose to 'add' this folder seperately to the center column. Choose 'write', 'append', 'make', 'list', and 'subdirs'. This will allow them to upload only to specific folders (your upload folder).

Now click on 'Miscellaneous' from the left column. Choose 'enable account', your time-out (how long it takes for people to remain idle before you automatically kick them off), the maximum number of users for this name, the maximum number of connections allowed simultaneously for one ip address, show relative path (a must!), and any other things at the bottom you'd like to have. Now click 'Ok'.
**Requested**


From this main menu, click the little boxing glove icon in the top corner, and right click and unchoose the hit-o-meter for both uploads and downloads (with this you can monitor IP activity). Now click the lightning bolt, and your server is now up and running.

Post your ftp info, like this:

213.10.93.141 (or something else, such as: 'f*p://example.getmyip.com')

User: *** (The username of the client)

Pass: *** (The password)

Port: *** (The port number you chose)

So make a FTP and join the FTP section


Listing The Contents Of A Ftp:

Listing the content of a FTP is very simple.
You will need FTP Content Maker, which can be downloaded from here:
ht*p://www.etplanet.com/download/application/FTP%20Content%20Maker%201.02.zip

1. Put in the IP of the server. Do not put "ftp://" or a "/" because it will not work if you do so.
2. Put in the port. If the port is the default number, 21, you do not have to enter it.
3. Put in the username and password in the appropriate fields. If the login is anonymous, you do not have to enter it.
4. If you want to list a specific directory of the FTP, place it in the directory field. Otherwise, do not enter anything in the directory field.
5. Click "Take the List!"
6. After the list has been taken, click the UBB output tab, and copy and paste to wherever you want it.


If FTP Content Maker is not working, it is probably because the server does not utilize Serv-U Software.

If you get this error message:
StatusCode = 550
LastResponse was : 'Unable to open local file test-ftp'
Error = 550 (Unable to open local file test-ftp)
Error = Unable to open local file test-ftp = 550
Close and restart FTP Content Maker, then try again.




error messages:

110 Restart marker reply. In this case, the text is exact and not left to the particular implementation; it must read: MARK yyyy = mmmm Where yyyy is User-process data stream marker, and mmmm server's equivalent marker (note the spaces between markers and "=").
120 Service ready in nnn minutes.
125 Data connection already open; transfer starting.
150 File status okay; about to open data connection.
200 Command okay.
202 Command not implemented, superfluous at this site.
211 System status, or system help reply.
212 Directory status.
213 File status.
214 Help message. On how to use the server or the meaning of a particular non-standard command. This reply is useful only to the human user.
215 NAME system type. Where NAME is an official system name from the list in the Assigned Numbers document.
220 Service ready for new user.
221 Service closing control connection. Logged out if appropriate.
225 Data connection open; no transfer in progress.
226 Closing data connection. Requested file action successful (for example, file transfer or file abort).
227 Entering Passive Mode (h1,h2,h3,h4,p1,p2).
230 User logged in, proceed.
250 Requested file action okay, completed.
257 "PATHNAME" created.
331 User name okay, need password.
332 Need account for login.
350 Requested file action pending further information.
421 Too many users logged to the same account
425 Can't open data connection.
426 Connection closed; transfer aborted.
450 Requested file action not taken. File unavailable (e.g., file busy).
451 Requested action aborted: local error in processing.
452 Requested action not taken. Insufficient storage space in system.
500 Syntax error, command unrecognized. This may include errors such as command line too long.
501 Syntax error in parameters or arguments.
502 Command not implemented.
503 Bad sequence of commands.
504 Command not implemented for that parameter.
530 Not logged in.
532 Need account for storing files.
550 Requested action not taken. File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access).
551 Requested action aborted: page type unknown.
552 Requested file action aborted. Exceeded storage allocation (for current directory or dataset).
553 Requested action not taken. File name not allowed.


 Active FTP vs. Passive FTP, a Definitive Explanation

Introduction
One of the most commonly seen questions when dealing with firewalls and other Internet connectivity issues is the difference between active and passive FTP and how best to support either or both of them. Hopefully the following text will help to clear up some of the confusion over how to support FTP in a firewalled environment.

This may not be the definitive explanation, as the title claims, however, I've heard enough good feedback and seen this document linked in enough places to know that quite a few people have found it to be useful. I am always looking for ways to improve things though, and if you find something that is not quite clear or needs more explanation, please let me know! Recent additions to this document include the examples of both active and passive command line FTP sessions. These session examples should help make things a bit clearer. They also provide a nice picture into what goes on behind the scenes during an FTP session. Now, on to the information...



The Basics
FTP is a TCP based service exclusively. There is no UDP component to FTP. FTP is an unusual service in that it utilizes two ports, a 'data' port and a 'command' port (also known as the control port). Traditionally these are port 21 for the command port and port 20 for the data port. The confusion begins however, when we find that depending on the mode, the data port is not always on port 20.



Active FTP
In active mode FTP the client connects from a random unprivileged port (N > 1024) to the FTP server's command port, port 21. Then, the client starts listening to port N+1 and sends the FTP command PORT N+1 to the FTP server. The server will then connect back to the client's specified data port from its local data port, which is port 20.

From the server-side firewall's standpoint, to support active mode FTP the following communication channels need to be opened:

FTP server's port 21 from anywhere (Client initiates connection)
FTP server's port 21 to ports > 1024 (Server responds to client's control port)
FTP server's port 20 to ports > 1024 (Server initiates data connection to client's data port)
FTP server's port 20 from ports > 1024 (Client sends ACKs to server's data port)


In step 1, the client's command port contacts the server's command port and sends the command PORT 1027. The server then sends an ACK back to the client's command port in step 2. In step 3 the server initiates a connection on its local data port to the data port the client specified earlier. Finally, the client sends an ACK back as shown in step 4.

The main problem with active mode FTP actually falls on the client side. The FTP client doesn't make the actual connection to the data port of the server--it simply tells the server what port it is listening on and the server connects back to the specified port on the client. From the client side firewall this appears to be an outside system initiating a connection to an internal client--something that is usually blocked.



Active FTP Example
Below is an actual example of an active FTP session. The only things that have been changed are the server names, IP addresses, and user names. In this example an FTP session is initiated from testbox1.slacksite.com (192.168.150.80), a linux box running the standard FTP command line client, to testbox2.slacksite.com (192.168.150.90), a linux box running ProFTPd 1.2.2RC2. The debugging (-d) flag is used with the FTP client to show what is going on behind the scenes. Everything in red is the debugging output which shows the actual FTP commands being sent to the server and the responses generated from those commands. Normal server output is shown in black, and user input is in bold.

There are a few interesting things to consider about this dialog. Notice that when the PORT command is issued, it specifies a port on the client (192.168.150.80) system, rather than the server. We will see the opposite behavior when we use passive FTP. While we are on the subject, a quick note about the format of the PORT command. As you can see in the example below it is formatted as a series of six numbers separated by commas. The first four octets are the IP address while the second two octets comprise the port that will be used for the data connection. To find the actual port multiply the fifth octet by 256 and then add the sixth octet to the total. Thus in the example below the port number is ( (14*256) + 178), or 3762. A quick check with netstat should confirm this information.

testbox1: {/home/p-t/slacker/public_html} % ftp -d testbox2
Connected to testbox2.slacksite.com.
220 testbox2.slacksite.com FTP server ready.
Name (testbox2:slacker): slacker
---> USER slacker
331 Password required for slacker.
Password: TmpPass
---> PASS XXXX
230 User slacker logged in.
---> SYST
215 UNIX Type: L8
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> ls
ftp: setsockopt (ignored): Permission denied
---> PORT 192,168,150,80,14,178
200 PORT command successful.
---> LIST
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list.
drwx------ 3 slacker users 104 Jul 27 01:45 public_html
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> quit
---> QUIT
221 Goodbye.


Passive FTP
In order to resolve the issue of the server initiating the connection to the client a different method for FTP connections was developed. This was known as passive mode, or PASV, after the command used by the client to tell the server it is in passive mode.

In passive mode FTP the client initiates both connections to the server, solving the problem of firewalls filtering the incoming data port connection to the client from the server. When opening an FTP connection, the client opens two random unprivileged ports locally (N > 1024 and N+1). The first port contacts the server on port 21, but instead of then issuing a PORT command and allowing the server to connect back to its data port, the client will issue the PASV command. The result of this is that the server then opens a random unprivileged port (P > 1024) and sends the PORT P command back to the client. The client then initiates the connection from port N+1 to port P on the server to transfer data.

From the server-side firewall's standpoint, to support passive mode FTP the following communication channels need to be opened:

FTP server's port 21 from anywhere (Client initiates connection)
FTP server's port 21 to ports > 1024 (Server responds to client's control port)
FTP server's ports > 1024 from anywhere (Client initiates data connection to random port specified by server)
FTP server's ports > 1024 to remote ports > 1024 (Server sends ACKs (and data) to client's data port)



In step 1, the client contacts the server on the command port and issues the PASV command. The server then replies in step 2 with PORT 2024, telling the client which port it is listening to for the data connection. In step 3 the client then initiates the data connection from its data port to the specified server data port. Finally, the server sends back an ACK in step 4 to the client's data port.

While passive mode FTP solves many of the problems from the client side, it opens up a whole range of problems on the server side. The biggest issue is the need to allow any remote connection to high numbered ports on the server. Fortunately, many FTP daemons, including the popular WU-FTPD allow the administrator to specify a range of ports which the FTP server will use. See Appendix 1 for more information.

The second issue involves supporting and troubleshooting clients which do (or do not) support passive mode. As an example, the command line FTP utility provided with Solaris does not support passive mode, necessitating a third-party FTP client, such as ncftp.

With the massive popularity of the World Wide Web, many people prefer to use their web browser as an FTP client. Most browsers only support passive mode when accessing ftp:// URLs. This can either be good or bad depending on what the servers and firewalls are configured to support.



Passive FTP Example
Below is an actual example of a passive FTP session. The only things that have been changed are the server names, IP addresses, and user names. In this example an FTP session is initiated from testbox1.slacksite.com (192.168.150.80), a linux box running the standard FTP command line client, to testbox2.slacksite.com (192.168.150.90), a linux box running ProFTPd 1.2.2RC2. The debugging (-d) flag is used with the FTP client to show what is going on behind the scenes. Everything in red is the debugging output which shows the actual FTP commands being sent to the server and the responses generated from those commands. Normal server output is shown in black, and user input is in bold.

Notice the difference in the PORT command in this example as opposed to the active FTP example. Here, we see a port being opened on the server (192.168.150.90) system, rather than the client. See the discussion about the format of the PORT command above, in the Active FTP Example section.

testbox1: {/home/p-t/slacker/public_html} % ftp -d testbox2
Connected to testbox2.slacksite.com.
220 testbox2.slacksite.com FTP server ready.
Name (testbox2:slacker): slacker
---> USER slacker
331 Password required for slacker.
Password: TmpPass
---> PASS XXXX
230 User slacker logged in.
---> SYST
215 UNIX Type: L8
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> passive
Passive mode on.
ftp> ls
ftp: setsockopt (ignored): Permission denied
---> PASV
227 Entering Passive Mode (192,168,150,90,195,149).
---> LIST
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list
drwx------ 3 slacker users 104 Jul 27 01:45 public_html
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> quit
---> QUIT
221 Goodbye.


Summary
The following chart should help admins remember how each FTP mode works:

Active FTP :
command : client >1024 -> server 21
data : client >1024 <- server 20

Passive FTP :
command : client >1024 -> server 21
data : client >1024 -> server >1024

A quick summary of the pros and cons of active vs. passive FTP is also in order:

Active FTP is beneficial to the FTP server admin, but detrimental to the client side admin. The FTP server attempts to make connections to random high ports on the client, which would almost certainly be blocked by a firewall on the client side. Passive FTP is beneficial to the client, but detrimental to the FTP server admin. The client will make both connections to the server, but one of them will be to a random high port, which would almost certainly be blocked by a firewall on the server side.

Luckily, there is somewhat of a compromise. Since admins running FTP servers will need to make their servers accessible to the greatest number of clients, they will almost certainly need to support passive FTP. The exposure of high level ports on the server can be minimized by specifying a limited port range for the FTP server to use. Thus, everything except for this range of ports can be firewalled on the server side. While this doesn't eliminate all risk to the server, it decreases it tremendously.

10 reasons why PCs crash U must Know

Fatal error: the system has become unstable or is busy," it says. "Enter to return to Windows or press Control-Alt-Delete to restart your computer. If you do this you will lose any unsaved information in all open applications."

You have just been struck by the Blue Screen of Death. Anyone who uses Mcft Windows will be familiar with this. What can you do? More importantly, how can you prevent it happening?

1 Hardware conflict

The number one reason why Windows crashes is hardware conflict. Each hardware device communicates to other devices through an interrupt request channel (IRQ). These are supposed to be unique for each device.

For example, a printer usually connects internally on IRQ 7. The keyboard usually uses IRQ 1 and the floppy disk drive IRQ 6. Each device will try to hog a single IRQ for itself.

If there are a lot of devices, or if they are not installed properly, two of them may end up sharing the same IRQ number. When the user tries to use both devices at the same time, a crash can happen. The way to check if your computer has a hardware conflict is through the following route:

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Device Manager.

Often if a device has a problem a yellow '!' appears next to its description in the Device Manager. Highlight Computer (in the Device Manager) and press Properties to see the IRQ numbers used by your computer. If the IRQ number appears twice, two devices may be using it.

Sometimes a device might share an IRQ with something described as 'IRQ holder for PCI steering'. This can be ignored. The best way to fix this problem is to remove the problem device and reinstall it.

Sometimes you may have to find more recent drivers on the internet to make the device function properly. A good resource is www.driverguide.com. If the device is a soundcard, or a modem, it can often be fixed by moving it to a different slot on the motherboard (be careful about opening your computer, as you may void the warranty).

When working inside a computer you should switch it off, unplug the mains lead and touch an unpainted metal surface to discharge any static electricity.

To be fair to Mcft, the problem with IRQ numbers is not of its making. It is a legacy problem going back to the first PC designs using the IBM 8086 chip. Initially there were only eight IRQs. Today there are 16 IRQs in a PC. It is easy to run out of them. There are plans to increase the number of IRQs in future designs.

2 Bad Ram

Ram (random-access memory) problems might bring on the blue screen of death with a message saying Fatal Exception Error. A fatal error indicates a serious hardware problem. Sometimes it may mean a part is damaged and will need replacing.

But a fatal error caused by Ram might be caused by a mismatch of chips. For example, mixing 70-nanosecond (70ns) Ram with 60ns Ram will usually force the computer to run all the Ram at the slower speed. This will often crash the machine if the Ram is overworked.

One way around this problem is to enter the BIOS settings and increase the wait state of the Ram. This can make it more stable. Another way to troubleshoot a suspected Ram problem is to rearrange the Ram chips on the motherboard, or take some of them out. Then try to repeat the circumstances that caused the crash. When handling Ram try not to touch the gold connections, as they can be easily damaged.

Parity error messages also refer to Ram. Modern Ram chips are either parity (ECC) or non parity (non-ECC). It is best not to mix the two types, as this can be a cause of trouble.

EMM386 error messages refer to memory problems but may not be connected to bad Ram. This may be due to free memory problems often linked to old Dos-based programmes.

3 BIOS settings

Every motherboard is supplied with a range of chipset settings that are decided in the factory. A common way to access these settings is to press the F2 or delete button during the first few seconds of a boot-up.

Once inside the BIOS, great care should be taken. It is a good idea to write down on a piece of paper all the settings that appear on the screen. That way, if you change something and the computer becomes more unstable, you will know what settings to revert to.

A common BIOS error concerns the CAS latency. This refers to the Ram. Older EDO (extended data out) Ram has a CAS latency of 3. Newer SDRam has a CAS latency of 2. Setting the wrong figure can cause the Ram to lock up and freeze the computer's display.

Mcft Windows is better at allocating IRQ numbers than any BIOS. If possible set the IRQ numbers to Auto in the BIOS. This will allow Windows to allocate the IRQ numbers (make sure the BIOS setting for Plug and Play OS is switched to 'yes' to allow Windows to do this.).

4 Hard disk drives

After a few weeks, the information on a hard disk drive starts to become piecemeal or fragmented. It is a good idea to defragment the hard disk every week or so, to prevent the disk from causing a screen freeze. Go to

* Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-Disk Defragmenter

This will start the procedure. You will be unable to write data to the hard drive (to save it) while the disk is defragmenting, so it is a good idea to schedule the procedure for a period of inactivity using the Task Scheduler.

The Task Scheduler should be one of the small icons on the bottom right of the Windows opening page (the desktop).

Some lockups and screen freezes caused by hard disk problems can be solved by reducing the read-ahead optimisation. This can be adjusted by going to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System Icon-Performance-File System-Hard Disk.

Hard disks will slow down and crash if they are too full. Do some housekeeping on your hard drive every few months and free some space on it. Open the Windows folder on the C drive and find the Temporary Internet Files folder. Deleting the contents (not the folder) can free a lot of space.

Empty the Recycle Bin every week to free more space. Hard disk drives should be scanned every week for errors or bad sectors. Go to

* Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-ScanDisk

Otherwise assign the Task Scheduler to perform this operation at night when the computer is not in use.

5 Fatal OE exceptions and VXD errors

Fatal OE exception errors and VXD errors are often caused by video card problems.

These can often be resolved easily by reducing the resolution of the video display. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-Display-Settings

Here you should slide the screen area bar to the left. Take a look at the colour settings on the left of that window. For most desktops, high colour 16-bit depth is adequate.

If the screen freezes or you experience system lockups it might be due to the video card. Make sure it does not have a hardware conflict. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Device Manager

Here, select the + beside Display Adapter. A line of text describing your video card should appear. Select it (make it blue) and press properties. Then select Resources and select each line in the window. Look for a message that says No Conflicts.

If you have video card hardware conflict, you will see it here. Be careful at this point and make a note of everything you do in case you make things worse.

The way to resolve a hardware conflict is to uncheck the Use Automatic Settings box and hit the Change Settings button. You are searching for a setting that will display a No Conflicts message.

Another useful way to resolve video problems is to go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Performance-Graphics

Here you should move the Hardware Acceleration slider to the left. As ever, the most common cause of problems relating to graphics cards is old or faulty drivers (a driver is a small piece of software used by a computer to communicate with a device).

Look up your video card's manufacturer on the internet and search for the most recent drivers for it.

6 Viruses

Often the first sign of a virus infection is instability. Some viruses erase the boot sector of a hard drive, making it impossible to start. This is why it is a good idea to create a Windows start-up disk. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-Add/Remove Programs

Here, look for the Start Up Disk tab. Virus protection requires constant vigilance.

A virus scanner requires a list of virus signatures in order to be able to identify viruses. These signatures are stored in a DAT file. DAT files should be updated weekly from the website of your antivirus software manufacturer.

An excellent antivirus programme is McAfee VirusScan by Network Associates ( www.nai.com). Another is Norton AntiVirus 2000, made by Symantec ( www.symantec.com).

7 Printers

The action of sending a document to print creates a bigger file, often called a postscript file.

Printers have only a small amount of memory, called a buffer. This can be easily overloaded. Printing a document also uses a considerable amount of CPU power. This will also slow down the computer's performance.

If the printer is trying to print unusual characters, these might not be recognised, and can crash the computer. Sometimes printers will not recover from a crash because of confusion in the buffer. A good way to clear the buffer is to unplug the printer for ten seconds. Booting up from a powerless state, also called a cold boot, will restore the printer's default settings and you may be able to carry on.

8 Software

A common cause of computer crash is faulty or badly-installed software. Often the problem can be cured by uninstalling the software and then reinstalling it. Use Norton Uninstall or Uninstall Shield to remove an application from your system properly. This will also remove references to the programme in the System Registry and leaves the way clear for a completely fresh copy.

The System Registry can be corrupted by old references to obsolete software that you thought was uninstalled. Use Reg Cleaner by Jouni Vuorio to clean up the System Registry and remove obsolete entries. It works on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE (Second Edition), Windows Millennium Edition (ME), NT4 and Windows 2000.

Read the instructions and use it carefully so you don't do permanent damage to the Registry. If the Registry is damaged you will have to reinstall your operating system. Reg Cleaner can be obtained from www.jv16.org

Often a Windows problem can be resolved by entering Safe Mode. This can be done during start-up. When you see the message "Starting Windows" press F4. This should take you into Safe Mode.

Safe Mode loads a minimum of drivers. It allows you to find and fix problems that prevent Windows from loading properly.

Sometimes installing Windows is difficult because of unsuitable BIOS settings. If you keep getting SUWIN error messages (Windows setup) during the Windows installation, then try entering the BIOS and disabling the CPU internal cache. Try to disable the Level 2 (L2) cache if that doesn't work.

Remember to restore all the BIOS settings back to their former settings following installation.

9 Overheating

Central processing units (CPUs) are usually equipped with fans to keep them cool. If the fan fails or if the CPU gets old it may start to overheat and generate a particular kind of error called a kernel error. This is a common problem in chips that have been overclocked to operate at higher speeds than they are supposed to.

One remedy is to get a bigger better fan and install it on top of the CPU. Specialist cooling fans/heatsinks are available from www.computernerd.com or www.coolit.com

CPU problems can often be fixed by disabling the CPU internal cache in the BIOS. This will make the machine run more slowly, but it should also be more stable.

10 Power supply problems

With all the new construction going on around the country the steady supply of electricity has become disrupted. A power surge or spike can crash a computer as easily as a power cut.

If this has become a nuisance for you then consider buying a uninterrupted power supply (UPS). This will give you a clean power supply when there is electricity, and it will give you a few minutes to perform a controlled shutdown in case of a power cut.

It is a good investment if your data are critical, because a power cut will cause any unsaved data to be lost.