This section of the page is where I will help out other Emulation webmasters with the
experiences I've had.
I've been running my Emulation page for over 2 years now, so I've been through a lot...
If anyone wants any other topic covered, or has any other comments, let me know.
Contents |
| How do I get more hits? |
| I want to make some cash, How about a sponsor? |
| Where should I host my site? |
| E-mail accounts |
| Counters |
How Do I get more hits?
1) Submit your site to as many search engines as possible.
2) Try to get other Emulation sites to link to you, and link back to them in return.
3) Join an Emulation Ring
4) Join a Top XX site, I recommend the Top 25, or Top-50
Sponsors
There are several good sponsors, and Lot of bad ones.
Here is a list of good sponsors:
Ones with a * next to them are ones I've tried and have gotten a check from.
Sponsors |
|
| Safe-Audit | Currently Unknown |
| ValueClick | Pays up to 12 Cents per Click through |
Here is a list of known sponsors that will cheat you out of money.
It is recommended that you stay away from these.
| Stay away from these!! | Referred by: |
| Pacific Coast | Myself |
| Cyberthrill | Myself |
| BannerBrokers | Tim Eckel |
| Safe Audit | Dark Daze |
| Escalix | Ziggy |
Web Hosts
As with sponsors, there are Hosts that do not like emulation sites, and will cancel your account once they have your money.
When starting out, as a small site, I recommend starting with a free host.
These some require you to put a banner on your page, others don't.
Free Web Hosting |
||||||
| Site Name | Description | Rank | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hypermart | Gives 10 Megs of free space. FREE Domain and Sub-Domain hosting (www.yoursite.com, yoursite.hypermart.net) Free cgi-bin for counters, message boards... Unlimited E-mail Aliasing, Auto Responder FTP Uploading Your own newgroup!!! (I've never even seen this feature on a commercial service!) Stats, Secure Server (SSL) They Want your site to be business oriented...But who checks? Overall, the top Free site. Excellent place to host, other than the banners. |
9/10 | ||||
| Escalix | Gives 5 Megs of free space Similiar to geocities: The HTML editor, and EZ file upload methods NO BANNER required! Seems to be tolerant of Emulation and Warez Sites! They expect to make money by you joining their top 800 Emulation site, which has banners |
8/10 | ||||
| Fortune City | Gives 20 Megs of Free space. One Free E-mail Account Requires a banner It looks like they don't want you to have your own advertising. |
7/10 | ||||
| Geocities | Gives 11 Megs of free space Online HTML editor, EZ file upload, ftp upload, Free e-mail account Requires a banner One of my least favorite places, sites seem to go up and down fast. I don't know if that's because they shut Emulation sites down or not? Seems slow at times. Perhaps good as a place to store files and ROMs. |
6/10 | ||||
| Others | Here are some others to give a try:
|
|||||
Once your site is receiving 1000+ hits per day, and you are getting enough money from sponsors to pay for a commercial host, then is time to move to a new location.
There are not currently any commercial hosts that I can recommend, however, I will list a few that some people have success with:
Commercial Web Hosts |
| www.digiweb.com |
| www.communitech.net (may not like to host ROM sites) |
Along with the good, there are many bad hosts. These will run with your money once they find out you are related to emulation:
Stay away from these!! |
| Simplenet Due to a "new policy", even if you only have links, they will cancel your account. |
| www.interspeed.net They state right in their TOS that they don't accept emulation sites. |
| www.one.net They shut down "The Emperors Blade" |
Since it seems like the community is against emulation sites, and tries to shut them down, You will probably move servers several times.
I recommend getting a redirected URL.
That way, a user enters a URL, and it redirects them to where your site is. That
way, even if you move servers, your URL will stay the same.
URL Redirection Services |
Example of your new URL |
| come.to | http://come.to/yoursite |
| iscool.net | http://yoursite.iscool.net |
| cjb.net | http://yoursite.cjb.net |
E-mail Accounts
It is a good idea, since you may move ISP's and servers many times to get a permanent
e-mail account.
There are many places that offer free e-mail accounts:
Free E-mail Accounts |
|
| Juno | Does not require internet access. Has it's own number that you dial into. |
| Hotmail | Web Based E-mail |
| forfree.at | Free Pop 3 E-mail |
Counters
A lot of counters now days show the counter next to an advertisement, these suck.
Listed below are counters that do not require advertising.
It may be a good idea to get more than one counter, and compare the results of the two.
Counters |
|
| LE Fastcounter | Simple counter, shows count on page. Does not give you the hit totals day by day, only by week. Option of having e-mail sent to you telling how many hits you receive per week/month. |
| WebSideStory | Shows graphic pointing to top 1000 page. Does not show hit total on your site.. Has good hit totals for day, week, month. Tracks unique hits, reloads, and many more. |
| NedStat | Small graphic pointing to stats page. Does not show hit total on your site. Can track what page visitors came from. |
| TheCounter | Gives stats on users: Operating system, Browser, Domain, Screen Resolution Color Depth, Own stats (how many times you visited. There is also an option to make it not count you) Search Engine used and last 10 hits. Also gives, hours, weekday and months of hits |
