The Older Geek

Several of you have mentioned either moving to your own self-hosted WordPress blogs or transferring your old Blogger blogs to a WordPress blog. Others of you have asked me how I make money online. I thought I would address both of these questions because they are related. One of the main ways I earn my income is through commissions.

Whenever someone clicks one of my affiliate links, I earn a small amount of money. This costs you nothing extra but it means a lot to me. In exchange for the commission, I offer limited tech help and advice for those who have graciously supported my income.

Here are some of the companies with which I am an affiliate:

Domain Name Registrars Affiliates

Name Cheap

NameCheap was brought to my attention by several tech gurus. After hearing the rave reviews, I decided to purchase domain with the company. I was so impressed with the company that I intend on buying more domains and transferring my existing domains to Name Cheap. The website is clean and neat and so easy to order. They also do not bombard you with a billion ads and extra services. I love this company and highly recommend them. NameCheap is based in California.

GoDaddy.com

GoDaddy.com is the most popular domain registrar, and they go the extra mile in prices and customer service. I have several of my domains here, and I am also a GoDaddy affiliate. You can also buy Blog Hosting at GoDaddy.com.

Note about domain name registrars:
Google offers domain name registration, as well. I am not an affiliate of Google’s domain name service. I do not recommend them. I used to purchase all my domain names from Google until I realized that my name, address, telephone number, and email address were PUBLICLY associated with my blog domains.

According to ICANN regulation, every domain name must not be anonymous, and requires that your name, address, email, and sometimes your telephone number be affixed to your domain name account (like the Census Bureau knowing all the people who live in your house). Domain Privacy, a service offered by registrars in addition to the domain name registration, protects your information from being available to any snoop who wants to look up your domain on the public registry. With Domain Privacy, your registrar will publish “dummy” information (from the WHOIS Directory) in place of your own personal information. I discovered that Google, last I checked, does not offer domain privacy. Moreover, Google uses eNom and GoDaddy for your domain name registrations– so they get a cut on the commissions instead of people like me. And they offer far less service, too.

You can read more about domain privacy at my post How Do I get a Blog, Part 1. You can check your domain and see if you have privacy protection at the WHOIS Search for Domain Registration Information.

Web Hosting Service Affiliates

Hostgator

I highly, highly recommend Hostgator. I’m starting my fourth year with them and have been absolutely overjoyed by their service, professionalism, and tech support. Hostgator is one of the “biggie” web host companies. My blogs rarely experience any downtime. I think Hostgator manages their server space well, not crowding and cramming as many accounts as they can on one server. This helps to reduce downtime from heavy traffic that someone else’s websites on the same server as you may have. I recommend Hostgator as first choice. The company is based in Texas.

Bluehost

Bluehost is the second most well-known host, I think. I was with them for a year. Their tech support is superb– someone was always available to help me, and I was newbie to cPanel when I started out. However, I had a problem with downtime with Bluehost. My blog posts were often Stumbled, which sharply raised the traffic. It seemed the Bluehost server couldn’t keep up (not the one I was on, anyway). I have heard others say they love Bluehost. I guess it just depends. Bluehost is a reputable company, based in Utah. They also run Hostmonster.

Lunarpages

LunarPages is a company I am not intimately familiar with, but I have heard good things about them and know of several blogs with the company. Their prices are outstanding, and they do have a cPanel. If I was to start up an account with a new web host, I’d probably get one with LunarPages, to see what they are like. They look good.

Dreamhost

Dreamhost is a very nice company. I currently have an account with them, but none of my domains are hosted by them. Dreamhost has no cPanel; they instead use a complicated Web Panel, which I dislike very much. There is TOO MUCH information to absorb to get started there. I know of many bloggers who are with Dreamhost and love them, but I don’t think they are for me. I like to get the job done fast and easy. Dreamhost has great pricing plans, and they are reliable. They are based in California.

WordPress Themes

WooThemes

I love WooThemes and am proud to be their affiliate. I use WooThemes on most of my WordPress blogs. Their support is SUPERB, the most amazing group I have ever dealt with. The blog themes are simply amazing.

As a new blogger, I went the “cheap” route, using free themes I downloaded from the Internet. This is a very dangerous practice today, as some theme owners (you never really know who they are) build their themes with vulnerabilities, allowing hackers into your blog. I decided to pay $40 for a WooTheme and I have never looked back. WooThemes allows you to install that one theme on as many of your blogs as you wish. And each WooTheme theme has its own interface within the WordPress software, eliminating the need for direct php or html editing in most cases. I can’t praise this company enough.

So this is where I do make some of my income, through affiliate links. Some companies are very generous and since they are good companies I am happy to recommend them. I also offer limited tech support and advice to people who purchase a product through my affiliate link.

In my next post in this series, I’ll discuss another way I make money online– blog advertising. Perhaps you have seen various banners or advertisements for clothing or audio conferencing services on my blogs. These actually generate quite a bit of money for me. I’ll have all the details very soon.

Thanks for reading!

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