What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet. – Shakespeare

Seriously though what is in a name? Does such a small thing matter? Yes and no.

Look around. Its a very busy world. Ads all over. TV, radio, internet, newspaper, magazine and what not. What do they all have in common? Short, simple, catchy phrases. Do you know where I’m heading with this?

Now before we even start with having a little catchy tagline for your site or blog, we’ll have to deal with the name. So, yes names do matter (especially on the web) unless you would rather listen to the ancient playwright.

I personally have a hard time finding a decent name. I keep changing my mind more than I change gears while driving standard. A true fact. And I honestly know how hard it is when you finally find the perfect name only to find out the domain is taken.

Alright lets assume you have a domain and you’ve got a better one to work with. Now what? The fear of losing traffic and SEO. Well no worries. You can always do a 301 redirect using .htaccess.

Open up Notepad, paste the following and upload it to your root directory. It works like magic.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yournewdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Now its very important that you make sure that this file is named .htaccess (no extentions like .txt or anything). And lets just hope this time you’ve picked a better domain.

There are tons of ways to put your site under the spotlight. People come up with new ideas all the time. But, I just saw a really one. Its called “pissing-off-the-owner-of-a-huge-blog.”

I’m sure you all heard of Mashable. Its the 11th most popular blog on the web according to Technorati. They get over a million unique visitors per month (don’t worry, I did my research). And they have a shit load of subscribers. They’re almost as big as TechCrunch.

Well anyway, some smart ass made a social network for music and named it Moshable. They just jacked the name from Mashable. Well the folks at Mashable got pissed and they blogged about it. And guess what happened? Traffic wave! Nice one, Moshable.

Its a good idea, but it might not work all the time. You need to look for a blogger that would whine like a lil’ bitch. Some bloggers couldn’t care less. Like this guy made Live Crunch and TechCrunch didn’t give a shit (epic fail!). Or maybe the guy just lacks creativity.

So, do your research and find a good target. And don’t just do what the people at Moshable did. Find other (and better) ways to piss off A-list bloggers (without of course, doing anything that could get you in legal shit). Here’s a tip, try fucking with Darren Rowse the “ProBlogger”.

Yeah you gotta backup your sites and you have to do it properly. You need to do more than just saving it on your computer. I’ll tell you how I do it.

Making the backup

1. I download all the files and databases to your computer.
2. I zip everything and put a password on it. I use WinRAR to do this.
3. Name the .zip file to something like “wr_oct-5.zip”. (Make sure you have the date on it!)
4. I make sure that the .zip file isn’t corrupted by unzipping it and checking if everything is there.

Storing the backup

The biggest mistake I ever made was keeping all the backups on my laptop only and forgetting that someone could steal my laptop or my hard drive could crash. Please don’t do that or else you’ll get fucked! Trust me!

I started putting my backups on three different places. This way I’m safe if something goes wrong.

My server: Yes, my server itself. I make a folder where I just keep all the backups. Make sure you keep this folder at the root of your server where it can’t be accessed by the public.

On a CD: The old school way! I have a bunch of blank disks lying around, so why not burn the backups on it? Plus its not that expensive to buy blank CDs. Or if you want, you can just put them on a pen drive.

Online storage: I put one more copy on Windows Live SkyDrive. Don’t just trust any site with your precious little backups! Meaning don’t use shit like RapidShare and Megaupload.

How often do I backup?

The best way would be to backup everyday. But, that’s not possible. I’m just way too lazy to do that. I try to do it weekly. And sometimes randomly when I feel like doing it.

Some shared hosts back your stuff up daily, so consider yourself lucky if you’re on a shared hosting.

How about YOU?

Tell us how you do it! I wanna know how often you do it, where you store it and if you have any suggestions for us.

Okay lets start with some basics. What is an offshore host? Well its a host whose servers are in a foreign country where the laws can’t reach you. You would obviously choose an offshore host if you were planning on doing something (lame and) evil. Copyright infrigement? Ring a bell?

Well here’s the part most people never thought of. What if the host scams you? What if the host just kicks you out? What if the host steals your files and databases? What if? And you know what sucks more? You can’t do anything about it! Remember, there are no laws for those stuff in that country?

Don’t forget the server specs and price. Here’s two things that could happen:

1. Hosted on a good server, but you get ripped off.
2. Hosted on a shitty, oversold server for cheap.

And what if the support people don’t speak English or can’t speak properly? Google Translate? Have fun!

Offshore hosting is just a little hype made up by noobs who make warez forums. I personally would suggest that you stay away from it. BTW, here’s a shared hosting checklist and 5 great shared hosting plans. Just trying to make it easier for you to find the perfect host!

I was reading this post about faking getting hacked. Why do it? Well for publicity and some traffic obviously. Everyone’s going to be talking about it and some even linking to you. Not a bad idea. A pretty damn good one actually.

But, then I thought about the long-term effects. People are gonna figure out later on and some of them will hate on you. And what about your readers/visitors/users? Is it okay to lie to them? But, how could we take advantage of this? I wouldn’t obviously do it on the sites I care about. But, how about doing it on the sites which we made for money (I don’t have any, BTW)? That wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

Wait, don’t just fake that you’ve been hacked. Try doing some of these shit. But, like Daniel (the blogger at DailyBlogTips) mentioned it will only work if you’re at least semi-popular.

• Site under investigation by the FBI
• You are dying a horrible death (ex: cancer)
• You’re selling the site for some good dough ($$$$)
• Your site was part of a research (ex: I don’t have one. My head hurts. You think!)
• Your site getting sponsored by Google or Microsoft.
• You’re actually an A-list blogger (like Darren Rose?) who is just blogging with a different tone

People will give you ideas, and some of them are going to be good. But, don’t forget its the web. If you can get the info then someone else can too (unless someone gave you the idea on Messenger). What I’m trying to say is that take people’s ideas and get inspired. Don’t just do what they said. Come up with your own idea, so you don’t do what a bunch of other people are doing.