It was a while since I last checked out some site that let you earn while blogging. Refer this. I started looking up ways to earn through blogs ever since I started off with my very own set of blogs. For me, the priority is to blog. If I am able to make some money off it, then why not? Since I started doing that I happened to research more into earning through blogging and guess what, its such a common thing on the net. People actually blog to earn rather than earn while blogging. There are people who have sites and blog with content that just fetches them money. So, while I kept going with my research, I learned a lot about advertising over blogs using various sources such as google adwords, amazon affiliates etc. Then I also happened to stumble upon sites that pay you to blog about certain topics. One such site was the one that I had reviewed earlier.

Then there is this other site called payperpost.



From the looks of it and from the search results on google, this is one of the most popular and successful site that pays you to blog. Of course I did want to try this and if I can earn while blogging then why not. So I registered and submitted my blog for approval. One thing here is that every blog is approved and every post is approved. You have to adhere to certain criteria before your blog/post is accepted. For example, your blog should not contain only sponsored posts, but should also contain other reading material between every sponsored post. Also the posts themselves have to adhere to certain conditions set while taking up an opportunity such as having an image or a link or some keywords in the post as specified.

Also compared to the other site which allowed only posters from certain parts of the world, this one allows postings from almost all over the world. Also the number of opportunities are huge with some advertisers paying even upto $250 per accepted post. Of course the ones that pay good money also have some other criteria such as minimum Google Pagerank. In fact some advertisers also have certain restrictions such as blocked domains - this includes even the likes of livejournal and blogger among others. While that is definitely a damper, there are many opportunities that are open to LJ also. Solace comes from the fact that there are people who have earned in the range of $1000-$2000 each month. Thats quite a lot of money for even sitting all day and blogging IMHO.

Well, I am definitely not looking to earn that kind of money, because if I do, then that would be my primary source of income and I would then have to think about quitting the job that I have. Of course it doesn't hurt to tread into new waters and see what opportunities are available in the world outside. Who knows, if things work out well, and I am able to earn out of something that I enjoy, then maybe I can think of some totally different career paths a few years down the line when I am willing and able to take risks with my career. Till then I am just going to keep on experimenting and see what is out there on the internet that interests me.

Choosing a web hosting provider

I remember the time when I was looking for a decent web hosting service. Back then google was my only help. Not that it was bad, but when you enter a search criteria such as 'best web hosting', you end up with 100s of site that claim to compare 10-15 hosting providers and finally choose the top 3 out of them based on some set of criteria. Half the time you end up spending 10 mins trying to look up the results before you finally find the top 3 hosting providers. Now about 90% of the sites that I have seen, seem as though they were paid by the hosting company to write about them. The top 5 on different such sites rarely even match 50%.

Of course, back then I used to sign up for trial offers on many sites and decide which was good and what kind of service they were offering. I used to google up web hosting companies and compare their plans and what suited me and what did not. Now its about 1 year and I am pretty happy with my hosting provider. I know quite a few friends/groups who have tried to sign up with hosting providers and have burnt their fingers while at it.

Why did I bring this up? I happened to stumble upon a website today which is trying to build up a directory of web hosting providers. I have been trying to look in detail at the site and figuring out how they could help up. Unlike other comparo sites, this one is trying to be an advertisement-free directory only. So far it does look that way only.




http://www.webhostingchoice.com is a collection of Web Hosting providers and their hosting plans on offer. It even has a directory of plans which you can drill down according to various criteria such as Unix, Windows, Python, Frontpage Extensions etc. The first thing that you will notice when you log in to the site is a search box where you can specify some criteria and you will get a filtered list of hosts/plans according your search crteria. The results in all cases are simple and sweet. It shows up in a tabular format where you can compare some of the important offerings on a plan basis.

Then again, http://www.webhostingchoice.com may not yet be completely exhaustive and doesnt contain all hosts(the one that I am on for example :) ), but then its a good star and its worth a look at for someone who is looking for a hosting provider either new or for a change. It also has some sections where you get some tips on what to look out for and also some details on the terms involved in web hosting. I would say this site is definitely a must for someone who is looking to start hosting his/her own site.