ToddW Blog

This is a very basic run down of what’s required to start a succesful proxy website.

•  A dedicated server.
  I suggest using a server that does not house any other websites because a proxy site (yes only one) can easily utilize all the system resources. When a proxy site goes slow the users will pause and then continue surfing where-as other sites the visitor normally exits. Overloading a proxy site server is still not a good idea but I’ve found the visitors are much more forgiving w/slow loading than of other site types. Server types… you can basically start out with anything like say a P4 with 2gb of RAM and 100mbit (more…)

If you haven’t heard of google analytics you need to crawl out from whatever rock you are under and signup!

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There are hundreds of proxy top sites out there and I’ve found the majority of them to be a JOKE.

If you are planning to launch any number of proxy websites I suggest you DO NOT spend time submitting them to top sites unless they provide a valuable link-back to your site. Most proxy sites have little to NO PR, provide a link condom and deliver little to no traffic. The few quality top sites provide a direct link to your site (in a listing format someplace on the site that is not counted as a vote), don’t have a million sites listed so that you’d never be on the front page, don’t have the first 5 listings as ads, and actualy have some PR to pass-down to you through a non-condomized link!

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First off I don’t have the Saddam hanging video.

I have heard more and more about this saddam hanging video in recent times and I’m curious WHY do people out there wish to see anohter human being executed? What is our fascintaion with watching another person die? From what I have heard and seen briefly on the TV the Saddam hanging video has all the makings of a myspace/youtube video with the crappy telephone camera and shakey video.  Is this why people want to see it? It’s classic internet video at it’s BEST/WORST?
What’s with all these people wanting to watch another man die? I mean you know Saddam is dead, you know he died by hanging but you still need to SEE it? Will it bring closure to you or do you want to watch it for pure entertainment? I just don’t get the reasoning!
:RANT OFF:

If you run a proxy site you probably know all about high bandwidth usage and big server loads! Those starting out probably don’t know that not only do you have to worry about the bandwidth your proxy uses you should also be concerned with the server load caused by a large number of people browsing through your proxy site(s).

Recently I found one of my proxy sites was causing an abnormally high server load and decided to check into the problem turns out GOOGLE was bombing my site! Basically the google bot was going to so many pages proxified through my proxy it was almost overloading my server! Google was hitting 70,000+ pages per-day on my site and using 1-2gb of bandwidth PER-DAY! Unlike most websites this is not good for a proxy based website because like I previously mentioned google can literraly take down your server and you DO NOT benefit nearly as much from someone visiting a proxified page from google than you do if they go to your proxy’s homepage with your ads and money earners on display.

So how do you fix this problem and prevent google from spydering your site? Simple! (more…)