BlackHat SEO News & Reviews

Ever seen those custom Error 404 pages and wondered how they did that? When I first learned the technique I thought it was too technical, but it’s actually quite easy.

You need to do is create a “.htaccess” file and upload it to the server (or subdirectory) where your site is hosted. If you have no idea how to upload a file to your hosting service, most providers have how-to sections on that or you can download SmartFTP for free which has easy to follow video tutorials. Open a text editor like notepad on your computer since we’ll be creating a new simple text file that will make miracles happen.

All you need to do in this text file is add a few lines that will tell your server to redirect visitors to the page of your choice instead of the typical error message. Let’s just focus on three of the most common errors so you’ll get the hang of this.

On the first line of the text file type:
ErrorDocument 404 http://www.customurl.com

Now, instead of visitors getting the typical white text page that says Error 404 they’ll see the website you inserted! It can be a custom page on your website or another one of your choice, like say…and affiliate link!

This gets pretty exciting, especially if your site gets lots of traffic. Before I implemented this tactic my site got about one thousand error messages in a single month, and I’m sure most of those visitors were lost to me forever.

Now go ahead and add the next two lines in the text file.

ErrorDocument 400 http://www.customurl.com
ErrorDocument 403 http://www.customurl.com

Your file should now be properly prepared to redirect visitors to the page of your choice when a server error occurs.

Now we need to make your document functional. In Notepad you can go ahead and save it as htaccess.txt for now. Now log in to your server and upload the file to your site’s root directory (that’s the main one where all the main pages are).

Once you’re online with your server’s interface and you’ve uploaded the text file, use the server’s interface to rename the document, and instead of being “htaccess.txt” you should rename it “.htaccess” with no file name extension. Don’t forget to include the period at the beginning of the name of the file or else this won’t work for you.

To test that you’ve gotten the settings right, type your main domain name into your browser then backslash anything you want. For example, yoursite.com/blahblahblah and instead of getting the typical Error 404 message you should see the URL you put into the .htaccess file you just uploaded. If this didn’t work for you, review the steps. If you still have trouble, contact your server’s support line and they should be able to guide you to making it work.

You should make a custom .htaccess file for each subdirectory of major importance as well. If you host multiple domains, make a custom file for each. If you have forums or blogs be sure that the scripts you are running include these lines in the .htaccess file that came with them. If not, you can add them yourself.

KSoft RSS Submit

This program isn’t talked about much, which is unfortunate because I’ve been pleased with the results the program gets. I’ve yet to encounter another program that does the same thing.

What does it do?

You input your RSS feeds and then click submit. It’s as simple as that. The program makes a little laser sound and goes to work submitting your feed to many major RSS feed directories without you lifting a finger. Totally automated. I think that’s my favorite phrase when I talk about a program. For me, it has to be totally and completely automated.

For those with a little more patience, there is also the option to submit to more RSS directories manually. Those are the ones that are a bit stiffer and probably even better to get in to. Worth doing once or twice when you’ve got some time.

I’ve never had any technical difficulties with RSS submit. It does what it says it does and it’s the real deal. This is why we’re giving RSS submit a near perfect rating.

This package gets 10/10

Click Here to get your copy of RSS Submit

It’s a pretty popular thing nowadays for gurus to offer “coaching” which isn’t really them coaching just some employee they pay to do it. It works on newbies but once you’ve seen the approach a couple of times, the charm and attraction of getting “coached” by a guru loses all taste and you start to get angry every time you see an offer like that. If you really could be coached by somebody who was really good at what they did in internet marketing, it would be worth a good price. Well Bompa is teaching and he’s charging VERY LITTLE.

I actually stumbled across Black Hat Boot Camp by accident. I had never heard of Bompa and wasn’t a member of the Syndk8.net forum where he’s a global moderator. The sales page was completely devoid of the guru aspects, it was actually a well humored satirical yet serious sales pitch. I liked what I saw and signed up for the membership.

I have been VERY impressed with the site. You get a private forum to ask Bompa questions that you’d be embarrassed to ask publicly and he answers very truthfully and politely (since you’re his paying customer!)

Black Hat Boot Camp is also where Bompa shares his custom black hat programs and scripts. Some of these are KommentKing, (for mass commenting blogs) Simple Niche Finder, (for localizing naked niches to dominate) ReferBomb, (for sending referrer hits to stats pages for webmasters to see a custom message) SearchBot, (for scraping the SE’s) and more.

There is no hype, no “product launch” and constant updates. It’s everything you should look for in a membership site because it provides REAL one-on-one help, specialized tools not available anywhere else, and constant updates. Those are the three elements of a good membership site to me. For the low price Bompa asks, you get more than your money’s worth. Oh yeah and his tools actually work.

Click Here to Visit Black Hat Boot Camp