Guides

The complete guide to making a successful proxy

by: Haydn Walker

In this e-book I will outline many aspects of creating a successful proxy. This
will involve How to create your proxy, Basic SEO and optimization, how to
monetise your proxy and the best ways to build traffic. This e-book shouldn’t
be used as an exact guide but to get ideas and apply them.

What is a proxy?

A web-proxy is a website that has software implemented into is such as
Phproxy and CGI proxy to bypass network filters. School children use these
websites to bypass there school filters.

Step one – Creating your proxy

Firstly before you can even think about doing any of the advertising, coding or
optimization you must find a host that allows proxies to be hosted on there
server. On the Digital point forums under hosting there are many
companies offering this service. However if you do not wish to use one of
these, Knownhost – is a reputable company I have used in the past as there
VPS prices are very reasonable, I would highly recommend you use this
company.. Once you have found a host you can move onto the next step.
A domain can be anything from a proxy website however there are some
simple rules to follow:

• Never use the word proxy in the name as many schools and
• workplaces automatically block them.
• Try and get a short name as the domain needs to be remembered.
• A .com domain is preferable as this is the extension non-computer savvy people would first think of

Creating a website can be a daunting task to many but it simply is not. There
are designers that will make and code your website for as little as $30. This
will give you a functioning website that you can upload to your server. If you
are a talented designer and programmer you can make your own but I would
not recommend doing it unless you know fully what you are doing. I am a
designer for proxies so if you would like one making please contact me.
Now you have a functioning proxy website and we can move on to optimizing
the site.

Step 2 – Optimization

Firstly we must consider your template and target audience. Most people
using the site will be aged 13 – 18. With this in mind the template must be
designed to suit this age range. The following things should be applied:

• A cartoony style of template, nothing adult minded.
• A simple layout, try to keep it clean and not busy.
• A character to represent your site in the header would look great but not needed
• Keep writing to a bare minimum, your users just want to use the site
  not read about it.

You should also add some text (about four or five lines is sufficient) to help
the search engine bots crawl your website. Pack this full of keywords you
want the site to be associated with but it must still read well. The same
process should be applied for the title highlighting 7 or 8 keywords. Another
important process that is often forgotten is Meta tags. These play a vital role
in identifying your website and giving you better rankings as a whole when
used in conjunction with other methods.
Here are some examples of popular keywords:

• Myspace Proxy
• Youtube proxy
• Bypass
• Proxy
• Web bypass
• School bypass

A good ranking can be vital to success in the proxy business. However you
do not want to be Number 1 due to your target audience they will
automatically skip to the 4th or 5th page as the popular ones are blocked from
school networks.

Step 3 – Advertising

This is the biggest step in making your proxy website successful and it is an
ongoing process that you will never stop doing. It is also the most important
step you shall do so it must be done properly.
Decide on the anchor text for your links. It should be the keyword you think is
the best for your site to bring in a lot of traffic.
Firstly you need to build links for your website there are 3 main ways of doing
this. Link exchanges are great. The best way of contacting webmasters is to
Google “Myspace proxy” or something similar and Whois the domain. Email
them requesting a link exchange, they will most likely reply saying yes. This
gives you an array of links with varying Page Rank that are related to your
website.
Secondly you can comment on blogs and post topics on forums about your
proxy site. When doing this give a valid comment on the blogs while asking
them to checkout your site. Similarly for forums post a valid topic and ask
them to check out your site. This gives you one way links but it is not always
related to your website.
Thirdly directories are a good source of Page Rank however there link quality
is gradually going down due to Google classing them as link farms. There are
a few good automated services to help you submit your website or you can
pay someone to manually do it for you.

Getting clicks to your website
This is way to increase traffic and popularity. After a user has found your
website they will go on to use it at there schools and workplaces if they like it.
The main way to get this targeted traffic is through proxy top sites. You want
to be listed on as many of these as possible as they give you a great amount
of users. If submitting the sites manually is not for you then a service can be
bought for as little as 30 sites for $4.
Another way of advertising is through banner exchange services. These sites
display your banner over a whole range of sites diversifying your traffic. You
need an eye-catching banner to do this and they can be bought from
designers or again you can contact me and I shall make one for you.

Some basic SEO
You should never submit your proxy to the search engines. You will get much
better rankings if they find you by themselves (believe me, they will) All it
takes is a little perseverance. However in saying that you should upload a
sitemap of your site, you can do this using the Google webmaster service.
Watch your rankings closely, even something as miniature as changing your
title can make your rankings plummet several pages. With that said you
should still experiment and find what’s right for you.

The final step – Monetizing your proxy
My favourite bit about websites, the money! In my proxy websites I used 2
companies to do this. Google Adsense and Adversal pay extremely well and
are the choice of many proxy owners.

Google Adsense
The ad placement for this product is incredibly important. You should try and
use a 728 x 90 leader board over the browse box and two 300 x 250 squares
underneath it. When using this product it is very important to read to TOS as
Google Adsense can be very picky about what they will and won’t allow.
Adsense ads perform much better when they are blended with the template
and not sticking out.
Adversal
This product is a popup/under service and should not be put on the main page
as it will drive users away however it should be used on the ‘proxified’ pages.
The user will think that the page they are viewing is giving the popup and not
your website. The great thing about this product is that its rates are one of the
best for this kind of website and they pay with paypal. It is very handy not
having to wait for cheques.

This e-book was written by: Haydn Walker – pay him a visit for the original e-book.