The more the merrier...

Well if 2 websites can make $100 a month, then 4 websites could make $200 a month? And you also hear of people selling domain names for an outrageous profit, so getting a couple more domain names seemed like the logical next step. I spent a few days just seeing what website related domain names were available and settled on WebsiteFreebies.net and free-templates.org. I wanted websitefreebies.net because I wanted to develop a website similar to buildfree.org only with emphasis on the cool free add-ons and widgets you can put on a free website. I still promoted free webhosting, but I concentrated on my 6-7 favorite free hosts. WebsiteFreebies.net also reflected a bit of what I had learned in the last few months. I was learning a little more HTML and the benefit of using tables and cells in the design.

I chose free-templates.org because every attempt I tried to use a free stock web page template was a failure. They want you to download everything to your computer, then edit sections with a photo editing program. You have to do this to add your logo and to personalize the photos and images embedded in the template. Every time I did this, the template never looked right or was distorted. The lines never lined up and it was totally distracting. It was hard enought to come up with web page content, and fighting the configuration of a template just plain sucked. Well with my increased knowledge of HTML and tables and cells, it was just a matter of putting tables inside tables to create a template. I will be honest with you though, I can't code by hand. It was all done using the Microsoft FrontPage wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) editor. All you have to do, is click on the page, choose "insert table" and wala! It took some practice, but I turned out 35 or so cool free templates. I decided to just give them away, free as long as the end user left a link back to free-templates.org on the page. This causes a kind of viral visitor traffic system that works out real nice. The templates for beginners contain no images, so you can just copy the code and paste it in a text editor and edit away. For someone that wants a background image, there are several free templates that that allow an easy way to use a single image. I recently added a set of advanced templates that look really professional, yet are easy to use and edit. (just look for the "advanced" section at http://free-templates.org/).

I would have had a 3rd domain but I learned a hard lesson. I got an email from a fine gentleman from England who claimed he was part owner of a company that offered web hosting. He was inquiring on what it would cost to buy a small text link on buildfree.org, and I think he did even pay for a couple months. What he wanted to do was build up a java script section on his website. Java script is just a short bit of HTML code that has all kind of applications to do things with a web page. It is used to embed games, create calculators, change the look of a webpage and tons more. Anyhow, he said if I helped build up his java script section, he would give me a domain name and hosting for free. It would only involve me copying and pasting some of the scripts that are listed for free elsewhere, so I jumped on the deal. I chose the domain name webfreebies.org and started working on that site as well as his script. All was well, but in about 6 months, I got an email from his billing department saying I owed money to keep the site. When I explained to them the deal I had made, they said the guy I had talked to was out fighting a war somewhere. I did not have administrative control over the domain name, and it didn't seem like they wanted to give it to me even if I paid up, so I bit my tongue and lost the domain name. Another lesson from the school of hard knocks.