We have a lot of (sometimes painful) experience managing a beast of a network. All the time people ask us, “how do you keep up with everything?” Honestly, it used to be a pain. We’ve worked tirelessly to simplify and streamline our network from start to finish.
This is how our process looks now:
Step 1: Buying Domains & Hosting
When we buy expired domains, sometimes they force us to stay on GoDaddy even though we hate them. We prefer diversifying our domain registrars as much as possible now.
We like to use the cheap host list that you can find in our downloads section, or we buy on a whim from somewhere random. IP diversity is huge for us, and we hate SEO hosting as so many get deindexed in mass. As long as we randomly purchase hosting, it gives us a great IP diversity – and yes we track it closely.
Step 2: Inbox Friendly
You need an email address that you can share with your staff or outsourcers. One that doesn’t need checked often. Once you start buying all these cheap hosts, you will have to forward emails on to your team (or keep them organized for yourself). You don’t want to dig through emails to find passwords, but you also don’t want to be in a flight to Europe and realizing you are the only one with access to a login. Some cheap hosts require activation within 24 hours, and if you don’t click it, the account simply won’t work.
Step 3: Password Management
You need a beautiful interface for peace of mind. Something that’s easy to assign access to.
1Password finally came out with team passwords (in version 4) that can be shared across multiple devices, which is incredibly handy. There have been several times going down the road, or at an airport when a website crashes, where we have found passwords because of 1Password’s iPhone app. It is a lifesaver for us.
On the other hand, it’s a pain for outsourcers. If you have turn-and-burn outsourcers, you don’t want to give them access to everything or buy them copies of 1Password. You need granular control. This is where software like SimpleSafe comes in. We have been using SimpleSafe for a few months and it is a critical part of our organizational structure today.
Step 4: Organization
Within SimpleSafe, these are the columns we keep up with for each domain:
Name
Site URL
IP Address
Registrar
WordPress Login URL
WordPress Username
WordPress Password
cPanel URL
cPanel Username
cPanel Password
FTP URL
FTP Username
FTP Password
Host Login URL
Host Username
Host Password
Secret Key
Now, why all of those fields? Because they change. Sometimes we use plugins to hide the WP admin. Sometimes we can’t use ports on the end of a URL to access cPanel. Sometimes we can’t find which registrar a domain is assigned to so we can make one tweak. We’ve ran into these things so much, that we’ve learned it’s best to add it in the beginning and change later if needed. Searching through emails to find this information is a headache. Letting your team update it will make life easier, so when that moment of “oh sh*t” kicks in, you know exactly where to go and fix things.
Installing WordPress
We love WordPress and most of our sites are powered by WordPress. There are a few checkboxes you should pay attention to when you run the Scriptaculous/Softaculous installation:
We change the database name to prevent easy hacks that might be on a cheap host. Table prefix changes seem to cause issue on some plugins, so we leave that alone. It’s also key to remember to change that “In Directory” to blank, if you leave /wp/ you will be in a subfolder.
Further down…
Notice how complex the password is, and we made a note to “rotate” that password. We also change the email address to one catch-all address. There is a security potential in that alone, but we have that protected as well. We also do not limit login attempts. It just adds a plugin.
Several of those plugins used to have a backend allowing hacks directly into WordPress, what they are supposed to prevent. Just use Better WP Security and you are good to go.
The big key is the final section, where you have to click the + to expand:
These settings will save a lot of time and prevent headaches. You don’t need a centralized solution to keep up with a network built on this framework. Updates are handled for you. Backups are handled (somewhat) for you. It’s good enough for a feeder.
Recap
By now, you should have everything organized. This method should help you bypass propagation wait-time as well if you buy sites in mass.
Giving Your Team Directions for Feeders
A few things need to happen on each site. We have stock settings and plugins we use, which are shared in the WordPress section. We are looking to automate this more because it’s still not easy enough.
Finally, knock the remaining parts out:
1. Install Genesis & child theme. (Buy a big pack from StudioPress & Web Savvy Marketing if you really do this a lot.)
2. Designer gets notes to quickly modify theme.
3. Writer starts making content about the topic that needs links following Panda and Penguin guidelines.
4. Glance over everything, make sure it passes the smell test. Add legal and contact pages.
5. Run LRT reports to find any missing links and make sure they have 301s in place for expired domains.
Rinse, repeat.
What about money or brand sites?
We apply the same process to them, but spend more time on the design and spend more money on the host to make sure it’s quality.
How do you keep up with links?
You can use online sites like Bubbl.us or a spreadsheet shared on Dropbox. We plan all of our links in a spreadsheet before we actually place them on the web. We recommend you do the same.