Registered Custom Domain Name
So then the journey began, I started to grab more knowledge as I was blogging daily, collecting knowledge and sharing it with everyone. Then I came to know about the custom domain name that could actually increase the site's visibility in search engines. So I registered the domain name HackingUniversity.in on 21 June, 2011.
Now the domain was up and HackingUniversity started dealing with readers from all over the world. I loved designing was site, so I started grabbing some CSS skills to give the best looks I can, but as newbie my design strategy was not that accurate, so I was just trying to enhance it day by day.
The Initial Design of this Blog
At the startup site's design looked something like below.
If you my old reader then you might remember this design, WOW! I just loved the logo I designed using Photoshop and Corel Draw, I was really fascinated with the style, I don't think if you liked it or not but I was the one who was really happy with the design and overall progress of this blog.
Then days passed, blog improved in form of design and readership, people from all over the world was stopping by reading post, commenting, suggesting and doing all sorts of stuff. I was happy but I was still not clear about the monetization method and yes I did not care about it, as I was just a guy who loved to get the name of his site so popular then monetization did not matter to me.
But yes days, passed I came across the monetization strategy, who would be a fool who would accept money for his hard work. But yeah it was not that easy, I was aware about the AdSense platform, I studied about it, tried to get my hands wet in its water, but hell yeah dirty hands are not accepted to touch the holy water right.
Monetizing this blog
Well yeah by dirty I meant, at that I was having a lot of illegal sorts of posts, that were taking the most of my traffic, I loved posting paid stuff as a free option so that people who cannot afford can enjoy the possibilities, I was doing wrong but I did not care really. I still did not loose hope, I tried to monetize my site with other platforms, I started up with Adf.ly as URL shortening platform that pays its users for the links shortened using it and shared.
I used their script and boom I started to see money rolling, but obviously it was too low to even get my 2 days meal covered. But I used their script and I was forcefully making everyone coming to my site, to click on the bypass option so that I could make money. Obviously the content was so viral that people have to click it to view the content.
Getting AdSense on this Blog
Then I came across one of my friend and I purchased an AdSense account from him, I was not knowing if it was legal or what, but he promised that the account works, and yes that was the day I was so happy that somehow I managed to get my hands on the AdSense platform.
Money started rolling but payments were not processed as my account was not yet verified. But still with all sorts of illegal content, I was making good money. I was loving it and then the day came, I received my first AdSense check, it was a pleasurable moment. The journey continues, and now its still up and running.
The Eventual Design of this Blog
Years passed and I was grabbing a good knowledge about everything, I started designing my whole CSS layout, and then I have to get rid of all those big logo's and green color theme as it was not that eye catching.
Now the present day, the blog design look simple, elegant and its speedy, what the people want. Now everything is decent, posts are popping up everyday, blog is fast and people love to browse the whole collection.
"HackingUniversity never started as hacking blog, I am not a person who could hack into anyone's system. I am geek who loved to share stuff and knowledge. Its just a name that I don't remember how came into existence, but it will be up and running till the day my breathe gets down."