What is redundant DNS? To put it in simple terms it’s a second (or third) server set up to act as a backup server in case your main server goes down or is inaccessible from the Web. Now you might ask why would you need this? Well if you make your living on the Internet you simply can not afford to have your websites go down even for a minute. Just remember, if a first time visitor to your site can not access it they will never come back.

So how do you set up a secondary DNS server? When ever you register a domain name your registrar automatically assigns NS1 and NS2 as your DNS (Domain Name Server). In order for your domain to point to your server or hosting provider you will want to change this setting to whatever DNS is provided by your host. These settings specify the location of your domain name (or website). It is basically a road map to tell all the Internet traffic where to go in order to reach your website.

NS1 is short for Name Server 1 and NS2 is short for Name Server 2. Each one has it’s own IP address. I highly recommend that NS2 server is hosted on a completely different hosting provider. In this case if your main host goes down then all traffic to your website is automatically redirected to your second server (NS2). For complete 100% redundancy you can even have a 3rd and a 4th (NS3 and NS4) server. But I think two is more then enough. And if you think that your host has a guaranteed 99.9% up time you are sadly mistaken. In my 10+ years of being on the Web I have yet to see this. Just like Murphy’s Law “If it can happen, it will happen”. So protect yourself and your Web business by this simple technique called Redundant DNS.

In my next article I will go in to detail on how to set this up. Stay tuned…

1. Blogroll with your friends or other blog owners in your niche. Maybe even do a link exchange. Just create a page in your blog and call it Links and paste all the link in it.

2. Post in forums that allow signatures and frequently comment in blogs. This is one of the easiest ways to get traffic to your site. Be sure to include your url address starting with a http:// or on forums you may be able to use bb code by including your url in in bb quotes like this [url] http://yoururls.com [/url]

3. Get social and spread the word via social bookmarking sites like Digg. Just don’t spam or you will get banned.

4. Join a top sites link exchange. Top sites are basically link exchanges in auto mode. They list links in order of how much traffic is sent to them by each link. So the more traffic you send them, the higher your link is placed and thus you get more traffic.

5. Collect emails from your visitors. If you have something interesting to offer make sure to ask your visitors to join your opt-in list. Email lists are worth a ton of money. Email by far is the most effective way to market anything. Why do you think you get so much spam email?