I've learned A LOT regarding how the big boys run their movie streaming sites. I wanted to make an updated post to share my experience creating it and also to get advice before I launch it, as well as to set myself up for failure in case anybody would be interested in a solution like this one. I will not post the link to the movie streaming site that I launch for obvious reasons (Black Hat and all, duh).
Anyways, I only made a couple thousand last year (2016) from freelancing on Upwork as a developer, because University took over my life as my grades started to fall, and I was fooling around with friends a lot and didn't really spend my time wisely. I decided to get back to Internet Marketing which is why I've been reading the forums a lot these last couple of weeks and decided to start on a Movie Streaming platform. Even if it doesn't work out, I'll at least have gained experience in all the different techniques used to promote it and code it for future projects.
Topics that will be covered:
1. Programming
2. SEO / Traffic Methods
3. Monetization
4. Legal matters (VERY IMPORTANT)
5. Finishing Words / Partnerships / Packaged CMS
Time took to mostly complete this project:
First week of Christmas holidays - you can get a lot done within a small time frame
1. PROGRAMMING
(technical for people who aren't at least beginner experienced - don't need to read, skip down if not interested)
I started coding my website from scratch in HTML / CSS / PHP / MySQL / Javascript / AJAX which is standard. I wanted to create a simple CMS for myself to develop a self sustaining movie streaming site that would earn money on auto pilot. There are so many layers to my scripts and plugins to my server at this point, and it's become pretty bloated, but it gets the job done. I haven't uploaded anything to the WWW yet as I'm still doing a lot of testing on my localhost through an Apache server that is handled by WAMP. I designed the website to look a lot like Popcorn Time and Netflix.
Currently, my system does the following in the following order:
1. Fetches from thousands of movies from the Wikipedia movies list which list all the movies ever released, and even upcoming and adds all the movie details to a database row by row.
2. Then, I loop through the database and for all rows that don't contain links, it then scrapes movie links by using the movie titles scraped from Wikipedia movies list. These links come from 3 different sources, which all have 3 different custom coded scrapers for each one, like Putlocker, WatchFree, 123Movies, etc. It then goes through the links and tries to find any links pertaining to OpenLoad, which is an uploading service. If it cannot find the link for Openload, it gives up and moves on to the next movie to fight another day. For the most part, its always 70%+ success rate in finding OpenLoad, especially for the major movies that are most viewed.
3. Once the links are done being scraped, I first designed the links to be automatically remote uploaded to my OpenLoad account, so basically I'm taking other site's OpenLoad videos from their account and downloading and uploading all to my account automatically (concept of remote uploading - except the download/upload happens with the OpenLoad servers). The problem is, OpenLoad's API does not support Remote Upload properly so this is the ONLY manual step in the whole process, but it takes a few clicks, done within a minute. All the links that are scraped, generates a text file which contains all the OpenLoad links. I select all the links, and then simply copy paste with a few key strokes to OpenLoad's remote upload using their Account Dashboard interface. This literally, instantly downloads and uploads thousands of movies within a few seconds because OpenLoad's servers are so god damn fast, and they fetch videos from their own sources even faster.
4. I click the next button in my system to allow my PHP code to connect to my OpenLoad account which I've set the configuration for, and fetch all the videos and information about each video, and start creating embed codes for each one. Each row that contains a movie from step 1 then gets its column regarding the openload embed codes filled out.
2. Then, I loop through the database and for all rows that don't contain links, it then scrapes movie links by using the movie titles scraped from Wikipedia movies list. These links come from 3 different sources, which all have 3 different custom coded scrapers for each one, like Putlocker, WatchFree, 123Movies, etc. It then goes through the links and tries to find any links pertaining to OpenLoad, which is an uploading service. If it cannot find the link for Openload, it gives up and moves on to the next movie to fight another day. For the most part, its always 70%+ success rate in finding OpenLoad, especially for the major movies that are most viewed.
3. Once the links are done being scraped, I first designed the links to be automatically remote uploaded to my OpenLoad account, so basically I'm taking other site's OpenLoad videos from their account and downloading and uploading all to my account automatically (concept of remote uploading - except the download/upload happens with the OpenLoad servers). The problem is, OpenLoad's API does not support Remote Upload properly so this is the ONLY manual step in the whole process, but it takes a few clicks, done within a minute. All the links that are scraped, generates a text file which contains all the OpenLoad links. I select all the links, and then simply copy paste with a few key strokes to OpenLoad's remote upload using their Account Dashboard interface. This literally, instantly downloads and uploads thousands of movies within a few seconds because OpenLoad's servers are so god damn fast, and they fetch videos from their own sources even faster.
4. I click the next button in my system to allow my PHP code to connect to my OpenLoad account which I've set the configuration for, and fetch all the videos and information about each video, and start creating embed codes for each one. Each row that contains a movie from step 1 then gets its column regarding the openload embed codes filled out.
Okay, we're done. How does this get reflected on the Front-End of the website? The website design is integrated with the back-end, so it automatically adapts to all back-end changes. Each page is dynamically updated as it fetches information from the database in real-time using PHP/MySQL. Also, each page is automatically integrated with Social features like Facebook Commenting / Likes / Tweet / Share.
Now moving from the website programming, I also created another script for Youtube which I'll discuss in the SEO/Marketing section.
2. SEO / Marketing / Traffic
I am not by any means an SEO professional and have A LOT to learn about it. But I think I know enough to get things going.
On Page Optimization
I researched all the major sites by typing in to Google: "Watch online movie {MovieTitle}" to see how they place their meta tags, and what they allow to be followed (do-follow/nofollow,etc) and basically their internal head structure in the HTML. Once I got that down pat, I integrated it in my site so as each movie page was generated, it would contain automatically generated keywords that pertain to the movie, along with the general keywords for the site. I also was sure to include movie descriptions, tags, directors, etc which were automatically scraped from IMDB / Wikipedia but at a minimal level since I didn't want a red-flag on duplicate content. And again, each page is automatically integrated with Social features like Facebook Commenting / Likes / Tweet / Share.
SEO Friendly URL Structure
Along with this, I made sure to have my .HTACCESS file have the URL be re-written from something like domainname.com/?movie&title="Captain America Civil War" as it would look to a GET method in PHP to domainname.com/movie/captain_america_civil_war_2016_randomID to give it a nice structure for Google and people entering the site.
Off Page Optimization / Traffic Methods
Next, I wanted to create backlinks for the generated PHP movie pages, and to the site in general, but I thought, each page didn't really have much article based content, and more-over just a video with some movie details so I didn't think it'd be a great idea to just blast thousands of links to each page. I didn't know much about SEO and didn't want to do something I wasn't sure about so I thought of a more sophisticated way of doing it which I felt was more safe.
During the database initialization process for each movie, I'd ping each page, and as I pinged each page, a script for Youtube would go through listed Youtube accounts with proxies, and upload 15-30 second clips of the movies automatically by scraping Youtube for clips of the movie and then add text in the front. If no clips were found, it would simply create a 15-30 second video with a solid black background with text in the front. The text would say something like "Click the link in the description to view the movie", and would be a backlink to the site. Then, these Youtube links would be pinged and have automatically generated tags in the description. Along with the youtube videos, I'd have accounts posting comments on many movie clips / trailers that would link back to my site. I would then have mass forum posting software on movie forums post links of the youtube video saying, go here to watch the full movie which would be my tier 2 links. This would be backlinks to my Youtube videos.
Now moving from Youtube, I also used Reddit auto posters. This auto poster would post on all the popular movie subreddits where you post movie links, any possible chance it could for all movies that were uploaded in the database automatically, periodically, to prevent getting banned. I would use Twitter as well to automatically post periodic tweets about new movies being added, and have it also go to other movie streaming twitters, with replies and retweets and follows to try to gain traction.
Finally, I have a list of very popular movie streaming sites that have Facebook commenting integration, my bot would go to each comment box for every movie it had available on the database, and say "Check out this *site* for a better quality version" or some bullshit like that. Anyways, I think this would be enough for some money to start kicking in. If anybody has a better idea, or some alteration to this method, I'd love to hear it.
3. Monetization
I tried to squeeze absolutely any money I could get my hands on without COMPLETELY ruining the user's experience. So I didn't do social content locking or anything, but just enough to maybe annoy the user a little bit, but not too much. Besides, it's a free god damn movie
Views
So, as many of you know, OpenLoad has a rate for something like 10k views of a video uploaded is $20, which is why I chose OpenLoad, along with it being a great uploading service and video file hosting service.
Direct Links
Each OpenLoad video would be embeded on the Website page but if the user chose to go use the direct link, it would be enveloped around with shorte.st which is a URL shortening service that would pay me for a certain X number of clicks.
Adcash / Adcenter / PerInstallCash
Again, everything is automatically generated, so none of the monetization is done manually for every page, its automatically generated while the movies are added. I would use Adcash for pop-under ads and Adcenter for Banners around the video. I would simply insert this in my code so it automatically retrieves all that crap and does it for me. Along with this, I'd have a fake movie player show a message to download software, like most popular movie streaming sites have around their video player.
Social Locker
Okay, so this is annoying, but the way I have it written is, if a user visits 10 pages in your site, chances are, they've watched a movie on it and like how your site operates. So that way, they have incentive to quickly like, tweet or share if they have to if a social locker was to pop up. So every 10 page visits, I would pop one up.
Yeah, that's about it. Know any other cooler ways to make the user's life miserable? Let me know!
4. Legal
DOMAIN NAME TLD / OFFSHORE HOSTING / DMCA
This applies to other things other than movies as well.
This is probably what many of you people reading this were waiting for. Chances are, any competent person that is willing enough can do everything I mentioned, but what prevents most people is this part because it's scary. Well, it's not completely fool-proof but it's enough to prevent anything ever serious happen to you EVEN in the worst-case scenario. I've read literally dozens of articles on this to make sure I know what I'm doing before I start on something high-risk like this. I realized it really isn't as high-risk as I thought. It's pretty easy to evade, and if ever getting pressed on for real, it's easy to just jump ship and never be seen again.
DMCA is under United States jurisdiction meaning that if exercised in other countries, it would be of no use, BUT, there are exceptions and many offshore hosting providers DO take pressure from DMCA complaints and will end up shutting down your website, but that's about it.
Follow this logic for selection of domain names and hosting providers:
(United States Server /\ DMCA) -> You're fucked.
(NOT)(United States Server /\ DMCA) -> You're almost not fucked
((NOT)(United States Server /\ DMCA)) /\ (Reliable Offshore Hosting) -> Almost there
((NOT)(United States Server /\ DMCA)) /\ (Reliable Offshore Hosting) /\ (Safe Domain Name that can't be seized as easy as .COM which is under control of ICANN which is US based) -> Wooh!
The single most important note you can take is, under no circumstance should you even think of trying to host a movie streaming platform under a server located in the United States. No. Don't do it. Now, there are many, many articles online that explain the best areas to host your website that could care less about DMCA and take no pressure to it. EVEN these places have hosting services that will take some pressure and get annoyed, and take down your site. But some won't.
"There are two things you should know about DMCA when it comes to hosting your website with the right hosting provider:
1) DMCA is an American copyright law.
2) Offshore hosting providers do not have to comply with DMCA, but most of them do.
The best countries to host in if you want your DMCA to be ignored are: Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands, Norway, Iceland.
CAUTION: Not all hosting providers from these locations ignore DMCA. In fact, most of them don’t. Read their Terms of Services or contact them about ignoring DMCA first."
- Source: http://www.uncensoredhosting.com/dmca-ignored-hosting/
Essentially, what you can learn is, Iceland/Romania is legit the best area for data privacy, and has the best laws available in the world. So it's easy to anonymize yourself and be protected under their law. Did you notice how all the major movie streaming websites have moved on from .com and .org and .net, etc and on to more obscure TLD's like .to and .is. Well, the reason for this is because .to and .is are from countries that aren't under the jurisdiction of the strict data privacy laws that the US has.
Personally, I will be registering a .is (Iceland based domain name) and hosting service. I will not name my hosting service for blackhat reasons, but you just have to look around. Remember, OFFSHORE HOSTING doesn't mean you're safe from DMCA. Make sure it's in the country that isn't within DMCA jurisdiction AS WELL AS make sure their TOS is fine with your kind of content. Be sure to contact the hosting service about whether they play nice with DMCA complaints or ignore them before finalizing your choice.
Extra Precaution - Entering the Grey Area and moving away from BlackHat
So if you don't want to be full Black Hat and enter the grey area to be as secure as possible while doing this. Essentially what you want to do is have a request page on your website, with some kind of contact form that allows let's say a concerned lawyer to request take downs of certain movies that they are obligated to have you remove. Now, if you followed everything above, they would have to contact your hosting provider if you don't listen, and if you have a good one, your hosting provider will simply inform you and do nothing about it. But if you want to play nice to the lawyers, the fact that you provided a request form means you've entered the grey area. It's part of DMCA that the person getting the complaint has an opportunity to fault his wrong - so all you have to do is remove the movie from your website and live to fight another day. Then the lawyer leaves you alone. Or, you can raise your middle finger high in the air and ignore them. It's up to you. Personally, I'm going to have a take down contact form.
It's also smart to have a disclaimer on your site saying something like:
"All of the free movies found on this website are hosted on third-party servers that are freely available to watch online for all internet users. Any legal issues regarding the free online movies on this website should be taken up with the actual file hosts themselves, as we're not affiliated with them."
This is usually found on the footer of major websites.
5. Finishing Words / Partnerships / Packaged CMS
Okay... That's about it. I'm pretty much done the script and website, but will probably spend the next few days looking for any glitches, and setting up a cron job to do everything periodically without me touching anything to finalize the site. I will then launch the site with one domain name, and if it works out, scale it to multiple domain names pointing to different OpenLoad accounts. It's easy to scale up because your database is initialized once and then maintained afterwards from the scripts. I could technically have all the sites point to a central database if I wanted to... I don't know. Anyways, please let me know what you think, if you have any suggestions and what-not.
ALSO, if anybody has a good idea, or wants to partner up with me on a project like this before I launch it, I'd be willing to hear you out. For example, there are many skills in Internet Marketing that I'm not very experienced with like: SEO, Social Media Marketing, etc. Or if someone wants to partner up with me for future Internet Marketing projects in general, I have a vast expertise in programming and can help you out with anything related to that. That's about as expert as I get, other than that, I'd say I'm Intermediate in Internet Marketing.
Finally, I'm not sure if anybody would actually be interested in seeing a legit packaged CMS system for a movie streaming website so they can have their own automated solution without going through the trouble I did. Personally, I don't think its a saturated niche at all and there are many wanderers that haven't found their perfect site or just wander from site to site in general. I'd probably make it paid, but for a one-time fee and it would be cheap. I don't know, maybe if it doesn't work out for me, I will hand off my stuff that I coded so someone else can try with their knowledge and expertise. That would be my last ditch attempt at making any money off of this whole niche before ditching it if it all doesn't work out. I have a feeling it'll work out though, because people have done movie streaming sites like this before, completely manually with barely dozens of movies uploaded through Openload, all manual, and have made plenty of money before. Hope you guys enjoyed the read. If you actually read this whole post, got to give it to you, you're god damn committed
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