This Question gets asked a lot - I now have MY Answer

Here is a question I see quite often:

What would you do if you had to start all over from scratch?

Well, I am now in that boat.

I apparently had some kind of insecure area on one of my sites - no clue where - but it resulted in a nasty thing finding its way into my files and causing terrible havoc.

It basically was redirecting all of my sites to some .ru domain. The first advice I was given was to go in and change the htaccess files - but every time I did this the little nasty would go back in again and alter them - so my fix would last all of a minute.

I could have gone hunting for the issue and the open door - but I had over 35 sites total and no clue where to start looking. I was informed that the script could have gone almost anywhere.

Trying to back up my sites would not have worked as this thing could easily be saved in the files if I didn't go through every one - one by one.

I have needed to do some cleaning out - but after this I finally got fed up yesterday and decided I didn't want to deal with this bug being in anything or missing finding things.

I nuked my hosting account.

Yes, you can go in and ask the host to nuke - and they will delete every file you have and you can start all over just like it looked when you first bought the account. This can not be undone.

I can't tell you the mix of emotions I have had over this. There is sadness and grief over 4 years of experiments all wiped out. And yet at the same time there is great wisdom and anticipation of setting things up "right" this time - with great speed and feeling a million times more organized from the get go.

I had way too many blogs, dropped projects, bad affiliate links, forgotten subdomains, lol - you name it. And now I am looking at a clean slate and I feel like an artist looking at a white canvas - one that has been jesso'd over with a train wreck of a painting hiding under it.

Gosh, I even had a site I had been building for the past week (on the server) and had to wipe it. Hours and hours of work gone - but now I have a much firmer grasp on what to do from the beginning. So it is bitter-sweet.

Before I go re-installing a bazillion wordpress blogs I am actually looking into creating a multisite install.

I am very carefully re-introducing domains back in - only after spending some time to decide if I really need them and how they should be set up.

I am secretly copying someone else's successful set up. This is someone who I started looking at their organization of things and I really liked how everything was very simple and uniform. I know this person makes a lot of money too - so I'm confident in copying them.

In the beginning I would upload files to the main area with no worries - but later realized how congested things got. I have a better plan for organizing what does go on the server, as well as making more use from my s3 account as a library of my reports, videos, or products.

I know my own business model now better than when I had initially began.

Here is brief list that might help some of you - but be aware this is not the end all be all list as your business may not have some of the same requirements:

1. Keep a written journal of my daily actions.
2. Fully realize and plot out the intentions/purpose of each site I'm creating before adding in a new domain
3. Assemble an area for scripts that are used server wide
4. Fully integrate analytics into every place possible (I'm using Piwik)
5. Control affiliate links from one control center
6. Schedule regular backups for sites that are regularly updated
7. Keep just one personal test site up.
8. Keep the focus on having much fewer sites to maintain. Hehe, just because you can have 50 sites on one hosting account doesn't mean you should :p
9. Install one help desk system to service all my sites
10. Better management of email accounts created and forwarding to one controlled account
11. Use appropriate disclaimers etc on all sites
    

That is a very brief list, but I'm certain if you are new you may see some things you have not considered when entering this wonderful world of IM.

I have to admit - when I started it was difficult for me to see the end picture. So the more of this you can envision before you start building your empire the more prepared you will be in the years to come.

If anyone has anything else to add - please do.