Honest opinion

[MKJ]

Took em off. Did try a green icon but they all look a bit naff. Looks fine without them I think. Afterall there are plenty of other images on the page . They will keep changing too as I will keep the site looking slightly different probably on a daily basis.

 

[MKJ]

Can someone explain to me why my site is getting so much attention in the last few days? Here is my bbclone analyzer:

Site Analyzer

Are all the Google and Yahoo scans by people actually finding my site or contents in a Google or Yahoo search? I am certainly getting unique visitors now - a lot .

 

[Dommers]

Google send out little bots that crawl the web "hence the name crawl" and they find websites and save images of them and send information back to Google.

"I think"

 

[SheepCow]

Googlebot and MSN bot will be crawling for information to stick in their respective indices (indexes?)

Here's some info on Googlebot:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/bot.html

and MSN bot:
http://search.msn.com/docs/siteowner.aspx

 

[MYstIC G]

You need to stop changing the design every five minutes. Every time I see a link for your site its got some new whacked out unusable layout... you then fix it up a bit so its usable... and then dump it and start over... makes your site unusable.

 

[MKJ]

Thanks for that and I am reading through it. Considering my site doesn't seem to be in Google when I do a search it appears from all this activity it soon will be . There is another site here offering downloadable software and the site don't look any better than mine - in my opinion. Ok lots more stuff on there but I will get the same amount at some time. Looking into accepting 'padfiles' from companies now. Anyways the point being is that the company below is getting 10,000+ HITS A DAY!!!!!!!. Yikes. Looked at their meta tags and they only have a few - 7 infact. Would like to get as popular and considering my site is also catering for UK Shopping I can't see why it won't. Getting interesting this .

Very Popular Shareware Site

Edit: Mystic not gonna change my site design for a long time now. Decided to develop it properly and going to keep the design I have which isn't one of my 'daft' designs but a nice fresh looking Joomla one.

 

[Maljonic]

I've said it a dozen times already, and Mystic G just said it now; you have to stick with the way your site is, finalize the design and stick with it. You'll never get popular otherwise, no one can tell it's the same site, no one will link to it; if you're removing/changing the name of pages Google et al will penalize your site, thinking it's not a proper site because the content keeps getting dumped all the time. If it's good enough and people recognise your site they'll link to it naturally in message boards and such, like 'You can get that bla bla from yoursite.com'; but this is never going to happen because your site is never the same for long enough for anyone to trust it and get used to it - at least it hasn't been so far.

The site you've cited above has 121265 links pointing to it, so obviously it will get a lot of visitors; a lot more than 11,000 a day I should imagine, that's probably just direct hits to the front page or something?

Your site only has 2032 links pointing to it that are listed in the major search engines, only 19 in Google; there's no quick fix for this, you just have to work at filling it up with things people want to see and search for, and everytime you scrap it and start again you're putting your efforts backward to the beginning of a 6 month wait for your pages to get properly indexed.

Edit: didn't notice your edit; if it's true then well done, but you have said it before so many times... I'll wait and see.

 

[MKJ]

How did you find out these links?

No way I altering the site again now . Hope I don't get one of my drunken binges though . As long as I drink lager I am ok - tis the whisky that makes me alter the site. Nah no more altering for me. My eyes won't stand it for one thing. Hell offa strain on them with redesigning all the time.

Edit: Could do with a lager now infact. Nah too early in the day. Could end up tomorrow with a site that looks like a bulldozer has run over it or something hehe.

 

[Maljonic]

I have this on my own site: http://www.york-interweb.com/link_report.php

and also use this one: http://www.widexl.com/remote/link-popularity/index.html

you can get similar things to use on your own computer too I think.

 

[MKJ]

I already had something on my own forum. Did a search and you 2 are right. Nearly all the links to my site are utter rubbish. Lots are broken. I took my link script off or I used it for my shopping and software sections. The only good links are a few companies that were linked through that. I had better install another link script and get in touch with them again before they break contact.

Thing is what is Google looking for? My main content is held in a links directory script that is only displaying in my site through an iframe so I don't think that is a lot of good, though the iframe is the 'Wrapper' script that Joomla uses. Should I ditch this setup and use one that is an integral part of Joomla? I think I could adjust the 'Links' script that Joomla uses to be suitable. As far as I understand it if someone wants - for the sake of argument - 'Computers', how does Google decide your content is suitable? Can't see it indexing pages with just a few links to computer companies so I need to add content? As the Forum is an integral part of the site now can content be put in there or somewhere else in Jooma? That site I mentioned only seems to have 7 meta tags and the content within the site is just stuff like I have so how come they have so many indexed links?

 

[Maljonic]

Don't use the forum for content, or the linking script; definately use the Joomla setup for your content, their (Joomla's/Mambo) pages index very well in Google using the static content and the dynamic pages, especially if you use the mod rewrite function.

The best think for the pages with all the links on is to write some text to go with them, a little review of each link that is unique to your site - don't copy text from anywhere else otherwise it will be dis-counted, ignored, for already appearing on another site.

 

[Shovel]

Anyways the point being is that the company below is getting 10,000+ HITS A DAY!!!!!!!. Yikes. Looked at their meta tags and they only have a few - 7 infact. Would like to get as popular and considering my site is also catering for UK Shopping I can't see why it won't. Getting interesting this .

Very Popular Shareware Site

Couple of things.

1) I've never heard of that site, but I agree it looks nothing special. The problem is, that given its low quality, why are you comparing to it? Surely if you're serious about building a quality software repository you'd be better comparing yourself to a good site? Namely Download.com, which has had a fantastic redesign recently, or VersionTracker. MacUpdate is also rather good.
As an aside, that site you linked gives no impression of being 'trustworthy'. That's a flaw of their presentation as much as anything (and their name).

2) Whilst my knowledge on SEO is very limited, <meta /> actually has a qutie limited effect these days. The description is used in some places, but keywords are ignored by Google because they just get abused by search engine spammers. Google does its own page analysis for stuff like that. Increasingly, the only use I can see for <meta /> is adding emerging Dublin Core metadata.

 

[MKJ]

I am beginning to understand this more but there might be a problem. The big companies must be using the padfile as the background to their site design. Take a look at this padfile I just installed. This must be perfect for google and all the software. Maybe I could put the code within my Mambo theme as opposed to displaying it in a wrapper. I have done it before.

padfiles

 

[Shovel]

You see, now I'm confused. What is that? What purpose does it serve? It just looks like some sort of bizarre referal linking scam.

 

[MKJ]

Well that is how the big companies operate. The software development companies submit their software automatically to them through the use of this padfile setup. The software has been altered so that the 'buy now' buttons etc within the Trial Software is made to log any payment. The Software Distributors then get their cut even if the person buys that software months down the line. The process is made fast and secure by the use of this padfile submission script. The 'big boys' have thousands of software available for download and this method allows them to do it. The padfile you can see is the 'bare bones' but obviously it can be redesigned to look like anything. This is vastly different to how I am doing it. I am not hosting the Trial files but another company is doing it for me and logging any action. But there is a limit to how many Trial Files I can get hold off doing it this way. Infact I have already exhausted this one company. After this I have to use 'custom' Trial files and host them myself. These are the same as the ones that the padfile would automatically accept. The 'custom Trial files' are altered by the software companies prior to uploading to any distributors website. Takes a bit of working out but there you go if it was that easy there would be many more doing this type of thing.

By the way I can make that padfile an integral part of my site. Nearly done so already infact.

 

[Maljonic]

I'd say if it doesn't make your files easier to find for your visitors there's no point to it; it might be okay for sites that are already pretty famous, but I'm guessing you want Google etc to find as many of your pages as possible - any page that has a '?' in the url (same as this one does) causes problems for search engines, not as many as they used to but still a lot of problems. A url like yoursite.com/latestfiles.php will always be indexed quicker, more efficiently and more favourably than a url like yoursite.com/files.php?do=files=1&p=2511702 or similar...

Like Shovel says, most meta tags are ignored these days anyway for the most part, but if there's bugger all else to read on the page they'll still be catalogued as a last resort to to give the search engine an idea of the sites genre. If there's a huge discrepency between what you meta tags say though and what's written on the page you can be in danger of been totally ignored for spamming. That's why it's always better to write your pages first, the content I mean, then take your meta data from that - copied and pasted - that way there'll always be a 100% match.

 

[MKJ]

Done some hard thinking and really the problem lies with my liking to use iframes - in this case Joomla Wrapper. I did a search on your site Majonic with the url of the popular site I mentioned. I then looked at the links and where they were linking too in that site. Well they were linking to the adverts the site were using and because the links were a part of the site anyone clicking on them gets to see the whole site properly. If they did that on my site they would end up within my links script with no sign of my actual site . Lucky really I am able to address this now because it shouldn't be too much work. I have already 'wrapped' that padfile script inside my Joomla so that it should - hopefully - begin to operate within my site. Will soon find out. That way should someone link to any of the padfile contents they will end up inside my Joomla site. I could do this with the script I have been using but I don't know about it's ability to be indexed. Most of it's content is encrypted.

Anyways it is looking like I can get around this now without destroying my site again.

Edit: Just tested it and the padfile is working fine inside my site now. All I have to do now is customize it a little to take the place of my existing software page.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[MKJ]

I bet you are wondering how I can 'wrap' a script inside a portal Majonic . Quite interesting how I do this and probably unique with the way my strange mind works. All you have to do is along these lines. Well infact I will describe how I am doing it with the latest padfile script.

The padfile script more or less works with just 2 main files - index.php file and showpads.php file. How do I know this? Well I just look at the addresses change as I select different categories and files. It does use other files but I can cut it back to just 2 for now. How do I add it to my site? Well the Joomla or Mambo Wrapper comes into play because all the work I need to do has already been done for me. I carry out these steps.

1. Load my site onto the screen with the display I want to use - in this case my view of my software page.

2. Save the whole site to my desktop. No fancy tools just explorer and save as.

3. Open the file in an editor - Frontpage is good for this I find - and remove all the code that is controlling the Wrapper bar for the surrounding div.

4. Open the index.php file that the padfile script is using and copy everything that is needed to my saved 'software page'. More or less everything under the head and above the </body>.

5. Put the code inside my saved 'software page' where the wrapper iframe code was.

7. Copy the style.css head commands into the software page so that it now uses 2 - the Mambo one and the new one. And any other code that it was using.

6. Copy the Doctype from the padfile to the software page and save it as a php file.

8. Do exactly the same for the 2nd file the padfile is using - softpad.php - and save as another file with a php extension.

9. Send all the saved up to your server - all the 'Software Page' files which will include the directory that is storing all the 'saved as' files and associations that your new padfile index and softpad files are going to need (in this case) - upto the padfile directory. You musn't alter the name of the directory or any file.

10. Test these files first by opening them directly. The files you have just created - 2 of in this case.

11. If they work fine (mine are) then rename them to index.php and softpad.php.

Job done. You now have a script seemingly inside your own Portal site. Just an illusion really but all the links should work . This site is like a 'photo' of the main so things like 'Who is online' will not work and will only show the people who were on the site when you saved. No big deal because these are only options anyway that can be removed. I have removed the left side menu contents as these are no longer needed but I will replace them with different links. If you alter your site you will have to alter these 2 files as well ofcourse to suit.

You can see how it works here - just don't click on the 'submit' button or the 'About' button as they are going to be removed.

padfile within Mambo/Joomla

Not bad eh?

 

[Shovel]

You can probably get around the query string problems by using the Apache mod_rewrite module to give clean URIs. This is not only better for some less capable search engines but heck, maybe a human being will be able to remember (or intuitively guess) your URIs too.

Once you setup your .htaccess with the rewrite rules though, you might have to edit the script you've used to actually generate URIs that match.

Other comments on the site: You seem to be back to misusing tables for layout again, even for trivial layout like the single column 'Search for Software' and 'Browse Software By Catagory' parts. You'd have much cleaner (and better) mark-up if you just use an appropriate heading and a <div>. In fact, for the search you should really use a <fieldset> (that's what they're for), and the 'Browse' part should really be an unordered list.
Not only would that be 'correct' (as opposed to 'wrong', which using data tables is), but using headings and lists correctly is also favourable to search engines, since you are actually describing your content semantically, rather than relying on the search engine to guess what different sections of your page really mean.

Oh, and as an aside, I'd really suggest nuking the 'Bookmark this Page' and 'Set as Homepage' links. First up, they don't work with JavaScript switched off (which is very confusing), but every single web browser every made has that functionality built into its chrome. You don't need to duplicate browser functions for any reason, especially not 'just because you can'.

 

[MKJ]

Well all you mention there is the padfile code I just introduced. I have found sites using it and it and it is as I thought. They are using it to run their whole site. You can see an example here which shows it clearly.

Padfile site

The Padfile code is from these:

ASP

I don't intend to mess with the code much if I can help it but just show it neatly on my site, which I have done now I think (still adjusting):

Padfile inside my site

I haven't been able to get it to accept padfiles yet. Don't even know what I am supposed to do with them after but hopefully I will soon so I can quickly utilize it and transfer my already installed sites.

Once this is sorted I can take a big step forward I think and really get the site's content up high.

 

[MKJ]

Had a hell of a job getting this padfile script to work. Thought I had it beat but no way would it accept any data files. Kept saying it couldn't open the url. Something to do with the way it is accessing, or trying to, the database. I think 'localhost' needs to be changed or something so that it can accept urls from off the site. Can't find enough data on how to use this padfile script. My other server with a different company doesn't use 'localhost' with regard to the database access and the script is working fine on there. Could be the first server has some sort of limitation in place that the other doesn't. Not at all sure on that. I have still managed to customize it so that it looks a part of my main site but I might leave it called a different name as my domain name on this server is perhaps more appropriate. All I need now is to figure out how to allow people to upload files but stop the script from showing them until I have taken a look at the contents. At the moment it displays them straight away. Hard bleeding work this and giving me a right headache

You can see how it is possible to 'wrap' a page or a script inside Mambo/Joomla by viewing below. This page isn't a part of my Joomla at all and is even residing on another server but it has the appearance of being Joomla as it is using all the necessary graphics. The links are communicating with my other server so everything works - or should.

padfile encased in Joomla

 

[Shovel]

I don't intend to mess with the code much if I can help it but just show it neatly on my site, which I have done now I think (still adjusting):

The trouble is that that leaves you in the lurch. <table/> layout is dead, impractical, inaccessible and leaves grotesquely bloated mark-up. Plus you can't manipulate tables with CSS as extensively as other mark-up, due to bugs in Internet Explorer (you can't change the "display:" property to anything other than "table-cell" in IE).

Now, this is arguably the problem of the people providing your 'padfile', and you should email them asking that they output their content using valid, modern mark-up. They're gonna lose custom otherwise.

Your only alternative (which could actually be quite fun and education to do, anyway), would be to use XSLT to transform the bollocks HTML they provide into something semantic and correct on-the-fly. That's assuming you can persuade their code to go through an XML parser, though, which might be a tad optimistic.

 

[MKJ]

Been looking into this more. Getting me down trying to understand this stuff and use it. Looks more likely that this is just an information submission program where companies can supply me with the data and links etc I need to put their products on my site. Instead of me hunting down this they supply me with it. I then appraise the details and use accordingly. Some of these sites are actually using the same program to create sites but I already have a display program so can still use that. Will just alter all the categories etc to match the submission program. My brain is about to burst . Still this is a major hurdle to overcome and I have nearly done so now.

 

[MKJ]

Think my site might be getting somewhere at last. I haven't paid much attention to meta tags etc so all that still needs sorting. God knows what the crawlers are indexing . I do notice though that visitors are definitely looking at a lot of pages now - the few visitors the site does get! Advertising? Bit of a grey area this? How the hell can I compete with very established sites? No way will I get a mention in various search engine results from using the same meta tags as the big boys. How would you advertise a site such as mine that caters for 'UK Shopping and Worldwide Software'? Where do you start?

My site

 

[Maljonic]

meta tags and search engine results are not related.

 

[MKJ]

Time I did some reading up on this search engine stuff for sure. Am beginning to realize why I don't get found . Changing my site's front page so often can't have helped for sure.

Must say the smf forums sure are great forums - at least I have found this to be the case. Better to work with than phpbb for sure in my opinion. Infact I have made the forum show on the first page now because it sure lessons the work load as I can stick new stuff directly on it instead of buggering about with pages all over the place. Also - I think - search engines crawl the board ok as far as I know.

 

[MKJ]

If anyone wants Joomla or Mambo themes I have rigged up a theme displayer and file downloader on my spare server. Upto 175 themes now and climbing. I put on about 10-15 every other day. You can view the themes on auto - every 5 seconds the theme will change if you activate the auto-changer.

Joomla/Mambo themes.