promotional suggestion for site owners

jimw

@Wanderer: I like that idea. But I think you would need a central place for storing the information, kind of like Vanillazilla. Maybe even use Vanillazilla data.

Let me try again - word spew - sorry. Thinking of 2 things at the same time.

Using a text file to load the info into the sidepanel is easy. There are already add-ons that do this.

The other idea I had was that the forum admin link data could be stored in a central place like Vanillazilla or even on lussumo.

Wanderer

I agree jimw, but failing that, a mailing list maintained by a couple of people to notify all when it's been updated should work. Individuals are then able to update (manually) their local copy.

Two reasons for local copies of the file...
1. To avoid someone getting stuck with hosting costs which might be considerable if it got popular
2. I personally would like to check for inappropriate links and if necessary, tag them so.

Posted: Saturday, 25 August 2007 at 9:56AM

crash_D.

@ Wanderer:
1. the purpose of this is to increase PR of sites, not to have people click links..
2. your idea needs thorough consideration; either i don't udnerstand what you mean, or you don't understand the nature of link exchange.
2-1. nobody in the "network" needs to update the links, since they are permament, once the title and url are agreed upon.. changing the link distorts the initial purpose in the first place
2-2. the purpose of each of the members would be to have their links at as many pages as possible, and then to place links in return. from what you say, the applicant will add himself somehow to the list (or apply or whatever), and then put the entire link list on a page (and indicate the url)...

if this is what you mean, than the idea is great, however, what if the list gets too lengthy, like a thousand links.. then admins would have to break them down into categories, which means that members have different probability of being in the links list.. the travelling or blogging industry, for example, would generate much more exposure than pottery....

the method of random selection of 5 (or other q'ty) links is out of the question, because it destroys the initial purpose... the links must be permanent, like monuments and urls....

I think its a great idea, and i will think more about it in the nearest future, and hopefully come up with an effective solution... help is appreciated..

right now, however, i am offering you vanillers to exchange links without this centralized system... i cant undertand why you guys are so discouraged about this, because what i am offering is a free promotional collaborative service... why do you think vanilla pops up in google for query "free open source forum"? because every forum (hopefully) has a link to vanilla,,, just because of links!!! .... i cant understand your passiveness, guys... you either don't understand the benefit, or own so popular sites that you don't need to increase rankings and traffic.... could you please clarify...
thanks again, and hope for cooperation (the n'th time

Wanderer

Posted: Saturday, 25 August 2007 at 6:05PM

crash_D.

remember that the forum is international, and we don't share the same frame of reference.... i don't understand what you mean by this..

Redi Jedi

Ok how about this.... You have a plugin that can receive and send out sets of ads, basically just some manner of automated exchange, likely some form of xml. these ad sets are then stored locally some how, txt file, database, what ever. then ya have an admin interface for placing the ads, setting which ads would be displayed on each page so it wouldn't be random, as long as the person didn't change there link somehow(this is bound to happen) it would be permanent. the search engine wont be able to tell the difference because its done server side not in javascript. there will be some favoritism going on I'm sure, since each site owner picks witch ads to display but as you can see thats gonna happen if ya keep them all here too. plus people can exchange them with other forums owners too, not sure if anyone would find that useful(since there your users links) but it could be nice. btw totally unrelated links don't help your ranking very much, my site is about a club in New Jersey in the 70s... for some reason I don't think there are many forums out there that would have a large number of similar keywords for googlebot to druel over(unless theres a Bruce Springsteen forum out there), plus it would likely confuse my users to see a link to some forum about cars(for instance)... You also get counted off for having too many links(I think internal links are excluded) on a page, I've heard different numbers for how many to have, 100, 50, 150...guess that depends on the bot. Oh and I've also heard that the output of that plugin(the pagerank toolbar) is questionable and outdated(over a month behind) not sure how true that is..

crash_D.

ok, after my last post in this discussion, i have decided to make this application... i have begun to code a completely fresh php application, which i hope will be online in about a week... of course, it will be a beta test version, which i hope you guys would help me improve by suggesting features etc..

i don't want to generate revenue from this, the only advantage i see now is the popularity of my other sites which i would hopefully promote with this tool... i hope you guys would fun-test this thing with me...

also, just to enquire in advance,,, i am no designer, and i now focus on the functionality part, ratehr than design... i know i won't be able to design the application well... so, the question is, does anybody have time or wishes to draw several templates for this tool? i will cut the images and markup myself, all i am asking is a graphic file, if that's possible... when i finish the 0.1 version, i will gladly invite you all and you will see what this is all about..

technical aspect:
i haven't coded in classes, and currently see no use in them (or justify myself non-knowing them)... i use only functions and do my best to make the app expensible, so that it could be easily updated without the routine-like alterations,,, i want it pretty much like vanilla, but i don't use classes... (btw, if someone explained their advantage over functions, i'd be happy)...

and the final question, are you going to join the system when it is ready? i mean, join really, adding and posting links, etc?

final request,,, i know this may sound funny, but i would love to hear your opinions about my programming skills... i have laerned html, css, js and php myself, and never worked in the industry (expect for several site i made for myself and clients)... i am practic, and i surely don't know the termiology, the basic theoretical stuff, etc... (well, i know what oop is so, i have uploaded the current version of functions.php (changed to .txt) file of this future application, can you take a look at it and say something like "never do this" or "well done with this"? thanks,
edit: closed tags