Get multiple DMOZ links and use Wordpress to do it

September 5, 2007 | 7 Responses

Are you having trouble finding just the right DMOZ category to submit your URL to? Do you think that your site would benefit from an extra listing in a different category on DMOZ? The benefits of listing this way include high PR backlinks, out-of-the-box branding, and ofcoarse, an increase in traffic.

But you already know why its good to be listed in DMOZ.

Times that by 2 or 4 or (if you can do it) even 4 and you are on the same track as this post.

The idea here is to gain more than just that single, high PageRank and trusted DMOZ link. Before we get started, there are a few things you should know.

• This is not a quick fix, Loophole, Scheme or Blackhat technique of any kind.
• This requires a TON of relevant content from a given blog and a lot of hard work
• You need to be able to edit your site’s theme (coding, not just images and colours)

Still with me? The basic idea is that a well structured blog, brimming with relevant and useful content, if it is able to categorize properly could be able to pass off its’ categories as mini-sites to directories like DMOZ. The mini-site is part of a larger network that makes up your website.

Many large scale sites that cover a number of topics, have their subfolders listed on DMOZ pages. It is a way to include websites that may not fit in so neatly in a major or sub-category.

Your categories must be well organized and, chances are, not all of them will be able to make it. I would recommend spending a few weeks building up two or three major categories (with sub categories or not) into strong groups of articles that could survive on their own blog.

i.e. If you have a website about Cats, and your categories are something like:

• Veterinarian Reviews
• Diet / Nutrition
• Famous Kitties
• Cats in the news

and say Veterinarian Reviews and Famous Kitties are packed with some of your best posts, you may be able to suggest http://mycatsite.com/veterinarian-reviews/ * as a URL in the appropriate category, and still maintain the link to your link in http://www.dmoz.org/Recreation/Pets/Cats/

*It is important that you edit your permalinks to read blog.com/category-name and not blog.com/categories/category-name/, which is the default.- Some background reading on permalink structuring:

change-wordpress-permalink wordpress-categories-in-permalink-structure-behavior

wordpress-permalink-customisation-caution-for-beginners

Another thing you must consider, is that each category template needs to be unique. Your main nav can still be there, but if al the sidebar links have more to do with the rest of the site than the category, chances are its not going to cut it. This could mean cutting Top comments, Recent and Most Popular posts right out of your sidebar. The best thing to do would be to keep those widgets on your Main Index Template, and arrange slightly different sidebars for each individual category.

A good place to start figuring out how to do this is Wordpress’ very own default theme. The default theme displays different sidebar messages depending on the page, type of archive, or category the visitor is in. Simply changing the markup on this sidebar function is a quick way to set up new and unique sidebars from within each topic.

Well thats all the blogging around here for today, Camp. Until next time. Oh and before I go, I just want to apologize to all the hard-working DMOZ editors getting a sudden slew of subdomain submissions from unlikely page-rank-happy bloggers who didn’t bother to read this whole article.

5 Scripts you should know about when starting a website

August 27, 2007 | 6 Responses

When starting a website, a little coding knowledge goes a long way. But it can also save you a lot of time and money to know if what you need in a website isn’t sitting out there waiting for you. Here are some scripts that have saved me loads of headaches whether it be coding one myself or hiring someone to do it.

Wordpress - Wordpress is arguably the best open-source blogging platform in existance. Written in php, it is a robust blog script with no shortage of features (or extensions) that can be skinned to your liking with ease. It can serve as your entire website in one script. A little CSS and XHTML knowledge are required when it comes to building your own theme. The admin area is very straight forward. Installation requires you to write your own config file, but cpanel can autoinstall Wordpress for you.

Development Status: Production/Stable License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

If you are looking for something with more user input and is also more feature driven, there is another website-in-a-box solution below.

Plogger - Plogger is an open-source image gallery script written in php. They are still currently in beta but the last stable version was tops. It was easily integrated with your existing site’s theme and had plenty of bells and whistles (including a slideshow feature!).

Note: Plogger 3.0 has cause me some problems with integration. They have promised it to be easier to mod and create widgets, though

Development Status: Beta License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

e107 - This is probably one of the best open-source CMS solutions out there. e107 has an impressive set of plug ins that will do almost anything you can think of. You will find it has a very easy admin system and installation is a snap. PHP knowledge isn’t an absolute must but it will always help.

Development Status: Production/Stable License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

phpBB - Quite possibly the most popular open source forum script. It rivals its paid counterpart, Invision Powerboard, on many levels. A lot of the same features are present and, in some ways, are easier to use. Due to the popularity of the script, security can sometimes be an issue. As well can your vulnerability to spam. People who are really really serious about foruming should probably look at one of the paid solutions.

Development Status: Production/Stable License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

and finally… the content management system currently at the top of its’ game…

XOOPS XOOPS is a dynamic open source portal system written in PHP. IT is the ideal tool for developing small to large dynamic community websites, portals, weblogs and much more.

Development Status: Production/Stable

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

New header image (as if you didn’t know)

August 26, 2007 | 0 Responses

This is beyond a poor excuse for posting as it is really quite obvious. I made a new header image. The photo came from SxC, a free image site where you can download high-resolution photos/images for non-commercial use.

The old image, which drew up a lot of question from visitors, was a photo of my 3 year old neice playing with a friend on her Tigger Bike. I cropped it to make it look ‘artsy. Some people though it was really weird to have a photo of two kids with their heads cropped out of the pic. I just thought it looked cool.

I wanted to go with the sunflower image because I think they are a really nice looking flower. Also, my sister has an extensive collection of sunflower knick-knacks in her home, which I think is really cool. Collections are fun.

Better band sites #1: The dreaded domain name

August 21, 2007 | 1 Response

If you want your band to really have a presence on the web, you need a domain name. Preferably top level (i.e. WWW.YOURBAND.COM). When I was getting into playing in bands for the first time there was a great service at cjb.net that redirected your nickname with them to your site and masked the address. Instead of http://www.geocities.com/stuff/music/my-band-name/ I was able to have my-band-name.cjb.net … a little better. But cjb is saturated with advertising and pop-ups and stuff now. A .com is just nicer looking.

Its maybe five bucks for a domain name, depending on where you register. Either way it will not cost more than a mere hour’s pay at any job. A popular domain registry is GoDaddy. I haven’t had any problems with Yahoo or Namespro so far. Give them a shout.

If you absolutely cannot afford to register a domain name for your band, I can tell you a way to get one for free in this article. It may seem like a pain but with your whole band sharing a throw-away email adress, I’m sure you guys can manage to do enough of the offers.

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