Writing this post today I realise that probably 20% of the whole world population has or still does use a computer connected to the internet. 10% of these have for sure heard of SEO and SEM. It’s amazing how much traffic search engines get and bring to webmasters! Lots of companies have been founded as of to maximize this amount of traffic it gets. “Apogee Search” is one of these companies. Or rather, one of the best 25 companies on the web in that field. Amazing, isn’t it?!

Apogee Search, being in the place it is, uses and focuses on the most effective web marketing methods to drive quality targeted traffic, or rather potential customers, for more leads, clicks and customers!

Apogee Search’s methods include:

• Paid search optimization
• Natural search optimization
• Affiliate marketing
• Pay-Per-Call

Apogee Search’s website is located at Apogee Search’s website. The website includes many very helpful resources for webmasters, SEOs and affiliates. Some of which I particulary like are; the Search blog the Search marketing glossary and their very own resources page available at http://www.apogee-search.com/Resources/index.php .

I honestly haven’t tried their services before but judging from the looks of their site and the way it has been optimized I would go to them to market any of my sites. I would really love to check out their pay-per-call marketing solutions some day if I ever had the time!

Link: Apogee Search

Hi this is a very interesting blog post. Made by dadadad. Don’t askZ! Really interestingZ. AgainZ, interesting .

Shoemone

http://damnz.wordpress.com/2007/01/06/msn-yahoo-hit-google-in-the-balls/

http://wpmu.nyit.edu/marion/2006/11/29/playing-doom-on-the-olpc/

First the last *cough* century *cough* Google has been in total domination of the searching world. You wanna search for something? Simple. Go to http://google.com . Now, behind Google, MSN and Yahoo remained there, but, not there. They were like backup search engines. Specially to webmasters. Heck! If I’m getting 10k from here and 2k from there I’ll propbably, in my complete sane mine, go with the 10k. http://marshallk.com/what-are-trackbacks/

Now, this has been the game for a long time, Google is basically the bully that bullies MSN and Yahoo around. That was untill Yahoo and MSN got themselves a little bit of courage and stood up for themselves. “We want our market share!!” they said.

Then again, you must wonder, how could they do that?? Well, it’s easy, they just had to hit Google’s treasure source + most of the internet’s spam financial source. Adsense. So, they, took that as a shield. “We will not take any more website bullshit spam.” Once again, they said.

So, everyone thought of a way to cause Google some pain. MSN chose its newly launched PPC system. With the description tag defined as “You use Google, You Suck, YOu Don’t Use MSN!!!”. So now, people otta choose between Google and MSN. TOugh call for all the spammers outside there. But I bet they’re gonna choose Adsense. TRy again later, MSN.

Now, Yahoo!. Yahoo is pretty much like the middle child. The one with mental problems. Can’t decide which side its on. Again, it chooses the stupid wrong side, and sides with Google. Tough? It decides to technically *ban* every site with Adsense on. So from now on any search for “blog” gives out “-9 out of 0 results”! Again, go play somewhere else Yahoo! Slurp, no gives a damn!!

So, yes MSN and Yahoo try to look a bit man’ish, but too bad, they don’t. No one ever messes with Google and lives to see another day!

For many years, Google has and still is the dominating search engine the search industry. It got more searches than all the other search engines all put together. According to it, it will always depend on organic results, none of which it tampers with.

Lately though, things obviously started to change. Google, every now and then, adds a bit of its own flavor into the SERPs(Search Engine Results Page). For example, Google has been pointing tips and links to its Blogger, Google Calender, and Picasa for any search phrase that includes calendar, blog, and photo sharing.

Now, that just changes everything, because according to Google, it wouldn’t ever do such thing… But it obviously did, right?

Blake Ross, one of the guys behind FireFox, just said that he is, second by second, losing faith in Google. He also said that, should Google want to make it easier for users to find the services they’re looking for, then it might as well link to the best service.. (Ouch!)

You could read his opinion at his blog post Trust is hard to gain, easy to lose . I personally love the Microsoft Office Helper Picture . http://www.shoemoney.com/2007/01/17/my-favorite-little-wordpress-tricks-and-plugins/

http://dbyte.wordpress.com/2006/11/29/hello-world/

Hi! It has been a long time since I’ve last posted, but the good thing is that I’m back, right?

So, I’ve been listening to these great shows lately about affiliates and stuff. The idea is to interview the WWW affiliate gods and *usually* analyse a site and get off-topic and blab out all their deepest secrets. Pretty fun .

The Net Income Shows are hosted by Shoemoney (hosted as in interviewed and such, not the technical saved on his server). For those who don’t know who Shoemoney is, you’re missing way lots of fun. He is a self-made millionare that started his online journey with $ -50k( as in 50k dollars debt ). One hell of a succes story!

The Net Income Show is a part of the shows which are made by WebmasterRadio . The other shows include The Daily Search Cast and Domain Master.

A guide to setting up and running a full featured webserver from just about any Internet connection. Covers issues on running a web server, email server, dns server, news server, ftp server, game server and more. You’ll love it! I didn’t get to *make* it yet, but I will ’cause it seems like a blast . It’s over here @ http://www.diywebserver.com/.

read more | digg story

I’ve seen lots of Yahoo! APIs in hand lately, specially the webmasters-related ones. So, I thought I’d show you one or two !!

Yahoo! APIs are kind of lame in the making, pretty easy if you ask me, atleast from a PHP coder’s point of view. Specially with that DOM on . Don’t know what a DOM is? Google it. So you just make up the URL, and call it with a GET. That’s probably just all .

The difference between the two samples I’m putting up is that one has an extra extension, look and see:

Total Number of Backlinks to Page

Use: Whatever php file you called it, just put an extra ?q=<url of page to check backlinks> in the URL.

<?php

$request = 'http://api.search.yahoo.com/SiteExplorerService/V1/inlinkData?appid=YahooDemo&query='.$_GET['q'].'&results=1';$response=file_get_contents($request);
$dom = new DOMDocument('1.0', 'UTF-8');// Load the XML into the DOM
if ($dom->loadXML($response) === false) {
  die('Parsing failed');
}$root = $dom->firstChild;
 foreach($root->attributes as $attr) $res[$attr->name] = $attr->value;echo $res['totalResultsAvailable'];
?>
 Given that, here is how to make up one that will,

Total Backlinks to The Whole Site

Use: Whatever php file you called it, just put an extra ?q=<url of doamin of site to check backlinks> in the URL.

<?php

$request = 'http://api.search.yahoo.com/SiteExplorerService/V1/inlinkData?appid=YahooDemo&query='.$_GET['q'].'&results=1&entire_site=1';$response=file_get_contents($request);
$dom = new DOMDocument('1.0', 'UTF-8');// Load the XML into the DOM
if ($dom->loadXML($response) === false) {
  die('Parsing failed');
}$root = $dom->firstChild;
 foreach($root->attributes as $attr) $res[$attr->name] = $attr->value;echo $res['totalResultsAvailable'];?>Congrats! You just got yourself a pretty handy webtool !

I think it’s about time for me to set the records straight. I haven’t really, till a couple of days ago made up my mind about wether phpBB was actually worth the two damn mega-bytes it takes up to work and the 70 Kilo-bytes for the database. Given that, you gotta know I made up my mind to not!

It all started with my first step, picking out a theme for phpBB. Supposedly, they’ve got a huge cooked up themes database. I was goin in with a big heart, assuming they’ve got some kind of super-dilicious themes that will go around with my teen-oriented forum. Man was I dreaming! I’m sorry to say this, but the folks over there are completely missing the point. We, as forum owners, aren’t looking for 20 or so subSilver(the default theme) variations. Yeah! Sure, I’m looking for a white and black suB, A dark blue one, a light blue one, a grey one, a green one, damn! I hate to sound like an eminem fan but that sounds so gay! … Other than that, the themes mostly suck and most of them were probably made to be some sort of link bait for another forum… I can’t say I don’t think any of the themes look good, I surely do like some, but they just didn’t fit into my criteria.

I gave up and just went off with some hi-tech theme, totaly off-theme by the way. When I was done with that, I went out to look for some mods to style up my forum a bit, default only really bored my ass off… I started off looking for some search engine optimization mods. I, without any MODs, went and took off the SIDs from the URLs. Later, through my search, I came across pretty much a couple of the same MODs rewritten in every way you can imagine, a bit creative if you asked me… I then, came across, the supposedly, best SEO MOD in the phpBB game, Able2Know. Yet again, it didn’t seem professional at all. It literally ate up half of the forum’s capability, and uglifying the whole look. When I was done with finding some MODs, I had this picture:
“phpBB MODs are so damn unethical, meaning that they are based on no structure and it has quite an ugly installing method…”…

Putting all that aside, I was usually used to the quite powerfull featured SMF with some customizations of mine. When I started to test the forum a bit, that was like the last straw for me… Each time I wanted to delete anything, I had, just had to, go into the moderating panel, god forbid they just put it as an extra argument in the viewtopic.php! Later then, I figured out modding won’t be easy, I needed quite some moderators. So, I went in into the admin panel, expecting to find some X Moderators panel to choose some moderators and super moderators for that matter. And, in only a few hours , not much for a phpBB forum :p, happened to come across with a small hidden feature that will let me choose a moderator for each forum, alone. Even more surprisingly, I could only change one forum moderator at a time, although there are selection boxes for each… Plain Pain …

*Wondering where my SMF is * . Guess that was the last straw. I had it. So I will, some time, take down the phpBB and possibly either use a VBulletin or an SMF…

By the way, I’m talking about phpBB2. phpBB3 is in BETA2 when I was writing this and I’m surely gonna try out phpBB3 and give you a shout! I do appreciate what the folks at phpBB do, and do know that other bulletin boards do get more financial support, but I just think they can do better .

Hey!

 Assuming you guys know I’m trying to make my own web community, you know I was sooo busy. I’ve not had the time to blog, which is disastorous for me !

Anyways, here I am, back to blogging again after some things were sorted out .

Back to title-topic now . On this forum I’m (trying) to build, I was/am using phpBB. I basically, and after many arguments with my inner “kid”, came to settle that I like it. By liking it, I don’t mean I know it could kick anything else’s damn a**, I mean I like it :p. Trying to stay on topic here, help!

The problem is that, when I’m choosing something like phpBB with some shortcomes, I’m gonna have to modify it, makes sense? Somewhere in my mind it does ! It came to my mind today, in Biology class, that I have to edit my “FAQ/Rules” page to fit my needs.

So… I fired up Google and tried a “phpBB faq editor”. Basically, getting the mod was easy, it landed first on the SERPs, it had to be good .

*Note: The MOD said the latest version to be used on was 2.0.8 and I was using 2.0.21

The installation took about ~5 minutes, and I was lazy. When I was done, I tried the MOD! .

I was astonished! It was what I was dreaming of, even better.

It had a multi-langual system, which sounded good, but I only needed English! . Next, there it was. The very own “Forum Mangement” clone, very much better looking too . It had everything I was looking for, those lovely Add “Category” and “Question” forms, those lovely rearranging links, and least but not last, it freakin worked on my damn 2.0.21!!

If you wanna try it, you can;

Download it from the official phpBB thread

Check it out on my forum

Yay! Check ot out and tell me what you think !

I’ve been modifying phpBB for ages now. So, a while ago I thought of making a kick-ass phpBB plugin that will make its users feel a bit more comfy… Anyways, the project turned black. Why? I found out that, to make a plugin, you have to do a whole lots of things, not just open up your notepad.exe and give out some intl. It turned out that you will probably need to make an MODX version and a .txt version of the mod for a start. Then, you’ll have to add the template modifications to at-least one template, where subSilver was that one…

Anyways, the idea passed, like most of my ideas . But a couple of days ago, when I was alone @ home with nothing to do, I cracked up a small phpBB plugin. “The Official phpBB Contact Us Form”, I called it . Its basically to put in a damn contact form to integrate with your phpBB. It turned out kinda good considering how much reading I made about how to submit a phpBB MOD :D.

Enuf talk.. Here is the part which is supposedly showed to public to reference the MOD, or in other words, that B.S before the MOD installation instructions . 

##############################################################
## MOD Title: Simple Contact Form
## MOD Author: Damnz! damnz.ramnz@gmail.com http://damnz.wordpress.com
## MOD Description: I already explained :p
## MOD Version: 0.0.1
##
## Installation Level: Easy
## Installation Time: 3 Minutes
## Files To Edit:
##  language/lang_english/lang_admin.php,
##  templates/subSilver/overall_header.tpl
## 
##
## Included Files: contact_form.php,
##     contact_form_body.tpl
## License: http://opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php GNU General Public License v2
##############################################################
## For security purposes, please check: http://www.phpbb.com/mods/
## for the latest version of this MOD. Although MODs are checked
## before being allowed in the MODs Database there is no guarantee
## that there are no security problems within the MOD. No support
## will be given for MODs not found within the MODs Database which
## can be found at http://www.phpbb.com/mods/
##############################################################
## Author Notes:
## Hope you like it . I’d really appreciate a backlink too to http://damnz.wordpress.com .
##############################################################
## MOD History:
##
##   2006-09-07 – Version 0.0.1
##      
##
##############################################################
## Before Adding This MOD To Your Forum, You Should Back Up All Files Related To This MOD
##############################################################

 As for the MOD’s code, I’m gonna have to put it up right here, cuz there is something wrong with the upload engine, or so I think .

The instructions are,

#
#—–[ COPY ]——————————————
#
*.* to *.* #
#—–[ OPEN ]——————————————
#
language/lang_english/lang_main.php
#
#—–[ FIND ]——————————————
#
//
// That’s all, Folks!
// ————————————————-
#
#—–[ BEFORE, ADD ]——————————————
#
$lang['Contact_Form_Title'] = “Contact Form”;
$lang['Contact_Form_Subject'] = ‘Subject’;
$lang['Contact_Form_Name'] = ‘Name’;
$lang['Contact_Form_Email'] = ‘E-Mail’;
$lang['Contact_Form_Message'] = ‘Message Body’;
$lang['Contact_Form_Notice'] = ‘Please fill in the WHOLE form’;
$lang['Contact_Form_Success'] = ‘Your e-mail has been sent!’;
$lang['Contact_Form_Failure'] = ‘Your e-mail delivery failed!’;
#
#—–[ SAVE/CLOSE ALL FILES ]——————————————
#
# EoM

Now, to the real PHP code then the subSilver template :

phpbb_root/contact_form.php

<?php/***************************************************************************
 *                                contact_form.php
 *                            -------------------
 *   begin                : Saturday, Feb 13, 2001
 *   copyright            : (C) 2001 The phpBB Group
 *   email                : support@phpbb.com
 *
 *   $Id: contact_form.php,v 0.0.1 2006/09/07 16:17:27 damnz Exp $
 *
 *
 ***************************************************************************/

This message was sent to you by '.$this[email].':'.$this[message];
$headers = 'From: '.$this[name].' <'.$this[email].'>' . "\r\n";
// Mail it
mail($board_config['board_email'], $subject, $message, $headers);
$template->assign_vars(array(
 'L_SUBJECT' => $lang['Contact_Form_Subject'],
 'L_EMAIL' => $lang['Contact_Form_Email'],
 'L_MESSAGE' => $lang['Contact_Form_Message'],
 'L_CONTACT_NOTICE' => '',
 'L_NAME'=> $lang['Contact_Form_Name'],
 'VALIDATION' => ''
)
);
}
{
//Handle the reprinting
$template->assign_vars(array(
 'L_SUBJECT' => $lang['Contact_Form_Subject'],
 'L_EMAIL' => $lang['Contact_Form_Email'],
 'L_MESSAGE' => $lang['Contact_Form_Message'],
 'L_CONTACT_NOTICE' => $lang['Contact_Form_Notice'],
 'L_NAME'=> $lang['Contact_Form_Name'],
 'VALIDATION' => $validation)
);
}
}
$template->pparse('body');
include($phpbb_root_path . 'includes/page_tail.'.$phpEx);
?>
templates/subSilver/contact_form_body.tpl

<form action="contact_form.php" method="post"><table width="100%" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1" border="0" class="forumline" align="center">
  <tr>
 <th height="25" class="thHead" nowrap="nowrap">{L_CONTACT_NOTICE}</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
 <td class="row1"><table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" width="100%">
    <tr>
   <td colspan="2" align="center">&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>
    {VALIDATION}
    <tr>
   <td width="45%" align="right"><span class="gen">{L_SUBJECT}:</span></td>
   <td>
     <input type="text" class="post" name="subject" size="25" maxlength="40" />
   </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
   <td align="right"><span class="gen">{L_EMAIL}:</span></td>
   <td>
     <input type="text" class="post" name="email" size="25" maxlength="32" />
    
   </td>
    </tr>
     <tr>
   <td align="right"><span class="gen">{L_NAME}:</span></td>
   <td>
     <input type="text" class="post" name="name" size="25" maxlength="32" />
    
   </td>
    </tr>

Yes, I know it’s lame, but I like it for a first MOD . If you like it, don’t be shy and tell me .