Edward Beckett :: SEO, Designer, Web Developer

Its The New Style – EJB Reloaded

Edward — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 02:23:52 +0000

It took me a few years to get around to it, but I’ve finally redesigned my site. Honestly, it took a bit longer than it should as I tend to work on fixing stuff more than not.

The new design is a complete rebuild; hosting, platform, pages – everything. I decided to use WordPress as a CMS as it will do fine for this site’s simple needs – content, landing pages, blog posts, etc … and even redirected nearly all 500 pages from Google. Yep … 301 everything to home except the blog pages which were a little trickier to rewrite … but not much … Realistically I don’t care about the old pages … They were just entry pages …

So without further ado, I’m happy to announce the launch of the new look & feel for www.edwardbeckett.com. Please, Let me know what you think. Thanks.

The post Its The New Style – EJB Reloaded appeared first on Edward Beckett :: SEO, Designer, Web Developer.

The Florida SEO – Learning Linux One Mistake at a Time.

Edward — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:50:00 +0000

A couple months ago I decided to take the leap into actually installing and running a Linux machine. After a couple of failed installs, I managed to format a disk and install my new favorite distro … Debian installed. Coming from a Windoze environment there were a lot of hurdles to overcome just to figure out how to get around on a Linux setup. First off … I’ve got to give props to the guys over at forums.debian.net … without the hundreds of how-to posts I don’t think I would have gotten too far.

The first real hurdle for me was wrapping my tiny little brain around the way Linux ‘mounts’ work. Being used to the drive letter mentality, it was odd to understand that there really is no drive letter … it’s just a label for how Windoze mounts a partition.
I still don’t really understand it all, but I do have an idea how It works now.

While Windoze typically installs to let’s say c:\, Linux does not make a letter for a partition. As such, in Linux there is just ‘/’ which is the root directory. Nearly all the working directories are installed under the root directory … unless of course you should so choose to move them elsewhere … which, is another story.

Typically, a Linux install will have the default directories installed as follows …

/ – root = The main directory and the root of where everything else is.
/bin/ = The executable directory … where stuff that can execute goes.
/boot/ = Guess what goes here heh? Yeah, your boot loader, kernels, etc.
/dev/ = Devices … Big topic … lot’s of stuff in here … mostly disks and tty’s. Google it.
/home/ = This is where your files are … You are running as a user right and not root right? If not … Well … You’ll probably be reinstalling your system pretty soon …
/etc/= This is where the configuration files are located in a Debian distro.
/lib/ = Libraries … this is where the informational source files required by the systems’ essential binaries are …
/media/ = Mounted points for removable media … like a usb or a CD-ROM …
/opt/ = Optional applications … Now this one is interesting because sometimes it’s used for add-on applications that are not part of a typical .deb package. There may also exist sub directories under /opt too … such as /opt/bin, /opt/include, /opt/lib, etc.
/proc/ = This is a virtual file system where processes status are found … I.E. /proc/cpuinfo
/root/ = The REAL root users file. This is not the same as / root. This is the root users’ home directory … You really shouldn’t be in there if your just working as a user.
/sbin/= System binaries. This is for the root user or the system … not your stuff.
/srv/ = The serve directory … I choose this one to serve my web stuff from. Why? I don’t know … I just happen to like the sound of /srv/ instead of /var/www …
/sys/ = Supposedly the file system for kernel objects … Don’t know much about it yet.
/usr/ = The second level file system for shareable stuff … like /usr/local, /usr/bin, or /usr/sbin …
/var/ = Variable data … many Linux distros will install Apache related stuff here … Like /var/www for web docs … I moved mine though but I don’t think it really matters where it comes from …
Again … I’m new to Linux so a lot of this is well still new to me … sue me if I say the wrong thing.

The biggest hurdle was trying to figure out how to actually move around the files system. First of all … If you don’t have permission …Linux may not even let you enter a directory. Say for example you try to ‘CD’ to enter into the /root/ home directory you’ll simply get a permission denied message. This is how Linux keeps standard users from accessing places they shouldn’t. In order to access the /root/ directory you either need to be the root user (which you should never use while operating X windowed programs) or you need a special access level to get there. This access is called ‘SU’ or Substitute User. However, before being allowed to use SU … you must be given permission in a special access file called the sudoers file … Now on a Debian based Linux distro … the sudoers file is located under /etc/ … specifically /etc/sudoers …

So you need to have root access to either add yourself or someone else to the sudoers file. I don’t know exactly why, but you are supposed to only edit this file with the visudo command which, opens the file in the VI editor … At this point you can either add yourself or someone else to the file as a ‘sudoer’ so that access may be given. However, if your not familiar with getting around in VI or VIM … then well … guess what … You’ve got some more learnin’ to do … cause if you don’t know how to get around in VIM (like I didn’t) then you are going to be in for quite a surprise …

So … after literally two months of trial and error, I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can actually use Linux … it’s taken a lot of work … but if I can figure it out then I guess nearly anyone can …

Here’s a screenshot of my Debian box running with KDE 4.4

The post The Florida SEO – Learning Linux One Mistake at a Time. appeared first on Edward Beckett :: SEO, Designer, Web Developer.

BlogCFC ColdFish Code Block Print Function Update

Edward — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 07:07:00 +0000

Normally I pay quite a bit of attention to my site after I do any major updates or changes but I’ve been quite a slacker lately and I seemed to have missed a few issues that happened after I updated my blog core … Bad me.

Something interesting that I truly thought would be an isolated incident – and my problem – actually wasn’t. It seems that there was a bug where Gecko based browsers – Firefox – don’t seem to like the window.frames[] syntax … So, for those that are using BlogCFC and want to be able to print code blocks from Firefox … You may need to update the formatter.cfc with the new syntax … Here’s the link for the formatter.cfc … on RIAForge … or you can simply copy the update from here …




This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
along with this program. If not, see .

//initialize a buffer

// If you're using JDK 1.5 or later and want some extra performance this can be a StringBuilder
//variables.buffer=createObject("java","java.lang.StringBuilder").init();
variables.buffer=createObject("java","java.lang.StringBuffer").init();

// initialize private variables
// TODO : Change the parser state to be a struct rather than individual variables.
variables.isCommented=false;
variables.isTag=false;
variables.isValue=false;
variables.isCFSETTag=false;
variables.isCFScript=false;
variables.isCFQueryTag=false;
variables.isOneLineComment=false;
variables.isMXML=false;
variables.isActionscript=false;
variables.isSQL=false;
variables.isSQLValue=false;
variables.initialparser="";
variables.spansOpened = 0;
variables.spansClosed = 0;

var BIstream = createObject("java","java.io.StringBufferInputStream").init(arguments.code);
var IStream = createObject("java","java.io.InputStreamReader").init(BIstream);
var reader = createObject("java","java.io.BufferedReader").init(IStream);
var line = reader.readLine();
var linenumber = 0;

if (arguments.parser neq "") {
"variables.is#arguments.parser#" = true;
}

if (getConfig().getShowToolbar()) {
variables.buffer.append(getToolbarHTML(arguments.code,arguments.codesig));
}

variables.buffer.append("");
while (isdefined("line")) {
if (getConfig().getShowLineNumbers()) {
linenumber = linenumber + 1;
variables.buffer.append("" & linenumber & "");
}
formatLine(line);
line = reader.readLine();
}
// there appears to be more spans created than cleaned up... closing up any extras... will need to review to see what is keeping extra spans
while (variables.spansOpened gt variables.spansClosed) {
variables.spansClosed = variables.spansClosed + 1;
variables.buffer.append("");
}
variables.buffer.append("");
reader.close();

return variables.buffer;




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about
  ColdFISH is developed by Jason Delmore. Source code and license information available at coldfish.riaforge.org

#REReplace(REReplace(htmleditformat(arguments.code), "\n", "
", "ALL"),"\t","    ","ALL")#

var character = "";
var thisLine=arguments.line;
var i = 0;
var endtagPos = 0;
var startAttributePos = 0;
var keywordskip = 0;

if (variables.isOneLineComment) endOneLineComment();

for (i=0; i LT thisLine.length(); i=i+1)
{
character=thisLine.charAt(javacast('int',i));
if (character EQ ' {
if (variables.isCFScript AND NOT variables.isValue)
endCFScript();
if (regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "!--", 0, 3))
{
if (regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+4, "-", 0, 1))
{
startComment("CF");
} else {
startComment("HTML");
}
} else {
if (regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "CF", 0, 2) OR regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "/CF", 0, 3))
{
startTag("CF");
if (regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+3, "SET", 0, 3) AND NOT regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+6, "T", 0, 1)) // CFSET Tag
{
variables.buffer.append(thisLine.substring(javacast('int',i+1), javacast('int',i+6)));
i=i+5;
startCFSET();
}
else if (regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+3, "SCRIPT>", 0, 6)) // CFSCRIPT TAG
{
variables.buffer.append(thisLine.substring(javacast('int',i+1), javacast('int',i+9)) & ">");
i=i+9;
startCFScript();
}
else if (regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+3, "QUERY", 0, 5)) // START CFQUERY TAG
{ // TODO: This sets the value color immediately to match SQL values including the CFQuery tag...
variables.isCFQueryTag = true;
} else if (regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+4, "QUERY", 0, 5)) // END CFQUERY TAG
{
variables.isCFQueryTag = false;
endSQL();
}
}
else if (
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "TA", 0, 2) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "/TA", 0, 3) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "TB", 0, 2) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "/TB", 0, 3) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "TD", 0, 2) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "/TD", 0, 3) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "TF", 0, 2) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "/TF", 0, 3) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "TH", 0, 2) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "/TH", 0, 3) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "TR", 0, 2) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "/TR", 0, 3)
) // HTML TABLE
{
startTag("HTMLTABLES");
}
else if (regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "IMG", 0, 3) OR regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "STY", 0, 3) OR regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "/STY", 0, 4)) //IMG or STYLE Tag
// TODO: Do separate syntax highlighting for stuff inside style
{
startTag("HTMLSTYLES");
}
else if (
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "FORM", 0, 4) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "/FORM", 0, 5) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "INPUT", 0, 5) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "/INPUT", 0, 5) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "TEXT", 0, 4) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "/TEXT", 0, 5) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "SELECT", 0, 6) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "/SELECT", 0, 7) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "OPT", 0, 3) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "/OPT", 0, 3)
)
{
startTag("HTMLFORMS");
}
else if (
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "MX:", 0, 3) OR
regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "/MX:", 0, 4)
)
{
if (regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+4, "SCRIPT>", 0, 6)) // MX:SCRIPT TAG
{
startTag("ACTIONSCRIPTTAG");
variables.buffer.append(thisLine.substring(javacast('int',i+1), javacast('int',i+10)) & ">");
i=i+10;
startActionscript();
} else if (regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+5, "SCRIPT>", 0, 6)) // END MX:SCRIPT TAG
{
endActionscript();
startTag("ACTIONSCRIPTTAG");
variables.buffer.append(thisLine.substring(javacast('int',i+1), javacast('int',i+11)));
i=i+12;
endTag();
} else {
startTag("MXML");
startAttributePos=find(' ',thisLine,i+1); //start finding the next space from current position
endtagPos=find('>',thisLine,i+1); //start finding the end tag from current position
if (startAttributePos neq 0) { // start attribute colors
variables.buffer.append(thisLine.substring(javacast('int',i+1), javacast('int',startAttributePos)));
i=startAttributePos-1;
startMXMLTag();
} else {
if (endtagPos neq 0) { // found >
variables.buffer.append(thisLine.substring(javacast('int',i+1), javacast('int',endtagPos-1)));
i=i+endtagPos;
variables.buffer.append(">");
endHighlight();
}
}
}
} else {
if (variables.isActionscript or variables.isSQL) {
variables.buffer.append("<");
} else {
startTag("HTML");
}
}
}
}
else if (character EQ '>')
{
if (variables.isCommented AND regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i-2, "--", 0, 2))
{
if (regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i-3, "-", 0, 1))
{
endComment("CF");
} else {
endComment("HTML");
}
} else {
if (variables.isCFSETTag) {
endCFSET();
} else if (variables.isActionscript) {
//This is where a CDATA for AS ends
variables.buffer.append(">");
} else if (variables.isSQL) {
variables.buffer.append(">");
} else if (variables.isCFQueryTag) {
endTag();
startSQL();
} else if (variables.isMXML) {
endMXMLTag();
} else {
endTag();
}
}
}
else if (character EQ '"')
{
if (variables.isTag OR variables.isCFScript OR variables.isActionscript)
{
if (NOT variables.isValue) {
startValue();
variables.buffer.append('"');
} else {
variables.buffer.append('"');
endValue();
}
} else {
variables.buffer.append('"');
}
}
else if (character EQ '{')
{
startBind();
variables.buffer.append("{");
endBind();
}
else if (character EQ '}')
{
startBind();
variables.buffer.append("}");
endBind();
}
else if (character EQ '/')
{
if ((variables.isCFScript OR variables.isActionscript) AND regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "/", 0, 1) AND NOT variables.isCommented)
{
if (variables.isActionscript) {
startOneLineComment("MXMLCOMMENT");
variables.buffer.append("/");
} else {
startOneLineComment("HTMLCOMMENT");
variables.buffer.append("/");
}
}
else if (variables.isCommented)
{
if (regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i-1, "*", 0, 1))
{
endComment("SCRIPT");
} else {
variables.buffer.append("/");
}
} else {
if (regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "*", 0, 1))
{
startComment("SCRIPT");
} else {
variables.buffer.append("/");
}
}
}
else if (variables.isSQL AND character EQ '-')
{
if (regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "-", 0, 1) AND NOT variables.isCommented)
{
startOneLineComment("SQLCOMMENT");
variables.buffer.append("-");
} else {
variables.buffer.append("-");
}
}
else if (variables.isSQL AND character EQ "'" AND NOT variables.isCommented)
{
if (NOT variables.isValue) {
startValue();
variables.buffer.append("'");
} else {
variables.buffer.append("'");
endValue();
}
}

// straight up replacements
else if (character EQ '\t' OR character EQ ' ')
{
variables.buffer.append("    ");
}
else if (character EQ ' ')
{
variables.buffer.append(" ");
}
else if (character EQ '&')
{
if (regionMatches(thisLine, 1, i+1, "##", 0, 1)) {
variables.buffer.append("&");
} else {
variables.buffer.append("&");
}
} else {
if (not variables.isCommented AND not variables.isValue and (i eq 0 OR NOT listcontainsnocase('a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z,@', thisLine.substring(javacast('int',i-1),javacast('int',i))))) {
keywordskip = 0;
// would like this to be much more generic rather than checking "is"
if (variables.isActionscript) {
keywordskip = keywordsearch(thisLine,i,"Actionscript");
} else if (variables.isCFscript or variables.isCFSetTag) {
keywordskip = keywordsearch(thisLine,i,"CFscript");
} else if (variables.isSQL) {
keywordskip = keywordsearch(thisLine,i,"sql");
}
if (keywordskip) {
i = i + keywordskip;
} else {
variables.buffer.append(character.toString());
}
} else {
variables.buffer.append(character.toString());
}
}
}
variables.buffer.append("
");

startHighlight(type);
variables.isOneLineComment=true;
variables.isCommented=true;

endHighlight();
variables.isOneLineComment=false;
variables.isCommented=false;

if (type EQ "CF") {
startHighlight("CFCOMMENT");
variables.buffer.append("<");
} else if (type EQ "HTML") {
if (variables.isMXML) {
startHighlight("MXMLCOMMENT");
} else {
startHighlight("HTMLCOMMENT");
}
variables.buffer.append("<");
} else {
if (variables.isActionscript) {
startHighlight("ACTIONSCRIPTCOMMENT");
} else if (variables.isSQL) {
startHighlight("SQLCOMMENT");
} else {
startHighlight("CFSCRIPTCOMMENT");
}
variables.buffer.append("/");
}
variables.isCommented=true;

if (type EQ "SCRIPT") {
variables.buffer.append("/");
} else {
variables.buffer.append(">");
}
endHighlight();
variables.isCommented=false;

if (NOT variables.isCommented AND NOT variables.isValue) {
if (type EQ "CF") {
startHighlight("CFTAG");
} else if (type EQ "HTMLSTYLES") {
startHighlight("HTMLSTYLES");
} else if (type EQ "HTMLTABLES") {
startHighlight("HTMLTABLES");
} else if (type EQ "HTMLFORMS") {
startHighlight("HTMLFORMS");
} else if (type EQ "MXML") {
startHighlight("MXML");
} else if (type EQ "ACTIONSCRIPTTAG") {
startHighlight("ACTIONSCRIPTTAG");
} else { // type is HTML
startHighlight("HTML");
}
variables.isTag=true;
}
variables.buffer.append("<");

variables.buffer.append(">");
if (NOT variables.isCommented AND NOT variables.isValue) {
endHighlight();
variables.isTag=false;
}

if (NOT variables.isCommented) {
if (variables.isCFSETTag OR variables.isCFScript) {
startHighlight("CFSCRIPTVALUE");
} else if (variables.isActionscript) {
startHighlight("ACTIONSCRIPTVALUE");
} else if (variables.isMXML) {
startHighlight("MXMLVALUE");
} else if (variables.isSQL) {
startHighlight("SQLVALUE");
} else {
startHighlight("VALUE");
}
variables.isValue=true;
}

if (NOT variables.isCommented) {
endHighlight();
variables.isValue=false;
}

if (NOT variables.isCommented) {
startHighlight("BIND");
}

if (NOT variables.isCommented) {
endHighlight();
}

if (NOT variables.isCommented) {
startHighlight("CFSET");
variables.isCFSETTag=true;
}

if (NOT variables.isCommented) {
endHighlight();
variables.buffer.append(">");
endHighlight();
variables.isCFSETTag=false;
} else {
variables.buffer.append(">");
}

if (NOT variables.isCommented) {
startHighlight("MXMLATTRIBUTES");
// TODO: Add in MXML Value colors.
// setStyle("VALUE","color:##900");
variables.isMXML=true;
}

if (NOT variables.isCommented) {
endHighlight();
variables.buffer.append(">");
endHighlight();
// TODO: Add in MXML Value colors.
// setStyle("VALUE","color:##0000CC");
variables.isMXML=false;
} else {
variables.buffer.append(">");
}

if (NOT variables.isCommented) {
endHighlight();
startHighlight("CFSCRIPT");
variables.isCFScript=true;
}

if (NOT variables.isCommented) {
endHighlight();
variables.isCFScript=false;
}

if (NOT variables.isCommented) {
endHighlight();
startHighlight("ACTIONSCRIPT");
variables.isActionscript=true;
}

if (NOT variables.isCommented) {
variables.isActionscript=false;
}

if (NOT variables.isCommented) {
variables.isSQL=true;
}

if (NOT variables.isCommented) {
variables.isSQL=false;
}

I’d like to extend a special thanks to Ray Camden & Jason Delmore for their prompt replies and expeditious changes … Much Appreciated.

The post BlogCFC ColdFish Code Block Print Function Update appeared first on Edward Beckett :: SEO, Designer, Web Developer.

How to Get Thousands of Quality Links in One Minute

Edward — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 03:17:00 +0000

The first thing you need to know about getting top rankings in Google is that you need to have quality content – so when you get Google's traffic you can actually generate business from it – then you need Inbound Links to get you to the first position. So, for those of you that just want to know how you can get those oh so coveted links, read quick and I'll show you how to get thousands of quality links in one minute.

You Need to Get Inbound Links for the Keywords You Want to Rank For

Okay – this may seem a bit oversimplified – but it's not really. Finding link partners is really pretty simple. Simple I mean like walking to New York from Miami. It's not a difficult concept to grasp, but it takes time to get there … so, let's get started.

Go into Google and Search for the keyword that you most want to rank for and then copy the link location, (Right Click and then Copy Link Location, Copy Shortcut or Copy Link Address) to the first page, first position listing on the results page. For example, if we want to rank for Lawyer Directory, we would search Google for Lawyer Directory and simply copy the address to the top ranking site. (Not too difficult – eh?)

Next we are going to open a new tab in your browser. It doesn't matter which browser you have, the shortcut for “open a new tab” is CTRL+T in Windows or CMD+T in Mac for Firefox, Opera, Chrome and even Internet Explorer, I am using Firefox because I'm addicted to it … but it really doesn't matter so go ahead and open a new tab …

Then we are going to go the address for Site Explorer in Yahoo! (http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/) – You can either highlight the address that's currently in your browser by hovering over the address area with your mouse and clicking or you can do it like a pro and learn the shortcut for highlighting the address area in your browser of choice. I bet CTRL+L in Windows or CMD+L in Mac are what you're looking for, so either type in the address for Yahoo's! Site Explorer or be a whiz kid and get there through the nifty little shortcut you just learned.

Once you've gotten to Yahoo's! Site Explorer simply paste in the URL to site that is ranking in Google for your keyword and click Explorer URL.

Now that we have access to your competitors information courtesy of Yahoo! We only need to retrieve the Inbound Link Data. In order to get just that, we have to click on the Inlinks Tab …

Since we now have access to the info for the Inbound Links, we want to sort the data so that it only shows information on Inbound Links from other sites. We don't need to know if our competitors' site links to itself as they probably wouldn't be a very good link partner for us … so we need to select “Except from this Domain” from the “Show Inlinks” dropdown list.

If you're still with me thus far, (a quick study shouldn't be more than about thirty seconds into this …) you're doing great and just a few more steps to dominating the SERP's … Now what we need to do is Grab All the Inbound Link Data. To do that, we are going to click on Export first 1000 results to TSV to download your competitors' link info as a .tsv file. The .tsv format is simply a text format that uses a tab as the delimiter – hence the name Tab Separated Values.

Okay … the file you are downloading contains all of your competitors' Inbound Link Data, but to make this information easy to work with we need to massage it a little. If you have Excel this is a breeze, if not – well, you may have some luck with Calc from Open Office.What we need to do now is save the .tsv file. When you download the file, (which should be named 'url_inlinks.tsv') you need to save it to either your desktop or a place that you will be able to easily find it – unlike your browsers' temporary folder … eh hem.

The next step is to simply open up Excel or Calc and then import the file into a more readable and manageable format. So, Open up Excel and Select the Data Tab.

Now we want to import the data from our 'url_inliks.tsv' file. So with the Data Tab active, navigate to the far left hand side of your Excel window and select Get External Data and then select From Text.

Now once you've selected the From Text button in Excel the 'Import Text File' dialogue box will open up. You need to select All Files (*.*) from the Files of Type Dropdown List and navigate to where you stored the file. I simply stored mine on the desktop for now …

Now the Text Import Wizard will open up … and for simplicity I'm only going to show one diagram here.

Text Import Wizard – Step One: All you have to do is select Delimited as the data type and click next.
Text Import Wizard – Step Two: Since the format is .tsv, the Delimiter should be automatically set to Tab but if it's not, check the radio button for Tab and click next.
Text Import Wizard – Step Three: You shouldn't have to anything here except click Finish.

If Excel wants you to select an Area or a New Sheet, just select Cell A1 in the top left corner and that's it! I like to get rid of all the Title information as it really doesn't do me much good … so I clean up my spreadsheets a little by simply deleting the A column …

If you did everything correctly you should have up to a thousand highly targeted links for your primary keyword. I hope this helps you and Good Luck with your link campaign!

The post How to Get Thousands of Quality Links in One Minute appeared first on Edward Beckett :: SEO, Designer, Web Developer.

Link Building Articles for Link Builders

Edward — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:30:00 +0000

The title, Link Building Articles for Link Builders, pretty much says exactly what it should. Over the past few years I've collected some of the most influential articles available on the subject of link building. Though it's not a complete list, I think there's enough about link building here to keep even a pro busy for quite a while. If you feel that you can contribute to the list leave me a comment and I'll check it out …

A Linking Campaign Primer

Backlinks: The Beginner's Guide to Backlink Theory

Link Building from A to Z

LinkMoses Linking Commandments

Professional's Guide to Link Building

Link Building 101 – The Almost Complete Link Guide

Link Building with the Experts

Up Close Look at Eric Ward's Link Building Desktop

Advanced Link Building Strategies

The Enormous Link Baiting Articles List

Link Building Strategies: 69 Solid Tactics

101 Ways to Build Link Popularity

131 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies

Link Baiting: Which Hook Attracts the Right Fish?

Market Research for Link Building – Who You Can Get Links From

Matt Cutts Interviewed by Eric Enge

Eric Enge Interviews Eric Ward

How Google Finds Your Needle in the Web's Haystack

The Google Pagerank Algorithm and How It Works

Matt Cutts on PageRank sculpting

Over 125 Legitimate Link Building Strategies

.edu Link Fallacies Explained

Are You A Link Whore?

Linking's Holy Grail: The Passively-Obtained Backlink

Looking for Links In All The Wrong Places

What Makes a Web Site Link-Worthy?

Linking Mistakes To Avoid, Part 1 – Link Optimization and Short URLs

Linking Mistakes To Avoid, Part 2 – Removing Orphaned URLs

Why Reciprocal Links Will Always Be Viable

What If Everything You Know About Link Building Is Wrong?

Riding The Twitter Link Waves

How Link Signals Can Be Misunderstood

Link Building's Glass Ceiling

8 Ways Backlink Analysis Can Offer Competitive Intelligence

10 Commandments of Link Building

10 Goals For Link Building Campaigns: Moving Beyond "Get More Links"

11 Experts on Link Development Speak Out

12 Different Types of Links and How To Get Them

17 Ways Search Engines Judge the Value of a Link

21 Link Builders Share Advanced Link Building Queries

Jim Westergren – Link Building Guide

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Website Content & Content Writing: Does Quality Content Really Matter?

Edward — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 10:01:00 +0000

Understanding Your Websites' Audience is Critical to Marketing Your Website

One of the most common beliefs held by many SEO experts is that content is king. I also hold this belief. However, as popular as the view is, I'm surprised at the amount of people involved in search marketing initiatives that discount website content as simply a means to an end – text that's essentially necessary to make the website appear 'professional.' In more than a few occasions I've had clients that practically refused to add content because they feel their site should communicate their message through its images and branding. Based on that premise, they want to focus on link building to improve their sites keyword rankings and landing page optimization to increase the sites conversion ratios.

So Does Website Content Really Matter?

This issue of which marketing initiative to approach, brings us to one of the most controversial subjects in the SEO industry – Content -vs- Links. I really try not to argue here because I find the question essentially to be parallel to asking if a cars transmission or engine is more important. The answer here should be self evident. However, it's not. In my humble opinion there's no right or wrong answer. I think the important question is really whether your website communicates the message required to affect the desired result. What may be effective for one website may not be for another. I feel that the key to effective website marketing is in understanding how to communicate to your audience and knowing which marketing initiative to take to communicate that message effectively. In some cases content is of the utmost importance and inbound links are simply required to obtain rankings – in other cases just the opposite holds true – inbound links are top priority and website content is simply not a major requirement. What is truly important is in knowing which marketing initiative to take.

Effective Communication is the Key to Website Marketing

In order to determine the most effective marketing strategy for a website the single most important question that needs to be answered is: What are you attempting to communicate through the website? Once that question is answered, you can consider the available options to get that message across and create a marketing campaign from there. Sounds simple right? Well, in concept it is. However, determining the most effective campaign requires a bit of insight into the type of communication needed. As a rule of thumb I generally find that service based websites have a stronger requirement to focus on the quality of content than consumer and retail based websites. The reason for this is quite simple and has little if anything to do with websites. This matter is actually based on the type of industry – not the type of website. Most service based industries do not have a visible, tangible product. As such, content is typically required to express a position of value for the service whereas retail based websites such as one that sells consumer electronics or mobile phones, would generally want to focus on communicating the value of the product or the products' brand which, doesn't always require words to express.

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Google Site Preview in Search Results

Edward — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 07:00:00 +0000

I was taking a look on line and noticed that Google's waxing experimental again … this time with site preview in the search engine results pages … Now I can see how this would be beneficial – Let's keep people from having to go back and forth from Google results to site 1 back to the results and then site 2 … This is pretty cool …

Good Call Google … I'm all for it. Much better in my book than the 'Google Instant' idea.

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WordPress Thesis Theme Customization – Adding a Custom XHTML Sitemap

Edward — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 04:38:00 +0000

The Thesis Theme for WordPress – One Powerful WordPress Framework

Lately I’ve been learning all I can on leveraging the functionality of the Thesis theme for WordPress. When I first heard about the versatility and power of Thesis in a blog post by Rae Hoffman, I was immediately interested in what benefits I could offer my customers that opted to have me design and build them a custom WordPress site. Having customized and hacked several of Chris Pearson’s WordPress themes in the past, I figured I should just go for it and purchase the Thesis developer theme – Chris’ greatest accomplishment thus far.

Wow Thesis is Sophisticated – There’s a Lot to Learn

I have to admit, when I first took a look into the core of the Thesis framework, I was a bit intimidated – Thesis was nothing like I expected under the hood. First off, Thesis comes with lots of customization options right out of the box … [Take a look here] So, getting to know what was available from the core install was quite an undertaking in itself. The good news is, when you purchase Thesis, you not only get a lifetime subscription to the theme, you also get the exceptional tech support of the Thesis designer / developer community. The support community is always available to help you along the way as you learn how to negotiate the Thesis framework.

Some Folks Just Can’t Leave Well Enough Alone

I’m definitely not the kind of guy that is happy with being ‘okay’. If there’s a way to make something better, stronger or faster – then that’s what I’m gonna’ try to do next. So, when I saw that there wasn’t a simple way of making custom page templates in Thesis – I knew that I needed to set out to tackle that issue. One of the first things I wanted to do in my own Thesis themes, was to create and XHTML sitemap like some other WordPress themes had. In the past, I would simply create a custom page template for my sitemap page and then rip out and modify the code from a theme that I admired. Simple. However, in Thesis things aren’t so easy. First of all, the Thesis was of customizing pages is to make all your custom changes to pages that won’t be affected in future upgrades. Thesis does so by offering customization through manipulating two files; styles.css, custom_functions.php, both of which are available under the theme’s custom folder. However, most of the customization are actually ‘hooked’ in to the framework by creating your own custom functions. The old way of simply creating a new template and then assigning it to a page or post won’t work with Thesis.

On With The Show – Classes – Object Oriented Customizations

So basically I had to answer the question …

How Can I Create Sophisticated Customizations and Minimalize Negative Effects?

After searching online, I finally found an answer to my problem. Creating Custom Classes. In Gary Jones’ tutorial in creating an XHTML sitemap for Thesis, I recognized the ultimate solution to customizations in Thesis – leveraging the Object Oriented nature of the Thesis framework. Gary basically makes all customizations in a custom classes file as in this example for an XHTML sitemap. Following Gary’s example, we create a file for our new class entitled GT_Sitemap.php, and place it in a directory named classes which is located in under our Thesis custom directory.

 /**
* Allows XHTML sitemap to be added
*
* @package GT_Sitemap
* @author Gary Jones
* @version 2010-05-19
* @since 2010-03-20
*/

class GT_Sitemap {
/**
* @var string
*/
protected $_pagesText;
/**
* @var string
*/
protected $_postsText;
/**
* @var string
*/
protected $_archivesText;
/**
* @var int
*/
protected $_headingLevel;
/**
* @var array
*/
protected $_order = array();
/**
* @var bool
*/
protected $_showPageDate;
/**
* @var string
*/
protected $_showPostDate;
/**
* @var bool
*/
protected $_showPostCount;
/**
* @var string
*/
protected $_archivesType;
/**
* @var string
*/
protected $_pagesDateFormat;
/**
* @var string
*/
protected $_postsDateFormat;
/**
* @var string
*/
protected $_customPagesQuery = '';
/**
* PHP4 compatible constructor
*/
public function GT_Sitemap() {
if(version_compare(PHP_VERSION,"5.0.0","__construct")) {
register_shutdown_function(array($this,"__destruct"));
}
}
/**
* PHP5 constructor, setting defaults
*/
public function __construct() {
$this->_pagesText = 'Pages';
$this->_postsText = 'Posts';
$this->_archivesText = 'Monthly Archives';
$this->_headingLevel = 3;
$this->_order = array('pages', 'posts', 'archives');
$this->_showPageDate = true;
$this->_showPostDate = 'published';
$this->_showPostCount = true;
$this->_archivesType = 'monthly';
$this->_pagesDateFormat = get_option('date_format');
$this->_postsDateFormat = get_option('date_format');
$this->_customPagesQuery = '';
}
/**
* @param string $id
*/
public function setPagesText($id) {
$this->_pagesText = $id;
return $this;
}
/**
* @param string $id
*/
public function setPostsText($id) {
$this->_postsText = $id;
return $this;
}
/**
* @param string $id
*/
public function setArchivesText($id) {
$this->_archivesText = $id;
return $this;
}
/**
* @param array $id
*/
public function setOrder($arg1, $arg2 = null, $arg3 = null) {
$this->_order = func_get_args();
return $this;
}
/**
* @param int $id
*/
public function setHeadingLevel($id) {
$this->_headingLevel = $id;
return $this;
}
/**
* @param string $id
*/
public function setPageDateFormat($id) {
if ( 0 === func_num_args() ) {
$this->_showPageDate = '';
} else {
$this->_pagesDateFormat = $id;
}
return $this;
}
/**
* @param string $id
*/
public function setPostDateFormat($id) {
if ( 0 === func_num_args() ) {
$this->_showPostDate = '';
} else {
$this->_postsDateFormat = $id;
}
return $this;
}
/**
* @param string $id
*/
public function setDateFormat($id) {
$this->setPageDateFormat($id);
$this->setPostDateFormat($id);
return $this;
}
/**
*
*/
public function hidePostCount() {
$this->_showPostCount = false;
return $this;
}
/**
* @param string $id
*/
public function setArchivesType($id) {
$archiveTypes = array('yearly', 'monthly', 'daily', 'weekly', 'postbypost', 'alpha');
if ( in_array($id, $archiveTypes) ) {
$this->_archivesType = $id;
$this->setArchivesText(substr_replace($id, strtoupper(substr($id, 0, 1)), 0, 1) . ' Archives');
}
return $this;
}
/**
* @param string $id
*/
function setCustomPagesQuery($id) {
$this->_customPagesQuery = $id;
return $this;
}
/**
* @param string $shortcode The shortcode keyword that will be used to output the sitemap
*/
public function shortcode($shortcode) {
add_shortcode( $shortcode, array(&$this, 'build') );
}
/**
* Does the main work of creating the output
*/
public function build() {
foreach ($this->_order as $section) {
if ( 'pages' === $section ) {
$output .= '_headingLevel . '>' . $this->_pagesText . '_headingLevel . '>' . "\n"
. '

' . "\n" . wp_list_pages('echo=0&show_date=' . $this->_showPageDate . '&date_format=' . $this->_pagesDateFormat . '&title_li=&' . $this->_customPagesQuery) . '

' . "\n";
}
if ( 'posts' === $section ) {
$output .= '_headingLevel . '>' . $this->_postsText . '_headingLevel . '>'."\n"
. '

' . "\n" . $this->_posts_by_category() . '

' . "\n";
}
if ( 'archives' === $section ) {
$output .= '_headingLevel . '>' . $this->_archivesText . '_headingLevel . '>' . "\n"
. '

' . "\n" . wp_get_archives('type=' . $this->_archivesType . '&echo=0&show_post_count=' . $this->_showPostCount). '

' . "\n";
}
}
return $output;
}
protected function _posts_by_category() {
global $wpdb, $post;
$tp = $wpdb->prefix;
$sort_code = 'ORDER BY name ASC, post_date DESC';
$the_output = NULL;
$last_posts = (array)$wpdb->get_results("SELECT {$tp}terms.name, {$tp}terms.term_id, {$tp}term_taxonomy.term_taxonomy_id FROM {$tp}terms, {$tp}term_taxonomy WHERE {$tp}terms.term_id = {$tp}term_taxonomy.term_id AND {$tp}term_taxonomy.taxonomy = 'category'");
if (empty($last_posts)) {
return NULL;
}
$the_output .= '';
$used_cats = array();
$i = 0;
foreach ($last_posts as $posts) {
if (in_array($posts->name, $used_cats)) {
unset($last_posts[$i]);
} else {
$used_cats[] = $posts->name;
}
$i++;
}
$last_posts = array_values($last_posts);
foreach ($last_posts as $posts) {
$the_output .= '' . apply_filters('list_cats', $posts->name, $posts) . '';

$arcresults = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_type = 'post' AND post_status = 'publish' AND ID IN (SELECT object_id FROM {$tp}term_relationships, {$tp}terms WHERE {$tp}term_relationships.term_taxonomy_id =" . $posts->term_taxonomy_id . ") ORDER BY post_date DESC");

foreach ( $arcresults as $arcresult ) {
$the_output .= '' . apply_filters('the_title', $arcresult->post_title) . ' ';
if ($this->_showPostDate) {
$the_output .= date($this->_postsDateFormat,strtotime($arcresult->post_date));
}
$the_output .= '';
}
$the_output .= '';
}
return $the_output;
}
}
?>

Then, we simply add the next three lines of code in our custom_functions.php file:


require_once 'classes/GT_Sitemap.php';
$sitemap = new GT_Sitemap;

$sitemap->shortcode('sitemap');

The first line simply includes our custom class file. The second line then instantiates a new sitemap object and third, we assign the variable $sitemap to the shortcode ‘sitemap’ so that all we need to do is to add the shortcode in the body of a new page or post and voila’ – we have a new sitemap.

Note: If you wish to implement this code, I had to modify several lines from the code I found on Gary’s site – In a comparison with Gary’s code, you’ll see there are several differences. Apparently Gary made some changes to the current code which were not updated. I modified the current code on his site with some of the older code I found here. In short, I had to debug several lines to come up with the code above. If it works for you great. If not – Hey, I got it to work but I can’t guarantee it for you …

That’s it.

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What’s In a Web Host? Your Hosting Company Is Your Business

Edward — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 17:58:00 +0000

Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to have relatively few major incidents with my sites – Knock Knock. But, I can’t same the same for some of my clients. I’ve had a handful of clients that didn’t do much research about their web hosting company and found out later why they really should have taken the time to find a good host.

Go on … ?

One of my new clients, someone that I know personally, decided to have me assist them with SEO on their site. Their setup is pretty common. They have an online ecommerce store that sells medical products. The store is built in icart a good ecommerce application overall, running on Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP a LAMP stack. Since my client’s domain name really didn’t have good keyword prominence for their target market, and the PageRank of the domain was fairly low, I decided to buy a new domain name with more keyword relevance and to simply redirect the old pages to the new domain name Simple right?

The Gory Details

I set up the DNS for the new domain to point to the current server and contacted the current web host – the company that is also administering the icart application – to determine what needs to be done in the application to make the changes without any problems. They assured me that they would have the changes made but that they would have to bill my client for the work needed to be done. Okay I guess that’s par for the course. Five phone calls and a week later the domain name finally pointed to my client’s site. Hmmm … why it takes a week to point a domain name to a site when the DNS was done for you I just can’t figure but hey maybe they were really busy?

The Really Ugly Stuff

So, I logged in to the application’s administration panel to make some simple Meta Tag changes and update some of the global settings to reflect the new name. Finally I had made some progress. However, when I logged out of the application and went to log back in, the application informed me that the license was invalid. I can only presume that this was caused by the application be licensed to the original domain name not the new one. So, I called the host to have this problem resolved as I wasn’t able to log in to the application now. Basically, my client’s out of business. After an hour on hold (Busy Again?) the host informed me that there tech support is gone for the day and that they would have a technician to work the problem ticket first thing in the morning. This particular host is in Provo, UT so they are open 8:30 – 5:00 MST. So my client’s losing money because their host doesn’t have an evening tech team.

The Camel’s Back is Broken

The next day I called the hosting company to find out if and when my client’s site would be accessible. After One and a half hours on hold, a very curt and unimpressive gentleman informed me that he could not discuss the particulars of the problem ticket with me even though I was the acting representative of my client, with the proper Login and Password for the account administrator. After giving him a piece of my mind about the quality of hosting experience I had been so lucky to witness, he then asked me if I had anything else I wanted to say… I basically informed him that he just lost his hosting client and asked him if he had anything that he’d like to say.

Again – Your Hosting Company is Your Business

If you run an online business, it is of the utmost importance to find out what kind of support they have. When problems arise and your site goes down are they going to be there to assist you? Or are you going to be waiting indefinitely for support and answers? Can you afford to lose customers due to a lack of hosting support? I luckily don’t have these problems because I host all my sites with Hosting.com. To date, I have made well over 250 support calls and more than 95% were resolved in a matter of no time. I can’t speak for some of the other hosting companies but I am now very thankful that I have my business websites in the good hands of the folks over at Hosting.com. Oh, and my client will be there very shortly as well.

That’s It

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Florida SEO – Back to the SEO Blog After a Year

Edward — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:12:00 +0000

Well I've decided to start getting back to blogging after a year long hiatus. I really don't have a lot to say on this return post except that it's officially been one year since I've done any other writing and I figured that it's time to get back to the SEO Blog.

That's It.

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