I have been working with the ArticleMS article directory script. I have installed it on several sites to date. I decided to adapt it for use on my Mixer in a Box site so that I could invite user reports. The script will work well for this application as it is designed as a browser based text input application.

I have a very specific design for the Mixer in a Box site. I use an adaptation of an image of a SAC channel strip as the base image for the header. I have the site name in the label area of the channel strip. I wanted to maintain the look and feel of the site with the user report pages. This required rebuilding the header section of the template.

I started experimenting with moving various elements within the given framework on my test installation and have re-arranged the various elements on all of the installs to more closely resemble the other sections of those sites. The Mixer in a Box site required a rebuild rather than a simple re-arrangement.

The original header is table based and has two rows of two cells. I replaced the first row with a div. I could also replace the second row with another div and I suspect the second table that is used for the main section of the page could also be easily replaced with a div. That would just require a bit more fussing with the controlling css file. This has been a good little exercise and the result seems very good. As I write this the page is not yet linked from the site as I have some pages to complete before I am ready but if you want to check it out you can find it at:  Mixer in a Box/SAC User Reports

The script comes with the title in the upper left cell, the quick links in the upper right, a welcome (name) in the lower left and a site search box in the lower right cell. I have juggled these elements in all the locations that I have used the script. Basically, if you think of the quick links, welcome, and search as a triangle I have rotated everything one step counter-clockwise.

For this site I left the quick links and welcome sign in the second row position to which I have moved them on the other pages, but I did not want the site search in the header section. I moved it down to the main section above the content box on the right side. I have also been adding a Google translate widget to my sites that attract international visitors, so I put this on the left above the nav column as I have done on the main site. This gives the page a nice balance.

I have added two more niche article directories. These two and one of my previous sites are signed up with a couple of article delivery services.

The first site had received a few articles from one of the delivery services, but when I went to sign up for my second directory I noticed that the service had been paused. I think that this happened when I changed a preference on the site.

The two latest article sites have not yet begun to receive articles. That is why it is toe tapping time, waiting for the flow of articles to begin in two cases and resume in the third. One of the new article pages is in a very active category, so I expect to have a good bit of content when the site is approved.

I am not expecting a whole lot from the one article distribution system. I have seen several complaints of slow or no delivery from them. That’s ok though because the articles that I have seen on their site are not of the highest quality. I will keep my eyes open for other delivery services and hand pick some articles from the major directories as well.

The site that has delivered a few articles does have very high standards so the quality of the articles is good. I do care about the quality of the content, not just the quantity.

The new directories are Computer Articles, dealing with computer hardware, software, and games and Internet Marketing Articles, dealing with Internet Marketing, Online Business, and Self-Improvement. Check them out if you get a chance.

I have added one more instance of the ArticleMS script to my collection. I established the Sound Articles section on the Mixing Live Sound site. So far there is a link in the top nav bar to get to that area of the site. I will add an RSS feed of the article summaries to the homepage of the MLS site soon.

I found a few articles that are in the ballpark and posted them to the site. I intend to move some of the existing reprinted articles from the main section of the site to the new directory section. I have a list of topics for more articles for the main site and for blog posts to the Live Sound Mixing Tips blog associated with the site. I may add a forum to the domain as a fourth major section, as well.

I rearranged some of the elements from the defaults and like the resulting presentation better. I moved the search box up into the header section and the quick nav down to the nav bar to the left. I put the welcome xxx that was on the left over to the right end of the bar. I had added a couple of links and the header was looking crowded, plus this format maintains the look and feel of the various sections of the site better.

There is a bit of work to set up one of these scripts. I have not found a way to make the modifications once. It appears that much of this is built on the spot by the installer script. Most of this resides in the database. I have not been able to find files that correspond to much of what I do to upgrade the sites in the script directory that I downloaded. Perhaps a better understanding of php would help there. Unless the script pulls files from the ArticleMS server at the time of installation the data should be in there somewhere, but knowing where to look is the problem.

I have used php extensively in the form of includes and scripts, but I really know nothing about php coding. This script is teaching me a few new things as far as using php, but I am still mostly in the dark. I may have to break down and learn a bit more.

Check out the new installation at Sound Articles and tell me what you think.

I have fussed with the ArticleMS script a good bit. I am beginning to find my way around without too much difficulty. With some hints from the forum I am making some progress.

I am to the point that I feel I can continue with a few more installations. I would state my position as having reached a plateau but with considerably more to learn before reach a full understanding of what is going on with the script.

On the test installation I have implemented a hack to improve the SEO friendliness of the script. I would have hoped that the code would have been included in the current update cycle as it does improve the SEO of the pages. Applying something that I learned through this exercise I was able to control the display of an ad in the side bar that I only want to appear on the front page of the directory.

I will go apply what I have learned to the two real installations and then will probably install a few more instances on other domains this week. Once these get rolling I can see some potential.

I added real tracking and fake ads to the test install. There is no reason to inflate my ad display numbers while I work on the site.

I considered rebuilding the site without tables, but I probably need to know more about the script and the operation of the directory before I do that. The header section has four cells but I think the main section only uses one primary cell, so that is not too bad. They are using css for most styling, and that is a good thing. If I do rebuild the site without the tables it is just a mater of replacing a few files to update/upgrade the site. The pages are all dynamic so it is just the templates and css that needs to change.

Feel free to check out the test install at my Local Articles site. There is actually a bit more content there than on either of the real sites right now. Tell me what you think either there or here.

I am still working with the ArticleMS script. This is pulling me a bit deeper into php.  I have been using php includes on most of my sites for quite some time. I have now been introduced to a couple of php functions.

There are two function calls (I think that is the term) that are used in the php programming of this script. I have successfully used one of those options, the $Block call, to replace the functionallity that I have had with include files. I had tried to use an include for my tracking code and that had not worked. I am not sure exactly why that is the case, but the block call does work in this situation. I can do much of what I was doing with my includes with the block function.

The other call that is mentioned is a $This call. From the minimal information available in the interface it appears that the call can be used in more places than the block call. The information listed in the user interface assumes more knowledge than I have, and probably more than most people that would install this script have. This is not too much of a problem for many because they will not customize the script or will use a premium skin to change the appearance.

I will need to get a bit more familiar with some of the php coding conventions to make best use of this script. I have no objection to that, I have been thinking that it is time to get further into php anyway. Shortly I will know more about php. I am beginning to see the power available, but will probably just learn enough to tweak existing scripts rather than writing the next WordPress.

I played with my new article script enough that I got fairly comfortable with its use. I went ahead and installed it on two of my domains. There is still a lot of work to do, but the script is installed and working.

I had an instance of the article exchange script on The World SoapBox site. While it gave me lots of content I was not enthused about all of the affiliate links that came with the script. I may not have as much content for a while, but I won’t be adding to someone’s empire either. I do need authors, so stop by The World SoapBox with your latest rants and articles on the way things are today.

The second instance went into my Live Sound Wiki domain. This domain is intended to be a knowledge base about sound. I am seeking authors to post articles there as well. I hope to get some support from the industry.

This is just a quick post to mention that the test bed installation of the ArticleMS article directory is now officially open for business. I added a link to the site nav on my articles.heresthesite.com home page. Primarily this is to let the bots find the installation.

I am continuing testing and tweaking the design there, but I expect to set the script in motion on at least two other sites soon. I am also making a list of other of my sites that may benefit from an installation.

This has also caused me to think of another possible ebook to offer either through Before You Buy or Selling. That will depend on how the script works out in practice.

Stop by the test location and see how the script is working for me. Leave me a comment there under the ‘Initial Impressions‘ article.

I found an open source article directory script while checking search results for a paid script.

I have been using a script on a site and a test site that is offered free, but contains many affiliate links for the developer. In addition the script is all encrypted so little can be done with it. I was able to tweak the css so that it displayed as I wanted it to display and I was able to use a feature to add a limited nav section, but I don’t like the concept of promoting a site so that the developer’s affiliate links will litter the web.

I was looking at a paid script. I saw something about support problems with the one at which I was looking. I went to their support forum to check and found it to be at least inactive if functional at all. If the script works as advertised I may not need support, but the complaints make me wonder. I continued my search and found a link in a forum post to this open source script.

I did a search for complaints about this script and did not find problems. I checked the support forum and there seems to be an active community. The script is also being updated, so is still under active development. There are skins available for the script but I will probably do my own thing as far as that is concerned. I downloaded the latest edition available through a link in the forum and installed it in a test location. I have played with it a bit and it all looks fairly good so far.

I want to replace the one article directory and am also considering using an article directory script for my live sound wiki. A true wiki script may be a better choice, but the one that I tried got spammed to death. This script does have a captcha available to reduce automated spam. There are several of my other sites  where I may consider an install if the script works out.

Making this script work as I wish may require that I learn a bit more about php. That is something that I have wanted to do anyway. I don’t know how much time I want to invest in furthering my education at the present time because I need to do so many things to get the existing sites to preform better. I will play with my test install and see if I can get it into a satisfactory state. If so I may install in a couple of real locations and then dive into the further development as time permits.

I will keep you posted.

I have begun using channels with AdSense to better understand the relationships between ad position and clicks. There has been another instructive piece of information that I have learned from the exercise.

I had noticed before that Google bypassed a splash page when sending visitors to a two page site. The splash page is the site index page and the single interior page has the information about the subject of the site. I had not considered the implication, nor was the data really available from those sites.

The ad testing format that I have used effectively differentiates between visitors to the home page and to interior pages of the sites or post pages in the blogs. I have just begun incorporating the channel specific ads on a few sites. The early data shows that search visitors are sent directly to an interior page with the requested information. This should be no surprise, but I had not really thought about it.

On one site, with only a couple of days worth of data, most visitors are directed to the home page. This particular site does have an information rich home page, and the referrers other than search all point to the home page. This site is probably my strongest as far as referrer traffic vs search, and the people that find it probably don’t yet know of the terms that would most likely direct them to interior pages.

The sites with the most significant search traffic show most traffic landing on an interior page. These are the result of long tail searches and offer specific information relative to the search terms.

These are early results, and the volume of data is not really large enough to call them trends, but I will be surprised if more data changes the picture. Traffic to the interior pages will be counted as traffic to the site for page rank purposes, so the value to having good quality interior pages is clear. The fact that I use the most effective ad position on the interior pages is a bonus. I will not use that ad position on a home page under normal circumstances because of design considerations, but people are being sent to the interior pages so the ads are being seen.