The Unofficial AdFlex Blog – Ask Your Question Here!
Note – April 11, 2008
This post doesn’t accept Comments/Questions for the moment. A separate forum will be dedicated to answer questions related to the AdFlex SEO WordPress theme. The forum is expected to open on beginning of May 2008. Thanks for your patience.
Today, I’ve decided to open this blog to give you some useful information related to AdFlex.
So let’s say that this is the unofficial blog of the AdFlex project and I’ll try to answer the different questions you may have regarding the SEO WordPress themes Ad Flex Blog, Ad Flex Niche, AdFlex SEO, and also the upcoming AdFlex Light, AdFlex Pro and AdFlex Advanced.
I’ll also cover other useful information that might help you understand better how to play with the different SEO tools, techniques and strategies to get more chance to win the search engine ranking race. So you can expect to read some information on topics like Search Engines (mainly Google), SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Google AdSense and of course Internet Marketing in general.
As I’m formally an Internet Technology and Security Architect, I’ll also try to share with you some knowledge on Internet/Web Architecture, Development, Technologies and Security.
OK, it’s an ambitious plan that will depends on the available time.
So let’s start by asking any questions you may have regarding AdFlex and the above mentioned items.
Hi there, VK.
I have the current version ad flex blog.
There seems to not be a very good return link from the full post page to the home page. There is the home link in the sidebar and the link in the footer, but these seem inadequate.
I’ve made my own link in the top seperator bar, but this also isn’t all that user friendly.
Could I have missed something or is there a need for an adition to the theme?
With thanks,
Laurie.
Hi VK,
I have a couple of questions for you:
1) What’s the difference between Ad flex blog and niche?
2) What I have to change in the default wordpress settings to increase seo?
3) What is the blocking cookie?
Thanks!
PS: I’m using Ad flex niche 0.8.9.8b
Hi Laurie,
I’ve just posted a possible explanation for your case under Home link on sidebar does not point to homepage URL.
If you need extra info on how to change that link, please submit a blog comment to that specific post.
VK
Hey VK,
If I active the Force Blog URL option, do I need anymore my URL rewriter rules that does the redirect?
Thx!
Mike
Hello,
loaded your ad flex blog theme on my wordpress blog today. Over all it’s super smashing! Info@vk emailed me back & suggested I post problem here. (There response below) Just one little problem. When I put the digg javascript on the end of a post my I.E. 6 browser shows a ‘done with errors’ message after loading. Can you help ? Here are to 2 dig scripts I put in using the post / code area.
digg_url =
‘http://www.yourwayforward.net/articles/self-help-if-life-sucks_ywf.htm’;
digg_url =
‘http://www.yourwayforward.net/articles/life-sucks-believe-in-yourself.htm’;
My site;
http://www.yourwayforward.net
Info@vk reply to above question:
Thanks for your message.
We’ll look at your issue as soon as possible and we’ll you know about it.
In the meantime, if you can, please do the following tests and keep us
informed:
- Do you get the same issue when using Firefox 2 instead of IE 6?
- Do you get the same error when using the default Wordpress theme?
You can also openly ask any questions on our unofficial blog
http://www.askvk.com. There, the main developer of the Ad Flex theme may
answer your questions too.
We’ll be back to you on Maximum Monday.
Best Regards,
Sam
So Ok, I don’t use firefox2 I downloaded the intermeiate release (March 29th)& loaded it straight into wordpress The day after I downloaded wordpress. Can I swap to a default version of wordpress with out losing all my settings?
Thanks for your help!
I’ve also noticed that you can only post a comment If you click on tha articles permalink. Theres no ‘comments’ link showing under the article when viewed on the homepage.
Duh!! Call me homer… Comments work half fine. I was still logged into wordpress admin so they did’nt show. Now noticed On homepage new posts only show 1 or more comments. Should’nt it still show ‘0 comments’ as an easy link for first comment to be posted? Also despite being optioned in wordpress/options/discussion you do not have to enter an email address to post comment (Like this form!) Instead you get a register & login page. I don’t want to build a list of users. I just want my comments working like they do on this blog but moderated.
Hi Mike,
No you don’t have have anymore to add any the Apache URL Rewriter rules for the HTTP 301 Redirect as the same HTTP 301 Redirect effect is handled by the Ad Flex Wordpress theme.
In fact, the Force Blog URL option will do the following HTTP 301 Redirect :
1) If your Blog Address URL starts with http://www.yoursite.com and a user accesses it using http://yoursite.com, he’ll be redirected to http://www.yoursite.com.
2) If your Blog Address URL starts with http://yoursite.com and a user accesses it using http://www.yoursite.com, he’ll be redirected to http://yoursite.com.
3) If a user accesses your blog using a URL like http://www.yoursite.com/index.php (or http://yoursite.com/index.php), he’ll be redirected to a version of the URL that doesn’t contain the string “index.php”, so http://www.yoursite.com (or http://yoursite.com).
4) If a user accesses your blog using a URL like http://www.yoursite.com/index.php?name=xxx, he’ll be redirected to the URL version http://www.yoursite.com/?name=xxx.
In any cases, the hostname that will be used for the final URL version will be based on the hostname you’ve used as value of the field WP Admin \ Options \ General \ Blog Address (URL).
Hope it helps.
VK
Hi David,
First let’s talk about your issue for your Digg script.
1) Indeed, it’s important to know if the issue is linked to the fact IE 6 that is a bit old now and it happens often it generates script error for some more advanced Javascript code.
That was a good idea to download and install FireFox 2 (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
) to check quickly if it’s not something to do with IE 6.
Of course, you can also upgrade to IE 7 but it’s a bigger move as such upgrade will also perform a lot of Windows DLL upgrade and you won’t have easy to roll-back to IE 6 if you’d like to later on.
So can you already tell me if you have the same issue with the Digg script when running FireFox 2?
2) Then you can use the same Wordpress installation and just change the theme to the default Wordpress theme using WP Admin \Presentation, then click on the Default or even Classic Wordpress theme.
After doing the test with the Default/Classic Wordpress theme, you can switch back to the Ad Flex theme.
Don’t worry, you don’t risk to lose any files or Ad Flex Options by changing the Wordpress theme as all is saved in the Wordpress database area that has been reserved carefully for Ad Flex.
Let me know the result of your finding and we’ll look further after that.
Cheers,
VK
David,
There’re about 160 customization parameters given with Ad Flex 0.8.9.8b. You’ll need to set a specific option to make the comment counter appears on the homepage.
Just do as follows:
- Connect to WP Admin \ Presentation \ Ad Flex Options
- Scroll down to the section “Content › Text Content Options”
- Located the option item “Post Comments Summary Visibility” and enable it.
- Click on one of the several displayed buttons “Update All Options”.
- Connect to your Blog and do a refresh if needed to see the new web page rendering.
I hope it’s what you’re looking for. If not, I may have misunderstood your request and if it’s the case, please let me know more about your needs and we’ll look at that.
Cheers,
VK
Hi David,
The approach we’ve taken for Ad Flex was to give a real summary view on the homepage. So it means no post content on the homepage but only excerpts to avoid Google duplicate content issues.
Then we think that if someone wants to add a comments, he has to read first the full post content, and then comment on it. So it means for us, he’ll have to click on the post link first to see the full post content under the post URL and then see the comment field at the bottom of the post.
Now as you talked about it, we may consider also consider the reference to 0 comments on the homepage if you really like it. Of course, we’ll do an additional option to permit the 0 comments to be displayed or not.
Please let me know if you still like to have a new option to permit the display of the 0 comments on the homepage.
We’ll try to add it on the coming Ad Flex version 0.8.9.9 that is scheduled to be released next week.
In fact, you want the same setting than I have currently for this blog.
This blog uses Ad Flex versin 0.8.9.8b and it doesn’t require any registration.
The comment setting depends mainly on the way you’ve set Wordpress. Here is how to set it for your needs:
1) Go to WP Admin \ Options \ General, and ensure you’ve disabled the option “Users must be registered and logged in to comment”
Click on the button “Update Options” to have the new setting enabled.
2) Go to WP Admin \ Options \ Discussion, and ensure you’ve enabled the following options:
- Attempt to notify any Weblogs linked to from the article
- Allow link notifications from other Weblogs
- Allow people to post comments on the article
In the same time, please ensure you’ve also enabled:
- Anyone posts a comment
- A comment is held for moderation
Click on the button “Update Options” to have the new setting enabled.
3) Go to WP Admin \ Presentation \ Ad Flex Options.
Scroll down to section “Content › Text Content Options”, and ensure you’ve enabled the following options:
- Post Comments Form Visibility
- Post Pings Form Visibility
- Post Comments Summary Visibility
Of course, click on the button “Update All Options” to have the new setting enabled.
After you’ve done all that, you should have the exact same setting than for this blog and it should match your needs.
If not, just drop me a line there.
Cheers,
VK
thanks for all the tips, i’ve implemented them, including changing the homepage look to a summary format. digg problem also showed using IE7 & in the wordpress default format. i’ve solved it by using a different digg code (below) as in summary format the digg bit doesnt apply to the homepage anymore.
next up, are you including a ’search’ option in the next upgrade? I don’t exactly need it yet with less than 10 posts…
‘And finally’ Whats best for SEO? Physically put meta tag in by writing posts in code format or just letting ad flex create them. If best to do it manually, what meta tags do you recomend using? (spot the newbie…) I just want to get in the habit of creating each post right the first time.
That digg code again as it didnt show in last comment! Dont forget to add the
script src=”http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js” type=”text/javascript”>
oh i give up on the code, bit’s down show in comments. Get it at http://digg.com
David,
1) We never really implemented the Search form because there’re so many ways to render and it’s too depending on people taste. Some will like to add a Google search, others will add the simple search but without a “Search” button, etc.
Finally, we’ve decided for flexibility purpose to let people add their own Search form code in a specific Ad Flex custom file. It also permits to not lose the custom Search form code during the next Ad Flex theme upgrade.
You can also add quickly a custom Search form to Ad Flex theme by following steps described in the post:
Add a Search Box to AdFlex.
You’ll the see a new placeholder with your own Search form code displayed.
Let’s say it’s our current way to combine flexibility and customization for the search feature.
In a next version, we may provide a default Search form but also we’ll permit people to overwrite it easily in the same way as described above.
Hope it helps.
VK
PS: I just done the above steps on this blog. It took me about 2 minutes and my custom Search form is displayed now. Of course, the design is not so attractive because I’m a technologist but not a guy with graphic skills.
David,
There’re lots of things to pay attention if you want to do right in term of white hat on-page SEO.
I’ve now published a separate post with more detailed information and for sake of accuracy.
Please read the post Search Engine Optimization SEO.
We’ll look one day on another on-page SEO way and talk about SILO and LSI.
We’ll also look at the off-page SEO in the future if something has such needs.
Cheers,
VK
Must say your support rocks! To everyone else reading this i’m getting my questions answered the same day!
RE:
Google site map. On google blog search only 3 of 5 or 6 pages actually got indexed. Did the google ping earlier today (Im’ on London / GMT 00:00 time) It’s now been about 5 0r 6 hours since I pinged but no extra pages showing yet.
The google ping site
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping
Probably not a good idea to ping them more than once every day (Who knows when it come to google, excessive pings may well count against you everyone! Just be patient I guess…)
I’ll work on ‘N4 – N6′ tomorrow….
I know I need to work on getting more blog posts on my site! Trouble is I’m a ’straight talker’. Hard for me to ‘fluff’ out a blog to make it have more words etc….( But then, many years ago I did pass my Geography ‘O’ level exam at school by doing just that!)
‘And finally’ I will be adding some sort of picture gallery. I dont know what script but I’ll probably upload a script & link to it.Any suggestions? It doesn’t have to be a wordpress plugin. (free script of course) In the mean time is there a good free script that will protect my website so posts / photo’s can’t be copied & pasted that you recomend (uploaded 60 thumbnail photos ‘for my bottom bar today)
All the best! You’re obviously committed to your product (unlike http://www.eggblog.net – dont download their blog script! 2 weeks & no reply to any Q! It’s why I found wordpress. I have no idea what search term I used that led me to eggblog in the first place! Just very new to blogging I guess…)
It’s Friday nite (7.30GMT) here so I’m ‘unplugging’ my self from the web & going out to party & drink well probably tooo much…
Hi David,
Thanks for your kind words. I always try to answer the different questions people may have within 24h-48h but it’s not possible all the time as I have a business to run with lots of different projects to work on.
I also try to see the level of urgency. If the issue is urgent, I often answer on the same day. So if something is urgent, just tell me and I’ll know that I need to put that specific request on top of the stack.
1) Google Sitemap
The Google Sitemap ping is something a bit different than the Google Blog Search ping. They may look similar but each of them has a specific purpose.
The Google Sitemap ping can be used by web sites and blogs when the Google Blog Search ping is more something that is used by blogging platforms. It’s suggested to use both the Sitemap ping and the Google Search ping.
As far as Google Sitemap is involved, I suppose you use the popular Wordpress Google Sitemap Generator from the web site http://www.arnebrachhold.de/ that sends a Sitemap ping when a post is updated.
I also suppose you know about Google Webmaster Central located at URL http://www.google.com/webmasters/. Google Webmaster Central includes different Google tools and services for Webmasters. There’s the Google Sitemap tool that is very interesting as it permits you to have a view of the different pages that Googlebot has accessed as well as the last time the Sitemap XML page was read by Googlebot.
2) Google Blog Search
You talked about the fact the Google Blog Search was slow to go to visit your Blog again. How is the situation today?
If you still have an issue there, just let me know and we’ll look further at it.
[...]
Sorry, my web browser crashed and I’ve lost the rest of my long post comment.
So I’ll write it again later…
Hi,
I was wondering if I could use the look of a different wordpress theme, but keep Ad Flex Blog for the custom SEO and other features? I saw there is a way of adding your own stylesheet. I have limited HTML/CSS knowledge…could you give me some details about how I might do this?
Thank you!
Hello,
first time I’ve been back in a week so I’ll look into the above this afternoon. I do have a problem with the rss feeds. your footer links:
feed:http://www.yourwayforward.net/feed/
feed:http://www.yourwayforward.net/comments/feed/
These lead to blank pages. in your options page you refer to downloading a plugin but I already have feed info included in my wordpress download here:
http://www.yourwayforward.net/feed/
http://www.yourwayforward.net/comments/feed/
what file should I edit to make the links work correctly? Google doesnt like dead links do they?
Thanks!
David
Hi Carrie,
First sorry for the late reply. I haven’t received the notification of your new comment. It’s not the first time that it happened to me. It has something to do with the mail server that doesn’t send notification for new comments. I’ll have to fix it but haven’t had the time yet.
Yes, sure you can keep the SEO engine and add your own stylesheet on top of it to have another external aspect to your web site.
In Ad Flex 0.8.9.8b, tou can add your own custom stylesheet as follows:
- Create the file WP_ROOT/wp-content/themes/ad-flex-blog/syndication/syndication_custom_stylesheet.css
- Go to WP Admin \ Presentation \ Ad Flex Options and enable the option “Custom Stylesheet”
- Click on “Update All Options”
The above steps will be enough to tell Ad Flex to overwrite the default stylesheet with the new stylesheet items that have to be in your custom stylesheet file. You only need to put the specific stylesheet items that you want to overwrite, so you’re not obliged to add all stylesheet items. Of course, you need to use the same names for the stylesheet classes and selectors you want to overwrite.
I hope it’s enough info for you to start playing with. If you need more info, just tell me.
BTW. The new version 0.8.9.9 will introduce the skin feature that will permit you to add your own skin in a much easier way than in version 0.8.9.8b. Then the real revolution will be with version AdFlex 0.9 that will use a completely different layout engine that will be more SEO efficient and more flexible to add skin on top of it.
We’re still working on both versions but we haven’t defined yet the dates for the releases as we have a lot of other on-going projects.
What is sure it that version 0.8.9.9 is imminent and I expect to give the green light for its release next week.
Talk to you later.
VK
Hi David,
Well, that’s an interesting question. I’ll answer your questions to help you understand better because there’s a possible misunderstanding around the feed: URLs as well as Wordpress RSS feeds in general.
Well, the links are not bad links. They’re the typical links that used to come with Wordpress 2.0.x themes called “Default” and “Classic”. Both of them used to come with links to RSS feeds that have the URLs prefixed by “feed:”.
If you go to http://themes.wordpress.net and you select to list the most download Wordpress themes, you’ll find that several of the Top 10 themes also use URLs to RSS feeds that begin with “feed:”. Have a look at the following:
http://themes.wordpress.net/testrun/?wptheme=134
http://themes.wordpress.net/testrun/?wptheme=499
http://themes.wordpress.net/testrun/?wptheme=871
http://themes.wordpress.net/testrun/?wptheme=1378
So it’s not something new and we haven’t introduced such kind of feed: links with Ad Flex.
I think that some Wordpress theme developers didn’t understand why such URLs were provided with the default and classic Wordpress themes, and they have replaced them by more traditional links like http://. Unfortunately, doing so may give a bad side effect in term of SEO but I’ll tell you a bit more later.
As you may know I’m owner of a tech research company (http://www.vklabs.com) which is a division of my tech company (http://www.vksolutions.com) and I had the opportunity to talk about the feed: link issue with my tech research team since some months ago. At that time, we’ve analyzed the feed: URLs and we’ve decided to keep it as is because it made more sense in the scope of our SEO work.
OK let’s me explain in more details. In fact, all that is historic. Some months ago (more than one year now), RSS readers were not so frequent as today and web browsers like Firefox 1 and Internet Explorer 6 didn’t support the inline display/view of RSS feeds. When Firefox 1 and Internet Explorer 6 saw feeds with URLs that begin with feed: they don’t display them and instead they launch external RSS feed readers (if you’ve installed them) to display the feed content.
The feed: URLs are also not indexed by search engines, which is good because we don’t want search engines to index the feeds. If they do, you’ll have the feeds content that will be a duplicate content of the corresponding web pages.
If someone decides to change the RSS links from feed: to http: without knowing the exact meaning of their action, it’ll permit the search engines to index RSS feeds and they will introduce a potential duplicate content issues with Google. That’s something we’ve considered as a bad SEO practice and that’s the reason we’ve decided to keep the RSS feed: links.
Now with the new web browser versions like Firefox 2, feed: links are well interpreted and the built-in feed reader is launched automatically to display inline the feed content.
There are still some issues with Internet Explorer 7 that still can’t display feed when they use the feed: URLs but it’s not so bad as it permits the external real feed readers to catch those kinds of links.
In any cases, it’s not a safe approach to replace feed: URLs by http: URLs because of the following reasons:
- As said previously, it introduces duplicate content issues with Google by having 2 same content indexed.
- Older web browsers would interpret the http: feed links like typical web pages, which is not the case. The content is not HTML/XHTML but RSS content that uses another protocol based on XML format.
For the possibility of broken links with Google, don’t worry about that for two reasons:
1) Googlebot doesn’t follow the link format he can’t interpret. If he sees feed: URLs, Googlebot just doesn’t follow those URLs and won’t consider it as a broken link.
Now Googlebot behavior may change in the future but if it’s the case, we’ll also update the rules on our end but it’s not yet the case, so you can use the feed: link without worry.
2) We have used the parameter rel=”nofollow” in a href links to tell Googlebot to not follow feed: links.
You can always know if Googlebot has really followed a link or not, or has considered the link as broken or not by using the tool provided by Google Webmaster Central located at http://www.google.com/webmasters/.
Now there are some changes with Wordpress 2.1.x because the default and classic Wordpress themes come now with feed: URLs replaced by the http: URLs. I suppose it’s a new Wordpress developer who has decided to do so and without taking too much into account the potential SEO side effects. Anyway, we know that Wordpress is a very easy and reliable publishing platform but it’s not enough SE friendly, and that the reasons you need some SEO plugins or SEO themes.
Now if you really want to replace manually the feed: URLs but http: URLs for practical reasons, sure you can do that as you’re the sole owner of your site content. If you do so, just don’t forget to put the right robots.txt exclusion directives to instruct Google to not index the URLs like http://www.site.com/*/feed/ to avoid duplicate content in Google.
You don’t also have to worry that the real feed readers can’t find your feed links because it’s another technique that is used for that. They rely more on the HTML header link tag.
There’s a little confusion there. You talk about the built-in Wordpress feed engine that displays feeds with the content of your Wordpress posts, when the feed plug-in refers to something different that Wordpress can’t do without that plugin.
In fact, when you install the mentioned plug-in, you’ll add the capability for Wordpress to display external feeds that are distributed and served by external web sites and servers. It’ll permits you to display external feeds(from CNN, Google, etc) on your own web site.
People like to have such option to permit to have first related external RSS content directly displayed on their Wordpress blog. Then most of people also think that would keep the page refreshed more often and search engines will come more often to visit because of the freshness.
It was a nice freshness effect and it’s still right for most search engines but it doesn’t work so well anymore with Google because Google may identify such injected RSS content by analyzing the surrounding RSS source links. So don’t be too bluffed by some marketing hypes around that topic.
OK hope you’ve got some new knowledge after having read this post.
All the best!
VK
Hello VK,
Thanks for making this available.
Question: How do you change the font style and size for the main content and sidebar?
Hello Art B,
There’re different ways to change the font style and size for the main content and sidebar and one of the simplest is to do as follows:
1) Find the exact location of the stylesheet file named skin.css. The exact location depends on your Ad Flex version and Ad Flex skin.
If you’re using the Wordpress theme Ad Flex Blog with the narrow layout, the remote location of the file is:
WP_ROOT\wp-content\themes\ad-flex-blog\skins\default\skin.css
In the case of Ad Flex Niche with the wide layout:
WP_ROOT\wp-content\themes\ad-flex-niche\skins\default_wide\skin.css
2) After you’ve found the right location of the skin.css file, just add the following lines at the end of the file content:
#content h2 {
font-family: XX;
font-size: XX;
}
#content p {
font-family: XX;
font-size: XX;
}
#sidebar li {
font-family: XX;
font-size: XX;
}
#sidebar h2 {
font-family: XX;
font-size: XX;
}
Of course, ensure you’ve replaced the XX by the right stylesheet values.
It should be enough to have the desired effect.
If you have any issues or want more details on the different lines of code, just tell me and we’ll look further.
Cheers,
VK
Thanks VK.
I am eagerly waiting for the new version, any idea of when it’s going to be released?
Any custom work time available?
Hey there VK!
Thanks for the help with changing the font size. I’ve been after this for a while. The way I did it before was not very good. Now I have just the look I want.
With thanks,
Laurie.
Hello,
I just setup your wonderful ad-flex Niche theme and have some questions.
This is primarily an article site and the permalinks are set as such, but I was wondering if I can change it to have “categories” and the appropriate articles under each category. As it is now it will just keep listing the articles one after another and in time I will have many articles on this site and want to organize it correctly from the start.
I hope you can help me here at http://www.learnmoreabout.us because I’m relatively new to wordpress and like to have things correctly from the start.
Thank you for your help.
Greg
Greg,
No sure, I’ve captured exactly your wish.
1) If you want to show the category section, you can do as follow:
- Go to WP Admin \ Presentation \ Ad Flex Options
- Located section “Sidebar Options”
- Scroll down to “Categories Section Visibility” and enable it
- Click on “Update All Options”
Then connect to your blog URL and you’ll see the Category section that will appear.
2) If you want to have your permalink URLs that look like http://www.yoursite.com/your-category-name/your-article-name.php instead of http://www.yoursite.com/articles/your-article-name.php, you can do as follows:
- Go to WP Admin \ Options \ Permalinks
- Type in the field Custom structure: /%category%/%postname%.php
- Type in the field Category Base: /category
- Click on “Update Permalink Structure”
3) If it’s something else you wanted, just give me more precision and we’ll look at it.
All the best!
VK
Hi VK,
Thank you very much for responding. I did the tasks above and that wasn’t too bad.
Now I can’t figure out how to structure the Categories. I deleted the “Blogroll” and changed the name of “uncategorized” to “Recreation” just to see what would happen. Well then I went to create more category names and click “add” but nothing appears (and I’m choosing “none” for parent which may be the problem.
I guess if you can explain how I can keep adding categories when I post and how to create them properly, I’ll be well on my way. I’m really grateful your here to answer these and I’ll try to keep them to a minimum.
Greg
Is it because I’m using the Ad-flex Niche? and not the blog version. How will this work if I have an “articles” heading with the articles and then also have “categories” of articles. I went to wordpress support and not really finding anything except more plugins.
Just wanted you to know I’m at least trying on my own to get help. thanks
Hello, after further searching I found this in the support and it works:
“Somehow I figured out something that works for me. I realized that I was logging in via domain.com/wp-login.php. I started logging in via domain.com/wp-admin/ instead and everything works perfectly. No clue why this might help, but hopefully this works for others as well.”
I am able to create categories from the edit article area now. Crazy huh.
Greg
Hello Greg,
I never had such issues. It looks like an issue at the level of the cookie domain, which is typically something that may happen when a cookie is created to keep track of a credential or login/logout status and when there’s a s/w defect either at WP level either at the web browser level.
Can you give me the version of WP that you’re using and the type and version of your web browser?
If you have time, may be you can try the same operation as you used to do with another web brower like FireFox 2. The cookie domain is something that used to be linked to a defect in web browsers.
We can also analyze the source code of WP and see the exact issue.
Anyway, it’s not worth to lose time on defect of other s/w and especially now that as you’ve found a solution.
Cheers,
VK
Karl,
I’ll contact you directly to discuss it.
Cheers,
VK
Hi,
I haven’t been able to work on my blogs for a while.
I have installed Ad Flex version 0.8.9.8b and updated to wordpress v. 2.2
I notice the articles on the home page now seem to default to a summary with a “Read the full article” link for each article. Is there a way to selectively choose which articles are full length and which are shortened with the “Read the full article” link?
Changing the option under the READ from summary to full article doesn’t have any effect.
Ed
Disregard my previous post. I printed out the AdFlex options and found the answer under Text Content Options.
Hey Ed,
Pay attention that showing the full post content on homepage will give some duplicate content issues with Google.
Doing so, you’ll get the same content in 2 difference places:
- The article content on the homepage http://www.site.com/
- The same article content on the post URL http://www.site.com/my-post-title/
When Google sees the same text content (text of at least 180 consecutive characters) under 2 URLs, he’ll put one of the 2 content in Supplemental Index. A content that is in Supplemental won’t rank well.
If you put the option to show Summary post content instead of Full post content, you won’t have the duplicate content issue.
Cheers,
VK
Hi VK,
Thanks for the clarification.
I was more interested in the mechanics of AdFlex.
I wanted to know what was making one blog behave differently from the other. I will go along with the summary presentation.
I should have realized that you guys knew what you were doing with the default.
Ed
Hi VK,
Please contact me regarding custom work.
Thanks
Art B,
E-mail sent to your Yahoo email address
Hope you’ll get it right.
Thanks
Hi VK
I want to to put an Events Calendar in the side bar area, near the top.
I hope to use plugin iCal for Wordpress. Homepage is at http://www.estadieu.com/blog/ical4wp/
What is the best way of dropping in this code please? Which file is best or a new one?
<?=ical_list_events_title()?>
<?php if (function_exists(’ical_list_events’)){ ical_list_events(); }?>
Thanks
D
dolmadis,
iCall looks quite cool. I’ll have a look during the weekend and I’ll tell you more on how to best put it with Wordpress and AdFlex.
Don’t hesitate to remind me if you don’t have any news from my end by end of this weekend.
Cheers,
VK
hi VK
Thanks for your help. Had a hack of various files but failed miserably !!
Could I also just chase you on a reply to my posts at the bottom here ?
http://www.askvk.com/adflex/home-link-on-sidebar-does-not-point-to-homepage-url.php
Thanks again.
D
dolmadis,
In fact, I can answer to your question without I need to look at the iCal plug-in.
In general, if you want to add some XHTML or PHP code on the sidebar, you can simply follow those steps:
- On the server, located the folder:
WP_ROOT/wp-content/themes/ad-flex-blog/syndication
- In the folder, you’ll see the filename “_syndication_custom_sidebar.php”
- Rename the file “_syndication_custom_sidebar.php” to “syndication_custom_sidebar.php”
- Open the file “syndication_custom_sidebar.php”
- Add the XHTML or PHP code you want at the end of the file content “syndication_custom_sidebar.php”
- In your case, if you want to display the iCal on the sidebar, you can add the following code:
<ul>
<li>
<h2><?php echo ical_list_events_title(); ?></h2>
<?php
if ( function_exists('ical_list_events') ) {
ical_list_events();
}
?>
</li>
</ul>
- Save the file “syndication_custom_sidebar.php”
- Connect to the WP Admin \ Presentation \ Ad Flex Options
- Locate the section “Sidebar Options”
- Scroll down to the parameter “Custom Section Visibility” and enable it.
- Click on “Update All Options”
Normally it should work fine for the iCal code as for any other XHTML and PHP code.
For the iCal plug-in, please be sure, you run the right Wordpress version as now there’re Wordpress 2.0.x, 2.1.x and the last 2.2 and all plug-ins don’t work with all Wordpress versions.
Hope it helps.
VK
PS: Apparently, I didn’t notice your other request, so I’ll have a look during the weekend.
Hi VK
That plugin did not function but I used another and it is in the side bar of another of my blogs running Adflex Blog http://rochfordessex.com.
Thanks
D
Hi,
I installed your theme on a site that is not live yet. I am very impressed with what it does. In fact, it seems so advanced, I am having trouble figuring some things out. I know most of the controls you have a simplified setup panel, but I did not see one for my problem.
I am noticing that the header image and background image seem to change or rotate. I looked in the css, but it was getting a little beyond my skill level with some of the stuff you guys are doing. Can you point me to the place where I keep the images for the header and background to rotate? I am planning to replace them with my own and I do not want your images showing back up.
Thanks,
Doug
I actually figured out what to do with the images, though I really don’t know how you are doing it in the code, but i figured out that if i drop my images into the relevant folder, e.g. banner folder, just my banner will display. Thanks!
When I use the block ad on the full article page, the block is above the article. I would like it so that the article wraps around the google ad block that is either justified left or right. I normally know how to do this, just not sure how to accomplish this in your set up. If you can point me to the right place to make this change, I would appreciate it. Thanks!
dolmadis,
You did well to have put the XHTML and PHP code at the same place than the Search section of the sidebar. It’s another way and it renders well in your case.
So what’s the other WP plug-ins that you use at http://rochfordessex.com for the calendar?
Your blog looks nice. I think you can optimize the file size of each image while keeping the same image dimension.
What tool do you use to resize your images? If you use Photoshop, you can use the option File \ Save for Web, and if you use Fireworks, you can use File \ Export Wizard.
Those options will permit you to optimize each of your thumb images and may diminish their file size from 8-9 K to 4-5 K. It may also decrease the file size of your banner image from the current 43 K to about 20 K.
VK
Hi Doug,
Yes, you’ve done it right.
All images that come with Ad Flex Niche or Blog are located in a sub-folder of the remote folder
WP_ROOT/wp-content/themes/ad-flex-xxx/images.
To be more precise, I’ll explain the purpose of each of the sub-folders.
1) WP_ROOT/wp-content/themes/ad-flex-xxx/images/ad
It’s in this folder that you may update your own thumb images. After you’ve uploaded your first thumb image there, Ad Flex will ONLY take this folder into account to find the thumb images it’ll display.
It’s good to upload at least 8 images to have 8 distinct images that are displayed in random position. If you put less than 8 images, the theme will some thumb images.
Something that people may not be aware is that you associate a URL to each of the thumb images and so make it clickable. If you need more info about it, I can give you.
We always plan to document all that but we’re adding features faster than we have the time to document them to the general public.
2) WP_ROOT/wp-content/themes/ad-flex-xxx/images/ad-demo
This folder contains some thumb images that we’ve put as demo and that the Ad Flex will take into account ONLY if you haven’t put your own images in the folder
WP_ROOT/wp-content/themes/ad-flex-xxx/images/ad
3) WP_ROOT/wp-content/themes/ad-flex-xxx/images/ad-samples
This sub-folder is NEVER taken into account by Ad Flex. It’s just a location that permits us to provide you with several free sample images, and we may add much more images in the future.
4) The same principle is used for the background images under folders:
WP_ROOT/wp-content/themes/ad-flex-xxx/images/background
WP_ROOT/wp-content/themes/ad-flex-xxx/images/background-demo
WP_ROOT/wp-content/themes/ad-flex-xxx/images/background-samples
5) Same principle too for the banner images under folders:
WP_ROOT/wp-content/themes/ad-flex-xxx/images/banner
WP_ROOT/wp-content/themes/ad-flex-xxx/images/banner-demo
WP_ROOT/wp-content/themes/ad-flex-xxx/images/banner-samples
6) In the next major version, there’ll be the possibility to have specific image folders per category.
Enjoy.
VK
Hi VK
The WP Plugin is called Events.
http://www.sothq.net/projects/events-plugin/
It does not involve making a post as some others do and does not make a mess of Recent Posts etc.,
I used PaintShop Pro for the banners and Photomatix Pro for the ads in batch mode but I could also use Photoshop CS2 which I have. I will try that out. Thank you for the tip.
For the panos I used Autostitch_ V2.185
Regards
D
dolmadis,
Thanks for the reference to WP Events plug-in. Indeed, it looks much better if it doesn’t involve the creation of a new post that would give the side effect on the Recent Posts.
Thanks also for the reference to Photomatix Pro. I used to rely on Fireworks for the batch processing of the image operations. I’ll have a look at Photomatix Pro to see if it’s even more powerful and flexible.
Cheers,
VK
Doug,
There’re several places in Ad Flex Options where you can drop your AdSense code to get what you want. Just it may look a bit confusion for people at first and in the same time it’s required for us to give a maximum flexibility and customization aspect to match the taste of each users.
In your case, I think you can get what you want by adding your AdSense code that you want to be display at the top by doing as follow:
1) In WP Admin \ Presentation \ Ad Flex Options, located the section “Content › Ad Banner Begin Content Options” and then look for the option “Ad Banner Begin Content Code”.
2) Drop your AdSense code there but you’ll have to add a XHTML table that will include your AdSense code. Here is a first version of the XHTML code you can add before and after your AdSense code:
<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="350" align="left" border="0">
<tr>
<td>
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "pub-ID";
google_ad_width = 336;
google_ad_height = 280;
google_ad_format = "336x280_as";
google_ad_type = "text";
google_ad_channel = "";
//--></script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Of course, you’ll need to adjust the different parameters of the XHTML table to make it perfect for you. For instance, if you want your AdSense banner to be displayed at the right of the text instead of left, you’ll need to have something like that:
<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="350" align="right" border="0">Now I’ve used the table pameters without using a CSS style. I’ll try to add a second version of the same table effect that can be done with a CSS style.
3) Then ensure you’ve activate the option “Ad Banner Begin Content Visibility”
4) If you don’t want the AdSense banner to appear on the homepage, you can disable the option “Ad Banner Begin Content Visibility on Homepage”
5) If you don’t want the AdSense banner to appear when you surf on your own blog, you can activate the option “Ad Banner Begin Content Visibility based on Blocking Cookie”, and activate
“Blocking Cookie Enabled” in the section “Blocking Cookie Options”.
It permits you to surf your site without the AdSense banner to show up while it’s still displayed for other users.
Hope it helps.
VK
dolmadis,
As your blog at http://rochfordessex.com uses a wide layout, you may be interested to try the a new wide skin that is included with latest Ad Flex 0.8.9.8g. The skin has a bigger font size and a different font style. In fact, it’s the skin that is currently used for the AskVK blog.
VK
VK,
I want to thank you for the quick reply. wow. Great support. I actually tried something similar to what you suggested by adding table code before contacting you. However, that did not work for me and the code you supplied, I dropped it in the container and it did not do anything. The ad still appears above the post. I am wondering if there is something in the CSS overriding the table and keeping the text from wrapping around it. Here is a link to a post if you want to check it out to see what it is doing. http://tinyurl.com/2p94o2
Thanks.
Doug,
I’ve implemented the exact same code on Ask VK as well as on another blog at URL:
http://digital-proof.org/internet-security/computer-internet-security.php and it works fine, so it should also work fine.
I think if you copy the code as is, you may have a problem with the special quote that is displayed by Wordpress.
Please have a look at the code and replace the special quote ” by the typical quote ", so you have to change to be sure you end up with a line like that:
<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="350"" align="left" border="0">It should work fine for you as it works for me.
Keep me informed.
VK
Doug,
BTW well done for http://health-wellness-information.com.
Now you may lose some SEO score because of the current Permalinks Structure that you’ve used. Please read the post at URL if you’d like to know more info about the importance of the correct Permalinks Structure at post URL:
http://www.askvk.com/search-engine-optimization-seo/search-engine-optimization-seo.php
Cheers,
VK
VK,
I did not want to say it before, but I knew the problem was me. ha ha. That did the trick. That was probably the problem when I was implementing my own table before posting originally. It’s always the little things. Thanks so much!
As for the ranking, I got a ways to go on this SEO thing, but I am looking forward to what I can do with your optimized templates. I will definitely look at your article on permalink structure. i kind of thought I was on the right track with that, but I am sure you guys are going to teach me something I did not know.
Thanks!
I read the SEO article regarding the permalink structure. If I read the article correctly, the *best* for SEO is the /%postname%/ . So I changed my structure to that one. I am sure when I am done I will probably have way over 50 categories and I thought that using /%category%/%postname%/ would help me rank well for the various categories, but I found interesting about how that system would dilute page rank for individual pages in your opinion. I had not heard that before. I think that is where I get confused on search engine friendly vs search engine optimization.
Doug,
In fact the PR (Google PageRank) used to be the main element for Google ranking algo. The PR relies on mathematical algos, and different researches have been done since years and have already guessed well the way the PR mechanism works. Of course, the exact level of PR score and weight that are based on mathematical probabilities.
There’re also some good mathematical materials around the matter. You can find them if you do some search via Google. I also understand that it’s not always accessible by everybody.
Now even if the mechanism of PR is well understood and documented since some time, Google doesn’t only rely on the PR algo. Google Ranking Score is the combination of the PR algo + more than 100 other algos.
On top of that, Google algos constantly change. They have to do that to keep the relevancy of their search results and fight against spammers. Spammers get also adapt to new Google algos, and then it forces again Google to update their algos to defense it better.
SEO is like Internet Security or IT security in general, it’s the constant fight between the people who protects against threats and people who try to exploit vulnerabilities.
Finally, to better understand SEO, one needs to get in the mindset of Google developers and the different way they can do to protect against spammers. They also s/w algos and also human quality controls.
Sure SEO is not fun for everybody except some real tech SEO who have to certainly appreciate constant and stressful challenges and maths in some degrees
.
OK wish you all the best in your Web site publishing and IM activities.
VK
Hey there, VK and Doug.
I think what Doug wants to do is float the adsense box either left or right. Justify is the wrong word. Any way, that’s what I’ve been trying to do for several weeks, on and off.
And today I figured it out. You’ve got to put the ad box in a div.
AdSence code
div.ad_left {
float: left;
margin-right: 7px;
position:relative;
left:-7px;
}
I,ve left the table there but I think it’s probibly not needed.
See http://www.southimage.net/snowy-mountains-skiing/
Regards,
Laurie.
Hi VK
Would appreciate your help getting the format of Comments right – text too small.
Have fiddled with a few plugins to no avail.
Example here
Hi VK
Fixed it. Used a Plugin called Brian’s Threaded Comments. The comments.php from that plugin in the Adflex Blog Theme works well.
Hi VK
My RSS feed is giving the following error page in my configuration of plugin Fedafi. Has this anything to do with the AdFlex Blog Theme? I am using version (h). Any fix would be most welcome
The XML page cannot be displayed
Cannot view XML input using XSL style sheet. Please correct the error and then click the Refresh button, or try again later.
——————————————————————————–
The stylesheet does not contain a document element. The stylesheet may be empty, or it may not be a well-formed XML documen…
G’day there VK.
Well, I’m still having terrible trouble with the supplemental index and have made some changes to try and overcome this.
Among the changes, I have deleted my news blog from the domain and got a new domain and hosting for that blog. Starting again from scratch. http://www.sapphirecoastnews.com/
Hear are some requests for additions in a new version of Adflex:
1) A left hand column. I’ve moved the top ad box. This does the job while there are only Google ads in it, but SEO may be compromised by the external links that I’ve also added, since this is between the h1 and h2 in the code.
2) I was hoping to use the blogroll for the external links, but I see there is no blogroll with Adflex, for obvious reasons in normal blogging use.
3) I haven’t looked into it yet but I suppose I can ad a weather box to the custom code in the sidebar.
4) It would be good if there were a couple of boxes in various parts of the page that can be visible only on the homepage, in order to minimize duplicate content. The weather, external links and big announcements could go in such boxes.
I’m starting to think that I’m expecting too much of a general purpose blog and should look for an online news WP theme. Comments?
Regards,
Laurie.
Oh, VK. I was mistaken about the blogroll. Sorry about that.
I’ve put my external news links in the blogroll. Of course, I’ll need to manage them manually. I’ll see how that goes.
But it would still be helpful if there could be a left sidebar that is not at the top of the code.
Regards,
Laurie.
VK,
Thanks for all the help!
The new FBI site is going strong thanks to AdFlex, without the ads obviously.
Here are a couple of the news sites that caught it:
Video clips:
http://www2.mysanantonio.com/multimedia/video/NewsOnDemand/index.cfm?videos=47336
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=local&id=5469668
http://www.kauz.com/home/ticker/8421247.html
http://www.myfoxaustin.com/myfox/pages/ContentDetail?contentId=3703883
It’s been on the national news with MSNBC, and about every news channel in Texas one can think of. An FBI press release doesn’t hurt, but the AdFlex theme really is pretty close to perfect.
I look forward to putting a lot more projects together on AdFlex.
Talk to you soon!
Hi.
I’m just in the beginning stage of creating this blog and I love your theme. How difficult would it be for me to widgetize the sidebar? Am I looking at minutes or hours?
Hi. I just found your AdFlex template. Pretty cool. On your AdFlex SEO page you describe how to provide links asscoated with the random images. In your next version,