Well as some of you knwo, I am working on a covert little directory project on my home server. I am custom building the script and have decided to take a path that not many take. The path? 100% static pages on the frontend, no mysql connections at all on the frontend. I was wondering what people think of this, I like the feel of a good old static website, no dynamic URLs, no fancy .htaccess, just pure old HTML the way the internet used to be. So do you all think it is worth it?
Do you think the extra time will pay off? If I am goign to dedicate tons of time to something, why not dedicate a few more hours a week on it?
I think it is a good idea for very high traffic directories, or other types of website. Static files respond much more quickly, especially as the content grows. For low traffic numbers, PHP scripts are just fine.
i see no problem with it. However, its so easy to use an admin panel to edit URLs and manage categories, it may be more of a pain with FTP mode. Also scripts like phpLD let you manage categories, so changing titles and vital content will not be as easy. You also wont be able to search for categories, and do other nice things like order by hits etc
Ok i will reveal a secret, I am using PHP on the backend to build the static pages on the frontend. It will still take longer, but not as long as manual editing. Plus I get the benefits of pure HTML.
I have seen posts of some others that run that type of directory, I don't think it will make a big difference either way and the extra time needed to build it won't be worth it. I would spend more time on figuring out/designing a directory that will stand out and thrive in the type of tough environment that exists right now.
So you have an editoriol program to update these HTML files? Thats just like a custom built web FTP program Either way, i dont see what difference a dynamic /sports page would make compared to your sports.html - google will see no different...
Ahh mikey, mikey, mikey The path to enlightenment doesn't always include Google. If Google doesn't care about pages laoding .5 seconds faster, or being 15 times more reliable, then i hope that maybe one, just one (two or three would be even nicer ) end user will notice t he difference.
I dont think so. his files wouldnt be large. Look at how many .html google.com has - thats if they really are static
99.9999% of your users will not care and the extra time involved will never be justified in profits. If you are doing it more as a hobby then who cares anyways....enjoy. But if you think some how this will help make a better directory for the end user or submitters I think you are on the wrong track.
what about 0.0001%, if I get 10,000 visitors a month, one per month will be happy I guess I am a little too overboard.
it will load faster, thats for sure, and trust me that pays! i would love to browse a fast loading site, than wait for the 2nd page of a slow loading one! im using cache on some of my content on my site,.... mainly the top news, on the home page it updates via a cron job, and the page just loads what ever is cached, it doesnt update anything,..... faster home page. but inner page news feed update onload,.....still thinking for a way out there, even the referrers block (home page) is updated via cron once in 24 hours,....so thats an included html file too..... small things add up to the time it takes to load a page, and you should cut it down to max possible! there are loads of resources on the net which offer insight on caching with php check those out, M.
I made a directory once that used a perl script to add links to .html files thus creating static pages. It worked, but teh admin functions were virtually non-existant and a pain. With more work I could have added better admin tools, but I found it to not be worth my time considering the ease of phpld. On the other hand I learned a helluva lot about perl, so from a complete "big picture" view it was worth it, but from a financial stand point it was a complete disaster. As a side note, one of the reasons I think it didn't work so well is because of the reliability people place on php link directory. I see referal strings like "powered with php link directory" in my server logs all the time. This tells me that people are specifically looking for sites running pld, and my (possibly misplaced) faith in humanity tells me that not all of them can be spammers.
It sounds like you are trying more for a make work project. If you are really looking for something to spend your time on that might work out producing a tidy profit why not try blogging, I mean serious blogging. Find a topic that interests you and blog twice a day, every day. I have heard quite a few success stories of folks that have put in that kind of work. If you want your project to have a directory then add-on a phpld directory to your new blog.
...umm... i would not support u on that; i was browsing the net the other day and i stumbled on this. EDIT: ull have to see the whole thing, he does talk about time involved and the % of market lost coz of slow loading!
Well ya, use common sense too. If the difference is between a site loading in 2 second or 9 seconds then yes there will be move value but if it loads with phpld in 4.1 second and with straight HTML in 2.8 second then I don't think it will matter either way.