I may have a hit on my hands... I want to make it better!

Hi everyone, thanks for the feedback. And thanks to Sam for being able to see past the babes

Ya, I always had a problem with the spacing. I'm currently using a pre-made template which is pretty tweaked as far as WordPress templates go, so I haven't tinkered with it. Spacing and separation/organization is my #1 on the redesign.

Any other tips, ad-related or otherwise, anyone?

 

Hey Sketch,

Another thing I noticed that may or may not be as you intended - if I scroll down on a page and click on an image, the image pops up in a new window, but the original page returns to top-of-page. From a navigation standpoint, I would think you'd want it to remain where your visitor was last.

HTH,
Sam

 

Hi Sam, ya, I knew about the popup problem... it's due to the way I'm activating the popup links. I'm hoping to take care of that real soon.

But in the meantime, my new layout is up! I'm interested in people's thoughts especially because the way I integrated AS ads is a huge departure from the previous site.

There are a few minor things I'm still ironing out that I can only see in a live environment, but for the most part the site is at around 98%

 

Sketch, that's an excellent looking site you got there! Are you still using blogging software or is that an original now?

 

Still WordPress I love that damn thing. If you like that them check out my "Mainstream Movies Suck" link in my sig to see another custom WordPress theme... it's the most hacked up theme I've made

 

nice site, cool to see it grew so quickly. did you promote mainly w/seo or something else as well?

 

It's half-naked celebrities. As long as you get into the SERPs, they will come.

 

kkibak, at first it was a lot of linking but as of the middle of last month it's been around 80% SEO. Plus a lot of the tips I've gathered thanks to this forum

I'm planning on starting to buy higher PR links soon as well as expanding onto other related sites.

 

all your wordpress sites do not seem to have any links back to the Wordpress community.
Shouldn't there be a link back to either the theme which you modified from, or the Worpress main site?
After all, you are using their system, for free.

 

Having a link back to WordPress is not required. I removed it to reduce the amount of data for faster loading (every little bit helps) and to prevent it being associated as a keyword.

 

Hey Sketch,

The new layout is a definite improvement - a much more professional, polished look. But now the pop-ups don't work? And finally, I can't believe you made this site with WordPress! Did you use any particular tutorials or training to learn this level of customization? If so, please share...

Sam

 

Hi Sam,
Thanks for pointing out the popup problem. I had implemented a new method since you had pointed out that popups would cause the main window to jump to the top. I guess I'll have to find an alternative. I've reverted back to my old method for now.

Unfortunately I do not use any tutorials for my customizations, it's all PHP, MySQL and WordPress know-how. Everything I learned about WP I got from the Codex (http://codex.wordpress.org), which is WP's official documentation site. It covers everything from basic theme tags to custom plugin writing.

It's not the best at looking up things using "Search" (most of the time I have to use Yahoo or Google with "codex.wordpress.org" as part of the query) but with patience and a lot of clicking I manage to find things I need

One tip, knowing WP's built-in database functions helps A LOT in the more intense customizations. http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wpdb_Class

 

Hi, nice site and I'm happy to hear that you're doing good, but I don't know why nobody pointed out that since the celebrities photos are not yours, that is clearly a copyright issue, don't you think? Where do you get the pictures from ?

Here's the part of the google adsense FAQ that says something about that:

What is your policy on copyright infringement?

It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). For AdSense publishers, if we receive a notice or otherwise have reason to believe that your site is infringing, we may terminate your participation in the programme. More information about our DMCA process is available here http://www.google.com/adsense_dmca.html

The problem with your site is if someone, like a lawyer working for one of the celebrity sees your site he will tell google at:
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=18386

and that may happen quickly if your site gets famous (because it looks so professional) and it will be your whole adsense account that may be terminated, which will be not fair to you. But I think Google will first contact you saying to remove the ads from this specific site.

Or maybe I'm wrong and that's why nobody pointed out this issue to you before ?

 

I guess when it comes to sites like mine, it's a numbers game for Google. Yes, I get my images from all over the net. But let's face facts, there are hundreds of thousands that do exactly what I do (what the hell was I thinking getting into such a competitive niche? ), not to mention the millions of others who also copy images even if they don't have a celebrity site.

If Google singled me out for copying images, I'd take issue with that. If they disable the account of EVERY user who copies images (which I'm sure is like 90% of all users) across the board, then it's just business and I'll move on. I also like to point out that in my new layout I've clearly stated that only the original commentary is mine and not the images.

Should I get enough traffic or popularity to where Google would take notice and disable my account, I'd take that as a sure sign that I don't need Google anymore and that I can use more personalized methods such as AdBrite or BlogAds (where you name your price) or even run my own campaigns.

 

Of course I understand, I see many websites that clearly do something against Google's TOS and they're still here and no sign of loosing their adsense account. I'm not telling google about anyone, it's their job to find the offenders not mine. Now if Google was giving revenues for reporting the bad guys, that would be a different story and for sure more of their users would respect their TOS

But for your site, of course they are many doing the same thing and in my opinion copyright is really something that I don't like, but you know law is the law and even if many people disagree, it's still easy for a lawyer to send emails and letters to your ISP or whatever since it's their job.

Still, it's a nice site and since there's no nude, all the people cannot say that their image is being affected by their presence on your site, all the contrary indeed.

Good luck with everything, I was just pointing out this particular violation of Google's TOS.

 

Hi Sketch,

Thanks very much for sharing all of this information - I appreciate it, and will check it out at my earliest opportunity.

Sam

 

The photograpers are being ripped off. It's not just Google you have to worry about.

The stop words list includes cancer. What if someone were to make a site on how to deal with cancer emotionally, would it bring only PSA ads?

 

OK, I'm not a complete idiot, I'm aware of ALL issues. Besides, it depends on the photography assignment, most photographers are paid once per assignment, they've already been paid so they lose nothing by having a site display their images.

Regarding cancer, I don't think it's a stop word. Bear in mind Google has never released an official list of stop words (not to my knowledge) so any list found may just be speculation. As a matter of fact I've come across a couple that say just that, that they are merely suggestions.

Now if we could please focus on the topic of this thread I'd appreciate it.

 

Dude, you're gonna have to be defending your site for an eternity.