I really like the idea although I dont have any time to put into this unfortunately. I'd be in for some links, just post here when the site has some content and I'll throw some links up. I hope the site wont get trapped in the sandbox for long.
Ok, Ill install them both later (sure u want phpBB?) - we have enough time until this domain starts working instead of being parked at http://123-reg.co.uk What do you guys think of SEF Advance (http://www.sakic.net/index.php?option=scripting&sub=mambo&more=sef_advance)? Is anybody interested in purchuasing that piece of usefull Mambo addon? And what about layout - if we will use Mambo, are there any concrete template/design suggestions?
TB, what concrete "rules" do you have in mind? I think link support should always be accepted, but the difference in amount/quality is present and should be fairly valued. Voting for everything is a bit time wastefull, althought that is most fair. If rules are must, 101% agreement is the basic for them to function as supposed.
I can help with SEO and creating the site templates. Really, I'm up for a bit of anything. Can we get CF on the servers? (I'm really not sure where the site is hosted right now). Let's get cracking on this.
As long as each vote has a time delay, maybe 12 hours to vote then I can see no reason not to, i,e for major decisions. If people want to pm me with how many links they can offer I will start recording them into an excel file and distribute them amongst members when finished. If people want to go ahead let me know your URL's, and we can get an early indication of serps placement, maybe PR, etc
Look at the sites in my sig. They will give you an idea of what I do. I can give links from 7 sites at the moment. I can ask people I know for more. Maybe we should stagger the links being put up. 100's of links going up all at once might trigger a flag in the G algo. As soon as there is somethingup, I can put up the links.
Just so I can get exact figure please email me the exact website/url you will be linking from, also if you can get friends other sites to link all the better. Please send their URLs aswell aslong as it is a confirmed link offer, so we get an exact figure. I apologise if I am getting ahead of myself, just thought i would do my little part
Perhaps everyone who is contributing could seo a page on their own site/s about 'Christmas' to start with (link all your pages and sites to your own 'Christmas' page... Then as the project leader/s ask: you can link those pages to the project site. Then we could have a competition on the side to see who'se page lends the most support (ranks most highly) behind the project site. Contributors could keep the $ made from their own sites and donate the money from the project site to charity. I don't think we will have a problem with lots of new links popping up if they are comming from the body copy of relevant content pages.
Here is how you do this, you either get the highest or lowest PR pages to link first, then you do the next group in the next step. I read somewhere the best way to do this before, maybe sitepro or something Will wrote, but there was a method and a time frame that was supposed to work best. We have to remember, we are talking about many search engines, so we shouldnt just optimize for G
If anyone here is in this for profit, then we need to move away from the Christmas idea now. If it is charity, it should all go to charity. Once we have decided charity or monetary is the way we are heading, then something on Slashdot by our better writers will blow us up
I ment do a page on your 'Vancover Computer Repairs' site about christmas then link it to the project site. As far as I'm concerned all $ from the project site go to charity.
I would like a shot at a page also. Like I mentioned before if we each do a page, we can test our optimization skills and still work toward the same goal. We would need the different donation line codes to add to the pages we make also. Our site does well during Christmas time and would be able to send many visitors to the charity site we also have a pr5 and been online for 6 years now.
Dominic, my personal thinking would be to put content on the actual website so we build the page count and increase its authority. Although I see your point, google may count the link as theme based if it has similar christmas content. NewComputer, I think it was decided early on that the first most important point of this challange is to rank "the website" as high as possible before christmas. I am with you, I dont think anyone should gain any profit fron this other than a mention on a acknowledgement page or something. There are alot of people here who enter individual SEO competitions for non competitive terms, this challange is to rank for a very competitive term, teamwork, I like the sound of that. The revenue generated would be donated to a charity/charities (i'm sure whoever in the end is paying for the hosting, paid inclusions, domain fee can be reimbursed etc), assuming that there is a significant income the rest is paid and continuously paid to a charity.
I agree that we should all design a page optimised for our individual fields of work, but optimise it based on the Christmas theme. I think ALL money made should be sent to a charity, either as a combined charity, or our own charities. If it is combined charity then the money in my opinion should be organised by one trusted individual within the forum (maybe DP Shawn?) What is planned for us to make money, having Google Adwords, or selling a particular product / service within our field? Darren
Absolutely, I agree whole heartedly with the last three posts. I think this is a great opportunity to provide for those in need and as a bonus, maybe we all get tossed a bone through recognition from other sources. I am concerned a little of this getting out in the community (SEO) and others start to work the term "Christmas", others who have not the same goals as us in mind. Would it help us to move this to the underground board, or am I being paranoid about nothing?
I know what I'm looking at in terms of other charities so would be happy to do the research on which groups to give to. I would suggest groups from the counties the contributors come from (e.g. US, UK, AU, etc) which do something valuable to support homeless people specifically during Christmas. The group could the approve the list or choose from it....? I can also compile a list of places people (visitors to the site) can volunteer on christmas day to help the homeless in their local area. As a Social Worker whose charity supports homeless people at christmas (and around the year) I'm hoping our charity is one of the groups chosen to benefit - (but will support the project either way), and am happy to organise the money as mentioned by Darren.
Check my previous posts and you will find company info & hardware configuration - and when you read it you will see that its Red Hat machine which has no CF support, but if you are willing to buy CF licence, I will compile it for you without any problems j/k (its not so cheap), I know a bit of CF and I love it because of its simple tagged structure and Java power, but Im sure there are more people here who know or learn PHP so I assume PHP is our scripting choice (Mambo, forum etc. all that is PHP based) because more people can be involved in coding, if needed. No need to mention Coop Ad Network which is currently all about PHP :] BUT, coming back to project, what about content? I mean, CMS is made for it. Currently, Im a bit worried because I think that theme we are discussing right now can be exhausted easily, unless the forum itself makes some progress. How many of you can write targetted articles in there for how long (unless you think that free-for-all (untargetted) content can be placed at site named homeless-christmas.com)? I am maybe wrong, but I do get an impression that you favorize links in comparation to content - I assume you all know that Google loves big sites. No need to speak about SE potencial of sites that have a lot of (different) stuff/articles. I mean will we have any (christmass/homeless theme targetted or untargetted?) article base or we will rely purely on links? If second, Id really consider direct support to Dominics site as it is already established, just need links. No sandbox effect/quite enough time till Christmass to get thousands of links/functional and trusted payment support (somebody mentioned Shawn - I really doubt he has enough time, due to all work hes involved in) - does it makes any sense?
there is LOADS to write about christmas: - carols - background/ religious stuff - mulled wine (yum!) - shopping of course - presents - santa - christmas trees - christmas markets (we have those in Europe) - weather - celebrations around the world - Christmas cards - Christmas films - homeless of course and that's just thinking on the fly... BTW, we're only going up against 33m pages