Cheryl Baumgartner   Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
If anyone at all is like me and basically feels like all of this internet code HTML, UBB is a bunch of gibberish, then this is the week to ask your questions! Hopefully he'll be sharing some of those nice toys he has tucked away. He's already shared a nice toy with me that's helping with the HTML and understanding it.
Dec 15th 2007 20:36   

Mark Hultgren   Wordpress Specialist
It seems that Christopher has many of the same toys I have :-)

But he does more coding than I have time for so here's where you want to ask any questions about coding! And I will be too! (Just gotta think of a couple good ones.

One just came to me that may help a few here.

What is the difference between AJAX, DHTML and Javascript and why would you choose one over the other?

OK That's two questions, but it's a start!
Dec 16th 2007 08:40   

Cheryl Baumgartner   Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
This question was posed by Beth, I moved it here to keep the questions together.

Are you ready for a question?

How do you improve your search engine ranking for even simple group postings say.. for instance... ones that are for sharing jokes or greetings or ?

Beth
(smiles)
Dec 16th 2007 09:16   

Mike Hunt   
G`day,

well MK starts off with a pretty technical question that will probably be difficult for most to understand so i`ll QUOTE from a couple of SOURCES that explain the "techy bits" better than I could.

Firstly a definition of each from Wikipedia, I have supplied the links as there is quite a bit more information on each than is possible to provide in one post.

AJAX
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming)

AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), or Ajax, is a group of inter-related web development techniques used for creating interactive web applications. A primary characteristic is the increased responsiveness and interactiveness of web pages achieved by exchanging small amounts of data with the server "behind the scenes" so that the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user performs an action. This is intended to increase the web page's interactivity, speed, functionality, and usability.

DHTML
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DHTML

Dynamic HTML or DHTML is a collection of technologies used together to create interactive and animated web sites by using a combination of a static markup language (such as HTML), a client-side scripting language (such as JavaScript), a presentation definition language (Cascading Style Sheets, CSS), and the Document Object Model.

Javascript
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript

The primary use of JavaScript is to write functions that are embedded in or included from HTML pages and interact with the Document Object Model (DOM) of the page.

JavaScript is a scripting language most often used for client-side web development. It is a dynamic, weakly typed, prototype-based language with first-class functions. Currently, "JavaScript" is an implementation of the ECMAScript standard.

Difference Between AJAX And DHTML (Short Explanation)

AJAX: Asynchronous Javascript and XML
Using Javascript, the browser communicates asynchronously with the server, typically with a request for data. The data are (usually) returned in XML format. That's it.

DHTML: Dynamic HTML
Javascript used (mostly) to manipulate the DOM in the browser.


Difference Between AJAX And DHTML (More Detailed Explanation)
**SOURCE: http://quomon.com/question_what_difference_AJAX_DHTML_447.aspx**

DHTML is an acronym for Dynamic HTML. Dynamic HTML is a combination of javascript and the document object model that enables you to make a html page react and change to a users actions. This is the technology that makes user interfaces possible, because it lets the user interact with the page. This could inlcude hiding or showing menus or changing one dropdown select based on what was selected in another dropdown select, or even something as complex as gmail, or the new yahoo mail beta.

But, with dhtml, you are limited to using the information already loaded into the browser, and the only way to interact with the server is to refresh the page. In order to interact with the server more quickly and load new information into the current page, ajax is often used. Ajax stands for Asynchronous XML and Javascript. You are able to create a request object inside your current page that loads in XML or often JSON (Javascript Object Notation) which allows you to get things like type ahead suggestions, or load a email in a side pane when someone clicks on it without having to refresh the page.

Most good user interfaces in the next few years will be a combination of DHTML and Ajax. The dhtml will control what happens in the browser and the Ajax will allow dynamic communication with the server so that updates can be made to a database or new information can be loaded without refreshing the page and wasting so much time recreating the page from scratch for every user action.

As far as why you would choose one over the other, I guess it comes down to what you want your website to do, what your hosting is capable of and what your capable of doing.

Hope that answers your questions MK, quite a complex area trying to explain it all so thanks for the mindwarp mate .... LOL ... Lastly, here`s a link to a webpage containing some great resources for JavaScript, AJAX and DHTL.

http://www.maxkiesler.com/index.php/weblog/comments/20_trusted_ajax_dhtml_and_javascript_tool_sites

Christopher J.









Dec 16th 2007 14:23   

Mike Hunt   
Beth asks about improving Search Engine rankings for groups. Improving SE rankings takes time, it won`t happen straight away but there are some simple things to do that will make it happen faster.

Question From BethsVentures
How do you improve your search engine ranking for even simple group postings say.. for instance... ones that are for sharing jokes or greetings or ?

To begin with, naming your group is important. Alot of groups are created without any real thought going into it, keyword research is something you can do before creating a group, this takes time to learn and I won`t explain it fully here as it`s a huge topic on its own.

Basically you want to pick the keyword/s that have a lot of people searching but not much competition .... easier said than done though.

Another thing to consider is this ...

<meta name="keywords" content="Questions for Christopher TYSDomains 12-16 to 12-22" />
<meta name="description" content="Please place your questions for Christopher here. I'd suggest picking his brain if you are really l..." />

You can see the TITLE of Cheryl`s Post is actually the Keywords used in the meta-tags, these are automatically pulled from each page here at Apsense so not only is naming your group important, using the correct keywords in your posts is important to.

Now look at the description meta-tag .... it`s the first 100 characters of the post itself. Using the Name of the Group, the Title of the Post and finally the first line of the post, you can place quite a few keywords and keyphrases in their to improve Search Engine rankings.

An Example: (Not an actual Post)
Group Name:
Business Round Table

Post Title:
The Round Table Business Discussion

First Line Of Post:
Join us at the Round Table and Discuss your Business. News on Business,Small Business Discussions and Marketing (your business to the masses by networking with other like-minded business people.)

The part in the Brackets ( ) is after the 100 character limit, you will want to create your post using not just the main Keywords, but also RELATED keywords and keyphrases ... Networking and Marketing are Related Keywords to Business. (this is just off the top of my head to, no research)

To find out more on how to use related keywords ... do some research on LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing)

It`s important to put as many keyords and keyphrases in as you can but not so it makes no sense or looks like your keyword stuffing, around 2% to 6% keyword density of the main keywords is fine, more than that and you might be penalized by the Search Engines, less than 2% and you won`t be noticed so much.

Hope this makes sense to you all, feel free to ask more about it though, Keyword Research, learning about SEO and LSI takes time but it`s time well spent. The best SEO Resource you`ll find online is this eBook as it is updated regularly and is written by Aaron Wall, an Expert at SEO ... http://www.seobook.com/2395.html

... fair warning though ... it isn`t cheap ... ; ) ... the information, tools and resources you`ll find in it though are worth many many times the outlay and if you apply the knowledge, you`ll earn that back many times over as well.

Christopher J.


Dec 16th 2007 15:57   

Mark Hultgren   Wordpress Specialist
Top Notch answer CJ!
I actually use AJAX on my WP Blogs. But I was hoping you knew of a better way of bringing the message across in non geek-speak, which you did quite nicely! I especially liked the part about how most websites WILL be using combinations of the two in the VERY near future (there are many already using it together now!)
Dec 16th 2007 18:51   

Mike Hunt   
G`day MK,

thanks for the compliments and thanks for frying my brain early this morning to ... LOL ... took a couple of hours to do that post and I learnt some things along the way as well. (and snagged some free downloads to "play with" later ; )

Christopher J.


Dec 16th 2007 22:18   

Mark Hultgren   Wordpress Specialist
I picked up a couple goodies from a couple links you posted too! Can't wait to start playing with them a little this weekend!
Dec 17th 2007 12:47   

Beth Schmillen   
Thanks for the great explanation Christopher,

Seo and LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) ... this gives per centages as guidelines which is really useful because I had recently read that too much was useless and I had no way of knowing what too much would be... this definitely clarifies that for me!

You'll be pleased to know that just moments ago when I was placing a post for entertainment value I
titled it ...Subject and first 100 words (or so) fit your requirements!

which was easy to do since it was right off the internet showing a comical typo in an article....
Beth
Dec 18th 2007 09:30   

Beth Schmillen   
I was trying to write that your explanation gives the percentages of key words for SEO or LSI to keep from having too many or too few... thank you !! That is the very useful information. Plus that Link you included about the Scripts etc I sent to a friend who's creating a social network from scratch... plus now I know why there's pages that a click will respond on some pages within the page without the whole thing having to load and why other pages don't!

this is real great infor!

Beth
Dec 18th 2007 10:00   

Mike Hunt   
G`day,

thought you might like the "goodies" MK ... ; )

Glad I can help you out Beth, and even gladder you could understand it, it becomes easier the more you do it until it`s just a natural writing style ... takes awhile though (I`m still learning to ... ; )

Anymore questions? Don`t be shy ... lol

Christopher J.
Dec 18th 2007 10:35   

Cheryl Baumgartner   Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
I'm still doing my homework on lesson one! But considering that I could never truly understand all the HTML gibberish before that's a major thing to me thanks!
Dec 18th 2007 13:55   

Mike Hunt   
G`day,

won`t be long before it really "clicks" for you Cheryl ... I "cheat" by having snippets of code saved and just copy/paste where I need it, sometimes it doesn`t quite work but i`m learning more with each mistake like that and can usually find out why it doesn`t work pretty quick now ...

Patience is all you need, same as with anything that takes time to learn ... and it`s quite OK to yell at the screen now and then to ... LOL ... just walk away and come back to it when that happens though and usually your able to do it right then ... that`s what I found anyway.

Christopher J.
Dec 19th 2007 21:16