Category: SEO

How to Resubmit a XML Sitemap to Google and Bing with PHP

New screencast!
So here’s the thing. Most of us who has worked in this crazy tech field are aware of Google Webmaster tool and XML Sitemaps.
And at some point of time have either created, published or submitted one.
But what I’ve noticed from experience is that after creating and submitting a XML Sitemap to Webmaster tools we either take one of the two options when it comes to resubmitting this file.

  1. Wait for the search engine to rediscover, crawl and index our new content
  2. Log into our Webmaster tool accounts and manually resubmit each sitemap.

So I created a video that will demonstrate how to resubmit a XML Sitemap to both Google and Bing with a little bit of PHP.

This video is titled “XML Sitemap: How to Resubmit to Google and Bing” on YouTube.


Thanks

GEO Location data via PHP and IPinfo API

New screencast!
Hi all, so my new video is about getting GEO Location data via the Ipinfo API.
The current title on YouTube is “How to get GEO Location data from IP using PHP and Ipinfo API #php”
This was a pretty simple and straight forward process and of course we used cUrl to get the job done.

But one of the points that I was trying to make is that this data can be used to created highly focus content.

And that sometimes it’s not all about the data that in front of you but more about what the data in front of you can be combined with. Hope that makes sense.

Anyhow thanks!

How to get header response codes using PHP

New screencast!
Okay so I’m happy. This is my 3rd video since my so call comeback.
The video is titled “Get Header Response Code data using PHP” but again I may change out the title within a week to two.
In the screencast we are using the curl_getinfo function in PHP to get the server transfer data. And then carefully (yep I said carefully 🙂 ) parsing through the results to grab the Response code.

Thanks

How to get a websites Title and Meta data using PHP

New screencast available!
I don’t have a set schedule as of yet so I’ve been creating/posting video’s every day.
My latest is titled “Get a websites Title and Meta data using PHP”.
In this video I go over the steps needed to grab a websites Title tag and Meta data using PHP.

PHP has a get_meta_tags functions which makes this task pretty easy. The hard part with this process is grabbing the sites title tag. We went with the preg_match function in order to achieved this.

Using a XML sitemap and PHP to get urls from a competitors website

Sooooo I recently discovered Screencast-O-Matic and now I’m getting back to making YouTube video.

Yep, it’s just that simple. I was previously using Camtasia trial version but could never bring my self around to paying the $199.00.

Screencast-O-Matic is free to use but with limitations (i.e. watermarks, 15 min videos..etc). But the pro version is only $15.00 a year.. geez, can’t beat that.

So my come back video is on SEO and PHP and is currently titled “Get urls from a competitors website using the XML sitemap and PHP.” I mention currently because Im playing around with different version of the title so it may change.

My Youtube channel is listed under name Joseph Tinsley

Thanks! 🙂

getMinified API

After  3 or 4 attempts in building out the getMinified API and its dashboard I think I finally have a finished product.

Everytime I thought things where thought out correctly, I found issues.
Either complexed issues with the code or simple UX issues.

I decided to pared back a bit on the features and  focus primarily on the CSS part.
In the beginning the overall objective was to build out a simple but useful website that I could crank out within a weekend.

…Im about two weeks deep now #sadface

Screenshot of the Sign Up/Sign In dashboard

getMinified API Dashboard Screenshot

Screenshot of the Stylesheet listing dashboards

getMinified API Dashboard CSS view Screenshot

Building GetMinified.com – CSS and JS minifier

So this may be a crazy idea but at the time I thought it was pretty special.
I was working on a project and had to minify some CSS code.
I quickly became exhaust of the whole process.

Edit CSS, minify the code, republish to site. Make more changes to the CSS code, minify the code again , republish the code again.

Depending on how often you make these types of changes this process can get a bit tiresome.
So I thought, Oh crap why not make a API !
The idea was to basically allow developers to work on their code and at anytime save the changes. The API will dynamically return the compress version.

Boom! and thats how GetMinified.com was created.

I bought the domain for less then $5 from Godaddy using a coupon code. Then  the next following day I crushed out the code.

Right now I’m fine tuning the backend but it seems to work as is.
I’m gonna create a API sign up page to collect emails so I’ll be able to notify users if the API updates.

getminified-screenshot

Google’s Analytics API with PHP

I was recently asked about my experience with Google’s Analytics API, my reply was bla, bla, bla, I do not have any experience with their API’s.  But to be honest I couldn’t remember why at that moment I didn’t. I think the only reason was because of their documentation, for some of their API’s it’s a pretty long, difficult read. But overall that wasn’t a very good reason, so I decided to take some time and dive in and whoop that trick (line from the hustle and flow movie).
The goal for this post to help anyone who may be having a hard time understanding how to build a connection to Google’s Analytics API.
So first there are a couple of things you need to know.

There are only two files needed in this script but the connection part is the only part we will be going over, it’s in the gaClass.php file.
So basically I’m still new to  Google’s Analytics API but what I’ve learned so far is that once you’ve established a connection the rest is pretty simple.  So basically that’s why we will be focusing on the establishing a connection part only.

Your first major goal while trying to establish a connection is to collect the authentication string. Within that string is your authentication token, and without that token you can’t get anywhere so remember that. The overall objective is to get the authentication token.

So open up the gaClass.php file and take a look at the construct method, this is where the connection happens. Please contact me if I confuse your somewhere, I try to code so that it’s easy to follow.

  • Within the construct method we start off by collection your email and password that was set on the form page. They of course are needed to connect to your account.
  • We set the url that we will be trying to making a connection to. In this case it’s the ClientLogin URL (https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientLogin) . Take note that the protocol starts with HTTPS.
  • Within our POST request we have a few additional parameters that will need to be pass along including your email and password. A short description of these parameters can be found at (http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/gdata/gdataAuthentication.html) scroll down until you see the HTTP Protocol Details heading
  • Now once we have all the parameters set we will try to actually make the connection. We do this within the next method. The curlConnection method, and it does exactly what it says, tries to makes the connection via cURL
  • The curlConnection method will take the parameters we talked about earlier and send them to the ClientLogin URL via cURL using a POST method. The answer we receive from this post will or will not include our authentication token.
  • Now let’s suppose it does and the header status code equal 200, which means it’s A-OK. Within that connection response output you will see a encrypted string. But look closers you’ll see three variables with three values assigned to it. The variables are labeled , “SID”, “LSID” and  “AUTH”. Well you want the AUTH and it value.  Our next task is to parse out the AUTH variable and its value, and we do this with the setAccessToken method.
  • The setAccessToken is fairly simple we take that string and convert it to an array using PHP’s built in explode function.  The access token should be in the second element. I then assign this value to a token variable to be used later for accessing other parts of the API. If you recall when we started this post the authentication token is essential to other parts of the API. Without it you basically can’t do anything.

So that you can get a idea of what the output data look like.  I’ve included a screen shot of the header response output, the authentication output, when the authentication output is converted into a array, and the authentication token.

Googles Analytics API Header Response

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m new to Mercurial so please don’t give me a hard time about my commits or the lack of.
https://bitbucket.org/josephtinsley/google-analytics-api/overview

Google Analytics API with PHP

 

 

Reverse IP Look up .V2

I’ve updated my Reverse IP Look up script. This script/tool will attempt to display a list of domain names that are hosted on the same IP address.

My original script was a bit slow, this one should display results a lot  faster. I’ve also add a simple API that can be configure to show results in different formats XML, JSON, and PHP format. The PHP format returns the results in an array format.

The GUI interface is located in the SEO tools section of this site Reverse IP Look up

To access the API, use the URL below.

Just include your domain name where the curly brackets are, then pick a format to display the results in.

Example

http://apime.josephtinsley.com/{domain_name}/php/
http://apime.josephtinsley.com/bk.com/php/

Thanks,

Joseph

== UPDATED APRIL 06, 2011 ==
In the near future I plan to add more API’s
To handle this change you are now required to add the API’s source that you want to use.
The Reverse IP Look Up source is “reverse

So or example
Instead of
http://apime.josephtinsley.com/{domain_name}/php/
It will need to be
http://apime.josephtinsley.com{source}/{domain_name}/php/
so
http://apime.josephtinsley.com/reverse/bk.com/php/
would be the finished URL.

Thanks again,
Joe

Keywords out of Season

I’ve recently seen a large drop off in traffic for one of my sites. Instead of adding more backlinks and H1 tags I decided to switch out the keywords. I figured that the issue wasn’t with the optimization tactics I was using but with the keywords that where being applied. According to Google my keywords where just out of season. Follow me on this one, using Google’s External Keyword Tool and selecting the “Show All” settings Google will give you an idea of when a particular keyword is in or out of season. Basically what month does the keyword get searched on the most. Using this information you may want to switch out, add to, or focus only on a set of keywords that well increase in search frequency.
Take a look at my example. Using the keyword tool I did a search for “Umbro Shorts”. According to Google this keyword increases in frequency around September. So if you had a site that sold these kinds of shorts you would have a general idea on when to start building up your strategies.
Of course a lot of this is common sense, but it’s still kind of nice to have a little more information on when you should expect to see a drop in traffic or a spike.

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