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Chugging along...


Kent

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Following up on my last blog entry, about what was coming next/soon, we're still trudging forward...

1. I've implemented the ability to pay club dues, using both manual (check or money order) and credit card processes.  The old PayPal account that we set up for club dues was set up years ago, when there was a different club treasurer, and different software interfacing with PayPal.  They are being a real PITA, requiring all kinds of documentation (in multiple rounds) in order to reestablish that direct link to their payment processing.  I've about come to the conclusion that it would be easier just to set up a new account with them... but we'll keep chipping away. 

2.  The News function was implemented, and I manually moved over all the previous Tractor of the Month entries.  See: 

3.  I think I have the Google Maps API implemented.  It too, was a PITA, likely because I'm not familiar with how Google APIs (stands for Application Programming Interface) works.  First, I had to create and register/submit to them, both a formal Privacy Policy  (http://simpletractors.com/privacy/) and posting Guidelines (http://simpletractors.com/guidelines/), then I had to "prove" that I own and maintain the domain name for simpletractors.com.  Then, I had to activate three separate APIs and obtain an API key, that this IPS software uses to establish a secure link to Google and identify itself.  Short term end result that is that static Google Maps should now be showing up on Classified Ads, showing the item's location. Now, we're ready to proceed with Member Lists and Member Maps. 

Here's what it looks like on my test ad, that I said was located in Somewhere, Alaska. Note that it shows the city and state below the map.

classified_ad_map.jpg

4.  I'm still trying to find a consultant who's willing and able to tackle recreating the Registry and importing the data.  Two different people have declined the project so far, so I'm in discussions with a third....

5.  Kind of like the hassle of implementing a Privacy policy and posting Guidelines, I've spent some significant time trying to get the new site set up and more "friendly" for search engines and their "bots" that index sites on the web, implementing Google Analytics, adding meta-tags, etc.  Though there's no immediately visible results (especially to current users) it is essential so that Google, Bing and other search engines can find, crawl and index the site.

Slow, but hopefully steady progress...

 

4 Comments


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rokon2813

Posted

Based on number 5 in your comment above, once the search engines can fully find and index our site, will a google search hit on our classified ads?

I've seen other searches bring up classified ads all over the country on other sites.

 

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4 hours ago, rokon2813 said:

Based on number 5 in your comment above, once the search engines can fully find and index our site, will a google search hit on our classified ads?

I've seen other searches bring up classified ads all over the country on other sites.

 

They certainly should.  Just for grins, I searched your recent ad for "starter-generator cores" and Bing found and placed it on the first page of results.  However, I didn't find it on the first five pages of Google results, and didn't look any farther.

bing_SG_cores.jpg

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rokon2813

Posted

Wow, thank you. I rarely use Bing, usually google, but might have to start...

That certainly does answer my question.

 

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