Add [Update Thumbnail] for Alexa Mod Users

[Brad]

If you are using the Alexa thumbnail mod, here is an addition to update the thumbnail.

I have placed the [Update Thumbnail] link in the "Link Details" page to prevent abuse.

Edit: detail.tpl

Find...
Content visible to registered users only.
Replace with...
Content visible to registered users only.
Enjoy everyone!

[Steven Myers]

Sweet!

Worked like a charm Brad, thanks for this incredible share :D

P.S Great work on that layout on your directory, that is very smooth looking.

You might want to edit your top_bar.tpl and add {$smarty.const.DOC_ROOT}/ behind your urls to complete them, this way when you're at the submit page and you want to click your "Home" button, it will go to the main home page, and not refresh the page you're at.

Example: {$smarty.const.DOC_ROOT}/index.php or {$smarty.const.DOC_ROOT}/submit.php

[Brad]

Thanks for the nice comments :D ...and I will take care of that.. I noticed that problem once but didn't know what it was.

[Brad]

I have edited the above code to have the link open in a new window. After updating a few thumbnails I found this additional modification to be quite helpful.

[LyndaLAX]

Hi,
Can you tell me what this MOD does regarding Alexa? Do it ping Alexa and requests that Alexa updates the thumbnail for the site? I have lots of submissions that have a blank Alexa image and I'd love to have the image be updated when they submit their listing.

thanks
Lynda

[David]

Good question Lynda. I was wondering the same thing.
I think it DOES do that.
Can anyone confirm?

[anon]

I'm not sure myself.

I think we are limited to 1,000 *free* impressions per day though.
I also know alexa *must* be the referer.

I have a little something different in store for the Alexa thumbnail stuff. easy code, slick stuff. :D

[eminer]

Hi,

I have been trying to get Alexa to add a thumbnail
of my sites. After hitting the update button many
times I realized they do not have a thumbnail for
my site(s).

It may have something to do with page rank
before they take a screen shot of your site.
Not sure...

[bobby9101]

@ ANON: please please tell me you are not working on what I just finished.
I came up with a very nice mod for alexa thumbnails.
I plan on releasing a mod pack or something soon ;)

ABout ALexa in my own words - this is a long read, so get a bit off time.
Anyway here is how alexa works:
Alexa has some rather sexy servers. We are talking about thousands of terabytes. (they are partnered with archive.org)
So they created a script that grabs a thumbshot of a given website.
They don't have a very good crawler, so they use some of google's data.
However that still isnt powerful enought to get a thumb of every site. (google doesnt take thumbs, alexa only uses their search data)
So essentialy hitting the "update" button, you are giving alexa the rights to crawl your site.
Make sure you keep your page open to alexa (watch your robots.txt, .htaccess, meta tags, and nofollows)
They will take their merry old time crawling your page (sometimes up to a month to get a thumby)
Then they will save it to their huge server network, and won't update for awhile unless you click the update button.
However if you abuse thier system they will ban requests form your site.
Also they will only take thumbs of TLD's (http://www.phplinkdirectory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15932). So www,subdomain.topleveldomain.com will display a thumbnail of www,topleveldomain.com
likewise www,tld.com/folder will display a thumb of www,tld.com

Same goes for thier traffic rankings.
SO if page: www,lol.com has an alexa ranking of 11,123 www,fubar.lol.com will display an alexa ranking of 11,123 and so will any subfolders of
www,lol.com

hope that helped

[anon]

Nope, ...ur good.

things i've been messed with/completed:

1. different type of alexa picture showing. (nothing special at all)

2. google MOD to track where Google, yahoo, msn (any SE) currently is on your site(category,subcat etc etc) and which DC IP that bot is from(90% done just no time to get back to it atm)

3. Online Visitor which i made last night. (putting in it the admin cpanel for control)

[bobby9101]

wow 2 and three sound very nice.
I assume they would be payed mods?

[anon]

Yea. The thing is I am trying to build content for my phpld template site which is up and coming... so Along side of working with clients, on my personal days off( like today memorial ) i try and finish up and write my own things to be able to offer.

;)

happy memorial day btw