Briefly, what I'm doing now:

1) I'm rewriting the Search Logger as per several other threads. Currently it's logging total hits, and Daily hits. I need to add a few admin features and it should be ready for prime time (at least beta) in a few days. You'll be able to pull your Top5 type tags from this database. If anyone has ideas or suggestions on keywords by category, I'm open to it -- but I honestly can't think of a way to do that which will provide any sort of meaningful or accurate stats.

2) The postcards.cgi is working with version 2.1 It will most likely _not_ work with earlier versions. It can now work with a regular install of Links, by using a field separate from the URL (as I do on my site). You can define that field in the set up, and using the templates,

<%if field_name%>

display postcards template

<%else%>

display link template

<%end%>

With luck, this should be ready for release once my servers are up and running.

3) I'm rewriting the logo_image program to incorporate file upload, and it will integrate into the postcards program (just upload an image, not a logo) and incorporate (hopefully!) paypal's silent back end for automatic billing of logos. The program without the paypal features should be ready by mid January. No eta on the paypal features... since until i start to work with it, I won't know. I do need it, so it's a high priority, I just don't have a good feel for how long it will take.

4) The upload/photo-gallery program is the last one. It will use the parts of the other two programs, and it will allow links to function as a photo database. The template parser upgrades have solved a lot of problems, and with a minimal amount of overhead in the database, it should be possible to allow Links to run as a links database, but incorporate images into links on a link-by-link or category basis. I'm still not clear on how it will shake out in the release, but it looks like I'll have a beta by the end of february.

5) I'll upgrade the released plugins to 2.1 compatibility as I get my site back on-line and try to add in the features.




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re: category search logging

For statistical purposes, I could see a modification to the script, where if a category ID was passed in (ie: search only this category) I could log that to a 3rd table, for category specific searches (I wouldn't want 4 tables, category specific by date, would I??)

The admin could get a report by category, but that would be about the only use for this, unless your site allowed _only_ category specific searches.

Problem is this is non-standard, and no two sites are going to want to do it the same way, so the most I would think I would do is create the logging feature and allow category_logging to be turned on in the admin. Anything else you do with it would be up to you.

Does this make sense? Or, am I missing something? This is not a high priority for me, so I really need to see comments on it before I have a good enough sense of what other features would work to try it.

If this seems to be something people want, I'd think about enlarging the program to include the ability to track searches on certain categories, or exclude/include them -- such that if you have an adult area you can track those searches separately.

_BUT_ that depends on response, and anything above the basic search logging will probably have to be a paid add-on, as it will take a lot of time to develop, and I have very little need for category logging on my own sites. Other projects have a much higher priority, in other words.

Right now, all I'm shooting for is total hits, daily hits, and top_xx tags with keyword/badword filtering, and so far, that's required virtually a total rewrite of Alex's basic plugin. If I have more time today and tomorrow, I may have it released on Monday. If you don't have SearchLogger already installed, it will install directly. If you do have search logger installed, you'll either have to completely uninstall it (and lose your keywords) or "alter" your SearchLog table manually to hold the new fields and indexes. I'm not going to spend the time to try to do an alter/update/import routine, since I expect this will replace Alex's sample program for all future releases, and only the existing sites as of now will have to make the table changes.




PUGDOG� Enterprises, Inc.

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Something occured to me in another thread: you could get a break down of how links, or a specific users links, fare in the top 20 keyword searches on the site.

This is a bit intensive, but not terribly so if only sent out once a month.

You'd need to search on 'keyword' and ID IN ($list_of_users_link_ids)

You could probably increase efficiency by searching on each keyword once returning only the ID's, storing those in a hash, then comparing each user's list of links to the stored hash.

It's a trade-off of brute-force vs elegant efficiency, but it can be done :)

The downside is that it encourages keyword cheating, but the upside is it allows honest link owners to upgrade their keywords/descriptions, and to target in on what people are looking for.

It also helps develop an anti-cheating keyword policy such that links found keyword spamming are permanently deleted (hmmm..... a bad-url list not only a bad-link list!).

It also would allow a program to check the top x keywords, and if the number of returned results is > NN, to request the user enter an additional keyword to help refine the search.

Hmmm.... the ideas keep coming.




PUGDOG� Enterprises, Inc.

The best way to contact me is to NOT use Email.
Please leave a PM here.