Tag: web development

PHP and WordPress

Carl Setzer
phplogo

This quarter I’m studying PHP at Edmonds College. Many of my classes have a cumulative project that we build towards over the quarter. For this class, we’ll be creating plugins for WordPress. I’m pretty excited as I’ve used WordPress for years and deepening my knowledge will be fantastic. Hopefully, I’ll get enough knowledge to come up with creative ideas.

 

How Search Engines Work: Crawling, Indexing, And Ranking

Carl Setzer
Winter quarter is finished! I just turned in my final project (JavaScript) and my brain is oozing onto the floor. Anyway, this quarter I took Intro To JavaScript, Systems Analysis and one I’m calling a catchall, “Joomla and Introduction To SEO”. Interestingly, this last class featured Amazon Web Services (AWS) heavily, and I’ll write about that, too. So, today I’ll explore more of my thoughts on SEO.
  • Crawling and Indexing:
    • Crawling sites is when a robot, for instance Googlebot, explores a webpage. One of the key problems with crawling and crawlers is simply whether they can find your page. There are some ways to push Google in this regard. One valuable way: you can tell Google how you want the page crawled via the Search Console. A related problem: keeping crawlers from indexing pages you don’t want indexed. Things like special landing pages, promo-code pages, pages for A-B testings and so forth. The tool for this is the robots.txt file which directs the bots on how you want the files analyzed.  Web developers also need to consider the crawl budget, which is the average number of pages the Googlebot will before moving onto another site. It is also important to utilize a clean information architecture and sitemaps.
    • Indexes are where search engines store and process the information found while crawling the internet. Just because a site can be crawled does not mean it will be indexed, or indexed the way you want. Robots can be instructed on this within the meta tags.
  • Matching Queries to Content
    • The goal of the search engine: provide the most relevant results to user queries. Their algorithm uses several things to determine that relevance. One of the main ways is backlinks. These links from other sites assert authority on the subject matter. PageRank is part of the Google core algorithm that analyzes link qualities. More natural backlinks are the most valuable. Other elements that Google considers: page clicks, time on the page, the bounce rate (percentage of user visits where they only viewed one page), and pogo-sticking (where the user goes right back to the Search Engine Results Page after visiting the target site. Additionally, for localized content, Google uses these elements to rank results: relevance, distance, and prominence. Things like Google Reviews and Citations are the biggest influencers of prominence.

Exploring CSS and Failing

Carl Setzer2 Comments
Failed Phineas CSS Project

Last quarter I dove into HTML and CSS. I have several years of experience with HTML, albeit basic. However, I had the most superficial understanding of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). It was fun to dive deeper into this key element of website creation.

I only knew CSS as a way to centralize basic style elements (fonts, colors, etc). My mind was blown when I discovered all the other style pieces you could manage with CSS. I’ve now seen things you people can’t imagine (picture Roy from Bladed Runner).

Now I want to learn more! So, when a few days ago this tweet landed in my feed, I was stoked:

I followed Pratham’s guidance. Well, I tried, at least. After using all my free time, I created this:

Failed Phineas CSS Project
Failed Phineas CSS Project

I was a bit frustrated, but in the end, I’m still pretty pleased. A few months ago, I had no idea we can do this sort of thing. Now I’m diving in. And this is my first attempt. So, I have only upwards to go.

This link (to my github) takes you to the code I created. I’m sure many of you will easily spot errors. I’d love to hear them. I am trying to grow. That helps immensely.

Thanks for reading and commenting if you can.

Edit: I tried to embed the github info, but that didn’t work for some reason. Made it a direct link. 

WordPress vs Joomla

Carl Setzer1 Comment

This upcoming quarter I’ll be taking JavaScript, System Analysis, and a class on Joomla and SEO.  Funny, really, that I never heard of Joomla until seeing my degree plan, and was surprised by that. Thus, I opted to spend a little time learning more. I am trying to be a good student, after all.

My research pulled me to this, somewhat dated, article (2018): Joomla vs WordPress. Turns out Joomla is, essentially, a competitor of sorts with WordPress. Of sorts is important. Joomla has been around as long as WordPress but holds a fraction of their market share. This puzzles me since I’ve been hovering around web design and site creation for years. I’ve created many sites, mostly with WordPress, but I’ve also used HTML as well as tools like Netscape Navigator and FrontPage. So, I’m disappointed I’ve never even heard of Joomla (or Drupal, for that matter). Time to learn, I guess.

I do find it interesting that the class is working with Joomla, and not WordPress. For me, it’s cool to learn new (to me) tech. But with only 5% deployment, vs WordPress’s 60%, along with that 5% share decreasing, I still find it puzzling to focus on a tiny tool. I expect that this will become clearer as the quarter progresses.

Windows Programmer Calculator

Carl Setzer
Windows Programmer Calculator

It may be because I’m still pretty new at this whole programming/coding thing, but I was pretty stoked to discover this feature within the built-in calculator that comes with Windows 10 (it might be part of older versions of Windows. I just don’t know). I’ve built Excel sheets for these conversions to check my work. This is actually easier and less clunky. Sure, I can do these manually, and I’m getting better at doing so in my head, but it’s good to have the ability to check my work easily.

Along with this, a friend of mine let me know about HiPer Calculator for Android phones.  I look forward to trying it out. I downloaded the free version, but there is a “Pro” version for $3.49. I’ll see how the free one works. Trying to be frugal and all that.

Do you have any tools that you love and recommend to an up-and-coming developer? I’d really love to hear about them. Leave a comment!