This Little Piggy Marketplace

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snowflakey
E's Moriarity

Post   » Thu Jan 03, 2013 8:24 am


I'm pretty good at WordPress within a limited scope, and it is somewhat daunting for people, even if they are just using a theme off the shelf. A lot of the functionality is through third-party plugins, and they can be a little tricky to implement. It is helpful to know HTML, CSS and a little PHP (although you don't need to write any PHP) to have the best WP experience possible.

As you may know, WordPress is a content management system with core functionality built in, that is then run on "themes." Unless you are a hard-core developer, all the work you do is in the theme. The theme is a series of php templates that have broken down the HTML page into separate parts (the header, the main content, the sidebar(s), the footer for example). The complex part is "the loop," which pulls the page content out of the database. That is where you customize what actual content is on the page. The theme also has a style sheet that lays out the design.

I don't know that Joomla is any easier. Drupal is one I need to teach myself, but haven't had the time.

If you decide to work with WordPress, let me know. I can give you a hand.

User avatar
Sef
I dissent.

Post   » Thu Jan 03, 2013 2:23 pm


Thanks, all. I really appreciate it.

Still no word back from Google/Blogger. Oh! And even if they were to reinstate my site (which is looking doubtful at this point), I have lost all search engine rankings that the site had built up over the past 6 years, right?

User avatar
Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Thu Jan 03, 2013 8:32 pm


I don't think so. I think you'd be okay. Still hoping they reinstate it at least long enough to get what you need.

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Sef
I dissent.

Post   » Thu Jan 10, 2013 10:13 am


Still no word back from Google/Blogger on my appeal. At this point, I think it's safe to say they aren't going to do anything.

Over the past few days, I have been re-building the site on Weebly. It's a very slow process...not all of my content was recovered (the entire Health section was wiped out, as well as the Cavy Slave Gifts page), so it'll be a week or more before I'm ready to let the site go "live."

One major snag in all of this (besides losing the site itself), is that Google/Blogger are being jerks about my domain name. "this-little-piggie-marketplace" was purchased through Blogger via a 3rd party company, and neither Google nor the 3rd party company seems willing/able to help me change the DNS so that the URL points to the new site. Or at least tell me how to do it myself. Weebly apparently can't help, either.

So I have another decision to make: buy either www.thislittlepiggiemarketplace.com (no hyphens) as my new domain, or buy www.this-little-piggie-marketplace.net (keep the hyphens and go with "net" instead of "com"). What do you guys think? Either way, it irks me that I'll be essentially starting from scratch on my search engine rankings -- not to mention trying to notify everybody who links to TLPM.

Grrrrrrr.

slavetofuzzy
4 the Good of all Pigs

Post   » Thu Jan 10, 2013 10:31 am


I say go with the .com.

And once you're live we can all google and hit your site so much you'll go right back up in the search ranking.

User avatar
Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Thu Jan 10, 2013 11:03 am


I have always felt long urls are a mistake. I don't know what I would suggest but something much, much shorter that can be remembered more easily so other people can pass on your url without stumbling over it.

I also think piggy is more common than piggie, no?

Of your two choices, I think the .com is better too.

TLPMarket would also be something nice and short. You can use the This Little Piggie on your site.

Edited to say tlpmarket.com is taken :-(

tlpmarketplace.com is available though.

User avatar
Sef
I dissent.

Post   » Thu Jan 10, 2013 11:30 am


Thanks, stf! Greatly appreciated. :)

Lynx, I agree. I've always felt my URL was way too long (and those hyphens were a pain -- why did I do that?), so it's probably just as well that I'm having to change it now.

I like TLPMarket; too bad that's taken. TLPmarketplace is a good idea, and maybe even better since it spells out 'marketplace.' I like it.

Actually, the reason I went with Piggie instead of Piggy when I created the site, was so that it didn't conflict (or people didn't make a connection) with the rescue This Little Piggy & Me. I'll probably just stick with it out of habit more than anything else, at this point.

bpatters
And got the T-shirt

Post   » Thu Jan 10, 2013 11:40 am


Ditto the shorter URL -- those hyphens were a pain.

piggypie

Post   » Thu Jan 10, 2013 12:00 pm


Slavetofuzzy, that's not totally how google rankings work. YOu have to have your site optimized for google search bots to work.

User avatar
Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Thu Jan 10, 2013 5:59 pm


If you use tlp something, you would avoid having people spell the wrong version of piggie/piggy.

Domain names are cheap. If you like tlpmarketplace.com, go snap it up!

slavetofuzzy
4 the Good of all Pigs

Post   » Thu Jan 10, 2013 7:52 pm


I'm internet illiterate but it can't hurt, can it? She will do her part to get it back and if searching through google or bing or where ever will help, then her customers can help out too.

User avatar
jennylynn
GL Junkie

Post   » Thu Jan 10, 2013 7:54 pm


Domain names are cheap. If you like tlpmarketplace.com, go snap it up!
Yes! In fact, you could snap up a few different names (different spellings, etc) pretty cheaply and just have all of the "extra" names redirect to your main site.
That way, if someone typed "piggie" instead of "piggy" (or vice versa), they would still get sent to the correct place.

Sorry that Google is being such a butt about your site. I used to be a Google fangirl, but have really lost my love for them in the past year or so. They're getting a bit too big for their britches, imo.

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