Google updating

[PhilC]

My program checks all the databases and stores the last reading, so I can tell when the figures change. But it doesn't store any historic data so recognising old figures it's down to my memory, which is no good at all. The only thing I remember about Yahoo's backlinks is that they were over 1,100,000 a few months ago and have gone steadily down since then - but I can't state exact figures.

[hatchet]

-mc is showing my backlinks from a month ago also. Which I'm much happier with

[digitalpoint]

Well see? That's why you should use mine. (it's free... really)

Actually, the back link tracker is just "fluff"... it's real purpose is the day-to-day keyword ranking monitor.

- Shawn

[PhilC]

hehe....I use my own because I can modify the program to do whatever I want. I can make it store historic data if I want to - and maybe I should!

[digitalpoint]

Originally Posted by PhilC

hehe....I use my own because I can modify the program to do whatever I want. I can make it store historic data if I want to - and maybe I should!

Good point... same reason I made my own.

Last I looked, we are up to 2,300+ users tracking 40,000+ keywords and back links for 5,000+ sites. Not too shabby after 2 months of being out.

- Shawn

[PhilC]

Not too shabby at all. What does the 1000 limit refer to? Is it 1000 searches a day from YOUR site? 1000 a day to each of Google's servers, or what? Is there likely to be a 'limit' problem when you get too many people using the tools?

[digitalpoint]

Nah... the 1,000 per day query limit is per user (since each user uses their own Google API key). Also, since it does use the Google API, it doesn't violate their TOS.

- Shawn

[PhilC]

Ah! That's good. As you can tell, I don't use the API.

[digitalpoint]

Well, even forgetting about the whole TOS problem, the Google API is pretty slick... makes it *so* much cleaner from a coding standpoint since you are always going to get expected results... In XML format... which you can then just drop down to an array.

- Shawn

[PhilC]

You may be right, Shawn, but programming has been my main hobby for 20 years. I enjoy writing the code to parse pages and stuff like that. The backlinks checker is just a small extra in a suite of programs which includes some very useful stuff such as analysing log files and extracting the data that I want rather than having to make do with other people's ideas.

[digitalpoint]

I completely understand... as I mentioned, originally it was done for my own internal use. The back link tracker is really just "fluff" for it's real keyword tracking purposes.

- Shawn

[PhilC]

I'm reminiscing now....<sigh>....I used to enjoy programming more before Windows 95 came along - in the DOS days. I no longer get any of those 'eureka' moments, when you finally crack something that you've been struggling with - like when you first crack the way to use extended or expanded memory in your programs, or when your attempts at programming the graphics card finally succeed. These days it's done completely in high level languages which aren't quite the same.....sigh......oh well.....

[digitalpoint]

Not always... I first coded assembly on a Commodore 64... If you start with that and master it, you pretty much can code anything after that.

I still have lots of the "eureka moments" though... The keyword tracker for example... I did everything as difficult as possible (so I could learn and have ultimate control). For example:

Instead of using a SOAP client to communicate with Google, I figured out how SOAP actually works (at the network level) and wrote my own SOAP client from the ground-up... Which BTW, mine works better than Google's own supplied SOAP clients. I can query for Chinese, Japanese or Korean keywords to Google and get valid results... where Google's supplied ones in their own API kit come with a note saying it doesn't work.

I learned all about unicode (querying to Google, displaying/manipulating in PHP, and storing in a database that normally can't store unicode characters).

I'm also an efficiency freak (check #17).

For charting, I decided to not use existing charting libraries, and instead do it from scratch. Also a fun little learning experience...

- Shawn

[PhilC]

But there's no need for assembly any more - you wrote the SOAP client in a high level - yes?

I started with an Oric-1 (a tiny UK computer). With it, I learned Basic, then machine code, and then I took it apart, drew the circuit and learned the hardware - then I added a chip and got more use of the memory that it was designed to give, but only in machine code.

DOS allowed full control of the computer, and I used to enjoy that, but we don't get the same control any more. At least I assume we don't - I use VB now and all direct memory accesses have gone. I can't speak for C++ though.

I guess there can still be eureka moments. Maybe I don't get them because I'm not really exploring any more. I'm too old for that game, I think

[digitalpoint]

True... although the SOAP client was still done at the network traffic level.

You can still access memory and all sorts of other stuff that can screw up your computer if you want... Just need to use languages that support it (like C++).

Assembly is still used, but not like it once was... mostly for things that need to be incredibly efficient (video game rendering engines for example).

- Shawn

[PhilC]

On reflection, it has to still be used for the sheer speed and quality of modern games graphics. If you can still get at memory in C++, and run machine code from allocated locations or even from arrays/variables memory, then programming can still be fun. All that has gone from VB, or it's been hidden - I've tried to find it but never managed to.

Many times I've decided to learn a C language and I even started a few times but I always stopped because I thought, what's the point. I already have a general purpose language that compiles - what do I need with another. Mistake, huh?

[digitalpoint]

Depends on what you want to use it for I guess... if you just want to muck around with it for no other reason that to muck around with it, then it's probably more time than it's worth. But if you want to peek and poke at your computer memory to see if you can crash it, then it's cool I guess.

- Shawn

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by PhilC

It doesn't sound like a backlinks update after all, which means it's just that the rolling update has reached some of I, Brian's stuff - and some of mine.

LOL! Backlinks are *not* updated on a rolling index so far as I'm aware. The SERPs, yes, but not backlinks or PR. Time to get an earlier night, Phil?

Again, I'm using just normal link: at www.google.com to check my backlinks. No software, no mulitple datacenter links - just a simple manual check of two of my sites.

[John Scott]

I only see backlinks and PR being updated roughly once a month.

[digitalpoint]

Originally Posted by JohnScott

I only see backlinks and PR being updated roughly once a month.

... as does everyone else...

- Shawn