Templates Now Used at Think Bling
The templates are now being used for ThinkBling.com.  This is the last step before it is packaged into a zip file and available for download.  It will be much easier if any bugs or other concerns are addressed now.

As a recap these changes will make it much easier to customize this to your page.  Current suggestions for the next upgrades are...

- Amazon.uk edition
- PostNuke edition
- Use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
- Custom Cart (for adding and deleting items before Amazon.com redirect)

Comments and suggestions are welcome.

New Page Rank Tools Look and Functionality

The Page Rank Checker and the Page Rank Calculator have been reworked to be more effective.  The advanced views are gone, as all they did was add an unneeded level.  All of the functionality is now included on one easy to use form for each the Checker and Calculator respectively.

Don't forget that the Page Rank Checker can check the Page Rank of up to 50 URLs at one time.

Anonymous Emailer
Think Bling now offers an anonymous email service.  It is completely anonymous unless one abuses it.  Precautions are taken in case it is used the threaten or send SPAM.  A good example of using is to "Whistle Blow" on wrong doers where if they knew it was, there would be unprovoked repercussions.

RSS Data Feed Update
The RSS Data Feed Aggregator PHP script has been updated.  There was a previous error when the RSS/XML contained both a "link" entity and a "guid" entity.  Now the "guid" is only looked at if there is no "link" entity.

You may have noticed links not working correctly from Yahoo's News feeds.  This should now work flawlessly.

Amazon Data Stream Update
The Amazon Data Stream is continuing to be converted over to templates.  The main directory page and the product lists have been moved over thus far.  The "Third Party" options has already been setup with templates as of last time.  This basically leaves just the Item Detail page, the Reviews page and the "successfully added to cart" page. 

More Amazon Data stream updates to follow.

Amazon Data Steam Update Coming Soon
An update to the Amazon Data Stream should be coming in the next couple of weeks.  The only change will be the use of templates.  This is a big change and has two great benefits.  The first benefit is that it will be easier to customize the look.  The second is that it will be easier to change the functionality.
 
If you are not familiar with Templates, they basically work by removing the HTML from the php file so you are left with code files (.php) and visual template files (.htm or .tpl).  If you want to ad a graphic, advertisement or link you can just change the correct template instead of having to trace through the code.  The total size of the files used actually may decrease with too.
 
Performance should not be an issue as we are going to use the Smarty Template Engine, which is the best available and is free to all who use it.

PageRank Banner Revisited
Think Bling's PageRank Banner which can proudly display the PageRank of any Web Page, now has a third view.  This new view displays both the normal Google PageRank, as before, but now also shows the Alexa rank.  The 2 original Google PageRank views still exist and are unaffected by this new mode.

Adsense Revenue Sharing
The Think Bling forums have modified software (phpBB) to provide phpBB Adsense revenue sharing. Basically, if you have over 10 posts, then you will receive one half of all the AdSense revenue for your posts. (Obviously you have to enter your Google AdSense ID).

Is this ethical? Yes.

Does Google allow this? Well that remained to be seen. I fired off a cheesy email to Google. Here it is...

Here is the original email sent to Google.

From: (NAME REMOVED) (ADDRESS REMOVED)
Subject: Other
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2004 11:53:48 -0700

Does Google have any current qualms about me showing adsense ads using
other people's AdSense ID?

Before any decision is made please just look at my points.
1. My site is approved to show Google Ads.
2. I have the People's permission to use their ID as they get the payment
(If there is one).
3. This 100% NOT a "You click on my ad and I click on yours" deal. This
is just a way for me to reward my site users.

I know that Google is very open to new and different ideas as long as they
are ethical. Seeing as how the same ad will get displayed regardless of
who's id is used, there is no difference Google's AdWords customers or to
Google itself.

Thanks for your time.
(NAME REMOVED)

Here is their response...

Hello ,

Thank you for your email.

Currently, it is not against AdSense program policies to display ad code
from other publisher's on your sites. You can review our complete program
policies at https://www.google.com/adsense/policies.

The AdSense ad code on the 'Ad layout code' page is valid for any page in
any site that complies with our program policies. Please note AdSense
publishers are only allowed one set of Google ads (one copy of the AdSense
ad code) on each page.

We constantly monitor all of the web pages displaying Google ads. If we
find that one of your web pages violates our policies, we will notify you
and ask you to remove the AdSense ad code from that page.

Please feel free to reply to this email if you have additional questions
or concerns. For technical support, please email adsense-tech@google.com.


Sincerely,

Christine
The Google Team

So you can see, it is perfectly fine to give away you AdSense revenue to anybody who would like to use it. So now that you know, start posting!

PageRank Banner Styles
Check out the 2 different styles of the Google PageRank Banner. The coding has also change so that it is now even easier for new styles to be introduced.

Keep an eye open for the Alexa Banner and a Hybrid-Alexa Google Banner.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Books
Here's a link for an SEO book or two. They can answer a lot of the initial SEO (Search Engine Optimization) questions that one may have.

These books can help even the novice who contracts out his SEO work. You definitely need to be prepared before you seek somebody out to do your SEO'ing for you.

PageRank for Everybody!
We now have a way to estimate future PageRank, check multiple PageRanks at once and get PageRank in our search results. Now what? It's time to start showing PageRank to others. The PageRank Web Stat is a little banner (150 x 40 pixels) that you can attach to any and all webpages that you want to. It displays the current Google PageRank for the whole world to see.

It get's better. There is only one line of code to add.

We are always trying to better our PageRank Tools. Give Feedback and Suggestions (Including new tools) in our PageRank forum.

Google PageRank Checker Expanded (even further!)
The Google PageRank Checker now shows both the Google PageRank of any page, but also the Alexa Rank. This is conjuction with the results being put in a slightly more readable format. This format makes it easier to copy and paste the results into a spreadsheet for storage or to include in formulas.

Advanced Google PageRank Checker
The Pagerank Checker has been expanded. There is now an Advanced PageRank Checker view that allows for multiple sites to be entered and checked at once. This tool should now be able to help out everyone, including the more advance search engine optimizers.

Search Engine Results with Importance Ranking
(SERPs with PageRank)
ThinkBling.com now has Google search results with PageRank. These PageRank search results show each page's general importance. "General Importance" is not the same as "Relevance". PageRank is just a general indicator showing how many sites link to the target page. In general pages with a higher PageRank have been around for a while and can be trusted more so than those that do not have an established PageRank.