Google Custom Search

Today’s screwing around with the search results and lack of customization in search in Wordpress took me to all kinds of interesting plugins to change what you use to search Wordpress. For the most part none of them really matched what I was looking for by default. It did however bring me to a little side project that Google has worked in previously called Google Custom Search. I spent a bit of time looking it over while taking calls at the day job and I have to admit I am intrigued. While I am not fully sure it is exactly what I need as a search solution for Wordpress there is a good chance it is a step in the right direction.

Of course with how my mind works it got me thinking. A custom search engine could have countless possibilities if done right and Google is just giving it away (or charging at a low price for a few extra features) for what is quite an amazingly well put together out of the box search solution. I’m going to have to play around with it more when I get back from vacation but I have to say I’d be surprised if this didn’t find it’s way into one of more of my projects that pop up this year.

The Undead Are Online.. In Style

I’ve been working with Zach of Blue Tide Productions for the past month to map out and have him create a new layout for BuyZombie. As of yesterday the new theme is up and running. While I run a multitude of sites it’s clearly the most active of my sites and as it gets the most attention I felt it needed a website that didn’t look like it was straight out of the 90’s. OK it wasn’t that bad but if you had seen the old layout you know exactly what I mean.

Features

• Visually the site looks spectacular: It has a clean layout, is easy to navigate, and has a featured section
• Communication wise the comments were broken in the old theme. So as there have not been new comments in months we upgrades to Disqus to allow not just standard comments but being able to comment with Facebook and Twitter as well.
• Speaking of communication we also made it easier to connect with us on social networks, RSS following, and by e-mail!
• As there are more guest posters on the horizon there is also now an author box at the end of each post with a bit more information about the author of each post.

Last night did not involve video games, movies, or reading. At least not all night

So I’ll start with the obvious, if you are a reader of this site I have switched over to using Thesis. While it is VERY clearly still on the default settings there should be changes coming over the next few weeks-months on this site to make things just a little more pretty.

At any rate aside from the Thesis install I was busy on a few other things.
For my friend Erin I helped install, modify the theme, and install plugins on:
Little Shop Of Zombies so she would have a central website for everything zombie related that she’s doing. I got to play with a couple of new things with wordpress as well. The first of which was Zazzle Store Gallery which lets you include a Zazzle store on your site. As this was something I wanted to test out anyway I was glad I had a time to play with it in advance though now am not quite as happy with it as I originally had hopes I would be. Second was the ability to incorperate an Etsy store into your web page so she could have pages as both shops.

Also while playing with plugins I updated the contact pages on the following sites to use Contact Form 7 which I have to say is currently my favorite Contact Plugin:
StuartConover.com
Little Shop Of Zombies
Buy Zombie
and other 3 projects I have in the works.

On top of the contact plugin on the above 3 I also installed the rough draft of the theme on 2/3 of the 3 above projects. The first of the 3 is down to just needing art and an updated about page while the second two need both of the above as well as a few other settings tweaked. Still, progress is being made!

…and some people think I’m lazy.

Buy Zombie Is Now PR4

Google started the year off nicely by giving Buy Zombie a long overdue Page Rank update to 4. While none of my other sites have gotten a Page Rank update with the last round, none were penalized so I can’t complain in the slightest! I haven’t been working the marketing angle on any of my sites in quite some time so any positive change is just a very welcome and surprising bonus!

With all of the organization I’ve been doing the last couple of days this is just an added little bonus to help motivate me into launching my upcoming projects as well as working on new changes to the ones I currently have in place. Thank you added motivation!

The Shiny Swine Redesigned

While I am not the full owner on The Shiny Swine I am pretty much the co-owner. It is an entertainment blog I write for with a skew towards gaming, bacon, and anything we find amusing to write about on the Internet. While I am still under the full belief that we need to switch our hosting provider as Go Daddy, while great for registering domains, is HORRIBLE for hosting.

Even with horrible hosting though, The Shiny Swine is still pulling in triple figure traffic on a daily basis with little to no advertising being done for it. So changes aside from a completely new look visually (while still incorporating the pig’s that make it swine like in nature)?

New Additions To The Swine

Dedicated Recent Posts Sidebar Box.
Featured Video / Tag Cloud / Latest Post Box.
Latest Posts In Gaming Category (highest viewed category.)
An area at the bottom showing the posts with most comments.
Also an area in individual posts that make it easier to find- Related posts, Most recent posts, Most commented on posts.

We have a few more ideas in the works currently which should be filtering in over the next week. However I have to admit I’m pretty happy with the new look and interface. Now if only we could get it moved to new hosting to make it more stable… (Hate. Go. Daddy.)

So, love doing the commenting deal on blogs? Blog yourself? Want a copy of Street Fighter 4 for the X-Box 360? Check it out over at The Shiny Swine for a contest we’re running to get entered to win a copy!