Hi mates,

I need at least 50+ Blogs to be automated, most of them from PHPbuilt's collection & some German one's I have here.

I know how to do them myself, but it takes A LOT of time, so for now it's just not possible timely.

BUT what would be nice is, to let someone else do the basic register + post spinned article with links + export for all the blogs. From then, if anything on the website changes, we can fix these problems ourselve, if in anytime the programmer drops out.

The cost's could be split in a rather "small" group of a couple of BHW people, to pay a experienced programmer to make these for us.

Anyone interested?

Let me know & we can talk further.

Best regards,
Albaniax

i am up for it.

Count me in.

I am interested in more information.

Yes, i'm interested as well. Let me know the details.

Looks good so far, we might wait a little bit more for further people.

And please only people for are really serious about this, who don't step-off when it's time to pay the programmer.

I haven't looked for a good ZennoPoster programmer, yet.
I'll take a look first at the official forum today. If one of you guys know someone, hit me up or post here.

yeah im in!

What do you think the total cost would be

how much do you think a programmer would charge to do it.

its a gd idea id be in if its a fair price

Count me in bro, when you get a programmer just send me a pm.

I would be interested as well.

I don't have the total price, yet. We need choose a programmer first. Probably $2000+ for ~100 blogs.

So far I found this guy:

User: chuwaka

His website: http://chuwaka.com

Thread with some reviews webmastertalkforums

I'm getting in contact with him. Further, I have left to look at Zennoposter's official forum.

When we know the price, we can see how many people we are going to take in this group buy.

I think we also need to make an limit, the chances that people afterwards make our bought templates public, would be to high with to many people participating.

regards

Count me in as well!

100 blogs would be awesome, and yes we have to make the group limited. there should be a policy that no one can share it.

Originally Posted by Dark Knight

100 blogs would be awesome, and yes we have to make the group limited. there should be a policy that no one can share it.

I agree, also no selling of services using these templates. Otherwise, it will be less effective for the whole group. I suggest only for personal usage.

Originally Posted by Dark Knight

100 blogs would be awesome, and yes we have to make the group limited. there should be a policy that no one can share it.

Question is once the programmer takes the time to make it, what is going to stop HIM from sharing it and making even more money by scaling up?

Originally Posted by Getwhatchuwant

Question is once the programmer takes the time to make it, what is going to stop HIM from sharing it and making even more money by scaling up?

yeah this is a good question, thats why we have to find a good and trustable programmer. might be someone from BHW so if he does that thn he will be shitlist + we can complain about him abusing copyrights

Originally Posted by Getwhatchuwant

Question is once the programmer takes the time to make it, what is going to stop HIM from sharing it and making even more money by scaling up?

Well, I guess here we just have to trust him.
He says he won't. Otherwise, he is going to suffer by BHW and get a bad reputation all over the internet marketing net

But this guy sounds legit.

This is what I got:

Regular price for one blog (registrar+poster) - $15-25.

As example:
blog.com - simple template - $15;
wordpress.com - hard to realize - $23.

This is what he said further:
It is desirable to give me blogs part to part. I will evaluate them, make them, you will pay, I'll send them to you and we go to the next list!

I think this is safe for both sites. So we can do it like this:

1. I pay the first couple of blogs, and get them
2. Next list, second group-buyer pay's the same price, he get's both the new one's and mine
3. Third list, third group-buyer pay's the same price, he get's all previous one's and the new one

In the end, we all have paid the same and all have all the blogs. Period.

Agreement between the participants:
- You are not allowed to sell them or give them away
- You are not allowed to offer this as a service
- Everyone has to pay the same
- Only personal usage

We could also make a "private" forum, were we can fix problems on the templates together, if s.th. get's changed on the blogs.

Anyone anything against it? Feel free to share your mind.

Originally Posted by Dark Knight

100 blogs would be awesome, and yes we have to make the group limited. there should be a policy that no one can share it.

I don't really see the point, almost all of the templates would have to be updated bi-weekly or monthly, at least if people didn't know what they were doing (which I assume most do not)
I actually have 92 reg/posting templates working, but some require manual work at some point during the process (there's a pause there and you need to click... yola and blog.yahoo among a few others that are all java based and mask buttons)...
Who would even support this? Yes a forum may work, but I assume quickly the templates would become useless.

Tripod and angelfire templates require someone who seriously understands ZP... I think Tripod required 4 stages of parsing out DOM text at different points just to get it to work.

Wordpress is one of the EASIEST templates to make work (even with the changes they just recently did)
Try tumblr exact post link pulling templates and get back to me (which recently had to be fixed as well)

Anyway, I may donate a few of the easier templates to the forum, but I definitely won't be supporting them. Let me know which ones in particular you want via PM (I have 90% of the sites in phpbuilt's thread working + a lot that aren't in the thread)

My templates all video embed though... they're not just article dropping ones.
You will also need to create a standard File extension to the crap these templates are pulling from (article text files, subdomains, email addresses, etc). Unless it is simply assumed everyone knows how to change these.

Likewise, you need tons of free pop3 email addresses without a spam filter. So by far this would be the most important "starting place"
Fair warning, a lot of the changes these web 2.0s make on the regular are not "easy fixes"

Sounds good! How should we proceed?

Originally Posted by albaniax

Well, I guess here we just have to trust him.
He says he won't. Otherwise, he is going to suffer by BHW and get a bad reputation all over the internet marketing net

But this guy sounds legit.

This is what I got:

Regular price for one blog (registrar+poster) - $15-25.

As example:
blog.com - simple template - $15;
wordpress.com - hard to realize - $23.

This is what he said further:
It is desirable to give me blogs part to part. I will evaluate them, make them, you will pay, I'll send them to you and we go to the next list!

I think this is safe for both sites. So we can do it like this:

1. I pay the first couple of blogs, and get them
2. Next list, second group-buyer pay's the same price, he get's both the new one's and mine
3. Third list, third group-buyer pay's the same price, he get's all previous one's and the new one

In the end, we all have paid the same and all have all the blogs. Period.

Agreement between the participants:
- You are not allowed to sell them or give them away
- You are not allowed to offer this as a service
- Everyone has to pay the same
- Only personal usage

We could also make a "private" forum, were we can fix problems on the templates together, if s.th. get's changed on the blogs.

Anyone anything against it? Feel free to share your mind.

The price far to me, I am down for that. However, I would like suggest you about the pricing. lets say the coder want $100 and we have 10 people each has to pay $10 right. So why not we all pay the money to you and you can pay to the coder. btw we need to make the group asap.

I know a good programmer.

Dont think he would use zennoposter.

Whats your skype?

Originally Posted by Dark Knight

The price far to me, I am down for that. However, I would like suggest you about the pricing. lets say the coder want $100 and we have 10 people each has to pay $10 right. So why not we all pay the money to you and you can pay to the coder. btw we need to make the group asap.

This would also be possible, so the other one's don't have to wait, that would be unfair I realise.

@Expertoen
Thanks, I appreciate your thought's about this.

But I see it like this:

1. We learn from the templates making better bots ourselves for the future. At some point, we all bought Zennoposter to make our own bots.

Of course, considering the programmer does a good job. Also, we have a choice to choose another programmer for the second pack of templates aswell, if the first one doesn't make blog's good enough.

2. When there are template's left, who need updates and no one in the group can fix it, heck for a couple of dollars we can let it be fixed.

Then there's the Zennoposter official forum, where we can get help when in some stages there's no way around.

3. The group buy makes it cheap so it's not a big headache when s.th. doesn't work out as supposed + as we don't pay all blogs at once, we can still choose to not continue, when we see that it simply doesn't work out.

Ok, so far we have these who want to participate:


Albaniax
Dark Knight
volund
isabellamelendez
bigeazy
secretboy08
TeamRoyster
jb1978


A couple of more are possible.
The other's which I didn't mentioned, post here so that we all can see.
Other's who want to drop out, let me know!

can you pm me the blogs that you want done? i have zen and make templates daily so I might already have them done.

Why not do it ourself?

If we find 10-20 user that can do 5-10 templates and share with each other that would be great too...

guys,i see you are interested in templates...
I would love to give you my offer, but i dont like this group buy idea from the start. This will get abused and templates will be shared all around.

my price for 50 blogs would be 800$

So you have a scalpel and the latest surgical gear for free, but you have t put some time into getting used to operating them. It's stuff you can dissect individual neurons with. Then somebody comes and gives you a chainsaw for $350. You go "cool I can be a surgeon now".

If you want to automate stuff I recommend one of the two:

1. If you know a programming language use that
2. If you don't already know a programming language, learn Python - it is the best for automation scripts. Combined with mechanize or something similar you can automate anything on web.

Zenno is for people who can only point and click. It is the chainsaw. You can do stuff with it, you just can't do it the best way possible. I can guarantee you, building an equivalent script in Python is almost as fast than in ZennoPoster and building a complex system is impossible in ZennoPoster and if it would be possible would take you longer than in Python.


I know some of you don't know how to code. I have nothing against you. I'm just saying that if you are serious about doing SEO long term and with maximum effectiveness, you should start learning to code yesterday. Is not that hard, the reason is hard is because you start with the mindset "i don't really want to learn this new cryptic stuff which is hard". Don't think it is trivial either. It requires commitment and the mental power to not quit after spending 3 days trying to figure out a bug/error. In those 3 days which to you an outsider sound like a waste of time, that is when you truly learn it well.


A buddy of mine considered using ZP because overall it is one of the best architected SEO frameworks out there. I also considered using it. We are both PHP coders. I got to play with ZP for a day, the point and click part got me tired fast but I stuck with it. Then I discovered it has an API and I can manually code in PHP (or C#) the scripts. I almost had an orgasm. Then my buddy told me it is buggy and the PHP scripts dont work well.



Thinking about long term I decided I can not depend on a system made by somebody else, that also happens to be buggy. Hence personally I will go with PHP submitters and where AJAX/JS is involved I will hook up into Python scripts. That way I build the system 100% per my specs and if a site changes something it only takes me like 5-15min to adapt the script. Not to mention I can code change auto-detection into the scripts so I know when something was modified.


Oh, by the way, wordpress.com is dumb easy to automate registration and posting. Doesn't even have captcha.


I'm not trashing your thread or what you're trying to do, I think it is a nice cooperation and I wish you good luck. I can see serious problems with it - when scripts will stop working - but maybe you find a way to take care of that part too. My point is, if you're serious and committed to grow in SEO, learn how to code (again, Python is best for this). If you're young (< 25yo) you have no excuse not to, your mind is in great shape and you can learn stuff fast. But then again, it's more a matter of psychological tiredness than actual age. Seriously, give it a go! Dedicate 3h/day to learning how to code. If you do, remember this one thing:


When you're just starting to learn to become a coder, do not learn a language! That might not make sense but if you try to learn an actual programming language without having the foundation, you will find it hard and not understand much. Instead, first learn how to think like a coder - learn data structures, algorithms, pseudo code. You have to be able at this stage to develop an algorithm (solution) for a problem in terms of architecture/aproach/steps without knowing or caring about a language's specifics.


Only then you start learning an actual language! It will be very easy because you just have to find out what function/class/module does what you need for every step of the algorithm you developed in your mind.


That's why most people are mediocre at coding or find it hard to learn. They skip the most important part of learning how to become a coder.

Originally Posted by madoctopus

So you have a scalpel and the latest surgical gear for free, but you have t put some time into getting used to operating them. It's stuff you can dissect individual neurons with. Then somebody comes and gives you a chainsaw for $350. You go "cool I can be a surgeon now".

If you want to automate stuff I recommend one of the two:

1. If you know a programming language use that
2. If you don't already know a programming language, learn Python - it is the best for automation scripts. Combined with mechanize or something similar you can automate anything on web.

Zenno is for people who can only point and click. It is the chainsaw. You can do stuff with it, you just can't do it the best way possible. I can guarantee you, building an equivalent script in Python is almost as fast than in ZennoPoster and building a complex system is impossible in ZennoPoster and if it would be possible would take you longer than in Python.


I know some of you don't know how to code. I have nothing against you. I'm just saying that if you are serious about doing SEO long term and with maximum effectiveness, you should start learning to code yesterday. Is not that hard, the reason is hard is because you start with the mindset "i don't really want to learn this new cryptic stuff which is hard". Don't think it is trivial either. It requires commitment and the mental power to not quit after spending 3 days trying to figure out a bug/error. In those 3 days which to you an outsider sound like a waste of time, that is when you truly learn it well.


A buddy of mine considered using ZP because overall it is one of the best architected SEO frameworks out there. I also considered using it. We are both PHP coders. I got to play with ZP for a day, the point and click part got me tired fast but I stuck with it. Then I discovered it has an API and I can manually code in PHP (or C#) the scripts. I almost had an orgasm. Then my buddy told me it is buggy and the PHP scripts dont work well.



Thinking about long term I decided I can not depend on a system made by somebody else, that also happens to be buggy. Hence personally I will go with PHP submitters and where AJAX/JS is involved I will hook up into Python scripts. That way I build the system 100% per my specs and if a site changes something it only takes me like 5-15min to adapt the script. Not to mention I can code change auto-detection into the scripts so I know when something was modified.


Oh, by the way, wordpress.com is dumb easy to automate registration and posting. Doesn't even have captcha.


I'm not trashing your thread or what you're trying to do, I think it is a nice cooperation and I wish you good luck. I can see serious problems with it - when scripts will stop working - but maybe you find a way to take care of that part too. My point is, if you're serious and committed to grow in SEO, learn how to code (again, Python is best for this). If you're young (< 25yo) you have no excuse not to, your mind is in great shape and you can learn stuff fast. But then again, it's more a matter of psychological tiredness than actual age. Seriously, give it a go! Dedicate 3h/day to learning how to code. If you do, remember this one thing:


When you're just starting to learn to become a coder, do not learn a language! That might not make sense but if you try to learn an actual programming language without having the foundation, you will find it hard and not understand much. Instead, first learn how to think like a coder - learn data structures, algorithms, pseudo code. You have to be able at this stage to develop an algorithm (solution) for a problem in terms of architecture/aproach/steps without knowing or caring about a language's specifics.


Only then you start learning an actual language! It will be very easy because you just have to find out what function/class/module does what you need for every step of the algorithm you developed in your mind.


That's why most people are mediocre at coding or find it hard to learn. They skip the most important part of learning how to become a coder.

Best post I read this year +Rep.

So you have a scalpel and the latest surgical gear for free, but you have t put some time into getting used to operating them. It's stuff you can dissect individual neurons with. Then somebody comes and gives you a chainsaw for $350. You go "cool I can be a surgeon now".

If you want to automate stuff I recommend one of the two:

1. If you know a programming language use that
2. If you don't already know a programming language, learn Python - it is the best for automation scripts. Combined with mechanize or something similar you can automate anything on web.

Zenno is for people who can only point and click. It is the chainsaw. You can do stuff with it, you just can't do it the best way possible. I can guarantee you, building an equivalent script in Python is almost as fast than in ZennoPoster and building a complex system is impossible in ZennoPoster and if it would be possible would take you longer than in Python.


I know some of you don't know how to code. I have nothing against you. I'm just saying that if you are serious about doing SEO long term and with maximum effectiveness, you should start learning to code yesterday. Is not that hard, the reason is hard is because you start with the mindset "i don't really want to learn this new cryptic stuff which is hard". Don't think it is trivial either. It requires commitment and the mental power to not quit after spending 3 days trying to figure out a bug/error. In those 3 days which to you an outsider sound like a waste of time, that is when you truly learn it well.


A buddy of mine considered using ZP because overall it is one of the best architected SEO frameworks out there. I also considered using it. We are both PHP coders. I got to play with ZP for a day, the point and click part got me tired fast but I stuck with it. Then I discovered it has an API and I can manually code in PHP (or C#) the scripts. I almost had an orgasm. Then my buddy told me it is buggy and the PHP scripts dont work well.



Thinking about long term I decided I can not depend on a system made by somebody else, that also happens to be buggy. Hence personally I will go with PHP submitters and where AJAX/JS is involved I will hook up into Python scripts. That way I build the system 100% per my specs and if a site changes something it only takes me like 5-15min to adapt the script. Not to mention I can code change auto-detection into the scripts so I know when something was modified.


Oh, by the way, wordpress.com is dumb easy to automate registration and posting. Doesn't even have captcha.


I'm not trashing your thread or what you're trying to do, I think it is a nice cooperation and I wish you good luck. I can see serious problems with it - when scripts will stop working - but maybe you find a way to take care of that part too. My point is, if you're serious and committed to grow in SEO, learn how to code (again, Python is best for this). If you're young (< 25yo) you have no excuse not to, your mind is in great shape and you can learn stuff fast. But then again, it's more a matter of psychological tiredness than actual age. Seriously, give it a go! Dedicate 3h/day to learning how to code. If you do, remember this one thing:


When you're just starting to learn to become a coder, do not learn a language! That might not make sense but if you try to learn an actual programming language without having the foundation, you will find it hard and not understand much. Instead, first learn how to think like a coder - learn data structures, algorithms, pseudo code. You have to be able at this stage to develop an algorithm (solution) for a problem in terms of architecture/aproach/steps without knowing or caring about a language's specifics.


Only then you start learning an actual language! It will be very easy because you just have to find out what function/class/module does what you need for every step of the algorithm you developed in your mind.


That's why most people are mediocre at coding or find it hard to learn. They skip the most important part of learning how to become a coder.

thank you, great post

question:

can you suggest maybe 4 SEO related automation tasks that would be classified as "complete newb" "beginner" "intermediate" and "expert"?

I've tried to get into coding a few times. I can do ok, I think I have my head around the basic concepts, however as soon as I have to put together a task or project from start to finish, everything for me just falls apart - most of the courses go off into things that aren't important to me, so I'm not interested.

I'm not looking for instructions, or code, guidance, or how to complete them, just 4 types of tasks that would give me a bit of direction for where to start and where to go in the SEO coding space - I {can|should be able to} figure out the rest on my own.

I do not agree with the logic given.
Zenno is a good tool for the non programmers and one does not need to learn programming to do SEO. The point here is to have as many templates as possible at the least cost.

Anyways, what do you suggest would be the starting point for someone to learn programming viz. data strucutres etc..

Originally Posted by madoctopus

So you have a scalpel and the latest surgical gear for free, but you have t put some time into getting used to operating them. It's stuff you can dissect individual neurons with. Then somebody comes and gives you a chainsaw for $350. You go "cool I can be a surgeon now".

If you want to automate stuff I recommend one of the two:

1. If you know a programming language use that
2. If you don't already know a programming language, learn Python - it is the best for automation scripts. Combined with mechanize or something similar you can automate anything on web.

Zenno is for people who can only point and click. It is the chainsaw. You can do stuff with it, you just can't do it the best way possible. I can guarantee you, building an equivalent script in Python is almost as fast than in ZennoPoster and building a complex system is impossible in ZennoPoster and if it would be possible would take you longer than in Python.


I know some of you don't know how to code. I have nothing against you. I'm just saying that if you are serious about doing SEO long term and with maximum effectiveness, you should start learning to code yesterday. Is not that hard, the reason is hard is because you start with the mindset "i don't really want to learn this new cryptic stuff which is hard". Don't think it is trivial either. It requires commitment and the mental power to not quit after spending 3 days trying to figure out a bug/error. In those 3 days which to you an outsider sound like a waste of time, that is when you truly learn it well.


A buddy of mine considered using ZP because overall it is one of the best architected SEO frameworks out there. I also considered using it. We are both PHP coders. I got to play with ZP for a day, the point and click part got me tired fast but I stuck with it. Then I discovered it has an API and I can manually code in PHP (or C#) the scripts. I almost had an orgasm. Then my buddy told me it is buggy and the PHP scripts dont work well.



Thinking about long term I decided I can not depend on a system made by somebody else, that also happens to be buggy. Hence personally I will go with PHP submitters and where AJAX/JS is involved I will hook up into Python scripts. That way I build the system 100% per my specs and if a site changes something it only takes me like 5-15min to adapt the script. Not to mention I can code change auto-detection into the scripts so I know when something was modified.


Oh, by the way, wordpress.com is dumb easy to automate registration and posting. Doesn't even have captcha.


I'm not trashing your thread or what you're trying to do, I think it is a nice cooperation and I wish you good luck. I can see serious problems with it - when scripts will stop working - but maybe you find a way to take care of that part too. My point is, if you're serious and committed to grow in SEO, learn how to code (again, Python is best for this). If you're young (< 25yo) you have no excuse not to, your mind is in great shape and you can learn stuff fast. But then again, it's more a matter of psychological tiredness than actual age. Seriously, give it a go! Dedicate 3h/day to learning how to code. If you do, remember this one thing:


When you're just starting to learn to become a coder, do not learn a language! That might not make sense but if you try to learn an actual programming language without having the foundation, you will find it hard and not understand much. Instead, first learn how to think like a coder - learn data structures, algorithms, pseudo code. You have to be able at this stage to develop an algorithm (solution) for a problem in terms of architecture/aproach/steps without knowing or caring about a language's specifics.


Only then you start learning an actual language! It will be very easy because you just have to find out what function/class/module does what you need for every step of the algorithm you developed in your mind.


That's why most people are mediocre at coding or find it hard to learn. They skip the most important part of learning how to become a coder.

Guy's, experton already made me thought's about this, but macdopus hit the nail and made me change my mind. Thinking long-term is only wiseful. Basic classes, pointers, etc. I already understand, so my roude can continue.

But if still enough people want this, I will stick to my word and get this one going for you as promised.

Nevertheless, I have still my outsourcers left who do it manually in quality

Complete newb

1. Learn to use cURL (PHP only) or whatever HTTP retrieval library the language you choose has.
2. Learn to use a DOM parser (for PHP - phpQuery (recommended because it has error triggering if can't parse a document), simple_html_dom (no error triggering) and simple_xml (for XML parsing only))
   
   1. Learn XPath and CSS3 selectors so you can use it well
3. Scrape a piece of info from a web page (e.g. title of a post from a web page)
4. Perform a form submission (e.g. WordPress comment)

Beginner

1. Build a generic scraper that works with multiple pages of same type on same site - get all post info (title, date, author, excerpt)
2. Build a Google/Yahoo/Bing SERP scraper
3. Build a bulk PR checker
4. Build a backlink checker to get first 1000 backlinks from SEOMoz free API
5. Build a backlink checker - given a list of URLs check if a given URL exists on the page and if it is d0f0llow.

Intermediate

1. Learn curl_multi_* functions (PHP only) or multi-threaded scraping/posting (Python or other languages that support it)
2. Learn to use proxies for the requests in cURL or whatever library you are using.
3. Perform scraping or submission on a webpage that has AJAX/JS (e.g. Google Keyword Tool) - you can NOT use PHP for this, you CAN use Python + a web automation library that parses JS.
4. Identify common footprints on a certain type of platform (e.g. Drupal) and build a scraper/poster that works with multiple sites which might have somewhat different HTML structure.
5. Develop a change detector script for a form - this is to detect if the form or one or more fields in the form changed (name, type, etc) so you know when the submission script might not work). In production you use this to check if something changed and invalidate/disable the script so it doesn't keep running and failing. Then after you see this change in the logs you go and check it up and modify it to work with the new changes.

Expert

1. Use curl_multi_* in optimal mode - constant bandwidth utilization / constant number of parallel requests. In other words, once a requests completes, start a new one immediately. There is absolutely no tutorial or documentation on how to do this. Requires days of trial and error and putting together what you read.
2. Build a scraping/submission framework with classes, helper functions, etc. This is to allow you to develop scripts faster and have more stable code.
3. Learn to execute Python scripts from PHP so you can automate stuff from PHP when only Python can do the job (AJAX/JS scripts). This only if you have your main stuff in PHP, obviously.
4. Build a generic submision platform for sites of a certain type (e.g. free blogs) in such a way that you have multiple "driver/engine" classes, one for each platform and one factory (as in "factory class" design pattern) that you use without caring what platform you have to post to. So you can do stuff like $poster->createPost($postData) without carin what platform the post is being created on (wordpress.com, blogger.com, blog.com, etc.). That way you can have a foreach($platforms as $platform) loop and inside it call $platform->createPost($postData). At this stage you're already developing using design patterns and building solid shit.
5. Useful text extraction from web pages (e.g. the actual post text). You can find python algorithms on the web for this.
6. Implement complex logic/rules/algorithms combined with scraping/posting. For example with a list of WP blog URLs check for each what is the date of last post, then if it is recent (means blog is not abandoned) scrape the post, pipe it through a natural language processing function that detects the topic, pipe the topic through a natural language generation system (a comment generator) to obtain a somewhat relevant comment, then post the comment. Record post URL in database so a cronjob script checks daily for 1 month if it got approved by the webmaster. Are you still with me? lol

Originally Posted by Fwiffo

thank you, great post

question:

can you suggest maybe 4 SEO related automation tasks that would be classified as "complete newb" "beginner" "intermediate" and "expert"?

I've tried to get into coding a few times. I can do ok, I think I have my head around the basic concepts, however as soon as I have to put together a task or project from start to finish, everything for me just falls apart - most of the courses go off into things that aren't important to me, so I'm not interested.

I'm not looking for instructions, or code, guidance, or how to complete them, just 4 types of tasks that would give me a bit of direction for where to start and where to go in the SEO coding space - I {can|should be able to} figure out the rest on my own.

@imserious I know what you mean as I said I considered ZP myself. Seemed it would save me some time, but thinking down the road I would have more headaches from it, I decided to stay away.

Hard to recommend something because I only read 2 books (if even that) about programming. None of them about algorithms and data structures. Thing is I had a great informatics teacher in high school and he taught me all that very well.

Whatever you do, do not start learning with C++ - for the basics it is ok, but then once you get into pointers and memory allocation/management you will wish you weren't born.

First find answers to the "how does it work" and "what is" questions:

• How does a program work?
• How does it start, how do the instructions get executed, how does it use actual data, etc.
• How ... whatever you come up with.

• What is an instruction
• What is a variable
• What is a function
• What is a class, an object, an instance
• What is an error/exception
• etc. find answer for any question right when you have the question!

USE IRC!!!!! People forgot about this ancient technology but there's an IRC channel for every programming language. Every time you have a question go and ask for help there. Be specific, they don't like lazy people who don't read and will send you to RTFM if you don't ask the right question the right way.

It depends who you ask and what you ask. This is because some languages are harder and some are easier to start with. In turn, this makes most programmers that work in a language dumber or smarter. Let me clarify that. For example PHP is easy to start with even if you don't know how to code. It is also easy/fast to produce an usable program in PHP. Because of that, since PHP coders can get stuff done (usually poorly) without having to read a lot in advance, they are "dumber" than Java coders. Why are Java coders smarter? Well in Java you have to basically learn about half of the language and its principles before you can do something useful. There is no way you get a Java program working without understanding the program well. Also Java is more strict so building poorly designed programs in Java is less frequent, because Java forces you to do it well. But Java is way too bloated and strict for automation scripts.

So basically if you have generic algorythm/programming/structures questions is better to ask for help from a coder that uses a more difficult language because chanches are he knows the reasoning behind something.

Do not try to learn from difficult books. If you start reading a book and you're in a few chapters and you don't really get it, STOP and try a different book. Some people learn better from book1, others from book2 - it is a matter of what clicks with you.

If you're 100% newbie start with something that is targeted at retarded monkeys. I'm not being mean but learning from material way below your intelligence helps you establish a foundation you are confident on and also gives you a sense of accomplishment for actually understanding without frustration. Basically start with something targeted at beginners. Stay away from "* for dummies" books they are shit.

After you learn the basics - algorithms/data structures/pseudocode - and play with the language you chose (as in actually write some programs and learn all its basics) then it is time you take the user/developer manual where you find every single variable, function, class and module and read it all. This is to understand what is available in the language so when you need something you know where to go and what to use. Do not even try to memorize or learn anything practical from there, the purpose is just to figure out what "tools" you have at your disposal within that language so you know where to go in the future.

After you covered all this (it will take a while) you are basically at newbie level. lol, yeah really! From here starts the hard work - actually getting something useful done from A to Z. In this process you will bump into problems and exasperation. I had times when I spent a whole week on an error/bug/whatever that took me 1 minute to fix, I just didn't knew ho to "ask" for a solution or how to describe my problem. This exhausting process is where you actually learn the language well - because in that week while you were trying to fix one problem you do so much trial and error and learn so much irrelevant stuff that is unbelievable. All that stuff that was useless for your immediate problem will actually save you weeks in the future.

I think pretty much anybody can learn how to code if they have patience and a somewhat analytical mind. However I am open to the idea that maybe some people are just not wired for coding well. Like I'm not particularly wired for singing. If you spend a month and you feel like shit and you didn't learned shit and all books seem shit and cryptic and you tried quite a few of them, maybe you should really focus on your strengths and just forget about coding. But then again, maybe you were not patient enough and maybe you approached all this with doubt or hate from the beginning. Your wish to learn something should be filled with love. If you don't love the idea of learning something, the whole experience will suck or at best will be mediocre.

To find out what books to start with, go on IRC on the channels of several languages - C, C++, C#, Java, Python, PHP and ask those folks to recommend you books. Tell them you will probably start learning <insert_the_language_you_choose_here> as a language but are interested for books to learn programming foundations, algorithms, data structures, etc. Make a list with all suggestions, if some are more recommended than others start with those.

Then you do the same asking for recommended books in the IRC channel of <insert_the_language_you_choose_here> only - this is when you want to learn that language specifically.

There is also the approach of learning both the basics and a language at the same time and actually I think it is in a way a better idea because you can practice stuff and it also saves time. In this case you want a book that explains the basics (algo/structs) and has examples using an actual programming language.

Obviously check out the bestsellers on Amazon too.

Stay away from programming forums! Don't try to learn from forums, most people there are mediocre, that's why they are there. In the beginning stay away from tutorials. Tutorials don't help you to get a solid foundation but a really flimsy one. You can use tutorials after you have a foundation, just to find quick solutions to specific problems/needs.

Good luck!

Oh and BTW, the fact you learn how to code is not mutually exclusive with buying ZennoPoster templates. I mean is not like you're going to become comfortable coding production-grade tools in the next couple of months. On average I would say it will take you about 3 months minimum and at least 3 completed projects (not simple shit but actual projects that take 2-3 weeks) to become comfortable with coding.

darn can you calculate how many tentacles you have madoctopus ?

Originally Posted by madoctopus

@imserious I know what you mean as I said I considered ZP myself. Seemed it would save me some time, but thinking down the road I would have more headaches from it, I decided to stay away.

Hard to recommend something because I only read 2 books (if even that) about programming. None of them about algorithms and data structures. Thing is I had a great informatics teacher in high school and he taught me all that very well.

Whatever you do, do not start learning with C++ - for the basics it is ok, but then once you get into pointers and memory allocation/management you will wish you weren't born.

First find answers to the "how does it work" and "what is" questions:

• How does a program work?
• How does it start, how do the instructions get executed, how does it use actual data, etc.
• How ... whatever you come up with.

• What is an instruction
• What is a variable
• What is a function
• What is a class, an object, an instance
• What is an error/exception
• etc. find answer for any question right when you have the question!

USE IRC!!!!! People forgot about this ancient technology but there's an IRC channel for every programming language. Every time you have a question go and ask for help there. Be specific, they don't like lazy people who don't read and will send you to RTFM if you don't ask the right question the right way.

It depends who you ask and what you ask. This is because some languages are harder and some are easier to start with. In turn, this makes most programmers that work in a language dumber or smarter. Let me clarify that. For example PHP is easy to start with even if you don't know how to code. It is also easy/fast to produce an usable program in PHP. Because of that, since PHP coders can get stuff done (usually poorly) without having to read a lot in advance, they are "dumber" than Java coders. Why are Java coders smarter? Well in Java you have to basically learn about half of the language and its principles before you can do something useful. There is no way you get a Java program working without understanding the program well. Also Java is more strict so building poorly designed programs in Java is less frequent, because Java forces you to do it well. But Java is way too bloated and strict for automation scripts.

So basically if you have generic algorythm/programming/structures questions is better to ask for help from a coder that uses a more difficult language because chanches are he knows the reasoning behind something.

Do not try to learn from difficult books. If you start reading a book and you're in a few chapters and you don't really get it, STOP and try a different book. Some people learn better from book1, others from book2 - it is a matter of what clicks with you.

If you're 100% newbie start with something that is targeted at retarded monkeys. I'm not being mean but learning from material way below your intelligence helps you establish a foundation you are confident on and also gives you a sense of accomplishment for actually understanding without frustration. Basically start with something targeted at beginners. Stay away from "* for dummies" books they are shit.

After you learn the basics - algorithms/data structures/pseudocode - and play with the language you chose (as in actually write some programs and learn all its basics) then it is time you take the user/developer manual where you find every single variable, function, class and module and read it all. This is to understand what is available in the language so when you need something you know where to go and what to use. Do not even try to memorize or learn anything practical from there, the purpose is just to figure out what "tools" you have at your disposal within that language so you know where to go in the future.

After you covered all this (it will take a while) you are basically at newbie level. lol, yeah really! From here starts the hard work - actually getting something useful done from A to Z. In this process you will bump into problems and exasperation. I had times when I spent a whole week on an error/bug/whatever that took me 1 minute to fix, I just didn't knew ho to "ask" for a solution or how to describe my problem. This exhausting process is where you actually learn the language well - because in that week while you were trying to fix one problem you do so much trial and error and learn so much irrelevant stuff that is unbelievable. All that stuff that was useless for your immediate problem will actually save you weeks in the future.

I think pretty much anybody can learn how to code if they have patience and a somewhat analytical mind. However I am open to the idea that maybe some people are just not wired for coding well. Like I'm not particularly wired for singing. If you spend a month and you feel like shit and you didn't learned shit and all books seem shit and cryptic and you tried quite a few of them, maybe you should really focus on your strengths and just forget about coding. But then again, maybe you were not patient enough and maybe you approached all this with doubt or hate from the beginning. Your wish to learn something should be filled with love. If you don't love the idea of learning something, the whole experience will suck or at best will be mediocre.

To find out what books to start with, go on IRC on the channels of several languages - C, C++, C#, Java, Python, PHP and ask those folks to recommend you books. Tell them you will probably start learning <insert_the_language_you_choose_here> as a language but are interested for books to learn programming foundations, algorithms, data structures, etc. Make a list with all suggestions, if some are more recommended than others start with those.

Then you do the same asking for recommended books in the IRC channel of <insert_the_language_you_choose_here> only - this is when you want to learn that language specifically.

There is also the approach of learning both the basics and a language at the same time and actually I think it is in a way a better idea because you can practice stuff and it also saves time. In this case you want a book that explains the basics (algo/structs) and has examples using an actual programming language.

Obviously check out the bestsellers on Amazon too.

Stay away from programming forums! Don't try to learn from forums, most people there are mediocre, that's why they are there. In the beginning stay away from tutorials. Tutorials don't help you to get a solid foundation but a really flimsy one. You can use tutorials after you have a foundation, just to find quick solutions to specific problems/needs.

Good luck!

Oh and BTW, the fact you learn how to code is not mutually exclusive with buying ZennoPoster templates. I mean is not like you're going to become comfortable coding production-grade tools in the next couple of months. On average I would say it will take you about 3 months minimum and at least 3 completed projects (not simple shit but actual projects that take 2-3 weeks) to become comfortable with coding.

@madoctopus you should give motivational speeches, I don't know that much about coding but you make me want to learn it lol

Originally Posted by Execute

@madoctopus you should give motivational speeches, I don't know that much about coding but you make me want to learn it lol

I'm not very motivational. Not even for myself lol. I just had a lot of interaction with programming, including in school and I know why I got to love coding (after sucking ass at it first 2 years in highschool, and hating it) and why most people think is rocket science and hard. As with pretty much everything, a teacher can either make you love it and understand it well, or completely hate it. Me for one love an explanation of why I should learn something and how I should learn it. Never had a teacher to tell me that about a course. I do think is important though. Contrary to what some may think, best way to learn coding is by yourself, practicing it - if you dont read it and practice it at your own pace, you can't learn it (as with everything, again).

Originally Posted by madoctopus

I'm not very motivational. Not even for myself lol. I just had a lot of interaction with programming, including in school and I know why I got to love coding (after sucking ass at it first 2 years in highschool, and hating it) and why most people think is rocket science and hard. As with pretty much everything, a teacher can either make you love it and understand it well, or completely hate it. Me for one love an explanation of why I should learn something and how I should learn it. Never had a teacher to tell me that about a course. I do think is important though. Contrary to what some may think, best way to learn coding is by yourself, practicing it - if you dont read it and practice it at your own pace, you can't learn it (as with everything, again).

Thank you madoctopus for your contributions here. I want to briefly address some of your suggestions (they are all good, but a little, well out of touch?)

Zennoposter can do things that would be quite difficult to do in a single coding language like you imply, namely, because ZP is not socketed, it can avoid a key problem (the javascript click bot development which from my research is not a straightforward solution, though I'm not a java coder at all)

At present, ZP serves an imperative function for me. Something I could not "wait and learn" to implement. I'm dedicated to continuing to grow and develop a mostly PHP solution that I could run through cron jobs (thanks to Autumn for the suggestion), and Python certainly seems like an even easier solution... where I disagree is as follows:
1) ZP is not buggy at all, users who design the templates are simply bad at it... if you are clicking buttons and not paying attention to how ZP is tagging them, you're doing it wrong. It's very easy to get 100% registration/posting rates on most sites
2) There are certain things that automating them in PHP/Python would be a nightmare, but aren't so bad in ZP (though I'm thinking more in sockets here, so maybe not if you did a windowed mode).
3) There is a content limitation here, that I cannot stress enough. ZP's speed (when done correctly) is already at the boundary of what I believe is a maximum a person can generate good, highly spun content. So doubling or tripling this speed via PHP/Python may in fact not lead to productivity increases (would need to be tested).

This is not to imply my ultimate goal isn't something along the lines you mention here. It's been an enduring study for the last 1-2 months trying to pick up more and more PHP. I think it may be even easier to just do it in Python as you suggest though.
Now if we're talking about anything besides web 2.0s, then I wholly agree with you. The coded solution will win every time.

@Expertpeon

ZP is not socketed? You mean it is not using sockets? What is it using then? Why is using sockets bad? Ultimately from what I know (might be wrong) all programs use sockets in the end (low level).

Javascript click? Can you give an example? Python + an automation library that parses JavaScript works just fine with Ajax/JavaScript enabled sites. PHP doesn't. However you can have a PHP script comunicate with Python script.

At present, ZP serves an imperative function for me. Something I could not "wait and learn" to implement.

Yeah, I totally get that.

1. I'm not saying the point-n-click part of ZP is buggy but the PHP API interfacing (the code generation or whatever is called). But I haven't played with that myself, is just what my buddy told me.
2. I don't think I agree. Give me a specific reason so I follow you.
3. There is no such thing as too fast. That being said, as long as I can do something and I can do it with a positive ROI i'm happy. I only start looking into optimizing performance of something if it is a problem or brings a major benefit. However, while I may agree with the "content limitation" I think when you have a bunch of scripts all on one server it helps a lot to have them optimized. Otherwise you need 5 servers instead of 1.

In the end the reason why I prefer a programming language is because I have full flexibility and control over everything. That means I can build things exactly how I want. I think ZP is one of the best commercial software right now and I don't say that lightly. I mean, it does allow a non-coder to do stuff that would otherwise be impossible.

Originally Posted by madoctopus

@Expertpeon

ZP is not socketed? You mean it is not using sockets? What is it using then? Why is using sockets bad? Ultimately from what I know (might be wrong) all programs use sockets in the end (low level).

It just uses browsers. Someone can feel free to correct me if I misunderstand how it works though. There is nothing bad about using sockets (actually there's mostly only good things about it)

Javascript click? Can you give an example? Python + an automation library that parses JavaScript works just fine with Ajax/JavaScript enabled sites. PHP doesn't. However you can have a PHP script comunicate with Python script.

I'm curious to see this work, as I was discussing how to automate something that the code for a button is hidden inside a server side script, and the button is actually simply called by a one off script they make up (moonfruit does this).
When you look at the rendered page code it's something like <button submit></button submit> where this particular line of code calls a script.
I was told, by several programmers, the only way to work with it is to create a click interface (that will click a certain number of pixels or in a defined area)
Not sure if this is true, just what I was told.

This is the kind of thing PHP couldn't really handle (again, I would love to be proven wrong here, but I tried to create several tools to automate these sites myself with no success, but this could also have been a problem in ZP as well with executing them).

There is no such thing as too fast. That being said, as long as I can do something and I can do it with a positive ROI i'm happy. I only start looking into optimizing performance of something if it is a problem or brings a major benefit. However, while I may agree with the "content limitation" I think when you have a bunch of scripts all on one server it helps a lot to have them optimized. Otherwise you need 5 servers instead of 1.

I agree completely, of course. I was simply pointing out a discrepancy between what is "essential" and what is merely "more convenient".
A self contained programmed solution would of course be better (in most languages, though I doubt java would be faster).
I view ZP as an intermediate solution, that allows me to keep increasing revenue (a lot) while continuing to grow.
And while I hate being a bit of a grouch about programming, I simply find fixing templates in ZP to be infinitely easier and faster than doing such a thing in PHP (again I haven't even really thought about a python solution though)

From what I know the browser itself, as any program who communicates with other computers, use sockets.

I was told, by several programmers, the only way to work with it is to create a click interface (that will click a certain number of pixels or in a defined area)

Let me guess, desktop coders (C# and the kind)? They would think about that x-pixels approach if they didn't knew about libraries that emulate browsers.
It can be done from what I know by Python+Selenium (http://seleniumhq.org/). No, PHP can not do it (unless you make PHP work with selenium which I never looked into). Python+Mechanize can't either.

Theoretically at least, you have other choices either but are overly complicated - combining PHP/Python/Whatever with a macro platform like AutoHotKey or iMacros.

I was actually referencing socket API. Again I'm at best a hapless beginner when it comes to this, so my lingo may be off, but I was referencing the socket delivery of inputs rather than loading pages in a browser itself

Originally Posted by madoctopus

Let me guess, desktop coders (C# and the kind)?

Correct they were a bunch of C guys. Python may just be what I should have been learning though all this time.

They would think about that x-pixels approach if they didn't knew about libraries that emulate browsers.
It can be done from what I know by Python+Selenium (http://seleniumhq.org/). No, PHP can not do it (unless you make PHP work with selenium which I never looked into). Python+Mechanize can't either.

Why use zenno why not get a software made for that much to create and post on these sites?

I am in if you get a software made! Instead of zenno..

My 2 cents..

@massguru unless you do it yourself ro have a very reliable coder to handle the updates you have the same problem as with ZP. As a matter of fact if you're not a coder you end up worse, at least you can update ZP templates yourself to a certain extent. Also, such a system is not trivial to build if you want to do it right and personally I would not trust 90%+ of the coders to do it right - you dont need just a coder, you need a coder who understands the SEO principles and reasoning behind how he builds it.

Originally Posted by madoctopus

@massguru unless you do it yourself ro have a very reliable coder to handle the updates you have the same problem as with ZP. As a matter of fact if you're not a coder you end up worse, at least you can update ZP templates yourself to a certain extent. Also, such a system is not trivial to build if you want to do it right and personally I would not trust 90%+ of the coders to do it right - you dont need just a coder, you need a coder who understands the SEO principles and reasoning behind how he builds it.

Agreed, coding such a thing in any language (with the goal faster submissions and higher success rates than you could get with ZP) would be a monumental undertaking... and I suspect, require a degree of coding ability you'd be looking at a $20-30k tool.

Also you would regularly be shelling out money for fixes to said tool. Most coders with degrees in Comp Sci, couldn't do it. It's beyond their abilities (maybe not 10-15 years into their careers though?)
I'd say roughly 90-95% of "programmers" only program in Java, and if you're lucky, a bit of C... Java is next to useless if speed is the goal, and C is going to req a lot of knowledge. Python is a high-level language like Java, but does not seemingly have its incredible slowness executing tasks.
Though I think, in general, you could use any high-level language for this task like Perl?