The code was poorly presented, and poorly formatted. It wasn’t at ALL my normal caliber of work, so I went ahead and rewrote the concept into a tighter little wrapper.

I am using the Gattica gem to interact with the Google Analytics API.

This little script provides a wrapper around the gem that easily allows you to extract your sites organic keywords and sort them based on the number of unique entrances to your site via each keyword.

The techniques and discipline applied to researching memes can also be applied to brands and niche specific search queries. Its useful to research this kind of information because it lets you know where your audience is communicating. Knowing where your brand/niche evangelists are communicating is an incredible asset, because they really have their fingers on the pulse of that brand/niche, and people LISTEN to them. By knowing where the evangelists communicate, you are in a position to deal with bad PR before it spins out of control; you’re also in position to exploit and leverage opportunities you might have missed if you were just relying on Google News Alerts, and BlogSearch.

This isn’t just about researching the buzz on social sites like Twitter. I mean, let’s face it, Twitter has a fairly narrow demographic. For example, let’s say you want to know how to best communicate to real estate investors. You better know where the realtors are hanging out on the web. You’ve got to get your hands dirty and identify the popular opinion blogs, the obscure dicussion forums, and so on.

I use alot of the obvious tools to do my research, like google search, blog search, technorati, etc, but, my favorite new tool is BoardReader. It is, hands down, one of the best research tools I’ve used in recent months.

Let’s say I wanted to find out where people are talking about condos in Toronto. I’d goto BoardReader and peform this search

With that one search, I’ve just been given a whole group of new websites to research and monitor. Now I know that people are talking about Toronto Condos on forums such as SkyScraper Forum, and InvestorsHub  and Realestatetalks.com and Cyburbiaforums etc etc etc.

And the best part of this is that BoardReader gives us a list of recent/relevant topics and posts on these forums. This makes it incredibly easy for us to monitor the conversations, find the opinion makers, and connect with our audience through meaningful, relevant and timely communications.

Situation:
Shared Host
CPanel
No SSH Access

Solution 1: FTP Transfer Folder  to server, Mechanize/CURL Install
Process:

1) Collect variables: database, username, cpanel login, cpanel password, keywords

2) If necessary, create databases and users on CPanel host (using CURL, or Mechanize)

Here is a function I use to create CPanel DBs:
def self.create_db(base_url, cpanel_loc, cpanel_user, cpanel_pass, db, dbuser, dbpass)
agent = WWW::Mechanize.new
agent.user_agent_alias = $USER_AGENTS[rand($USER_AGENTS.length)]
agent.basic_auth(cpanel_user,cpanel_pass)
url = “http://#{base_url}#{cpanel_loc}/frontend/x/sql/”
agent.get(url)
agent.get(”#{url}adddb.html?db=#{db}”)
agent.get(”#{url}adduser.html?user=#{dbuser}&pass=#{dbpass}”)
agent.get(”#{url}addusertodb.html?user=#{cpanel_user}_#{dbuser}&db=#{cpanel_user}_#{db}&ALL=ALL”)
end

3) For each keyword in the keyword list, create a different blog

3a) Write local wordpress-config file with user entered data

3b) Pull a random theme from local theme library

3c) Pull required plugins from local plugin library

3d) Create local folder for blog, copy base wordpress install files, plus files from 3a,3b,3c

4) Begin FTP Transfer of files from master server to destination on install server (Thread this process to speed up)

5) Mechanize/CURL to appropriate Install URL, then Mechanize/CURL through management panel to activate theme selected in 3b and plugins selected in 3c

*Repeat step 3 for each keyword supplied to the function

NOTES: This method, when optimized and threaded, can install about one blog / 90 seconds. The major speed limiting factor is the FTP transferring. A base wordpress install already has a TON of files, and depending on how many plugins and how many themes you are including, the number of files really slows down the FTP transfer. I recommend creating a personal WP base install with ALL of the junk and cruft removed (ie: the management panel niceities like password strength checking etc..). Removing all non-essential files from a wordpress base install can really speed up FTP transfers. This is a good practice anyways, since we want to be as resource efficient as possible, since we’re going to cram this shared server with nothing but blogs.

Solution 2: FTP package file to server, extract through file manager, Mechanize/CURL Install
Process:

1) Collect variables: database, username, cpanel login, cpanel password, keywords

2) If necessary, create databases and users on CPanel host (using CURL, or Mechanize)

3) For each keyword in the keyword list, create a different blog

3a) Write local wordpress-config file with user entered data

3b) Pull a random theme from local theme library

3c) Pull required plugins from local plugin library

3d) Create local folder for blog, copy base wordpress install files, plus files from 3a,3b,3c

3e) Package folder

4) FTP Transfer Package from master server to destination on install server

5) Mechanize or CURL CPanel Filemanager to unzip file on server

6) Mechanize/CURL to appropriate Install URL, then Mechanize/CURL through management panel to activate theme selected in 3b and plugins selected in 3c

*Repeat step 3 for each keyword supplied to the function

NOTES: This method, when optimized and threaded, can install one in about 25 seconds. Once again, the major impediment to speed here is the FTP transfer. This is still a lot faster than Solution 1, and is perhaps the best solution for a situation where you can’t use SSH. I should note that you could also just create one central tarball and then mechanize/CURL the CPanel File Manager to copy and unzip it for each new install, but…I really hate to use that amount of screen automation. It just tends to break down so often.

Situation:
Shared / VPN Server
CPanel
SSH Access

Solution 1: Master Server Central Wordpress Install / Mechanize CURL Install
Process:
1) Upload base Wordpress install files, Theme Library, Plugin Library from master server to central location on install server
2) Create a deployment file that does the following:
2a) Copy base Wordpress install to destination folder using SSH
2b) Set up symbolic links between destination install themes & plugins, with the central libraries uploaded in step 1.
2c) If necessary, create databases and users
2d) Create Wordpress Config file based on information supplied by master server
3) Mechanize/CURL to appropriate Install URL, then Mechanize/CURL through management panel to activate desired theme & plugins.
* For each blog you wish to install, just upload a new deployment file

NOTES: Once you have installed the central libraries, this method is extremely fast.

CONCLUSIONS: At the end of the day, it is definitely faster and more space efficient if you have SSH access through which you can automate the install process. Unfortunately, many shared hosts don’t offer SSH access (some offer it only if you provide some form of government identification). Many people go for shared hosting situations because they are very cheap, low-risk and you can afford to buy many different hosting packages with different IP addresses. For people who are running more sophisticated networks and have greater resources, VPS situations (without CPanel) are preferable, since they are more stable with more available resources, and of course, SSH, which really makes automation a breeze.

Automating the deployment and install of Wordpress blogs can be a really frustrating process to wade through. That said, ..blah….blah…and…gratifying….blah…1000 blogs….blah blah…button click….bla
h…elite spammer…blah blah

With the number of people openly discussing CAPTCHA solving techniques and posting examples, the efficacy of the CAPTCHA as a method for curbing spam is becoming questionable at best.  People are automating CAPTCHA decoding left right and center, and those few CAPTCHAs that can’t be easily automated are simply run through services like captchasolver.com which use Amazons Mechanical Turk API (at least, I think it uses Mechanical Turk. I may be wrong.)

At any rate, blackhat-seo.com just posted a great list of CAPTCHA breaking resources, so if you are interested in reading more about how to break CAPTCHAs, or you are just interested in seeing how ubiquitous CAPTCHA breaking has become, I recommend you head over there and check it out.

If you were the head of the Marketing / PR team responsible for the QuickBooks brand, would you not lay an egg upon seeing http://weallhatequickbooks.com/ ?

This is a great example of how Twitter can be used to impact brand reputations on the Internet. It’s reminiscent of the @TechCrunch vs./ Comcast incident. Regardless, it’s a brilliant promotion for the folks at less everything

Don’t blame me! Blame Twitter!!!! I seem to do so much more talking on Twitter about things I’d normally write on this blog.  It’s shameful I know.

Let’s recap some stuff that’s been going on recently.

- I found a pretty awesome collection of downloadable dictionary databases, which is exactly the kind of thing that I get excited about. It’s like finding buried treasure. We all know about Word Net, but there are some other really great pieces of data in there as well.

- Esrun outed a trick I told him about a while back.

Never mind the fact that I asked him not to talk about it…who cares….Esrun is practically a fucking saint for giving you all his little Gmail Account Creator script.  So he can say whatever he wants.

Basically, when you are mass creating google accounts, after a few accounts are created, google will start serving you” sorry” messages instead of a captcha. The trick to get around this is to request the google captcha from one IP, but submit the form data from a second IP. Google doesn’t cross reference the submitting IP with the requesting IP. I think this is somewhat tied into the fact that Google uses the same captcha/account provisioning service for several of its different web properties (Gmail, Blogger, etc).

So basically, all you need to create unlimited Gmail accounts is two IPs because Google isn’t cross referencing them.

You know…come to think of it, I am somewhat depressed that Esrun stole my thunder on this one. You filthy sonuvabitch…..

Anyways, now Google will most likely patch it up pretty quick, so get on it now my friends!

- Thar be drama a brewin’ over at WickedFire, as Jon baits Shoemoney and then receives a C&D, which of course leads to more drama. I have always liked Wicked Fire, but I feel that this is a little bit….much.  Anyways, I posted my thoughts over there so I wont repeat them here.

And with that, I’m off to enjoy a well deserved weekend.

Play nice kids.

Allow me to present a brief illustration of how I presumed I’d go about using Jott to spam the intertubes:

By the way: They’ve got “Justin dials Jott” on the left and content getting posted on “James’ Blog” on the right. So hey, Those guys may have raised $5.4 million but somewhere in the company I bet there’s a marketing coordinator who really isn’t pulling his weight.

Anyways, turns out Jott has a 30 second time limit to your message so its not like I can have it transpose Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson or something.  Oh well, pretty diagram at least.

Moving on…..

Here are some free chunks of data I came across lately. Most of them are statistical sets but there is one file called bankresearch that I think is a score

Being the type of guy who loves a cheat sheet / set of crib notes. I really like what Wobblelab has created.

An oldie that I recently found useful again, the Typetester tool is incredibly useful.

And lastly, but certainly not least, have you heard of Dapper yet?

Check out this service provided by:

http://bot-filter.com/

It’s still in ‘testing’ phase, and I’m pretty sure that this site won’t last long, so check it out while you can.

Basically, it will let you put in a URL to send human traffic to, and a seperate URL to send bot traffic to. As far as I can deduce, this service only identifies a bot based on it’s user-agent, so obviously it’s not entirely perfect…also..I have some reservations about the funky looking redirect page you get when following the cloaked link……but it does make it incredibly easy for you all to try your hand at basic cloaking.

In a ruby on rails app, there is a yml file that declares all the database connection info. It is typically stored in the /config/database.yml folder. Now if a rails app is properly set up, this folder is never publically accessible.

But some people are idiots, as we all know.

Bonus points go out to the person who can figure out the google query that turns up database.yml files

OK, that was fun. What else do we have here today……

Going one step beyond the View Source Tool I linked to yesterday, today I want to show you the SEO Text Browser. This little tool returns some salient SEO information for the target URL plus its content. Annnnnnnd…..wait for it…….it follows redirects.

DabbleDB is really cool. I used to work with a lovely young lady who’s partner is one of the lead guys on that project.  Last I heard they were digging around for some VC funding…I dont know if they ever got it, but regardless, DabbleDB is very very cool. This project is pretty ground breaking in my opinion, and has serious implications for the way data is stored, gathered, and shared on the intertube.

Check out this DabbleDB application of XSS Vectors

There’s your link love for the day! Enjoy!

Ive decided to start making regular brief posts highlighting some of the interesting/notable things I come across.

RagePank has an interesting article about Disabling PHPSESSID’s to avoid duplicate content issues in the SERP’s

Here is an interesting online View Source Tool that lets you do some reconnaissance on whatever website you are currently researching. Sure there’s Firebug, Live HTTP Headers, Tamper Data and more, but this is still neat. There’s potential to leverage this for small amounts of data extraction, but it doesnt follow redirects.

Jason Stallings talked about a feature I never knew Google Images had: The ability to recognize your face.

V-nessa.net has a ton of WICKED articles. Her latest is on Mass Moving CPanel accounts, something which I personally have struggled with.

There’s your link love for the day.

Enjoy!