BIG UPDATE ~ TutorialIndex.com - Tutorial Search Engine

Made a slight back-end improvement.

- When a link gets reported, the administrator gets and e-mail with the reported link id.
- Added Cookies consent because of EU regulations.

In order to get better search results, I dumped the old syntax which was something like:
WHERE search_term LIKE "test"

Moved to FULLTEXT search, which is using MATCH('db-structure') AGAINST('test')

This way, better results should be fetched from the script.

Also, added Score rating, where highest matches by score are showed first.

SmashingMagazine.com just added to the index.

Reached 15k tutorials in the database.

Tutorialzine.com just added to the site index.

Not bad, I always wanted to make search engines and bots but I never learned how. Any tips on resources and scripts to use? I have made one using wordpress but wordpress search function is no good.

Anyhow, regarding your site, it's good, but my only concern is how are you monetizing it?

Hello, thank you for your review.

The script is custom made with php, mysql, for the crawler i used simple html dom.

For monetizing, i have ads on the results page that can be easily change from the admin panel.

Your domain is pretty good and its good that you're taking initiative.

Here are things that I would improve on -
- The world of programming moves fast. "Date published" info is critical because I don't want to be reading tutorials from 2005. And that's ideally how you should sort the results.
- Your UI could use a lot of improvement. It lacks the crisp, modern feel of websites today. It feels like this is a website I would have seen 10 years ago.

Thank you for your suggestions @barman

I am not that good of a web ui designer, but i will try my best to come up with something else without missing the point that is a search engine.

Search engines must be simple, look at google, well organized, I admit, but still simple.

For date publish, I will fetch that info as well, where possible.

Probably 99% of the work you need to do to make it look more modern will be CSS work. What's mostly making your homepage look outdated is the search box styling and the background around your header. I'm not an expert by any means, but I did a little CSS editing via FireFox inspector - I removed the header background and the "3D" styling around the search form as well as borders on the input to give it a more modern flat look and it's already looking better (in my opinion)...



and here it is with a simple logo I made...



If you want to use the logo, download it here, it yours. I think simple logo designs look the best for 95% of sites out there.

Thank you very much for the useful input @EbookLover highly appreciated

Hello guys,

BIG Update made on the site.
Complete overhaul, complete change of the website design, mobile support.

New features:
- Ads system, ads appear in-line (google style) with the word Ad in front of them;
- Tracking of ads click;
- Site pages added from admin panel using WYSIWYG editor;
- Google like design to be easy to read and navigate.

Site: https://tutorialindex.com

Thank you,
Cristian

It's too plain now. I cannot see where the search form is. Too much white and not enough visual direction as to what is what.

This is what I see in FireFox...




This is some idea of what people expect to see and has visual function and direction...

Thank you @EbookLover

Not to be disrespectful or anything, I do not like the text underneath
I will add social icons as soon as I create the profiles, though. I will see where I will implement them on the page.

Thank you,
Cristian

The text has nothing to do with anything. You can put whatever you want there. It's main function is to add some content tot he page without inundating it as well as to provide visual direction and appeal to visitors.

The main point here is to design with visual direction, visual appeal and visual functionality in mind.

Think like an end user and a marketer when designing, not like a designer
This is the first mistake most website designers make when they design sites, they think like designers. No bueno.

other than that, your site is not fully responsive.

Hello @amit chowdhury

Can you please elaborate? I can take all the feedback that I can to improve the website.

Thank you,
Cristian

Are there any bots specialized in hacking website? Every couple of days I see that mysql syntax and php syntax was used when search the website. Of course the site is secure and nothing happens as I have escaped every single character....

So, I delete the searches from the database and then in 2-3 days, I see that someone searched them again. So, it might be a bot, I do not think that someone is that stupid to try the same thing every 2-3 days, right ?!

Hello guys,

Did some minor tweaks on the websites as suggested by someone on Reddit:

- text can be selectable now in all pages, user-select:none; removed;
- search bar is sticky on the results page and other pages when scroll down;
- added queried text to the site title ( the way Google does )

Also:
- Reserved the twitter / facebook accounts, will finish completing them and then add the info to the website.

Thank you,
Cristian

Keep up the work, reallly like it!!

Hello @cipcip

It looks like you have an nice project going on. Here is little suggestions to you how to improve the usability and the look of the website better in the eyes of the customer. So, let's get started.

Home Page

Home page is the most important piece of your website because this is the first page what customer or visitor will see when they come to your website. Your current home page is pretty empty and it doesn't have much content. My first advice would be that easily identify to your customers what your website is all about, what you do and how the website can resolve their problems. Before the search engine, you could add slider or text with photo or graphic about what Tutorial Index is and what your customers can find on your website. It doesn't have to be a long piece of content, just the main points about your website.

Your section about Top-10 searched tags is really empty and it doesn't look attractive. I would suggest you to add icons to all of the tags. In my opinion, it would look good if there would be first icon, below it what is the tag and below the tag amount of the tags.

And if you are only advertising your Top searched tags, where are the less popular tags? I think you could create a "database" with similar style like my suggestion above and arrange the tags according to their style - Example the first section of the database could be Web Development, second section of the database would be Programming etc - it would make your site look much broader and give customers an image that you have a lot of useful information about different things.

Footer

Your footer looks like a copy from Google's footer. Or should I say exactly the same. My suggestion to this is to add example your contact information to footer and make it look more modern. I think this part is one the cons on your website currently. The website itself looks modern and clean, but the footer is just a box with links. It is important that the website goes flow with itself, the result is much better and the site looks much more modern.

Search Page

This page looks really clean and I think there is no need improvement to this section. Best part is that the search field is sticky and goes up and down when you scroll the page. Good work.

Advertising Page

I would add pictures, graphics and more information to people how they benefit if they advertise with you. When the page has only text, the result doesn't get same kind of impression than page which has graphics and photos. And the truth is that pictures tells more than 1000 words. Really important thing is that you can tell to your customer what you offer, but much more important thing is that you must do it with the right way. Only text of this page doesn't give photo to customer that it would be a good idea to advertise in your page.

About Us Page

Your About Us page is one of the most important pages on your website and that is the reason why it needs to be well crafted. Good stories humanize your brand, providing context and meaning for your product. What’s more, good stories are sticky - which means people are more likely to connect with them and pass them on. You must think how you can move the meaning of the website to your About Us page. If most of your tutorials are based on programming, SEO and web development, you can use it as the page to create attractive content to this page. Right now this page has the similar problem than the Advertising Page. You must add images and graphics to tell the story.

The overall result of this website is pretty good in my opinion. The idea itself is really good and I think you can build an nice website.

Thanks,
Sami Ketolainen.

Thank you @Steven McEvoy

Thank you @Sami Ketolainen for the detailed review.

I agree with what you are saying.

For the Home page I need to specifically tell the people that this is a tutorial search engine, right now they are pretty much just guessing, or just looking at the title of the page. I am working on social network handlers and how to incorporate a site description on the home page, I was thinking writing something on a ribbon ?!

For the Advertising page, I left it with just text for now, as the site doesn't have that many visitors, so I do not have anything to show. Right now the site has about 5-10 visitors a day.

For the About page I will come up with something, but I am not that creative

Thank you,
Cristian

Made some backend updates and here is a sneak peak to the administration panel

Some more updates made on the site.

Implemented a language selector, for the moment the website is translated only into English and Romanian ( my home language ).

Also, implemented an attempt to re-design the about page as per the suggestion of @Sami Ketolainen

TO DO Next:
- implement language feature to mobile version in the upcoming weeks;
- spam Twitter with a new post to each tutorial that gets indexed
- spam Facebook page with a new post to each tutorial that gets indexed

Another update: Implementing Twitter to admin panel.


TO DO Next:
- spam Twitter with a new post to each tutorial that gets indexed
- spam Facebook page with a new post to each tutorial that gets indexed