Need script ideas for developing multiple sites

[markfromslo]

I'm looking to develop scores of my best domain names, names like EasyFinancing.com, EasyDegree.com and others. I don't want to just have a sophisticated parking page--I want a real site with real content and advertising running. I want sites that have great information that will cause them to be bookmarked and to be ranked high in search engines.

I will hire local college students to write the content for the sites.

I want to have as little maintenance as possible. I am familiar with WordPress and have used it quite a bit. But, if I had 30 sites up and running, upgrades would be a bit of a hassle each time I had to do it.

So, I'm looking for a simple program that will allow me to alter the theme, have students easily enter and update articles, and easily insert Google Adsense and banner ads. It has to have more flexibility than any of those simple "page maker" type programs that are offered by web hosts. Please don't steer me to any of the "templates" sites as they require too much manual effort to get everything beyond the front page to hook toghether. And--although this might not be possible--it would be great to not have to utilize a database. These sites need to be able to hosted on my own server.

Any ideas? I'm sure this is something we all could use so let's see what comes up.

 

[VegasCoupons]

you said wordpress, but you could actually use blogger which is free and runs on their serverse but you can have it connect to your server and upload the pages. You won't have to worry about upgrades, etc.. And would be very easy for your employees to add content.

 

[markfromslo]

But then I'd have an address of blogger.mydomain.com. That's not good. And, there's really no flexibility in making it look not like a blog--static front page for example..

you said wordpress, but you could actually use blogger which is free and runs on their serverse but you can have it connect to your server and upload the pages. You won't have to worry about upgrades, etc.. And would be very easy for your employees to add content.

 

[duskdawn]

If you want a blog like site, wordpress is the one to go.
If you need more than that, you'd better pay for a customized script.

 

[The Engineer]

Have you considered a CMS type site like Mambo where the emphasis is on the content not the design. Your students can be given access to upload the content, you simply load the same CMS to your server for each domain. Content is king, and if, as you say it will be original content, the search engines will be beating down the door to index and rank the sites.

Yes, you will have to use databases, but thats pretty usual these days for most content sites.

 

[Damion]

I would say Mambo is the thing you need. Although i believe it is now refered to as Joomla.

 

[markfromslo]

How's the learning curve?

I do still run into the problem of having to update all my sites whenever there is an update. I know most scripts now seem to have security updates all the time.

Have you considered a CMS type site like Mambo where the emphasis is on the content not the design. Your students can be given access to upload the content, you simply load the same CMS to your server for each domain. Content is king, and if, as you say it will be original content, the search engines will be beating down the door to index and rank the sites.

Yes, you will have to use databases, but thats pretty usual these days for most content sites.

 

[The Engineer]

Learning curve is steep, but worth it in the end. Mambo or Joomla and there are others all free. I beleive that most now have stable versions and updating is just a case of overwriting files via ftp. I do see your problem if you have scores of sites, but I don't know of any other way of doing what you want.

 

[harkster]

Look into Joomla at http://www.joomla.org. It is a free open source CMS (content management system) which is database/content driven and I think would be ideal for what you are describing.

Joomla is a continuation of development by much of the same group which created Mambo. The split was a year or 2 ago and I think Joomla is being more agressively developed. There is a very active user and support community. Check out the forum at http://forum.joomla.org/

I have not used it myself but provided support to some users integrating my formmail script into their Mambo/Joomla sites.

 

[markfromslo]

I wish I could remember the name now, but there is a program that actually resides on your local machine, in which you create a site; actually you can create and maintain many sites with this one instance of software. Then, you simply upload the created/modified site to your server via FTP. There is a database of some sort on your local machine which stores all the articles and formatting, but the beauty is that the uploaded site then is just html files, period. That would be real easy if the product allowed some flexibility of design....and if I could think of the name of it!!! Anyone know it?

 

[The Engineer]

Well I use phpdev which resides on my work station. This just replicates a server and I do all the testing and formatting on this. But you still need to upload the files in php to be able to access the database.

 

[drakewla]

slobizman,

I was in the same situation as you and I tried many things.

At that point, merging one Wordpress into different websites required some code changes, which I did not really like for maintenance and upgrade reasons.

Finally, I tried drupal as it could use different databases for different websites while using the same structure files. So I made a simple shell script that built a new DB and a new Apache VirtualHost for all new websites on my server by typing a simple command.

But... upgrades are not always just replacing drupal core files. For example, if the database tables change, you have to upgrade every single web site's DB (in theory, with their script, after a DB backup and crossing fingers).

You have to define what level of maintenance work is acceptable, then maybe write some scripts that will do the work for you, whatever the software you will use.

Just my 2 cents

 

[markfromslo]

What do you think of a product like this:

http://www.seo-website-builder.com/

Review here:

http://www.adventuresinnetmarketing.com/SEO-Website-Builder-review.html

This is a pretty basic one, but are there other products in the category of programs that do what this does, yet allow for a bit more flexibility?

Or this one: http://www.xsitepro.com/

Good screenshots here: http://www.xsitepro.com/screenshots.html

Wow! xsitepro looks really, really good! I'm going to research it more, but it looks like just what I was looking for. Check out this short video on it: http://www.xsitepro.com/7reasons.html

And here is a great honest discussion of xsitepro I found on a discussion forum. :

http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5478&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

 

[DotUSDomains]

Try these for starters,

Not sure how advaced you could get them.

www.scriptillusion.com

Some good scripts there i think anyway

 

[hawkeye]

What do you think of a product like this:

http://www.seo-website-builder.com/

Review here:

http://www.adventuresinnetmarketing.com/SEO-Website-Builder-review.html

This is a pretty basic one, but are there other products in the category of programs that do what this does, yet allow for a bit more flexibility?

Or this one: http://www.xsitepro.com/

Good screenshots here: http://www.xsitepro.com/screenshots.html

Wow! xsitepro looks really, really good! I'm going to research it more, but it looks like just what I was looking for. Check out this short video on it: http://www.xsitepro.com/7reasons.html

And here is a great honest discussion of xsitepro I found on a discussion forum. :

http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5478&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Slobiz, I've been looking for the same thing, as I have over 200 names, and it's time to develop them too. I found the xsitepro.com site, and info, very intrigueing. I think also it may be the software I was looking for too. I'd appreciate it if you could pass on any results/opinions you may assess on it to me/us as you explore it. I will do the same as I look into it too. Also any other alternatives you may come up with. Thanks for the info you came up with.

PS: I interested in working with any website developers etc., who can help me develop my domains into productive sites. I just don't have the web development experience or time to do such. Please pm me if so. I'm in So. California for those that may also be. Thanks.

 

[markfromslo]

I think I'll buy it this weekend and give it a short. god knows I've wasted $200 on bad domains names in the past, I can certainly give this product a shot!

Slobiz, I've been looking for the same thing, as I have over 200 names, and it's time to develop them too. I found the xsitepro.com site, and info, very intrigueing. I think also it may be the software I was looking for too. I'd appreciate it if you could pass on any results/opinions you may assess on it to me/us as you explore it. I will do the same as I look into it too. Also any other alternatives you may come up with. Thanks for the info you came up with.

PS: I interested in working with any website developers etc., who can help me develop my domains into productive sites. I just don't have the web development experience or time to do such. Please pm me if so. I'm in So. California for those that may also be. Thanks.

 

[Lasher]

I was looking at XSitePro too, but it's hard to find decent objective reviews on it when all of the reviews saying how great it is also contain affiliate links. I'm suspicious of the fact that you have to pay for the program then ask for your money back if you don't like it vs being able to download a trial version. I think I'll email them and ask...

 

[markfromslo]

I was looking at XSitePro too, but it's hard to find decent objective reviews on it when all of the reviews saying how great it is also contain affiliate links. I'm suspicious of the fact that you have to pay for the program then ask for your money back if you don't like it vs being able to download a trial version. I think I'll email them and ask...

Excpet for that forum thread I posted about. If it was a fake thread, they did a great job at it.

 

[TestCase]

Slobizman,

I look forward to reading your review of the software.
Hope it is money well spent.