Designer/Client network

Hey folks,

I have been working on a website the last 6 weeks that is primarily for web designers, developers and other media types. Basically I created a mini myspace if you like for designers etc to signup, have their own little area to create a appealing profile as well as galleries.

I have used several snippets from the resource area as well as hacking and tweaking certain things to fit my needs. The site is nearing completion and I wanted to share it here to get some feedback before I go a head and launch it. I have 2 people on it so far who are in my web development course and more to come once I’m ready to launch.

I have used webloginPE and FDM on one page to create a profile area that is fully customisable to how you want it to look. I included TinyMCE for quick editing of profiles from the front end but with some options disabled such as searching for images and media. You can add custom tags to your profile that will show up in the tag cloud (limited to 40 characters) and choose which disciplines your profile is shown under.

Maxigallery has been used a lot on the site for the user galleries and using custom templates you can add information regarding the image being viewed such as copyright etc etc etc... all depends what you want to include.

Other options include options to make your profile private or only viewable to other members, add your own tutorials and have them private or public.

I have also created 3 templates that you can choose which to use but this is only available to registered members.

There’s still a few things to iron out and I hope to get some ideas from you guys. Some pages are a bit bland looking as I am working on some more graphics works for the site... I added some banners and desktops for some downloadable media/extras for fun.

One note - google had my site indexed as 3rd for searches of xhtml designers but now it’s not showing up! The site is not banned from google and in my web tools it’s appearing, the sitemap etc is there but the information such as keywords is not even appearing. IT’s like my keywords are being blocked some how.. all my other sites are on the same server and they show up fine. Anyone that knows about SEO or google, could you give me some help to find out what is wrong? Googlebot is crawling my site according to my server logs but it’s not updating the info in my web tools or google search.

http://www.xhtmldesigners.com

Thanks! Ross

Looks very nice

Only odd thing I noticed in the source was the <title></title> was after the <meta> tags, not sure if thats an issue.

Hmmmm do you usually put your title tags before meta? I don’t think I have ever.

I don’t think it matters a hair whether you put your title before the meta elements. Title in my opinion is most important.

Cheers,

Jay

Very well done. The design is energetic (or should I say explosive) Plenty of rich javascript to enhance the user experience. What, no modx in the tag tree?

I did find the loading effect between pages a bit over (may not be entirely necessary)

Yeah I just use it for a visual effect and to make all the elements on the screen load before you can interact with the site. I might take it off actually. There’s a lot more to see once you sign up... there’s quite a lot of features in the profile area.

I’m working on a new navigation menu for searching users etc... it might not work but I’m planning on using a drop down menu rather than a select options. I just wanted to make sure the search actually worked and now I know how it all works, I can style as needed.

More options will be added like which CMS you use etc... I have quite a few ideas for the site. It’s a hobby site for me and it will give me some experience to advertise a site etc.

Thanks for the comments so far. Ross

Very coool site! 

I found your page as #5 in google! 

This is all the results google have indexed
on ya: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Awww.xhtmldesigners.com%2F

What search did you type in to google to find me 5th out of interest? I was 3rd after just 4 weeks but then my keywords were not being indexed by google. I’m not sure if it was something I’ve done or google! Thanks for the comments, hopefully a little more work and then I can ask some of you guys to signup to test it.

your site is #3 when i search for ’xhtml designers’ no quotes

Quote from: rossco at Dec 15, 2008, 12:23 AM

What search did you type in to google to find me 5th out of interest? I was 3rd after just 4 weeks but then my keywords were not being indexed by google. I’m not sure if it was something I’ve done or google! Thanks for the comments, hopefully a little more work and then I can ask some of you guys to signup to test it.

Google frequently changes things up and it’s not uncommon for a new site to show up fairly high, then drop suddenly.