Also if you don't know about it yet www.stackoverflow.com is bar none the single most useful programming website in the world and has become hugely popular very quickly.

If x.com/x has a link to y.com/y and vice versa, I'm pretty sure google algorithm recognizes it as a reciprocal link. But if x.com/x links to y.com/z and y.com/y links to x.com/w I think it's fine. When I read the post, I assumed he meant the old school mentality of any link exchange is a good link exchange. Two main points:

• No reciprocals
• Related niche

All of my knowledge is based on browsing seo forums, I am not an expert by any means.

I certainly believe that Google can recognize that 2 sites link together.

However, both me and other SEO guys I know are still using reciprocal linking to get sites with non-super-competitive terms ranked pretty easily.

Stating that reciprocal links are "virtually worthless" is really, really wrong.

Keep in mind that those 3 aren't mutually exclusive. If you're going to be using PHP, you'd still want to have some basic HTML/CSS knowledge, unless you want to hire someone else to do all that stuff.

If you come from a C/C++/Java background, I imagine you'll either love or hate a language like PHP. (I happen to really enjoy PHP, but there are others who don't.) There are some weird things you can do in a loosely-typed language that can be really helpful at times, but can also be a PITA. Just my 0.02.

I am considering switching from slicehost to linode based on this article: http://journal.uggedal.com/vps-performance-comparison

Anyone have any experience with them or have a different VPS to recommend?

Hoping one of you guys can help me in figuring out how to get backlinks on hometownannapolis.com There is an article commenting system and also a profile page. The comments on articles html is disable, but perhaps there is a method one of you gurus have? I would also like to tap into their RSS feed. If any of you want to take a look I have a username and pw you can use, just drop me a pm. I would really like some backlinks from this site. Appreciate any help.

Heres a link to an example profile page:
http://www.hometownannapolis.com/com...gorylewis.html

Hopefully one of you guys can figure out how I get some backlinks on that page. It gives an rss feed of my recent posts, but it links it internally to its own article. I set all the widgets active so you guys can analyze if I can use them or not.

You might be able to link out through the twitter feed widget but that looks like about the only way to link out after a quick glance.

And in order to build up your own profile page you'll probably have to comment nearly every day. See this guys profile is PR4 - http://www.hometownannapolis.com/com...livesinmd.html and it looks like he comments multiple times a day.

Regarding the discussion of reciprocal links...I have two websites. For one, I made heavy use of reciprocal links. For the other, I did a good job of getting incoming links without reciprocating. There isn't really an especially noticeable difference in the search rankings the two sites get. I think reciprocal links aren't as worthless as many people believe.

I am a golf professional in the Dallas area needing help getting my website off the ground. I teach several Nationwide Tour players, collegians and several Dallas Stars. Scott Fawcett from the Nationwide Tour last year who posts here as Ship---this is one of my players. What I am looking for is help with basic web design and graphic artistry. I am open to any offers or ideas as to how we could make arrangements for some sort of trade out.

Thanks....

I don't have any specific recommendations, but you can look up reviews, listings, or even just ask questions at WHT. It's a great forum when you're looking for hosting related stuff.

www.webhostingtalk.com

Thanks Dazarath, will def keep that site in mind in future. I switched to Linode and have been very happy with it so far FWIW.

Learning PHP and CSS and HTML and crap is pretty much a waste of time when WordPress can do everything.

Wordpress is a great blog engine but no, it can not "do everything". Even if you are never going to make any changes to the website on your own, knowing the basics of how your website works is going to make communication with the person you hire to do it much easier.

Any reviews of godaddy.com? I'm considering launching a few web pages in the coming months and would like to find the best host for my money. I'm Canadians btw.

No complaints from me on GoDaddy. Cheap and reliable

Oh and I was planning on using wordpress for a news aggregation site, a blog, and a local restaurant review site. I had heard that wordpress is the easiest to learn and it's the most web friendly.

lol what can't WordPress do?

BTW: It's pretty shady to mask your affiliate links as normal ones for hosting accounts.

Twitter would be an example of a web app that Wordpress would be inappropriate for. WP would be also be a bad choice for an internet forum, social networking site, an online poker equity calculator, a rakeback tracking site, an online document editor, a site that deals primarily with user created content etc etc etc.

I have posted a couple affiliate links without explicitly stating they were but I certainly didn't go out of my way to hide it. I guess you mean that I used www.hostgator.com instead of www.hostgator.com/myaffiliateid=Neko. meh, that is just my default behaviour for me with all urls I post, especially if they are longer than 10 or so characters. I will make it more clear in the future if I post an affiliate link if people have a problem with it.

Do you have a link or site I can visit that gives a good overview of WP?

Sorry not off the top of my head I don't. Looking at what you are going to be using it for, I would say that WP will likely suit you fine. There are a gazillion plugins for wordpress available so if you google around you may find a news aggregator plugin and possibly even a "review" type plugin. It looks like there is even a WP forum plugin although it is probably not as fully featured as something like vBulletin.

Just to be clear, WP can "do everything" in the sense that you can always write your own plugins/templates in php/html but that is not always going to be a sensible decision. There is nothing to stop you from using WP for blog/content management and then something else (or something custom) for other functionality.

I wouldn't have even said anything if Phresh had just said "For me learning PHP/CSS/HTML is a waste of time since WP does everything I need it to do". His statement as it stands is silly.

http://buddypress.org/ and http://simple-press.com/ says hi.

Mep, check out the WP themes on http://themeforest.net/

I stand corrected on that front .

Yes, for many people WP will do everything they require. My original point was that this blanket statement:

is asinine. Agreed?

Let's say I wanted to build a web app that was going to interface with multiple bank websites and provide real-time updates of all the activity on all of my accounts. Would I choose WP to do this? No.

Maybe I want to create a new mashup www.sunnydayfleamarkets.com that pulls weather data from www.citiesthataresunnytoday.com, flea market data from www.fleamarketsoftheworld.com and overlays it all on a google map. Is there a WP plugin for that?

Neko, do you use adobe dreamweaver cs4? Is that something you'd recommend?

Sorry I've never used dreamweaver so can't really give much of a comment on it. It may be a good way for people coming from non programming backgrounds to get an introduction to HTML and CSS since you can design something and then look at the html it generates for you.

My personal feeling is that just writing the html by hand from the start will probably take a bit longer initially but will pay off down the road. I'm not entirely sure though and for all I know there could be lots of designers using dreamweaver.