I was thinking of doing something like that from the add/edit dialog of my free addons, but not from the front end. How would that rock with site owners?

Personally, I have no problem with developers getting credit for their work, but I do have a problem if it appears all over the front end of a site. It means nothing to my clients and they just ask why it is there on their site when they did not give permission for it.

I have a real issue with government clients and high level corporate clients.

back end is fine, front end is a problem.

Regards Ian

I've purchased multiple licenses for ProBlog and this really rubbed me the wrong way. I'm not using this module for any future sites until the author takes it out.

I can maybe see a backlink in a free add-on IF this is disclosed up front. That's a fair trade. But when I'm paying for the add-on and it starts inserting an ad for the author into my client's websites without my/their permission and I have no way to turn it off, I'm going to find another solution.

I agree with you. I too have multiple licences for ProBlog and to have this "feature" suddenly pop up without any warning has caused me some embarrassment with my clients. I have had a few clients ask me what is going on.

I have checked the licence for the add-on and there is no mention of having to display the back-link so I have commented the code out of the template files on a couple of my more sensitive client sites. I have copied the template files from the package block folder and placed them into the root/block equivalent location and then commented the div out that has the back-link.

However I should not have to do this and it is a lottery not knowing which new add-ons are going to decide to follow suit. I feel this is crossing some kind of line.

Again, I have no objection to the developer having as much acknowledgement on the back-end of the site but not on the front end. It will kill off the use of that add-on.

Regards
Ian

Chad is a well respected developer so I'm sure he'd listen to your concerns.

The Pro Blog demo in the marketplace shows the backlink in a div that has a class of 'backlink' so in the meantime why not just add something like this to your main css file.

div.backlink {visibility:hidden;}

Please understand that I am not "having a shot" at Chad. I fully respect him and his work. This is more a general comment about the direction of add-ons and the effect a seemingly innocuous back-link can have on a web-developer and his clients. I am just concerned about this as a direction for C5 add-ons in the future.

I did consider placing a support request on Chad's ProBlog add-on but I did not want to push people away from using the add-on. I just wanted to get the "feel" from the community on this trend, hence the Chit Chat forum post.

I have used the custom template route to remove the back-link as I had to tweek the template design anyway.

Regards
Ian

Sorry Ian, I was actually responding to chemmett but you slipped a post in while I was composing mine.

I understand and share the concern. Users shouldn't even know that the site is actually made up of blocks built by other developers.

I guess the first thing I do if I have concerns with an add-on is to contact the developer directly rather than start a public discussion thread where you no longer control the discussion. If Chad knew it was upsetting clients, I'm sure he would change it.

I appreciate Ian bringing this up for debate. When I saw the backlink for the first time, the first thing I did was search the forums to see if anyone else had noticed it and either had a problem with it or thought it was OK.

Chad responded immediately and this is no longer an issue with the Pro Blog module, but the larger issue is: "Is it appropriate for an add-on developer to insert their own links and SEO terms into their user's content?"

Besides clients going "what's this link and how did it get there?", one of my biggest concerns was the SEO aspect. Someone mentioned this below, but the links weren't marked rel="nofollow", which means the page the link is on loses PageRank in order to increase the PageRank of the linked page. Adding alt text and other hidden SEO terms completely unrelated to the site content is generally frowned on by search engines also, and has the potential to penalize both the add-on developer and the user's site in rankings.

On the flip side of the coin, a lot of theme developers put links to their sites in the footer or meta tags, and this is a generally accepted practice. (Not saying this is good or bad, it's just a fact.) Where should the line be drawn?

I don't see it being a big impact on SEO. Consider a content block with a few hundred words. A link at the end will be pretty much irrelevant to page ranking (a link at the top would be different).

Personally I wouldn't want it amongst content, so I wouldn't code my own add-ons to insert it amongst content, free or paid for.

If I ever did such on the front end, it would be created by JavaScript into the footer (where theme credits are placed). That would keep it discrete and away from any SEO impact. I would also provide a config option to remove it completely. But unless every other developer was doing it to the extent that I felt left out, I don't see any reason to do so and don't plan on doing so.

As I wrote earlier, I am considering adding such a link discretely on the edit and dashboard side of my addons.

mmm, I don't agree with this completely John.

The thing that got me experimenting with this is the fact that Chris (C5mix) has a personal site and 10 themes or so. if you type "themes concrete5", C5mix is right there at the top.

They're nice themes. But my addons are nice too. And they are used just as much, if not more than the collective of C5mix themes out there.

But type addons packages concrete5 (or some variation), and it's more about articles than it is actually quality of addon services and trusted developers. or better said...it's a cluster of results in stead of targeted, useful results.

The difference is that most of Chris' themes will remain backlinked to him..and most users are ok with that.

It's purposeful and targeted. and simple. Concrete5 themes = C5mix.

One link on one site? not a big deal. One link on 1,200 sites...a VERY big deal.

So, generally, yes I agree - one link in a paragraph doesn't add up to all that much. But believe me, google sees that one link x1000.

I'm over it and pretty much accept that addon and C5 application dev is a ground up blue-collar profession, and that there just really is no easy SEO for us.

What would be really nice, is for webshops that find themselves using CodeStrat products often, actually broadcast that on their company site. "people we trust" sort of thing? And visa-versa...for me to link to them.

Even that would be extremely helpful SEO wise.

jm2c.

C

I take your very good point about the web ranking of the site linked to, especially if it gets clicked often. What I was referring to was the speculated negative impact on the ranking of the site that shows the link (which I expect would be insignificant).

Nevertheless, I don't see the ranking of my C5magic site being that important. Concrete5.org is where my addons need to be found, and C5magic is purely a resource to back that up.

I can tell you that the "built with concrete5" link that is in all our
default templates has certainly had a positive SEO impact for us with
organic search results on things like "open source cms" on google. We
re-work that phrase and the alt links on the footer text with each
concrete5 release.

As John points out, that's also because we actually have organic
search needs. People looking for a CMS are often doing so from google.
People looking for a blogging add-on for concrete5 are doing so from
within their dashboard shopping experience of an existing install, or
at the marketplace here at concrete5.org. While I'm sure someone has
googled "blogging for concrete5" before, I doubt that's where most of
the purchasing traffic for problog is coming from. While we're awash
with image sliders, there's really only a couple of blogging add-ons
in the marketplace. I have to believe that any potential customer
looking for a blogging add-on for concrete5 is going to find problog
without a tremendous amount of effort.

A better use of energy might be really working on the listings here at
concrete5.org. For example, someone recently asked us if there was
advanced reporting for ecommerce. We believed there was an add-on for
that at one point, but couldn't find it in the marketplace by
searching for ecommerce. Turns out, we were right - "ecom tools" has
what this customer wanted (sadly it looks un-5.5 ready) but in the
listing there is no mention of the word "ecommerce". Plenty of "ecom"
plenty of "commerce" but no "ecommerce".

Ya know we even use these marketplace keywords in the intelligent
search results, so there's a lot of bang for the buck there.

Just my thoughts, feel free to do whatever you want with em.

I have also noticed some deficiencies in the search results when I search for add-ons on the C5 site. For example, if you search for "real-estate" you will get one add-on listed but if you search for 'real estate' then 2 other different listings show up. Also, searching for "problog" finds nothing but "pro blog" finds Chad's add-on. I'm far from an expert on search algorithms (knowledge<0) but I don't think the C5 system should expect users to guess exactly what terms were used by the developer.

Couldn't you simply provide a config setting to turn your back-link off? Put a tooltip on it if the user is able to add to problog? This seems like the best of both worlds, or provide a few additional licenses in good faith for clients to do link to your problog?

were these rel="nofollow" ?

I don't think it would be worth it, but that's up to you. I'd do it maybe in a popover with a timeout like i used in the url director thing in prb.

I do the same thing as JohntheFish - I just add links to my Concrete page in the back-end of my addons and themes. I do that mainly to make it easier for the purchaser to get support.

I don't think it is a good idea to have developer information on front-end / public views of addons / themes. I used to add information only my themes back when I first got involved the the concrete marketplace. Now, I don't even bother adding my developer info to the front end of anything.

I think Ian brought up the most respectable point in an offline PM.

An announcement at the least would have been helpful to him. Unfortunately, aside of spamming the forums (which I get bitched at for) I don't even have a way to do that as a developer?

You know what guys...it's such an easy fix, literally a copy and paste to root blocks folder...I just didn't think it was that "big" of deal? perhaps annoying..but not nearly as "devastating" as some of you paint it out to be. lol

I can remove it. It's not that precious to me.

However, I'd really like to see Chemmett put his money where his mouth is and buy a five pack in good faith :-)

ChadStrat

Thanks Chad, sorry for the mountain I created. I for one will buy a 5 pack once Version 6.6.1 is released. Let me know when it goes live.

Regards Ian

I just purchased a 5 pack. Thank you very much for your prompt attention and understanding, and I hope other developers will pay attention and avoid this kind of thing in the future.

It's probably a non-issue for personal blogs, but more and more businesses are starting to incorporate a blog into their company website for SEO and customer relations reasons, and there it becomes a larger problem. Concrete5 itself is trying to attract larger businesses by adding enterprise level features, and this kind of thing definitely isn't going to go over well with those clients.

And while I understand overriding the view is a relatively simple fix, the whole reason I buy add-ons in the marketplace rather than developing them myself is because they "just work" and it saves me time. Thinking as a website developer, the more time I have to spend getting an add-on working the way I want it to, the more likely I am to just write my own.

Again, thanks for the hard work and great products you contribute. And if you need a backlink in the future, just ask. :-)