Originally the easiest way to implement dynamic pages to sit within your Facebook page was to use FBML. However August 2010 Facebook announced their move to use iFrames for inserting dynamic content which has now become the preferred method although the old method is still supported for legacy pages. This article aims to document how the gallery pages from the Just Customz website were embedded into the our Facebook Just Customz page.

The first thing to do is create your dynamic content on your website. We created separate directories with the dynamic content in it under a directory “facebook” and had the dynamic content pulled in by calling the file something like index.php. An example of the Just Customz modified car gallery page would therefore be http://www.justcustomz.com/gallery/facebook/gallery/. As you can see the page is a simple design which should fit in with the Facebook design.

The next stage is to create the application within Facebook. To do this you’ll need to access the developer section of Facebook and use the following create application link. You will then see a page that looks like the image below.

Create Application

Once you have checked that your application abides by the Facebook application terms and conditions enter an application name and click create application. You should then see a security pop-up to confirm that you are not a robot. Enter the details and continue. You will then see the application edit page where you can enter in all the details about your website, page and dynamic content. The page will look similar to that shown below.

Edit Application : About

The main parts to worry about filling in now are the application name, description and icon on this page. The icon will appear on the navigation within the Facebook page once it is embedded.

Now select the website tab from the right hand side of the screen and enter the details of your website. The screen will be similar to that shown below.

Edit Application : Website

The next step is the important bit where the Facebook application is linked to your dynamic content. You need to select Facebook Integration from the tab on the right side of the screen and then enter the relevant details. Which are as follows;

Canvas Page : I made something up here and I don’t think it is too important for this what is trying to be achieved.
Canvas URL : This should point to your dynamic content so in the case of Just Customz it is http://www.justcustomz.com/gallery/facebook/gallery.
Tab Name : This is the default name of the tab that appears on the page but you can change it when you embed it into the page.
Tab Url : This is where the content should be picked up from for the iFrame and for the Just Customz page it was the same as the canvas URL.

Now click save and your application should be ready for testing. To do this go to your application page and select the application that you have just created from the tabs on the right. One of the options available you will see “Application Profile Page” which you must click. This will then show you all the details about your application and look similar to the image below.

Application Profile Page

In the top right corner is a button labelled “Go to App” which when clicked will show you the content that will appear on your Facebook Page once it is embedded. So in the case of the Just Customz modified car gallery application I see image shown below.

Gallery

Once you are happy that the layout is correct and the HTML is laid out correctly you can added it to your Facebook page. This is a simple process where you need to go back to the “Application Profile Page” and click the “Add to my page” link in the bottom left-hand corner of the page.

As you can see from the image below the application is embedded seamlessly into the Just Customz Facebook page and looks very need indeed!

Gallery Tab on Just Customz Page

There has been a lot of speculation in recent years about the continued validity of web directories and whether they still have a place in search engine optimisation. A directory is a hierarchical list of links commonly grouped into logical categories. In the early days of the Internet and search engines the number of sites linking to a particular site was used as the main factor in determining the value of a website. This lead to the creation of link farms which were basically no more that sites that just contained pages of links, similar to directories. Most modern search engines now instantly recognise link farms and penalise or ignore them from search engine listings.

Many people still find directories a useful resource when looking for things on the Internet although with the arrival of social bookmarking sites they have stiff competition. A well maintained directory can not only be useful resource for any site visitor but also provide valuable inbound links to a site.

Category Selection

Page rank is still valid for Google at the moment, although it seems to have less value now, and is an important aspect in deciding which category your site should reside in a directory. An example is could be if an automotive directory has a sub category of custom parts and accessories with 11 links in it and another sub-category of paintwork with only 4 links in it then paintwork would pass more page rank to your site. However something to bear in mind is that relevance also plays an important part of the category selection.

What is a good directory?

To determine whether it is worthwhile submitting to a directory it is probably worth asking yourself whether whether in the absence of a search engine you would personally use that directory? If the directory is full of broken links or irrelevant or poorly written content then it is unlikely to be worthwhile. The good folk at Google sometime manually adjust their index to remove or lower the value of anything that appears to be a ‘spammy’ directory.

There is a lot of debate over paid and free directories and their value as a web-resource. Both types of directory should have equal value in the face of a search engine however paid directories tend to be better maintained as they usually have a team of moderators checking each submissions. Free directories generally depend upon volunteers which lead to people playing the system to allow their own links to be submitted to the directory.

Recognised Directories

There are many directories that are recognised as ranking well in the main search engine algorithms but the main two that most people will come across are DMOZ and the Yahoo! directory.

The DMOZ or Open Directory Project was founded in 1998 and was created in the spirit of the GNU software foundation and was intended to be a completely ‘open’ directory maintained by a team of volunteers. The index is well maintained to this day and is regarded by Google as a trusted source.

There has been a suspicion for some time that Google now uses a trust rank to filter out spam from its index. It is believed that it does this by selecting a few known good sites from around the web which are known to have a good stance on rejecting spam. The trust rank then emanates from these sites and filters through the Internet giving each site a trust rank in a similar way to the page rank.

Since the DMOZ is one of these sites getting listed into the index is very valuable indeed, although near impossible to do!

Another directory commonly regarded as worth while for submitting to is the Yahoo! directory. A site can be submitted to this directory as either a free listing or a paid listing. It is always worth a free submission but acceptance is fairly rare and you often have to pay the $299 yearly fee.

If the site is for a particular niche market then such as, say, car customising and modification then it is definitely worth submitting your site to a niche directory. The reason for this is that is the traffic coming from niche site will be extremely relevant to the content provided by your site. Something that is often overlooked is that these directories may capture traffic for keywords and phrases that hadn’t been previously considered. Since the indexes in these sites are generally fairly small the chances of a visitor to the directory reaching your site is fairly high.

Although submitting to all the various directories can seem like a momentous task it is unfortunately still valid in order to get anywhere near the first few pages in the search engine results.