Tim P

Vladimir Ghetau is a programmer from Romania who now lives in Ireland. He is an extremely hard working and motivated internet marketer and I personally predict he will be huge in the internet marketing world. He already is fast becoming well known for his new product Linksbro , which is a Link Directory Software that works wonders.

This interview will take place in a forum format. Please don't post in it until we open it up to Q&A and/or comments if there are any and if Vladimir agrees to answer. We will have to delete any comments before this time. Once it opens up we will keep it open indefinately.

Tim P

Hi Vladimir. First of all, can you tell us a little about how you came to be a
programmer? What made you decide to get into computers and programming? Is Romania a good place for someone to learn to become a programmer or are you an exception? What is life like in Romania for a student?

hhhhhhh

Hey Tim, hi everybody,

Thanks for the chance you have given me, but I'm not guru ;D

...YET! ;D

.... I hope!

Now, as we planned, we will find interesting people who are ready to talk about their experience, and we are the ice breakers.

Each one of Tim's questions (which probably will make this story more intereseting) will get it's answer after each post.

Now, Let's begin:

Well, I'm not a real programmer, I have learned this by myself and I would like to thanks to all the books and the computers who died in my hands after learning and using them.

Because I was so mad about computers I started learning all the possible tricks until I knew how to fix any bug. I even worked for few computer support & maintenance small business back in Romania.

Anyways, after knowing all about the computers I started learning programmin languages. The first one was BASIC, that's what we call him, and I won't go into details, talking about the inventor of BASIC (all the programming books do that, on the page 5 ).

Now, I have been heped by other people who had better experience in programming, and now I am able to help and support others, by offering them the chance to ask questions (by the way , I will be here if you want some help).

However, I was 12 when I started learning programming, I had a native romanian computer , which could be connected to my black and white TV (the monitor).

Then after few years, I discovered different programming languages like borland pascal and C.

I got really borred using them because I found out that there is a new "programming" language called PHP, which is a lot more easier to use and has great functions and usability. It is used in wide areas, and most of the quick web applications are using it, and I find it more easy to use than others programming languages.

BUT, a "programmer" title is way too much for me. That's why I am studying some Python, ASP and .net (this will be the last one) which are more likely to work with big ressources and also they offer lots of options for working on the functionality of your website.

Here's the first application I made when I started learning PHP, which you can find it here: http://www.domains-namer.com. Some features are disabled because people started using it too much and it's not what I wanted in the begining.

Now, after finishing the highschool, I've been to college, where I supposed to learn computers programming and technology, but I barely survived there, I had other plans (please read "I was a lazy ass" ). After 1 year, I orriented on something more relaxed, like Mechanics, which was also a favourite topic, but that's a different storry, I also "got fired" after 1 year

It looks like the Romanian school wasn't "designed" for people like me, but I'll never quit thinking that I'll have a degree some day.

I plan to join (AGAIN!!!) a college related to what I do, to improve my programming skills, I'm kind of sick of rentacoder (the place where you can start making money if you have no connections, and no support from everybody).

That's the storry of the romanian programmer. I'm not the best but I oriented on learning a lot about the most important things.

I would love to answer to this question 20 years later from now on. Probably you'll even notice a small difference in my spoken/written english

I have the strong belief that Romania has very good programmers, and I think there is no internet marketer who's creating software without collaborating with a romanian programmer, at least once in a lifetime -> just have a look on the rentacoder website, you'll see what I mean.

Anyways... I'm no exception, and Romania has lots of students with lots of good results, I hope some day I will support some people out there to improve their skills.

There are lots of fields that Romanian natives are getting really good at. We are learning fast and many other guys are doing great. My first REAL hosting service was provided by www.hangar-hosting.net which happens to belong to a romanian guy. The really cool thing about his services is that he helped me everytime I wanted (hangar is probably the best collaboration I had until today with a hosting company).

The biggest issue in Romania isn't finding info or learning how to create applications, it's about the economy and the management of the small sized software companies which are low payers for their programmers and this is what makes most of us work for other countries.

However, there are some well established companies which are devoted to their personell and they are doing great. And, with lots of positivity, I think Romania is a good place to start (good teachers, trained students, and so on).

There is so much fun, actually not for me, I wear REALLY big glasses and no girl would even look at me, but some of my friends were doing very well

I had big dreams when I joined the college for the first time and today I'll do that again without turning back. BUT I will give it a try here, hope it lasts longer, I'm more motivated, because in Romania, I attended a state college (which is free most of the time).

Simply put, I think Romanian students are doing well, party all day, learning during the exams, and also making some money from different part time jobs (like in any country, I believe). It's quite a fun activity being a student in Romania. hehe

Let's get more questions rolling. I'm starting to enjoy this.

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Tim P

LOL. Yes, that sounds like a lot of students here in the US.

Vladimir, one thing I know about you is you aren't a "lazy ass" as you say.

How did you come up with the idea for linksbro and can you expalin how it works here without giving away too much info? Why does Google like it so much? I have seen the results from using it and I must say the results are impressive.

hhhhhhh

Wow, very good questions, I'm starting to feel like a star [joke]


Now,

The LinksBRO script was one of the scripts which actually helped me a lot during my webmastering activity.

The name was different, actually, it didn't had a name before that:

Here's the old grandfather of the LinksBRO script, which started this happy story.

http://www.pixeltomorrow.com/directory

This one wasn't so good, actually it isn't good at all , because it isn't optimised for search engines and it has only basic functions.

Well, when I started working for more websites, I thought, what about optimising the script for search engines by using the mod rewrite feature, this will definetly make the pages look more "static" and SE's will definetly love the script.

And that's what I did, the next step: I optimised the dynamic links and made them "static", like html pages.

Also, I thought.... well, everyone is talking about RSS feeds and how much they help for the content, and I added the rss feeds. I worked quite a lot of time for gathering lots of feeds links and I added content oriented feeds for each category in the directory.

Now the results are clear, here is why it makes it so good:

The PR it is well distributed in each one of your directory's pages, for example, look here:

http://www.LinksBRO.com/link-exchange

I'm not sure why Google likes it so much but probably it's because of the clean code and the static look like thing. KISS -> that what works these days, I believe.

Here's something interesting but I couldn't explain why this happens:

There is this simple domain name, which has a PR4 page.

http://www.rapidsearch.org

Well, this website had only 1 page before installing the linksbro script.

It is a PR4, and I installed the script by creating the "directory" folder on the hosting account.

Then, I found out that the traffic was increased massively because what this script did, was amazing: every single page from this website was indexed, here's what I mean:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...apidsearch.org

Now, it has more than 550 pages, just because it has my script installed.

The other thing which surprised me a lot was the fact that the "directory" folder got a PR5 , and I can't explain that yet, here:

http://www.rapidsearch.org/directory

The only link pointing to the "directory" folder is the one from the main page, that's it, but still, it is a PR4 directing to a PR5.

One thing is sure, SEARCH engines LOVE this thing, and I love it too. When you install it on your server you will notice from the first moment that there is a lot of robot activity in there. They simply fall in love with it, but don't ask me why.

I just followed the google's tips for webmasters.

Anyways, the results are there, the PR goes UP, the traffic increases and you have more pages indexed. That makes it so successful.

Unfortunatelly, I started to see people who bought it and renamed it to sell it as being their own product. That's terrible and I stopped the resale rights version. Actually, I will sell the script in an encoded version to make sure that the further releases (I am upgrading it constantly) won't suffer any piracy attempts.

Next question Tim

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Tim P

LOL. I know you know why it happens. You just want to keep some secrets. No problem.

What I really like about this product is you can have a site like the rapidsearch.org site with just one page and linksbro will create many pages that get indexed. This helps with the SERPS but also can help if you are thinking of selling a website. One of the main things people look at is the number of pages indexed. Anyone who creates and sells websites should take a look at this product.

What other projects are you working on now Vladimir? Anything that deals with SEO and in Google's role in SEO? I know you watch Google. What do you think of this latest page rank update from Google?

hhhhhhh

Hey Tim,

I am glad you see the results, other people saw them too , which means I will continue to answer to other people's suggestions on improving the application and adding more features.

Most of the projects I have are highly related to search engines and traffic. I am trying to focus on building products which are helping the webmasters, or any person who has a website.

Next one, will be directly related to providing unique content for search engines. This new "thing" will have the job to deliver lots of targeted traffic on your webiste. You wont have to know anything about SEO, or html, or whatever. It is a combination of CMS (content management system) and scripts which deliver unique content based on the articles you wrote in the past.

Simply put, it will refresh them and give them a new form -- but not a new meaning :-)

Yes, Google recently updated the Page Rank and the surprise was good.

However I noticed some new things there:

- they were very generous in offering higher page ranks
- the PR is higher on the pages where you make changes constantly.
- 3 way linking still works very good

The most important thing I noticed is...

- more traffic you get, bigger the page rank it is ( I still should wait for the next update to prove that)

Next question Tim

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Tim P

Yes, there was some sites that got a good PR without hardly any links whatsoever. I know of some sites that have been around for a while and do have back links and these sites didn't do so well. Google definitely keeps you guessing as to what they are thinking. I think we have a good grasp on that though with our results.

I like the sound of your next project. Providing content is so important nowdays. I was just talking to someone the other day about an idea I have about providing a service that gives content to blogs that isn't done with software, bots or anything automated. This service will provide 6 to 10 quality posts to a blog a month for a very reasonable price. Plus I would offer other services such as pinging the new posts. Hmmm. Anyways, I am getting off topic.

Lets get back to SEs traffic. Do you think we all concentrate too much on what Google does? I mean Yahoo, MSN and other SEs are catching up to Google from what I can see. I don't see how Google can continue much longer as being so dominant in this area. What do you think Vladimir?

hhhhhhh

Indeed,

Google is the smartest, fastest, and most reliable search engine out there, it looks like Microsoft tries to get over it, and it constanly sending their spiders everywhere.

It looks like MSN and Google will have a big fight on that thing though, the MSN bot it's crawling like crazy, I think they are into something.

Yes providing it for people. Focusing on search engines... the cheapest way to get traffic without buying it

However, some people are doing it so wrong, backdoor pages, redirections, and other black-hat tricks.

They work, but for the short term. If they would put more effort in providing something very valuable for their websites, that content would be extreemly valuable. Here's what I mean:

How can somebody believe that a 97$ ebook can make you a millionaire?

Damn, some people are so lazy to see that working it's the most important thing.

It's not about the book, it's about putting effort into something, anything, and taking advantage of the feedback.

I don't even have to mention that some people aren't willing to listen to the feedback, they just focus on the results by ignoring the other things - testing it's what works. Narrowing your alternatives it's not good, even if it's SEO, education, life, or whatever.

You can't simply make millions by buying an ebook, that thing is telling you shit. You simply have to act, that's what I believe, stop reading people

Anyways... let's get back to the SE's haha

Google is my friend, no other search engines delivered the traffic which Google delivers!

If that works, we wanna stick with it. Let others think about alternatives as long as we have the best.

MSN and Yahoo never delivered what I needed, I always had troubles optimising my websites for them.

And people noticed it's easy to get your website #1 in MSN, but next day, a new one it's there. Each search engine works in different ways and I focus to deliver for the best one, and automatically MSN and YAhOO will deliver their own.

They are doing something, that's true. But let's wait and see what is it Because if we like the results, I don't mind going for Yahoo or MSN if they deliver better than Google.


Well, that's what I think:

- Google is still the best, they know it, but I somehow feel like they need to put some efforts to improve their service or come up with something new because I have the feeling that this thing it's getting rusty, I don't know why

- it's obviuous that other searrch engines are putting huge efforts to be #1 and that could be easily observed by looking in the stats: bandwidth.

And I also believe that there will be something good from alexa, that thing it's getting bigger and bigger.

I'll tell you, Tim: this is the war of search engines, and I am happy they are fighting to deliver traffic on my websites, what could be better, ha?

I want more questions

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Tim P

I agree Google is the best now. If second place was some start up company that was still trying to make a good profit consistantly I would say "No way. They are way too far ahead of the others."

But with MSN you have a company that has what? $30 billion in the bank? Well, that makes it different. And also having Yahoo in the picture.