/catalog/language/english/common

directory. Once you are here, you will see a file called footer.tpl. All you need to do is to open this file, and edit the lines of code that say "Powered By OpenCart".

This is the code from OpenCart 1.5:

<div id="powered">Powered By <a href="http://www.opencart.com">OpenCart</a><br /> Your Store &copy; 2012</div>

You can simply change this to something like:

<div id="powered">Powered By <a href="http://www.theURLtomycoolwebsite.com">MyCoolWebsite</a><br /> Your Store &copy; 2012</div>

OpenCart asks for a donation if you do this.

Hope this helps!

There have been many reports from MyBB users that their forums are under attack by spammers specifically targeting MyBB forums because they know the forums are easy to exploit and overwhelm. MyBB out of the box has almost no forum spam prevention, not even CAPTCHA or random questions during registration.

I took the time to setup a MyBB forum, and have been running it for over 3 years. During that time I have gone through all of the MyBB updates (when you log into the admin, there is a handy little tool to let you know if you are running the latest version, and if not, what the latest version is). All of the updates were to fix some kind of exploit, but none of them were for preventing forum spam.

I have been noticing in my analytics that spammers are searching for "Powered by MyBB" when targeting my forum. They are specifically looking for a MyBB forum because they know their automated activities will be able to overwhelm most board owners and moderators.

If MyBB wants to be successful, they need to release MyBB 1.6 with at least the two basic forms of trying to catch spammers at the registration level: Captcha, and asking random questions. Right now, the only MyBB spam prevention is to send a random password to the user to check their email (which doesn't work), send a confirmation email (which also doesn't work), or just let them instantly be activated.

Also, the admin only lets you see 20 users at a time, so trying to do a mass ban is very time consuming.

If you are looking for a forum that helps you in the quest of having a great community with minimal spam, stay away from the MyBB 1.4 series.

this is down to your server not setup properly. my server works fine and so do many others.

this means its your fault!

one of my all time favorites:

its a permissions issue! with your server! nothing to do with opencart! you have not set the web user to have permission on this folder. are u stupied! opencart does not alter your session directory!

Keep in mind, these are direct quotes from Daniel.

there is not an sql injection problem you clown!

sql injection would mean you are actually injecting sql via the some unescaped variable.

the problem is (if there is one) a bug with mysql.

this threads like the blind leading the blind.

When releasing a product, you must expect that there are going to be lots of questions, some repetitive, some off the wall, and some that make no sense. However, the difference is in the customer service. For those who want their product to be used, such as PrestaShop for example, would never talk to their users like this. Those who want to push their users away, use the exact language above.

Of course, the choice is yours of which eCommerce platform you use, but do you want to be called "stupied" when asking a support question for OpenCart?

Failure of server APACHE bridge:
No backend server available for connection: timed out after 10 seconds or idempotent set to OFF.

This is extremely frustrating and not the first time PayPal has been down. PayPal is a multi billion dollar company, how can they let these things constantly happen?

Unable to process orders, check on orders, check on balances or anything during this time.

Hopefully square will be a good PayPal replacement so we have another similar option.

They offer two packages. One package is for $10, and they submit your RSS feed to 50 sites. They also offer one for $20 that they submit to 100 sites. They say completion takes about 15 days for 50 sites, and a month for 100 sites. It was faster for me, they were done within 1 day.

The good thing about WL Marketing is they also provide you with a detailed report showing each site that they submitted to, plus the directory in each site, so you can check it out for yourself.

So, how did it work out you ask?

Horrible! I was completely disappointed. No wonder this was done in one day instead of 1 month. I opted to pay $20 for the 100 sites, and the next day received a detailed report on what was done. About 30% of the sites on the list were 404. Of the rest of the 70%, I couldn't my feed on a single site. Some of them didn't even have categories on the site (a site error), so I'm not sure how they were even submitted.

I complained to WL Marketing and received a quick reply that they were sorry and were going to replace the broken links with new ones. A day later I received a new report, but it was just more of the same.

I will never use them again. I thought it would be hard to mess up RSS submissions, and thought it was a good service for a cheap price since doing it manually is very tedious. But WL Marketing makes money by not giving you what you paid for.

My first time using WL Marketing, and after this negative review, I will not be using them again.

However, with Bing being the new kid on the SEO block, they are now announcing that they are in fact using the META keywords to rank pages. Since Yahoo search is now powered by Bing, Yahoo search is using META keywords as well.

So if you are not using META keywords, I would suggest you start. Bing might not be a big player yet, but don't rule them out. Plus, they still have a lot of traffic, even if it is less than Google's. You still want to capitalize on that.

Go go META keywords! Welcome back!

Many people noticed their site take an even bigger dive, some didn't notice a change at all, and others noticed they appear to have a new penalty.

I'm not too sure what was updated in this version of Panda, but probably a polish of the 2.5 release.

Why do I have a traffic drop after Panda 2.5.2?
I have heard from many people that 2.5.2 seems to be more major than minor. People complain they lost 40-60% of their traffic overnight. They also say their sites are 100% pure original content, original images, original everything, and they are not sure why they were singled out. If you know your site is a good site, and you received a traffic drop from Panda 2.5.2 or any version of Panda, I would look at your backlinks. When Panda rolls out, it devalues sites it deems to be of low value. When a site is devalued, it's outbound links give out less or no SEO value. Your site could have dropped in rank and traffic because many of your inbound links were devalued.

Another thing is many webmasters are getting more careful about their links, especially since Panda has been released. They are doing anything they can to ensure they are within Google's quality guidelines. Many of your links could have also been turned into a nofollow. Nofollow in addition to devalued inbound links would definitely cause you a traffic drop.

Introducing Plussem. This company is actually selling +1s! Not only do they sell them extremely cheap (50 for only $9.99), but they have some interesting ways of doing this so it looks natural. The company works with people who have unique Google accounts that are phone verified. Each +1 comes from a real person and not a bot, and the person maually goes to Google search, finds your URL, and clicks on +1. Since these are real people, they all have unique and distinct IP addresses. They don't all do it at once, so it gives it a more natural feel.

Here's a red flag though. Your site has no +1s. Then over a week it gets 50, and then no more +1s again after that. If I was Google, I would flag this as potential spam. This is going to be exploited by spammers, but it's a normal thing nowadays. Google will release rules and algorithms and spammers will just find ways around them.

Would be interesting to see if plussem gets banned. All Google needs to do is to have a spam team that creates an account, and looks at which sites bought this service and ban them. Easy way to get rid of spammers.

I guess I shouldn't be so tough on the President, but this surely must have been a mistake, because afterwards he seems to have caught it and is trying to explain a bit of what he meant. Funny nonetheless. The difference here is Obama actually slipped where as George Bush to this day calls it "the internets".

Notice of Contract Termination Due to Potential New California Law

Hello,

For well over a decade, the Amazon Associates Program has worked with thousands of California residents. Unfortunately, a potential new law that may be signed by Governor Brown compels us to terminate this program for California-based participants. It specifically imposes the collection of taxes from consumers on sales by online retailers - including but not limited to those referred by California-based marketing affiliates like you - even if those retailers have no physical presence in the state.

We oppose this bill because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive. It is supported by big-box retailers, most of which are based outside California, that seek to harm the affiliate advertising programs of their competitors. Similar legislation in other states has led to job and income losses, and little, if any, new tax revenue. We deeply regret that we must take this action.

As a result, we will terminate contracts with all California residents that are participants in the Amazon Associates Program as of the date (if any) that the California law becomes effective. We will send a follow-up notice to you confirming the termination date if the California law is enacted. In the event that the California law does not become effective before September 30, 2011, we withdraw this notice. As of the termination date, California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned on or before the termination date will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule.

You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you are a resident of California. If you are not currently a resident of California, or if you are relocating to another state in the near future, you can manage the details of your Associates account here. And if you relocate to another state in the near future please contact us for reinstatement into the Amazon Associates Program.

To avoid confusion, we would like to clarify that this development will only impact our ability to offer the Associates Program to California residents and will not affect their ability to purchase from Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com.

We have enjoyed working with you and other California-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program and, if this situation is rectified, would very much welcome the opportunity to re-open our Associates Program to California residents. We are also working on alternative ways to help California residents monetize their websites and we will be sure to contact you when these become available.

Regards,

The Amazon Associates Team

Please note that you must use this e-mail address to access your account in Associates Central or when contacting Associates Customer Service.

To manage your e-mail preferences, update your account settings.

Message Category: Notice of Contract Termination Due to Potential New California Law

© 2011 Amazon.com. All rights reserved. Amazon.com is a registered trademark of Amazon.com, Inc. Amazon.com, 410 Terry Avenue N., Seattle, WA 98109-5210, USA.

I'm not sure how to take this. Amazon is quick to pull out, but it's been doing this in various other states already. Could Amazon one day just not have an affiliate program if it becomes federal (or enough national) law that all eCommerce is taxed regardless of where your business is physically?

This is going to open up a can of worms... since every state has different tax rates, and even every county, it's going to be an eCommerce nightmare trying to keep up and charge people the right amount of tax.

Is international next?

Update- it's official... Amazon is pulling out of California. Thanks Jerry Brown.

Hello,

Unfortunately, Governor Brown has signed into law the bill that we emailed you about earlier today. As a result of this, contracts with all California residents participating in the Amazon Associates Program are terminated effective today, June 29, 2011. Those California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned before today will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule.

You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you are a resident of California. If you are not currently a resident of California, or if you are relocating to another state in the near future, you can manage the details of your Associates account here. And if you relocate to another state in the near future please contact us for reinstatement into the Amazon Associates Program.

To avoid confusion, we would like to clarify that this development will only impact our ability to offer the Associates Program to California residents and will not affect your ability to purchase from Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com.

We have enjoyed working with you and other California-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program and, if this situation is rectified, would very much welcome the opportunity to re-open our Associates Program to California residents. As mentioned before, we are continuing to work on alternative ways to help California residents monetize their websites and we will be sure to contact you when these become available.

Regards,

The Amazon Associates Team