WordPress SEO Optimization Techniques
Easy Guide to installing PHP Link Directory
- Simple step by step instructions to install phpLD -
This is a guide which covers the process of downloading the PHP Link Directory script (here after referred to as phpLD), uploading it, installing it and the basic configuration required to get it working. This guide assumes no experience working with FTP, PHP or MySQL.
The script
There are two versions of phpLD, v2.2 which is the latest free version and v3.3 which is the latest paid version of the script. Serious directory owners should consider purchasing the paid version of the script because of the number of features it provides and the fact that it's updated on a regular basis. A list of features available in both the versions and a comparison can be found at: http://www.phplinkdirectory.com/articlescript/features.php
The instructions in this guide will also be applicable to those who may choose on using the free version instead of the paid. Although the screenshots used in this guide are from the paid version.
Setting up an FTP connection to your site
The first thing you will need to do is set up a FTP connection to your website. To set up a FTP connection you will need to use what is known as a FTP client. Two good examples of FTP clients are http://www.cuteftp.com (paid) and http://filezilla-project.org (free)
After you are done installing an FTP client, it's time you set up a connection using it. When you signed up with your webhost you should have received details like an FTP Address, a username and a password from them. Your webhost may have provided you with more details like the URL to access your Control Panel software. I'll cover more on this in a different section of the guide.
To set up the connection, launch the FTP application that you had installed and find the option that lets you create a new connection. You will now see a window in which you need to specify the details that are required to set up a connection. These details include assigning a name to your connection, specifying the FTP or Host Address and entering the username and password. Your client might also ask you which protocol you want to use, in most cases the answer would be FTP which is the standard protocol for transferring files over a network. If it asks what transfer type you want to use, select Auto Detect. You are done setting up the connection and you can now try connecting to your site for the first time. If you have followed everything correctly, you should be successfully connected to your host and we can move to the next part of this guide.
- - Here is a screenshot of setting up a connection using CuteFTP - -
Downloading and unpacking the script
Before you can download the script from http://www.phplinkdirectory.com/, you will first need to register for an account. Registration for an account is free. After you are done registering, you will need to make a payment if you want to purchase the paid version of the script. After purchasing it you also have an option of purchasing access to the Supporters forum. The cost for access to the supporters forum is 10 USD.
Once you are done with that process, you can proceed to download the script to your local computer. You will need to use a software similar to WinZip or WinRAR to extract the content of the package. Once you are done extracting the files inside the package to a folder on your computer, open that folder and you should see a file named license.txt and a folder named PhpLD unless you downloaded the free version in which case you will only see a folder named phpLD.
You'll be uploading all the files and folders located under the folder phpLD to the root of your domain. Make sure you upload all files and folders located under phpLD instead of uploading the folder phpLD itself.
Once you are done uploading verify if whether all the files and folders were uploaded successfully. If any of the uploads failed, you will need to re-upload those files to their respective folders.
Database
Once you are done uploading all the files and folders, its time you create a database and configure it for use with phpLD.
phpLD stores information regarding links and categories, payments received etc in a MySQL database. You first need to create a database so that it can be used by the script. You can do that by logging into your hosts control panel. Majority of the hosts use either cPanel, Plesk or Direct Admin. Because cPanel is more commonly used from these, I'll be using that to demonstrate the examples. The URL of your cPanel will look something like this. Contact your host if you are unsure about this.
http://example.com:2082 or http://example.com/cpanel or http://208.77.188.166:2082 or http://208.77.188.166/cpanel
You will be required to supply a username and password to log in to the control panel. Unless stated otherwise, the username and password for the control panel will be the same as the one used for the FTP.
Once you are logged in you will see the homepage of your Control Panel. This is where you will be creating a Database from. Search the page for the heading Databases and underneath it you will find a link to MySQL Databases. Click on that link to open the page that lets you create a database.
Now find the field which let's you create a new database, enter a name into that field and click on the Submit or Create Database button. You can name your database phpld or whatever you like as long as it's a valid name. But this won't be the final name of your database. Once the database has been created, its final name will be username_phpld (where username is your username).
Now that a database has been created, you will need to create a database user and associate it to this database.
To create a new user, from the same page you created the database from, find the heading MySQL users. Under that heading you will find two fields' viz. username and password. Choose a username and password. Example of a username would be yourname but again this wouldn't be its final name. Once the user yourname has been added its final name would be username_yourname.
Now that you have created a database and a database user, you need to associate both of them. To do that, find the heading Add User to Database. You should see two drop down menus there of which one would be labeled User and the other Database. From user choose username_yourname and from Database choose username_phpld. Click on the Add button. Once you click on the Add button you will see a page from where you can assign privileges to the user named username_yourname. Select ALL for privileges and click on the Make Changes button.
You have successfully created a database and a user which you can now user with phpLD. You should have the following details by now:
Database Name – ex: username_phpld
Database User: ex: username_yourname
Database Password: ex: aeiou123In some cases you will also need a MySQL hostname but most of the time the default MySQL hostname is localhost. Consult your host if you are unsure about this.
Installing the script
This is the last part of the installation process. We have everything set up and we just need to run phpLD's installer to complete the process. But before we can do that we will first need to set up write permissions on few of the files and folders we uploaded
If you are no longer connected to your site then reconnect to it using your FTP client and then navigate to the folder include/. Over there you will see a file named config.php. Right click on it and select Properties. You should see a text field labeled Permissions which lets you specify a value. Specify the value 666 and click on the OK button. This should change the permissions on the file config.php and set read and write permissions for the user groups Owner, Group and Public.
Now you need to set permissions on the folder temp/. From the root folder right click on the folder named temp and select Properties. Specify 777 in the Permissions field and click on the OK button. This should change the permissions on that folder to read, write and execute for all the user groups. You now need to go into the temp folder and do the same for the folders named adodb, cache and templates.
Once you are done setting the required permissions, we can move ahead with the installation process and run phpLD's installer. You can access the installer by typing http://www.yoursite.com/install/index.php in your browser. The first page of the installer will look like this:
Click on the Next button to proceed to Step 2. Step 2 will look like:
This step verifies if whether you have all the requirements for the script to run viz. support for PHP, etc. It also checks whether you set the proper permissions on /include/config.php, /temp/, /temp/templates/, /temp/cache/, /temp/adodb
Click on the Next button to proceed to step 3 of the installer. Step 3 will look like:
This is where you will need to supply the installer details regarding the database that you had set up earlier.
In the first field you will need to specify the Database Server. As mentioned earlier, the value for this field will probably be localhost unless otherwise stated by your host. Contact them if you are unsure.
After you have entered a value for the Database Server field, you will need to enter the name of your Database under Database name. The name of your database will look something like username_phpld
Then you need to enter your Database Username and Password. Your Database username might look like username_yourname. Enter the username and password and click on Next to proceed to Step 4. Step 4 will look as follows:
Make sure both Add email templates and Associate email templates to notification system are checked. You can now click on the Next button to proceed to the final step. This is where you can set up your login details for the phpLD admin panel. The step looks like:
Under Administrator username, enter a username of your choice. This will be the username that you will need to use to login to the administration panel. The username should have a minimum of 4 characters and a maximum of 10. Examples of usernames are yourname or admin.
After that you will to enter the name of the Administrator. You can enter your full name there.
You'll then need to assign a password under the Administrator password field and confirm that password by retyping it under Confirm administrator password. The password must have a minimum of 6 characters and a maximum of 10.
The last field you need to enter is the Administrator's email address. Make sure you enter a valid email address there.
You can now click on Next to finish the installation. Once the installation process has been finished, you should see the following page which confirms its success.
You are done. From this page you can choose if whether you want to be redirected to your directory's homepage or to be redirected to the administrator's control panel. Click on the Complete Installation button to exit the installer. You will be redirected to the location that you had choosen.
You will now need to delete the file /install/index.php and remove write permissions from the file /include/config.php
To delete the file /install/index.php, navigate to the /install folder, select the file index.php by right clicking on it and then select the Delete option. This will delete the file index.php
You then need to navigate to /include/ and select the file config.php by right clicking on it and then choose the Properties option. Specify 444 in the Permissions field and click on the OK button. This should change the permissions on that file to read only for all the groups.
You can now access your directory using the URL http://www.yoursite.com/ and you can access the administrator's panel by using the URL http://www.yoursite.com/admin/login.php
Hope this blog post was helpful to you, "Easy Guide to installing PHP Link Directory"
Naif....
Here is an additional related source of information from Wikipedia, pertaining to this post, here at Spunky Jones. Hope you enjoyed your visit here, and thank you for visiting!
Easy Guide to installing PHP Link Directory
