News just in that may affect several high-turnover affiliate sites or people with good Yahoo traffic.

H.Samuel and Ernest Jones will be amending their Terms & Conditions to no longer allow SEO affiliates to use Ernest Jones or H.Samuel brand misspells in URL’s, page titles, meta data and copy within the web pages.

Now, I don’t use misspells on my own code site. It’s only use is to attract visitors from the search engines that can’t spell.

Being a trained journalist it would annoy me to have to type typos just to attract an extra 1% of visitors.

Regardless, I’ll include on my pages on my site any content that I wish. Whether, that’s typos or banner links to competitors.

I know people have brands to protect but these same people probably bid on these same typos via PPC.

Are you an ernest or even an earnest affiliate? A quick check via Google, shows who is.

The new design and format of Befuddle, my drunk celebrity picture site, is currently available for viewing in it’s ‘hidden’ location at www.befuddle.co.uk/blog.

Back in March, I took stock of the existing site and realised that it was pretty much pointless carrying on with the existing design and methods.It wasn’t flexible and there was no scope for any enhancements for the site that once had daily traffic of 125,000 unique visitors.

NextGEN Gallery

So I thought I’d give WordPress a go. I installed it and set about looking for some plug-ins to create and manage galleries online. Alex Rabe’s NextGEN Gallery does most of everything I need it to, including adding watermarks to images.

I created several posts based on the remaining picture content that I still had on my Befuddle and Drunk Celebs domains. Most of that content had to be deleted back in September when there was the malware warning.

I back-dated the posts, so I’ve now got some content in the new format dated December 2003.

Adult Design Evolution

Once I established that I could manage galleries and posts within WordPress I needed a new theme. I searched for adult WordPress themes and on 19th March found Adult Design Evolution.

I entered my project details in their site for a quotation and received:

• Custom Cartoon Design: $75
• Logo Design: $125
• Custom Blog Design: $175

I received personal emails from Laurentiu of their sales and marketing team and he sent me questionnaires so that I could write down the specifics of my requirements.

I received a new Befuddle logo, which you’ve already commented that you like. I said I wanted something in the same colours as the original and that “it should be a ‘fun’ font or give the impression that the site doesn’t take itself seriously”.

I got a custom cartoon design. I wanted a cartoon to show that the site was very much tongue in cheek. I also didn’t want the site to be too adult. So I asked for a suggestive Paris Hilton lookalike that “can show teasing flesh but not be too provocative” and that “the character should appear drunk or carrying drink”. I’m very pleased with the result.

I also got the rest of the blog theme to sit with how I wanted the categories to be displayed and that there was room for advertising banners within the posts and spaces for sponsorship slots on the widths.

I paid half of the fee upfront via PayPal and the final payment once I’d received the final approved designs. It was only when I received the invoice did I realise that I was dealing with a Romanian company Studio DBS.
ADE have been busy so they scheduled my project in for 10th May. On 21st May I was sent an email with a design of how the blog would look. At this point I still had opportunities to raise any issues or concerns.

I wondered if I’d see more than one design but ADE usually work on just one design sample because they can achieve better results than splitting the time and making more versions.

Two days after approving the designs, the blog was viewable as a working sample on their servers. Again I had opportunity to review. At this stage I completed the full payment of $375. Which, with the exchange rate is an absolute bargain!

Beta

I’m not in a position to launch this new design over the existing site yet, as I’ve found a technical fault with my host. Sometimes viewers of this blog see database connection errors and Befuddle, which is hosted in the same place, will experience the same.

I’ll also have little or no Internet access over the next fortnight, as I’m away on business and pleasure, so I am in no rush to launch the new design.

However, take a look around at some Drunk Celebs. Much of the content will lead you back to the original existing site.

Cheers!