Thousands of proxies use templates from freeproxytemplates.com. Many of these have just been uploaded in their original form, with even the most minor of changes not being made. Even the newest of webmasters are capable of making changes to their proxy, and most of these customizations do not need to take very much time at all. They can have a drastic impact on your traffic and earnings, so should not be ignored. Your proxy site has several areas that really should be customized, so just follow our simple instructions below to make three vital customizations.
The Title
Begin with the title, which is displayed in the top of the internet browser window. The title is also often used in search engine results. Our templates have the title set in the current format:
Template # - Sponsored by FreeProxyTemplates.com
Obviously this is not a very good title for your proxy site, so think of something better! Ideally it should have your site name in it, and a few descriptive words. Maybe something like:
YourProxy.com - Unblock sites at school and work!
You don’t need to keep the ‘Sponsored by FreeProxyTemplates.com’ part of the title, but obviously can do if you want to. To change the title, find your site files and open config.php. At the top will be the original title. Simply replace it with your new title and save. This will instantly make your site more identifiable to users, and improve your visibility in the search engines.
The META Tags
Meta information provides details about a website, and is used by the search engines to categorise and sometimes rank the site. The information is not seen by users of the website, but is in the source code of your site files. The META information is divided into a META description and META keywords. Customizing this information means that you can target whatever keywords you want to fit in with your promotion strategy, and provide a more appropriate description. Most sites don’t change the META information, and there is nothing wrong with this. However, it only takes seconds and can prove beneficial.
The META information can be edited by opening config.php in notepad. Find //Meta settings, where you will see something like this:
$metadescription = "YourProxy allows you to browse blocked websites at home, work or school, and protects your privacy while online. Designed by FreeProxyTemplates.com."; $metakeywords = "proxy, proxy sites, myspace proxies, FreeProxyTemplates.com";
Simply change the description and keywords to reflect your site. Make sure that you keep your new information inside the inverted commas, and that these remain in place. There is no need to keep the reference to FreeProxyTemplates.com here, but you may do if you wish.
The Footer
It’s also very straight forward to change the footer information. However, please note that when using our templates you are only permitted to edit the copyright information for your site. You must not edit or remove the link back to us, or the link(s) to any sponsor(s) unless you have purchased a licence. For more information on this, please see our licence information. The edit that you are permitted to make will simply put your own link into the footer for copyright purposes. Open config.php and find //copyright. You’ll see the following:
$footer = '© Your Proxy 2007';
Simply change this to reflect your site. So put the web address in, the title, and the name of your proxy. This will then display your site details as a link before our links.
That’s it! Three areas of your proxy customized, and it shouldn’t have taken more than a few minutes. It’s very basic, but the number of sites that haven’t changed these settings is staggering!