New website launched - www.mytown.ie

[Forbairt]

Davkell, Do those towns that you mentioned have populations of >5000 people? When starting the site I looked a list of towns and populations and according to that Athenry and Ballinasloe have populations of 2600 and 1800 respectively. This info may be out-of-date so correct me if I am wrong.

I would have assumed the population of Athenry is quite a bit more ... It feels bigger than oranmore which has a population of 3500. Its got multiple realestate places ... various banks .. lots of pubs ... shops .. video stores ....3+ pharmacies ... petrol stations ... mart ... co-op .. and so on ... Its also a place of historical interest as well as The Fields of Athenry being quite a popular song

Forbairt, If you add businesses and then the real owner comes along and wants to take ownership - he/she should register for the site and let me know which business they own - I can then assign that business to them in the backend. I should probably make this clearer on the website though. But feel free to enter all the businesses and points of interest in Galway for me

So how do you determine if it really is the owner contacting you ?

May enter one or two other businesses onto it ... forbairt media .. hmm...

 

[garrybennett]

info about west of Ireland

Thanks for the info about Athenry. I've only been up West a couple of times so I am a bit ignorant about the towns there. I was basing everything solely on population which was easiest, but I take your point that some towns need to be included for other reasons.
I will add Athenry later today. If there are any other towns that you think need to be included please let me know.

I guess if you are the real business and take control of your listing I will ask you to upgrade to a basic or premium listing (which cost an annual fee). You would probably not pay the annual fee if it was not your business. Alternatively I could say that I will call you back on the number listed in a phone director to authenticate that you are the business you claim to be.

Forbairt, as you have been such a help with feedback and criticism I will upgrade your listing for Forbairt Media. Let me know when you have entered it.

 

[glengara]

Another vote against the JS links in that G doesn't seem to have indexed your main navigation, if you can live without the icons you might look at CSS drop-downs, if you can't you'll need an alternative html nav bar.

 

[Forbairt]

Another vote against the JS links in that G doesn't seem to have indexed your main navigation, if you can live without the icons you might look at CSS drop-downs, if you can't you'll need an alternative html nav bar.

You should be able to have CSS based drop downs that include icons ? ... that said I've not done it so maybe the compatability thing is an issue though I can't see why too much

lots of IDs / classes required though ...

 

[garrybennett]

JS and Google

Fair point, but would submitting these links in my sitemap.xml be a work-around solution for now?

 

[Forbairt]

Its semi a solution ...

But ... Search engines like to be able to go from one page to another though ... they like links between pages and content linking to other content.

 

[glengara]

Haven't seen a CSS drop-down that included icons so assumed....the other thing I noticed is the amount of blank pages indexed, I'd look at ways to minimise "clutter" when you re-design.

 

[Busarus]

or anytowns from cavan or monaghan

 

[davkell]

Davkell, Do those towns that you mentioned have populations of >5000 people? When starting the site I looked a list of towns and populations and according to that Athenry and Ballinasloe have populations of 2600 and 1800 respectively. This info may be out-of-date so correct me if I am wrong.

I'd guess that number is way too low for Ballinasloe, it's far bigger than Athenry - I threw it into google and got back 6000 from:

Location and property options for investing in west Ireland, Galway, Ballinasloe, Tuam, Castlebar, Westport, Ballina - invest in Ireland
and
Location and property options for investing in west Ireland, Galway, Ballinasloe, Tuam, Castlebar, Westport, Ballina - invest in Ireland

I'd say you might find some other up-to-date figures on that site...

 

[garrybennett]

more towns added

Forbairt, you will be glad to see that Athenry has been added.

If anyone out there thinks that a town should be added for whatever reason, just make the arguement and if I agree I will be more than happy to add it!

 

[ghost]

If anyone out there thinks that a town should be added

with the town list growing you might want to add an extra list box to select towns by county.
another thought to avoid adding towns with empty content you could add a suggest a town slot so when you have a willing contributor on line let them add a town and then add an entry for that town

note for black knight the spell check icon in the editor is not showing in the flock browser ?

 

[garrybennett]

town list is growning!

I will think about the idea of adding a box to let the user choose their county and then select the town, it would make it easier for the user.
I also plan to do something with an interactive map to help with navigation - watch this space.

Regarding, allowing users to add towns. There are a number of things that I need to do in the backend to add a town (setup google map API, setup Yahoo! weather API, add town title, description and meta keywords). I would not be willing to let a member of the public do this, but I take the point that I should allow users to "Suggest a town" and then if I think it warrants it I will add it in.
I think the list of towns will be finite so adding in towns is not something that I will always have to do.

 

[Forbairt]

next feedback ... its annoying when I'm adding a thing (for what of a better word) ... that I have to select the location of said thing ... maybe a bit of code that defaults to my home town would be in order.

The majority of people will only be adding items for their own town .. and you already know in my case its galway due to my registration details ?