Hiding the Sphinn Button When a Post Fails to Go Hot
Posted by Marios Alexandrou, SEO Resume.If you're a famous search engine marketer or social media user, you can ignore this post as I'm sure you don't have this problem. For the rest of you, read on...
One of the things I don't like about Sphinn is that if a post fails to go hot within a couple of days of being submitted, it will NEVER go hot. I'm not arguing that the system isn't fair, I'm just saying I don't like it. A side-effect of this behavior is that my site has now become riddled with Sphinn buttons with depressing single digit counts. Do I need to advertise to visitors that a post failed to reach critical mass? Nope.
So, I've modified some code I previously wrote to hide the Sphinn button until the first Sphinn to now include additional logic for controlling when to hide the Sphinn button. That is, if a post is older than X days and has received fewer than Y Sphinns, the button won't show. X and Y can be set to your liking. In case that description doesn't make sense, here's a screenshot of this code in action on my home page.
As usual, use this code at your own risk. I'm using it on this site, but that doesn't guarantee it's bug-free. And I acknowledge that this code should be in a plug-in rather than requiring template changes, but I'm just not ready to put the time into that just yet. Maybe when there are more features it'll be worth the effort.
To use this Sphinn button functionality, first set up Michelle MacPhearson's Plug-In using Method C as described in her instructions. Then make the following template changes:
BEFORE
<?php show_sphinnit(); ?>
AFTER
<?php include 'sphinn-button.php'; ?>
There are two variables in the sphinn-button.php file that you can adjust to suit your needs:
days_to_show_sphinn_button: Sets the number of days for which the Sphinn button will display even if the minimum number of Sphinns hasn't been reached.
minimum_sphinns_to_show_button: If a post is older than a certain number of days, this will determine how many votes are required for the Sphinn button to display.
Download the sphinn-button code here. The file extension is txt so you'll need to rename it to php once you drop it into your current WordPress theme folder.
If this code doesn't work for you, leave me a comment with error details and I'll try to help you out.
Related SEO/SEM Articles:- How to Show the Sphinn Button Only AFTER the First Sphinn
- 2,500 Hot Sphinns Reveal Patterns and Trends
- Sphinn - Many Voices or Just a Few?
- Social Media for Firefox
- Will BlogRush Replace MyBlogLog?
Entries (RSS)
Just wanted to let you know the link to the Sphinn button isn't working. It should be http://www.allthingssem.com/tools/sphinn-button.txt. You accidentally linked it as .php
Oh the irony... this story went hot on Sphinn. Seems you're not alone Marios.
Nice plugin (if it's bugfree ;]) and I think you have a good point when you say that you don't need to advertise the post if it didn't reach the critical mass!
I will have to check sphinn out and try to get some articles linked to.
Thanks for this post - I was wondering about adding Sphinn, but it does look a bit naff if you have loads of scores of 3 or something. I'll be looking into getting this done now.
Cheers, Dan.
Not even know if you have something like this: second time my profile completely disappears from sphinn, as well as my posts. They relate to on-line tools for search engine marketing and monitoring.
I do not get any explanations, neither my questions to sphinn staff getting answered.
Maybe you can help
@Kristina
Sorry, I can't say for sure why your account or submissions would be deleted. However, if you're submitting items that are commercial or entirely self-serving without providing value to the community, that would explain what's happening.