KeepMyGolfScore.com Winter 2006 Updates

February 22, 2006

As stated in an earlier post, we have many planned updates for KeepMyGolfScore.com for the upcoming golf season. I say upcoming as we are in the northeast where, unfortunately, the golf season does not last the entire year. The programming/development updates are nearing completion and should be enough to entice new users to sign up, and make it more compelling for potential advertisers.

The new stats page, Stats Central, has been completed. This new page will contain more of the "lifetime" stats and best/worst stats overall for golfers. These stats used to be on the Welcome page, but with some other additions, the Welcome page is now displaying more current stats. The Stats Central page has also expanded the stats from the top 5 rounds all time to the top 10 rounds all time, and will contain the graphs for the last 5 rounds.

Perhaps the most impressive update on KeepMyGolfScore.com is the introduction of graph displays. I've posted before about how to create graph displays using PHP, and the same method has been employed in this case. The graphs are very clean and sharp and summarize the total score, fairways hit, greens in regulation, and putts for the last 5 rounds. These graphs finally give some kind visual clue as to how well a golfer is performing and offers a quick overview without having to wade through lines of text and numbers. The new graphs will be displayed on the golfer Welcome page and also the new Stats Central page.

The home page is also in the process of being redesigned. Nearly complete, the new home page will contain more text and links that should hopefully bring more search engine traffic, and will also contain more content in general. The individual golf links pages can be accessed directly from the home page, the "Tour" section now contains a small thumbnail of the graph displays along with a note on recent updates, and three new advertising areas will be introduced. Two vertical banner ads and an area for served contextual ads.

Finally, the ad system is being expounded upon. Along with the location-based text ads already implemented, the two new banner ads will be introduced to the ad-serving system. This will ensure that no matter how many ads are input into the system that they are displayed each ad rotation ensuring that no ads will be displayed any more times than another ad. The text ads will be supplied by an outside ad-server while the banner ads will be implemented in-house.

With exception to final touches to the home page and the addition of the banner ads to the ad system, the updates are complete. The changes should go live some time in March when the golf season finally gets back into the "swing of things" here in the northeast.

Technorati Tags: keepmygolfscore  golf  golf score tracker  online golf stats  golf handicap tracker