The 5-in-1 Google Tool

What I would like to point out with this video is how you can combine 5 Google keyword sources (Google keyword suggestions, Google related searches, Google synonyms, Google Insights for search and Google search-based keyword tool) into 1 easy and convenient tool.

Using the Google tools directly can be an extremely troublesome process because you may have to copy and paste the keywords into another application. Some tools like the Google AdWords Keyword tool allows you to export keywords into a text file but not all Google tools have this feature.

Expand Your Google Keyword List with Multiple Countries

Did you know that you get a different set of keywords if you specified a different country in the Google keyword tools?

You will be amazed at how many more keyword suggestions you will get if you select more than one country. However, the Google keyword tools do not allow you to select more than one country at a time. If you wanted to get the keywords of the USA and UK, you would need to select the country in the form (if there is such an option) and submit the form twice!

The bottom line is, the Maverick Keyword Researcher saves you a lot of time and effort. Once you use our Google keyword tools, you won’t want to go back to Google to get your keyword suggestions any more.

You should see a pop over window when you enter this site asking you to join the public beta. Simply enter your first name and email address to sign up for our beta program.

What is the Maverick Keyword Researcher?

It is a web-based keyword research application that is hosted on your own web server or web host. You may install it on your personal computer as long as you have a PHP-enabled web server installed.

What Can the Maverick Keyword Researcher Do?

• Brainstorm a virtually unlimited number of niche ideas for your online business.
• Uncover profitable niches by separating the goods ones from the duds.
• Generate keyword suggestions from Amazon, Ask, Google, Yahoo, Bing and other undisclosed sources.
• Get the Google search results, Google search volume, number of Google AdWords ads, average Google AdWords CPC, Google PageRank, KEI, R/S ratio and OCI of your keywords.
• Gain more control and flexibility of the Google Matching Options with the following options:
  • Broad
  • Phrase
  • Exact
• Gain more control and flexibility of the Google Search Volume with the following options:
  • Local Search Volume
  • Global Monthly Search Volume
• Gain more control and flexibility of the Google PageRank with the following options:
  • Highest Google PageRank on the first page of the search results
  • Average Google PageRank on the first page of the search results
  • Highest Google PageRank of the top 5 search results
  • Average Google PageRank of the top 5 search results
• Enables you to outsource the boring and tedious job of keyword research to someone else.

What Makes the Maverick Keyword Researcher Different?

1. You Can Finally Outsource Keyword Research!

I created this keyword research application because I was sick and tired of doing the keyword research myself. I wanted to be able to outsource my keyword research activities to my freelancers so that I can do more important things.

With desktop software, I had to deal with licensing issues because some software can only be installed on 1 or 2 computers and I found it very troublesome to activate the licenses on my freelancer’s computer because they are based overseas. I knew a web-based solution would solve this problem once and for all. You install it on your web host for all your freelancers to use without the drama of purchasing more licenses and managing them when you hire a new freelancer.

2. It is All-In-One

I wanted all the keyword sources to work seamlessly with one another and to have them all in one place to save me time and money. I did not want to have to copy and paste keywords from some web site, import a keyword file from another keyword tool or use a paid membership site to get my keywords.

3. Loads of Keyword Sources

Amazon, Ask, Google, Yahoo, Bing, undisclosed shopping sites, eBay, Alibaba and other search engines…. I dare you to find another keyword research tool with more keyword sources than the Maverick Keyword Researcher.

4. Flexibility is the Key

Other keyword research software try to force you to adopt their own proprietary SEO formulas. The Maverick Keyword Researcher allows you greater control and flexibility on how you choose to filter your keywords. Everyone has their own idea on what makes a good niche. That is why I included as many common SEO statistics like the R/S ratio, KEI, Google PageRank etc so that you may have greater control and perspective on your keywords.

I have submitted a request to Google to reconsider my web site via Google Webmaster Tools. I hope they do the right thing by restoring my site to their search engine.

I wonder if someone tried to sabotage my web site. I once read that it is very easy to get someone’s web site de-indexed. Alice Seba once had one of her sites de-indexed like mine. I wrote and posted all of my blog posts since 2004.

I hope Google will let me know why my site has been de-indexed. I have a feeling they may never give me a straight answer.

I am implementing the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) into the Maverick Keyword Researcher. However, the original formula does not work with Google keyword statistics unless I make some tweaks to it.

First up, let’s take a look at the official explanation of the KEI by its creator, Sumantra Roy:

The KEI is a measure of how effective a keyword is for your web site. The derivation of the formula for KEI is based on three axioms:

1. The KEI for a keyword should increase if its popularity increases. Popularity is defined as the number present in the “Count” column of WordTracker. This axiom is self-explanatory.
2. The KEI for a keyword should decrease if it becomes more competitive. Competitiveness is defined as the number of sites which AltaVista displays when you search for that keyword using exact match search (i.e. you should use quotes around the keyword). This axiom is also self-explanatory.
3. If a keyword becomes more popular and more competitive at the same time such that the ratio between its popularity and competitiveness remains the same, its KEI should increase. The rationale behind this axiom requires a more detailed explanation. The best way to do this is to take an example:

Suppose the popularity of a keyword is 4 and AltaVista displays 100 sites for that keyword. Then the ratio between popularity and competitiveness for that keyword is 4/100 = 0.04.

Suppose that both the popularity and the competitiveness of the keyword increases. Assume that the popularity increases to 40 and AltaVista now displays 1000 sites for that keyword. Then the ratio between popularity and competitiveness for that keyword is 40/1000 = 0.04.

Hence, the keyword has the same ratio between popularity and competitiveness as before. However, as is obvious, the keyword would be far more attractive in the second case. If the popularity is only 4, there’s hardly any point in spending time trying to optimize your site for it even though you have a bigger chance of ending up in the top 30 since there are only 100 sites which are competing for a top 30 position. Each hit is no doubt important, but from a cost-benefit angle, the keyword is hardly a good choice. However, when the popularity increases to 40, the keyword becomes more attractive even though its competitiveness increases. Although it is now that much more difficult to get a top 30 ranking, spending time in trying to do so is worthwhile from the cost benefit viewpoint.

A good KEI must satisfy all the 3 axioms. Let P denote the popularity of the keyword and C the competitiveness.

The formula that I have chosen is KEI = P2/C*1000, i.e. KEI is the square of the popularity of the keyword multiplied by 1000 and divided by its competitiveness. This formula satisfies all the 3 axioms:

1. If P increases, P2 increases and hence KEI increases. Hence, Axiom 1 is satisfied.
2. If C increases, KEI decreases and hence, Axiom 2 is satisfied.
3. If P and C both increase such that P/C is the same as before, KEI increases since KEI can be written as

KEI = P2/C*1000 = P/C * P * 1000. Since P/C remains the same, and P increases, KEI must increase. Hence, Axiom 3 is satisfied.

You may be wondering why I am multiplying the figure by 1000. The reason is that since the popularity will be very small compared to the competitiveness, the KEI for most of the keywords will be in decimals. This makes it slightly difficult to use. However, introducing the 1000 makes it easy to compare the KEI between different keywords.

Note that the formula for KEI is not unique. In fact, this is one of the nice things about the KEI. If, instead of using 2, you use any power of P greater than 1, the resultant formula will also satisfy the 3 axioms. For example, P1.5/C*1000 and P3/C*1000 both satisfy the 3 axioms. The exact power of P that you choose depends on how much emphasis you want to give to the popularity of a keyword viz-a-viz its competitiveness. Higher the power of P in the formula, higher will be the emphasis on popularity. If you are very confident about your search engine positioning skills, choose a higher value for the power of P.

If you are not that confident about your search engine positioning skills, choose a lower value for the power of P (but the power should still be more than 1). Thus, the KEI can be adapted to your skill level! Feeling confused as to which power you should choose? Stick to 2. It maintains a nice balance between both popularity and competitiveness.

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You can use the concept of KEI or any derivation of it in your own articles as long as you display the following resource box at the end of the article:

The Keyword Effectiveness Index was invented by Sumantra Roy. Sumantra is one of the most respected and recognized search engine positioning specialists on the Internet. For more articles on search engine placement, subscribe to his 1st Search Ranking Newsletter by sending a blank email to 1stSearchRanking-subscribe@listbot.com or by going to http://www.1stSearchRanking.com.

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Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) with Google Keyword Data

I hope that wasn’t too much math for you to understand. The KEI was created quite a few years ago while Altavista was still some kind of big shot in the search engine industry. Today, Google is the king of the search engines so we need to use Google’s data instead of Altavista and Wordtracker.

I tried using the original KEI formula with Google keyword date and the numbers looked unbelievably good. So good that is must be false.

Let’s replace all the Competion and Popularity jargons with something easier to read and remember. So here’s the KEI adapted to Google’s keyword data:

KEI = Google Search Count² / Google Search Results x 1000

Let’s use the keyword phrase “internet marketing” as an example. I shall use the exact match to search for internet marketing at Google.com. Please note that exact matching on Google.com refers to the use of quotes around the keywords wheareas brackets [] are used for exact matching on Google AdWords. Please refer to the Google Web Search’s search basics and Google AdWords’ keyword matching options for more information on the differences between Google’s matching options on Google.com and Google AdWords.

My search settings are as follows:

• Country: USA
• Language: English
• Google.com exact matching
• Google AdWords exact matching

I get my keyword data from the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and Google.com. I shall use the Global Monthly Search Volume divided by 30 for my Google Search Count and the number of results I see in the top right hand corner of Google.com’s search pages for my Google Search Results. The original formula uses daily search counts from Wordtracker so it is best that I use a daily search count from Google to get the formula right.

So here’s what I’ve got…

KEI = (201000/30)² / 44400000 x 1000
KEI = 1011.04

1000 is a really good KEI index. In fact, it is too good to be true. It should not be that easy to rank for the term “internet marketing”. The problem with this formula is the x1000 part at the end. If you remove that, the formula seems to make more sense. Google is a monster compared to Altavista and I believe there is no reason to multiply the results by 1000.

What if we don’t multiply it by 1000? Here’s what the KEI index will be:

KEI = (201000/30)² / 44400000
KEI = 1.01

I prefer the tweaked formula because the number returned makes more sense to me.

Updated Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) Formula for Google

If you are planning on using the KEI for your web site’s SEO research, here’s my updated KEI formula for your quick reference.

KEI = Google Search Count² / Google Search Results

There could be a better way of calculating the KEI. Some people use the “allintitle” search parameter to get different results. If you know a better tweak for Google keyword data, please let me know.

The keyword research tools of the Maverick Keyword Researcher come in 3 general categories. The first bunch of tools are for generating ideas for a niche/topic. The second group of tools are for getting as many alternative keywords of a niche. The last group is for analyzing the real-world statistics of the keywords.

Saved Searches

Every keyword search you make will be automatically saved into text files. I am working on a project module that assigns keywords to a project. The screen shots above do not have that at the moment. I added a lot jquery effects to make the interface more user-friendly. You may check out the list of keywords, download the keyword files and mass delete them with a few clicks of the mouse. The table design was inspired by WordPress.

Non-Google Search Engines

There are a lot of top searches and buzz lists from some non-Google search engines. I won’t reveal these search engines because I don’t want to receive another letter from them. The keywords from this tool generates the most popular keywords that are being searched on the internet through non-Google search engines.

Google AdWords Keyword Suggestions

Did you know that you get a different set of keywords if you select a different country from the Google AdWords Tool? That was what I discovered. I created a custom tool to import as many keywords from Google AdWords by selecting multiple countries. You may select up to 233 countries but it would take a long time. Most of the keywords are repeated but you may find a couple of gems in there. Usually, I simply click on the “popular countries” link to get keywords from the most popular countries.

Here’s a preview of the Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool:

You need to be gentle with this tool because Google does not like it when you use their free tools too frequently. I created a random search timer that spaces out the import queries every 15 to 30 seconds.

User Accounts, Installation, Password Reminders, Login etc

The first public version of the Maverick Keyword Researcher will not use a MySQL database to store its data. I have developed it to use text files for the time being. It is easier to sort keywords with MySQL than text files. So the first version will have limited sorting features.

The installer is pretty straightforward. You upload all the files to your web server or your local server and launch index.php. The installer will make sure you have certain files and folders with the right permissions. Since we will be using text files in version 1, we need to set the file permissions of a couple of folders and the text files in them. This is the troublesome part but it is easier than creating a database in cPanel.

Maverick Keywords Researcher will be encrypted with ionCube’s PHP Encoder. The industry’s top 2 PHP encoders are Zend and ionCube. Most web hosts have them installed by default. If not, they should be able to install it on your web server for you if you ask them to.

I am thinking of making it more user-friendly in future releases by using ionCube’s Package Foundry. This software will help you to upload and and configure all the folder and file permissions. It may be able to install the ionCube loaders on your web server if you don’t have it installed. I will purchase ionCube’s Package Foundry with the initial sales of this product. I also need to upgrade my ionCube PHP Encoder to a better version to generate license files and stop the licenses of customers who have refunded. I could also give away free trials with limited licenses.

Google Keyword Research

I combined a few Google keyword tools on a single page. I am working on adding Google’s Search-based Keyword Tool too. At the moment, my Google tool grabs related keywords from Google.com home page (Google Suggestions), Google’s related searches, Google Synonyms and Google Insights for Search.

I discovered a way to generate more keywords by searching multiple countries. Most countries will give you duplicate results but if you select the most popular countries (I got this list from the countries listed at the top of Google’s country drop down lists…), you should be able to get a very nice list of keywords. If you’re up for it, you could select all 233 Google-supported countries.

I am still working on getting keyword suggestions from Google AdWords. The Google AdWords Keyword Tool has to be on a different page because it requires a captcha. It would be irritating for the users to mix it with the other Google tools that don’t require a captcha.

KwBrowse Keyword Research

This KwBrowse tool took me a long time to complete. I could not find a way to automate it completely because it returns a lot of unrelated keywords. I created a select box on the right to filter out the unwanted keywords that are returned from the searches.

It isn’t easy or fast to get a complete keyword list from KwBrowse but it is worth the effort because you will get a huge list of related keywords.

Wordtracker Keyword Research

Wordtracker has a free keyword tool that generates the top 100 related keywords of the keyword you enter in their form. Sometimes, this keyword tool requires a captcha before you are allowed to search. I have programmed the Maverick Keyword Researcher to deal with that issue. The problem with a lot of free keyword tools online is that they don’t give you an easy way to copy and paste the keywords. With my tool, they are returned nicely in a text file.

Others…

I created a list of categories that can be easily copied and pasted for mySimon and Shopping.com. You could grab these keywords and find potential niches for your online business. This list has over 500 keywords and you should be able to find a few profitable niches in there.

I also created keyword suggestions from Alibaba, Ask and Yahoo. Some of the keyword suggestions cannot be copied and pasted in the browser. For example, if you enter a keyword at Yahoo.com or Google.com, the web page returns a list of related keywords in your browser. The only way to get that list manually is to type the keywords you see on the screen to some application on your computer. That’s just stupid and a waste of time. I figured out a way to get these keyword suggestions quickly and easily.

Alibaba, Ask, Yahoo and Google all have a suggestion list when you type in a keyword at their home page. Ask.com has additional keyword suggestion on their search pages and I have added those into the Maverick Keyword Researcher too.

I am thinking of adding keyword suggestions from eBay and DHgate.com. Another source would be Keyword Discovery. For version 1.0, all the keyword sources would be free. I might include paid keyword sources from Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery and Wordze in the future. Maybe I could make it a monthly subscription thing at a lower rate than the amount you pay for these keyword tools every month.

You need a Google AdWords account to retrieve Google.com’s statistics. You would assume that the information you get from the software would be similar to what you would get if you check it out at Google AdWords, right? Unfortunately, there is a bug with Keywords Analyzer 7.68, which is the latest version at the time of this post. This software has been around for quite a few years and it is disappointing that it still has bugs like this.

For this example, I did a search on the keyword “acuvue”, in quotes for Google’s phrase matching. Keywords Analyzer gave me 550000 searches and 791000 search results. This made the KEI extremely high. There is something seriously wrong here.

I did a check for the keyword at the Google AdWords keyword tool. What I found was the monthly search count for the phrase match of “acuvue” was only 301000. Keywords Analyzer‘s stats must be wrong. I sent a support ticket to the author of the software he said, “At this point KA does not keep track where the data was downloaded so it doesn”t know whether it needs to multiply by 30 or not”.

Wow! You don’t know where the data was downloaded from? I thought I selected Google and entered my Google AdWords account information.

Another problem with this software is it does not display the CPC prices of the keywords in the main window. You need to click on another button to get the CPC prices of the keywords. You cannot compare and sort the keywords by CPC and that is frustrating for me.

Keywords Analyzer seems like a great software if you do some PPC arbitrage. You may scan for the CPC prices from some PPC search engines to find potential keywords to bid on. Other than Google.com, you may use a few other keyword sources for your searches.

Conclusion

Save your money. There should be better keyword research software.

The thing about Micro Niche Finder that bugs me the most is it cannot display the search counts for imported keywords from a text file. You only get search counts if you enter a search term in the search field. Other than that, sometimes, the Brainstorm and Hot Trends features do give you the search counts. I keep getting “Dig This” for my search counts. If you click on it, you will see a list of related keywords that may or may not display the search count for that keyword. This is extremely frustrating. What’s worse? Sometimes you see weird ***** in the search count column. Overall, the search count is quite pathetic and there is no reason why it cannot be improved.

Another thing that bugs me about this software is that it does not allow me to select broad, phrase or exact matching options for the keywords. You are forced to use the exact matching options by default and I do not see any option to change that.

Micro Niche Finder was designed to prevent getting blocked by Google.com. It goes slow so that you do not need to keep entering the Google captcha. That is great but it takes more time to check all fields and search them by columns and not by rows. You check the keywords you want and search for the OCI, exact count, ad cost etc. This takes a long long time to complete. You cannot just let it run and have all the stats you want with 1 click. Once 1 column has completed its search, you have to repeat that process on another column.

There is a background downloading service that claims to automate all of this but it does not seem to work correctly on mine. It takes forever to complete and I think it hangs there and does nothing most of the time.

I can verify that the search counts, OCI and CPC are correct. I verified the stats at Google and Live Search as you can see from the screen shots above. I used the keyword “acuvue” for this example. Microsoft says there is a 86% probability that someone searching for this keyword will have the intention to buy something. These stats are correct in Micro Niche Finder. However, I have no idea where the exact phrase matches come from as this data does not seem to come from Google AdWords.

I emailed the author to ask him why he could not give us the search counts. He replied and told me it was to prevent getting “Google blocks”, which could result in a temporary ban on your IP address from accessing Google’s search engine. I do not see why he could not do the same for the search counts like what he did for the OCI, exact matches and the other fields.

Conclusion

The next version that will allow mass search counts will be 3-4 months away! I have no idea why people can say this software is great when I have found so many problems with it. I am not trying to be negative but I cannot find a lot of positives with this keyword software.

Fixing the Google Friend Connect WordPress Plugin’s XHTML Errors

The Google Friend Connect WordPress Plugin has a few XHTML errors.

• It uses the <br> tag, which has been depreciated and the <br /> tag should be used instead.
• It uses the <b> tag, which is depreciated and the <strong> tag should be used instead.
• There is an unnecessary <br> tag in the fc_wp_comment_form() function. This may cause your comment form to look weird.
• 1 of the img tags does not have the closing />.

To fix these errors, you need to make the following changes.

Original code:

'<img align="left" src="' +  viewer.getField("thumbnailUrl") + '">' +
'<b>Hello ' +  viewer.getField("displayName") + '!</b><br>' +
'<a href="#" onclick="google.friendconnect.requestSettings()">Settings</a><br>' +
'<a href="#" onclick="google.friendconnect.requestInvite()">Invite</a><br>' +
'<div id="loadprof"></div>';

// The fc_wp_comment_form function
// This just creates a div tag that will be replaced by the javascript code
// when the page gets loaded
function fc_wp_comment_form() {
 ?>
   <br>
   <div id="profile">
   </div>
 <?
}

Edited code:

'<img align="left" src="' +  viewer.getField("thumbnailUrl") + '" />' +
'<strong>Hello ' +  viewer.getField("displayName") + '!</strong><br />' +
'<a href="#" onclick="google.friendconnect.requestSettings()">Settings</a><br />' +
'<a href="#" onclick="google.friendconnect.requestInvite()">Invite</a><br />' +
'<div id="loadprof"></div>';

// The fc_wp_comment_form function
// This just creates a div tag that will be replaced by the javascript code
// when the page gets loaded
function fc_wp_comment_form() {
 ?>
   <div id="profile">
   </div>
 <?
}

1. Replace all <br> tags with <br />.
2. Replace all <b> tags with <strong>.
3. Remove the <br> tag in the fc_wp_comment_form() function on line 49.
4. Add a back slash to the <img> tag on line 150.

Editing the CSS of Google Friend Connect WordPress Plugin’s Sign In Box

Original code:

#profile {
font-size:13px;
margin: 20px 40px;
border: 1px solid blue;
padding: 15px;
background-color: #E5ECF9;
}

Edited code:

#profile {
font-size:12px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}

This really depends on how you want the sign in box to look like. I hate the blue border and how it was aligned to the centre of the page. So I removed the border and margin/padding space.

You might also encounter CSS problems with the code below:

Original code:

<style type="text/css">
body {font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight:normal;}
h2 {color: #3366CC; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal}
h3 {font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal}
h4 {color: grey; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal}

Google adds this code to your WordPress site whether you like it or not. This to me, is very sloppy coding from Google. They could have added classes instead of forcing all h2, h3, h4 tags to look the way they want it to. Lucky for me, I use CSS classes to control how my h2, h3 and h4 tags so I am not affected by this code. However, if you use a general h2, h3, h4 without any classes or IDs, then good luck!

Edited code:

<style type="text/css">
body {font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight:normal;}
h2 {color: #3366CC; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal}
h3 {font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal}
h4 {color: grey; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal}

I found that it was okay for me to remove the body code and it did not affect the sign in box.

Hopefully we will see some improvements to Google’s plugin in the future. It is still rather buggy at the moment.

Chris Lang’s instructions are pretty good but I plan to go deeper into the installation process to make it even easier for you. Google’s Friend Connect instructions are horrible and they need to work on it as soon as possible before they put off more people from Google Friend Connect.

Step 1: Join Google Friend Connect

You need to have a Google account to add your web site to the Google Friend Connect database. I shall not go through the Google signup process. Once you have a Google account, click on the huge “Set up a new site” button to get started.

Step 2: Set Up a New Site at Google Friend Connect

• For WordPress sites, click on the “Friend Connect for standard web sites” link.
• Click on the “Continue” link to skip the overview page.
• Enter your web site’s title and URL and click on the “Continue” link.
• Click on the “rpc_relay.html” button and save the file into your web site’s local root folder.
• Click on the “canvas.html” button and save the file into your web site’s local root folder.
• Click on the “Continue” link to proceed to the next page.
• Upload “rpc_relay.html” and “canvas.html” to your web site’s root folder on your web host.
• Click on the “Test to finalize setup” button to complete your web site’s submission to Google Friend Connect!

Step 3: Download, Edit, Upload and Activate the Google Friend Connect WordPress Plugin

This is the toughest part of the whole process. Google did not release a very user-friendly WordPress plugin. You will have to extract the plugin files into a specific folder, edit the source code and upload the plugin files before it will work.

// Please modify the following function to return a value that
// you obtain after registering your site with FriendConnect
function fc_get_site_id () {
  return '14868846668007632003';
}

<!-- Initialize the Google Friend Connect OpenSocial API. -->
<script type="text/javascript">
   var SITE_ID = "<?echo fc_get_site_id(); ?>"
   google.friendconnect.container.setParentUrl('/' /* location of rpc_relay.html and canvas.html */);
   google.friendconnect.container.initOpenSocialApi({
   site: SITE_ID,
   onload: function(securityToken) { initAllData(securityToken); }
  });
</script>

• Click on the “Plugins” link on your Google Friend Connect page.
• Click on the “WordPress” link.
• Click on the “Downloads” tab of the Google Code page.
• Click on the “wordpress.zip” file to download it to your computer.
• Create a folder with the name “fc_plugin” in your web site’s local “wp-content/plugins/”.
• Extract the files in the “src” folder of “wordpress.zip” into the new “fc_plugin” folder.
• Open the file “fc_plugin.php” with your favourite HTML editor.
• Go to line 43. It should have something like return ‘XXXXXX’, where ‘XXXXXX’ is the default Site ID number Google added into the file.
• Get your site ID by checking out your address bar when you are browsing your Google Friend Connect page. There should be something like “id=xxxxxx”. The numbers after the “id=” is your Site ID. I have not idea why Google does not display this prominently in the Google Friend Connect area.
• Replace the Site ID in “fc_plugin.php” with your Site ID.
• Go to line 112. Remove everything in the bracket and leave only ‘/’. This is for letting the plugin know your 2 HTML files are in the root folder.
• Upload the “fc_plugin” folder to your web site’s “wp-content/plugins” folder on your web host.
• Activate the plugin at your WordPress plugins page.

Step 4: Test the Google Friend Connect WordPress Plugin

You should see a Google Friend Connect sign in box at the comment box of every single post. Try signing in and posting a comment to see if it works. It it works, then you’ve done everything right. If it doesn’t, check out line 43 and 112 to see if you entered the right code.

Problems with the Google Friend Connect WordPress Plugin

I am not sure how to edit the positioning and design of the sign in box. It looks pretty ugly at the moment. This plugin adds a lot of extra CSS code to your web site, which may mess up your web site’s design. I will post a tutorial on how to edit the Google Friend Connect WordPress plugin once I have figured out how to do it.