Dateless Sniper 2.0 Now Available
June 4th, 2008 by CourtGuys I am REALLY excited about the release of the newest version of this theme. To say the least, it has some major upgrades from the last version. Here are the changes I made this time around:
- Dateless Sniper 2.0 is fully Adsense-ready and has four easy-to-use options for Adsense placement
- Moved the ‘Filed Under’ section below the posts
- Added the ‘Sponsors’ section for optional banner support with Got Banners
- Changed links from blue to underlined black
- Added ‘Tag’ section with support for a non-list-style tag cloud (the old tag could was very annoying)
- Added tag support to single post pages that adds tags below post content
Save to del.icio.us
Digg This!
Post to Facebook
StumbleItRelated Posts:
Introducing Dateless Sniper 1.1
As some of you know, WordPress 2.5+ has some issues running widgets in certain themes. Buggy code in...
Dateless Sniper Theme - Tutorial Video
After creating the latest version of the Dateless Sniper theme (Dateless Sniper 2.0), I thought that...
Dateless Sniper 1.0 And 90 SEO WordPress Themes
Today I have two exciting new announcements, so hopefully it will be one of those days where you're ...
Court’s Keyword Sniper 1.0 WordPress Theme
My 'Introduction To Keyword Sniping' post quickly became the all-time most popular post on Court's I...
Keyword Sniping Into the Future
Every business owner should be thinking about the longevity and sustainability of his or her income ...
Large Adsense Clicks Make My Day
Yesterday I was looking at the adsense stats for the niche sites Court and I run, and I saw somethin...
June 4th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Very very clean! Installed it immediately and I agree that the tag cloud being smaller and less obvious than the normal widget is a plus. I’m just getting started in wordpress though, so I take it adsense is added by manually entering the code in the theme editor?
Just wanted to also say that I appreciate the hard work you’re doing for all of us!
June 4th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Great theme … I just got set up with my current theme but will certainly give this one a whirl on any new blogs I set up. Thanks for sharing.
June 4th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Wow you guys are into everything arn’t you?
June 4th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Hi Court:
If putting up an informational niche site that is not updated frequently, why is blog software necessary? (Assuming one can do html, php, css and do the head tags, h1 tags, page titles, menus, keyword sprinkling, etc., oneself similar to what you do). That is much more flexible, less complicated, and you know what you got.
And,specially, why have comments on a niche site that is not a blog? Facilitating comments seems be the only reason to use blog software. (It’s a hassle to code comment handling oneself.) What am I missing?
Thanks for an thought-provoking and informative site.
David Bean
June 4th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
No it’s not necessary David but it’s about 100 times easier once you get used to it. I started by doing what you’re doing and shifted to this because it makes the process much faster.
Comments allow you to get fresh content with no work, especially if you add a Recent Comments section into the sidebar of the site.
Blogs ping search engines and build that type of links, yes you could code that into a static site but it’s easier to use blog software.
Related posts with a blog allow you to create a link Markov that updates itself each time something new is added.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:36 am
Thanks Court - I’ll give it a try on a new niche site I am researching now. Almost anything new would be an improvement over what I’m doing now. I was just hoping to avoid another “learning experience”.
Regards, David Bean
June 5th, 2008 at 1:26 am
Hi David!
You said, “It’s a hassle to code comment handling oneself.) What am I missing?”
Well, actually it ai’nt - I use this(free) comment software and it was a snap to install. see it here(http://tutorials.biznz.net/index.php?content=rollovers.php) -
PS, it is a new install and has yet to attract new comment. The old system had to be scrapped because it had no anti-spam filters. So far the Akismet system is catching all the spam.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Hello Rhys:
Thanks for the tip, but I guess I will go with WP and Court’s sniper theme on my next one. I wasn’t planning on having comments at all, but since Court convinced me on that, I may as well go with the WP/Sniper for the other stuff he mentioned, as well.
June 4th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Thanks again for sharing this court. I really love your seo themes
June 4th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Court, thanks to your site I’ve been doing keyword research and just today launched my first sniper blog using this theme. (Talk about good timing.) Can’t wait to see how things develop.
One question…and maybe you answered this somewhere else, but I couldn’t find it: What’s the best way to utilize the blogroll? It’s included in the theme, so I know it must be valuable in some way.
Also, I’m guessing that you’d advise adding a “related posts” plugin?
June 5th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Yes it would be good to add a Related Posts plugin. Use the blogroll to exchanges blogroll links with related sites.
June 4th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Court-
Fantastic job on the theme; like AJ, I’m just getting started so I’ve *really* been reading a lot of your articles. Thanks for all the hard work!
Any thoughts about updating the style sheet so some more of the available widgets follow the theme of the site? Maybe indenting child categories in the categories list? Great idea creating the mostly empty php files for pasting adsense code; I bet it will save some questions for where to paste it.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:53 am
I’ll consider doing that for the next edition.
June 4th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
I just set up a blog yesterday using Sniper 1.1 LOL! Now I have more work to do. Thanks for the upgrade. These themes look great for niche sites.
June 4th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
You must be a mind reader! This is awesome and is also PERFECT timing for me! Your themes are always so clean and optimized well - I’m sure this new version of Dateless Sniper will be top-notch!
The previous versions work awesome for me, but I have to say - it is a true pleasure to know there is someone online that doesn’t settle for ‘good enough’ when freely giving away to his readers.
Thank you!
PotPieGirl
June 5th, 2008 at 4:14 am
Awesome Work, Court! Summer holiday is coming and I’m going to snipe some keyword and make a blog from the dateless sniper. Btw, can I use a banner or add a header picture in this theme?
Thanks for create it!
June 5th, 2008 at 7:54 am
Of course cowy! You can do whatever you want with the theme.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:50 am
Just out of curiosity, is there a way to upload this in such a way as to upgrade an existing dateless sniper site? That is, if we already used the older version do we just upload this over the old folder in themes?
June 5th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Since the name is different, it will actually upload as a different theme. I would delete the old theme from the server (to avoid confusion) and then upload and activate this one.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:36 am
Hi Court,
I am having the same problem as Brian Nelson. I downloaded the file to my desktop, then unzipped it. I deleted the theme from the server, then uploaded the new theme, but it still shows at version 1.0 on the server.
Doesn’t make any sense, does it?
Lane
June 5th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Pilot error…. It works, it’s just named Dateless Sniper 1.0 instead of 2.0
June 5th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Sorry guys! I hadn’t changed the version in the Stylesheet! If you download it now, it will say 2.0.
June 5th, 2008 at 10:20 am
[…] Courtney Tuttle’s Internet Marketing site comes Dateless Sniper 2.0 quite possibly the perfect WordPress theme for a niche blog. Based on Modern paper Wordpress theme […]
June 5th, 2008 at 10:28 am
I have (yet another) probably dum question: I have built my site using the sniper 1.1 theme, if I upload this one instead, will all my info and the changes I have made be there, or do I need to make them again? (I added a Page category in the sidebar etc.)
Also, can it be made into a 3 column instead of 2? I have some stuff in the third column I like to keep that way.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Cattie changing to this theme would change everything, so you would have to make the changes again. A 2-column will likely perform better for Adsense, but feel free to add a third if you like. Feel free to do whatever you like for that matter.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Thank-you Court this is an awesome theme, exactly what I was looking for.
Emma
June 5th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Nice theme, Court. I’ve been using it in some stuff I’ve been working on for the last 24 hrs or so.
The one thing I really miss is the ability to conveniently add a header image behind the title.
Other than that, a really nice job on this one.
By the way…I’ve tried downloading and then extracting several of your other themes. The zip files seem weird. Instead of functioning normally, where you can drag the inside folder from the zip file, I find that I am manually having to drag the folder, then getting a “cannot be found” error…then have to drag the files out again manually. You might have someone else double-check it to see if it’s just me…but it’s happened about 10 times now. This did NOT happen with the new one, I don’t think.
June 5th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Thanks for the prompt feedback!
I guess I’ll keep the one I have for now… until I can figure out/remember what I did to it and do the same to this one.
Just out of curiosity, why would 2 columns work better for AdSense?
June 5th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Thanks very much for the awesome template
June 5th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Court:
Looking at your Colorado Lasik Surgery Guide site, I was struck by a very disconcerting thought. Looks like the home page ends up with different text (latest post) at the top every time you make a post. To me, that is STILL a blog. A SITE has the same text at the top of the home page, regardless of additional articles / posts added.
Am I wrong in assuming that Dateless Sniper also puts the newest on the home page, pushing your first “post” down — pushing down the material you (I, anyway) really want to stay up front and top? If so, that is not a SITE in the sense of a consistent and controlled presentation of the material — Introduction down to specifics.
Am I going to have to do a non-blog site after all, for my niche site foray?
Regards but questions,
David Bean
June 6th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
You are correct that it is a blog, in terms of content management. It is NOT a blog in the sense that you do not want repeat visitors, “readers”, social media traffic, etc. It’s sort of a hybrid between the two. The purpose is that using blog software makes it easy to set up the site and add new content.
Apparently it’s easy for you to do without the blog software, but most people do not have that advantage, which means that doing the coding would be a barrier to entry to the many that Court is trying to teach his method to.
I am also curious to know why it is a problem for you to have the content pushed down.
June 6th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Fiar, the question David raises, suggests a question for me too. Probably because I’m a newbie still scaling the steep learning curve (thanks, Court!).
Given that we’re using Wordpress software, what distinguishes the “home page” from the rest? Like David suggests, the home page is usually static. In this case, is “home” simply the page we choose to link all other blog pages back to? Giving it the most SEO punch, right?
So even if the homepage (i.e., most internally-linked page) got pushed down, it would still likely be the one turning up in search engines most frequently…am I getting this right?
June 6th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Hello Fiar and AJ:
As just a middling, non-guru programmer in a “past life”, elementary HTML and PHP has still been managable for me. But far from being a programming guru previously or now. So I find that learning these “softwares for non-programmers”, e.g., the Dashboard for WordPress just as much a hassle, though in a different way, as learning basic HTML and related and writing it. There is a lot of stuff to learn with things like WordPress (WP) also.
I installed WP the other day to make a test blog in a subdirectory of an existing
site (blocking Google thinking it real by a “disallow” in robots.txt).
I then added the Sniper theme last night.
As illustration of learning curve, I haven’t seriously looked, but I have yet to find in the dashboard how to get rid of the lame tag line in the header “Just another WordPress weblog.” Or where to change the black background and blue text. Yes, if/when I decide to use WP I am sure I can find it. Point is — those areas are things needed to learn, just as much as HTML
I put in dummy AdSense (just blank tables). I still would have to figure out how (where) to make the post text wrap around those. Which is a no-brainer in “roll your own” HMTL coding.
Amd yes, as I suspected, even with Sniper, new posts push old posts down.
My consideration about blog software pushing content down is that on a “real” web site, the static (unless specifically edited) content serves as an introduction to the site. And if Google ranks you good for it, your ranking will probably get stable, and a visitor will find it.
If content is pushed down, that introductory material will never be seen by
someone coming to the home page.
Someone coming to the home page will see whatever you have posted recently.
They may have got to the home page as a result of a search based on what
Google had a few days, a week ago, and when they get there, the content they were looking for is gone off the page at worst, or just pushed down at best. And your ranking could change every time you make a new post, depending on the post content. Even though you try to target the keyword. If the home page content is changing as a result of new posts, you can’t fine tune that (relatively) static introductory material on the home page.
Now, I admit: Maybe my concern is not important. We want an AdSense or other monetization click, regardless of whether the content they thought they were going to see on the home page is there or not.
BTW, Court had a good point, I think, about the value of comments. So I am going to keep the suggestion by Rhys (June 5th, 2008 at 1:26 am) in mind in case I do “roll my own” rather than using WP.
Regards and Thanks to Court and all you guys/gals,
David Bean
June 6th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
I came up with a simple (but klunky) workaround idea. After you get the post you always want at the top of your WordPress blog home page, the way you want it, just go in Manage | Posts, and click on the post title. When in edit mode, click on the HTML tab. Just highlight and copy the entire HTML code to a text (.txt) file and save. Copy and save the title exactly, so the URL will come out the same. You will have to make the URL setting to derive the URL from the post title — without the year and month — so that when you repost a month or year later, the URL comes out the same.
(Settings | Permalinks | Custom Structure
You want something like
http://www.bean-d.com/test-blog/sample-post/
a “Pretty Permalink” they call it, but unfortunately that is NOT straightforward to implement.
Enter “/%postname%/” (without the quote marks) in the Custom Structure box.
I haven’t figured out categories, archives, tags yet.
Assuming you get this done right, then post away with new posts. That will push your main post down. Delete if from down below, wherever it may be. Then open up to make a new post and just copy your saved text file into the edit window (HTML mode) and re-post it. It will be at the top again.
I imagine any comments will be lost, so put a note at the bottom of the post that those wanting to comment should comment on some other post. Or you could even link to a post related to the home page post, where comments can be made. Where that one is, makes no difference.
I’m going to give that a go. It should work (no guarantees). Assume it will, but if it does NOT, I’ll let you know here.
David Bean
June 6th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Thanks Court!
This Dateless Sniper 2 is really an elegantly simple layout - it perfectly fits the KISS acronym and accords well with Grizzly’s (makemoneyforbeginners.blogspot.com) gospel of ‘let nothing distract from the Ads’; and of course is specifically tailored to display AdSense.
If there were a set of rules for Noobs it would read, “Use Dateless Sniper Theme” as Rule No. 1.
I was struck this week with the helpful tone of Google’s advice for ad placement (G for: Where should I place Google ads on my pages?); and suddenly saw that it is all about working WITH Google. I mean, they are as keen, or even keener than I, to make the ads on my pages profitable - it is all about win - win; Right?
June 7th, 2008 at 12:07 am
Hey Court,
I enjoy your teachings!
This theme is excellent, so far so good. I need some help… trying to do it by myself…no success so far. Hey, I’m trying to add Adsense code so the Ad shows up only when somebody actually decides to go and read the post. Is that possible? I”m using Who Sees Ads. In my previous theme, I add it to the file single_entry.php but I have not found the way in this theme.
Thanks for your help!
Héctor
June 7th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Hey David - with WP, it’s easy to make the front page static. In the admin area, click on Settings, then Reading - you can choose “a static page” for “front page display.” Voila.
I don’t know if that’s necessarily better for SEO, but you can do it easily enough. Maybe Court will weigh in at some point… I also wonder how many posts should be displayed at once (default is ten) for best results. Anybody else have input?
June 7th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Hey Court,
Just downloaded and installed this new theme. It does the job nicely for a simple page. I am wondering what plugins that you are using with this theme now? Some of the ones you recommended a while back like related posts and seo-all-in-one seem to be possibly outdated. I would love to know what you think is best to use now.
Thanks!
Matt
June 7th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Hi AJ:
I didn’t know about that, but then I am a newbie with WP. That being said, I looked up what you said, and played with it. I don’t like it. You can choose the “About” page or some other page (not post) that you create. But then nothing else (no posts) show on the home page.
I have flip-flopped again in favor of “rolling my own”. Even with the ability to put AdSense ads in with the template that Court so kindly furnished, it doesn’t have the flexibility I want. Not Court’s fault, it is the inflexibility of any “the user doesn’t have to code” platform such as WP. And then to make them flexible, got to do a lot of tweaking and LEARNING. You could set for three posts (Court’s and Leger’s recommendation, I think). So you could have one AdSense ad (Google allows three per page) per post on a page with three posts. But then, if looking at just one post, you wouldn’t have three AdSense ad placements. Of course, you could modify WP and/or the theme with some php or javascript.
You wonder if/when Court will weigh in. That is a problem with blogs. Rather than having a few carefully tended pages on a regular site, with a blog, anything posted becomes, next week, forgotten. I am on the comment update mailing list for Court’s original sniping post back in Dec 2007. Occasionally I still get a notification of a new comment, but Court has not commented on comments on that since April 18. Can’t blame him for that. A blogger has to keep making posts, and can’t possibly keep up with the comments on all the old posts. Sad to say, if you don’t get your comment in about a post within a few days of the post date, fuggedaboutit.
David Bean
June 7th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Hi David, I would say if you know what you’re doing with coding your own site, then by all means, don’t fix what ain’t broken. I don’t have a learning curve for WordPress because I’ve been using it for years. Learning to code myself would probably take in excess of 100 hours, on the other hand. Especially since it seems too much like learning a new language to me, and I am terrible at learning languages. I’ll follow the same and not fix what ain’t broke.
You’re points about just learning to do it yourself are probably good advice for the segment that would be able to easily do so, but I don’t think most people want the sort of flexibility that you seem to want, at least of those in the beginner phase anyway. WordPress is great for lowering the barrier of entry. You really can have something published within just a few minutes of installing to the domain. No, at that point you won’t have a lot of features or flexibility, but you will be up and running without having to learn html or php. That’s the point of it. It is flexible and extensible, and I agree that it is possible that it’s just as much trouble at that point as it is to DIY.
with a blog, anything posted becomes, next week, forgotten
That’s true of the front page, but that’s what permalinks, and linkbuilding techniques are for. You write a post and then point links to it. The post itself is the point of entry and not the homepage. With a keyword sniper site, you essentially want them to find it, click and ad, and be gone. That’s really the strategy. Other types of strategy would be to create a landing page. Like Court’s “ways to make money online” page. Then that pushes visitors to affiliates or other pages on the site. Depending on your conversion goal.
The linkbuilding strategy is really the key. The homepage actually has little to no value. Each individual page or post is where the links point for targeted terms, and the links to the homepage are for general terms. “Ways to make money online” points to a single page or post, so when visitors expect to see certain content, it’s exactly what they find. “Internet Marketing” points to the homepage. It’s less likely there is some specific content that was expected for a more general term like that.
With me, people find an individual post for “teaching sells review,” and they find the home page for “political humor.” See how one is specific and points to a single post, and one is general and points to the homepage? That’s the linkbuilding strategy.
In summary, just keep doing what works best for you. Court is trying to help make things easier, not harder and more aggravating.
June 10th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
For all of you with the posts that wont stay at the top, here is a plugin that will
help you. i leaned a lot from this site and just want to say thx to Court and Co.
http://pixelplexus.co.za/blog/2007/11/20/plugin-to-change-wordpress-post-order/
June 10th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Thanks- great work!!!!
Question- how can you make plugins that are made to go on single.php work with this theme? e.g. Daily Top[ 10 Posts plugin needs to be placed on single.php file.
Any ideas?
June 12th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
[…] Dateless Sniper 2.0 WordPress Theme - With a name like that, it’s got to be….well, I don’t know, but I love this theme! This Courtney Tuttle design is clean, sharp and Adsense ready. Court has even put together a video tutorial for those using this theme. If you’re looking for a high-quality, FREE WordPress theme, be sure to give Dateless Sniper 2.0 a look. I love that name! […]
June 21st, 2008 at 9:38 am
[…] Dateless Sniper WordPress Theme Video Instructions for Using DateLess Sniper […]
June 25th, 2008 at 2:20 am
Nice theme Court. A built-in contact page would be great for the next one
June 27th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Hi, All,
Just downloaded the Dateless Sniper theme, and love it so far. Thanks for the great vid tutorial.
I have lame question, so please forgive.
In the screenshot of the template, there are two sidebars. My version only shows one. Here’s the lame question:
How to I get the second sidebar to show?
Thanks for any help.
Brian
June 27th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Still haven’t sussed the lame question above, but I did work something out that your readers might find valuable.
I closed comments on all my pages and posts, but the comment box and the “comment” heading still remained on the pages. This looks kind of sad - as though you were either mean and didn’t want to hear from anyone, or that no one ever wanted to comment to you.
So to get rid of the box and the heading, and make the page less klunky, I did this (which I can’t guarantee will work for everyone, and I’d love your critique of, Courtney):
Using WordPress 2.5.1 and the Dateless Sniper 2 theme:
Go to dashboard>settings>discussion
and uncheck everything except “Avatars”. Check “Don’t show avatars”
Also check the “Maximum Rating” of your site (most probably “G”).
Save.
Go to dashboard>design>theme editor>Comments (comments.php)
For safety, make a copy of the contents in simple text file and save it, well labeled, somewhere on your computer where you can find it if you need it.
In the comments.php file, delete everything below the line:
Save.
Now go to theme editor>Main Index Template (index.php)
and look for :
Comments
and delete that line.
Save.
You’re done.
June 27th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Now I know I’m a genius, because I solved my own lame problem. I used the high-tech strategy of actually looking.
The screenshot of Dateless Sniper 2 only has one sidebar. I must have been thinking of one of your other excellent themes.
Please forgive the brain-fart!
Brian
June 29th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
I’m trying to locate the dateless sniper 3-column. I could only find and download the 2 column theme.
Thanks,
Paul
June 30th, 2008 at 6:21 am
I think what Paul may be referring to is the same thing that confused me. On this page, there is a screenshot of a 2-column theme. But when you install it activate it, and then click on “design” in the dashboard, you are presented with a screenshot of a 3-column version. Is this just and small oversight (maybe a picture of a different, earlier version), or are we missing something?
Thanks,
Brian
June 30th, 2008 at 8:07 am
Most likely, Court worked by modifying the existing theme. So in order to update the thumbnail, he would have to take a screenshot of the new version, and replace the thumbnail in the theme folder.
So, yes, it was most likely an oversight.