PHP & Web Development Blogs

Composer is the way that that PHP developers manage libraries and their dependencies. Previously, developers mainly stuck to existing frameworks. If you were a Symfony developer, you used Symfony and libraries built around it. You didn’t dare cross the line to Zend Framework. These days however, developers focus less on frameworks, and more on the libraries they need to build the project they are working on. This decoupling of projects from frameworks is largely possible because of Composer and the ecosystem that has built up around it.

Like PHP, Composer is easy to get started in, but complex enough to take time and practice to master. The Composer manual does a great job of getting you up and running quickly, but some of the commands are involved enough so that many developers miss some of their power because they simply don’t understand.

I’ve picked out five commands that every user of Composer should master. In each section I give you a little insight into the command, how it is used, when it is used and why this one is important.

1: Require

Sample:

$ composer require monolog/monolog

Require is the most common command that most developers will use when using Composer. In addition to the vendor/package, you can also specify a version number to load along with modifiers. For instance, if you want version 1.18.0 of monolog specifically and never want the update command to update this, you would use this command.

$ composer require monolog/monolog:1.18.0

This command will not grab the current version of monolog (currently 1.18.2) but will instead install the specific version 1.18.0.

If you always want the most recent version of monolog greater than 1.8.0 you can use the > modifier as shown in this command.

$ composer require monolog/monolog:>1.18.0

If you want the latest in patch in your current version but don’t want any minor updates that may introduce new features, you can specify that using the tilde.

$ composer require monolog/monolog:~1.18.0

The command above will install the latest version of monolog v1.18. Updates will never update beyond the latest 1.18 version.

If you want to stay current on your major version but never want to go above it you can indicate that with the caret.

$ composer require monolog/monolog:^1.18.0

The command above will install the latest version of monolog 1. Updates continue to update beyond 1.18, but will never update to version 2.

There are other options and flags for require, you can find the complete documentation of the command here.

2: Install a package globally

The most common use of Composer is to install and manage a library within a given project. There are however, times when you want to install a given library globally so that all of your projects can use it without you having to specifically require it in each project. Composer is up to the challenge with a modifier to the require command we discussed above, global. The most common use of this is when you are using Composer to manage packages like PHPUnit.

$ composer global require "phpunit/phpunit:^5.3.*"

The command above would install PHPUnit globally. It would also allow it to be updated throughout the 5.0.0 version because we specified ~5.3.* as the version number. You should be careful in installing packages globally. As long as you do not need different versions for different projects you are ok. However, should you start a project and want to use PHPUnit 6.0.0 (when it releases) but PHPUnit 6 breaks backwards compatibility with the PHPUnit 5.* version, you would have trouble. Either you would have to stay with PHPUnit 5 for your new project, or you would have to test all your projects to make sure that your Unit Tests work after upgrading to PHPUnit 6.

Globally installed projects are something to be thought through carefully. When in doubt, install the project locally.

3: Update a single library with Composer

One of the great powers of Composer is that developers can now easily keep their dependencies up-to-date. Not only that, as we discussed in tip #1, each developer can define exactly what “up-to-date” means for them. With this simple command, Composer will check all of your dependencies in a project and download/install the latest applicable versions.

$ composer update

What about those times when you know that a new version of a specific package has released and you want it, but nothing else updated. Composer has you covered here too.

$ composer update monolog/monolog

This command will ignore everything else, and only update the monolog package and it’s dependencies.

It’s great that you can update everything, but there are times when you know that updating one or more of your packages is going to break things in a way that you aren’t ready to deal with. Composer allows you the freedom to cherry-pick the packages that you want to update, and leave the rest for a later time.

4: Don’t install dev dependencies

In a lot of projects I am working on, I want to make sure that the libraries I download and install are working before I start working with them. To this end, many packages will include things like Unit Tests and documentation. This way I can run the unit Tests on my own to validate the package first. This is all fine and good, except when I don’t want them. There are times when I know the package well enough, or have used it enough, to not have to bother with any of that.

Many packages create a distribution package that does not contain tests or docs. (The League of Extraordinary Packages does this by default on all their packages.) If you specify the --prefer-dist flag, Composer will look for a distribution file and use it instead of pulling directly from github. Of course if you want want to make sure you get the full source and all the artifacts, you can use the --prefer-src flag.

5: Optimize your autoload

Regardless of whether you --prefer-dist or --prefer-source, when your package is incorporated into your project with require, it just adds it to the end of your autoloader. This isn’t always the best solution. Therefore Composer gives us the option to optimize the autoloader with the --optimize switch. Optimizing your autoloader converts your entire autoloader into classmaps. Instead of the autoloader having to use file_exists() to locate a file, Composer creates an array of file locations for each class. This can speed up your application by as much as 30%.

$ composer dump-autoload --optimize

The command above can be issued at any time to optimize your autoloader. It’s a good idea to execute this before moving your application into production.

$ composer require monolog/monolog:~1.18.0 -o

You can also use the optimize flag with the require command. Doing this every time you require a new package will keep your autoloader up-to-date. That having said, it’s still a good idea to get in the habit of using the first command as a safety net when you roll to production, just to make sure.

BONUS: Commit your composer.lock

After you have installed your first package with composer, you now have two files in the root of your project, composer.json and composer.lock. Of the two, composer.lock is the most important one. It contains detailed information about every package and version installed. When you issue a composer install in a directory with a composer.lock file, composer will install the exact same packages and versions. Therefore, by pulling a git repo on a production server will replicate the exact same packages in production that were installed in development. Of course the corollary of this is that you never want to commit your vendor/ directory. Since you can recreate it exactly, there is no need to store all of that code in your repo.

It is recommended that also commit your composer.json. When you check out your repo into production and do an install, composer will use the composer.lock instead of the composer.json when present. This means that your production environment is setup exactly like your development environment.

Models and controllers are one of the most essential programming handlers in the Laravel MVC framework, and both are used vastly for different functional operations. Models in Laravel are created inside the app folder and are mostly used to interact with the database using Eloquent ORM, while the controllers are located inside the directory App/Http/Controllers.

As a programmer, you should have the knowledge how to keep the balance in between the programming usage of Models and controllers. As which one should be more utilized for allowing functional tasks in applications deployed on any PHP MySQL hosting.

What is the Concept of Thin Controller and FAT Models

The concept of the thin controller and fat model is that we do less work in our controllers and more work in our models. Like we use our controllers to validate our data and then pass it to the models. While in models, we define our actual functional logic and main coding operations of the desired application. This code structuring process is also a very basic concept of MVC and also the differentiating factor from the conventional complex programming which we mistakenly ignore sometimes.

Why FAT Controllers Are Bad For Handling Code

Controllers are always meant to be defined short and concise, and it should only be used for receiving requests and return responses to it. Anything else further should be programmed in Models, which is actually made for main functional operations.

Placing functional logic in controllers can be bad for many reasons for your applications deployed on anyhosting for PHP. As it not only makes code structure long but also makes it complex sometimes. Further placing code in Controllers is also not recommended because if same functionality is needed somewhere else in route, then pulling out the whole code from their becomes difficult and so its reusability in the application.

Though Laravel is an MVC framework while developing on laravel, we sometimes ignore this and write mostly all our code including the extending of App\Model and all our functional logic in controller route methods. What we can do here is we can create a sub model of our parent model. For example, our parent model is User then we can create another sub model of username in CustomerModel if you are using the same User model for all types of users. In this model, we will write all the logic related to user type Customer.

So now let's take an example of my existing blog creating comment system with laravel and vuejs. In that article, you can see I have made so much mess in my controller methods. Mostly, I have written all my comments logic in my methods, so to shorten that let's clean them in this article. Inside app folder, I will create a new file with name CommentModel.php. Inside this file, I will write my whole logic for comment functions. This is my basic file:

<?php
namespace App;

use App\Comment;
use App\CommentVote;
use App\CommentSpam;
use App\User;
use Auth;

class CommentModel
{


}

?>

Right now it contains no function but has the reference of all my models which I required for this model. Let's first add a function namedgetallcomments passing$pageId as a parameter inside it. The function will get all the comments for the given page:

public function getAllComments($pageId)
 {
 $comments = Comment::where('page_id',$pageId)->get();

 $commentsData = [];


 foreach ($comments as $key) {
 $user = User::find($key->users_id);
 $name = $user->name;
 $replies = $this->replies($key->id);
 $photo = $user->first()->photo_url;
 $reply = 0;
 $vote = 0;
 $voteStatus = 0;
 $spam = 0;
 if(Auth::user()){
 $voteByUser = CommentVote::where('comment_id',$key->id)->where('user_id',Auth::user()->id)->first();
 $spamComment = CommentSpam::where('comment_id',$key->id)->where('user_id',Auth::user()->id)->first();


 if($voteByUser){
 $vote = 1;
 $voteStatus = $voteByUser->vote;
 }

 if($spamComment){
 $spam = 1;
 }
 }


 if(sizeof($replies) > 0){
 $reply = 1;
 }

 if(!$spam){
 array_push($commentsData,[
 "name" => $name,
 "photo_url" => (string)$photo,
 "commentid" => $key->id,
 "comment" => $key->comment,
 "votes" => $key->votes,
 "reply" => $reply,
 "votedByUser" =>$vote,
 "vote" =>$voteStatus,
 "spam" => $spam,
 "replies" => $replies,
 "date" => $key->created_at->toDateTimeString()
 ]);
 } 


 }
 $collection = collect($commentsData);
 return $collection->sortBy('votes');
 }

Now I will create another function namedreplies which takes$commentId as a parameter. The function is more or less programmed in the same manner as the upper function get all comments.

protected function replies($commentId)
 {
 $comments = Comment::where('reply_id',$commentId)->get();
 $replies = [];



 foreach ($comments as $key) {
 $user = User::find($key->users_id);
 $name = $user->name;
 $photo = $user->first()->photo_url;

 $vote = 0;
 $voteStatus = 0;
 $spam = 0; 


 if(Auth::user()){
 $voteByUser = CommentVote::where('comment_id',$key->id)->where('user_id',Auth::user()->id)->first();
 $spamComment = CommentSpam::where('comment_id',$key->id)->where('user_id',Auth::user()->id)->first();

 if($voteByUser){
 $vote = 1;
 $voteStatus = $voteByUser->vote;
 }

 if($spamComment){
 $spam = 1;
 }
 }
 if(!$spam){


 array_push($replies,[
 "name" => $name,
 "photo_url" => $photo,
 "commentid" => $key->id,
 "comment" => $key->comment,
 "votes" => $key->votes,
 "votedByUser" => $vote,
 "vote" => $voteStatus,
 "spam" => $spam,
 "date" => $key->created_at->toDateTimeString()
 ]);
 }




 }


 $collection = collect($replies);
 return $collection->sortBy('votes');
 }

Now lets create a functioncreate comment which passes$array as a parameter in it:

public function createComment($arary)
 {
 $comment = Comment::create($array);


 if($comment)
 return [ "status" => "true","commentId" => $comment->id ];
 else
 return [ "status" => "false" ]; 
 }

Similarly, Now I will create all the function for comment in myCommentModel, so that all the functions gets accumulated in one model.

<?php
namespace App;

use App\Comment;
use App\CommentSpam;
use App\CommentVote;
use App\User;
use Auth;

class CommentModel
{
 public function getAllComments($pageId)
 {
 $comments = Comment::where('page_id', $pageId)->get();

 $commentsData = [];

 foreach ($comments as $key) {
 $user = User::find($key->users_id);
 $name = $user->name;
 $replies = $this->replies($key->id);
 $photo = $user->first()->photo_url;
 $reply = 0;
 $vote = 0;
 $voteStatus = 0;
 $spam = 0;
 if (Auth::user()) {
 $voteByUser = CommentVote::where('comment_id', $key->id)->where('user_id', Auth::user()->id)->first();
 $spamComment = CommentSpam::where('comment_id', $key->id)->where('user_id', Auth::user()->id)->first();

 if ($voteByUser) {
 $vote = 1;
 $voteStatus = $voteByUser->vote;
 }

 if ($spamComment) {
 $spam = 1;
 }
 }

 if (sizeof($replies) > 0) {
 $reply = 1;
 }

 if (!$spam) {
 array_push($commentsData, [
 "name" => $name,
 "photo_url" => (string) $photo,
 "commentid" => $key->id,
 "comment" => $key->comment,
 "votes" => $key->votes,
 "reply" => $reply,
 "votedByUser" => $vote,
 "vote" => $voteStatus,
 "spam" => $spam,
 "replies" => $replies,
 "date" => $key->created_at->toDateTimeString(),
 ]);
 }

 }
 $collection = collect($commentsData);
 return $collection->sortBy('votes');
 }

 protected function replies($commentId)
 {
 $comments = Comment::where('reply_id', $commentId)->get();
 $replies = [];

 foreach ($comments as $key) {
 $user = User::find($key->users_id);
 $name = $user->name;
 $photo = $user->first()->photo_url;

 $vote = 0;
 $voteStatus = 0;
 $spam = 0;

 if (Auth::user()) {
 $voteByUser = CommentVote::where('comment_id', $key->id)->where('user_id', Auth::user()->id)->first();
 $spamComment = CommentSpam::where('comment_id', $key->id)->where('user_id', Auth::user()->id)->first();

 if ($voteByUser) {
 $vote = 1;
 $voteStatus = $voteByUser->vote;
 }

 if ($spamComment) {
 $spam = 1;
 }
 }
 if (!$spam) {

 array_push($replies, [
 "name" => $name,
 "photo_url" => $photo,
 "commentid" => $key->id,
 "comment" => $key->comment,
 "votes" => $key->votes,
 "votedByUser" => $vote,
 "vote" => $voteStatus,
 "spam" => $spam,
 "date" => $key->created_at->toDateTimeString(),
 ]);
 }

 }

 $collection = collect($replies);
 return $collection->sortBy('votes');
 }

 public function createComment($arary)
 {
 $comment = Comment::create($array);

 if ($comment) {
 return ["status" => "true", "commentId" => $comment->id];
 } else {
 return ["status" => "false"];
 }

 }

 public function voteComment($commentId, $array)
 {
 $comments = Comment::find($commentId);
 $data = [
 "comment_id" => $commentId,
 'vote' => $array->vote,
 'user_id' => $array->users_id,
 ];

 if ($array->vote == "up") {
 $comment = $comments->first();
 $vote = $comment->votes;
 $vote++;
 $comments->votes = $vote;
 $comments->save();
 }

 if ($array->vote == "down") {
 $comment = $comments->first();
 $vote = $comment->votes;
 $vote--;
 $comments->votes = $vote;
 $comments->save();
 }

 if (CommentVote::create($data)) {
 return true;
 }

 }

 public function spamComment($commentId, $array)
 {
 $comments = Comment::find($commentId);

 $comment = $comments->first();
 $spam = $comment->spam;
 $spam++;
 $comments->spam = $spam;
 $comments->save();

 $data = [
 "comment_id" => $commentId,
 'user_id' => $array->users_id,
 ];

 if (CommentSpam::create($data)) {
 return true;
 }

 }
}
?>

Now we have all our required methods inCommentModel. So now let's clean upCommentController which is currently bit complex and lengthy in code structure. As right nowCommentController look like this:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Http\Requests;
use App\Comment;
use App\CommentVote;
use App\CommentSpam;
use App\User;
use Auth;

class CommentController extends Controller
{


 
 public function index($pageId)
 {
 $comments = Comment::where('page_id',$pageId)->get();

 $commentsData = [];




 foreach ($comments as $key) {
 $user = User::find($key->users_id);
 $name = $user->name;
 $replies = $this->replies($key->id);
 $photo = $user->first()->photo_url;
 $reply = 0;
 $vote = 0;
 $voteStatus = 0;
 $spam = 0;
 if(Auth::user()){
 $voteByUser = CommentVote::where('comment_id',$key->id)->where('user_id',Auth::user()->id)->first();
 $spamComment = CommentSpam::where('comment_id',$key->id)->where('user_id',Auth::user()->id)->first();


 if($voteByUser){
 $vote = 1;
 $voteStatus = $voteByUser->vote;
 }

 if($spamComment){
 $spam = 1;
 }
 }


 if(sizeof($replies) > 0){
 $reply = 1;
 }

 if(!$spam){
 array_push($commentsData,[
 "name" => $name,
 "photo_url" => (string)$photo,
 "commentid" => $key->id,
 "comment" => $key->comment,
 "votes" => $key->votes,
 "reply" => $reply,
 "votedByUser" =>$vote,
 "vote" =>$voteStatus,
 "spam" => $spam,
 "replies" => $replies,
 "date" => $key->created_at->toDateTimeString()
 ]);
 } 


 }
 $collection = collect($commentsData);
 return $collection->sortBy('votes');
 }

 protected function replies($commentId)
 {
 $comments = Comment::where('reply_id',$commentId)->get();
 $replies = [];



 foreach ($comments as $key) {
 $user = User::find($key->users_id);
 $name = $user->name;
 $photo = $user->first()->photo_url;

 $vote = 0;
 $voteStatus = 0;
 $spam = 0; 


 if(Auth::user()){
 $voteByUser = CommentVote::where('comment_id',$key->id)->where('user_id',Auth::user()->id)->first();
 $spamComment = CommentSpam::where('comment_id',$key->id)->where('user_id',Auth::user()->id)->first();

 if($voteByUser){
 $vote = 1;
 $voteStatus = $voteByUser->vote;
 }

 if($spamComment){
 $spam = 1;
 }
 }
 if(!$spam){


 array_push($replies,[
 "name" => $name,
 "photo_url" => $photo,
 "commentid" => $key->id,
 "comment" => $key->comment,
 "votes" => $key->votes,
 "votedByUser" => $vote,
 "vote" => $voteStatus,
 "spam" => $spam,
 "date" => $key->created_at->toDateTimeString()
 ]);
 }




 }


 $collection = collect($replies);
 return $collection->sortBy('votes');
 }

 
 public function store(Request $request)
 {
 $this->validate($request, [
 'comment' => 'required',
 'reply_id' => 'filled',
 'page_id' => 'filled',
 'users_id' => 'required',
 ]);
 $comment = Comment::create($request->all());
 if($comment)
 return [ "status" => "true","commentId" => $comment->id ];
 }

 
 public function update(Request $request, $commentId,$type)
 {
 if($type == "vote"){


 $this->validate($request, [
 'vote' => 'required',
 'users_id' => 'required',
 ]);

 $comments = Comment::find($commentId);
 $data = [
 "comment_id" => $commentId,
 'vote' => $request->vote,
 'user_id' => $request->users_id,
 ];

 if($request->vote == "up"){
 $comment = $comments->first();
 $vote = $comment->votes;
 $vote++;
 $comments->votes = $vote;
 $comments->save();
 }

 if($request->vote == "down"){
 $comment = $comments->first();
 $vote = $comment->votes;
 $vote--;
 $comments->votes = $vote;
 $comments->save();
 }

 if(CommentVote::create($data))
 return "true";
 }

 if($type == "spam"){


 $this->validate($request, [
 'users_id' => 'required',
 ]);

 $comments = Comment::find($commentId);


 $comment = $comments->first();
 $spam = $comment->spam;
 $spam++;
 $comments->spam = $spam;
 $comments->save();

 $data = [
 "comment_id" => $commentId,
 'user_id' => $request->users_id,
 ];

 if(CommentSpam::create($data))
 return "true";
 }
 }

 
 public function destroy($id)
 {
 }
}?>

After cleaning up the controller it will look much simpler and easy to understand like this:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\CommentModel;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class CommentController extends Controller
{

 private $commentModel = null;
 private function __construct()
 {
 $this->commentModel = new CommentModel();
 }

 
 public function index($pageId)
 {
 return $this->commentModel->getAllComments($pageId);
 }

 
 public function store(Request $request)
 {
 $this->validate($request, [
 'comment' => 'required',
 'reply_id' => 'filled',
 'page_id' => 'filled',
 'users_id' => 'required',
 ]);
 return $this->commentModel->createComment($request->all());
 }

 
 public function update(Request $request, $commentId, $type)
 {
 if ($type == "vote") {

 $this->validate($request, [
 'vote' => 'required',
 'users_id' => 'required',
 ]);

 return $this->commentModel->voteComment($commentId, $request->all());
 }

 if ($type == "spam") {

 $this->validate($request, [
 'users_id' => 'required',
 ]);

 return $this->commentModel->spamComment($commentId, $request->all());
 }
 }

}
?>

Wrap Up!

So Isn't it looking much cleaner and simpler to understand now? This is what actually a thin controller and fat model looks like. We have all our logic related to Comment system programmed in ourCommentModel and our controller is now just used to transfer data from the user to our model and returning the response which is coming from our model.

So this is how the structuring of the thin controller and fat model is made. Give your thoughts in the comments below.

You've built an amazing website, but how do you make sure people can find your site via search engines? In this article we cover 10 best practices to make sure your article not only stands out, but ranks well with search engines.

1. Take time to research keywords

To determine the best keywords for your site, you'll need to do some keyword research. This usually consists of combing through your competitors' sites for the keywords that are driving them the most traffic. There are several ways you can get started with keyword research. One recommended way is to create a spreadsheet with your competitors' sites listed and add keywords that you can copy and paste your competitors' keywords into Google's Keyword Tool and Google Webmaster Tools Keyword Analyzer tool. Analyze your competition's site's website titles to find out what keywords they are using tools such as Ahrefs, Moz, SpyFu, or SEMrush to find out what keywords others are using on your competitor's site.

2. Focus on your Title tag

This is the headline for every article. It needs to be bold and attention grabbing so it can catch the eye of potential users. Pick it somewhere around 60-90 characters to make sure it is displayed properly in search engines as well as readable in the browser tab. As you write your title, focus on the unique keywords your readers are likely to search for. Also make sure that the keywords you select are relevant to your page. Another good practice is to make the title tag and your header (h1) the same.

3. Carefully craft your H1, H2, H3 tags

Careful usage of header tags helps search engines identify keywords within your page. To get the best results from your header tags, use H1, H2, and H3 in order with keywords in your H2 and H3 headers that support your H1 tag. Remember, your H1 tag should mimic your title tag, whereas the H2 and H3 can expand and add additional context. You can also utilize multiple H2 and H3 tags, however be sure that these headers are supporting the H1 tag and relevant to the content on your page. Using irrelevant header keywords can actually work to your disadvantage.

4. Avoid loading content with JavaScript

Despite it's popularity, JavaScript is not yet well supported by search engines and can mask important content. Progressive Web Apps in particular can suffer as key content is loaded after the page is spidered, or in the case of many search engines that do not yet index JavaScript not loaded at all. This is also the case for many social media sites, meaning that content loaded dynamically is not evaluated or pulled in, resulting in the default skeleton of your site being what shows up in search engines and in link previews.

5. Carefully name images

In the past search engines would evaluate your images based on their alt tag, however as more and more developers loaded irrelevant keywords into this hidden image text search engines instead added more emphasis to the actual name of the image itself. This means using generic image names such as 1.jpg can actually hurt your site ranking as search engines might be looking for seokeywords.jpg. Now, just because you're carefully naming your images with relevant keywords describing the image doesn't mean you should ignore the alt tag. Be sure to continue to include alt tags for older search engines, in the case the image doesn't load, and for accessibility (ie screen readers).

6. Work to improve your page load time

It’s not a secret that faster sites rank higher in search engines. Most search engines use the PageSpeed Index from Google to determine the speed of websites. One thing Google looks at is how fast images are loading. For this reason, we recommend taking a look at how long it takes for the first image to load on your site or even take advantage of lazy loading for non-critical images. You want images to be loading within 30 seconds at the absolute latest, before the user can actually click on the page. You also need to make sure that if you're using multiple images that they load as one group. Next, take a look at how long it takes to load a webpage. Are pages taking longer than three seconds to load on your site? You want to have pages that load fast for users, but your code and templates can easily be causing this to happen.

7. Optimize text throughout your page

Beyond your title tag, headers, and images it's important to work keywords into your standard content, while also working to avoid overloading keywords. To help prevent overloading and increase search engine rankings across multiple keywords you can use alternative phrases. In the case of "PHP training" an alternative phrase might be "PHP tutorials" or "PHP course." This both helps support the primary keyword, while also allowing the page to rank for these keywords as well. Remember to use the tools referenced above to find the keywords that are right for your site, and then work them in to natural sentences without forcing keywords or becoming overly repetitive. Also keep in mind, just as important as the content and keywords on the page are to search engines, how users engage with that content is also critical. If your page experience's high bounce rates or low engagement with the content, it is likely to be deprioritized by search engines, meaning a page highly optimized for search engines but not humans may enjoy a higher ranking, but only for a short time before it is heavily penalized.

8. Build your Domain and Page Authority

Domain and Page Authority are determined not just by the number of back-links (or sites linking to your domain or page), but also the quality of the sites and pages linking to you. One practice that has made obtaining a better DA or PA harder has been purchasing or acquiring bulk back-links. Note this practice is actually against Google's TOS and may result in your entire site being banned from their search results! Because of this practice, it's important to focus on high quality sites and work to get back-links naturally either through partnerships or syndicated content (such as blog posts). You can also check your DA here or using one of the many tools referenced above.

9. Take advantage of social media

Speaking of back-links, social media can be a powerful tool for increasing page visibility while also improving your search engine rankings! Remember, most social sites do not support or read JavaScript, so ensure your content is available on the page. If you do have a progressive web app with JavaScript loading your content, look into using Headless Chrome to render a JavaScript free version of your site for specific bots (note - the content MUST be the same content a user would see or your site may be blocked). There are also numerous tools to allow you to build the content via JavaScript on the server backend before passing it to your readers. To help get even more exposure, consider adding social share links or tools like AddThis.

10. Good SEO takes time

The truth is that there really aren't any special secrets or ingredients to ranking well in search engines (well not that Google has publicly shared). Instead it's about properly formatting your page, making sure it's readable to search engines, and providing content that your readers will engage with. As you provide more valuable content, and more people like and link to your content - your site's Domain Authority will gradually increase, giving your site and pages more powerful - resulting in a higher ranking.

In today's dynamic and fast-paced world of web development, ensuring the reliability, performance, and scalability of applications is paramount. Monitoring and observability tools play a crucial role in achieving these goals by providing insights into application metrics, performance trends, and system health. Prometheus, a popular open-source monitoring and alerting toolkit, offers robust capabilities for monitoring infrastructure and application metrics. In this article, we'll explore how to leverage Prometheus with PHP to monitor, analyze, and troubleshoot PHP-based applications effectively.

Understanding Prometheus:

Prometheus is an open-source monitoring and alerting system originally developed by SoundCloud. It is designed for reliability, scalability, and extensibility, making it suitable for monitoring complex, distributed systems. Key features of Prometheus include:

Time Series Data: Prometheus collects time-series data, allowing developers to track metrics such as CPU usage, memory consumption, request latency, and HTTP response codes over time.

PromQL: Prometheus Query Language (PromQL) enables users to query and aggregate metrics, create custom dashboards, and set up alerting rules based on specific conditions.

Scalability and Reliability: Prometheus is designed to be highly scalable and reliable, supporting a distributed architecture with multiple replicas and federated setups for global monitoring.

Integrating Prometheus with PHP:

To integrate Prometheus with PHP applications, developers can utilize client libraries and instrumentation libraries that facilitate metric collection and exposition. The following steps outline the process of integrating Prometheus with PHP:

Choose a Prometheus Client Library: Select a Prometheus client library for PHP that suits your needs. Popular options include prometheus/client_php and php-prometheus/client.

Instrument Your PHP Code: Instrument your PHP application code to collect relevant metrics. This involves adding instrumentation code to track metrics such as request duration, memory usage, database queries, and custom business metrics.

Exposing Metrics: Expose the collected metrics in a format compatible with Prometheus. This typically involves exposing an HTTP endpoint (e.g., /metrics) where Prometheus can scrape the metrics using the Prometheus exposition format.

Configure Prometheus Server: Configure the Prometheus server to scrape metrics from the PHP application's endpoint. Update the Prometheus configuration file (prometheus.yml) to include the target endpoint and define any additional scraping parameters.

Example Integration:

Let's illustrate how to integrate Prometheus with a PHP application using the prometheus/client_php library:

require 'vendor/autoload.php';

use Prometheus\CollectorRegistry;
use Prometheus\Storage\APC;
use Prometheus\RenderTextFormat;

$registry = new CollectorRegistry(new APC());

$requestDuration = $registry->registerCounter('php_requests_total', 'Total number of PHP requests');

$requestDuration->inc();

$renderer = new RenderTextFormat();
echo $renderer->render($registry->getMetricFamilySamples());

In this example, we register a custom metric (php_requests_total) to track the total number of PHP requests. We then increment this metric for each request and expose the metrics endpoint using the Prometheus exposition format.

Benefits of Using Prometheus with PHP:

Real-time Monitoring: Prometheus provides real-time monitoring capabilities, allowing developers to monitor application metrics and diagnose issues promptly.

Scalability: Prometheus scales horizontally, making it suitable for monitoring large-scale deployments and distributed systems.

Alerting: Prometheus supports alerting based on predefined rules, enabling proactive monitoring and alerting for potential issues or anomalies.

Integration: Prometheus integrates seamlessly with various programming languages, platforms, and frameworks, including PHP, enabling comprehensive monitoring across the entire technology stack.

Conclusion:

Prometheus offers powerful capabilities for monitoring and observability, making it a valuable tool for developers and DevOps teams tasked with ensuring the reliability and performance of PHP applications. By integrating Prometheus with PHP using client libraries and instrumentation, developers can gain valuable insights into application metrics, troubleshoot issues effectively, and proactively respond to performance anomalies. Embracing Prometheus as part of your monitoring strategy empowers organizations to build resilient, scalable, and high-performing PHP applications in today's dynamic digital landscape.

In the realm of web development, the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern stands as one of the most influential paradigms. It provides a structured approach to designing web applications, promoting modularity, scalability, and maintainability. In this guide, we'll delve into the MVC framework in PHP, exploring its key components, principles, and benefits.

Understanding MVC Architecture:

MVC separates an application into three interconnected components, each with its distinct responsibility:

Model: The model represents the application's data and business logic. It encapsulates the data structure, database interactions, and validation rules. In MVC, the model is responsible for managing data persistence and state.

View: The view is responsible for presenting data to the user in a visually appealing format. It encompasses the HTML markup, CSS styling, and client-side scripting necessary to render the user interface. Views are typically passive components that receive data from the controller and display it to the user.

Controller: The controller acts as an intermediary between the model and the view. It processes user requests, invokes the appropriate methods in the model to retrieve or manipulate data, and selects the appropriate view to render the response. Controllers handle user input, orchestrate business logic, and coordinate the flow of data between the model and the view.

Implementing MVC Framework in PHP:

PHP offers a robust foundation for building MVC-based web applications. Let's explore how to implement each component of the MVC pattern in PHP:

Model:

In PHP, models typically represent data entities and interact with the database. They encapsulate data access logic and provide methods for querying, inserting, updating, and deleting records. Here's a simplified example of a model class:

class User { 
 public function getUserById($userId) { 
 } 

 public function updateUser($userId, $userData) { 
 }

}

View:

Views in PHP are responsible for generating HTML markup to render the user interface. They receive data from the controller and use it to dynamically generate the content displayed to the user. Views can include HTML templates with embedded PHP code or utilize template engines for better separation of concerns. Here's a basic example of a view:

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>

<head> <title>User Profile</title>

</head>

<body> <h1>Welcome, <?php echo $user['username']; ?>!</h1> <p>Email: <?php echo $user['email']; ?></p>

</body>

</html>

Controller:

Controllers in PHP handle user requests, process input data, and interact with models to retrieve or manipulate data. They select the appropriate view to render the response and pass data to the view for presentation. Controllers are responsible for defining application routes and managing the overall application flow. Here's an example of a controller method:

class UserController { 
 public function profile($userId) { 
 $userModel = new User(); 
$userData = $userModel->getUserById($userId); 

include 'views/profile.php'; 
 }
}

Benefits of MVC Framework in PHP:

Separation of Concerns: MVC promotes a clear separation of concerns, making it easier to manage code complexity and maintainability.

Modularity: Components in MVC are modular and reusable, allowing developers to build and extend applications more efficiently.

Testability: With distinct components, it becomes easier to write unit tests for models, views, and controllers independently.

Scalability: MVC facilitates the scalability of web applications by enabling developers to add new features or modify existing ones without impacting other parts of the system.

Conclusion:

The MVC framework in PHP provides a robust architectural pattern for building scalable and maintainable web applications. By separating concerns into models, views, and controllers, developers can organize code more effectively, enhance testability, and streamline the development process. Whether you're building a simple blog or a complex enterprise application, leveraging the MVC pattern in PHP can significantly improve the quality and maintainability of your codebase.