Fine Tuning your Zeus Training

Fine Tuning your Zeus Training

"A great aid in helping you master Zeus."

You've downloaded a Zeus and now you've set out to be a veritable web deity, in your field. The training session you first ran went smoothly and now you have your keywords in the database. It seems so insidiously simple... just let your Zeus find all those websites you want to trade links with. You just know that you're gonna be on top in a few days and your website will be overflowing with visitors.

After running Zeus, all night, you awake to find he has found hundreds of websites. Oh yeah! You've done it... wait a minute! What sort of websites are these? They have nothing to do with what you�re looking for! What went wrong?

While Zeus can do a great job finding sites, he must have proper keyword training. If your Zeus is finding garbage sites, you simply have the wrong keywords. The solutions are simple. Get rid of the keywords that weren�t so unique by editing your keyword choices! You should also adjust your settings. This is fine-tuning, the key to success with Zeus.

Word Uniqueness

Right about now you�re saying that you understand the concept of word uniqueness. In case you don�t, here it is again: It is the probability that the words you choose will only be associated with the subject you�re trying to find. That�s pretty much it, except that it isn�t that easy. There are a number of tricks you will learn with your Zeus, and in the next part you�ll find out more about this subject.

Taking Your Time

The first time you ran your Zeus you were probably mesmerized as it ran through the web. After an hour or so perhaps, you wanted to get to the next step. You taught him all the keywords you wanted. But, and this will be stressed throughout the following pages, training a Zeus to do exactly what you need is quite a task. There is a lot your Zeus can do, but you need to help him along the way, and this will be an ongoing task, the first few sessions, as you train Zeus.

Will this take time, you ask? Yes, it will. But, you will be richly rewarded by your Zeus� capabilities.

Finding Unique Keywords

Perhaps the hardest part of training your Zeus is keyword training. You have to come up with at least 100 keywords by varying degrees of uniqueness and place them in three main categories; Slight Unique, Unique and Very Unique (Ignore and Common aren�t used to score). But determining uniqueness is deceptively simple. You may think that the subject that you�re dealing with is truly outstanding and one of a kind. In fact, that�s probably not the case at all.

Let�s use two extreme examples � Carnivorous Plants and Internet Marketing. Obviously, there will be plenty of one of a kind words and phrases in the first category; Nepenthes, flytraps, pitcher plants, sundews et cetera. No problem there. However, the latter category will have words that are not as unusual and therefore harder to single out; marketing, affiliates, advertising and publicity to name a few. These are words found on millions of web pages. So, what you think as unique might not be.

Carnivorous plants, as a subject, encompasses quite a spectrum of words and phrases that are unique to that field of knowledge, but there are still words that might not be unique to it The keyword phrase Venus flytrap, for instance, contains the word Venus, which is a goddess, a planet and a name brand; at least flytrap is more unique. So, how do you get around this problem?

Internet marketing has very few unique keywords when taken individually, as you have seen. Words like �Internet�, �marketing� and �programs� can be found anywhere, even in sites dealing with something as off-beat as carnivorous plants. However, taken together as the phrase �Internet marketing program� they are very unique. Phrases are the best tools when you really want to home in on a particular area.

Even after doing this, your Zeus may go off course and find the wrong sites. You need to look at the sites themselves and see what is leading your Zeus astray.

Looking At The ThemeSites

The only way to see what keywords are incorrectly steering Zeus is to look at the sites he has found. This allows you to locate those problem keywords, which Zeus is using to score those garbage sites. This is key to getting the most out of your Zeus and giving you the best results.

The first thing you�ll need to do is click on the 'Misc' tab in the Maintain Job Area when a ThemeSite is loaded in the sort. Now you can view what keywords Zeus used to score them. Bring up the Keyword Manager by clicking the 'Train' button then go to the 'Keyword Manager' tab.

Using The Keyword Manager

There are two parts of the Keyword Manager, the most crucial part being the lower section, the Keywords used to score the current ThemeSite window. The upper section, the Show the keywords window allows you to make the adjustments. Let�s take a look at the two sections.

The Upper Section

This is the section of the Keyword Manager that allows you to view the keywords you trained Zeus with.

The Lower Section

This is the section of the Keyword Manager that gives you the ability to move them around to different keyword categories.

What To Do If Your Zeus Is Finding The Wrong Websites

If Zeus is finding sites you don�t want him to find, then you may have to delete some keywords. Each ThemeSite was scored based upon the keywords Zeus found in its pages, and those keywords can be examined using the 'Misc' tab in the Maintain Job Area when a ThemeSite is loaded in the sort. The keywords he used to score are the ones that you taught him during your initial training. Look carefully at these keywords, one after the other. Once you�ve isolated the problem keywords, simply delete them using the Keyword Manager in the Train Job Area. You can also replace single keywords with keyword phrases. This will keep your Zeus from finding unwanted websites.

Changing & Managing Keywords

Once you have an idea of what keywords your Zeus used to score the ThemeSites, you now have an opportunity to manage them. The upper portion of the Keyword Manager window is where you do this. To move the keywords to another category, you�ll need to locate what category they�re in. In the upper portion of the Keyword Manager is the Show Keyword window and the buttons used to show them.

Once you�ve located the keyword, select it by clicking on it. Just below the Show Keyword Window are the buttons used to change their category (in a section conveniently labeled �Change the keywords to this category�). Just click the category you want to change it to and Zeus will move it there. You can even move multiple keywords by just clicking as many as you need, but only to one category.

There is the possibility that some of the words your Zeus is finding are simply not the ones you want. If that�s the case, use the 'Manual Keyword Teacher' tab in the Train Job Area. Not only can you enter individual words, you can also add keyword phrases.

Tip: If a keyword shows up in every ThemeSite you delete, you may simply have to move the keyword to Common or Ignore, or you may have to delete it. You�ll have to be ruthless.

Getting Past 100 Keywords

This particular problem might be called the �100 Keyword Syndrome�. You noticed that the first time you ran Zeus a message came up and prompted you, saying �Congratulations! You have trained your Zeus with 100 keywords!� In other words, Zeus could now find websites. You would have been tempted to jump right in there and let it. Don�t. While 100 keywords may be just enough to accomplish your task, it would be better to have as many keywords as possibleThe more keywords you have, the better your odds.

How Zeus Scores

The way your Zeus knows how to score the ThemeSites that he finds, is simple arithmetic. This is actually something that you can control, and by doing so you may insure even greater success. But first, a brief explanation of how Zeus does this.

If you look in your Keyword Manager, you see how you have five categories: Ignore, Common, Slight Unique, Unique and Very Unique. When you assign the keywords to these categories, you are assigning a default numeric value to them- Slight Unique = 3, Unique = 5, Very Unique = 10

These are the default settings, and you can see them by going to Tools/Options then the 'Score' tab. You�ll notice that Ignore and Common aren�t in there. Basically, they are zero value and not even used in the scoring (Figure 15). There are three factors that Zeus uses for scoring; the Importance Factor, the Source Factor and the Backup Limit.

Importance Factors And Source Factors

Now, look at the next box. These are your Source Factors, what Zeus is going to score.

You�ll notice that Title has the high score and that Page Text has the lowest. When Zeus enters a website site, he looks to see how the keywords you�ve given him are used. Let�s say the keyword �Trans Am� is rated as Very Unique. With the default settings, the word importance factor equals 10. Now, let�s say that the keyword �Trans Am� is in the title. Zeus simply multiplies the importance factor times the source factor, in this case 10 x 5, which gives a score of 50.

When he finishes with the page he adds everything up and gets a score for that page. Once he�s finished with the number of pages defined in the Start Avg Score at page #, he starts a moving average in the Data Window. If the average score goes below the Back Out Limit Zeus backs out of the website, deciding it�s not a ThemeSite.

If he decides it�s a ThemeSite and stays, he loads page after page until he reaches the Page Load Limit. While Zeus is doing this, you can watch the results in the Data Window by clicking the 'Data' button while Zeus is searching the web.

Now that the explanation is out of the way, here comes the cool part; you can change the settings.

Changing Score Settings

Let�s say that you have only a handful of Very Unique keywords. You can adjust the Score Settings for that category, by making it higher. You can also adjust the Source Factors to reflect what you�re looking for. Let�s say that you want to give a high score to a website with the word �Cosmic� in the title. All you would need to do is crank up the Very Unique keyword setting to a really high setting (such as 500), make �Cosmic� you�re only Very Unique keyword, and change the Source Factor for Title to a higher number (say 50). Now, if the keyword �cosmic� pops up in the title of a site, it would receive a score of 25,000! But is that what you�re looking for? You can also adjust the Back Out Limit up or down. If you want to be even more specific in your search, give that a higher value. You�ll still need to have other keywords to find relevant sites. Make sure that your Minimum Words To Learn Setting reflects the number you have!

Zeus will only score a word the number of times specified in the �Max Words to Score pr. pg�.

The important thing to realize is how the settings effect your outcome. This is the heart of the way Zeus operates and where most of your success (and problems) will arise. Along with the keywords you choose, the settings are extremely crucial.

There are still other tricks you can use. All of the values in the Score Settings window can be adjusted. Let�s look at more Score Settings.

Back Out Limit

In the Misc Settings area there are more boxes that you can adjust to improve and focus your search even more. Just below the Back Out Limit box is the Start Average Score at page # setting. As mentioned previously, Zeus starts averaging the score on a per page basis. This controls where you�d like to have Zeus start the averaging. The lower that number, the faster he starts the average score so the quicker he makes a decision whether it�s a ThemeSite or not. Raising the setting means Zeus will wait a little longer before starting the average score, thus putting off the decision as to whether the current website is a ThemeSite.

Max Words To Score

Next is the �Max Words to Score� setting. Simply put, this is how many times any keyword will be used in scoring a page.

Page Load Limit

Finally, you have the �Page Load Limit� setting. This is how many pages your Zeus will look through per site. The higher the number, the deeper Zeus will search. You could effectively search an entire website by setting that number to a higher value. The downside of this, however, is that there are sites out there that may have nothing in them useful, and your Zeus may waste a lot of time going from page to page. Zeus only explores the ThemeSite as long as the Page Load Limit has not been reached. By changing these factors, you can groom your Zeus to have even more success. But wait, there�s more�

Advanced Settings

One of the neat things about Zeus, is that it has built in all of these great ways to program it. As you�ve seen, there are a lot of ways to adjust what Zeus is looking for. At this point you�ve used the Score Settings window. Now, we�re going to use the �Advanced Settings�, found in Tools/Options then the 'Advanced' tab.

The Advanced Settings allow you to control the way your Zeus learns as well as how he runs. By changing Teach With settings, Zeus will only use those specific areas during training.

Just below the Teach With section are the Misc settings. The first one, �Page Size Limit� tells your Zeus what the maximum size of the pages should be. This is shown in bytes, so the default of 200,000 is actually 192 KB. It is in your best interest not to mess with the �Page Size Limit� setting; some dastardly webmasters out there have decided to make pages with the express purpose of trapping robots. These pages tend to be pretty big, so as long as your Page Size Limit is set at around 192 KB you should be okay. You can go lower, of course, but the default setting we find works best.

The next box is the �Minimum words to learn� setting. You�re probably thinking right now �Hey, I thought 100 words was the minimum. What gives?� Well, guess what? You can actually crank that number down even lower! The reason we default to 100 words is it allows the Zeus user time to get used to the whole concept. It is too tempting to just plug in a few words and to let your Zeus go. Not advisable. The more words you have, the better your searches. If you want to look for sites with just a few specialized words or phrases (such as �planetary eco-synthesis��. pretty obscure stuff), then you can do that. But the best way to secure the best number of links is to make sure you have as many unique keywords and phrases as possible.

Now we come to a timer of sorts, the �Load Fault Countdown� box. You�ll notice that its default is 240 seconds. You really don�t want it any higher unless you�re on a high-speed line. You can set it to a higher number if you feel your connection isn�t fast enough. The Load Fault Countdown timer is your Zeus� failsafe mechanism. It controls how long your Zeus waits for a server to respond, then how long your Zeus waits for pages to load. If the timer runs down to zero in either case, your Zeus moves on.

Keyword Phrases

Sometimes single words by themselves are not specific enough. Webmasters know this and sometimes use combinations of words in their Meta keywords in their HTML source code. These phrases are even more specific then single words and the more of them you have, the better Zeus works. A good way to find these phrases is to visit a ThemeSite your Zeus has already found using your default browser, such as Netscape or Internet Explorer and look at the source HTML. Many webmasters use these phrases as Meta keywords.

There is still the possibility that the Keyword Phrases that you�d like to use aren�t in the sites you�ve visited. You can add them using the Manual Word Teacher; simply type them in and assign them to the category that you need.

Summary

Now that we�ve gone over a few tricks, it�s time to try running your Zeus again. Use the secrets that you�ve learned. By this time, you should be able to have your Zeus look for anything. Your level of success will be proportionate to the amount of time you spent during this learning curve.

Frequently Asked Questions

Chances are, if you are like most Zeus users, you have a lot of questions. You�re not alone. Many other Zeus users before you have asked a lot of questions as well, so we at Cyber-Robotics took the time to compile them into a number of FAQ�s:

Q: How do I change the priority of different keywords? I made the wrong decision in assigning priority of my keywords.
A: Use the keyword manager. Open the Train Job Area then go to the Keyword Manager tab. The top buttons are used to display the keywords and after selecting keywords you may use the lower keys to change their uniqueness by clicking on the appropriate button.

Q: I'm just getting 1-2 ThemeSites per hour (about the same on both a broad theme and a more narrow one). Are you using the default settings or something else?
A: I mostly use the default settings. The number of ThemeSites found per day can be greatly increased by lowering your Page Load Limit. The default is 20. I know Gail at toolady.com uses a setting of 10. I sometimes use 15. The new Zeus is extremely efficient in finding the pages containing hyperlinks and email so you can lower this. Remember that your goal is to find ThemeSites and really nothing else, so the least amount of pages looked at, the more ThemeSites, in any given time, you will find. If it's too low then you will have to be searching for email and there is the possibility he will not find enough new URLs to replenish the ones used. Zeus spends most of his time in each ThemeSite looking at the number of pages specified in Page Load Limit. If the site isn't really a ThemeSite then Zeus' time is being wasted.

He is only loading 3 pages in non themed sites before backing out. This setting is in the Start Avg Score @ Page. This doesn't count the Robots.txt page. If you set it to 3 then he will load 3 pages plus the robots.txt page and so on. I do not know of a reason to change this from a 2 but it's there if needed.

Q: How does Zeus score a web site when he finds and determines whether it is a ThemeSite or not?
A: Zeus will score every site he visits using the Keywords you selected during training. Zeus scores Keywords higher when they are found in certain areas. They have a higher score if they match the words found in Titles, Descriptions, or META Keyword tags. These are furnished by the webmaster who built the web site Zeus is currently visiting. For example, a word you assigned Very Unique if found in the META tag will score the highest, while a Slight Unique word found in the page text will score the lowest. All the word scores are added and a total score is derived. When the average score for the web site falls below the Backout Limit, Zeus backs out of the current web site and goes on to the next one. As long as the average score stays high enough Zeus will stay and visit page after page until he reaches his Page Load Limit. (default is 20 pages). He will then save the data he has extracted from the web site.

Spending More Time

There is still one more thing you need to do: Take your time doing it! It is very important, and we can�t stress this enough. You need to spend consistent time with your Zeus, at least a couple hours each time you run him during the initial training phase! This is the best and only way to achieve a high level of success. Once you�re satisfied with your Zeus� intelligence, let him run on his own, but check on him from time to time to make sure that he�s being a good robot. If, for some reason, he still won�t find what you�re looking for, go over the entire process again. Time consuming? Yes, but it is necessary to locate any problem areas you may have overlooked.

If you follow these steps, your Zeus will return with more useful sites. Just remember that there is a correlation between the time spent and your results; the more the better. Ultimately, your Zeus will unerringly find the ones you want after two or three fine-tuning sessions.

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