Web Directory Utilizes Perl for Image Rotation

One of the most challenging aspects of website design is presenting information to users in such a way that appeals to the majority. But when advertisers are also part of the equation, a balance needs to be made between the end user's experience and the needs of advertisers. Because of this, we decided to use Perl for our image rotation needs.

Although in the past we used Perl on a variety of websites to rotate images, this task was a bit more complex. We needed a lightweight solution to serve rotated banners to tens of thousands of visitors daily. With an overhaul of our previous rotation code, now written for 5.16.3, we were able to develop a server friendly image rotator that works well in a shared hosting environment.

The entire experience of creating the image rotation script for the VMOptions web directory was actually fun. As we look for other features to add in the future, the use of Perl will certainly be considered. My personal thoughts are to spruce up the listing detail pages for businesses. While we have already made great strides in the improvement of commercial listings in this web directory, it is clear that more effort needs to be made to improve the information that is presented to users.

Although I have seen some movement towards using Perl on social bookmarking websites, it would be great to see Perl in use under a web directory environment. Besides being flexible, I'm sure that it can serve a greater role in categorizing business listings and their display to visitors.

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About William

user-pic I blog about web directories, Perl, PHP and other issues related to categorizing websites and displaying them to end users.