Rating Star Success!
I would like to thank all of the folks out there that provided support in my week long suffering.
It was only supposed to be a cut and paste. Honest it was. Well after a crash course in Schema from Webmaster tools, Schema.org, and several of the members here at WA.
(Welshy, Incognito and DataPlexTech) not to mention Jay. I finally was able to get the Stars code into my site and verified in the Webmaster tools Rich Snippet Tool.
Now I can get busy on the stuff I was going to do a week ago.
But wait...I need to pass along my larnin' to all you who are still struggling with this issue.
Yup, I'm gonna pay it forward. First things first, Gold for the above mentioned.
I started on this journey by grabbing the second set of code that Jay provided. I pasted it into a Notepad file so that I could keep track of what I have done and make sure that I could always go back to where I started. I altered that code with my keyword, my affiliate link and the other required data.
The other required data was an issue as I have the site hosted with Hostgator in the baby package. This installs one site in the root of the directory and subsequent sites into sub-directories. The site I needed was buried into one of the sub-directories. I had a bit of a problem learning how to get connected to this. I thought an ftp session would take care of it but neglected to set-up the ftp access from Hostgator. I spent most of a day trying to figure out how to do this, ended up putting a password into my site that didn't allow the site to display. All anyone could see was a log in screen. Fixed that after a bit by removing everything that I did the night before.
****Lesson Learned***** Keep track of what you do so that you can undo it if necessary.
So, with the ftp access not working I went into cPanel (Hostgator's substitute for Plesk) and moved all the star .png files into the wp-content/images directory. (after creating the images directory) using the file manager tool. Eventually I'll figure out how to get ftp working but for now I can get to what I need the hard way.
So, after all that I had the stars files where I needed them, and the code in my site, hit update. Look at that a review window with stars in it! Yay. OK 1 more step. Pop over to Google Webmaster tools and verify it with the Rich Snippet tool. Uh Oh. Errors.
I won't bore you with the details but, after countless attempts to get this thing error free I was finally able to add code from one of our skilled resident guru's that got me where I needed to be.
Success!!
I will put the solution into the Ninja SERP follow-up forum once I strip out all of the personal stuff for you all to use if you so desire. Here's the link: Ninja SERP follow-up Forum
***Lesson Learned**** when life throws you a curve, reach out.
The support that is available here is Absolutely Amazing.
Thanks all for your assistance. I couldn't have done it without you.
Craig H.