Old Post Links - My Newest Wordpress Plugin

A short time ago nearly every blogger I know suffered a substantial Google PageRank drop. Some of them were at PR5 and dropped to PR2, PR1 and even down to zero. This of course was speculated to be due to paid links or at least what appeared to be paid links within the posts on their blogs. Some bloggers went as far as going through every old post on their blogs to remove links from posts, even if they werent paid or “sponsored” links. That’s when I thought a little plugin to do this automatically might be kind of handy to have. I searched and could not find any plugin to do exactly what I needed. So, I put one together. Paid blogging has become very popular in the last year or so and I figured alot of people might benefit from using this plugin. This plugin was developed mainly for use by all of you paid bloggers, but others may find it useful as well.

What does the “Old Post Links” plugin do, exactly?

In a nutshell, the plugin allows you to specify a category and choose the ammount of days in which you would like the posts from that category to be considered “old posts”. The plugin can either add a rel=”nofollow” tag to all external links (links pointing to other websites) from the posts in that category, or it can completely disable those links so that your readers and search engines no longer see them while keeping the keyword or anchor text (no longer hyperlinked) still in place.

Still not quite sure what the benefits of using this plugin would be? Well, Google doesn’t seem to like websites to have a ton of external links. If youre into paid blogging (which seems to be popular these days), your external links can really pile up. Even if you’re not into paid blogging, after you’ve blogged for so long, you are bound to have quite a bit of external links from talking about various products or websites. This plugin just helps keep your external links to a minimum.

Information Added: This plugin also works with the TLA InLinks plugin. All you have to do is change one line to your TLA InLinks plugin and all of your TLA links will be immune to the Old Post Links plugin. If you are using the standard TLA plugin that just adds links to your sidebar and such, you do not have to change anything. Those links will not be effected by this plugin. This plugin only effects links within posts. Download the plugin and check out README.txt for more info.

Download it here: Old Post Links v1.0 Old Post Links v1.1

You can also visit my Wordpress Plugins page for this plugin and others.

*December 7, 2007 - This plugin has been updated to use 1 category, 5 categories or ALL categories.

*December 10,2007 - I’ve been asked multiple times if this plugin violates Google’s TOS. This doesn’t in any way violate Google’s rules. What the search engines see is the exact same thing as what your readers see. This is no different than going in and manually changing or removing the links. The plugin just saves you time by doing it automatically.

Support Soldiers’ Angels and America’s Troops

I am a proud supporter of Soldiers’ Angels. I beleive that they provide a wonderful service by ensuring that our troops receive mail, cards and gifts throughout the year and during the holidays. Some of our troops don’t receive any kind of mail from home and I can’t even imagine what that must feel like, especially through the holiday season. Soldiers’ Angels uses everything that they receive to send mail, cards and gifts to our troops and to ensure that our troops know that they are appreciated.

Check out their website at www.SoldiersAngels.org or click the link above. If you can afford it, donate something. Even if it’s as little as $5 dollars. They accept Paypal donations.

Lingerie For Christmas

I’m almost done shopping for my girlfriend’s Christmas gifts. I was talking with one of her friends and she told me that my girlfriend was hoping to get some new lingerie for Christmas. I usually get her some new lingerie for out anniversary or her birthday, but I think I’m going to try and find something this year for Christmas. I’ve been looking around on LingerieDiva.com and I really like the looks of some of their chemises. I’m either going to get the Fringe Trim Chemise, the Lace Halter Mini Dress or the Swirl Lace Mini Dress . I might even get them all, since the prices are pretty cheap.

What to Get Him for His Birthday

My girlfriend’s brother has a birthday coming up and we really arent sure what to get him. We’ve been looking at equestrian riding apparel. He’s really into horses and riding so we figured that would be perfect. We arent sure what he already has or what he needs, and we don’t want to get him something that he already has. We’ll probably endup getting him a gift certificate to one of the stores around here that carries the stuff.

WaMu Checking Accounts

Commercials for WaMu checking accounts have been on television for a while now. I’ve always wondered if they offered free checking accounts in my area but I never really looked into it. I finally looked on their website and they do offer free checking accounts here. They only require $1.00 minimum to open an account, so I’m going to open a free checking account with them sometime this coming week. They have alot of features that my current bank doesnt have, such as free checks and outgoing wire transfers.

Life Insurance With No Medical Exam

A friend of mine from work has been talking about signing up for a new life insurance policy. He found a company that offers life insurance no medical exam required. He thought they would charge an arm and a leg for the policy, but he actually got a great deal on it. He wrote down their information and told me that I should check them out. I’m going to talk with my girlfriend and see what she thinks.

Traded My Cables

A while back I mentioned some bulk cable being left over from a networking job my office had done. Well, one of the guys from the office came up to me last week and asked how much I would sell it for. I guess he’s doing some work in his home and home office and needed some cable for it. I told him we could work out a trade. Long story short, I’ve got 6 free oil changes whenever I need them.

Shopping For A New Mailbox

I’ve been thinking about replacing my mailbox. I’ve seen a few different mail boxes that look much nicer and even a few that look similar to my home. I’ve always thought those mailboxes that resemble the person’s house look nice. I’ll probbaly endup going with one of the Whitehall mailboxes from Seattleluxe.com. They have some great looking mailboxes and their prices seem pretty reasonable.

Fiber Optic Cables

The other day a local business networking company came in and redid our intire office network. They left a bunch of extra fiber optic cables that they didn’t use. They charged my company for it so they left it. I asked the other office managers if they cared if I took it home and they didn’t have a problem with it. I probably have five hundred feet worth of fiber optic cable sitting here. I wonder if I can sell it on eBay or something?