Posted under 'Blogging':

Dec7th

Old Post Links v1.1 - Multiple or All Categories

Friday, December 7th, 2007

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. After a few requests for the options to have posts from multiple categories or all categories included in the Old Post Links plugin, I have added both options. You can now choose between 1 category, 5 categories, or ALL categories.

You can download the updated version of the plugin here: Old Post Links v1.1

Nov26th

Old Post Links - My Newest Wordpress Plugin

Monday, November 26th, 2007

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.

Sep14th

RSS Signature - Wordpress Plugin - Modified

Friday, September 14th, 2007

Last night I came across a nice little Wordpress plugin on SmackFoo.com. It’s called RSS Signature (previously known as sig2feed). Basically what it does is allow you to include a “signature” at the end of your posts when viewed from an RSS reader.

Here’s an example of the plugin in action: FeedBurner - FromWhatIHeard.com

Obviously the “Source: FromWhatIHeard.com…” line is not included in my posts when you view them from my blog. The plugin allows you to specify what you want to appear at the end of your posts when viewed in RSS readers.

I have taken the liberty to add some new options to the plugin, allowing you to easily include links pointing to your blog home page and even to each invidividual blog post.

Here’s an example of the code I created and added to my RSS signature:

<strong>Source:</strong> <a href=”%BLOGHOME%” target=”_blank”>%BLOGNAME%</a> | <a href=”%POSTLINK%” target=”blank”>%TITLE%</a>

As you can see from the FeedBurner example I posted above, every post contains a link back to the home page of my blog as well as a link to the individual post on my blog. This comes in very handy for when someone feels the need to scrape or “syndicate” your posts via RSS. Alot of spam blogs (a.k.a. Splogs) will load their blogs full of other blogs’ posts just to make it seem like they have a real blog with real content so they can use ads and other money making services on them.

You can download my modified version of this plugin here: Wordpress Plugins

I will post updates if I make any further changes.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them.

Sep11th

A Great Way to Create Video Blogs and More

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007

I came across a new website that offers a very unique service. It’s called QlipBoard by Qlip Media. It allows you to upload pictures and record over them, to create slideshows, video blogs and much more. You can upload pictures of that new car you just purchased or that new puppy you got and tell people about it rather than typing and having them read about it. It’s a pretty interesting service and right now it’s still in beta mode so you can try it for free. I actually think it’s quite entertaining. You can even use the “mouse pen” to draw on the images if you want to point out certain things. Check it out at www.QlipMedia.com.

Jun12th

Use Your Own Domain Name With A Free Blogging Service

Tuesday, June 12th, 2007

You would think that by the year 2007 people would be able to purchase their own domain names without completely relying on free blogging services. With such a wide variety of payment methods available on websites like GoDaddy.com (my preferred registrar and they take Paypal), nobody has an excuse to not have their own domain name. Hosting is even ridiculously cheap now-a-days. Whatever your excuse may be for not having your own domain name, I’m sure it’s a doozie and I will be very impressed by it. Moving on.

If you’re looking for a free blogging service, here are a few choices:

Wordpress.com
Blogger.com
Vox.com
LiveJournal.com
GreatestJournal.com
InsaneJournal.com
BlogRox.com
Blog.com
Blogster.com
Xanga.com

There are probably a thousand more, some of which I may not even be aware of.

If you do decide to go with a free blogging service to avoid paying for hosting, at least get your own domain name to use with it. A .com domain name only costs $7 per year and is much more attractive and easier to remember for visitors than a free blog subdomain address (yourname.blogger.com). You can use your own domain name very easily by adding a new CNAME record with your hosting company. Blogger.com offers instructions for adding a new CNAME record HERE.

Do yourself, your blog and your readers a favor. Get your own domain name. If you can’t afford to pay $7 per year for your own domain name then you really shouldn’t even have the internet or a computer to begin with. ;)

Mar31st

Tips and Tricks For Building a Successful Blog

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

I found this article while browsing through Geeks Corner. The article accurately describes how to correct mistakes that may hurt your blog in terms of search engines and other factors. Many blog owners do not realise the importance of these techniques, but they can make a huge difference.

1) Sitemap EVERYTHING. A lack of sitemap will cause agony to the Google Search Engine. They prioritise sites with a proper sitemap, as they are lazy to pull just the last RSS FEEDS and Archives.If you have interlinked sites or especially if you have a few sites under your main directory, it’s worth a moment to add those domains to it, with a update schedule (weekly,daily,hourly etc) as to how often you do it.

2) RSS FEEDS, Set to 100 POSTS. At least when it’s being deployed/pulled/leeched from your site, you have the last 100 posts inserted into the search engine. They love your RSS FEEDS. RSS FEEDS is a good means to know how great yr feed is,and your readership.

3) Install the INFO.TXT file from ALEXA. It just plainly contains the…

Click Here to read the full article. (post no longer exists)

Mar23rd

Wordpress Spam Blocker

Friday, March 23rd, 2007

I am sure Im not the only one that gets alot of comment spam. Check out this wordpress comment spam blocker called “Spam Karma”.

Spam Karma 2 (SK2) is an anti-spam plugin for the WordPress blogging platform. It is meant to stop all forms of automated Blog spam effortlessly, while remaining as unobtrusive as possible to regular commenters. Spam Karma 2 is the proud successor to Spam Karma, with whom it shares most of the development ideas, but absolutely none of the code.

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