Lorelle lives on the road full-time, staying here and there and moving on. You can contact Lorelle by leaving a comment on this site or through Taking Your Camera on the Road on the Contact Page there.
Be aware that because of traveling, she might not get back to you promptly.
Also note that while she will do her best to help you with your WordPress and blogging problems and questions, she will do so through this blog and not via email. If you would like to hire her services as a consultant, author, instructor, or speaker, please contact her immediately 
, especially if you come bearing money.
Questions About the Full Version of WordPress: If you need help with a specific WordPress issue, search first on the WordPress Support Forum before you ask as you might find the answer there. If not, then ask. They are wonderfully helpful.
Questions About Using WordPress.com: If you need help with a specific WordPress.com issue, see the WordPress.com FAQ and WordPress.com Support Forums for help.
Hiring WordPress Help and Consultants: If you are looking for an expert in WordPress Themes, WordPress development, WordPress Plugins, or other WordPress-related expertise, check out the list of WordPress Consultants on Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, the WordPress Jobs listings, and the WP-Pro mailing list.
WordPress News: The following are resources for news about WordPress and WordPress-related events and activities:
- Blog Herald’s WordPress Wednesday News Reports and WordPress Resources
- WordPress Planet
- WordPress Development Blog
- WordPress.com Blog
- Weblog Tools Collection
- BloggingPro’s WordPress News and Tips
- The WordPress Community Podcast
- Lorelle on WordPress
- Planet WordPress from Planet Ozh
Requests for Reprints and Translations: Copyright Protected Lorelle VanFossen. If you would like to reprint or republish any content on this blog, you will need the express permission in writing from Lorelle VanFossen. Excerpts are permitted, as defined in the copyright policy and statement. Requests for translations is appreciated but not permitted. You may translate an excerpt with a link to the English or translated version of the article via Google Language Tools or another web page translation service. You do not have permission to publish a translation of any content on this blog, other than Fair Usage.
Hiring Lorelle as a Consultant or Speaker: You can leave a comment below or email me directly to hire me as a consultant or speaker. My services include web development including design and usability, blog and social networking strategies, content development, and corporate and small business consulting for online media. I work alone or with a team of leading bloggers and online social networking experts to bring your company the best, state-of-the-art virtual world strategies.
685 Comments
Hello there, I want to change the page titles on my wordpress to something more user friend like “glennscrap.com/blog/this-would-be-the-page-title” like you have.
See Using Permalinks in the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress users.
Hello, Lorelle. I want to thank you for the blogging work you do that is so helpful to those of us who are not nearly as proficient as you are. Not consistently, but occasionally, I read from your pages…and always, I find helpful information.
I live a very busy life, blog daily (almost), so I don’t have as much time to meander through the blogosphere as perhaps I will one day.
Blessings and joy.
Shirley Buxton
writenow.wordpress.com
Hi Lorelle,
I just recently experienced a new type of blog comment spam today where the spammer posted a full article, including the “About the Author section”.
As you can imagine, this type of comment spam can have a much more negative impact to your blog than a simple spam product link. If the article is long enough, it can affect what the search engines think your article is about. In my case the article in the comment was longer than my own article!
Anyways, I wrote more details on it at: http://learningcentre.com/blog/2006/09/25/new-type-of-blog-comment-spam/
I thought you might be interested to know, as well to inform your readers.
Dear Lorelle,
I just want to thank you for all your helpful information on “What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content”. I have a popular handmade jewelry web store that also has several useful jewelry informational pages. Unfortunately, I have found (so far) 2 other web sites that have copied my content WORD FOR WORD…entire web pages!!! One of them was even my “About the Designers” page!!! It’s soooo frustrating. So far, one copier apologized and made her changes. I’m still waiting to hear from the other one. I can only imagine how many other sites have done the same thing and I just haven’t found them yet. Your information really helps. Thank you so much!!!
Kim: Glad to help.
Stephane: Thanks, Kim. That kind of comment spammer has been around for well over a year. They scrape your content and inject their links and keywords into your content and post it as a comment, so it appears someone is responding to your comment. It’s very cute, and annoying, but totally comment spam.
This is just part of the insidiousness of their attempts to get their evil out there. They use jokes, foreign languages, compliments, and all kinds of nasties. Glad you are on your guard. Mark all of these as spam so Akismet, Spam Karma or whatever comment spamware you are using will “learn” and recognize this as spam so we all benefit. For more on all these evil doers, see One Year Anniversary Review: Comments on Comment Spam.
Thanks.
I am looking to create buzz for a new website and am willing to pay bloggers for their services. [Edited]
This blog is not a place to seek professional bloggers. Please seek out a more appropriate service to place ads for bloggers. There are plenty. This is also a more professional manner to offer jobs to bloggers for hire. As for your plan, you are one of many who are doing the same thing, so take the professional path and not leave such messages on any blog as it is often interpreted as spam. Good luck.
Hi Lorelle,
I am incensed at the blatant content theft going on over here:
uncommonbody.blogspot.com/
Virtually NOTHING on that site is theirs. For example:
uncommonbody.blogspot.com/2006/10/top-25-rules-of-running.html
Is from Runner’s World.
And what makes it worse is that this site is getting bookmarked and linked to at an astounding rate DESPITE the fact that numerous commentors are telling them to properly credit sources.
What can be done?
Thanks for your wonderful blog.
Sincerely,
~Mark
regarding my previous comment, it appears the author has JUST NOW begun adding a line a the bottom of his/her latest posts listing the source – even though it is not a link (just text). I’m still irate about this. The copying is virtually word for word and utterly flagrant. obviously a scheme for getting traffic and google ad clicks.
advice?
Follow the instructions found in What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content and Reporting Spam Blogs – Splogs.
Begin by reporting the splog to blogspot.com. They are often slow to respond, but often do. And follow all the rest of the guides I just listed.
Thanks for taking action. Splogs exist because most people let them. They will stop because most people stop them.
You’re blog is great. Alot of the info is over my head and overloads my ability to comprehend or keep up because I’m an amateur. The number of posts is also overwhelming. Do you have any suggestions on how to keep up with your blog?
Something I just thought of as I typed this comment is perhaps a technical site like yours could tag the posts by reader level? e.g. critical, advanced, intermediate, begginer, etc. ?
Thank you. And interesting comment. For most people, the majority of the articles I write on WordPress and blogging are on par with pre-alegbra – WordPress for Dummies. The majority of my articles are incredibly basic. Just because they include code, they “look” overwhelming but everything is spelled out simply. If there is a specific article that is too complex for you, please let me know and I’ll fix it or answer any specific questions you may have.
I write with baby-step-beginners and non-English speakers in mind, so Keep-It-Simple-and-Stupid is my motto.
As for keeping up with my blog, use the feed. See “Don’t You Know What a Feed Is Yet? Get To Know Your Feeds!” for more information. That’s the easiest way. I usually post only one to two posts a day, and rarely more. Other blogs produce 3-20 posts a day. How they keep up with that amazes me!
Thank you again and please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you more.
Great blog… thanks for the insights!
I just installed the UTW and began playing around with it. I was able to get tags to work correctly. However, I couldn’t get tags to display the tag title on . How can i get it to display the correct TITLE name for all tag pages?
Check my article on Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin Review and see the support forum listed there for specific help on the Plugin from the author.
Page titles have nothing to do with UTW. That’s part of your WordPress Theme template file structure. See Creating Effective, Attention-Getting Headlines and Titles for details on styling your page titles.
Thanks.
A Happy Friday the 13th to you!
Question:
I’m starting a holiday themed website, each month will have the appropriate theme, christmas, thanksgiving, halloween…
I would like when somebody goes to the archive they get the whole themed site. I’m reading the arcihves can be modified through making pages. Would I make pages for every section? I’ve become a bit overwhelmed and wondering if what I want to do is even possible. If you could nudge me to more info I will make sure to fill your trick or treat bag with Halloween goodness.
cheers! Rosa
Holiday WordPress Themes are great fun. Don’t forget all the non-Christian holidays like Ramadan, Hannukah, and other nations major holidays. For instance, I’ve lived overseas for many years and there is no Christmas, Halloween, or Thanksgiving outside of the US and England, though there is some Christmas – it’s different. WordPress is a huge international crowd, so you will need more than twelve.
And why stop with those? Why not a pink based Theme for Breast Cancer Awareness Month (this month, October), and Black History Month, or even ones to honor libraries and books (isn’t there a reading/book awareness month? Or for literacy?), and similar. Have fun and go for all kinds of Themed Themes.
You will need to design a permanent post or page for every WordPress Theme to promote it, show examples, and point to the demo. The demo could be as easy as a WordPress Theme Switcher WordPress Plugin (check http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugins for the different choices). The user would click the button to change the Theme, allowing them to view the entire site in that Theme.
As for designing the Themes, you can go the simple way, which is to design the index.php and attached template files (comments, popup comments, search, etc.), which would make every generated web page on a site look the same. Or design the Themes so the single post view and multi-post views are different, depending upon how far you want to take this. It’s up to you. This can be a fast and fun or very frustrating task, depending upon your skills as a web page and WordPress designer.
I think someone else tried this, maybe even several folks, so hunt around to see what they did with holiday/seasonal WordPress Themes. Maybe you all can team up.
I hope that helps.
Lorelle, I remember seeing you around the wp support pages when I was just starting. Your blog here is a wonderful and balanced resource for all bloggers, not just wp users.
I also checked out “sandbox” theme and love the idea, though I’m not quite up to styling the whole thing yet, especially the funtionality. Maybe next summer.
I like the “site map” on your front page. Did you lay out that hierarchy of pages, or does that come in a plugin? (I have a site map maker plugin, but it’s to make the site easier for search engines)
I haven’t looked around your articles for that subject yet, but I mainly wanted to say how wonderful this blog is.
Thanks for stopping in and checking things out. WordPress.com blogs have no access to WordPress Plugins. Everything, unless it is an available feature, is done manually on this blog. So the Site Map you are referring to was created manually, and is out of date. It’s on my to do list.
Glad you like what I do, and if you have any specific requests or questions, please let me know. I work hard to write these articles to meet the needs of my readers, so your input is most important to me. Thanks!
You have such a wonderful site here. I’ve definately learned a thing or two going through your site, plan on making this a regular stop on my daily cybertrip.
I was wondering if you’d be able to help me? I am at a loss of how to do something and I’ve tried posting in the wp forums, and other forums but I’m getting no responses. I just can’t believe that no one hasn’t any idea how to accomplish what I’m trying to do.
Here is a sample of my code… http://tina-stephen.com/category_designelements.txt
What I’m trying to do is get child categories of a specific parent category to show up at certain points showing a few excerpts of posts within the child category and a link to the child category archives. And also show the title and description of the child category before the posts within that child category.
I have read through the codex and I’ve gone through the wp forum (as much as I can since it won’t allow me to go past the first page of search results even though it is telling me there is more than 76 or whatever hits) looking for my answers. The one thing I did find out was to use a category_1.php file instead of pages for what I want to accompish.
I know there must be a way to do this. If I was more conversed in php I would probably be able to figure it out, but all I’ve done so far with php is manipulate the code to get it not to show things in certain places on the page. I have a general understanding of what does what, but to write the code myself is a step that is on my long to do list.
If you have any idea or have seen somewhere that explains what it is I’m trying to accomplish, would you be able to point me in the right direction? I would even go as far as hiring you to help me, though I don’t have alot of money at the moment to put towards services such as yours. I have been trying to figure this out for months now, and I’m determined there is a way to do it… it’s just getting the help needed to show me the direction that will take me to where I want to be.
Again… awesome site! Definately a bookmarker! and one I will come back to often.
I’m not able to help you much right now because of our traveling schedule, and I assume that you’ve poured over the custom category features in the Codex article on Creating Category Pages, as well as custom WordPress Loop features in The Loop in Action.
If I understand what you want to do, you want to display specific categories when viewed on specific category page views? Do you want the category specific posts and excerpts to show up in the sidebar when a certain category is being viewed? Or just on the category pages?
If you want custom category page views, the customized category functions will do that for you. I use a variety of “children” specific functions from the same Codex article on my main site category pages, which were the testing grounds for writing that article. That might help you figure out how to do what you are doing with only one template file for displaying categories.
I’ll do the best I can, but I also recommend that you check out the help on the WordPress IRC Live Help to find someone who may be able to dig into this deeper and faster.
Thanks for such a quick reply
I don’t want the excerpts or posts to show up in the sidebar, just on the page itself. The only thing I want in the sidebar are links to the main/parent categories. Then on those parent categories pages show a few excerpts and an archives link to the related child/sub categories for that parent category.
I’ll go read your articles again. See if something catches my eye and makes sense to me
Thank you for the IRC live help link, I did not know that existed. I’ll give that a try if reading your articles again don’t come up with something.
Thanks!
So you want to show custom category pages, not posts with custom category information. The Replacing Multiple Category Templates With One section of the Creating Category Pages article in the Codex will help you do that. It looks much more complex and intimidating than it is. Take it slow and it should work for you. Good luck and let me know how it turns out.
Thanks Lorelle, I’ll read through them again and see if it starts to make sense to me.
Thank you for all your help! Definately will let you know how it turns out.
Hi Lorelle, may I suggest you to change the partial post feed to the full feed? Since you’re blogging on WordPress.com and I believe that advertising or online revenue is not your aim, do you mind to provide full post feed?
Full post feed is more convenient for most of us to catch up on your great writing. Thanks!
Have you noticed that the sidemenu doesn’t work as well in IE as FF? In IE (1024*768) it appears at the very bottom of the page to the left. Although your target audience might be different, I’m sure you are aware that most people indeed uses this configuration.
Good luck with finding a fix for it
- Moridin
Hi Lorelle,
I recently created a website that is meant to make it easier for writers to publish online. You can see it here:
http://beta.scribd.com/
Unlike a blog, the focus is on the individual piece of writing. In particular, we want people to publish things they have already written in the past. While the site is intended to target people who don’t have blogs, I was thinking that bloggers might be able to publish a sample of their writing as a way to attract attention to their blogs. Could you tell me what you think of this idea? Also, I’d love to hear what you generally think of the website. Thanks a lot for any feedback or advice.
-Trip
There are other sites which offer the same services, so check your competition. MemoryArchive is one that is part wiki, part memoir, part storytelling and story writing.
As for a very fast look at your site, I’d sum it up as Busy and Cluttered. Clean it up and make it more eye-catching with the eyes going to the specific points of interest quickly and easily. I’m not talking about color, just presentation. Good luck with your efforts.
I love your translator
is this a plug in ??
where can i get one
See Instantly Translate Your Blog
Lorelle. I changed my permalinks to contain just the name of the post. (for cocomments) Previously, I had the date in there before the name. Now my site map has hundreds of broken links from old posts. How can I rebuild that database safely?
Permalinks are NOTHING to mess with. Changing them to accommodate cocomments hurts your readers and does little to benefit you, obviously. If you want to maintain the current permalink structure, you will have to modify the .htaccess file to redirect ALL of your old links to the new links. This is complicated and requires some research on your part, and possibly asking on the WordPress Support Forum for help. I recommend you put them back and live with the cocomments results.
Permalinks are not stored in the database the way you think they are. They are sorted by the .htaccess file in the root directory of your WordPress blog long before the database is touched.
Thanks, Lorelle for the helpful information. I remember when we old-time-wordpressers used to have to add the htaccess file manually.
The funny thing is, now that I’ve checked my archives, all the links were succesfully rebuilt and show the new structure, even in old posts. So why is the google sitemap looking for all the old links? (I’m using the sitemap plugin for wordpress, and entered that file in google, trying to set up easier for search engines)
One other somewhat related question. What about “robot.txt” files? Is this something helpful to search engines?
Google takes a long time to reorient links. It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s up to them.
Robots.txt contains instructions to search engines, setting allow and deny access, and doesn’t help with your problem.
You’ve done something drastic and unforgivable in most search engine’s eyes, so be patient.
I come bearing money. I’m looking for a developer to go a little way beyond the usual capabilities of WordPress (but not far). This is for a client job. Work would be paid for.
I’d ideally like to use the services ofsomeone who understands WordPress inside out, is enthusiastic and who would be open-minded to new ideas and developments. Obviously their capabilities are crucial. However, this relationship could be very flexible and work could be done remotely with communication done by email.
Our company is primerily a design agency. We often work on projects of this type and we are looking for reliable suppiers for ongoing relationships.
If you know of anybody who would be interested in work of this type, or if you fit the bill yourself, please let me know. Otherwise as someone who appears to be very involved in the WordPress community I would greatly appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction in any way.
Kind regards
David
Lorelle, thank you for the info and background. I’m not sure yet if I’ve solved the sitemap problem, but I’ll get back to you if I learn anything new or different.
On another subject, I wish to create a series of posts on one subject, and have them appear on a “page” of my blog. I would appreciate any suggestions or links you might have from your extensive experience.
I’ll go to WP and search their support archives now.
Thanks for the kind words. Try Technical Tips for Publishing a Series of Articles on Your Blog as that will probably help. You can put your series “base article” on a Page in WordPress, but that takes it out of the categories and out of the basic WordPress search, so it doesn’t do you much good, though search engines will find it. Someone searching your site may have trouble finding the Page. So you might want to consider putting them in a post, and since you have your own full version of WordPress, you can put the link to that post anywhere on your WordPress Theme template files.
Let me know how it turns out.
I think I’m looking for a script to create a mini-loop for a single category and have it appear on a Page. So, when I write my “garden” catogory articles, they all appear on the Gardening Page. I’ve searched the codex and support. There are hints at using wp template tags to create your own mini loop linked to categories, but I’m not up to writing my own, I don’t think.
I’ll keep searching.
See Creating a Static Front Page – Adding a Mini-Loop and that should do the trick for you.
I don’t know, Lorelle, that sure looks like I’d have to build and code a page from scratch. Do I create a new page template with a loop? How do I link it to a category of posts? Too many unknowns with my meager experience. I’ll try getting some advice on WP support. Thanks for the help. I’ll let you know how I fare.
You don’t have to do anything from “scratch”. You just have to edit your index.php template file and put in the new mini-loop. I recommend that you read through the WordPress Codex, specifically the article I listed above, slowly and carefully, and you will find your solution and it won’t be as hard as all that.
Also see:
Semiologic – Opt-in Front Page WordPress Plugin
Arno Hammann’s post on “How to Create a Static Page in WordPress with the K2 Theme”
Maxpower – How to Create a Static Front Page with K2 WordPress Theme
Filosofo Home-Page Control
Rudd-o-com – Home Page for WordPress
Semiologic – Static Front Page Plugin for WordPress
can anyone leave a comment on my blog or do they have to have a wordpress account before? Thank you
Artblog
It depends. If you have set your Options and Options > Discussion settings to allow anyone to comment, then anyone can comment. If you have them set so they must be logged in to comment, that’s your settings.
Know that having your blog set to You Must Be Logged In To Comment sucks for the user.
Great site Lorelle! Lots of long articles that I actually read from title to related posts! You talk alot about looking at your blog stats, is that only for wp.com blogs? Coz I have a full version installed and I don’t see any links a stats page, only you have n posts and n comments in n categories. Am I missing something? Thank you!
WordPress.com blogs have a blog stats feature. There are MANY blog statistic programs and WordPress Plugins that will do pretty much the same thing for you. Do some searching and testing to find out which one will work best for you.
As for “looking at stats”, I write even more that this can be obsessive behavior and unless you understand what they really mean, while still focusing on your blog content and audience and serving them, traffic doesn’t mean much.
Good luck!
I’d just like to thank you for your excellent writing on WordPress.com and web design in general. Your writing is informative, knowledgable and brilliant.
A fine example of both blog and blogger!
Thank you Lorelle!
Have you actually done this? All the plugins and directions you linked to require creating something from scratch, or if not, they require building complex work around paths in k2 to avoid the header menu options controls.
All provide copious examples of code snippets, not complete files, which are greek to me for the most part. And most of the instructions are for creating a static front page, which I do not want.
The codex advice is very generic and in need of editing, with a disclaimer at the end. And so far, using template tags on my own is not something I’m up to.
I guess this is out of my range of ability. For now.
Thanks for your help.
David
Yes, I’ve done this. I’ve been working on an article that may help you with this issue but it is still a ways off. Stay tuned!
And what you want to do “sounds” simple, but it isn’t always as simple as you think it sounds. The “code snippets” may be all you need to put into your front page template file (index.php) to make it work. The Plugins are usually very easy to use.
I’ll be back working on the article in the next couple of weeks, so hang in there and you might find the help you need. Thanks for your patience.
Lorelle- I managed to get a very crude set up to work. So I feel I made progress.
I set up a category template, learning from the codex on that subject, used the recommended customizeable post list plugin to call up the category I wanted, stuck in some content php cut from codex (that’s the part I need to do from scratch), linked the page to the category using a links_to key on the page, used the “category visibility” plugin to block visibility on the front page, and VOILA, my posts showed on the page.
I tried and tried to get the plugin for “post templates by category” to work, but I don’t think it did a thing. (if you don’t know the plugin, check it out. maybe you can understand it’s function. i posted a comment there, but haven’t gotten a resonse.)
I just don’t think it should be that hard. But I hope my experiement has given you some info for your article.
best wishes. I look forward to it.
David
PS I deleted all that I had set up. It was just too messy and weird. I can rebuild it when I know how to do it right.
Wow! That’s a lot of work. But I’m glad you got your experiment to work. As soon as I’m done with my current crisis, that’s the big article I’m next at work on. Thanks for the motivation!
I love you Lorelle! Can’t say how helpful this site is to me and my blog. I’m just starting out and this has been a good resource.
Mwah.
Dear Lorelle–
Thank you. I think you’re a genius about this stuff, and I can’t wait to learn more about WordPress.
And thanks for the reference to the WordPress Codex. I can see that it’s essential reading.
Would still respectfully request that you add the “Add to Google” button in the syndication section, though.
Many thanks.
Warren
One other thing, if you don’t mind, Lorelle: Would you set up a syndication link “Add to Google,” please?
I have a Google homepage. I’d like to put your blog in there, but I don’t think Google Reader gets me there. Or, if it does, I haven’t figured out how yet.
Many thanks–
Warren
The link: http://tdjc.be/2006/01/30/faq-for-uploading-a-picture-to-your-wpcom-space-and-adding-it-to-a-post/
From the page http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/08/13/instructions-on-uploading-a-photograph-on-wordpresscom/ doesn’t seem to be working. I’d really like to see the info. Any suggestions?
Thanks for letting me know. Either Dr. Mike’s site is own temporarily or permanently. I couldn’t find a working version of the article, but you can get a lot of the same information from What Do I Do With My New WordPress.com Blog. Thank you!
Just checked back in. Very clever way to show it’s down (the strike through). I laughed. Thanks! You can delete this if you want to.
VR/
Lorelle- Just to get back to you. I got pretty good help from WordPress support on my miniblog subject. I’m sure you already have an arsenal of info for your future post on the subject, but here is the discussions thread to my question.
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/93277
I will work on this in the next few days and get back to you.
If my brain wasn’t totally broken, I think I may have answered your question on the forum post. If this is “right”, I’ll then write up an article about it and post it here. Give it a try.
But forgive me if it’s not exactly right as I’m in the middle of family emergency and crisis and haven’t slept for more than a few hours for DAYS!
Hi Lorelle!
Someone has posted once above, but I think I want to post this again. Would you please consider offering full feeds? Hehee.. Your posts are simply wonderful reads, but reading partial feeds from a feed reader is quite annoying
Thanks. Just a suggestion
I’ve been using partial feeds for a year now and relative to the statistics, the number of people who are only very recently requesting full feeds are very few. For most, one click is not considered annoying.
Since I tend to be prolific and write long and large posts, many more have complained to me how my long posts screw up their feed reading. A lot of people have full feeds and yet only showcase excerpts on their front page, which isn’t much different than partial feeds if you think about it. So this is a complex issue. I have a LOT of content stolen with feed scraping, and the number has definitely dropped since changing to partial feeds. With a technical-oriented site, not every article applies to everyone’s interest, so for now, I’m still going with the majority not the minority.
Personally, I love using my feed reader to skim and seek out good stuff, not for full reading. So I have come to agree with the majority.
Dear Lorelle,
I’ve been trying to find an article that explains, in simple terms for a brand-new blogger, how to set up a blog (using, say, a simple three-column WordPress template) that incorporates Adsense, Blogads and/or affiliate links. How do you design the blog so there’s a place for these ads, and how do you get them to go where they should?
Thanks,
Ted
You choose a WordPress Theme with three columns (there are plenty to choose from) and then edit the appropriate template files to put the ads in where you want them to appear. It’s kinda copy and paste, very low tech. And then you mess with it.
Start with a simple blog, and don’t worry about advertising. Play with it and see how it works for you, following the many tips and articles I’ve written on WordPress Themes and Web Design. When you have a handle on the simple, then add the ads.
Don’t expect a blog to “make” you money no matter what you put on it for at least 3 months, and possibly one or two years.
I’ll be restarting my Building a Blog series very soon, so stay tuned.
Hi Lorelle,
I sent you an email the other day and just want to follow up to make sure you received it. I don’t mean to be a pain, but I used the only address I had for you so I’m not sure if it was your real one or not. Anyway, if you didn’t get it would you mind dropping me the address you would like it sent? You can contact me via the email attached to this comment.
Again, sorry to bother, keep up the good work! I’m a big fan.
Cheers!
I received it and replied. I’ll check my email. I’ve been having problems with it lately and I thought it was fixed. Thanks.
Aanii Lorelle and Good Afternoon to you!
I noticed on top of your main page you are looking for volunteers to make screenshots and videos for the WordPress codex.
I’d love to do that if it is still available. I can start the 1st of December and have it all done in a high quality and quickly.
Can you get back to me please?
Thanks
By the way I love your site – great job!!
Blessings
Bluedolphin
We’d love your help and you can start any time as it is totally free will and volunteer. Sign onto the WP-docs (WordPress Documentation) mailing list to start the conversation with others on what needs to be done and the format and everything. That would be a great help. We’ve been poking at this for a long time and need to start getting it done so users can have alternative ways of figuring out how all this works.
Thanks!
Hi there! I am new to WordPress. I have just set up a blog which I share with my daughter. I should like to set it up so that I will be notified with an email everytime she updates it or if anyone leaves a comment. How do I do this? I searched WordPress itself but couldn’t find the answer. Thank you very much for your help. Can you send the answer to my email too? It’s brownpanda@gmail.com.
There are many WordPress Plugins that allow a user to “subscribe by email” with “email alerts” to notify someone by email that the website or blog has been updated. Personally, I can’t stand them. I’d rather use feeds to keep track of websites as I get too much email already and have a hard time sifting the wheat from the crap.
You can find these WordPress Plugins on the WordPress Codex Mail WordPress Plugins List or WP-Plugins.net Administration Tools List. They are all a little different and do different things, so test drive a few of them and see which one is the best one for her needs.
I have claimed my wordpress.com blogs with technorati and I was able to see them updated there and ping them okay, but with my Vridar blog entry I made a couple of days ago the technorati updating and pinging has ground to a halt. When I click on my 2 day old article link in technorati it produces a 404 error message in the browser. Earlier blog entries are fine, but subsequent blog entries do not appear despite regular pinging.
Technorati Help seems to indicate that a possible workaround might be to add permalinks and rel=”bookmark” to my post titles. Is there any way I can do that in WordPress.com? Does it sound to you like there might be some other solution? Should I send more details here to explain this? Is WordPress.org a guaranteed answer?
Thanks
Neil
The 404 error message is a problem with many blogs on Technorati and other feed services. Don’t stress it, or any of this. It usually fixes itself in time. And time is what we are talking about. Two days is not “time”. Wait three months.
Technorati is not the end all and be all either. Trust me, you are there and it just sometimes takes time to show up.
To get Technorati’s attention, you need to put a rel=”tag” into your links. It looks like:
<a href=”/thislink/” rel=”tag” title=”this is the title of the link”>
this link</a>
You put it on any link or tag or whatever. Do a search on tags here to learn more about how this works.
To get help with WordPress.com blogs, see the WordPress.com support forums. For help on WordPress full versions, see the WordPress Support Forum.
Honestly, concentrate on your content, filling your blog with powerful and informative material and let the rest of this pinging, counting, statistics, and other stuff wait for a few months. Isn’t it more important to get your message out there? It will get found. Make it worth finding when people arrive.
Dear Lorelle,
I am writing a report on “What to do when your content gets stolen”. You have excellent advice on this topic. Can I use some of that in my report.
I will give due credit in my report by making you the co-author.
Regards
Drikus Botha
Thanks for the request. Currently, I’m traveling extensively, so “co-author” would not be acceptable as I’m a SERIOUS co-author when I co-author. I’m a professional writer, so I take my co-authoring very seriously.
However, you may take advantage of the fair use copyright law to use a few excerpts without permission, but keep them small as fair use permits.
Good luck and let me know when you’ve published it.
I want to open a second wordpress blog for convenience it would be easier to use the same user login. Is there any way to control which blog comments are traced back to?
Blog comments go to your logged in account under which you post the comments. You cannot “double do” two blogs on WordPress.com blogs. Though, if you “claim” your second blog, you can switch between them, but I believe the comments go to whatever account you are logged in under when you comment.
Please direct these types of questions on WordPress.com to the WordPress.com Support Forums as they can give you a better answer. Good luck.
Hi Lorelle,
Terrific info!
Question: What pinging service(s) do you use for your WP blogs?
To be more specific: Is Pingshot (from FeedBurner) a good idea? If I use it, should I remove the default WP pinging? Are there other URLs you add?
One more … If I publish a post and then edit it a little later, does that cause redundant pinging?
Many thanks,
Sam
I use ping-o-matic with all my blogs, the default with all WordPress blogs. Unless you are targeting an international audience, anything else is kinda redundant. I would not do anything more. See the articles I’ve written about pinging for more information.
As for editing, yes, it pings again, but it’s insignificant, unless you are doing a LOT of editing and republishing. That might bite you back, but I believe the newer versions of WordPress look for repeat pings and stop them.
Just let it happen and it will work for you. Patience.
I am using my own custom built trackback engine, its refered to like this:
http://phun-ky.net/trackBack.php?id=68&url=http://myblog.com/archives/00123.html
&blog_name=Your+Blog&title=This+is+the+title+for+your+post
This is used by my readers if they want to tb me, but how do I trackback to you (WordPress) ? You are using: http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/01/15/dyi-search-engine-optimization/trackback/ (as an example), how do I insert my url? my blog name? title?
Regards, Alexander
I can’t help you with building a custom trackback engine. To leave a trackback in WordPress, simple put a link to the article in your post article. Or, post the link in the Trackback section of the Write Post panel. That’s it. Nothing else. It’s simple. It’s automatic. Now, it takes a little bit for the trackback to show up sometimes, but it usually works simple and easy.
I love your site and it has helped me a lot in understanding WordPress and what it can and can’t do.
From your last post on the Malaysia you said you were in western Oregon. Are you still here and would like a cup of coffee?
Only if coffee is not involved.
It will be a few weeks before I have any free time as I have more traveling and family obligations in the next few weeks, as well as a lot of unpacking and finding my underwear. Remind me by the middle of January and we can maybe make a date. Thanks for asking.
I’m anxious to meet other Oregonian and Pacific Northwest bloggers and WordPress fans so I’ll be making a public announcement of our new location soon. Stay tuned.
Hi Lorelle,
I was wondering if there was some way in WordPress to publish recurring posts. Basically, every Thursday (when I remember) I publish a post on my blog encouraging people to subscribe to our feed. I’ve found that it’s really boosted my number of subscribers. Is there any way to put this on autopilot, without me having to manually post it each week?
Thanks in advance! Your blog is so useful – it’s a daily must-read for me.
First, why do you have to publish such a post weekly? Most people get a clue by an obvious feed link, and/or know about feeds so they look automatically when they like the content and want to monitor the site. So this is highly redundant. Maybe once a month might be nice, or put comment with the feed link in the Post Meta Data Section of every post. There are other options than making your readers read the same stuff every week.
I know this is working for you, or you wouldn’t be doing it, just consider some other methods to help mix things up. Subscribers aren’t “traffic”, just those who are possibly monitoring your feeds. Doesn’t mean you are increasing readership. It’s a great myth of feeds.
Second, you can use future posts, if you must. Just copy and paste the same stuff, though I’d modify it so it isn’t boring and people dismiss it, over and over and over again on future post dates for each Thursday. See Working Ahead – Future Posts with WordPress for more information on how to do this.
Hi Lorelle,
I’m very sorry if bothering You, but recently one of my Artworks was stolen, which is originally displayed at my Gallery on the website shown above. I took all the actions needed as You have them stated here, and I’m still very determined, but I am losing my hope as the person who stole it simply refuses to take it down.
I contacted the moderators of that page several times, and I got no answer.
The person who ripped me has a page full of Artworks taken from deviantART, all of course from various Artists.
The Original is at my deviantART Gallery, where the rules of its use are clearly stated. She failed to comply with that, she never asked my Permission for it, she took it and displayed it on her page with her signature and of course never gave me any credit.
When I contacted her, she deleted all my comments and blocked me. She ignores all the rest of the angry Artists wanting to complain. Her friends were happy to threaten me and clearly stated how they do not care for Copyright and how they did not steal anything. I am so hopeless and I have no one to turn to. I just don’t know what to do now. Please, if You find the time to, take a moment to get back to me. I would be most thankful.
Regards,
Nina
Hi Lorelle, that’s a good point actually.
I was wondering if you could clarify what you meant by this though:
“Subscribers aren’t “traffic”, just those who are possibly monitoring your feeds. Doesn’t mean you are increasing readership. It’s a great myth of feeds.”
Carmen, just because you have a “count” on how many people are “subscribers” doesn’t mean they are actually reading your feed. If you are using Feedburner, they can subscribe but then stop using Feedburner but it still counts as a subscription. If you have traffic monitoring software that actually reports how many people are accessing your site through feeds (not Feedburner), then you only get a count on how many actually “read” your site (access it) through their feed reader, not how many are actually listing you within their feeds but not consistently reading through your feed.
I have over 100 sites on my feed list but I certainly don’t read them all every day. In some cases, it can be months before I check in.
So how do you really know how many people are subscribers and how many people are really reading your feeds? See the mythology of actually measuring feeds?
I’ll be writing more about this, but the key is to get people to RETURN to your blog and increase readership through content that keeps them coming back for more. I’d rather have three people who visit every day or two and are fans than 400 people who drop in and leave, never to return. Quality traffic will consistently outweigh random traffic any day. Focus on making them want to come back, not just getting new. Your traffic levels will increase slowly over time, but you will get quality readers not quantity.
Does that help?
Nina,
If you read through “What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content“, you may have missed what to do when the other stuff you’ve mentioned failed. Report them to search engines. So go back and read and be sure and send Cease and Desist notices to the person, the web host, and advertisers and say that you are doing this and that you will be contacting search engines.
Make sure, also, that you have clear and obvious copyright notices on everything, including a copyright in the URL tag’s alt description to make sure that you’ve done everything on your end to make it very clear that this is not for public use.
And if the person is hotlinking, change the image or remove it. If they aren’t, then do the steps above. A threat to close down the site and contact advertisers can go a long way. It’s more work for you, but it sounds like you’ve a vested interest in stopping this. Go for it.
And thank you for being one of the few who refuses to give up when your content is stolen. Good luck!
Yes that helps a lot. Thanks Lorelle! And you should definitely do a post on that – I’m sure your other readers would be interested to hear your thoughts on the subject.
“Trackback section of the Write Post panel. That’s it. Nothing else. It’s simple. It’s automatic. ”
The question I asked you earlier was not “can you help me build a trackback engine”, the engine is already built. I asked: “..but how do I trackback to you (WordPress) ?”
I am NOT using WordPress, but I am trying to make it possible for me to track BACK to WordPress blogs. So, please tell me, after the /trackback/ where does the variables go?
Kindly regards from Alexander
I cannot. I am not familiar with the trackback technology of WordPress. I do know that WordPress automatically receives trackbacks from non-WordPress blogs. You will need to contact WordPress directly for more specifics or/and dig through the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress users.
Hi Lorelle.
Thanks for the link to my Blog Herald post on your Taiwan earthquake post (http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/12/30/taiwan-earthquake-disrupts-internet-access/). I was wondering whether you received my previous email (about the Blog Herald). I’d very much like to hear from you about that one.
Cheers.
Angelo
Hey Lorelle,
I just discovered your super helpful blog! I love your signature at the end of each post, what plugin did you use for it?
cheers,
assaf
Racoma: My email has been down for over two weeks and I’m working on getting it fixed now that I’m finally back online. I’ll check and let you know if I can’t find it in the backlog. Thanks for letting me know.
Assaf: My signature is “manually” created, though I use the A Technorati Tag Bookmarklet for WordPress and WordPress.com Users bookmarket to include it as a shortcut method. There is no Plugin for this and I can’t use Plugins on this blog. Thanks.
Lorelle,
Thanks. I sent it to your cameraontheroad.com address. I’ll be glad to resend if you can’t find it. I know the feeling of getting a sudden rush of emails after a long period of being offline.
Cheers.
Angelo
BTW, I do come bearing money.
Angelo
Hey Lorelle,
Just wanted to say thanks for providing such a concise resource for dealing with copyright infringement, we’ve recently found someone stealing our content, and your site is proving to be a great help in what steps to take.
Thanks again,
Richard
Hi Lorelle,
I have a WordPress blog at http://www.filmpantheon.com. I spend a lot of time typing in the cast & credit information (which I copy from IMDB). I spend more time on this than on writing the actual reviews. I was wondering if you know of a plugin I could use to automatically get the cast & credit info. from IMDB and insert it into my post automatically.
I would appreciate any assistance.
Thank you!
I’m not familiar with those types of WordPress Plugins, but I did a search on Google and found a lot of options, at least for getting movie ratings, so there might be something there for cast information. If not, consider writing one yourself. I’m sure it would be in demand by others.
Good luck.
Hi Lorelle, I was wondering if you could help me understand this email from my host and recommend some steps for me to take. Here’s the email:
————-
I’m writing to let you know that your domain racialicious.com was getting too many hits and consequently kept crashing the shared apache service. I set a restriction on the domain: it can receive 75 connections in 5 seconds which resets every 5 seconds. This is to bring down the load on your server, but still leave your site operational.
Let us know if it’s safe to do so, and we’ll be happy to remove the restriction. You may want to look into setting up hotlink protection.
You also want to consider making your files be unsearchable by robots and crawlers, as that usually contributes to high number of hits. If they hit a dynamic file, like php, it can cause high memory usage and consequently high load.
————-
If I were to make the blog unsearchable by robots and crawlers, wouldn’t that be bad for my SEO?
Also, I looked at my stats and noticed I’ve received over 25,000 hits to the file ultimate-tag-warrior-ajax-js.php since the beginning of this month.
I would really appreciate any ideas you might have about all of this. Thanks so much!
Hi Lorelle, first of all, thank you so much for the info, it has been so useful, however, I seem to have come up against someone who is commnuicating with very rude emails which are designed to undermine me and my business. He stole the content of my website to sell his only product which is very similar to mine and actually contains ‘cut and pasted’ material from my product also. I have asked him to remove the website which he says he will do ‘when he has finished modifying it’, it has been well over a week now and he is making no attempt to do so. My lawyer has asked him for compesation and an undertaking not to do this again, but he is ignoring this also. He is being very evasive and I could do with some advice His 5 days notice runs out today and he is ignoring that also. Any ideas? Thank you
Carmen: Your best help would be from the WordPress Support Forums as someone might be able to go through your site and look for which Plugins like UTW which might be hitting a little heavy on your site. They will also recommend WP-Cache WordPress Plugin to help bring down the hits on your server and database.
You also might want to look deeper into your stats to see if you have anyone hotlinking to images or files on your site.
Comment spam is taking a huge toll on bandwidth. We pay for that every time we’re assaulted. Some really good hosts are taking that into account and raising bandwidth limits accordingly for free, but the cheap ones will nickel and dime you. I’ve found on one site that over 50% of my bandwidth is accounted for by comment spam and search engine web crawlers. Google is one of the biggest single bandwidth consumers.
= = = = =
Charles: If you follow the instructions in What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content, that’s the best help I can give. If a lawyer is involved, leave it all up to your lawyer and get back to your work. If your lawyer isn’t doing the job, then get a new lawyer who specializes. That’s what you pay them for. Good luck.
Hi Lorelle,
Thanks for replying. I followed your Google search and the first link brought me to this page: http://paulgoscicki.com/projects/wp-movie-ratings/#comment-15598
He has a plugin that, as of now, only allows you to add ratings to posts, but in the next version he’s going to add the ability to add cast and credit info. from IMDB.
Hi, I have been bombarded for some time now with spam that contains “info” in the email address. Like “info@economynews.info”, for example. Is there any way to weed out comments using a wildcard, like “&.info”? Also, I am using the free version of WordPress and I don’t seem to have a place to install plugins from my dashboard. Assuming that I have to upgrade, how do I go about this? Does this mean that I have to install the software on my own server at panix.com or some other server that is listed on wordpress?
Thanks in advance,
Louis Proyect
I’m relatively new to the whole WordPress world, but I’ve already figured that you’re probably a good person to ask a question! I have a bunch of content outside WP, basically in plain text documents, and I’d love to find a way to organize the info so it could be imported as multiple new WP posts. There are many conversion options for WP, I know, but I can’t for the life of me find any advice on how to massage raw plain text information into a format that WP could import as new posts. Any advice?
I am a good one to ask. I spent way too long figuring out how to import over 1000 text articles into WordPress. And you reminded me that I need to write up a better version of this, explaining how to import text “chunks” into WordPress.
Until then, see:
Importing Into WordPress with the Import-mt
Compromises Along the WordPress Import Path
Manually Importing Into WordPress Databases
Creating One Big Import File
Imitating MovableType Import File
Searching and Replacing The Code
Putting Our Site into WordPress
The order is actually the reverse of how we proceeded, with my first attempts last on the list. But the best suggestions come at the end.
Also see: Importing Content on the WordPress Codex.
I’ll put this on my to do list again. Thanks for reminding me.
Thanks so much, and such a quick response, too. This looks really promising! It’s going to take me some time to get it together — and to find the time for the work at all — but I really look forward to trying this out. Thanks again!!!!
Not sure why my query wasn’t answered, but in the meantime I learned that I am using wordpress.com, the free multi-user version that does not allow plugins. If you want to use plugins, you have to download the wordpress software from wordpress.org and install it on server.
Sorry, didn’t see your question.
WordPress.com does not allow Plugins to be added.
However, you can add filter words to your comment filters through the Options > Discussion > Comment Blacklist including IP addresses.
I do not believe it supports wildcards, and there are many good sites that use the “info” as part of their domain. It’s legit. Trust me, there are more comment spammers abusing .com than .info.
I hope that helps.
Hi Lorelle,
In my menu bar on the header I have links to my WordPress Pages, but when I click on them they open as a new page and dont show my header or sidebar. How do I get the page to open up in the Posts area where my blog normally is to show a consistant theme?
Brittany
Brittany:
Are you using the full version of WordPress or WordPress.com? Questions like these are best answered by the WordPress Support Forums, but without more information, it’s hard to answer the question.
Some WordPress Themes have a different view when viewing different pages. It happens automatically, depending upon the WordPress Theme designer’s intentions and design choices. That’s why on the WordPress Default (Kubrick or K2) WordPress Theme you see no sidebar when viewing single post views.
Did you do something to your WordPress Theme template files? Maybe the files didn’t upload completely when you uploaded them to your site? If you are using WordPress.com, maybe the Theme you are using doesn’t show headers or sidebars in that view.
Without more information, which you need to give to the WordPress Support Forums folks, I can’t help you.
Hi Lorelle,
Thank you for everything… I’m just starting with my blog. I’m inspired with your full of information blog. Thank you very much!!
I am very new to WordPress and blogging. When I am writing a new post and try to click on Categories, I get a message at the bottom of the screen that says “javascript: void (null).” Do you know what this means or how to fix it? I have been trying to find out what this means, and have had no luck. Thanks!
Welcome to WordPress and blogging, Tiffani.
First, this message means that you haven’t visited the WordPress Support Forum for help using the full version of WordPress.
That should be your first stop when looking for WordPress help.
It could mean a lot of things such as a poorly installed version, a conflict with a WordPress Plugin, or…well, a lot of things. Your best bet is to search the WordPress Support Forum and if you don’t find an answer, then ask them. They are great and helpful folks and there to help you solve all your WordPress ills.
Good luck and let me know how it turns out!
Hi Lorelle. Would you consider publishing full posts in your feeds rather than excerpts? I read most of my feeds on my mobile phone, on Google Reader, and it would be much easier to have the full feeds right there, rather than having to come to the site on-the-move.
Thanks for a great site.
As I’ve said before, the feed on this site will remain as excerpts. When I had it set to full posts, I actually got a LOT of complaints since I tend to write VERY long articles which messes up feeds. The articles I write are also educational and not applicable to everyone. Many have told me that they like scanning through the list of posts, especially since I’m quite prolific, and then picking and choosing the ones of interest and ignoring the rest.
This blog is also grabbed by many sploggers and scrapers stealing content. In order to keep the work I have to do tracking these down and stopping them to a minimum, since I’m not paid or compensated in any way on this blog, excerpts keep the work load down. Seriously.
I consider your request a compliment, but for now, they stay as excerpts because I’ve had less than 10 requests for full feeds over two years and tons of requests to leave them as excerpts.
Majority wins.
Lorelle does a very good job of putting the synopsis bits at the top of the post so one can decide whether to click on over or not.
[Maybe it's just me, but I would find it difficult to read and walk at the same time.]
Hi Lorelle,
Ever since Aug/Sep 2006, around the time I upgraded to WP2.0.4, my blog no longer receives pingbacks and doesn’t send them out either. Even with the latest upgrade to 2.1, it doesn’t look like the problem has been fixed. I’ve scoured the forums and asked around with no answers. Any ideas?
I assume you’ve asked on the forums. Do you have pings and trackbacks enabled? Check your Options panel.
I recommend you delete all of the WordPress core files from your site and then upload all the new files and see if that works. Disable all your plugins and run a test to see if one is interfering with the pings.
Other than that, I can only recommend you try again with the Support Forum.
Good luck and let me know if you come up with a solution.
Hi, I like your site a lot. Just an FYI: are you aware that if you type a key word into your find area on your home page, the word is in white and the background is white so you can’t see what you are searching for?
I’ve tested this design in several browsers. None do what you describe. Which one are you using, and then why aren’t you using Firefox.
You’ll have a better browsing experience if you are.
Nothing like a little hype for a favorite tool.
Hi Lorelle,
I’m very excited about MIT’s new ‘Exhibit’ software that allows Google spreadsheets to automatically feed WordPress with rich data visualizations and manipulation. I think this may be a seminal development in bringing structured data publishing to the masses. If you think this is a worthy topic for greater treatment in your blog, I have more information at http://www.mkbergman.com/?p=328.
BTW, I am not affiliated with MIT in any way; I’m just gushing about really sneaky-cool stuff!
Thanks for your good work!
Cheers, Mike
Lorelle,
Your website is indispensable! Thank you so much!
regarding my post #118. You’re right. The Find/search feature works fine in Firefox but not Safari. Why do you like Firefox? Safari is so much faster but yes it is true that Safari can be limited. This brings me to another question. Will I basically have to edit my wordpress site using Firefox (which I find sooooo much slower)? Is Safari known not to work well with editing using wordpress?
The latest version of Firefox is FASTER than ever. But you’ve answered your own question. Safari can be limited. Firefox…hmmm, haven’t found any limits other than those found on sites which design interactive features ONLY for IE, which would die on Safari, too.
Will you have to edit your WordPress blog using Firefox? You can use whatever you want. Just make sure your WordPress blog’s design works in EVERY browser, not just Safari.
Lorelle, thanks for reminding me about WordPress search. I have restarted my effort by experimenting with the Google Co-op. I will document as I keep trying different options.
Hi Lorelle, you were asking for suggestions for your ‘30 days of plugins’, I’ve got a post on how to use the new pseudo-cron functions in WP 2.1 : http://blog.slaven.net.au/archives/2007/02/01/timing-is-everything-scheduling-in-wordpress/
cheers
Hi Lorelle, I hope you are settling in to your new home. I prepared an interview of Peter Harkins regarding the new release of Sociable 2.0, I hope you might enjoy sharing it with your readers.
http://daviddalka.com/createvalue/2007/01/31/sociable-20-plugin-release-interview-peter-harkins/
Hi I am wondering I was trying to add my blog to Blog Mad and they require me to add HTML or BB code to my blog in order to activate it, How do I do that? Please>:-)
If it is a javascript, you can’t add it to a WordPress.com blog. If it is straight HTML, some you can add to your WordPress.com blog in your post content area, but there are limits. This is for security reasons.
If it starts with
<script...you can’t.Hi Lorelle. Amazing site. Such a great resource for WP users. You’re a gem.
I’ve updated my ClassyBody plugin to v1.1 with the addition of ad-hoc custom CSS classes. All is explained here.
Hi there Lorelle,
Beautiful blog u’ve got here.
I was wondering if there was any plugin which allowed multiple users (using one wordpress blog) to place their own signatures at the bottom of each post?
I have found one which allows that for one user. I just can’t find one which allows that for multiple users.
Thanx in advance
Signatures at the bottom of blogs, like mine, are rare, so I’m not sure if you will find one. BUT you can customize your posts with template tags in your Theme to create a Post Meta Data Section which will feature bio information and such. You can see that customization effect at the bottom of any post on my family history blog. That’s a kind of signature and it’s really easy to add. The article on Post Meta Data Section in the WordPress Codex will help.
Hi there Lorelle,
I’m searching for information on how to display a different number of posts on my homepage to the number on search results and category pages, in WordPress 2.1. I’m changing one of my blogs to use a Hemingway-derived theme with lots of information at the bottom of the page, so I’d like to display just one or two posts on the home page so it’s not so long. But search results and category pages look silly with only one or two listings.
I’ve been searching Google and the WordPress codex but so far, no luck. It looks like you must know pretty much everything about WordPress customization
Do you have any ideas?
Thanks very much!
Search results have a maximimum limit but not a minimum. Search results with one or two listings have one or two listings because there are no other matches.
Category pages are also fine, because that is what there is in that category. Not enough, write more.
As for changing the number of posts on the front page, you do that through the Options panel on WordPress. You can set it to whatever you want. 10 is typical.
I do recommend you check out Category Templates – how to make a custom category page on the WordPress Codex. There is a ton of customization information for categories which also relates to other template pages in WordPress. Check out what I’ve done with my custom category pages here, all created with the techniques in that article, especially under “how to replace multiple category pages with one”.
Good luck!
Hi Lorelle,
Oops, I wasn’t clear enough – I tried the altering the number of posts in the Options panel, but if I set that to say 2, then my category pages and search results pages will only display the first two results and then navigation to previous posts. So the setting is site-wide and applied to ALL templates. I want to have 2 on the homepage but 10 or more on the category pages – there’s plenty of posts
I did find a plugin here: http://rephrase.net/miscellany/05/perpage.phps – but apparently it partially breaks the back and forward navigation.
Hi Lorelle. Me again.
You and your readers might be interested in some “advanced” SEO work I’ve done on my WordPress blog…
http://alistercameron.com/2007/02/05/advanced-search-engine-optimization-seo-for-wordpress/
Cheers,
- Alister
Hello Lorelle, from Tokyo.
I’ve been at this four hours today, and I just can’t find an answer… I have a popular TP-guestbook, and I want visitors to register before leaving a message. My visitors are mostly Japanese, and they want to use kanji names. Alas, it seems they can’t register with kanji names (those get rejected by WP-register). The only other way is to have them use roman usernames, and then use kanji nicknames, but for whatever reason, the nicknames aren’t unique, so everyone uses the same names.
Do you know either how to allow non-western usernames, OR force unique nicknames (like the usernames are unique)? Thank you so much for reading this.
davido
I recently updated to 2.1 and now I have noticed that I no longer have the post paging at the bottom of my blogs. Under Options, Read – I set the blogs to 10 but there is no longer the option to click to see the older posts like there was in the past. I have not changed anything on my index template and I can see the code in there but it doesn’t show up at the bottom of the last post. Ideas??
Hi,Lorelle
I’ve seen your post about How to Know When to Stop Blogging (http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2007/01/27/how-to-know-when-to-stop-blogging/) and i really like it. As you know, there are many Chinese who don’t understand English, and I feel that it’s a pity to them.So I really do hope you can permit me to translate this article into Chinese so that other my Chinese readers have a chance to know this great article.
My blog is http://iyee.cn. I would link back to you and give credits to you in the translated copy. Hope you can gain me permission.^_^
Goatlady: My answer to this issue remains the same. You can also edit your template files for search, archives and such for a specific number of posts using conditional tags. See Templates information in the WordPress Codex, and Conditional Tags and Query Posts Template Tag for more information. I hope that or the Plugin helps you.
davido: First, guestbooks are a thing of the past. I recommend you stop using them and stick with something more current, unless I’m misunderstanding you. As for making people register to leave comments on your blog, I’m very much against that. But to answer your question, I honestly don’t know how to make it register different characters. Contact the guestbook developer and/or the WordPress Support Forum. I’m not familiar with the program or how it works to know what encoding works with it. Good luck.
Rich: Code is filtered out and erased from this blog, so you can’t post it without a lot a work. WordPress 2.1 changed a lot of template tags, so you will have to look at which template tag was being used to generate your past posts on your WordPress Theme and then change it to one of the new ones. They are listed in Template Tags in the WordPress Codex. Or switch to a Theme from the WordPress 2.1 Theme Compatibility List.
Good luck.
Again, my policy on people wanting to translate my articles is to encourage you to write your own article. You can use translated excerpts with links of my article, and even a link to the translated page using Google or another translation service such as How to Know When To Stop Blogging in Chinese (simplified version) so they can read it in their language but write something original yourself.
It’s a nice thought, but it is not legal and not my policy. I appreciate it very much, but please, write your own, using mine as inspiration. I’m sure you can come up with plenty more reasons to not blog. I just brushed the surface.
Good luck and let me know what you publish so I can possibly recommend it. And it means a lot to me to know that you like my work, and it means more to me that I’ve encouraged you to create your own. Thank you.
Sorry I didn’t notice your translation policy and the Google translation service.
It’s very nice of you to reply me timely and to encourage me to write original articles.
I know it’s important for a blogger to create original articles.But,in this case,your post has already mentioned all the points I can imagine,so I’m afraid if I write the same topic by myself,the points are possibly not “original”,because your views have influenced mine.I personally feel that adding non-essential reasons like a machine will make blogging boring,so giving up this topic may be a rational decision for me.
Well,the *.wordpress.com is blocked in mainland China so your blog can not be read here(i’m using proxy),and many Chinese don’t know you have the Google translation service.So I think it won’t break your policy that I briefly translate your views(just the bold sentences) and give a special link with web-proxy to your post.How do you think?
Hello Lorelle! You’re so kind to answer. I think I confused things, so let me try just one more time if I may. The questions are actually about WordPress itself, not about the guestbook: 1) is there a way to allow users to have non-western usernames (when they register to a my WordPress blog), OR on the user page, can I make the “nickname” field unique, so that each person has a unique nickname? Thanks! (btw, I agree about guestbooks, but they are mondo popular here in Japan, rather than forums)…
Yee: Translating the main points comes within Fair Use and is okay. And do what you can to get *.wordpress.com open in China. That’s really narrow thinking on their part.
davido: You will have to ask this in the WordPress Support Forums or on the wp-polyglots mailing list for translation and localization of WordPress. I honestly don’t know how that part of WordPress works. When you find out, please let me know and maybe I can write something up about it. Thank you.
Lorelle, your site looks wonderful. Kudos to you. You might want to add Matt’s list of WP coders, designers and developers to your compilation of WP Designer Resources:
http://automattic.com/services/wordpress-consultants/
I am new to the world of blogging. I did not, as I should have use a free blog. Instead I purchased a domain and web host through liquidweb and I used fantastico to install wordpress. From that point I am lost. I would like to install flickr and other things on my sidebar but I lost…so lost. If anyone can direct me to a tutorial or even give me advise on where to begin I would really appreciate it.
I recommend you start with What Do I Do With My New WordPress.com Blog? While it applies to WordPress.com blogs, it is a good introduction to how to blog with any WordPress blog.
There are many WordPress Plugins that will help you add Flickr and other things to the sidebar of your WordPress Theme. These should come with directions. See WordPress Plugins for Images, Photographs, and Graphics for some listings.
I also recommend you explore any of the articles listed in my sidebar here under “Hot WordPress Articles” to help you with many of the other issues you may have. And check out Guide to the WordPress Codex Manual, specifically New To WordPress – Where to Start, for more helpful information and where to find more help.
This is obviously the most basic and idiotic question, but I am new to wordpress and am unable to find info in the wordpress.org documentation or support forums.
1. Almost every plugin i want to use has me upload the plugin to the plugins folder, and then asks me to add a line or two of code into “the template” or something like that. Where do i add this line of code, in the index.php in the wp-contents folder? Is there a place on the wordpress site that explains how to do this?
2. I cannot understand how to use widgets. I uploaded the widget plugin and activated, and I see the widget sidebar menu in the “presentation” area, but clicking on it just brings up a blank window.
THANK YOU!
If you are having a problem with a blank Widget window in your Administration Panels, you have a bigger problem. Contact the author of the Widget and ask them. It could be the Widget or something in your setup. I don’t know, but they might know.
As for your first question, if you read through the instructions in Managing Plugins in the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress Users, you will learn that templates are the files that make up your WordPress Theme. If you want to include the customization features of the WordPress Plugin, you will need to edit the appropriate template file in your WordPress Theme to put the bit of code from the Plugin in there. This “calls” the Plugin to work. It could go in the sidebar, header, footer, or elsewhere.
I’ll be writing more about this in the next couple of days as part of my A Month of WordPress Plugins, so stay tuned.
I also highly recommend you read New to WordPress, Where to Start and First Steps With WordPress.
Good luck and look for that “how to use Plugins” article in the next few days.
Thank you! That is indeed helpful. I am reading through the managing plugins section on the codex and am looking forwward to your “how to use plugins” section.
The widget problem is not that I can’t get a specific widget to run, but that i can’t get the widget plugin to work at all after activating it. In the download instructions, it explains about where to upload the files, including a directory called scriptaculous, but I notice that this directory didn’t download with the widgets plugin.
Thank you for responses.
Dear Lorelle,
I have been following your blog for a while now and I really enjoy your useful and well written articles on WordPress. I am currently writing a thesis on Blogging and Blogsoftware which a focus on WordPress. I was wondering if you (or anyone who reads this) might have the time to answer a question for my research “before there was blogging software, such as WordPress, how did you blog?”
I would really appreciate your insights on this. If you could comment on my blog that would be brilliant so I can keep my research archived
Hey Lorelle,
Tomorrow is the end of my a-theme-a-day challenge. Thank you for featuring my site on Blog Herald at the beginning and for your support.
lorelle,
I wanted to let you know I just picked up a piece of spam in akismet that is using your name in vane.
Specifically the code says
[url=http://tech.pnpbbhere.com/view.php?id=33020]lorelle on wordpress[/url]
I don’t believe for a second that it is you and just wanted to warn that it is out there.
here is the link to the whois page for the IP I got:
http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=121.97.20.5
feel free to drop me an email if you want to know more. I’ll save it for 24 hours or so.
Thanks for the info. That link leads to a known splog who is ripping off an article called “Lorelle on WordPress” written last fall about me. I’ve contacted the original blog author and let them know.
Creeps. Them, not you.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
David Wilkinson here. Thanks a tonne for talking about me on the BlogHerald! At first, I had trouble believing that it was THE Lorelle who’d really written about me… Cool stuff though.
Drop me a line via e-mail will you? I’d love to interview you for my blog, Techzi.
Lorelle,
Referring to post 104 with the list about importing into WordPress: all the links point to cameraontheroad dot com but that site’s server doesn’t work… Is there another place where we can read these tips?
And: In Safari the background of your search box turns out white, and the text typed into it too, so the text is unreadable…
I was in the middle of upgrading the site when the host site went off line due to an “electrical upgrade in the building where the servers lie”. I went to their site and saw the announcement. I’m so glad they gave me warning. Seems they’ve been warning for a couple of weeks but I never got it. I am so not happy with them. It should be back online this morning. But I have to finish the upgrade and figure out where I left off.
As for the search box you refer to, is that on this site? It’s the first I’ve heard of that so I’ll look into figuring that out. Thanks.
Hi Lorelle,
I wrote an article on how to blog anonymously and independently on the cheap. I hope you will find the information handy to blog anonymously. It costs me about $15 a year to blog anonymously, hosting and domain name registration included. Read the article to learn how.
I think a large portion of your readership would be interested in the information.
Thank you!
The links in post 104 are working now. Yes, the search box turning out white in Safari is on this site. A site a really like. Very helpful information.
Hello everybody.
at first, sorry for my bad english.
I have one question. I have not find template for Christian organization.
Please, send me any tips or ideas. I want use WP 2.1.
I wouldn’t know what a Christian template or WordPress Theme looked like that would meet your needs. Check out all the options at WordPress Theme Viewer and get the one that works for you. Add Christian symbols or whatever you need to make it fit your needs.
As a rule, I don’t help people find WordPress Themes. I only point you in the right direction to find your own. There are too many options and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Dear Lorelle,
Are there any blogs at WordPress or elsewhere that are not authoritarian but allow host and visitors to exchange words equally, as is the case with the bbs’s in Japan (and I am told, China)? I find English language sites to be contrary to our ideals. If the medium is the message, what does this say about us?
keigu
“Rise, Ye Sea Slugs!”
I don’t understand. Are you looking for blogs that allow open conversation? Look around. They are everywhere. I don’t know what you mean by English language blogs being contrary to your ideals. What are they?
Either way, I don’t have an answer for you because every blog and blog’s administration is unique. On this blog, I have a fairly strict comment policy which doesn’t encourage “chatting” as this is an educational blog not one that permits tangents. Others are wide open. I know of blogs from all different countries with all different comment policies that meet the needs of the blog. I don’t think, other than in China and a few restrictive countries, that a country dictates the blog conversation. Where freedom of speech rings out, the blog owner controls the conversation.
I have just completed a “Deep Thoughts” by Jack Handey plugin and widget add-on for Joe’s Quote’s Widget and Plugin. It works pretty great.
Thanks for checking it out.
Lorelle,
I am going to begin a fundraiser,locally, so that the surviving WWII Veterans may go to Washington and visit their monument. The cost is $1000.00 per person. Is there anyway to help do this through my blog? I would love for it to be a nationwide campaign. Please advise. Thanks!
Oh, if I could, I would. Thank you for pointing this out. It is the only odd ball link not working that I’ve found so far. I’ve contacted support so hopefully they will fix it. I have no control over those things in WordPress.com blogs, unless I created the link myself. This particular link is generated automatically by WordPress. The link will remain the same so you can add it, and hopefully the development and support time will have fixed this ASAP.
Thanks for letting me know.
Now, I wonder how many weird post links are out there. SIGH!
ngriffin:
You can do anything you want through your blog. I have no advice other than to setup a special bank account for the donations and check with the laws and rules in your area to set up such a fundraising effort. Work with a specific known group, like the American Legion or VFW, to get their involvement and your job is mostly done. Finding substantiation to support the “proof” of your good cause would come from their association and involvement.
The problem with a good idea is that it isn’t thought out completely, and seriously. It’s just an idea. Asking people for money, in any fashion, can backfire big time if not handled exactly right. Suggest the campaign to a known group, and they will have the skills to help you do this right.
Hi Lorelle,
I’m wondering if you know of plugins that enable the user to select their own header image, crop it and upload it? I’ve seen this in Cutline on wordpress.com, not sure if there are plugins for this or its specific to Cutline. I’d like to understand the best way of approaching this for wpmu. Have been through your articles of graphics plugins, but couldn’t see any mentioned.
Thanks if you can assist.
Glenn.
Impressed by your March 1st, 2007 post about RSS-related plugins for WordPress. The entry is now on my RSSonate bookmarks stream. Feel free to point me to RSS-related posts so that I can bookmark them and forward them to others who might want to read them.
All the best with your work, blogging, and of course in your personal life as well.
Marjolein
There are a variety of Plugins that will help you replace the header art in your WordPress Theme, if the Theme is enabled accordingly. As for cropping, I’m not sure. I haven’t investigated that.
Digital Westex was offering hundreds and hundreds of free header art images for inclusion in WordPress Themes, and use by Kubrikr and other Plugins which allow header switching. A couple years ago, Andy Skelton talked about a new solution for header art in WordPress.com blogs, so you might want to look at those options.
Thanks Lorelle, the cropping solution in Cutline in wordpress.com is the best approach to header art I have seen. Lets you select any image from your local computer, crop it, and then the sized image is uploaded as your header image. It has been done with the use of a javascript tool from defusion dot org dot uk and custom js. But no plugin available.
Quick update, I wasn’t aware of the Custom Image Header API in WordPress 2.1
http://boren.nu/archives/2007/01/07/custom-image-header-api/
This seems to do the trick, and no plugin required
Congratulations on getting through your WordPress Plugins series…
Thanks for the mentions you put up for my various plugins – my traffic has increased quite noticeably because of it. Always good to get your work out there & see it being used, so big thankyou for that!
All the best,
Lorelle, this comment appears to be election spam. Very dubious tactics to get elected, if you ask me.
I killed the link to the comment spam as I had already gotten it. It had just arrived and I KILLED it as soon as I got here. I’m on the road so it’s a few hours between Internet connections, if I’m lucky.
And thanks for paying attention. I need all the help I can get.
I’m glad you’re here to help because I’m stumped. I marked “Other” as my blog tag when I made it. Can I change it and how? If not, how will people find my blog since “other” isn’t on the list of tags?
Blog tag? Don’t you mean post category? If you mean post category, go to the post you selected “Other” as the category and edit it and change it. You can change post categories, create and delete them.
I didn’t know there was a specific “tag” for the whole blog. Only posts.
To help you understand the difference, see Tags and Tagging in WordPress.
Hi Lorelle,
I am a really big fan of your blog and love your work, therefore keep it up.
Sergey the father of my co-author at oscandy has create a new plugin which is very useful ‘WPCandy WordPress Plugin’. It allows ‘candy’ (snippets text/code) to be placed in predefined areas and the Plugin will reproduce on the frontend. We can the example of the signature you use on your blog and mention inserting the code alongside the tags. With this plugin you will never need to insert the code again except for the 1st time in the WPCandy box and it will reproduce at the end of every single post!
You can check it here;
http://serge.mankovski.com/wpcandy/
I hope you like and blog about it
thanks
Azzam
I know this maybe a silly question, but can you have ads on your wordpress.com blog. I see from your advice you must be able to, but I remember reading somewhere that you can not. Was that no ad thing only limited to scams or people who are doing get quick rich schemes and not to people who are doing legitimate blogs.
Thanks in advance.
Lo
My advice covers WordPress.com and full version WordPress blogs. For information on the ad policy for WordPress.com blogs, see WordPress.com FAQ on Adsense.
Hi Lorelle,
First a quick thank-you for the quality posts on WordPress plugins. I have a couple of blogs all powered by WordPress and your month of plugin posts helped me a lot, though I still have yet to find the perfect flickr plug-in for my site.
The second reason I am leaving a comment is that, like you, I would like to support plug-in authors. I’ve come up with an idea which I think can increase donations ten-fold, all strictly voluntarily.
I’ve written about it on my blog, and would like your opinion on the idea. If you think it is a good idea, maybe you could help spread it.
Hi Lorelle, thank for your great site. I would make you apart of my first plugin, useful to make any kind of forms directly in wordpress pages.
Thanks for linking to my plugin, twice! Much appreciated that someone gives a damn about my plugin
First of all, allow us to come clean. Our request might not fit into any purpose above and we apologize shall this email cause any interference and we will make this message short and simple.
We are a small team of 12 from Malaysia, spending about 6 months to realize a Kumomo Tree Charity Project without any funding. In short, Kumomo sells your ad space to build schools in Cambodia. Space owner decide to donate all or 1% of your ad space price to charity. The remaining goes directly to space owner without any commission or listing fee charged by Kumomo.
The site www[dot]kumomo[dot]com was launched to the public for the past two weeks. We aim to hit USD13,000 to build the first school in three weeks. We hope to get your support to spread this message and bring smile to Cambodian kids.
I cannot find any other way to leave a comment about your search for a new host, but if you would like a reccomedation for a potential host, I would like to reccomend Bruce Gibson at: http://my-webspace.biz/
You can email him and tell him what you need and I am sure the two of you can work out something. Let him know that Derek Burress sent you!
Derek
I am with http://www.dreamhost.com, who have One Click Installs for WordPress and many other systems.
I am happy – low price, ample space and bandwidth, but – to be fair – I have nothing like your volume.
With discounts the first cost can be minimal.
Hi Lorelle.
I was searching for some tagging software(for code) and come across.I’m about to write some similar plugin for silverstripe CMS (OpenSource BSD licence).Will be publicly available. While searching your site I didnt find any notice about licence for your tagging plugin? Could u point it out, can I use some part of your code maybe? Or at least route me to some good starting place maybe? Since u were there already, write
Tnx,A.
As has been described extensively on my blog, I use the Tagging Bookmarklet for WordPress and wordpress.com Users. The most popular tagging WordPress Plugin is the Ultimate Tag Warrior, which I describe in my guide called Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin for Dummies.
Hi, Lorelle. I’d like permission to reprint your great post recently seen on Problogger, the one about Good Blogging is Good Writing. I’ve linked to it already, but I’d like to run more of it with at least meaty excerpts, as much as you will give me permission. Or something similar you’ve written on your own blog. I’m going on vacation Friday and am featuring guest authors like yourself who I admire and who have something to say about good writing for the web. You don’t have to do much except give me permission, and give me a couple of sentences you’d like me to say about you (bio).
Lorelle,
Although something like this can’t be used on WordPress.com, I did write a plugin that allows users to edit comments. I wrote this because of your call for better comment handling and also because of the frustrations of several readers having to e-mail admins to correct typos. If you have time, please have a look.
Thanks,
Ronald Huereca
Lorelle,
This may have been answered before, but I didn’t see it anywhere, so I though I’d just ask.
#1 – you have your trackbacks/pingbacks separated from your comments. I’ve figured out how to do that but that leads me to …
#2 – you also have the totals for each (2 Trackbacks/Pingbacks , 189 Comments) in the header. I can’t seem to find a decent tutorial on how to do that. Any suggestions? How did you do it?
I’m wanting to do it in more of a
Comments (13) | Trackbacks (11) in the bottom of the post before the comments, but any links would be a world of help.
Thanks a bunch!
Nathan
Hi Lorelle, I just want to say that I am a huge fan of your website, and I find your tips on blogging particularly useful.
I would just like to let you know that your blog will be featured on the Teen Tech Buzz podcast in an upcoming episode in our new segment, called “Blog Watch.” It’s not a full-featured segment, but we talk a little about it and link to you.
You can find our website at:
http://www.teentechbuzz.com/
Keep up the good work!
Hey Lorelle, I would love it if you could review my blog. I hope it makes you laugh. Thanks!
Hi Lorelle,
Can you recommend anyone to write a very simple plugin for me, for pay of course. It’s really simple, it would just inlcude the Basil Analytics code into a blog automatically.
Thanks,
Matt
Lorelle, I thought you should know these guys are stealing your content.
Thank you. They are stealing from the Blog Herald, so I’ve alerted them directly.
Matt:
If you are looking for an expert in WordPress Themes, WordPress development, WordPress Plugins, or other WordPress-related expertise, check out the list of WordPress Consultants on Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, and the WP-Pro mailing list. Thanks for asking.
Thank you Lorelle.
Hi, this is Jayesh, I made a mistake on your following blog post :
http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/07/29/genealogy-blog-whats-the-difference-between-a-genealogy-blog-and-a-normal-blog/#comment-229287
By mistake i added my blog reference to : http://blacktree.blogspot.com instead of correct one http://blacktree.wordpress.com
Can you please delete that comment?
Thanks
Hi Lorelle,
I notice that you’ve got quite a few questions on your site and noted that you also have a bit on your homepage about things that have been asked before. Would an FAQ for WordPress plugin help you out?
I’ve recently had a plugin commissioned and it’s had a very good review. If you’re running WordPress 2.1, then this should help you out. You can grab a copy from my blog.
I hope this helps you out with your most frequently asked questions.
Thanks,
Zain
PS: Keep up the great work. You’ve got excellent content on this site!
There are several FAQ WordPress Plugins available. It will be interesting to see how yours compares. However, this blog is published on WordPress.com, the free blog hosting service, and WordPress Plugins are not permitted or used. I’m sure others may be interested though. Thanks.
I Have read some of your articles and I mainly agree with your point of view. I found interesting info that hopefully will help me to be a better blogger (I am new in this communication thing..).
Thanks ans visit my Blog and live a comment to make me understand what is not quite good yet…my will is to get it better for everybody.
Thank you for your request, but when I do get a few minutes to review anyone’s site, which is very rare, I only review WordPress blogs. Good luck, and I do recommend you stop using other people’s images and information and put more emphasis on writing about “you” or your expertise.
Lorelle,
I wanted you to take a look at “WordPress on Dekoh”. Wordpres can be installed (upgraded), along with the other required software (PHP, MySQL), in a single click install on any computer (Win/Lin/Mac) and used as for private blogging.
The next step could be to provide a sync with a hosted WordPress (like wordpress.com), which would be useful for offline blogging. What do you think?
What I can tell you is that Dekoh needs new copywriters. I spent too much time poking around and reading information and I’m still not sure what this service does. I gather it’s a “one stop” service that happens to allow easy set up with a WordPress blog. Other than that, I don’t know what this does. Good luck with it.
Hello,
Great site with a ton of useful information. Just wanted to say thank you!!!
Hey Lorelle
As a WordPress designer & user, I’m a big fan of your blog! : )
I’m doing a series of mini-interviews with well known WordPress personalities and designers on my blog http://www.adii.co.za. I would love to do a short interview with you.
It should only consist of about 6 or 7 questions and shouldn’t take you longer than 10 mins. So have a look at my blog and let me know whether you’re keen.
Regards
Adii
I want my friend to work on my blog and say his username. how do I?
Thanks,Paintball22
Hello Lorelle,
Because of my non-english wordpress blog, I got problem about link showing in my blog, may I give you some examples link:
My real link -> http://www.smilesquare.com/135/จตุคามรามเทพ/
but wordpress shows very long and nonsense link like the following:
http://www.smilesquare.com/135/%e0%b8%88%e0%b8%95%e0%b8%b8%e0%b8%84%e0%b8%b2%e0%b8%a1%e0%b8%a3%e0%b8%b2%e0%b8%a1%e0%b9%80%e0%b8%97%e0%b8%9e/
Can you show me the way to fix this up?
Thank you
NEVER post straight links on ANYTHING. Use the link button on your editor or write them with an HTML anchor text.
<a href="http://lorelle.wordpress.com/" title="Lorelle on WordPress">Lorelle on WordPress</a>Then your link would look like Lorelle on WordPress.
Paintball22, just add your friend as a user. The access information will be emailed to them. It’s easy.
Oh my, oh my, oh my! Whatever has happened to your lovely fantastic and very lorelle-ish design?
Are you working on something new, or are there serious damage (I hope not)?
(long time subscriber – first time commentator, meaning; I would love to sing, nay, scream your praise here, but hey – it was a comment I was writing..)
Thank you for letting me know. I had no idea that there was a glitch and we all jumped on it. So thanks for the tip off! You are wonderful.
I am very familiar with TypePad but not WordPress. In my new position, we have a WordPress blog within our web site. We currently have no way to capture visitors. I am wondering about the effectiveness of this set-up. Can you or someone offer some advice on this? It would be greatly appreciated.
Lorelle, I saw in a post of yours about blog font bling. You are adding a background color to your pre tags, how does one go about doing this? I’ve looked all over and cannot seem to find anything on the subject. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Randy
I got it figured out finally ,nevermind about the help
The background for PRE tags are set in the stylesheet. For those wanting the answer.
I found the answer from one of the posts on your site here, its one of the best wordpress sites around. Keep up the great work.
Lorelle, I am building a site in WordPress 2.1. Is there a way to add a flash swf file as a button in the right sidebar?
http://www.ourfliks.com
Anything can be a button if you wrap a link around it. Unfortunately, Flash is a little more complicated. For example, I have my browser set to NEVER show flash on my screen, so I would never know there would be a button there unless there was a graphic or text link to tell me it’s a button in the form of Flash. Many are set that way, so make a button a button and Flash for video. Sometimes, the easiest way is the best.
Not much help, but I’m also not a fan of Flash. Most use it without a thought to web standards for accessibility, and you need a button to be accessible.
I see some of the more popular blogs have a feature where readers can rate your posts. How do I do this?
Thanks…
For full version WordPress blogs, see Testing Readers: Survey, Polling, Rating, Testing, and Reviewing WordPress Plugins for a sample of what’s available. For WordPress.com users, I don’t think there is such a Widget yet.
Hi, Lorelle. I thought this academic paper on the legal implications of co-blogging — for instance, if your co-blogger plagerizes on the blog you share, can you be sued? — might interest you and your readers (although it’s not cheerful reading!). Apologies if you’ve already blogged about it and I missed it.
Hello! I’m a new but avid reader of your blog. I would like to speak to you about hiring your services for several projects.
The first is a makeover of my iPhone blog, http://www.slidetounlock.com.
The second is to help launch and develop a non-profit blog for a site I’m starting called eyehope.org.
Help me Obi-Wan Lorelle you are my only hope.
I feel almost silly for asking this question considering how long I have been blogging. How do you open up comments so they don’t require someone to register and be logged in?
Hi Lorelle,
In response to you posting a link to my WordPress 2.1 Thumbnail Size Limit Hack (http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2007/03/28/wordpress-thumbnail-size-limit-hack/) I thought you might find my latest “hack” interesting.
I have made a WordPress 2.1 Batch Image Uploader. Check out http://www.nicksmit.co.za/wordpress/?p=751 for more information.
Thanks, Nick
Hey Lorelle,
There is a cool plugin I have released for wordpress called Better Comments Manager which allows wordpress admins to reply to comments from within wordpress admin and panel and also allows admin to sort comments based on posts.
I would be glad if you could use it and tell me how it is, also it would be great if you spread the news about this plugin on your site.
The url to the plugin is Better Comments Manager WordPress Plugin.
Regards
Keith
Lorelle, it was great to meet you at SOBCon ‘07! Had a wonderfult time meeting everyone and I can’t wait to get into your book. About the only thing I can add is, you don’t look like you’re 90!
Cheers!
Hi Lorelle, I was wondering if you could offer any help with the del.icio.us daily blog post function. I’ve used it successfully for the past 6 months or so. On occasion it will fail due to my site being temporarily down.
But lately I’ve noticed that it’s been failing on a daily basis. When I check my settings it says this: “results:Running at Wed May 16 10:21:59 2007 GMTFetched 1 items.posting error was: syntax error XML-RPC server accepts POST requests only. at /home/joshuas/utilities/dohour line 81 ”
I use a WordPress blog and have the out_url field set to: http://www.racialicious.com/xmlrpc.php
As I said, this has worked in the past. But now when I go to that URL, it says “XML-RPC server accepts POST requests only.”
Do you know if WordPress changed something? I’ve tried looking on WordPress support for information and googling my error message, but I couldn’t seem to find anything that would help.
Hopefully you have some suggestions. Thanks in advance!
Hi Lorelle! Your blog is wonderful and soon I hope I will buy your book soon
This is not “captatio benevolentiae”!
I’d like to ask you one quick thing. I’m looking for a wordpress theme that looks like a newspaper. I mean, I need an homepage with these features:
- breaking news
- posts in evidence
- column box
- etc…
Something like Wired’s web site… I’ve looked all around the web but nothing comes out. Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks in advance!
There are over 3,000 “official” WordPress Themes. I gave up trying to track any of these a long time ago, so I do not offer recommendations on any WordPress Themes.
Any WordPress Theme can be customized to be a “news” blog. If you want this, you will need to do that customization yourself. I believe that Semiologic has a commercial theme or two which fits that need but you will need to check to see if their plugins and themes will work for your needs.
Also check the WordPress Codex for articles to help with this process such as Creating a Static Front Page, The Loop in Action, and others dealing with customizing the template files in Design and Layout. Good luck.
Wendy Piersall suggested I took a look at your blog, Lorelle or as she calls you THE Lorelle
. I’ve run into a small but very annoying problem after upgrading to Wp 2.2. The thing is when someone comments one of my posts I get the default email. That worked great until I upgraded to WP 2.2. Now I still get the email, but the body is empty. The subject still says the same as before, but the body content is missing. It is blank! I am not using any plugins to get email.
Thank you very much for your time and I will definetely take a closer look at this site.
Have you checked the WordPress Support Forums for this issue? I found several listings for this issue in the Email Tag on the forums, including one from you! Good. I don’t use this feature as I get too many emails every day already, and check comments via the Comments Panel, but I’ll keep an eye on the issue and see what we can find out.
I have done a thorough search on the support forums before coming here. There are a few issues when using the Notification Tag too, but only unanswered questions. Thank you for taking the time to help me with this.
Enjoyed reading your comments
My host upgraded MYSQL to 4.1 the same day I upgraded to WP 2.2. Just an additional bonus info.
Was that the issue, you think?
I am afraid I don’t know enough about MySQL to say it, but I was hoping someone with more knowledge could tell me
I just wanted to give as much information as possible.
Sadly there are still no responses to my support question and I haven’t been able to find anything on Google either. The problem is still there. I noticed that when I comment on my own blog in Firefox, when I click submit I get a blank page and the comment isn’t posted. That doesn’t happen if I do it through IE7. It worked fine before the update to WP 2.2. Does anyone know if it is possible to downgrade to 2.1.3?
Lorelle,
I’ve done a bit of searching, and can’t find anywhere that explains how you got the “related posts” at the end of your feeds on wordpress.com
Could you please show us how?
Thanks so much!
Coops
Dennisbp: If you haven’t been able to find others to recreate the problem or with the same problem, I recommend you do a clean reinstall/upgrade of WordPress, making sure to disable all the Plugins first, and then activate them one by one and run tests to see if you can still reproduce the error. What I learned from going through the forum is that it appears to be an issue people have had with a Plugin which doesn’t work right with the new version of WordPress. If the problem is still there, let me know and I might have one more idea.
Coops: The answer is one at a time. But that’s not what you want to know, is it?
Still, it’s the right answer. I search my blog for related posts and copy and paste them into a list. That’s it. I explain it more in Adding a Signature To Personalize Your Blog Post and WordPress.com Blog Bling: Signatures and Writing Code. No gimmicks, just manual effort to want to bring you all the best I can.
Hi Lorelle.
First off, wanted to thank you for your efforts here. I have a business news/analysis blog-slash-website that I built on wordpress. When I was trying to get my head around some of what was out there during the building process your site was a a great resource.
It seems there’s always something to change or tweak. My current fixation is to find a plugin that allows me to list a specially chosen selection of my posts in a sidebar column. I can manually code a list, but I was hoping to find a tool that made it easier. Something like hitting a button in the write/manage post panel that translates to “put this post in the sidebar column named X.” I’ve found a lot of plugins that provide an automated version of this kind of functionality based on popularity (of comments,etc). I haven’t seen any that would let me manually control what gets designated to go there.
Before I set aside time to try and write something myself, or set aside money to hire it out, I wanted wanted to write and ask if you might have come across anything like this in your wordpress travels that’s compatible with WP2.1+ I’ve been searching but haven’t seen anything.
Thanks for your reply…and all your efforts with wordpress.
With that kind of control, you are best creating the list manually. It’s not hard to do, and you can do it in a text widget, making the process easier. You might find something in Blog Navigation WordPress Plugins: Related, Recent, Most Popular Posts and More, but I highly recommend you use the Random Posts feature in Customizable Post Listings WordPress Plugin. I love that for highlighted random articles, allowing readers to dig deeper into my blog’s content.
Thank you very much for your tips Lorelle. I will try that.
Thanks Lorelle. Appreciate the feedback. The widget approach does sound easy. Unfortunately, though I love widgets, I haven’t been using them on my site. I probably should.
Absent widgets, I was leaning toward doing it manually, or as another idea, so I don’t have to frequently adjust the template page – creating a unique category that I could use to temporarily house posts I want to be “sticky” for that kind of list.
With the category approach, the idea is, I’ll create a category called something like “Up Front” and then organise posts into that category as needed (and I’d also put them into their proper category). I can drop a few lines of code into the sidebar templates I use to display the recent posts from just that category as an additional list below “Recent Posts”.
Managing it would be easy – I can remove or add posts from that category as needed with a quick edit in the post management pages. And to go one bit further, if I exclude display of the Up Front category in my list category tags elsewhere, which as I recall, is one change to the functions, than even though I’ll be moving posts in and out of that category with some reguliarty, it will still look nice and clean.
Plugin approach would be nice but this seems a lot easier than trying to write a plugin from scratch or modify one thats set for random to display so that the blogger has control.
thanks again.
Sounds like an idea. Let me know how it works for you. Me, depending upon why you want to feature these posts, I do it manually.
On this blog, I do the same thing with my blogroll, under the Hot WordPress Articles in my sidebar. You might want to try that, using the Links Manager/Blogroll Manager (depending upon the version you are using) instead of messing with categories. But categories work, too. Let me know what you decide to do and how it works for you.
Lorelle,
I just wanted to say thank you for such an amazing blog. More and more, I find that whenever I am looking for answers, I come here first. You are a TIRELESS writer and I really admire what you’re doing.
I’d like to sincerely THANK YOU. I am going to buy your book.
~Mark
Hi Lorelle,
Wanted to follow up on the earlier comments and your suggestion. I liked your idea for using the blogroll a lot. I would never have thought of that!
My goal was to be able to keep an easily modified list in my sidebar showcasing Featured Articles that might otherwise disappear too fast from view. I wanted more control, and more ease of management, than Randomizing plugins. Though it wouldn’t have been a big deal to modify my sidebar template to manually update a list, I was shooting for more automation on the logic that the less frequently I have to play with lines of code, the better. Also, I don’t have an idea of how often I’ll change the featured articles so I wanted flexibility.
I experimented with your blog-roll idea and also with creating a unique feature category that I can move “featured” posts in and out of when I want to display them. Ended up using the category approach. Both approaches worked great but I liked the fact that, when in the dashboard manage-post screens, I could quickly get a listing of the posts by category. That meant, a few clicks and I can both see what’s featured, or click to edit a post and remove its category association to bury it. And by excluding this one category from my category listings, navigation doesn’t get redundant either.
I also have some custom coding in my theme that allows me to associate a unique header image for each parent category through the dashboard. By using the category approach, all my Featured articles will have a unique header/banner graphic until I remove them from that category.
I have it running on my site if you’re curious. I’m still toying with a few more changes but I welcome any feedback.
Thanks again. I’m not much of a coder. (When working on the site, I’d rather spend my time creating images or articles) Your site and others were a big help through all the stages of my sites development.
EUREKA! I’ve finally found out what caused the blank notification mails. It was the plugin I least suspected. My WordPress Backup-plugin. It was the last one I deactivated, I found an update and now it is running again
I am amazed the plugin escaped my attention, I often update my plugins. Anyway it is fixed now. Thank you for your help Lorelle 
Thank you for your comments about my Benjamin Franklin story. The blog challenge was a lot of fun to write.
I need some WordPress consulting. Not a huge deal, but will gladly pay for a few hours of time to speed up a new project. I have been using WP for a few years, but want help mapping a new domain to a new wordpress.com site, yada yada yada. Thanks!
Dear Lorelle,
First of all, allow me to continue the praises that have been sung by the readers above me by thanking you for such a great site! I am just diving into using WordPress for a client of mine on a rather unique site that he is trying to create, and have found your articles not only to be helpful, but also tools for LEARNING, and not just regurgitation. Thank you.
My question is simple. I was reading your article on displaying only post excerpts (http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/07/19/display-post-excerpts-only-in-wordpress/), and it has a dead link in the text to an article that I’d love to read. It calls the title of the article “Customizing the WordPress Loop for Excerpt Queries”. It seems like the link is still in the old style of permalinks, and my searches for the article have not been successful. Perhaps you can either direct me to the page via a response or just update the page.
Thanks again, and I look forward to continuing to learn from your articles!
Customizing the WordPress Loop for Excerpt Queries works for me. It goes to my main site, which I am preparing to move because I hate my host. If the site was down, which it is more than up (not my fault – blame it on my host), it will be active again in 30-60 minutes. Yes, I know. Don’t get me started.
You can also try this link to the article. Sorry about that. I’ll be changing hosts soon.
Good day,
i have written new plugin for wordpress. It can be used to build software shop into sidebar of blog. You can test it on plugin’s homepage: http://affilisoftware.net/scripts.php
Hi Lorelle, I’m trying to remove as much as possible my last name from the internet, I wrote 2 posts in the “signature” discussion in this blog, is it possible that you edit them and remove what comes after “Hedi” please?
I will do my best to find them, since you don’t mention which particular article or comments are referenced and I’ve done several posts on “signatures”. Just remember, if you don’t want it out there, don’t do it in the first place. Even if I remove them from these comments, they are already stored in caches around the world permanently, even on Google. I can’t help you there. It’s too late.
Lorelle —
First off, thanks a lot for what you do here. This site is an awesome resource.
Considering that WordPress has decided to discontinue the Feed Stats function, I was wondering if you had any thoughts on the best way I can figure out my feed stats.
Over the past few weeks, WP was routinely reporting that my site had about 250 feed readers (excepting the occasional blip when the Google reader stats wouldn’t show up). Yet, Feedburner tells me I only have 6 subscribers. I don’t know who to believe.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this.
The stats for feeds on WordPress.com has never worked properly. So it is not a good indicator one way or another. You can add a Feedburner account to your WordPress.com blog, but honestly, if your stats are that important to you, get the free full version of WordPress and run it on your own blog where you can get the detail you need.
Or stay tuned and see if they come up with something to replace it.
The stats that are most important to me are where people are coming from, what are they looking at the most, and then where am I sending them. The search terms help me know what people are looking for, otherwise, traffic and feed stats are just numbers without much to compare to.
For example, 500 visitors in one day may be exciting, but if 500 articles were visited by 500 people, that is a clue that something is a little off. If the same 500 visitors included 200 visitors to one blog post and 100 visitors to another, and the rest scattered around, you have some blog posts of value to your readership. That’s information you can use.
If 400 of your 500 visitors are coming from one referral source, then you better visit them and say thank you. That’s information you can use.
If 300 of your 500 visitors left to visit one site or blog post, then they should be thanking you, and you know what your readers are interested in. They will thank you for providing a valuable reference to them. That’s information you can use.
500 visitors and 250 feed readers accessing your blog tells you very little. Focus on what is more important.
Hello Lorelle:
In January, you posted positively about our Cooliris Previews product(thank you!). I’m writing you again to share some new good news.
We just launched PicLens for Firefox, something of interest if you like viewing online photos.
Basically, PicLens is a free browser add-on that instantly transforms your browser into full-screen slideshow viewer actually goes beyond the confines of traditional browser window. We encourage you to try out PicLens, say, by searching “flowers” on Google Image Search, to how PicLens can dramatically transform your image viewing experience. For more information, please kindly see the link below to see screen shots, our press release, and our free download at:
http://www.piclens.com/pr
It would be great if you could give PicLens for Firefox a try. If you’re on a Mac, feel free to try our Safari version for a comparable experience.
Thanks, again.
Kind regards,
Alec
Lorelle- I have an odd problem that I cannot solve after wracking my brain, and a few others’ brains as well.
I added a plugin to create a xhtml sitemap in a “page” on my blog for better search indexing. (I have the google xml stiemap generator plugin already, which is great).
I’ve created the xhtml sitmap fine, but I cannot name the post slug ’sitemap’, or I get an error message, “cannot find /sitemap on this server. If I name it ANYTHING else, like site-map or site_map or scifimap, it shows my sitemap in all its glory. But I’d like to call the slug ’sitemap’, so searches can find it easily.
I’m baffled as to why this is happening. It doesn’t make sense. The page is there, the permalink is created with /sitemap, but that particular slug is not useable at all on my blog. I even used another plugin altogether to do the same thing, and still could not call the slug ’sitemap’.
Let me know if you have any ideas. I posted about this on the wordpress support forums, but they are not as active as they used to be.
thanks,
David
I just upgraded to WordPress 2.2 and everything seemed to work perfectly fine until I was making a new post and tried to upload an image. It gave me a headers not found error.
I have no idea why it is giving me this error. I looked at both the files and can’t seem to figure it out.
I tried going back to WordPress 2.1 and it continued to give me the same error. I’m not sure what to do at this point. Is it my server? (AnHosting) Or is it a problem with WordPress??
Please help me!!!
It sounds like it could be a WordPress Plugin that isn’t compatible – are you using an image uploading or similar WordPress Plugin? Did you check that all your Plugins are compatible and turned all of them off and then repeat the attempt to upload the image and got the same error? If you did, then the problem is with WordPress. If not, then the problem is with the Plugins.
Or when you uploaded the files, there might have been a glitch in the upload and you will have to reload the files.
Other than that, I’m on the road right now and can’t be more specific with help. Search through the WordPress Support Forum and then ask if you don’t see the answer there. They are your first stop for help such as this.
Good luck.
I wish you would post something on my blog what do you say about it ? Something similar like by problogger ?
Lorelle,
Thank you for comment 104 http://lorelle.wordpress.com/contact/#comment-148007
It is a great help! I’ll get stuck into those posts right away. Just wondering if you’ve updated that list at all?
I haven’t updated the list, but I still need to rewrite a better article on the subject of importing a static website into WordPress. It’s on my list.
Hi Lorelle, Wendy Piersall sent me over to you in the hope you might be able to advise me.
I have a challenge with Permalinks on my main blog. Because I use FrontPage Server Extentions on the domain related to/attached to that blog it interferes with named permalinks and I’ve never found a workaround – although I frequent support forums for WordPress and other places. I would love to know how I could fix that? The blog is well established and over 2 years old and it would mean migrating the numbered permalinks to named permalinks (but I’ve seen a plugin for this) if only I could find a fix that would allow both to work fine on the same server.
First of all, didn’t anyone tell you that FrontPage sucks?
And once trapped within its grip, you will pay the price?
If you are going to continue to use FrontPage, you are going to have to live with the problem. I recommend you take the leap, before your blog gets even one post or one visitor bigger to full WordPress and leave Front Page behind, or get further choked.
If not, then contact someone on the WordPress Support Forum or contact an Apache expert to help you write a customized .htaccess redirect that will help you handle the permalink shifts and twists. The fix will be in your .htaccess file and that’s an area I’m not familiar enough to give advice on.
I know it’s not the answer you wanted, but it’s a shove in the right direction, whichever way you take. Honestly, leave FrontPage behind. It’s obsolete.
Hi Lorelle. I’m just setting up my own WP blog and have a basic question that doesn’t seem to be addressed on the WP Support forums, even though I’ve asked it on there already.
Without resorting to a static page, how do I prevent new posts from appearing in the Current Information category? I want posts that are intended for a specific category to stay in that category and not all blast over to the front page.
Followup to my first post…it might be helpful for you to know that I’m using WP 2.2. Also, I’ve tried Matt Read’s Custom String Query plugin and it apparently does not work with this version, or at least it doesn’t work for me.
Let me understand this. You do not want posts from a specific category on the front page of your blog? This is a very common request.
You can code this yourself using the Conditional Tags or Query Posts.
Or you can use a Plugin. Here are some examples.
Ultimate Category Excluder
Opt-in Front Page WordPress Plugin
Hmm. I know there are others, but this should get you started.
Thanks, Lorelle. I’m gunshy of plugins because so many of the ones I’ve tried don’t work properly, so the template solutions are good places for me to start.
And you’re right, FrontPage does indeed suck.
UCE works nicely. Cool to have a plugin actually do what it says it will do (yes, I took the lazy way out). Thanks for the recommend.
BTW, I came across your Taking Your Camera page when I was looking for some well-crafted navigation buttons, long before I ever started dealing with WP. The buttons worked very well, though the project ended up going nowhere and I never actually implemented the buttons. I still have the code somewhere. Nice work!
I’m glad that the code on Taking Your Camera on the Road worked for you. And that you’ve learned to not fear WordPress Plugins. They can be your best blogging friends.
Lorelle, quick question. I’m using Ultimate Tag Warrior and it puts hyphens between tags with multiple words. But isn’t it better to have plus signs between them instead? If it is indeed better, then how do I get UTW to automatically use plus signs instead of hyphens or else how do I get it so tag phrases come out with the plus signs instead? Thanks so much!
Then you must be using an old version. The new one works with spaces and uses the plus sign to my best knowledge. I think both will work, but plus signs are generally better.
Also know that the latest version of UTW has problems. Tagging is coming in the next version of WordPress (built-in) and the developer of UTW has stopped upgrading the Plugin. Be cautious with this.
I’m using the version she just put out saying it was the final version and it uses hyphens, not plus signs, for the spaces. Seems like almost everyone I know who uses tags has hyphens by default. You are one of the only ones I’ve seen (admittedly I have only seen a handful of examples I searched out) that has pluses in your tag phrases. Seems to me the hyphens are very common. Not sure what I can do to be cautious right now. Any other advice?
I am not using UTW on this blog. I cannot use any WordPress Plugins as this blog is hosted by WordPress.com. My tags are created manually using the Tagging Bookmarklet for WordPress and WordPress.com Users I developed.
Whatever Christine is using works. I’ve been a fan of hers and UTW for a very long time and have written much documentation on it. I’ve used it on all of my other blogs until recently, due to the problems UTW has with not closing database accesses.
So stick with it as it is, as it will be defunct in the next version, or try one of the other tagging solutions. Or try mine. It requires no Plugins and is very easy.
Thanks so much Lorelle. I guess for now I’ll keep using them. I just hope in the next WordPress version, it doesn’t mess things up. I really like using UTW because of how it lets me put the tags in the meta keywords, creates nice tag pages formatted how I want and lets me put categories as tags automatically. I hope WP allows all that, and also hope there is a seamless transition between the two if necessary. Thanks for the great site.
WordPress has stated that it will provide import capabilities for UTW and other popular tagging programs. Seamless – well, we’ll see.
Honestly, after over two years of tagging, I have yet to see much of a benefit from tagging. I’ve found few visitors use it to search for content, and while it does generate more pages from my blog on search engines, which is a careful path to walk with the concerns of duplicate content, and Technorati now includes your content whether or not you use tags at all. As a gimmick originally, it had great intentions. But the follow through has been lost in may ways.
I use them, but I’m considering stopping. It’s extra work and without the return on the investment…I’m just thinking out loud.
Wow, it’s really hard to keep up with updates in the blogging world. You go back not too long ago and tagging is the rage, you can’t live without it. Now it’s barely worth doing apparently haha. What’s a blogger to do!
Lorelle, I’ve started an article series named “Show Me Your Desktop, *Insert bloggername*”. It kicked off last Sunday and it has already broken my visitor record. I started out with Everton Blair from Connected Internet (since I’m a co-writer there) and next week it’s Wendy Piersall’s turn.
I would be honoured if I could persuade you to take part in this series and answer nine question, that I’m sure a lot of people would love to see the answers to
If you are interested you can read the first interview here:
http://www.thebetanews.com/show-me-your-desktop-everton-blair.htm
Thank you again.
Dennis Bjørn Petersen
From thebetanews.com formerly known as petersen-inc.dk
Hi Lorelle,
Just in case you were unaware, I’m getting a database error when I check your Camera on the Road blog. :-O Hope that gets cleared up soon.
Also, I recently posted a link list for bloggers that your readers might like: Bloggers Toolbox.
This was basically a compilation of links I’ve bookmarked over the past few months (and beyond) and found useful for blogging. Enjoy!
Thanks. It will be cleared up in about an hour. This is why I Hate My Web Host.
I’ll check out your article.
You’re welcome! I wasn’t even sure if it was appropriate to post a link here because there was no policy written on sending you links, but I felt lucky today.
If you’re looking for a dedicated or VPS solution I heard good things about http://www.HostDime.com, which will probably be in my future too once I become the darling of the blogosphere.
Hey,
I’m a big fan of your blog, and wanted to tell you about my:
6 Day Blogging Competition at ThePrizeBlog.com.
Alright Thanks,
Brian Aldrich
Lorelle – I am probably missing something obvious, but how do commenters here get their site linked to their name on their comments? It is filled in on the comment form. I thought maybe registering on the site was the trick, but did not see a link to do that. I do subscribe to your feed, but must not have had to register to do that.
Does your site have a profile page for registered uses with links to topics we comment on etc.?
Thanks!
Will, it looks like your answer was provided elsewhere on this blog.
It is: When you leave a comment, the form requests the option of adding your blog’s URL. If you have one and would like to share it, you enter it then. It remembers for the next time you visit. If you do not want it shown, don’t put it there. It’s not required.
If you don’t have a blog or website DO NOT put any old URL in the form. It could result in the deletion or permanent comment ban from this blog. Leave it blank.
Thanks, Lorelle. That is what I thought should happen, but it wasn’t. I re-typed the form on another post and now it IS working, so all is fine. I probably had a typo or something in there, although I am usually very careful to get the URL correct. Thanks!
hi Lorelle,
How do i get the “Related Articles….listing” on my blog, like the one on yours. Does it come with the theme ure using or?
As I’ve explained before, the Related Posts feature at the bottom of my blog posts is done manually. No tricks. While there are some WordPress Plugins which will do it for you, WordPress.com does not allow Plugins.
For more information on adding related posts to WordPress.com blogs, see Adding a Signature To Personalize Your Blog Post and WordPress.com Blog Bling: Signatures and Writing Code.
For full version WordPress blogs which can use WordPress Plugins, see Blog Navigation WordPress Plugins: Related, Recent, Most Popular Posts and More.
Regarding your “Blog Your Dash” challenge: some people have a hard time writing about their everyday lives…they think it’s too uninteresting. Every genealogist’s dream is to be able to find a diary or journal written by one of their ancestors, but this isn’t always possible. A challenge I set before my readers is to write about your own life for your descendants’ sakes. I have started a blog with journal prompts, AnceStories2 (http://ancestories2.blogspot.com). Every week or two I add a new list of prompts. These even help me to write about and remember details of my life that would otherwise go missing in my journal. I invite others to join me on my “journal journey.”
Lorelle,
Really enjoyed your presentation at WordCamp and I was really excited to get more of your blogging insights from your book that was held up by UPS (grrrr). I didn’t make it back 2nd day so I don’t know if they made it there by Sunday. Is there a place that Wordcampers can get an electronic copy or should I just not be cheap & order it? Thanks!
Lorelle:
You are an excellent teacher and I have thoroughly enjoyed your site. I’m just starting out, but when I have a question, I come here first and recommend your site when I can.
Thanks for your effort.
Roy
Hello Lorelle,
It was great to meet you at WordCamp! Just dropping by to let you know that the interview that you and I did at WordCamp is now online here: http://tinyurl.com/2rljab
Also, you wanted me to guest blog on here sometime. Feel free to send me an e-mail with the details.
–Douglas Bell
Co-Host and Editor, PreviewCast
http://www.previewcast.com
Dear Lorelle,
I really appreciated your enthusiasm and energy at the WordPress Conference. I look forward to receiving your book, it will help get me started as I am a virgin blogger. Thanks again and keep up the great work.
Why pay $$ to upgrade wordpress when you can do it for free.
Here is another plugin from my end that makes life easier.
http://techie-buzz.com/wordpress-plugins/wordpress-automatic-upgrade-plugin.html
Cheers
Keith
Just to say thanks so much for the useful info on this site – I am considering WordPress for a new blog at the moment and this is the most useful site I have found to teach us newbies the ropes. Thanks!
I.W. Stalew: Please make sure your address gets to the Automattic staff who should have contacted you by now. I will not be forwarding any addresses posted on this blog to them. They have a verification process the replying emails will go through to validate them for forwarding to those who will be mailing out the books.
Thanks for the enthusiasm and I’m thrilled that each attending participant of the conference will be getting a book.
Hello,
I just thought I would share with your readers a technique I have found to combat splogs that steal your content by scraping your RSS feed. Here is the link with details:
This is an old technique and at least how you use it, doesn’t work effectively. It’s considered revenge oriented and can drive away readers and could also be misconstrued as defacing. It’s a fine line.
There are other more efficient methods, as I’ve outlined in WordPress Plugins for Battling Evil.
Hi Lorelle,
I have developed an online plagiarism detection tool called DOC Cop (www.doccop.com) that helps bloggers determine if someone else is posting the content of their blog elsewhere on the web. I hope it will be of some help to you and your readers.
Mark
Hi Lorelle,
Just wanted to say “Thanks a lot for sharing my article with the readers”.
Its an honor.
Regards
Ashish
Hi Lorelle,
We run a website dedicated to the protection of copyrighted works and anti piracy. We operate on a not for profit basis and are staffed entirely by entertainment industry volunteers who admittedly have a personal interest in copyright protection and promotion. Our intention is to expand our presence and continue to offer advice and information on all aspects of copyright and related issues.
To help us realise our aims, would you please add a link to our website to your links page. Copyright protection and promotion would be beneficial to your business and visitors to your website.
Our website can be found here. http://www.copynot.com
I thank you in anticipation.
Graham:
I will not be adding your site to any list or article as I can’t find information easily on your site that says what you do. Reporting copyright violations is one thing, but who does that information go to? What is done about it? How will reporting to you be any different from reporting directly to the proper authorities? What will you do with the information from me passed on?
I also find comments like:
To be way out of control. Do you have proof? Do you say that anywhere? The average scraper and splog is some get-rich-quick idiot who things that he can make money on the web with ads on a site with other people’s content. I’m sure that there are a few, and I mean a few, crime and evil doers that make money on the web, but they are pretty blatantly known as casinos and drug companies.
While there is a lot of information on your site, none of it answers the real questions. Until I know more, I cannot recommend your site.
Dear Lorelle,
A couple of days back, I started a tumblelog – http://www.kapils.tumblr.com.
My reason for having this tumblelog is specifically to share interesting things on technology.If I find something interesting or a useful website, I just give a link (without any content) with due credit. Is it wrong on my part to do that? I am not copying any content here from any website, neither do I wish to do.It’s just telling people “here is something interesting I would like you all to see”. Please give me your comments on this.
Fews days back I have also started a blog called kvisualtree.blogspot.com. It’s my own blog. Basically it’s all about expressions and after reading your blog, it has given me more impetus to do better and write better. Please read it if you have time, it may be a basic blog, but it’s coming straight from heart.
Thanks a lot n all the best
Kapil Suvarna
India
Thanks for the invite, but I get many requests every day to read and review blogs, and thus, am unable to comply – or I’d never get any work done. I’d have fun, but I’d starve in the end.
As for tumblr, there are many such services out there, many which have been around for much longer. If it works for you, fine, just share content within the copyright Fair Use with credit links, and you won’t get in trouble.
Is it good for you?
I’ve yet to find any of these sites to be of benefit. People spend a lot of time playing with gimmicks when they should be spending that time on their blog(s), work, life, and friends and family. If it works for you, have fun with it. If not, get back to what does work.
Hi Lorelle. I was wondering if you might want to check out a plugin I just released. I think your readers might find it interesting. It should increase Adsense revenues for blogs that get search engine traffic on older posts.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Best regards,
Alexandru
Alexandru: Thanks for the offer but there’s not much I can do for you. I do not have ads on this WordPress.com blog as it is in violation of their current policy. I can also not run WordPress Plugins here. I also rarely blog about monetization of blogs.
I do not have nor want any Adsense ads on my full version blogs. I also do not recommend Adsense in its current form to anyone.
So you have a few strikes against you with this blog. But hit me up with another WordPress Plugin that has nothing to do with monetization and I may give you the attention you need.
Hehe, I’ll do so when I have something different. But I guess we’ll agree to disagree on Adsense
.
Thanks for taking the time to reply
Hi Lorelle
I have given a lot of thought to starting a Fully Fledged newspaper for charitable that would be fully interactive for my veterans club, what you would probably call an American Legion Post
What we are looking for os a WordPress integration with Noahs Classifieds which also includes a Paypal payment Gateway very similiar to that developeds by david mckinnis of davidmckinnisconsulting.com. Do you know of any sauch animal we could use? Or anyone who would develop it for us?
If you are looking for an expert in WordPress Themes, WordPress development, WordPress Plugins, or other WordPress-related expertise, check out the list of WordPress Consultants on Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, and the WP-Pro mailing list.
http://blogactionday.org/
Something you’d like?
(The form on your site doesn’t work so I couldn’t post it there)
Hi Lorelle, I’m fairly new to CSS and have been having a bit of trouble with my header image. I’m using the Chaotic Soul theme, which incorporates the title at the top of the blog above the header image. I used CSS to remove the title and only leave the header image, but now I’m having trouble making that image clickable to my home page. I tried the techniques you recommended here (http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2007/03/22/dont-get-rid-of-your-home-link-how-to-add-a-home-link/) but I don’t think I am doing them right. I think with the Chaotic Soul theme, the header image is not considered the title, so I don’t know what to do in the CSS. Any help would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks!
Mark: Thanks for the info!
Anna: I can’t help you with individual Themes as there are just too many out there, but you can find a ton of helpful information on headers in the WordPress Codex article on Designing Headers. This shows you how to do what you are looking for.
I have moved my Chess blog from blogger to wordpress, however, it appears wordpress does not support (dynamic) chess diagramming. Do you know of any plug-in or something so that my readers can play through games at my new wordpress blog?
Thanks for your help. By the way, there is nothing in the forums or FAQs.
Hi Lorelle,
Thanks for linking up to an article of mine on your recent post about linking to relevant content on the Internet!!! It’s greatly appreciated and I’m glad such an esteemed blogger finds some of my content relevant!
Your blog is great and I love reading it! Thanks for all the tips!!! Take care
Aseem
Online-Tech-Tips
chessiq: Are you asking about WordPress.com or the full version of WordPress? Two different animals. I can’t answer the question about WordPress.com. You’ll have to ask on their support forum. However, in Odds and Ends WordPress Plugins You Must Know About, I mention a few WordPress Plugins that deal with Chess, and I know there must be more out there. With the full version of WordPress, you can add any WordPress Plugin you want.
Aseem Kishore: Thank you. It was an honor to celebrate you and your blog on my site.
Hello, Lorelle. I see you convinced Blog Duck of the value of WordPressMU. Some, including Blog Duck, seem to suggest sticking to using it for blog communities, cautioning using it for running multiple blogs by oneself. But if I’m understanding the functionality correctly, it seems like it could be ideal for this other purpose.
The main con for WPMU (aside from potential difficulties installing, which obviously can be overcome) seems to be the inability for users to customize themes. However, if the users per se are taken out of the picture, if one user/administrator runs all the blogs on a WMPU installation, then that person should be free to fully customize themes as desired for each individual blog.
If I’m right and that con goes away, that should leave only the great benefits of centralized administration of all blogs, elimination of separate software installs and upgrades, plus easy use of a single hosting account or server to take advantage of economies of scale in hosting costs.
So even though the software may be intended to run many thousands of blogs in a community, it seems ideal for an individual to use to run even just a handful of blogs. Am I missing something?
Since I’m about to start a handful more blogs and want to use WordPress to do so, I’m very motivated to understand this situation. Aren’t the various other options listed at Installing Multiple Blogs on the Codex just likely to fall to the wayside in the face of WPMU, and isn’t WPMU much better than separate installations/upgrades even when there will be just a few blogs involved and not a full-fledged thousands-strong blog community?
Yes, you are missing a lot of things.
While WordPressMU could be used by one blogger to run a lot of blogs, it is actually more time consuming and cumbersome. Maybe when the program is developed more it will be easier.
And who said that WordPressMU users can’t have “control” over their WordPress Themes? With Widgets and the new WordPress Theme lines like the Sandbox WordPress Theme, users have amazing control over their Themes. The issue is how much time the administrator wants to spend fixing what users break, since few really understand the full complexities of CSS and browsers. So the administrator has to decide how much “control” they want their users to have, and the Sandbox Theme, which I am using and have customized (no one else on WordPress.com or elsewhere, to my knowledge, has this Theme look) on WordPress.com, gives them control of the CSS but not the underlying code.
WordPressMU is still in its infancy, and is designed to be used by thousands of blogs/bloggers, not a few blogs. Here is an example of why. Say you want to add a WordPress Plugin that only works with Blog Y. The addition to WordPressMU’s Plugins would activate it for all the blogs, not just Y. So things could get rather complex fast. But if all blogs are basically the same within the code, who cares.
Give it a try and if it works for you, great. If not, go back to the other way. I’ve heard from many that it just is too much work, especially because it is still so new, for managing only a few blogs. There are pros and cons to using it, and only you know what will work for your needs. Luckily, right now, you have free options to play with.
Also, it looks like Blog Duck is down.
Interesting, thanks, and thanks for responding so promptly.
It’s my understanding that while the CSS can be modified under WPMU, the theme templates themselves cannot. Running WPMU myself for several blogs, I would be free to customize down to the template level if I wanted, just as if I was running separate WP installations. And as for plugins, again, if it’s just me running everything, it would be fine if all plugins became available to all blogs, it’d just be a question of my choosing which ones to actually use with each blog, no?
Given the 30 minutes or so it takes to do an upgrade of WP software, and the need to repeat that effort for each blog installation, it’s hard for me to see how some kind of multiple-installation would require more effort than maintaining separate single installations unless there were really truly a very small number of such installations.
But if WPMU remains problematic in this respect, do you have any particular recommendation from among the various other options for a individual running multiple blogs?
Yes, you can customize each Theme under WordPressMU.
I run multiple blogs and an upgrade for me, unless I’ve modified the core, takes 30 minutes for four blogs, not one. There is also the new Techie Buzz’s WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plugin which is supposed to make upgrading your WordPress blog fast and easy.
As I said, try it to see if it works for you. I’ve just heard from so many that it’s too cumbersome for a few blogs, but brilliant for thousands.
Hi Lorelle, I want to submit to your attention a nice plugin I made. It grab the search terms used in on search engines to find you own blog, and build up a cloud of them. It can be found on my site. I hope in comments and suggestion to include other search engines. Tnx.
That automatic upgrade plug-in sounds very promising — has a lot of great feedback, especially considering it’s just in beta. That, combined with your other thoughts on WPMU, has me fairly well convinced to just do single installations along with the automatic upgrade plug-in. Thanks so much for your advice, once again.
Hi Lorelle,
I wanted to ask your a question about your robots.txt file. I noticed that you do not block the Google bot from indexing all of your web pages, including feed, archives, categories, tags, etc. Is that fine? I’ve read so many places that in order to prevent supplemental results one should block all the duplicate content? I’ve done this, but now I’m wondering if I should just remove all of those blocks? Any help or knowledge that you might have on this issue would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks!!!
Aseem
Do I? Or does WordPress.com? This is a WordPress.com blog. You’ll have to talk to them about their robots.txt.
The duplicate content issue is one that bloggers have taken WAY out of control. Duplicate content is natural on blogs. Don’t stress over it. The issue is related specifically to evil doers who use duplicate content for their splogs, and stealing content from other blogs or copying content from their splogs across to their other splogs. It’s to tackle the evil, not the normal blogger.
But if you want to worry, see Duplicate Content Controlled Naturally Through Themes.
To add to your WordPress Backup Week: BackUpWordPress is a Backup & Recovery Suite for your WordPress website. This Plugin allows you to backup database tables as well as files and comes with a rich set of options.
Hey Lorelle, can I also join in your anniversary party and submit a tip or two about WordPress?
Really good your webpage… I have a blogspot and I’m thinking about starting spread my blog reaches in English now… Take a glance at, any word will have great values for me!
See ya around and congratulations for your blog!
Hi Lorelle – I’ve been reading your feed for a few weeks now…very interesting stuff. I did a search (but I’m not sure if I’m searching on the right terms) on your blog trying to find something on “how to move your wordpress blog to another URL without losing rank, links, trackbacks, etc.” Do you have a post on how to do that without too much pain? We already have the domain registered, etc.
Also, we discovered a fix to a Subscribe To Comments plugin issue we were having that your readers might be interested in.
Thanks!
Did know that Plugin needed fixing. Did you contact the author?
For information on moving WordPress, see Moving WordPress in the Codex, the online manual for WordPress users.
Hey Lorelle,
Thanks for that copy of Blogging Tips. I wrote about the book on my blog: Thanks for the free copy of Blogging Tips, Lorelle. Check it out.
Lorelle – we weren’t sure if the fix had something to do with our email server and/or theme so we didn’t think to contact the author. I could leave a post for the author on his/her blog I guess.
Thanks for the link to Moving WordPress.
Bonjour Lorelle,
I just discovered your blog through a link on http://www.fran6art.com about using Gengo for multilingual blogs. I must say I’m impressed about the quality of your posts. I’m working actually on a testblog in FR, DE, GB. I have some troubles with the Gengo pluggin as it doesn’t translate some messages as “searchresults” and such.
Do you have to use an english Version of WordPress ad add frensch & German MPO/PO Files before using the gengo pluggin ?
Or does it work if you only add a german PO/MO on a full frensch WordPress Version ?
I don’t know if you’re the right person to ask this. I woud be very happy for any hint or forwarding.
Merci beaucoup in advance
Bonjour de Strasbourg
Language translation has a lot of problems, but localization with WordPress has greatly improved and is still improving. See WordPress Help in Your Language for a list of resources on localizing WordPress – using it in another language – which may help.
I have a topic idea I was wondering if you might be interested in.
I have a mockup (on paper at the moment) of my proposed blog redesign. I was wondering if you or someone else would help connect me to the “how do I” part.
For example, I know I will be using tag cloud, showing my last few songs from last.fm, mybloglog, etc. I thought it might be helpful to have kind of a ground up blog piecing together tutorial.
I know there are a lot of tutorials on how to design your own theme. I am more thinking of the framework of the site.
Does this make sense?
Framework? That is part of the process of designing a WordPress Theme. I’m not sure what you are asking. I have a huge inventory of “how to” articles for designing and developing WordPress Themes. The WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress users, is stuffed to the brim with step-by-step articles on how to do this. Or are you looking to hire someone to do this for you?
If you are looking for an expert in WordPress Themes, WordPress development, WordPress Plugins, or other WordPress-related expertise, check out the list of WordPress Consultants on Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, the WordPress Jobs listings, and the WP-Pro mailing list.
Please bare with me as I am still learning the ins and outs of this blog thing. I have someone reading my blog that I would like to blog, I’ve denied as many of the IP addresses as I can and that’s not helping. So I thought it would be a good idea to creat a page that they are required to login with a valid ID and wait for me to give them permission to enter the site. Something similiar to what blogger does. The problem is I don’t know where to find a tutorial on it. I’m not even sure what to call it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I’m not sure I understand what you are asking for. Are there people you are trying to keep away from your blog? Or are you looking to create a private blog where only those who get the password can enter the site? Or are you trying to add contributors, those who can write on your blog, too, to your blog and need to figure out how to add them?
If you can be more specific, I will try to help, but as always, I recommend you start with the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress Users, and if you can’t find your answer there, try the WordPress Support Forums.
Lorelle,
Are you going to be at the New Media Expo by chance next week? If not, I’d like to have you on my podcast to talk about your wordpress tips book.
Dave Jackson
School of Podcasting
http://www.schoolofpodcasting.com
No, I will not be there. I have another commitment. But I’d love to talk to you another time for sure! Thanks!
Lorelle,
I found the answer that I was looking for. Sorry about not being more clear. However I do have another question for you and I did look at wordpress codex and didn’t quite find the answer I was looking for. I’m dying to change the background color of kubrick’s sidebar. Any idea on where I can find a tutorial for that?
Have you checked out the WordPress Lessons in the Codex? It’s invaluable. A lot of step by step tutorials. Check Developing a Colour Scheme and Customizing Your Sidebar, along with Finding Your CSS Styles in WordPress, Designing a WordPress Theme – Building a Sandbox and Designing a WordPress Theme From Scratch.
We’d love for you to appear on a segment on my radio show, The Tech Night Owl LIVE. You can check us out at http://www.techbroadcasting.com to see what we’re all about, and there’s a contact link in the sidebar at the left that you can use to get in touch with us about whether you are willing to come on and do a segment about blogging.
Peace,
Gene Steinberg
Hi Lorelle,
Your contact page on “Taking Your Camera on the Road” seems out of sort, so maybe you want to have a look on that?
And, the reason I’m trying to contact you – will/can your blogging tips book be made available as eBook for download for international buyers since the postage and handling costs nearly as much as the book itself?
Thanks!
I understand that the cost of postage is high. We’re trying to find some ways to work around that. Currently, the book is being mailed first class mail so it gets there in a timely fashion. Sending it “cheaper” means it can take three months or more for the book to arrive. The ebook version will be available probably after the second edition of the book or with the release of the second edition.
At that time, the price of the book will increase as the cost of printing is increasing (transportation costs are skyrocketing in the US which trickles down to everything), so right now, the cost is half of what it will be, so buying it internationally, you are paying the same as the new book price without the shipping – if that makes sense.
And, yes, I’m in dispute with my horrid x-web host who refuses to give up the domain registration. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Lorelle,
I am looking all over the web for WordPress templates that help small companies to set up a straightforward website. But so far, I haven’t found very useful stuff. I can imagine that more people on this planet are having this question, so could it be interesting for you to give some attention to this WordPress niche, en give some insight in what’s available?
Would be great!
Thanks!
Jasper
It’s a harder “niche” to talk about than you would think. The majority of WordPress Plugins out there are perfectly fine for business. Businesses of all sizes. So I don’t know what you think makes the best business blog design, but there are thousands out there, with some designed specifically for the business user with built-in Plugins. Try the Themes from Semiologic or Brian Gardner. Many online businesses like those, though any Theme will work.
It’s a great idea, and one that I have struggled with, but I don’t have the answers because the questions keep changing. Some designs are extremely successful for businesses but many think they are ugly. Others are horrid, but pretty.
I cover the basic elements of choosing a WordPress Theme in Choosing a WordPress Theme, which apply to any type of user. Wish I could be more specific, but I don’t have the answers on this one.
Hi Lorelle
Have you tried out the new auto-tagging widget at http://jiglu.com? It intelligently tags and links your blog posts, even across multiple blogs. Very interested in your thoughts
Thanks
Nigel
Hi Lorelle,
You are awesome! I am new to blogging, and I am using a wordpress.org blog for my network marketing business. I love using the blog for team building, inspiring, articles, sharing podcasts, etc and marketing.
My question for you is – there seems to be a very gray area in terms of using blogging for business. So many books and resources encourage businesses to create blogs, and monetize them, yet when it comes to adding links to your external website, or sharing a new product offering, what I read is that indexing sites like technorati, etc. can easily consider them spam if you put links to external sites, etc.
Because I am in network marketing and direct sales, I think our industry already is seen as a “spammy” topic, unfortunately. But if you could offer some advice to those of us in home-based business as to how to develop a blog that we can get good exposure, without appearing spammy to indexing sites like technorati, etc. that would be so much appreciated.
Thanks!
Who have you been talking to or reading? External links are the MOST important resources on your blog. The whole reason behind blogging. Oh, honey, you need my book.
Until then, read The Power of the Link.
For help in home-based business, there is a lot and that’s not a topic I cover at all. Check out Wendy Piersall of emomsathome.com and Workingathomeinternet.com, some great resources on the subject.
Thanks for asking, but I stick to blogging in general and WordPress here.
Hi Lorelle,
Love your blog, refer to it often, it’s my first port of call for WordPress issues and you’re on my blogroll.
So, I have a question: do you have a suggestion as to how to put an ‘Add to Facebook’ link at the bottom of my posts? I have Technorati, Bloglines and Google, but it would be very cool to do this with Facebook. I honestly don’t know what would be involved: can you even do this with Facebook? Does my question even make sense?
Regards
Friendly Ghost
http://thefriendlyghost.wordpress.com/
Hi, I would like to exchange links with you for my blog. I will be 3 months older soon
and I consider your blog a source of very reliable and interesting information. I subscribed to your feed in my Netvibes account and I am reading your blog daily.
Feel free to visit my blog, and if you think it is worth it, please answer me.
Thanks in advance,
Chip
Thank you for the comment and the kind words. If you read my policies, I do not do “link exchanges” or link per request. But thanks for asking.
I did not want to drop in a link but this is the only way to contact Lorelle to let her know that she inspired us.
Marty: Thank you, I think.
And there are many ways to get ahold of me. This is just one.
Hello Lorelle,
Yesterday, i published a new plugin for Simple Tags in WordPress 2.3.
Tips: Try, like and share !
Hi Lorelle, I have been having a lot of difficulties trying to locate a plug-in or code to add a widget-ready top-horizontal-widget bar below the thin navigational bar in my theme. I want to utilize this for top, horizontal ad widget positioning as well as some special links I want to incorporate into the blog. Thank you for your great content here!
WordPress Widgets are only for the sidebar right now. And why bother with gadgets when you can manually add the information with HTML and CSS. See Creating Horizontal Menus and Dynamic Menu Highlighting in the Codex, the online manual for WordPress users for guides.
Hi Lorelle,
I remember a long time ago, this year. I saw a advice on here on how to have a …special quote?, power quoting?, basically something along those lines. It’s a quote that appears in the side of articles when you want to quote a person you are writing about. It’s not your usual ‘cite’ or ‘block quote’ as it requires .CSS to layout. I searched high and low on this site I can’t find it. Mind you it was difficult not knowing what was the actual name of what I was looking for, but was hoping to bump into it but didn‘t. This method of ‘quoting’ It’s used widely in books and newspapers. If this rings any bells, please just tell me it’s official name or perhaps link me to the article you wrote on it. Thanks.
You are talking about a blockquote, with a citation or
citetag for the link. I’ve covered it a lot but I think these are what you are looking for:WordPress.com Blog Bling: Blockquotes and Quotes
Newsletter to Blog: Quoting, Referencing, Citing, and Not Copyright Violating
Hi Lorelle
A friend recently queried whether blog printing services are available. I search and found a few possibilities that I mention on my blog today. However, I would be interested in any insights you have – especially regarding the efficacy of the HP Blog printing plug-in. (I’ll also be interested to see if this generates a trackback on my blog as this function doesn’t seem to be working for me. Sigh,)
I haven’t used any book printing WordPress Plugins, so you have more information than I do. I covered this a while ago in Printing Your Blog Out in Book Form. There are also several WordPress Plugins that will print a blog post in PDF format, discussed in WordPress Plugins That Play With Paper and Documents.
I would not want to publish my blog straight from blog format to book. A lot of editing and fixing is required as a blog design is rarely “printable”, and doesn’t convert well to print. After all, who wants to see the same logo and sidebar on every chapter or page?
Thanks for your prompt response Lorelle. Since my last comment/query I have played around with BookSmart’s Blog Slurper software which supposedly allows you to create a book/blook from your blog. Alas, the software is not sufficiently flexible to cope with the formatting demands that you allude to. It doesn’t put the sidebar on every page. However, it puts each blog post(and associated photos) on a separate page. Not very useful if you have multiple short posts over a long period. Although you can cut and paste to consolidate posts, you lose the heading formatting in the process and there is no easy way to replicate the sequencing and layout of the photos from the blog…
Hi There,
I believe you might find this post I made worthy of a post on your blog
It ’s kinda grey hat. This little wordpress hack basically makes your wordpress searches indexable by google by turning them into valid html pages in Google’s eyes.
Ant Ekşiler
Hi Lorelle,
Thought you might be interested in this article: How to Set Up Open ID for WordPress Comments.
Hi Lorelle,
This is Aseem from over at Online-Tech-Tips. I wanted to ask for your help with a contest I’m running off my blog. It’s not the usual Group Writing project, but instead it’s a Group Reviewing project. Any help you could provide getting the word out would be greatly appreciated. I have some great prizes and I hope people join in! Here’s the info:
http://www.online-tech-tips.com/blogging/blog-contest-the-help-me-group-reviewing-project/
Thanks a ton!
Aseem
I need some help with utw and I’m not sure where to turn. It isn’t really a wordpress support issue and utw isn’t going foreward. I tried posting to the forum on my neato thing but it is says it is neither automatic nor guaranteed so when will I hear from anyone? Here’s my issue: utw runs over the sidebar and into the post in firefox while in IE it is below the post, but would run over if it were higher. I put this in a sidebar widget but I got the sense that the tag cloud is supposed to appear somewhere else, or maybe in its own sidebar? I’m not clear on that at all. I reduced the font size but I’m not at all sure that’s really the problem. Any directions welcome.
@edpub:
Stop using the Ultimate Tag Warrior. That’s the answer. There are other tag clouds and lists you can use that come with the new version of WordPress. I also recommend that you upgrade to the new version just for the sake of your blog’s security, if only for that reason. There are no other answers regarding UTW.
Hi Lorelle.
I thought of you because I often find solutions to my problems in your blog.
This time I’m completely lost. I run a blog on WP 2.3.1 RC 1 (updated it today) and the theme is K2 latest nightly.
My problem is that the sidebar manager doesn’t load, but even when I try one of the WP default themes I can’t even drag and drop the widgets (in the widget menu under presentation).
I’m lost I don’t understand where the problem comes from, I even deleted the whole content of my WordPress folder replacing it with a fresh copy (with all plugins disabled with all the browsers availlable for Mac)…
Any idea?
@Hedi:
I’m traveling right now and can’t help you. Please try the WordPress Support Forum. I don’t know what a sidebar “manager” is, unless you are talking about Widgets. You could have a problem with the upgrade and need to run it again – just in case something didn’t upload right.
Lorelle,
Your feed is no longer coming through on my feedreader. I have tried re-subscribing, both to the full feed and the Feedburner feed. I have also tried live-bookmarking. None are working.
It may be a problem at my end, but I just wanted to let you know.
Thanks.
It must be on your side. I just checked Google Reader and all the posts that were supposed to have been published while I’m in Israel are publishing. There are less, not every day as you may have become accustomed to, but they are in the full feed. I’ll check feedburner and feedblitz later, as I’m off to the airplane to return to the states.
First of two comments. Community Blogs
i have been working on creating a community blog and think this could be an interesting topic for you to do a series on. topics include managing multiple authors, getting non tech folks comfortable with posting etc. plug in that help build a community blog see our site as an example
thx for all the resources you provide, welcome back to the NW
Second Comment: Influencing the Core?
I have made a number of posts in the suggestion area at wordpress.org and as near as i can tell this is about as effective as talking into a closet. I am not a coder, so dropping in and trying to write core code is not an avenue open to me, although i have plenty of technical experience so i can see opportunities for improving the platform that can only be implemented in the core.
Example: Richer Display Properties and Behaviors
A number of plug ins create important functionality by modifying the core display and query loop. This is great if you want just one of these plugins, but a disaster if you want two. WP-Sticky is a good example. Having posts stick at the top of a day or top of a blog is useful in many scenarios. I couldn’t use WP Sticky as it conflicted with EC3, the very rich event calendar plug in, which also graps the main display querry loop to keep events/posts in the sidebar. If Stickyness and DisplayorNot became core properties I am sure many plug-ins could use these properties and minimize the conflicts that occur today when plug ins are forced to grab control.
So why am i telling you this? If you agree a post or a conversation might get the ball rolling on figuring out what items are important for future rev’s, near as i can tell right now enhancements are made and priorities are set in a community i don’t have access to.
happy to discuss on email out of the comment stream if this is better.
thx for listening
rob
@Rob Shurtleff:
I’ve written about the challenges of multiple blogger blogs here and on the Blog Herald, and I do have more articles to write on this subject in process. It’s a growing concern as more and more bloggers team up and want to start network blogging communities. It is a much ignored subject that I’m particularly fond of, so stay tuned.
Also check out WordPress Plugins for Multiple Blogger Blogs.
I have no special pull with WordPress, and I’ve written on many subjects I think are CRITICAL to the success of WordPress that have also been ignored, but I’ve also helped get things changed, but not because I’m who I am, but because others felt the same way.
Write it up yourself and let the world know how you feel on the subject. And let me know and maybe I’ll point to it.
WordPress is listening, they just hear the masses, not always the individuals.
Dear Lorelle,
I have a blog on WordPress and after viewing the WordPress featured users list, I came across various blogs. For some time now, I have been wondering how people are changing their layout to suit their themes and simply changing the colors. I bought the domain for my blog on WordPress and the CSS ability, so
I was wondering who hosts your blog while having the Platform at WordPress? Is that how you change the layout, colors, and links from the host page? Can you still write in your blog from the wordpress editor?
Thank you for your time,
-Mollie
Hi Lorelle,
I’m looking for a site in which I could sell a blog. Some kind of “Blog’s Ebay” :p
Can you link me please? I did a lot of searches with google but I can’t find anything interesting;..
Thanks
@Hedi:
I’ve written two articles on the subject, Selling Your Blog: What Are Buyers Looking For and Selling Your Blog: What Goes Into the Selling Price, which should point you in the right direction. While I list places to sell your blog in the articles, know that it is an intense experience, and few are sold for any value, and that selling a blog privately can make more money than selling it via an “ebay” style service. Good luck with it.
@curemoll:
Who hosts my blog here? WordPress.com. Maybe I’m not understanding your question.
I’m using the paid option called CSS Extra which allows me to customize my CSS through the stylesheet, but I have no ability to change anything within the Theme code at all. Anyone on WordPress.com can do the same thing. I did it myself, as I have with all of my blogs.
Anyone using the full version of WordPress can change their WordPress Theme, either by changing a Theme with GPL permissions which allow such changes without permission or by building their own. I offer many articles on the subject in my Web Design and WordPress Themes categories, which you can plow through, and there are many explanations on the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress users.
If it is important for you to change the look of your blog, and you do not know how to do so, I recommend you hire a professional web designer.
As for the “look” of my blog, or any blog, it does not impact anything on the WordPress Administration Panels. They are completely unrelated.
Am I misunderstanding what you are asking?
I think I understand what you’re saying, basically I’ve done the same thing, I have the CSS extra, but what do i do with it? Would i just make up my own CSS and save it? Instead of editing the theme where it doesnt save anything?
Thank you for your help though, I’ll definately check out some the links on making my own layout i guess, love your site!
Thanks again,
-Mollie
hiya,
this is an SEO question.
I noticed that on your later blog entries you use the more detailed permalinks option,
e.g.
http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2007/10/30/protect-yourself-online-with-common-sense/
but on earlier bog entries (e.g. 2005) you use the less descriptive,
http://www.cameraontheroad.com/?p=980
in your wise view, does it help to have the longer descriptive permalink for SEO?
also I am looking for someone do to a quick overview of a blog site I did for a client, I don’t mind paying for their time…to give me pointers on SEO improvements.
thanks much,
andy
Andy: Which is better? For who? For Google, they really don’t care and index things anyway. For the searcher? Their search also digs into “pretty” permalinks, so you might pick up a few search results that way, but searching for WordPress picks up everyone who has wordpress in their URL like example.com/wordpress/driving-cars, which is stupid and useless, so I expect Google to start changing the importance of that soon.
For users? Well, they like to see the link in a readable format, but Internet Explorer and many browser users are now not even looking at the address bar any more, so they don’t see URLs often.
For me, the permalinks on WordPress.com are set by default and there is nothing I or anyone on a WordPress.com blog can do about it. For my full version WordPress blog, until recently, I couldn’t use permalinks because my nasty web server hadn’t updated their version of Apache. Now I’ve switched but I still have them in the older format as I’m totally redoing that blog.
Does it matter, only to those paying attention. As for SEO, there are many more important things to consider. See Do-It-Yourself Search Engine Optimization Guide for more on that. And thanks for asking.
Hi Lorelle,
Thanks for the fast reply and for the SEO links.
I should have been very specific.
I want to to use the permalink format which will yields the best results from searches on google. Thus, to address only the permalink format issue (and not the other SEO factors). In your response above you used the word “might”, that I “might pick up a few [more?] search results…”
So what do you think it is?
If everything else is identical (content, links, code, etc and just the permalinks were different).
If my url is
blahblah.com and I have an article on that blog titled “milk and honey”.
if a searcher is searching “milk and honey” on google which would come up first:
blahblah.com/?p=123
or
blahblah.com/2007/11/05/milk-and-honey
[again, the content of the article would be the same and would also include the title "milk and honey"]
Thanks much!
Andy
I`m take it for translate in a russian for my blog. This link, you can be sure.
@andy:
Let’s see, I think I made it clear last time. It doesn’t matter. Focus on content, content, content, good links, and networking, and SEO will be taken care of. The link business is the least of your problems. Put it whatever you want, whichever feels more comfortable for you and your readers. Then leave it alone and put your energy into content.
SEO is about search engines getting through your site, your whole site, without stoppers in the code. After that, it’s about content, content, content, not your URL. That’s a minor thing and there is no “right” answer, only assumptions people make about which is “better”, but there is no better. Only content.
Do what you want and get back to the content.
Lorelle: I just wanted to say THANK YOU for your “Blog Struggles: Finding Your Blog Focus.” It could not have come at a better time as I was going through my “blogging identity crisis.” Your tips/strategies helped me to refocus my blog while revitalizing my passion for blogging. Thanks again!
I have a question that I cannot seem to find an answer for.
What I want to do is be able to pass a parameter (a flash file name) to a blog page. This blog page contains a swf player that will then play that flash file. Is this an easy thing to do? If so, I am lost would appreciate any help.
Thank you in advance.
@Jason:
I don’t know what you mean by “pass a parameter”, but you embed flash files according to the instructions in the WordPress FAQ, a guide with instructions on how to do everything in WordPress.com, or through the guide I’ve written on Adding Video and Podcasting Bling to Your WordPress.com Blogs.
Thanks for the response. I will try to explain.
I am going to have a list of games:
- game 1
- game 2
- game 3
- etc.
When the visitor clicks one of them, it will open a wordpress page that has the embedded player in it and it play the file based on what was clicked on the previous page. When the “player” page opens, i want it to accept a parameter like “\games\testgame.swf” and that is what it will pass to the player.
Does that help make sense? Thanks again.