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.
524 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*76
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