Lorelle VanFossen travels extensively as part of her speaking and training and consulting work. 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.
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Lorelle VanFossen offers extensive and entertaining speaking, keynotes, and training programs on WordPress, blogging, social media, multimedia web publishing, analytics, user experience, and web writing. For details and information, see Speaking and Training.
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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.
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Lorelle accepts WordPress design and development consulting jobs on a case-by-case basis as time permits as she is usually booked up to six months in advance. Rates range from USD $100-500 an hour.
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- Two Hour Site Review: Design, Structure, Content Organization, and Basic SEO. By phone or in writing. USD $250
- Four Hour Site Review: Design, Structure, Content Organization, Code Inspection, Social Media Integration, SEO, Market Analysis, and Personal Feedback and Assistance by phone and in writing. USD $500
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The following are resources for news about WordPress and WordPress-related events and activities:
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- BloggingPro’s WordPress News and Tips
- The WordPress Community Podcast
- Lorelle on WordPress
- Planet WordPress from Planet Ozh
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837 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.
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 for the links — I’m sending this to a friend who needs all the help she can get (and would hire someone if she can find them!) I’m wondering if this is your latest info on this topic of moving a static site (MS FrontPage, ugh!) into WP (v. 3)?
Many thanks~
~@TheGirlPie
Latest info where? I do moves from static sites to WordPress for clients all the time.
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.
@Jason:
You can ask in the WordPress.com forums on how to do this, but it is more polite to link to a page and let the user click on the Play button that to force something to automatically play. Some videos and such take a bit of time to load, depending upon the user’s bandwidth, so they might go get a drink of water, look at another web page, or even go to the bathroom, and if it automatically starts playing, they will return to find it’s half over or complete by the time they get back.
Forcing things to start on a web page load without the action by the user is bad manners in web etiquette today.
If you were on a full version WordPress blog, maybe you could come up with something, but I don’t know what and would not encourage it.
And questions like this are best answered in the WordPress support forums.
My users are expecting this functionality. Why do you think it wouldn’t be recommended? If I click a link to play a game I don’t want to then click another button to start it.
I appreciate your comments, but I think you might have misunderstood my question and intentions. I need help technically not in relation to standards or design.
Thank you, again.
@Jason:
No one “expects” to have something forced upon them. If they click a link to open a new page, then it is the expectation to click something else to start whatever is on the page. If this were a program, then the “click” wouldn’t be a link but a button to START, a completely different thing.
I am an expert in web standards and design, and a great fan of computer games. They are different, even when combined. So you get advice on web standards from me.
I enjoyed your comments about content vs SEO optimization. For awhile now it has been clear to me that my brain cannot cover the distances between creating something and making sure the links all have a clear shot to the pages of Google. It is just too much so I have decided to attempt some originality and creativity and pretty much ignore the other. Or pray for plugins that will do it for me. And it seems to be working. Google liked my WordPress.com blog enough after a few months to make it a five pr. So I feel that Google and I have or are beginning to have some sort of mystical connection. Somehow Google is figuring out how to leave SEO behind and merge with the creative minds out here. It’s happening. I can feel it.
@davidlind:
Good. When you don’t work at it, it works better.
I stopped looking at page ranking and stats a long time ago. It isn’t important to why I blog. Hopefully, soon you will get to that point, too. You will blog better.
Lorelle,
I have a question that may or may not have been covered elsewhere – if it is, just point me in that direction and I’ll go read.
I’ve been doing more and more theme development with WordPress. On one of my blogs, the theme I started with declared it was XHTML Strict compliant – yet it took me over 3 hours of tweaking to make that claim true. There have also been numerous tweaks to the code that, while really helping me learn the proper layout of a theme, have been frustrating at times. At what point does the theme become “mine” and not “theirs”? I’ve got the word “modified” in the footer where I credit the theme designer, but that seems to be more and more of an understatement.
I guess the question is, where is the line between a tweak, a modification, and an entirely different theme “based” on another one?
@Daniel:
That’s a tough one, for many reasons. First, most code is code which has been copied and passed around so much, few knows where it started. So code is tough to copyright and claim. Second, the line where a Theme has been changed enough to be “new and unique” of its own accord is often a fine line subject to interpretation.
I choose a middle of the road approach. There is nothing wrong with “original by X and modified by Y” but if it is changed enough, you can say “based upon Z by X, designed by Y”.
If there is nothing left of the original, and making it strict XHTML doesn’t count, with no colors, no shapes, no graphics, nothing but maybe the architecture, but even that might feature a wider or narrower column – nothing that anyone would say “Oh, it looks like Z”, then it’s yours because there is nothing visible or clear about what it started out to be.
Again, if someone can dig in and find some resemblance, give credit.
Does that help?
It does – thanks…
Lorelle,
Very great and useful blog. I’ve learned so much from you. 3 questions if you wouldn’t mind. What does your book offer that isn’t on this blog? Also, would it be possible to do a post on tips for mass blogging for profit? And last, as far as SEO is concerned, is there any difference between writing blog posts in advance then setting them to auto post? Thank you and I look forward to your reply!
-Jason
@Jason:
1. If you have time to dig through hundreds of my blog posts, you’d learn more from my blog than the book. Do you have two years to read through all of the posts? Probably not. So the book is “better” than the blog as it condenses all the redundancy and gets to the point.
Besides, unless you have a special computer system and network set up, you can read the book in the bathroom, bedroom, or while commuting. Can’t do that easily with my blog.
2. I don’t understand what you mean by “mass blogging for profit”. Do you mean multiple bloggers on a business blog? Or blogging for profit in general? There are others who specialize in blogging for profit. See them.
3. Setting the “when” of your posts publishing has nothing to do with SEO. Zero. Apples and Cars. No connection.
So lets say you have 730 posts which is one EVERYDAY for 2 years…
If I read 10 posts in an hour (which is very generous) for 5 hours a day, which would be no problem at all since I work from my laptop as well, that would be 50 posts a day. That would take me 15 days to do. So to answer your question, yes I have the 2 years to read through your posts, but it would hardly take that long. If the question came off as rude, I apologize and that wasn’t the intention.
I’ll give you an example of what I mean for “mass blogging for profit.” Lets say I have an online business selling a blog book. Would it be more effective to have one blog that I post tips in everyday or hundreds of blogs on subdomains that I post tips in with each one targeting a different keyword and all linking back to the root. The posts on the one blog would be more length to it and the hundreds of blogs would have smaller posts that were straight to the point. It seems managing 100+ blogs at the same time would be difficult, but not if you spend a few hours creating posts to make the blog auto update for months. Just curious as to what your thoughts are on this.
As far as SEO is concerned, is there any difference with setting up a blog on a subdomain or having one as a folder (www.domain.com/blog)?
Thanks for your fast reply.
@Jason:
LOL! I have more than 730 posts here. But I love your calculation and I’d adore knowing someone took THAT much time to read everything on my blog. I love it. Thanks for the giggle. Did that include the time it would take to print all those pages to take into the bathroom to read?
You could do either. One is white hat, the other is called black hat. That’s the latter. If you want to be honest with your clients, especially fellow bloggers if the book is on blogging, to do the latter would make you definitely black hat and a blight on the web. Work one blog as an expert and let that be your expert blog. Playing the multiple blog SEO game is known to Google and your one good blog could be hurt by such tactics. Don’t risk it, especially if your book is your reputation.
As far as SEO is concerned, which isn’t SEO that you are worried about but Google’s PageRank algorithm and getting found on the web, put your blog in your root domain. If you add the word “blog”, “wordpress” or anything else after your root name, it will come up in the search engines with that URL as if it was a keyword. If that isn’t one of your keywords, why bother. If you want a keyword in there, then use that like example.com/carsandtrucks/. Personally, don’t bother. Use your keyword juice elsewhere.
There are a lot of blogs out there that promise blogging success and get rich quick schemes for blogging. I’m not one of them. I believe in slow, methodical, organic methods of building your reputation online. I believe in one blog per person per subject, and that subject is their passion, not a money-making gimmick.
So what if the root isn’t a blog, but just a static page, could it be beneficial to make multiple blogs (www.domain.com/keyword/) and placing a link to the root page in blogroll? I’m not talking about any get rich quick schemes, but rather traffic. That away your getting traffic from the individual blogs that are targeting different keyword pertaining to the subject and also routing traffic to the root page. Another thing it’s doing is interlinking your site which from what I understand google likes right?
@Jason:
Again, this type of gimmick is something I cannot support nor encourage. It takes energy away from the core.
Do you have kids? Have you ever had to babysit more than 3 young children at the same time? Each going in a different direction, demanding your attention individually, but you are one person trying to be tugged in too many directions, unable to give your full attention to any one child at any moment, and each moment filled with dissruption and chaos. Welcome to what you are describing.
Honestly, playing games with links and Google is energy wasted. Too many have done it and lost, integrity and reputation – who cares about Google. If you are caught doing this, what people think is much more important than Google.
If you would like to continue in this vein, please search for black hat seo.
Cool conversation. Very interesting.
Lorelle – I found someone scraping my content and using it on an advertisement for pornography. I can’t find contact info and don’t know what to do next. Any help is much appreciated.
Hi, Lorelle,
I tried to find a more private email for you, but… Anyway, I’d love to hear what you think about the new plugin, Hot Linked Image Cacher. I personally find it abhorrent, but I thought I would bring it to your attention, because I think more people need to become aware about hotlinking=theft. I saw a forum post wherein people were calling this plugin so handy and they wouldn’t have to keep checking the images.
Thanks for taking the time.
Lizzie
@coolbeans:
Follow the steps in What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content. It’s treated no differently from any other content theft. Good luck!
Question: In the “What I Want Gone from the Web” post you mention that you dislike layouts with fixed widths. I want to ask if there’s some condition on that topic because I’ve tried a lot and decided that neither way (percents, pixels or ems) is perfect. I generally use the minimum fixed layouts recommended for screen resolutions (like 600px and 720px) and centered. My problem with percentages is that the width may get too wide and the text may look a bit tedious to read on big resolutions.
Hi!
I came here because I wanted to present a new widget for wordpress. But when I see the number of posts, I think it may even be usefull for you Lorelle.
Who’s Hot automatically analyses the usage of the blog and detects the most influent members. It calculates a rank (shown as a temperature) and displays the hottest members of the community. It adds the author’s temperature in the comment, and puts a thermometer to filter out the less relevant comments.
You can see an example here.
Laurent Nicolas,
I’m looking for a plugin that allows you to increase the number of text widgets from 9 on a self-hosted WordPress blog. I had it and used it at one time but lost it somehow when I changed themes. I can find nothing on it in the WordPress material (maybe I’m not using the right words to describe it) I think (maybe)I learned about it on your blog. Do you know what I’m refering to and can you give me the source?
@Bill Walker:
I believe that multiple Widgets are available in the latest version of WordPress. They removed the limits, to my recollection. You can also try Sidebar Modules, though I’ve heard that it doesn’t work in the latest version of WordPress, though they may have updated it.
The right words for searching would be “multiple WordPress Widgets”.
Thanks for the information. I’m using 2.2 and can’t add any more than 9 text widgets. Does that come with 2.3? I’m reluctant to upgrade, although Fantastico in my CPanel offers that option. However, I get the message: “Please read carefully Click on Upgrade only if no files, languages, themes have been modified and you haven’t added mods to this installation of WordPress.” I’ve modified the theme I’m using as well as some of the php files. How can I safely upgrade? Thanks for your assistance.
@Bill Walker:
If you haven’t upgraded, your blog is at risk. There are several security vulnerabilities that hackers are looking for around the web. As for their warning, if your WordPress Theme isn’t in the default or classic directories, upgrade. If you haven’t modified the core of WordPress, upgrade.
And read all the notes on the Codex about upgrading to 2.3. It’s done all the time and few have trouble. It is probably the answer to your original question.
Can I ordera copy of Blogging Tips by snail mail?
I don’t have a PayPal account.
@How:
You can pay with a credit card or a check and it just has to wait for the check to clear the bank through PayPal. Checks by mail are currently not accepted, though we are considering it in the future.
Thanks for your help, Lorelle.
I upgraded to 2.3. However, now I get the messages below when I add or update a post:
WordPress database error: [Table 'xxxxwp_post2cat' doesn't exist]
SELECT cat_ID AS ID, MAX(post_modified) AS last_mod FROM `wp_posts` p LEFT JOIN `wp_post2cat` pc ON p.ID = pc.post_id LEFT JOIN `wp_categories` c ON pc.category_id = c.cat_ID WHERE post_status = ‘publish’ GROUP BY cat_ID
The post is added but I don’t know what is going wrong.
Incidently, the new upgrade doesn’t give me any more than 9 text widgets. I haven’t located the plugin yet.
Thanks again,
Bill
@ Bill Walker:
As for the error, I assume you’ve updated your WordPress Theme to accomodate the template tag changes associated with wp_list_categories(). And I thought you wanted additional Widgets not additional text Widgets. That’s a different issue and I’m not sure where to get them. Why not code these into the Theme template files instead? Would certainly save on database loads.
As for your specific error, if you’ve done the above, you’ll have to ask on the WordPress Support Forum. I don’t recognize the error, but I did remove all private information from it. Take care in publishing code that reveals information you do not want hackers to know.
Oops! Can you delete my comment containing the private info?
I’ll look into what you pointed out and get with WordPress Support. Thanks!
@ Bill Walker:
I did. I like protecting my readers.
Hey, there. Earlier this year, you helped me greatly in figuring out how to make an offline file in Moveable Type format so that I could import a bunch of new posts to WP. Now, I find myself with many posts in a WP installation, and I want move many of them — but not nearly all — to a separate installation. Best I can tell, this can only be done on the basis of author — but that’s not going to distinguish what I need. Do you know of any ways to:
–Select posts en masse in a different way for export?
or
–Somehow mass edit posts to change their authors temporarily so that I can use the built-in by-author selection to create an export of the posts I want?
Or any other advice on how to be selectively about which posts to export? Thanks!
@ Mark S. Meritt:
The WordPress to WordPress Import WordPress Plugin will handle imports by category, but I’ve not tried it and I’m seeing that some are having problems using it with WordPress 2.3. This may be because Importing is built-in, though importing only specific categories is not.
If you don’t have comments, or don’t care about the comments transferring, you can use the feed per category to export into an XML file which can be imported.
If you still have your MT text file, you can put it into a spreadsheet or table and then sort it by category field, creating an importable text file the same way you handled the static HTML method/old MT import. If new posts have been created, there is always the copy and paste method, which I’ve done too many times so I know the agony, but it works.
If you find another method for import/export for category or author specific posts which includes comments, please let me know.
Hi Lorelle, I just read your article at Blog Herald, Blogger Sucks: Wanna Move to WordPress? and I was impressed with it for more than one reason. The obvious reason was the great information including follow-up links to further resources but also because it was concise – it was without fluff.
Thank you… I’m really at the point where I’d like to inquire how much it would cost to just have you do it for me. I believe I have under 200 posts… around 150, and the bulk of my pictures are hosted elsewhere so they’ll be ok.
My main goal is to have the best job when it comes to smooth transition, including PR and redirection. The link is up above. Thanks.
Sam
@ Sam Freedoms Interne:
Since the process is automatic, there is nothing to do nor pay someone to do. I’m also booked through late spring for web consultancy work. Thanks for asking though.
Hi Lorelle,
I have no blogs yet..that’s why I’m exploring your gigantic BLOG.
Request: can you add RSS for PageFlakes and Earthlink…?
Thanks!
@Lorelle – ok, i guess what I meant is that even though the actual transfer process might be automated, I am wondering about the fine-tuning, like to prevent duplicate content penalties? The complementary actions such as how to best ensure traffic gets from your old blog to your new blog… or to tell Google not to spider the old blog anymore? etc
If you are too busy, perhaps you can recommend a friend?
@ Sam Freedoms Interne:
There are no penalties. The duplicate content thing is way out of control, so don’t worry about it. Tons of people do this every day. As for traffic, you will get improved SEO coverage on anything WordPress. Trust me. It’s automatic and don’t worry.
As it says in the article, put a link to your new blog in your last post there, let everyone know, and consider adding a sitemap Plugin to your new WordPress blog, and you are done. Stop trying to make this harder than it is. You won’t lose. You will only gain.
And my recommendations should be at the top of this page. I make no individual recommendations, only point you to the sources for WordPress experts.
Sam, this is honestly done all the time. It’s simple. Easy. Focus on your content and adding more. 150 posts ain’t much in the scheme of things. For many, that’s four months of blogging. You can do this!
@ Zal:
No. They accept normal feed links and/or URLs. I’m thinking of getting rid of all of these feeder specific icons as they aren’t necessary.
And a good place to start learning about blogging before blogging is to get my book on “Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging”.
Thanks!
Hi Lorelle,
I really enjoyed meeting you briefly on your visit to WordCamp Israel a few months back. I helped the organizers of the event with some of the logistics.
When we met, I told you I work for a company called Yedda that develops a platform for Q&A. Since we met we announced that we were acquired by AOL (I couldn’t tell you that in Wordcamp
).
We have launched our blog widgets a while back but our newest offering for bloggers may be interesting for you. We created customized FeedFlare units (a part of Feedburner’s offering) that let your readers ask questions on Yedda.com about your post. When a question is asked it’s displayed on our site but we add a prominent link back to your post.
The question will then be visible to our entire community (that has grown tremendously and will continue to grow as we partner with more and more AOL properties). This exposes your blog to more readers and may help SEO as well.
You can read more about it in our blog: http://blog.yedda.com/?p=130
I hope we meet again in the next Israeli Wordcamp or somewhere else along the way.
Best,
Lior
Hi Lorelle,
I’d like to get your feedback on a proposed tagging process that is loosely related to wordpress. I know that you are a tagging expert and I would appreciate any feedback from you. The picture should be self explanatory. However, if you have any queries, just email me. CE = Content Editor BTW.
Is there anyplace I can post this article on WordPress Plugin standards from the position of a user — other than my site? Someplace where it might get read.
Regards.
@ Frank Lucas:
Your math quiz isn’t working. After three times to attempt to leave a comment, I gave up and will leave it here. Math tests rarely work and they do not stop comment spam. Nor do CAPTCHAs. They only frustrate those determined to comment.
You make some very good points which complement the WordPress Coding Standards and Writing a Plugin standards for writing and supporting WordPress Plugins, however some are in conflict such as the use of Administration Panels for Plugins. They should be on the Plugins Panel unless they significantly are used to complement a specific Panel.
I’ve written extensively about Plugin standards and support and you’ve given me some ideas for updating them. Thanks.
As for “where to post it”, leave it on your blog. I’ll link to it from my WordPress Wednesday news on the Blog Herald. Then be patient and let the world find you. That’s how it works.
I’ve looked all over for it and I’m just not finding it.
How do you add your links for Subscribe Feedburner and Subscribe by Email at the bottom of your posts? And what do you use to allow people to subscribe via email?
@ Michael:
I cannot use WordPress Plugins on WordPress.com blogs, however, I do this manually and explain this in Integrating FeedBlitz Feed Email Service Into WordPress. It you have the self-hosted version of WordPress, there are Plugins that will work in Subscribe, Email Mailing List, Blog Update Alerts, and Newsletter WordPress Plugins.
The link to Subscribe Feedburner is just a link to the Feedburner feed. Nothing special. It could be a link to your regular feed, too.
Akismet supposedly has a problem according to an article posted under Blogging tips entitled Why you Should Reconsider How You Use Akismet at http://www.optiniche.com. If the problem has been overcome by any of the recent WP releases please say so.
@ Robert Nelson:
There is no “problem” that I have found, as in bug. Akismet is doing what it is supposed to do. The fact that it ocassionally catches legit comments is no different from any comment spam tool out there. Akismet actually catches less. This is a non-issue, no matter who makes it one. There is no problem to overcome. You can read my comment on that post for more information.
I also highly recommend Akismet Auntie Spam Firefox Greasemonkey Script to help you speed up the time you spent handling Akismet caught comment spam. I love it.
I have read your comments on Akismet as it pertains to my post over at Optinche.com and I am saddened that my attempt to pass on information was treated in the way that it has been.
Till fairly recently I like most WP Bloggers had obtained and activated Akismet. Little did I know because of the way that it can work that legitimate comments might be going into a black hole.
So what do I get for passing this into you, a person who surely has more clout at WordPress than I do. A lecture on how to use Akismet. Said plugin is approaching if it hasn’t already passed a year in use and has gone through several versions. I will say no more as the internet is littered with the remains of so called brilliant solutions
Lorelle – I’ve written what I hope is a comprehensive article about implementing on page SEO in WordPress, and I would appreciate it very much if you would take a minute (or 5) of your valuable time to look at it with an eye out for inaccuracies or omissions.
I’m asking to intrude on your valuable time only because I consider you to be THE authority on this subject, and I want to get it right. If you can’t or by policy don’t do this sort of thing I completely understand.
Thanks
Lorelle, I have searched your blog to answer my question & can’t find what I need so I’m sending this comment.
A blog owner uses wordpress – I have disagreed with articles he’s published and have used an anonymous name in my posts to him. It seems as though he doesn’t like to debate and he is desperately trying to find my identity. He has posted my email address and is asking for anyone who knows the email addy to let him know their identity. He also has posted IP numbers hoping someone can search from my location and identity. I would like to report him to wordpress for violation of my right to privacy.
Anyone can go to his blog and see that I was not mean, nasty, or ugly in my posts I was simply debating an issue with the guy. I never once used a single cuss word – it was a debate – and on my side a calm debate.
From what I know, Federal courts have upheld that anonymous speech on the internet is protected by the First Amendment. The courts have recognized that you should be able to express opinions online without having to worry that your privacy will be invaded. The courts have upheld that you have the right to speak anonymously on an Internet bulletin board just as you have the right to distribute a leaflet using a pseudonym.
I don’t like my email address being posted on a blog for anyone to misuse. Do you know who I could report this to because I really want my email address off of his blog.
Thank you,
Anonymous
@ Anonymous:
Contact WordPress.com, if that is what they are using, and they might help you. If they are using the full version of WordPress, there is nothing WordPress can do. It’s not their responsibility.
The First Amendment only applies to US citizens. You might have a case, if you are willing to do that, which does not involve WordPress, but if their blog’s host is located on a server outside of the United States, and they are not a US citizen, you have little to fight with. Don’t presume these laws on the rest of the world.
First, you should not have gotten into this mess in the first place. At the first moment it was clear that you were dealing with an unbalanced person, you should have stopped. Lesson learned.
If you gave your email to him, via comments or otherwise, then you did so willingly, which makes your case even less defensible. It doesn’t matter who is right or wrong. You gave him private information and he can do what he wants with it, unless his blog’s comments clearly state he will never use nor divulge the email address. Then you have him for breaking contract, so to speak.
I recommend that if this bothers you enough and you fear for your life and reputation, close that email account and create a new one and never hand over your personal email address to anyone. Use a different one for blog comments. And stop signing comments within the comments box, even if it is to sign it anonymous. You might slip and put your name or URL in there. Be responsible when you comment. It’s a big responsibility.
The responsibility lies with you, not them. You chose to disagree PUBLICLY and he can respond publicly. You gave your email. This person has as much access to freedom of speech rules as you do.
I wish I could say something that you would want to hear, but I’ve been there done that and unless you can contact the site owner directly and settle this, or have cause enough to bring about court action with the site owner, which may include the web host, you got nothing.
Sorry.
Dear Lorelle, nice to talk to you.
I hope i’m not bothering you and that my question hasn’t been asked (and answered) before. If it had, i’m sorry, but i couldn’t find anything about it.
Well, i have a WP.com blog, and my stats just went down like a comet in the past few days. I the realized that my blog simply diappeared from both POTD and BOTD portuguese lists (where it had been among the top ten, thank the readers). Then, i discovered that my Google links were also gone. It’s like i have chosen to hide my blog from search engines and WP public lists, only i didn’t.
Could you tell me what could have happened? Has there been any problem in WP servers lately? Or could it be something else?
I appreciate your concern in advance, and i’m sure you’re the one that can help me (especially because the powers that be in Wp just don’t answer…)
Best Wishes from Brazil
@ 100Grana:
Is your blog working? Then don’t worry.
Ignore your stats. They are made up numbers any way.
Actually, WorPress.com is undergoing upgrades and improvements, both to the whole program and to the stats. Just give it a few days.
As for Google, honestly, who cares. They are messing around with their PageRank scores and algorithms. Again, they are only one of the many search engines and such around the web.
Did you leave a note in the WordPress.com Support Forums? I don’t see any mention there within the past few hours. That would be the best place to start, not with me. As for WordPress not answering, they may be handling thousands of emails right now. You should always check the forums first, and leave a note there if there isn’t a mention.
I know nothing more than you.
And honestly, stop watching your stats.
Just blog. You’re getting found, I promise you.
Dear Lorelle,
Thank you for you speedy reply. Yes, I’m a US Citizen and yes, he uses a US server.
As for Free Speech, I don’t think Free Speech applies to the freedom to take someone’s Constitutional right of privacy away from them in their free speech. I’ll consult a lawyer on that.
In the meantime, I’ll contact my service provider’s legal department and give them the link etc., so they can take care of the legal aspects, if any, of that person posting private information that they had not been granted to publish.
I’m not sure if posting on a political blog is akin to waiving a person’s Cosntitutional right to privacy. I’ll check on that.
Thanks again,
Anonymous
PS. As is the case with my email on here … I’m not so trusting as to give away my real email address to a person.
Dear Lorelle,
Thanks for replying. I know what happened. My blog, as many other, is not appearing in the tag lists. Global categories, tags and BOTD and POTD are blind to our posts. That’s the problem. I sent a message to WP support. I just hope hey take some immediate course of action. Too bad you don’t work with them…
Then again, thank you.
Lorelle, is there a way to publish posts exclusively to a feed? I would like to create a subcategory within my blog and only allow my RSS subscribers to see those full-text posts. Thanks!
@ Selfpreneurs.com:
I don’t know if WordPress will do that, though it might, but I do know that services like Feedburner and FeedBlitz will let you post directly to the feed and bypass the blog, if memory serves.
What you are looking for is a feed-based newsletter. Check out Subscribe, Email Mailing List, Blog Update Alerts, and Newsletter WordPress Plugins to see if there is something in there you can use.
Hello, Lorelle,
Thank you for providing this excellent WordPress related resource with such a wealth of practical and general blogging related information, which I have truly enjoyed reading since I started dealing with WP a few month ago.
Just wanted to let you know (as some of your readers might be interested in it as well) about a new WordPress plugin that I have released, called Custom Function Widgets (CFW). It allows one to create widgets from other plugins which offer only PHP function hooks and require users to edit theme files. With CFW you no longer have to edit the template files and it doesn’t use PHP’s
evalfunction and thus doesn’t require the user to insert any raw code which could potentially result in error messages.For example, now it is possible to create a widget for the much used Popularity Contest plugin by Alex King, with only a few mouse clicks.
More information (with screenshots and detailed installation instructions) can be found in the blog post: WordPress Plugin: Custom Function Widgets. Soon I will also release the Tabbed Widgets plugin which is already available on my blog and is more a bit of an eye candy, but brings a few usability improvements along as well.
Keep up the good writing!
With regards,
your regular subscriber Kaspars D.
Just a quick suggestion. Currently you have the avatars displayed above the name of the comment author. It would increase the “scannability” (especially for such large lists of comments as this one), if you floated them to the left by appending the following
CSSto your stylesheet:.comment img.avatar { float:left; margin:0.5em 1em 0 0; }Hi Lorelle!
Great site!! I am looking for a thumbnail plugin – here’s 2 sites that use it, hollywoodtuna.com, and derekhail.com.
You can either link the thumbnail to another site – or you can have the thumbnail enlarge to a full size, on another page, where you can also put ads.
Any idea what they’re using?
Thanks
Lisa
Hi,
I’m a fairly loyal reader, and if this has been covered before, my apologies.
Is there a “stategy” involved in selecting which words to highlight that will link back and be displayed another blog? How does WordPress decide which words will be displayed?
Do you prefer one word links or multi-word?
Thank you for all your good stuff.
@ Going Like Sixty:
Are you talking about trackbacks?
When you put a link to an another blog post’s article in your blog post, WordPress automatically converts that into a “trackback link”, sending notification to the other blog with the text that accompanies the link, within the link anchor text and the text surrounding the link. In general, it’s about 100 words, though sometimes more or less.
If you put the link at the end of a paragraph, it tends to grab the words leading up to the end of the end including the link but not beyond. If the link is in the middle of a paragraph, it collects text from both sides. The goal of the trackback process is to grab enough content that features the link, as a “letter of recommendation bread crumb trail” so when it appears in the linked to blog’s trackback list or comments, there is enough incentive for the reader to visit that blog.
As for links, words that explain the link in the link anchor text are always best. “Click Here” or “here” sucks. It tells you nothing.
And use the anchor HTML link tag’s
titleattribute to spell out exactly what the link is going to such as the post title, blog title, or short description of the article.Does that answer your question?
@ Lisa:
They might be using this technique manually. That’s very common. Just put a link around an image and the click will take the visitor to the link.
I don’t know what they are using. You will have to ask them. As for Plugins, see WordPress Plugins for Images, Photographs, and Graphics.
@ Kaspars:
WordPress.com is currently making changes on all the WordPress Themes for the placement of Avatars. Your suggestion is good, however, I’m waiting until they are done so I don’t keep changing what they change again.
And thanks for the information on your Widget Plugin. I’ll take a look.
Hello Lorelle,
you have published a very important article to monetarize a wordpress blog. I would love to see my plugin added to this article if you don’t mind and have the time for checking my website and plugin. Thank you very much, you have a great website wow!
@ Romario:
Done, but with reluctance as I’m not a fan or WordPress Plugins that have a commercial version.
@Lorelle
Thank you for adding it!
Lorelle
I am looking for a good reliable wordpress plugins guru who would be able to update a wordpress plugin for me, on a commercial basis of course.
I am aware of scriptlance, elance etc but I generally prefer a trusted recommendation over the auction process, as I need reliable and timely service as well as quick.
Any suggestions – please feel free to email me if posting commercial names or recommendations is a no no in this blog.
Regards
@ Bob:
Thanks for asking and the list of recommendations are listed at the top of this web page. That’s the best I can do. Good luck.
Lorelle,
Is taking out the “www.” in both the wordpress and blog address under “general options” in the admin panel the same thing as a 301 redirect (www to non-www)? I’ve read that you don’t need the redirect htaccess code in version 2.3, so I was curious if this is what it is. I’ve posted on the wordpress support forum and opened a ticket with no response. I heard you knew a little bit about blogging and if you were a rock band, I’d be your #1 groupie. I trust you over some random blogger in cyberspace and I’ll be able to sleep better at night knowing my blog is configured correctly from the help of your beautiful mind.
Rock on Lorelle
@ dirkd80:
I’ve never worked with this as it used to be more trouble than it was worth. It’s easier now that some servers have upgraded Apache and other programs WordPress and redirect needs, but I’ve still not done this, so I don’t know. I’d have to research the same avenues of you, and right now, no matter how pretty the compliments, that one’s low on the priority list.
Good luck and let me know what you find out.
hey Lorelle, I just got a response to my question, so I’ll post the URL so you can check it out as well.
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/156533
thanks!
Hi there, I’ve been enjoying reading all your wise comments and advice. Thank you!
I have a question that might have been covered already, but I was wondering if you knew why my entire blogroll is missing from my sidebar now even though it says it’s visible when I manage the blogroll?
It’s a little frustrating since I have tons of links! Please help!
Thank you!
JOY
Hey Lorelle…My blog is about photography. It has been up and running now for 30 days and I am getting plenty of visitors. My problem is that I cannot seem to get anyone to comment on any of the photos or writings I have on the blog. I simply don’t get it, I guess. It is getting kind of frustrating. Any suggestions for attracting comments to my posts?
@ thejoywriterpr:
Oh, boy, how do I say this nicely. Your site sucks. Okay, I can’t say it nicely.
Yes, the design is pretty but the underlying code is terrible. It is designed with tables and forced unnecessary Javascripts. This design technique became history in 1999. It is not SEO friendly and has so many errors for HTML/XHTML, web standards, accessibility standards, and…the list is long.
So finding the error is complicated and more troublesome as there are too many errors that need fixing to bring the site up to date. Pretty is fine, if it is pretty to the bone. This is in terrible shape.
You just want your blogroll fixed. Honestly, you need your whole site fixed. The blogroll is the least of your problems. Your site can be made with much of the design elements in a web standard presentation, but it will take a lot of work. Also, I specialize in WordPress blogs and rarely touch static websites any more, which yours is. Good luck and I wish I could have given you a simple nice answer.
@ Thom:
Yes, write something worth commenting on. I just went through the entire front page of your blog, and you’ve not offered anything to talk about. Think conversation or just be happy with the traffic.
Example, your most recent post features a picture of a motorcycle. That’s it. So what do I say, “cool bike?” It’s not a very interesting photograph, unless you are into that type of bike, so there is nothing to say about it artistically or creatively. It just sits there. A picture of a bike. Next?
In order to get comments you have to start a conversation. And it will take time to retrain your regular readers as you’ve been the silent, uncommunicative blogger for a while.
And please see Defective Themes: Image Width to resolve a major issue you are having common to many photo blogs.
Hello again,
I am trying to add FeedBlitz to my wordpress and I’ve realized that I don’t have the WordPress ‘Theme Editor’… any tips on how I can add that? Do I need to update my wordpress version, upgrade, etc.?
Thanks!
SocialButterfly
@ socialbutterfly4change:
The Theme Editor has been in every version since 1.2, I think. You can also just use FTP and upload the changed sidebar template to your WordPress Theme directory on the server.
If you are using WordPress.com or a WordPressMU driven blog, you will not have access to the Theme Editor.
If you have Widgets enabled on your blog and WordPress Theme, using the self-hosted version or WordPress.com, then use the text Widget to add the link information to your blog’s sidebar.
Lorell,
Thanks for pointing out the display problem I did not know about with my blog. I completely rebuilt the site using a different theme. As for content, you know we as photographers really never have anything to say on just about anything. I am not going to write about the news or social issues as I do not feel it is appropriate for my site. I send people to my site from all the photography Yahoo groups that I belong to and they really make their coments on the Yahoo groups instead of my site. I also discovered that Askimet had nailed a few comments as spam that after further review turned out not to be. Thanks for the help.
@ pinecreekimages:
Actually, as a photographer, I have a LOT to say on a LOT of subjects, including photography.
Still, that’s not the issue. If you want comments, you have to do more than use your blog as an art exhibit. If you don’t, exhibit away.
Good luck with it.
Lorelle, Thanks for the feedback. I am finding things to blog about other than photography. I redesigned my blog to make it more friendly to a lot more browsers and by golly I even took up your challenge on “What do you read and why” My article is up on my blog now. I do not, in any way, claim to be any kind of writer.
Thanks again for setting me straight. Oh and that was me as pinecreekimages. How I managed to get logged into your site as that, I have no idea.
By the way, I am relative newcomer to blogging and you have so much information on your blog, do you have a list of articles that a beginner should read, before anything else? Your site is becoming one of my favorite places to visit every day.
Thanks
Me again! Whoa girlfriend! Tell it like it is! I am so new to WordPress I was actually using one of their templates. I have another blog on Typepad where I pay for the year and after listening to what you had to say about this version I’m tempted just to move everything back there because at least I understand how to use Typepad.
So, it’s really that antiquated? Why would they offer it if so? Oh well, I guess you get what you pay for right? So as far as you’re concerned the only way to have a valid blog is to pay for the upgrades, or your expertise? Just checking because I’m so desperate I might try it!
Please respond again. I do enjoy your lively commentary and insights!:)
JOY
@ Thom:
I’d start with the list of the “Hot” and most popular articles from the sidebar. And then encourage you, without pressure of course (
) to buy my book. And thanks for the kind words.
@ thejoywriterpr:
Everyone uses WordPress Themes, what you call templates, with WordPress blogs, and they are all designed in accordance with web standards – well, they are supposed to be. The one I found on the site listed in the comment form is table-based design and not WordPress. So I don’t know which WordPress site you were referring to. Sorry about that.
It’s beyond antiquated. It should be in jail. I wish I was kidding. Why does anyone offer anything? Because they can and you get what you pay for.
By the way, WordPress is free. Most WordPress Themes are free (and most have few errors and are very SEO friendly), and features easy-to-use import of Blogger posts and comments.
Yes, I’m the WordPress evangelist, but I won’t use anything that is time-consuming and doesn’t work for me. I shoot from the hip, as you noticed, and hate messing around with idiot stuff.
@ thejoywriterpr:
Oh, and check out The Art of the Artist Web Design Collaboration – which you might find useful. I just published it.
Hi, Lorelle…
I have been reading a lot of your articles. My blog is still a struggling unknown, but I believe your tips would certainly help me sooner or later.
Anyway, I wanted to include a link to your blog on my site. I hope that would be fine by you. Do let me know.
On behalf of a whole community of bloggers, I thank you for the articles…
@ Hammy:
Let’s try this again when I’m not so sensitive to the issue after deleting eight link spammers.
THANK YOU for your kind words and for your support. You do not need permission to put anyone in your blogroll though asking is sweet. Thank you.
Honestly, it is determination and support from individuals like you that keeps me on track and passionate about what I am doing. I appreciate this so much and apologize for the confusion. It’s been a tough month.
Hi, I am trying to find the best blog & host that will allow me to monetize it, so I can at least make some money, even if I don’t get rich and it just helps to pay some bills. You are using the free blog space from wordpress, but I find that I can’t customize it, yet you are. Have the rules changed? Is there a paid wordpress that would allow me to monetize it? Is there a reliable site that reviews blog software that is easy to install and use and that will allow me to monetize my blog?
Thank You, and if this is addressed elsewhere, please point there with a link(s).
Richard.
@ richard:
For USD $15 you can pay for the CSS Extra which allows you to “design” your blog’s WordPress Theme using the Sandbox Theme. You have no control over the templates files but CSS only.
Also, the Terms of Service of WordPress.com allow no advertising.
All web hosts for self-hosted WordPress sites allow advertising if you pay for the shared or other hosting options. So you have hundreds of choices. I do not have any recommendations for web hosts right now. I’m looking myself.
There are many blogs that specialize in articles and information on monetizing your blog. I recommend that you check those out. I don’t cover that much here. As for review sites for blog software – just use WordPress and you’re fine. The rest of the world does.
hey, how can I get an image of my blog site? I need to upload a preview pic of my site, but I don’t have one. Thanks for your help!
@ miguelpineiro:
There are a variety of “Print Screen” freeware and shareware programs you can try. I use Jasc/Corel Paint Shop Pro which has the feature built-in, or check your own graphic program to find a way of doing screen captures.
Be sure and reduce the file size and viewable size so it is small enough for fast loading and fitting within a web page design.
Hi Lorelle, one Question: Can I also download “blogger tips” as a pdf and pay per paypal or so – or can I just order it over blogherald?
Thanks for an answer,
Mario
@ Mario:
That sounds like two questions.
The book is not currently available as an ebook, though I’m working on it. The only methods currently to order the book is to appear at a conference I’m speaking at or order it through the Blog Herald or SplashPress.
Thanks.
Hey Lorelle, thanks for the comment left on my blog…I found this today and I would like to get your thoughts on it. It is another bog that has quoted my blog and provides a link back to the original article…do you think this person has this person stolen my content? Is there anything I should do about it?
http://photoshop.research-hub.info/2008/03/05/raw-vs-jpeg%e2%80%a6file-sizes/
thanks
Thom thomdurfee.com
Hey Lorelle, thanks for the comment left on my blog…I found this today and I would like to get your thoughts on it. It is another blog that has quoted from an article on my blog and provides a link back to the original article…do you think this person stolen my content? Is there anything I should do about it?
http://photoshop.research-hub.info/2008/03/05/raw-vs-jpeg%e2%80%a6file-sizes/
thanks
Thom thomdurfee.com
Hey Lorelle…thanks for the comment on my blog…
On this site, someone has excerpted an article I published on my blog and then included a link to my article on my blog. Is this a common thing or has this site stolen my content?
I ave been trying to track down the owner of this blog to no avail. Your thoughts please.
@ Thom:
Your comments went into the spam queue as the link you posted was recognized as a “bad” one, I suppose.
Only you can decide if your content has been ripped off. You are the decision maker. If it violates your copyright policy, which is clearly stated on your blog, and Fair Use, then use the techniques in What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content.
It’s very common, unfortunately, so you are not alone. I had to shoot three bloggers today for stealing my stuff.
Thanks Lorelle…then if I did something like this, you would not have a problem with it…
Having been the target of copyright thieves, and working with writers, authors, and photographers on copyright protection and laws for over 25 years, I thought I’d talk a little about what to do when someone steals your content…
[read more...]
I paraphrased the first paragraph from your article with a link to your article as the read ore…
I am trying to get a sense of what fair use is.
What I just cited as an example to you, is what that site is doing to me…I only found out they were doing it because they left a very strange comment on the article…I deleted it thinking it was garbage but maybe I should have kept it.
I probably let it slide for now…at least they link back to the original article.
@ Thom:
Fair Use is citing legally as usage that can take away the income potential of the work. For blog content, a standard for Fair Use is becoming 10% or 400 words. You have to define it for yourself. What point has someone gone too far when copying any portion of your work. There are no clear laws that say one way or the other until the issue gets into the court, so it’s up to you to decide. It’s your content.
It’s like your car. How far does someone have to steal your car in order to consider it stolen? If they get into the car but don’t start it, is it stolen? Or do they have to start the engine? But what if they start it and don’t drive anywhere? A sorry analogy, but it’s up to you to decide at which point your work is abused and then proceed accordingly.
Thanks Lorelle for the words on what constitutes fair use.
I just wanted to make sure that using a sentence or two from the original article to make a intro before putting a link in to the original article was not going to get me into any trouble.
Being new to blogging and with your helpful articles, and answers to my posts, I am learning a lot.
thanks again.
I really wanted to order your book, but I get nothing but errors please try again page not found in a little box on paypal’s checkout page.
@ ecoinsomniac:
Thanks for letting me know. I’ve contacted the publisher and asked them to look into this.
Hi Lorelle,
I just want to inform you that I really appreciate you as a woman so I added you to the Top 10 Best Women Blogger with Influence. Keep blogging, you help others a lot
Hey, I couldn’t find anywhere else to comment, so it’ll just be here
Thanks for the comment, and for the advice! I wasn’t expecting that you would follow my linkback, it’s a nice surprise
Thanks again,
Tyler Gresham
@ moneymakingtips:
Always write as if the world is watching.
You never know!
Hey Lorelle- Thanks for the comment, I’m actually embarassed that you saw that already. We just started putting the site up a few days ago so there’s not a lot to it…but maybe we’ll get you to come back again someday.
Thanks again for all of your help and for everything you do with your site.
Your site is such a great resource! I am familiar with some contact form plugins and have been a big fan of cformsII; however I need to do a site that has a lot of REALLY long forms. None of the plugins I seem to find allow for multiple columns or allow you to put fields side by side. I can’t have a form 100 lines long…any easy suggestions aside from changing the stylesheets (forum on cformsII plugin site didn’t suggest this because of cross browser compatibility)?
@ Jamie:
Forms are styled with CSS, which would be what you need to have columns of forms. That’s not a Plugin issue. That’s a web design issue. For something like what you describe, I recommend you find a good web designer to design your forms.
Hi I have a question to ask you as it seems you have true passion for WordPress and blogging (and of course the best person to help).
How do I remove trackbacks of my own? For example if I link to one of my posts and a trackback will show up in the comments section. How can I make it such that only trackbacks from other blogs will appear other than mine?
@ Zhe Bin:
If a trackback of your own blog’s links appear in another of your own blog post comments/trackbacks and you don’t want it there, delete it. Leaving it there, however, is excellent for SEO and reader usability. It helps the reader find related articles within your blog so they will spend more time on your blog and help them find the information they need. It helps search engines find all the posts on your blog by tracking the various links back and forth.
If a trackback of yours appears on another blog not of your control, you can only ask the owner if they will remove the trackback.
Trackbacks are invaluable, from your own blog and others, to help connect all the content dots by readers and search engines. It is a normal, traditional, and expected process of a blog.
Lorelle: Today, I released a new WordPress theme (or system) for creating a Contact Manager with WordPress. Similar to WP-Contact Manager but with more features… and the ability to create your contact from the front end. Not using Write-Posts. Additionally, I announced that we are looking for Plugin programmers to work with us in developing a real open-source CRM based on WordPress. Any help you can provide in getting the word out about our CRM initiative would be appreciated.
Thanks
Steve
Hi Lorelle, my wife and I enjoyed so much meeting you at WordCamp Dallas recently! I have a rather nuanced question (I think) that needs an answer from someone with your depth of experience and breadth of opinion–or is that vice versa?.
BACKGROUND: I started a self-hosted WordPress (www.jkguin.com) blog after WordCamp (there’s a compromising picture of you on it in fact), the three:-( articles I managed to post got good traffic and one became a feature on a national Public Relations website, but I had a lot of trouble focusing it. {I’m SO ADD} Soon after, I learned I had won a pass to the Future of Web Design conference in London through an “idea” blog competition held by a web designer in South Africa.
Being the first person from my family to leave the mainland, I wanted to blog the trip for everyone. I started up a WordPress.com (jkguin.wordpress.com) account about a week ago, thinking it would be easier to blog from and that I could migrate it later to my main blog. I haven’t promoted it, or even told anyone about it outside my family, but it seems to have taken off for a small-timer: 50-100 page views a day and growing. The designer of Digg & Pownce even left a comment responding to a smart-@$$ remark I made on his presentation.
QUESTION: I’m back in Louisiana now, but still have content being released twice a day with enough to last another week. Should I still migrate to the hosted blog after this is over or try to make a go of it with WordPress.com?
A web developer friend of mine said migration at this point could permanently hurt my SEO since Google has already indexed both and penalizes for duplicate content.
I’ve always planned to make the hosted account a portfolio of my design and strategic PR work as well. Soooo maybe the lobotomized route is the way to go since potential employers may not care for some of my bloggy opinions.
Any thoughts?
Best to you, oh Empress of WordPress.
Jeff
I am a newbie at Word Press (though I have set up a website with FrontPage and it turned out great). But I am having trouble understanding all there is to learn about Word Press. Has someone written a 1-2-3-4-5……..20-21….step guide to setting up Word Press? I am determined to be successful at this, but I’ve already spent way too many hours and still do not see the end of the tunnel.
Avis
@ Avis Hulvey:
The WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress Users, is the place to start. I’d start under WordPress lessons.
Also, while you may think your start with FrontPage is great, you have just entered web design hell. Please begin with a WordPress Theme (or three) and give yourself more time. FrontPage causes more website errors and problems, some of them found immediately, others down the road bringing nightmares, than most other web design programs. If you truly are an expert in web design, you can force it to work for you, but why get off to a bad start. Pretty isn’t anything if the code is bad under the hood.
I also recommend you get my book as it will teach you all you need to know about blogging. There really isn’t much to “know” about WordPress if you use it right out of the box. It’s about content, not “WordPress” nor gimmicks, that makes or breaks a blog or website.
Good luck, and feel free to dig through the more than 2000 articles here that I have written, teaching you how to use WordPress and blogging.
I wanted to thank you for your post about auto upgrading. I suspect it saved me all sorts of headaches. Could you do a followup? Ple-e-ease? Are you still hearing reports about people having upgrade issues? Is there any pattern to the biggest sources of trouble? Is WordPress doing anything to update auto-upgrade to avoid those problems?
Love your blog!
@ quixote:
Currently, there is no “auto-updating” feature on WordPress.com. Hopefully there will be soon, but for now, the same technique you used to upgrade in 2005 is the same available today.
There is, however a new Plugin auto-updater which has a lot of problems – not so much on the WordPress side as the Plugin author side. Plugins must be in the WordPress Plugin Directory and be standardized with code the Updater will recognize. Are you talking about that?
Future versions are supposed to have the upgrade for the core programming…many are anxious for that.
@Lorelle
I’m not on wordpress.com, but have my own site that uses wordpress. I was talking about the WP Automatic Upgrade feature that recently (and finally!) appeared. I’d understood from the post here and on other sites that people had had various problems with it. Or are all the problems related to plugins no longer working? That’d be pretty inconvenient, too, of course, but a different kind of problem than breaking the software the blog actually rests on.
(Is the Plugin auto-updater different? Part of automatic upgrade? Only on wordpress.com? Sorry to be so ignorant! I didn’t even know I had these questions.)
One added note: I tried the WP pre-flight check plugin, and it had no complaints about my heavily modified theme. But it complained about every single plugin, including the preflight check plugin!, saying that it didn’t have the right permissions and couldn’t access the directory. That implies to me that a) (some of the?)security on my site is okay since programs can’t get directories they don’t normally need, and b) it didn’t actually check any of the plugins and they might be fine or not.
@ quixote:
I haven’t dug into WordPress 2.5.1 as it was just released, but WordPress 2.5 did not feature a “program” upgrade, only Plugins, which is what the problems have been.
I don’t know if the Pre-flight Plugin has been updated to WordPress 2.5. There are so many Plugins like this, it’s hard to keep up. Check their site for details to see if it has been updated to work with the new version.
And do direct your queries to the WordPress Support Forum for help. I’m on the road right now so responses will be slow.
You call that slow? I call it brilliant! And I apologize for what amounts to a support question. My excuse is that I didn’t realize that’s what it was until now
, but you’re right, WP support is where those questions belong.
Thanks again for a wonderfully informative blog!
Hi Lorelle
was looking at the SobCon08 pictures – Nice… and I remember reading a comment on the previous pictures to have these pictures in a slide show or with the next, previous tags… I thought Photobucket allowed you to put the pictures in slide mode, just hadn’t tried it myself but then I came to Renny’s blog who has put the slide shows often on his blog. Jjust makes it easy to view pictures
thanks for sharing them with the rest of us who couldn’t be there…
Regards
Pearl
@ Pearl:
Thanks. The slide show option might come some day to WordPress.com, but we’re only able to do what options they allow us to do. Self-hosted WordPress blogs have more options with Plugins and such.
Hi Lorelle,
My blog URL is http://mkonen.com/bblog. I set it up that way because I thought I would use mkonen.com to put up a website. Since I am not going to do that, would it be best to leave my URL the way it is? I really wanted a URL more descriptive of what the blog is about (fitness). Would it be a huge hassle to change addresses at this point?
Thanks!
@ MarkFu:
Hassle? It depends upon what you mean by hassle. People change their URL all the time and while there is a slight dip in PageRank (and Google isn’t the end all and be all), they just change and set up redirects to get the visitors to the new site. Others see this as a hassle. It’s up to you.
Yeah, I see what you mean. I suppose it is a short term hassle ( I hardly ever even use that word)! In the bigger picture, I have a better URL. Thanks! BTW, I like your writing and love having Woopra!
Hi Lorelle,
Not sure if this is interesting news or not, but we’ve just posted a guide to installing and using WordPress on Windows Home Server, which, if you’ve not yet heard of it, is a new server platform specifically designed for the home.
This gives home users a new option for hosting a WordPress blog themselves, without the need for buying shared hosting – pretty cool!
@ Terry Walsh:
I’ll take a look at it, but I do hope you spelled WordPress as WordPress not WordPress to ensure your article passes muster for quality. Thanks.
Always happy for feedback – especially when it comes to QA
Best wishes
Terry
I have been getting a lot of hits over the last week on an obscure post I put up back in 11/07 (most of them are obscure, trust me). It turns out in the post, I put in a logo for my favorite football team I download from Google Images and now I find I have the #1 spot for that Google image search. How did that happen? Dumb luck? More importantly, how can I duplicate that? I looked back at the post and I didn’t anything different from any other post. Thanks!
@ MarkFu:
Duplicate it? Why? You got traffic. Big deal. How many stuck around? How many actually used your content? How many will come back for more.
The traffic from those types of content are everywhere and they do no one good except to consume bandwidth and waste your time and money. If that team suddenly does something awesome, your web host could hit you for more money due to the server load.
It isn’t worth it, and it doesn’t attract quality readers unless you are writing for those people and your content is all about them.
Some did stick around and look at content…about a third. What they came for was a specific thing and the topic of the image, while of great interest to me outside of blogging is only of minor relevance to what I write about, so I see your point. Artificially boosting stats for their own sake is of no interest, but wouldn’t mind at all getting my better postings hit more often, so I am asking about the “unless” you mentioned.
Thanks for your feedback, Lorelle. I look forward to getting your book. It should be very helpful.
Hi Lorelle,
I ordered your Blogging Tips book on May 1, 2008 and paid thru PayPal. I e-mailed SplashMedia twice to inquire about shipment, but still have not heard anything. Do you know of another avenue that I can contact them? Is the book still being sold?
Thanks! Hope you are well!
Best,
Melanie
Lorelle — have any suggestions on a classifieds ads plugin? Preferably something that will allow non-WP savvy users to post items from the front-end view.
Thanks for all your amazing work!
@ Jason:
No, I don’t use those types of Plugins.
Hi Lorelle –
Was wondering how long I should expect for delivery of your book. Perhaps I’m spoiled by Amazon, but I ordered your book on May 8, via PayPal. Never received an acknowledgment email, and so far, no book. (I’m kind of anxious to get my hands on it, can you tell? : D )
Thanks – Bob
Hi Lorelle! My organization, Blog Indiana, is hosting a 2-day blogging and social media conference that aims to promote education, innovation and collaboration among Indiana’s fast-growing blogging community. I know you’re on the road, and I’m wondering if you’ll be around the Midwest the weekend of August 16th. We’d love to have you stop in Indianapolis and share your extensive knowledge (and sell a few books to boot). We’re especially interested in your take on best practices for content creation and your experiences with the WordPress platform. Let me know if you’re available at all that weekend; we can talk compensation as well.
@ Bob Nolin:
The book is sent through the US Mail as media mail in order to keep the shipping costs as low as possible, which, by the way, have increased and we will be raising shipping costs accordingly. The books can take a few days to two weeks in the US, for reasons I cannot determine and make no sense. Recently, I’ve heard from many in the US that it is taking a bit longer than usual but the Post Office has no explanation.
Books sent internationally are sent first class, which is much more expensive and will also be going up in price, and take 1 week to three months. We’ve looked into faster shipping rates internationally and I haven’t found anyone willing to pay more than USD $60 a book for faster shipping prices.
Shipping costs and time for online purchases is the hottest industry around. The first to get molecular transportation (beaming technology) working will win. I bet you Amazon is working on that right now.
@ Shawn Plew:
Thanks for contacting me. I’ve replied by email with the unfortunate response that I will be at WordCamp San Francisco on that very date. I’d love to be there! Good luck with the event and think of me next time.
I came upon your blog and thought that your subscribers might find this video about using Stumbleupon to help create blog content. Please feel free to post. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVCMlyBjTxk
Thank you!
@ Mary Weaver:
Thank you for contacting me. I’ve searched through the book orders and have found nothing under your name or email address or URL. I removed the email address you published as publishing it is bad form and I don’t recognize the email at all. I’ll contact the publisher, SplashPress, and have them go through their files to see if any of your information pops up. Sorry for the confusion and I hope we figure this out.
Hi Lorelle,
Let me preface this by saying I am relatively new to blogging but very experienced at being technologically-challenged. I apologize in advance if this question is so easy to answer that you kinda want to slap me.
I found this theme online, but I can’t seem to figure out who to get the code to upload. The theme is called GLADIOLA and it was designed by Brian Gardner. I was going to contact him directly but there is no email on his website and he appears to be the midst of a major home improvement project, so I am not sure he’d get back to me even if I had his email.
Any help would be great!
Thanks,
Jenn
@ thecoconutdiaries:
The place where you got the theme should have instructions for uploading and installing. See the WordPress Codex (online manual for WordPress) article, Using Themes, for more details on installing WordPress Themes.
Hi Lorelle-
this is great. thanks. I am learning as a I go, and I will be checking here quite a lot.
I just started my blog recently. I have on two occasions posted song lyrics that I found poignant and 1 poem, all that i found elsewhere on the internet.
Can you do an article on the proper way to post these words of someone else’s on my blog? I searched your blog and couldn’t find, so if the answer is already in here, please direct me.
Thanks for your great contribution and congrats on the 9rules nomination.
thanks
~a
@ Ya Chun:
What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content will help. You are not allowed to publish the copyrighted work of anyone or anything without permission except within Fair Use allowances, which vary. Check the copyright policy of the source. For me, it’s 10% or 400 words before you have violated my blog’s copyright policy.
Thank you for your kind words and congratulations, though I’ve been a member of 9Rules for over a year. Is this something new?
Hi Lorelle,
Someone who hates me very much did a blog about me. He said alot of bad things about me and actually put up pics and comments about me, faking it like i actually did the blog myself.
However, he has got a disclaimer on the content and also the picture.
What actions can i possibly take to stop him from doing that and to what extent can I go to?
Please advise.
In your book you say to blog twice a week. What days should you be posting your blogs?
Thanks,
Mark
@ Mark Nelson:
It’s your blog, it’s your choice, and twice a week is a general recommendation and may not pertain to your blogging needs. See When is the Best Time and Day to Post on Your Blog? for more specifics on how to choose the best time and day to publish blog posts, but remember, what works for one blogger might not work for you. Good luck!
@ ND:
If the blogger has a disclaimer, then other than enjoying the attention, you hire a lawyer, but the disclaimer may hold them harmless. Still, check with a lawyer as this goes into libel and defamation. Good luck.
Hi Lorelle,
This is such a great site, especially for new bloggers. I just want to ask a question and post a comment on media mail.
My question is: How can I add an additional column in WordPress Veryplaintxt Version 4.5.3. I just started by blog last week and finally decided on this theme. I ordered your book because I have so many questions and so little knowledge on blogging.
Comment: Your response about the timing of media mail is correct. I sell on eBay and for the past month have had people asking me if I have mailed their merchandise. Since I have a reputation for quick shipping, I asked a friend of mine who drives mail from Atlanta to the Northeast. This is what he told me. Because of the increase in gas prices, the only mail that USPS sends out immediately is First Class, Priority and Overnight mail. Other services such as Parcel Post and Media mail sit on the dock until the truck is full.
Hope this helps, love you site, need all the help I can get.
@ Valerie:
Thanks for the info on media mail. As to your question on adding a column, that involves CSS and HTML which may be a bit complex if you are new to all this. I recommend that you either contact the author to see if an additional sidebar version is available for that Theme, find a new Theme, hire a web design expert to add it, or start learning HTML and CSS and expect to be able to change it in a few weeks. Or just be happy with what you have.
Web design is not as easy as many think it is, especially when it comes to changing the architecture. It’s not like adding something and expecting it to work. You have to take away things (space) in order to make it work and then watch everything shift around and have to change everything else to fit the sidebar in.
For WordPress, be sure and check out the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress Users, for help.
Thanks!
Thanks for the quick response. I think for right now I will stick with two columns. When I get further along with my blog, I might try to hire someone to add a third column.
Also, what is your opinion about photographs in a blog. I am thinking about adding photographs occasionally to make the blog more personable in sharing about my family’s caregiving experience with my sister.
@ Valerie:
If the photographs are yours and not copyright protected, then you can include them if they are appropriate. You can include video, music, podcasts, audio, whatever you want, as long as it is not copyrighted content. It’s your blog. It’s up to you. A blog can be whatever you want it to be, just as long as you aren’t hurting anyone else. Go for it.
Lorelle – Hi Met you at SOBCOn08.. I need help.
I’m stuck. I even hired someone and I’m still stuck. Do you know what this is? I upgraded & all the images are gone- even from the dashboard,. so if I login, the default theme doesn’t even show the blue image in the preview section of design/themes. no images.. Any idea what file is missing or corrupt? I’ve spent 4 days on this and $100′s already.
Hi. Lorelle… I just need your opinion on something… I belong to this state in South India, Kerala. And I regularly visit certain sites around the Keralite or Mallu blogging community…
Recently, I saw this post that involves plagiarism, content theft, and other cyber crimes… There is apparently quite some fervor around the issue, but nothing seems to be happening about it… I’d really like to know what you think about it… Whenever you get the time…
Maybe you can help me out in another regard as well… I altered some freely available wordpress theme to suit my site and used the same.
I have been using it ever since I moved in to wordpress… However, I am told that the site layout seems to be screwed up when viewed on different machines, different browsers, etc…
Now I am not technically skilled by any stretch of the word. I’ve tried analysing the syntax of whatever I thought might be wrong and came up empty handed.
Is there some person who you can direct me to… who can assess my site’s layout and at least give some guidance to correct it?
@ Hammy:
Well, that post is certainly a lesson in how not to handle a copyright issue. These issues have been around for a very long time and are not new, though people get excited about them when it happens to them. It will happen to EVERYONE online sooner or later. See What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content for more information on the proper way to handle these issues and see Plagiarism Today’s Jonathan Bailey for even more information. I’ve passed this on to him, too.
As for your second issue on WordPress Themes, there is help in the WordPress Support Forums for screwed up Themes which is run by volunteers. I really recommend that if you have messed up a Theme that you either reload the original Theme and then start over, making very small changes at a time, or finding a better Theme. There are thousands to choose from and that’s smarter than messing with it yourself. People think web design is easy, but they have no idea how complicated it is, which you are finding out.
If you are willing to pay, which is the fast and best way to get it done right, If you are looking for a WordPress expert, try the WordPress Consultants list from Automattic. Good luck!
Thanks a lot, Lorelle. I can’t stress enough how big a help you have been… Not just these comment replies… Your blog has helped me in several ways. Nowadays, whenever someone asks me about blogging and related issues, I always direct them here. So far, I haven’t seen a more authoritative site.
@ Hammy:
Thank you for the kind words, and good luck with your blog!
I have a photoblog with images hosted at Flickr and am using WordPress hosted on my own hosting. Is there a way to have the EXIF displayed? I’ve found plugins for galleries that do this, but they all require the image to be hosted at the same place as my blog. Google, Flickr, and WordPress haven’t given an answer that works yet.
@ Chris Osborne:
I haven’t heard of a WordPress Plugin that displays EXIF information on images published elsewhere. I don’t even know if sites like Flickr and such extract that information – but I assume they do from your comment. If you can’t find it, why not write your own WordPress Plugin, or ask in the WordPress Support Forum for someone to help.
I don’t use those off-site image services, so I don’t know.
We have some people tht would like to put our feed on their site but they want to custmize the way the feed shows up on their site (Title, images, text etc.). I had read an article on your site about this but still dont understand how to tell them do accomplish this.
@ James:
How to accomplish this? If they want your feed content and want to change the look, it’s up to them to customize it, not you. Let them worry about it. And it happens in the CSS styles. It’s their responsibility and unless they are paying you a lot, it’s up to them to write the styles to design the incoming content. You can’t control it on your end.
Hi Lorelle,
I hope you can help me with this problem. I have a blog on WordPress.org that I started about a month ago. For some reason I can no longer insert photos with the “add media” tool, I can only add a photo with the “img” tool. For me that also means I can’t make the photo a thumbnail or medium size. This just started last week.
Can you help me. Thanks.
@ Valerie:
Your best help will be found in the WordPress Support Forums for such an individual issue. They can help you track it down, but you need to tell them if you’ve added any new Plugins, which Plugins you are using, WordPress version, and such to make sure you provide as much helpful information as possible to the support volunteers.
Good luck!
Hi Lorelle,
You probably get a lot of emails from neophyte bloggers like me but I hope you don’t get tired of responding to our “ignorant” queries about effective blogging.Well, I come across terms like social media and social networking a lot but I am not really sure what it is or how it works or where to start? Help !Your feedback will be greatly appreciated. Thanks! I really appreciate your blogsite.
@ MG:
Social media and social network are basically words used to define “sharing” and how people on the web are more social. It’s more of a party on the web, where it’s important to meet other like-minded people and talk, finding commonality among other party attendees.
How do you start? Blogging is part of social media and networking. So is using a forum, Twitter, del.icio.us, Digg, and anything where the users have a say in the process, by choosing, participating, submitting, or commenting. It’s not hard. You just did it by leaving a comment on my blog. OMG, you are now a part of the social web! Welcome.
Actually, don’t worry about. Be curious and check out all the different things that everyone is talking about and see how it works. It’s easy. Just let it happen. Soon you will be very social.
Hi,
I’ve got the same question as Nathan (http://lorelle.wordpress.com/contact/#comment-212184) but unfortunately you haven’t answered it.
snipeseye
Actually, I have, but not on this page. Here are some of the possible answers, and there are tons more on the web and in the WordPress Support Forums:
Separating Comments and Trackbacks in WordPress – The Answer
The Debate Over Comments and Trackbacks
Template Tags/ comments number « WordPress Codex
The Loop in Action « WordPress Codex
Separating Pingbacks and Trackbacks from Comments in WordPress
Managing Trackbacks and Pingbacks in Your WordPress Theme
But thanks for the reminder to add the answer here, though it isn’t the best place for such a discussion.
Awesome, what I wanted was in the last article.
Thanks.
hi lorelle,
to get the website url for every registered member of my blog in a same format i have made some change in user-edit.php. the change is like this…
<input type=”text” name=”url” id=”url” value=”user_url.’myblog.com/’.$profileuser->user_login ?>” disabled=”disabled”
so whenever a new user gets registered in my blog the website url in his profile field automatically becomes:
http://myblog.com/user_login_name
and it is unchangable. i have done this as because this is the profile page url format for individual registered user in my blog and i want to force them to use their own profile page url in their respective website field.
after doing this i have tried with both comment_author_link and comment_author_url_link in my theme’s comments.php file. but none of them generating the changed url. comment_author_link only showing the name of the user without any link. and comment_author_url_link only providing http://. it means the change i have made in user_edit.php is not working in the comment section linking at all.
i m surely making mistakes somewhere but dont know exactly where it is.
can u plz help me out of this situation??
i love ur blog so much. it helps me more than i can say managing my own blog.
thnx a lot for ur wonderful contribution.
take care..
@ Zihad:
I’m glad to help, but you are torturing WordPress beyond my capacities. This one is for the WordPress Support Forum as I see no reason to 1) do this and 2) make your users do this. As you can see, it causes problems down the line. A custom login is usually one with the logo and look that matches the site, but not one that gives every user a custom entry. Good luck and let me know what you come up with.
hi lorelle,
thnx for the reply and forgive me for the late response. i have already found some other way and surely without torturing wordpress.
can u plz suggest me some plugins with which i can quote lines and paragraphs both from comment and post and use it while making comment? i have already tried Quoter plugin but its not working well with wp 2.5.1
looking forward to hear frm u. thnx again..
take care…
@ Zihad:
A Plugin to copy and paste? No. I just use my mouse to select, the shortcut keys to copy, then paste and wrap the quote in a blockquote tag. Faster than any gimmick. I’m sure there is something out there, but it would have to go a LONG way to be faster than what I do dozens of times a day.
@ Amir:
This sounds interesting. You can contact me via my public and rarely abused email address listed at the top of this page if you would like to hire me as a consultant to review and advise you on your new service.
I read your blog semi regularly and I had a general question on blogging. When do you archive old posts, and is there a general method on how that should be done? I wasn’t sure how to contact you any other way, so if you have any tips, please let me know.
Thanks.
@ m@:
Archive? You are thinking of the old style of website or blogs. There is no archiving today, especially with WordPress blogs. It just happens naturally that posts will fall off the front page of the blog. To find them, the visitor searches or uses the categories which group the content into collected and related topics, or tags which are like index words. Archives are not used any more. In fact, it is not even recommended to display monthly archive lists of your posts in the sidebar as few people use them and they are clutter since they have little value other that to show off how long you’ve been blogging. A “Blogging since 1994″ in your tagline, profile, About Page, or in your blog’s description in the sidebar does the job without all the clutter.
Nice to see someone else giving advice and spreading knowledge on WordPress and Blogging.
I install WordPress for Free, so if any of your visitors are interested, or you can link me (I’ll recip).
@ wpfree:
Yes, it is nice to see others blogging about WordPress. As one of the first, it’s fascinating to see all the ways people are using WordPress in their business and as a business, even though it’s free.
There is a free WordPress Community volunteer service that asks for nothing, no money, no links called Install WordPress for Free (Install4Free WordPress). Very experienced WordPress Support Forum volunteers will install WordPress for free to individuals. It’s a great service and I support it fully.
Hello Lorelle!
Sorry I haven’t contacted you since Vegas. I have been busier than a three legged cat in a litter box! I just wanted to let you know what a pleasure it was meeting you. You are an incredibly intellegent, sweet and knowledgable person! I feel like I made a new friend, and thanks for fixing my back. That camera can get a little heavy after a while. I am sure if John P. knew I was writing you he would say hello, and that everyone from Layered sends their best. I really enjoyed LT pact and learned an immense amout from it and the people that spoke there. I look forward to seeing you the next time that your in Dallas.
Take care,
Rob
@ Robert Mitchell:
Thanks Robert, and I will probably see you soon as I’m heading in that direction in the next month! That was so much fun. I really look forward to doing more with Layered Tech and YOU!
It’s good to know there is someone you can ask about wordpress and it’s blogs. I’ve been thinking for a while about having my own blog on wordpress site and I had some questions related to that site. Your blog and the people who posted on it gave me some answers. Thank you.
Lorelle,
WordPress allows to set feeds to either “full text” or “summary” format – what if I want the feed for one category (i.e. newsletter) to be a full text feed, yet all other category feeds, including the main feed, to be summary feeds?
Thanks in advance, much appreciated.
Uli
Hey Lorelle!
Just wanted to let you know that Lorelle on WordPress is on the top 50 list at Thrilling Blog Search. TBS is a new open community search tool I’ve started that returns really awesome results from 50+ of the web’s most awesome blogs. You can use it to help make your blogging workflow more productive by adding a search widget to your iGoogle homepage, or you can share the search engine with your users on your own site!
This is a community tool, so I could really use help promoting it to the blogosphere. Anyone can help out by using the custom search engine for themselves, blogging about it, or by contributing suggested sites.
Let me know if there’s anything I can do to improve. Thanks!
-Cody
@ Cody McKibben:
Interesting use of Google Custom Search. Thanks for the inclusion and good luck with your project.
Hello Lorelle, You may recall me from some of your blogging challenges I have taken up. The most recent one, was about blog failures. You had written about it in the Blog Herald.
I am Atul Sabnis, who wrote as Gaizabonts. I am writing because, morning of 6th Aug, GMT, my primary blog, Gaizabonts, and fifteen of my other linked other blogs were hacked into. My corresponding email was taken over too, which has left me with lettle devices to claim my blog back. Needless to say, the fine folks at WordPress are in touch and we are looking at a way to resolve this.
I tried searching your blog for information on what could be done in such instances, could not find something relevant to my situation. Could you point me to any resources?
I have temporarily moved to selaphor,wordpress.com.
Thank you,
Atul Sabnis
@ Atul Sabnis:
So sorry to hear about this. Many WordPress blogs that are at risk because they haven’t updated are sitting out there vulnerable. I’m working on an article directed at them, but you can find some help and solutions in WordPress Blogs and More Hacked by Google Redirects and WordPress Security Prevention, Reactions, and Scares.
Hang in there. Like copyright infringements, site hacks are becoming more of a “when” than “if” event in our online lives. Good luck!
Lorelle,
Thank you. Can you imagine, my blog was restored within 24hrs of my raising the issue with WordPress Support. Those guys are amazing.
The links you have provided, talk more of the hosted WordPress; mine is with WordPress.com. In any case, some of the common sense themes apply across, I guess.
@ Gaizabonts:
Glad to help. The issues that face WordPress.com blogs when it comes to security issues are the same as those facing full version WordPress blogs, the difference comes that with a WordPress.com blog, someone else gets the honor of fixing your blog.
And you get faster help. If one WordPress.com blog is hacked, hundreds of thousands are at risk.
By fixing the problem in a WordPress.com blog, the full version WordPress blogs are helped as the lesson is passed on through the developers.
Good work and so glad they were able to resolve this so fast.
why are there so many problems with wordpress?
@ John:
You have to be more specific with such questions. There are not “so many problems” with WordPress. It depends upon your definition. WordPress is an ongoing and developing program, supported by staff and volunteers within the WordPress Community. The testing is done publicly and transparency, so you hear both the positive and negative in the feedback. Either way, you have to be specific when you make such statements so people will know how to respond.
Recently Google updated their PageRank system with the past couple of weeks. My WordPress blog went from a PR4 to a PR0 in one day. Why do you think this is? My last entry was awhile ago, but to be a PR4 to PR0 for that reason is ludicrous!
What is your professional opinion?
@ mortgagediaries:
For a professional opinion, I’m available for hire.
The day when we all lived and breathed Google PageRank scorecards is over. There are many reasons why your site went south. The fact that it is designed with archaic and broken code under the hood? That it’s stuffed with Flash that has no keywords to add to their database? That it lacks basic SEO standards and principles? There are many reasons, including ones we just don’t understand or know. I recommend you find the value in your metrics elsewhere and clean up your site’s situation to improve your chances at every level.
In my older WP version in Dashboard under Latest Activity there are Blog Stats which has a a line that reads:
“There are currently xxx posts and xxx comments, contained within xx categories”.
Is there a way (plugin?) to copy this line, automatically update it and write it as an include wherever you want to place it? I’m mostly interested in a way to display an up-to-date running count of the number of posts I’ve made to my blog.
Thanks.
@ binarywolf:
This might help: Display the Total Number of WordPress Posts , Comments, and more in WordPress
I took your advice. Now I only blog about things I enjoy that I perceive to be quality content. I don’t blog to make other people happy. Because then it would be work and I would soon quit.
I’m very happy.
And the blog seems to be doing well too.
You did suggest all these things.
Didn’t you?
@ davidlind:
I always suggest these things. I’m glad your blog is doing well. Great work. And thanks for the kind words.
Thank you very much for the link. I was able to get the php code to work on my sidebar.
Hi!
I am going to wordcamp on Saturday, and during Wordcamp, I am going to be leading online wordgames on different people’s blogs.
They will be silly, fun, low tech games using wordpress blogs.
Would you like to host a game on your blog?
Each game takes 15 minutes, and you would need to be able to post the game, and keep track of comments that 15 minutes while you are at wordcamp.
Go to http://www.bodyabcs.com/bwp/word-games/ to read more about it.
Much Love,
dk
can you let me know how you insert your signature into your blogs? — it’s a really nice touch (what code do you use & where do you insert — thanks in advance)
@ Steve:
Adding a Signature To Personalize Your Blog Post will help.
You are a wonderful teacher. I am not technical and you empowered me (atleast so far) to get more information and to do this thing. You and I spoke at WordCamp and I will purchase your book. How can I get you to autograph my book when I order it online?
@ Craig Bright:
Thank you for you kind words. When you purchase the book through PayPal, leave a note reminding me, and I’ll make sure to autograph a copy for you. Thank you!
Hi, there, back with another question on importing posts! The Moveable Type import doesn’t appear to allow for import of tags. Any idea if there’s a way to make that happen, or do you know of another import method for a raw file of new posts that would somehow allow for import of tags info into WP’s native tags field?
Hi, Lorelle –
About a dozen recent posts on my blog have “broken out” in a kind of text acne — the non-ASCII character “” symbol just suddenly started appearing throughout the posts. They seem to cluster around html tags such as links, bold, and italics, but not exclusively. Does this sound like I’m being hacked, or do I need to turn off something in the dashboard? It’s odd that they just suddenly appeared in posts that I haven’t touched for months. I use Safari, if that’s a clue at all. I know there were some issues with Safari in previous WP versions.
Thanks for any help you can shed on the matter!
@ plagasse:
Help for this will come from the WordPress Support Forum. Have you brought this up to them?
If you have made any changes in your WordPress blog, added a Plugin, tweaked the Theme – these could be the culprit. Check on another browser to see if looks okay and isn’t a Safari issue. It could be a hack, it could be a server issue. I don’t know but the Forums is the place to start. Good luck!
Thanks, Lorelle! Will do…
Paul
i have a dumb question – there aren’t any, right? right? — how in the world do i change the point SIZE in my wordpress.org self-hosted blog? That is I want to change every post to automatically be bigger (and a different color and have the links stand out more) should I just change the whole theme? sighville. thanks lorelle. i did TRY to find this on wordpress.org and it made my head hurt the instructions were so complicated and not quite what I was asking.
@ washwords:
Bigger fonts? For you or for your readers? They are two different things.
If you want bigger fonts for some elements in your full version of WordPress blog for your readers, then you change them in the CSS/stylesheet.css in your Theme’s folder. It’s a bit complicated but checkout W3Schools Online Web Tutorials for tips and how-tos on how to change your font sizes with CSS.
If you need to change them for your experience on the web, making it easier to read, which could make it ugly for others to read, then use the View > Text Size in your browser menu or the Ctrl+PLUS shortcut (and minus) to enlarge the text in the browser.
Lorelle ,
Hey,
ı want to ask you something..
would you tell me how you did your signature at the bottom of your posts?
it is really urgent for me.
thanks for your help ,
p.s. good blog, good job, congrltns.. keeping the good work is the hardest one.. i think you can do it!
@ talhuk:
Thank you. After fifteen years of blogging, I’m still rocking and writing.
See Adding a Signature To Personalize Your Blog Post for tips on adding the graphic. It’s not for everyone, but it is fun for some.
I don’t know if you’ll ever get to read this but Lorelle I have a question: Is there a special set of codes or something I can use to make any template fit nicely into the different sizes of screens of my readers? Please correct me if I’m wrong as unlike an expert like you, I am very new into this but my perception is that, if the WordPress theme that I use has a fixed width, it will remain so, irregardless of the size of the monitor screen it appears on – true or false?
I wish there’s a code to make my template fit into any screen and thus versatile and fluid. Many people nowadays have huge LCD monitors and I’m thinking it’d be great if the template settings will stretch nicely and fit in nicely into my readers’ screens.
I will be grateful if you can answer or direct me to where I’m able to seek one. Thanks!
@ Nate:
Not read this? I read everything on my blog. Don’t you read yours?
There are all kinds of things you can do to make your WordPress Theme fit within a browser, but I personally like a flexible layout which stretches to fix whatever screen size you have rather than something that tests the user’s monitor and resolution and delivers a stylesheet accordingly. That’s just a lot of work.
Look for a flexible or fluid width Theme layout, one that uses percentages rather than fixed pixel widths. Positioniseverything.net and Yahoo ! UI Library: Grids CSS have some great examples if you are willing to do this yourself.
Mine is designed accordingly. All the design work I do only uses fluid, flexible widths. I hate fixed widths. But for easy, drop-in code – no such luck. It has to be designed from the ground up to be flexible. Just keep hunting through the WordPress Themes. There are a few flexible width Themes.
Hi Lorelle. I have a question that I have been looking for the answer up and down and cannot find it, but I know it has to be an option in word press. Anyways, my question is how do I change the text link text in the sidebar for a page? What’s happening is my home page title is “Welcome to my blog!” and in the left sidebar I want it to say “Home” for the home page. But instead it says “Welcome to my blog!”
How can I change it to display “Home” instead of my home page title?
@ Michael Cottier:
For a specific page? Just the front page and no other pages? You edit your WordPress Theme and add a Conditional Tags that says “if viewing the ‘home’ page, display X.”
If you want the fix to be permanent, then edit the sidebar.php template file for your WordPress Theme and manually add the link and wording you want.
Or change “Welcome to my blog” as that is just old and boring.
Home is also boring, but a standard.
Does that answer your question? For questions like this, I recommend you ask in the WordPress Support Forum and include a link to your blog so they can give you the personal assistance you need. Thanks.
Thanks Lorelle, you helped me fix the problem! I just edited my sidebar.php file like you said. Thanks again, and next time I will use the forum
Hi Lorelle, I’m Nate from no.602, and you really do check out this section! I am thankful for that, and your help. You’re a godsent. I must say I am a little bummed there’s no magical code to make the adjustments but like you say there are plenty of fluid width templates to choose from. Thanks again for the tips.
@ Zhe Bin:
Now that I see you are on WordPress.com, that changes things. WordPress.com has only a few WordPress Themes to choose from, but some fantastic choices. Some say they are fluid or flexible width, so read through the descriptions carefully. WordPress.com Themes can not be editing, but you can use their extra option and choose the Sandbox Theme and design your own, with no access to the underlying architecture just the CSS. That’s what I did, and I’ll be changing it soon.
Good luck, and thanks. Remember, you never know who is watching where on the web.
Hi Lorelle, the same Nate here. I have a new site at a purchased domain and I’ll be making a switch over there soon. Hence the interest in the configurations of a new theme. I’ve been looking around and I believe I’ll find one soon. Once again, thanks for the tip on using WordPress.com. I’ll pass this on to anyone who needs it.
Hi Lorelle
I have wordpress 2.6.2 and I am unable to post at a later date. I have checked the forums, googled it, can’t find an answer. I create a post, set publish for any time in the future and it disappears in to never never land. doesn’t even save in drafts!
I like that feature ALOT. any answers?
Hey and how are you Lorelle, this site is just what I have been looking for. There is much I don’t know about blogging, and I have tons of questions and your blog has tons of answers. There has been 1 question lately that is hounding me, I just can’t seem to find an answer that does it for me. I noticed that you have addressed how to utilize categories and tabs…but what puzzles me is ‘PAGES’, ‘SUB-CATEGORIES’ and “SUB-PAGES’…how best should these be used?
Thanks
Hello Lorelle,
I come to posting here as my last chance to find an answer to my problem… I have been looking around everywhere in WordPress forum, Google, yahoo, I asked around to people I know, and nothing…
My situation: I have google adsense ads inserted in my template and it works great. Ads show where they are supposed to be. However, I would like to “block” adsense from showing up on a few specific pages or posts.
Would you by any chance know how to do this? There has to be a quick fix for that.
I will be patiently hoping for a reply from you.
Thank in advance.
Sebastien
@ Sebastien:
This isn’t a WordPress question, which is why you are having trouble. It is an adsense issue. Unless you are using a WordPress Plugin to incorporate ads into your WordPress blog, and there are a variety around and some may offer what you need, this is not a WordPress issue.
I don’t know but it is worth checking to see how much “control” you are permitted to have over adsense ads on your site. You might not even be able to do this.
I recommend you try some of the adsense and ad/monetizing WordPress Plugins that might help you out.
Hi Lorelle,
Thank you for sending your book to me this week. I received it a few days ago and it is already paying dividends. Today we have a training session with a valued business associate and friend. Susan Hanshaw, my business partner and author, is providing blog training for our client and friend. I will be adding a strategic overlay and encouraging her to buy your book.
As a small way of giving back to you for your very kind time on the phone, on a Saturday no less, I wrote two book reviews for your book. The first one is currently on my WordPress.com blog called Bloggers Guide to Expertise by Lorelle VanFossen Blogging Tips and the second review I wrote on Active Rain-review called Book Review of Blogging Tips.
Please let me know that you received this note and thank you so much!
Dean Guadagni
Hey Lorelle,
My deepest apologies, i was using the wp-o-matic plugin, and forgot to click the setting that allowed the content to link back to the original source. My intention was not to “steal” your work, or the work of others, instead it was simply to show my readers the kind of blog posts i read on a daily basis. Plagarism @ school is something i am well aware of
Next time send an easier going email/comment, not all internet users are the devil 
Content is removed, sub-domain was set up yesterday, google hasnt crawled it, neither did anyone know it existed.
Again, sorry for the misunderstanding!!
@ Neil:
I understand and thanks for being so fast to respond. I and the others appreciate your fast response. Thanks!
Lorelle:
I haven’t been able to find the solution to my “post at a future date” problem. When I edit the date and time to publish the post, the post “disappears” I can’t get an answer in the forums or anywhere else. Is it just a bug? Is it just me? Any ideas or can you point me in the right direction?
Hi Lorelle,
Great news! First I must thank you. I am a member of Blogburst.com and my content is available as syndicated content for mass media editors to publish.
My book review on Blogging Tips was picked up and published by Reuters.com in their Business and Finance section. Here is the link as it was sent to me:
http://www.reuters.com/article/blogBurst/investing?bbPostId=Cz3n1x0G10FSiB3b1kZdDsSWFCz8v53Q1quaFQBBxGlSGUsni8
Thank you for your help and I hope this brings you much deserved exposure!
Dean and Susan
Inner Architect; Inner Architect Media
@ BloggerNewbie:
I have not had this problem and cannot recreate it. If no one else is having the program, it could be a Plugin conflict or something wonky with your setup. I recommend that you deactivate all your Plugins and test that. If it still is weird, then delete the WordPress programming files (following the guidelines in the Codex) and upload them again. You could have had a glitch while uploading the new version. Good luck.
Lorelle – made it back to Wally World in one piece. Just posted the picture of us from WordCamp PDX in my Facebook album. Thought you might want to know. Here’s a link:
http://tinyurl.com/4cz39r
Thanks Lorelle, I’ll give it a try. If I am successful, I will let you know. Thx again.
Do you know of a good WordPress plugin developer who would be available ASAP? I need a plugin developed where users can send private messages to eachother. pretty much a simplified version of Facebook’s rpivate messaging system. This would obviously be a paid job.
@ Lizane:
As listed at the top of this page, you can find WordPress experts in Plugins and Themes at those resources.
Hi Lorelle,
I notice that you use a lot of images and links in your sidebar, and thought that you might find our simple image link plugin useful.
No more fiddling with HTML within a text box.
I hope you find it useful.
Lid says hi.
Cheers
Martyn
Thanks for the suggestion but this blog is on WordPress.com with all that entails.
After posting the comment, I realized that maybe the case, but surely you are deserving of a premium WordPress.com blog
Lorelle:
Thank you so much for participating in the Network Solution video series. Is there a way we can contact you about when the video will run, details, etc.
Thanks!
Geoff
@ Martyn Davis:
Deserving? What does that mean?
I choose to be here. I have other blogs of all shapes and sizes and stripes, but this is one I am most proud to be a part of. It’s a living example of what is possible with WordPress.com. I don’t see it as limiting. It has actually been freeing.
Lorelle – abolutely positively sincerely no offense was ever intended. Deserving as in your of all people would deserve for Matt to give you your very own premium WordPress blog gratis so you can tweak it with your favorite plugins
@ Martyn Davis:
I do not have a premium WordPress blog. I have a normal, boring, no frills, free WordPress.com. I am not an employee, nor beneficiary of Automattic or WordPress’s good will other than as a friend and fan of WordPress. I get no favors here.
Hi Lorelle,
I tried connecting with you on Twitter about a partnership. Please get back to me for the details.
Thank you and hope to hear from you soon.
Jason
hi
if you have time please help me with a problem. my blogroll link category (the one that you can normamlly NOT delete) has dissapeared! any ideas on how i can get it back; thanks so much
@ giorgos:
See wp_list_bookmarks.
Hi,
Please can you help me as to how I can add posts to my 2nd page of wordpress? Im able to add a page to wordpress but Im not able to post a 2nd time in the new page! After the initial post, everytime i want to write somethng in the 2nd page it goes to the home page itself.
Please advise.
Thanks
Verbivore
@ verbivorehere:
For help with WordPress.com, please see the WordPress.com forums. To edit a Page you have published or in draft, go to your Manage > Pages panel and edit the page. Pages are not seen on the front page of a blog, unless they are selected to be on the front page in the options. Posts are supposed to be on the front page of the blog until they “move off” the page in the chronological order of blog posts. Or are you talking posts? It’s not clear but you will get faster and personal help from the forums. Thanks.
I am a potential new user of wordpress.com but need some questions answered first.
Tried FAQ–no results
Is the required upgrade for more than 30 posters for number of comments posted to one’s own blog or for number of people posting blogs?? In other words, if I start a blog and more than 30 people comment, do I have do pay for an upgrade or exactly how does this work?
Is there a way for one to get directions (and answers to FAQ) if one doesn’t have video capability??
I have my own server for my own website. Does that make a difference on my options for using wordpress.com services if I choose to do so??
Is there an E-mail address other than here to which I should be sending these questions?
Thanks. A Mudflats groupie pondering expanding into my own blogosphere.
@ Northern Exposure:
What required upgrade? Do you mean the paid feature to have more than 30 people with user access to your WordPress.com blog? It has nothing to do with comments. It’s the number of people registered to blog on your blog.
The FAQ and WordPress.com forums, and the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress Users, and this blog, have a ton of answers to most of your questions.
If you have your own server for your own site, use the full version of WordPress at http://www.wordpress.org/ not WordPress.com. The latter is the free hosted version of WordPress.
And please, it is bad manners to ask for someone to email you from blog comments. Just check back for an answer.Good luck with your new blog.
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.
Hi Lorelle!
Thanks for all your great posts and resources. I recently developed two plugins and was wondering if you would be willing to take a closer look at them and/or possibly add them to your plugins list. Let me know if you are interested. Thanks again and keep up the great work!
Hi, My blog says I entered this post at 3:45 AM and it is 10:37 PM. How do you change the clock or time zone to make it look like I wasn’t up at 3 am?
@ islandprincess15:
Under your Settings, you can change the time zone.
I am looking for help to customize a theme for my new website. I don’t have the time to learn and do it myself. Can you suggest some resources?
Thanks!
@ Jay Ehret:
I list sources for such help at the top of this page.
huge fan lorelle, check out my php script to approve comments outside of wordpress via xmlrpc: Approving Comments Outside of WordPress.
Hi Lorelle, I was wondering if it was OK to use your copyright policy as a framework for my own?
@ Scott:
Yes.
HI: Lorelle
I have been following your Blog about Word Press and I have read your Blogging tips as well as Word press for Dummies. I am new to word press and blogging and seem to be quite confused. I have tried some of the things you suggested and some of the things I found on the forums and help pages, Some worked and some do not. Most of the help I find online talks to you like you are a word press expert and I am not. I am just hacking my way developing a blog. I need some simple how to help and a way of learning
the ins and outs as I go without paging through miles of chit chat and meaning less
information on the forums.
Your book was a lot of help and your blog has lots of good information for the experienced user not the novice.
Do you know of any source for plain and simple information about word press ??
Thank for your help,
John Williams
Add the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress Users, to your list and you have everything. You are either out of your depth or plunging in way too deep without covering the basics. There are no other simple options. I recommend you either hire someone to avoid wasting any more of your valuable time, start from step one, or pick a Theme and concentrate on blogging, the real goal at the end of the day.
Also, please do not post your email on any blog publicly outside of the comment form. I’ve removed it to protect your privacy and security.
are you redoing Canvas? Or has it disappeared and if so, is there a wordpress theme creator you recommend? Thanks. Michael
I have nothing to do with Canvas – the Theme or the Plugin. I don’t know if the people behind either of those has maintained support or not either. You’ll have to check in with them.
As for a Theme builder, I assume you mean something that will build a WordPress Theme for you automatically. No, I have no recommendations. With thousands and thousands of free WordPress Themes to choose from, why bother unless you want to play with the code. If you really need a custom WordPress Theme, there are many experts who can design one for you. I’ve listed information on how to find them at the top of this page.
Dear Lorelle
Is this of interest for one of your brilliant articles? (For us non-techies!)
On Tags and/or Categories and re-posting
I think of my blog as a non-sequential book – so I am interested in improving earlier articles.
1 If I do a major update to a previous posting is it better to create a new post?
2 If I edit does the post get re-posted in all previously-listed Tags and/or Categories?
3 If I update a previous post I get something like this,
Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000168 EndHTML:00000016 StartFragment:000000047 EndFragment:00000019
This seem to appear only after the modification is re-published. Can I prevent this happening?
4 I’m still not sure what is the best thing to do with Tags and/or Categories – a few of each – lots of each – a medium number of each? In your earlier article on the subject I sensed that you were still wondering?
Thanks
Roger
@roger: I cover how to update posts and your options in Do You Update Posts or Post Updates?.
Updates on WordPress.com do not get brought to the “fore” as in brought to the front page of your blog or return to your feed without a WordPress Plugin – which WordPress.com doesn’t permit. If you want to bring an old post to the attention of your readers, mark it as sticky. When done, uncheck the sticky option in your Edit Post panel.
If you add an old post to a new category or tag, it is listed there. If you edit the post, it stays in whatever category or tag previously used. Nothing changes.
If you start playing with version numbers, don’t do it in the post slug, if you are. You can put any kind of version number at the bottom of your blog post, but that is just a tracking number for your information, not your readers. All modifications to your blog posts appear once saved. There is no “republishing” option. It is either published or not.
I talk a lot about tags on this site. See Tags and Tagging in WordPress for more information.
It sounds like you are making this process much harder than it should be. I hope this helps.
Quick heads up on a recent post about hacking wordpress that may be useful to some.
http://www.murky.org/blg/how-i-styled-the-admin-dashboard/
Megan and are going to be tied up this weekend (author events) so we’ll miss you at this year’s Word Camp — but wanted to say howdy to you. It’s been a few miles since we met you at Eric’s Performance Shop in June, 1996!
Darn! I was hoping you would be able to make it! It has been a long time, my old friend. I forgot you guys had planted yourself there. I’ll email you and let you know my schedule for coming back to Vegas. We just planted ourselves – sorta – in Portland, Oregon, so if you two are near, you have a place to stay!
Hi Lorelle my name is prince samuels. Thank God i came accross your website. I’m having bad exprience with wordpress. My blog was cancel with any good reason. the first blog i created was http://www.prince98.wordpress.com two days ago when i check the link, it was cancel. Lorelle i use this blog online marketing business, and it took me months to put this together. I created another blog at http://www.onlinemarketing2009.wordpress.com and when i check this link i was told it was also cancel. i’m kind confused right wondering if management team doing this to me or someone store my identity and causing me this problem. could please help me solve this problem. i like word press because it easy to used and add links. i really need your help to figure of this problem. thanks for listening.
Hi! You’re tips are wonderful and thanks for posting them (ie hack) – yvette
Hi Lorelle,
I’ve posted my question about missing media upload buttons in version 2.7.1 several times with no response. Are there any WordPress people that I can pay to have a look at my blog control panel to see what’s going on?
Thanks.
Lisa
I assume you mean you have posted to the WordPress Support Forum. Ensure that your post there has a very specific title dealing with the issue and that you are clear in what you need. Have you uploaded 2.7.1 manually or did you use the automatic upgrade? Did you disable all Plugins that deal with the Administration Panels? Have you tested this in IE and Firefox and other browsers? Do you have Flash enabled and active? Did you recently upgrade Flash or Adobe Air? Did you clear your cache? All of these are possible solutions I found on the WordPress Support Forum:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/164999
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/210600
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/164180
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/166212
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/21793
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/164990
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/217126
Hello! You’re tips are wonderful, I drop a comments here after I read your other informative posts. Thank you Lorelle.
Hi Lorelle,
I’m an avid follower of your blog and liked your two books! I wondered if you would be interested in taking a peek at a plugin I created: wp-mollom. It’s basically an plugin that sits on top of an anti-spam service called Mollom. This service was created by Drupal’s Dries Buytaert. Why another plugin? Well, because this one has a different take on how to beat spam. It uses a combination of text-analysis and safe, user-friendly and transparent CAPTCHA’s to stop spam.
Yes, it’s a direct competitor to Akismet and Defensio. Techcrunch – among others – featured Mollom a year ago.
I created the plugin in close coöperation with Dries and Benjamin of Mollom. At this point I have a fully functional plugin that’s quite stable but there’s always room for change and improvement.
You can find the plugin on WordPress Extend of course. Thank you so much and keep up the great work!
With regards,
Matthias
My two books? I only have one so far about blogging.
Unfortunately, I will not support CAPTCHAs, visible or not, for comments. Thanks for the information and good luck with the project.
Lorelle, having a heck of a time with my blog, out of town without much access for a week (taking care of new grandbaby and family) and at wit’s end on how to proceed. Thought you might have some ideas or suggest someone who can help me in this pinch.
Upgraded without incident to 2.7 Dec. 18. Then, without warning on Feb. 19 (and about 30 minutes before I had to leave town to visit aformentioned family), I found “CANNOT CONNECT TO DATABASE ERROR.”
Thought maybe I needed to reupload my wp-config so did that and now, the constant problem is that logging in takes one to the wp-admin.install.php page. Can ftp in, but can’t get that page to go away, after trying a fresh reinstall to 2.7.1. Probably shouldn’t have done that but have limited web access all week and was trigger happy.
This is day three and I have run out of ideas and options until I am home on 3/1. Can’t really get through all the support files I might access if I were at home, but what I’m finding hasn’t helped me figure it out.
Really, ready to hire someone to fix for me, under these circumstances. What do you suggest?
Thanks,
Katie
Have tried to get some help from my host but to no avail.
The first step is the WordPress Support Forum. Did you try there? There are also lists where you can hire someone to help you with WordPress. Automattic WordPress Consultants List, WordPress Jobs, and the WP-Pro mailing list are at the top of my list.
Turn off all your Plugins and see if that helps (rename the Plugin directory via FTP). If you can’t get access via FTP, then you must contact your host.
All the support files you should need are on the web. Consider doing a full clean reinstall of WordPress (delete all the WordPress and upload them again – something might have glitched in the original upload). Run upgrade afterwards.
I know this is tough, but those are my best answers. Your web host may have an issue and this shouldn’t be a WordPress issue unless it is Plugin related. Good luck, and trust me, as someone who live on the road, I’ve done this from the road many times and it always sucks. It also sucks at home.
Hi, Lorelle,
I met you briefly after your presentation at WordCamp Las Vegas. You presented on Woopra.
You gave out slips of paper that would allow us accounts on Woopra. I tried mine, but never received any word back. Any suggestions? Am I doing something wrong? Someone I should talk to?
Thanks very much in advance!
Michael Wilder
@Michael Wilder: I do not see you have signed up for Woopra. Without signing up, nothing can happen to approve