Entries Tagged 'Weblogging' ↓

Having taken a nice rest the comment spammers are back.

“I come from Blogspot” is a funny ploy. At least one of them seemed to think that the site he was commenting on was on Blogspot. Too lazy to take care with his spambot template I guess.

And as they always have they let you know how glad they are to have discovered your site. Sometimes it was on the recommendation of a good friend. Others sententiously announce “I was sent by Google.” Not hardly, Google’s cruelty is more subtle and meaningful.

Saying that the comment form isn’t working seem to be a new gambit.

For a time the biggest pest was someone I thought of as Mr. V. He bought domain names that would be classic dictionary names except that he began with the letter “v.” He’s been supplanted by The Number Guy. His gimmick is to stick a number at the beginning of his domains.

It seems as if names like Jonathan and Zachary are names they think have power. And Taylor may be their most favored last name.

They are smarter than their most clueless cousins. There really may be someone out there named “Online Mortgage Calculator” or “Adipex Cialis” but I’ve never met the like.

Author: Mark White

There was a time when reciprocal linking was a number one priority among webmasters and SEO’s for obtaining a good search engine position, that time alas is no longer with us.

This is in no small part because webmasters are no longer dedicating as much time to link pages. Why should they spend hours and hours getting link partners and then making sure that their are linking back to them when all they have to do is spend 5 minutes joining a web ring or 20 minutes a day updating their blog or rss feed.

More and more we are using other methods to get sites linking to us, such as joining web rings, or on placing keyword rich text ads placed on carefully selected forums or interest sites. These bring us the keyword relevancy weight we crave so much as well as targeting the people who actually have an interest in the product or idea we are marketing.

With the introduction of such tools as rss and blogs there has come a change in the way we develop our sites to obtain a good page rank and a hopefully a higher rank with the engines. Gone are the pages and pages of links to other people’s websites and instead we use the single page blog/feed. We are reaching out to a different audience, an audience that wants to come back to us day after day after day because they have a similar interest to ours. With our blogs potentially being fed to anyone who wants to read it we can give our new customers / readers some useful information as well as ensure a return visit which could result in that elusive sale.

Updating our blogs is more enjoyable than chasing backlinks; we are indulging in a pastime we have an interest in and obtaining a good result for our site.

I still get hits for my older sites from link partners but obtaining link partners for my new site is increasingly difficult and to be honest I probably won’t chase this time consuming preoccupation with getting return links ever again. If I can obtain more visitors and ensure a regular visit from a search bot as well as use my time reading and writing about a subject that interests me then I will, won’t you?

My view is that reciprocal linking is dead. Long live the blog.

For more information on rss you can go here http://www.freetraffictip.com/2-rss-marketing/index47.php For more information on blogging go here http://www.freetraffictip.com/blogaboutthis/blog-about-this.php Mark White has worked in I.T. for the last 15 years and currently runs 3 websites. http://buy-dvds-online.com http://sunspeks.com http://tendollardownloads.com/

And administrates for http://freetraffictip.com

Please feel free to reproduce this article ensuring all links are kept.

About the author: Mark White has worked in I.T. for the last 15 years and currently runs 3 websites. http://buy-dvds-online.com http://sunspeks.com http://tendollardownloads.com/

And administrates for http://freetraffictip.com

Please feel free to reproduce this article ensuring all links are kept.

Author: Judy Webb

While syndication has many applications, we will deal specifically with its use for blog content and some technical information will be included at the end of this article.

If you have any interest in blogs or weblogs as a publishing format, then you have undoubtedly come across the term R.S.S.

Under normal conditions, the content of a web page is limited to one domain, and the visitor to it. To allow the use of content on a larger number of sites, syndication is employed.

This is where RSS comes into the equation. A site owner or blogger using his site as a pulpit for any number of topics can make his content available via RSS. Once done, his comments or content will be fed to the news aggregators for syndication/delivery to those interested in such content.

<b>What is RSS?</b> “RSS” stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. It is a standard for publishing regular updates to web-based content.

It is a simple technology for sharing and distributing content like data, news headlines and other web page content with other webmasters and users.

RSS is like email in that it is used to collect and deliver content you have opted to receive. News aggregators collect the “feeds”(syndicated content) from a blog and publish it. If you have an RSS Reader you can subscribe to the ‘feed´ and receive current up to date content from your favorite content source.

Using this standard, a blog owner/web publisher can provide updates, such as the latest news headlines or weblog postings to those interested in such content.

With RSS, the blog owner could update his/her readers with new content and use RSS as a means of organizing his content into a more accessible form to the benefit of anyone wishing to use it.

<b>Use it</b>, not simply read it!

<b>Uses for RSS:</b> Get your site listed in search engine and RSS directories.

Use RSS to update your websites with fresh, relevant content - automatically - without writing a single word. You can turn RSS feeds into customized HTML and display the feed on your website.

One of the great benefits of displaying RSS news feeds on your website is that it boosts your position in search engines.

RSS will automatically notify the search engine spiders that you’ve updated your website content.

RSS gives you a new marketing venue to display your ads, messages, and news directly onto your subscriber´s desktop! It will also build your credibility and Brand Name online – with little effort!

With RSS: If your favorite sites have RSS feeds, you can subscribe to those feeds in an RSS News Reader. The reader will automatically check all the sites you’ve subscribed to and show you new updated content when it is added.

Potentially hundreds of other websites can publish your news and articles. This will provide free exposure and free traffic as a consequence.

<a href=http://www.google.com/search?q=News+Reader&sourceid=mozilla- search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org .mozilla:en-US:official>News Reader Search</a> – Google search of RSS News Readers

<a href=http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/carp>CaRP</a> - Show RSS feeds on your website (Freeware)

<a href= http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/grouper>Grooper</a> - takes news search results, web pages, and more, and turns them into RSS feeds. Once you have the data in RSS format, you can view it with an RSS aggregator like NetNewsWire, or use an RSS parser like CaRP to display it on a webpage.

<a href= http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/jawfish>Jawfish</a> - web service, which converts RSS to _JavaScript

A news aggregator is “software that periodically reads a set of news sources, in one of several XML-based formats, finds the new bits, and displays them in reverse-chronological order on a single page.

RSS is a document format that is XML-based.

RSS feed or news feed is essentially a file in RSS format.

XML is a programming language and stands for Extensible Markup Language derived from S.G.M.L. or Standard General Markup Language.

A Parser is a computer program

Want to know more about blogging? Download <a href=http://myautobot.com/MJV/Blogging-Some_Questions_Answered.pd f>Blogging_Some_Questions_Answered.pdf</a>

About the author: Judy Webb is a marketing strategy analyst with <a href=http://www.emarketingextreme.com?id=jwebb>www.EmarketingExtr eme.com</a> You may reprint this article if done in total, including the resource box.

This $75 program is one the reasons I no longer use any stats program that can be seen by search engines on my websites.

[Program name omitted] is a … mass referrer spammer, which means that it will make a connection to a buttload of sites of your choosing with any referrer URL and User-Agent that you specify. This accomplishes several things. Firstly, it generates webmaster traffic from webmasters checking their referral statistics.

Yep, you might get a visit from me. If your traffic is really low another visitor might inspire a moment’s false optimism. That certainly won’t make me turn to you for mortgage information, buy the secret of untold wealth from you, use your dating service or get you an extra click on a banner ad. Seeing you aren’t a friend I’ll just close that Firefox tab and move on.

Secondly, it boosts your link popularity and thereby your Google PR, because a lot of sites have public referral stats with linked entries. [Program name omitted] operates on textfiles with URL-lists, and a textfile of 3047 active blog websites which you can use to start getting free traffic and PR right away is included!

I’m sure at least one of my sites is on that list. I used to run Refer there and like many webmasters made the stats available to anyone who wanted to look. That was how I learned about referrer spamming. It took less than a month to get all trace of those bogus referrals out of Google.

Even now “thehostingnet.com” sends a bunch of referral spam to that site. They aren’t getting an iota of Google PR from doing that. But it no more harms me than it does them a lick of good.

If you run a web statistics package ideally you keep it out of your server’s web accessible areas. If you can’t block the subdirectory in your robots.txt. You might want to password protect it as well.

Once you are listed as a site to be sent referrer spam I don’t think you’ll ever fall out of the lists. But you can keep the spamming from having any effect.

On and off I’ve lamented my scanty abilities as a proofreader. At least of my own writings (if that isn’t too highfalutin a phrase for weblog entries). Composing my entries in MS Word diminished considerably the number of spelling errors. Sadly Word can’t read my mind and alert me when I’ve tripped over a homonym or otherwise written a sentence that doesn’t parse.

Most of my entries are written either just before work or going to bed. I should leave them in draft mode for a few hours and then coming back and giving them a once-over. I’ll own to impatience and laziness. No excuses.

I’ve acquired a spelling error troll. His only comments are to apprize me of spelling errors. Seems a humorless, dull way to spend your time. Poor man, are my faults his hobby or does he wander the web leaving others similar notices.

Mr. Spelling Troll I acknowledge retroactively and in advance all spelling and typographic errors ever found on my websites. In doing this I hope to leave you freer for more enjoyable pursuits.

Dean Allen clarifies TextPattern’s license:

As of version g1.19, Textpattern is free, open-source software.

It is also available under a commercial license which permits proprietary usage, free of any obligation to release changes to the source code under an open-source license.

This dual-licensing model (similar to those used by MySQL, Trolltech, and others ) is intended to keep options open for everybody who wishes to use Texpattern, from an individual weblog publisher to a multinational corporation.

Textpattern is Open Source Software

It has been a surprise to see my recent WordPress vs. TextPattern entry become a popular search. Clearly the webloggers who feel disenfranchised by SixApart’s new licenses (whether the initial announcement or after the clarification) are searching out new CMS packages.

All of the developers are swell folks (I’m including Ben and Mena Trott in that).

Neither WordPress nor TextPattern are all that well documented right now. Go look at the user forums.

In choosing any software package for me support forums have always played an important role. It isn’t so much that I’ll necessarily need to use them. Being able to search a vBulletin or similar support BBS lets me get an idea of how the users of the software are coping, how much and how well the developers respond or at least how helpful the other users are.

While it may feel as if your lungs will burst if you don’t get that new software up and running right now, relax. Most likely it has been functioning fine and can continue to for a week or a month.

Spend an hour, or many hours digging through the user forums to see if your requirements and questions are answered or are likely to be. Post your questions. You’ll find the other guys ready to proselytize (as always), convert and help you out.

Take your time. When you transition to whichever new program you choose it’ll be easier on your readers and, hence, you. And you probably want to do your best to recreate your archive structure or at least discover the Apache directives to redirect Google and the visitors it sends to the new edition of the page. Hundreds or thousands of Error 404 pages won’t do anyone any good.

Go to the tech support user staffed forums, read, browse, take notes. Take your time.

WordPress Support Forum

WordPress Wiki

TextPattern Support Forum

Back in the days of DOS I was often lax in registering shareware. When I setup my old BBS that changed. Many of my regulars were programmers. At one time I - a used bookshop owner - new more software wizards than any other species of human (wish that were true nowadays). So I started registering my shareware or opting to not using it.

I appreciate the folks who’ve make my use of a computer and the web easier or more pleasurable: Nick Bradbury for TopStyle, Cliff Thornton for ClipMate, Eric Fookes for NoteTab, many others.

I should’ve known that when my mentions of WordPress drew Matthew Mullenweg to make a couple of comments and suggestions I’d find myself sucked into using it. Really I was very surprised. Matt’s own weblog, Photo Matt, is one of those site you visit to just admire and wish you could do that.

So I copied my first WordPress installation from the site that it isn’t appropriate for to a weblog I’ve had running without announcing for a couple of weeks. I pulled up the admin screen and all was as it should be. A change to the new path and the site was running under WP as well as it had under MT.

Aside from making a couple of trivial changes to the three-column layout from Alex King’s site I haven’t worked at customizing the site. Seems wiser to wait until 1.2’s stable release is out.

I wish the categories were sorted by name, not sequence of creation. Isn’t this the sort of thing PHP does in its sleep?

Scanty, scattered documentation is a problem. WordPress needs one of those hardcore fans that genuinely enjoy maintaining a FAQ or comprehensive docs. Given the nature of the project you can’t expect the developers to take time away from coding. MT’s forum regulars have certainly contributed mightily to MT’s success. miniBB isn’t the equal of (ahem) real forum software. Pity since searching a support forum has answered 99% of my questions with some software.

Can I use %category% in a permalink? Everywhere I tried searching the percent signs were stripped away. Don’t you think it’ll add depth of meaning if I can add “medical/” to “penis-explodes.”

The Search Hilite plug-in assumes that my site is in /home/public_html/site. Nope, it is a multi-hosted domain. It is othersite/public_html/site.

Haven’t been able to save my GMT offset (minor) or force moderation on all comments (major). I don’t know if is a bug in the software, which is OK since I’m running a beta. Or if one of the many files needs to be chmod’d since I moved them.

I was happy enough to make a donation. I’m sure the WordPress developers are delighted to have an elevated weblog like Sex is Funny powered by their software.

One of my websites’ logs showed that Jeeves was looking at a domain I’d swear I’ve never posted publicly. Don’t want to invite Google and the like until it is ready for visitors. That meant it was time to do a quick and dirty replacement of what was present on the site (almost nothing).

Having decided that TextPattern’s future licensing did not leave it currently an option for my intended use I thought long and hard about Drupal. Though I’m not a heavy uses of features of which Drupal has many sometimes extras can be bent to an unintended and handy purpose. Not that I had any in mind.

Drupal’s documentation dissuaded me. 1) Installation info was in the Administrator’s Guide rather than near the top. 2) Setting up the MySQL database was discussed only in terms of doing it via a shell account. Not that it wasn’t obvious how to use phpMyAdmin. Those things just confirmed my feelings that Drupal is best left to power users with time and inclination to do it (whatever it might be) for themselves.

So I grabbed the latest WordPress nightly. Installation was easy, even chatty. My only faultfinding would be is that it should made clear that not only should you write your password down you should do so clearly. (My own handwriting looks like something used to record incantations for calling the Goat With A Thousand Young.)

I’m not sure what happened when I changed the admin password. I found myself back at the login screen. I never could get back in. My new password didn’t work. I’ll assume that the randomly generated original password didn’t work because I couldn’t read it.

Using phpMyAdmin I took a look but the password was this long string. Probably some sort of a checksum of the real password. No way for me to decode it. I just cleared the database I’d created and started the install afresh. I spent fifteen minutes trying to get around that and maybe one minute doing it.

I then jumped over to Alex King’s site to grab a three-column layout that had been submitted to the WordPress template contest. Another minute uploading the style sheet and images and I had something to build on.

Then I ran into a hitch. Many, if not all of my entries, will have a php include. Works fine in MT and TextPattern. WordPress keeps inserting a space, killing it. This is probably a security feature. I’ll have to find a way to evade it or search yet again for a small scale CMS/blog package.

Whatever I decide to do WordPress is an attractive, easily setup program. (Though some volunteer needs to get all the documentation in a format similar to MT’s printer friendly edition. Nothing is easier to search. Gosh how I hate wikis.)

This is probably going to sound stingy and petty but I’m glad that after installing TextPattern I didn’t have time to work with it more.

You see I misunderstood the licensing:

It’ll remain free for personal sites. Licenses for commercial use will be available.

Source

It might be that by the time TextPattern becomes stable and commercial use requires payment the site I was planning on powering with the CMS would be making money. Then again it might be limping along and I’d find myself needing to switch to another package.

I hope Dean Allen makes lots of money: he deserves it. But I don’t want to put one of my own projects in an ambiguous position. So I’ll take the TextPattern installation I setup last night down.

Let me make this clear: I don’t begrudge a software author his due.

I am a little peeved with overly enthusiastic boosters and fans who publish misleading information about software licensing.