wordpress
New blog using Prologue WordPress Theme
Well, I just killed 2 birds with one stone…
1st bird – Useless Knowledge:
Anybody who knows me knows that one of my favourite sayings is “useless knowledge dot com”. I say it after I’ve given a fact that I think might bore some people, but I find extremely interesting.
Unfortunately, uselessknowledge.com is already registered and has been for as long as I’ve been saying it. Which is MANY years…
But, for some reason, I’ve never thought of registering UselessKnowledge.co.za
I am now going to change my phrase to “Useless Knowledge dot Coza“.
I’ve set up a WordPress site that I can easily update every time I have a new little “interesting fact” that I’d like to share…
Which leads me onto…
2nd bird – Prologue WordPress theme:
The Prologue WordPress theme is a GREAT, simple looking theme that I decided to try out as the theme for UselessKnowledge.co.za.
My main reason for this is because the facts that I would post would be too small that any other theme might drown them out…
Matt Mullenweg gives his ideas on what the theme’s main use would be, but of course it’s not restricted to twitter type use…
So please let me know what you think…
Read MoreThe WordPress Plugin I Need Most
The WordPress Plugin that I am most addicted to is the Redirection plugin.
This plugin helps you move old links to new links, and invalid links to valid links. There’s more info on the plugin author’s site and even a cool little tutorial video on how to use the plugin.
But why do I need this plugin so badly?
The main reason is that I recently moved a blog from a subdomain to it’s own URL. As if that wasn’t tricky enough, there were some links in WordPress that just didn’t convert well. Specifically, links from Google Images were pointing at the image folder as opposed to the page the image was on, so I had to point Google in the right direction.
There were also other things I changed for SEO purposes.
For example, my blog was originally on Blogger, and any images were linked to their own pages. The WordPress Blogger import functionality keeps this, so I finally removed all Image pages and pointed them to their main post.
One of the absolute BEST features of the Redirection WordPress Plugin is that you can enable 404 logs.
This let’s you see everytime somebody (or something, in the case of a bot) lands on a missing page. If the page is a valid page somewhere on your site but with a different URL, it’s a VERY simple process to setup a new 301 redirect to the correct page.
This has helped me where I accidentally went on a commenting spree, and like the newbie I was, I left the wrong URL in the comment form on a few sites.
It’s also very interesting to see when Hackers are trying to find loopholes on your site by finding weak entry points that don’t actually exist.
So, without having to play around with any files on your site (like .htaccess), it’s very easy to help visitors go where you want them to…
Along with the 404 logging, it can also track when visitors have clicked on a link that caused the plugin to redirect the user. This is helpful if you’re using the plugin to track and beautify (a.k.a. mask) affiliate links in your blog posts…
So, do YOU have any plugins you can’t live without? I think I should write an updated list of all my plugins, as they’ve changed in the last 2 years…
Read MoreSearching for AdSense
I took this little idea straight from Garry Conn‘s blog. Though his is a LITTLE more devious than mine (linking to search results in posts 
) I think it’s a great way to monetise traffic that is most likely going to be leaving anyway.
The idea is to add AdSense to your search results.
Ok, I could use Google AdSense for Search, but that’s just not the same. I don’t have as much control over how the page will look as I’d like. And if they arrived via Google, then they’ve already seen the search results Google’s most likely going to show them.
To take a look at what I’m talking about, try out the following search:
The reason I say that this traffic “is most likely going to be leaving anyway” is because my blog is not exactly massive, and after reviewing the search queries that users have been entering, I know that I don’t have any of that content anyway.
Now, we wait and see if it will work…
Read MoreHiding statistics code from Admins in WordPress
Have you installed any tracking code into your WordPress template? Ever not want the tracking code to track your own visits? There could be a number of reasons why it might not be easy to prevent the code from tracking you such as:
- You’re trying the software out and don’t feel like finding out how to prevent your visits being tracked
- The software/service doesn’t give you the option of preventing your visits from being logged
- You’ve cleared out your cookies, and you now have to go back into the settings (in StatCounter, for example) and enable the “blocking cookie” again… For ALL your blogs
Anyway, whatever the case, here is some PHP code that will prevent whatever you’re adding to your template from showing if you’re logged in and visit your blog, whether it’s the statistics’ javascript code, or an image/ad you only want visitors to see:
<?php
if(!current_user_can('level_9') && !current_user_can('level_10')) {
?>
<!--Some Arb Statistics Code Here-->
<?php
}
?>
There’s probably another way to do this, but it’s the way I’ve been using for a while now, and it works like a charm. Of course, if you KNOW of a better way, PLEASE let me know (in the comments)…
Read MoreAdd MORE Meta Tags in WordPress
The “Add-Meta-Tags WordPress Plugin” has been updated to version 1.2. The plugin is now a more streamlined version, with a couple of added features.
The MAIN new feature, in my opinion, is the ability to add any Meta Tag you need to your entire website. This means that, if you need to add any “robots” tags to your pages such as the “NOODP” or “NOYDIR” tags, you can.
The “NOODP” tag is helpful if you’ve found that the search engines are using your site description from the Open Directory, “DMOZ”, instead of the “desription” tag that you have defined on each of your web pages.
The “NOYDIR” tag is similar in that it will prevent Yahoo from using the description from the Yahoo Directory.
These tags are helpful and very relevant to this plugin, considering you’re probably using it to ADD the “description” and “keywords” Meta Tags to your site.
So, to add these tags to your blog, go to the “Options” screen in the admin section, and select the “Meta Tags” option page. In the text box in the “Site-wide META tags” section, add the following line:
<meta name="robots" content="noodp, noydir" />
After updating the options, everything should be working fine…
Read MoreGreat WordPress Titles
Whether for SEO purposes or just for the sake of having good page titles in WordPress, here’s a great but of code to help out:
1: <title>
2: <?php
3: if(is_single()) {
4: wp_title('', true);
5: echo ' » ';
6: bloginfo('name');
7: } elseif(is_category()) {
8: wp_title('');
9: echo ' » ';
10: bloginfo('title');
11: } elseif (is_search()) {
12: echo $s;
13: echo ' » ';
14: bloginfo('name');
15: } else{
16: bloginfo('title');
17: wp_title();
18: }
19: ?>
20: </title>
If you look at the different sections of this blog, you will see this in action. Here’s what you should see:
Single Post Page
The post title will be first, followed by the blog title.
Category Page
The Category title will be first, followed by the blog title.
Search Results Page
The search term is used first, followed by the blog title.
Home Page
The Blog Title is the only title used. You can add the blog description if you like, though I’ve chosen not to.
Having the post title first puts the keywords first, and the blog’s title, which will be used a LOT throughout your blog, at the end. This might help keep each page title more unique in Google’s eyes.
Any ideas, tips, suggestions, or questions, please let me know…
Read More
