As you know WordPress is an open source, this means that it’s constantly developed and innovated. The thing that makes WordPress stand out from other open source blogging platforms is a strong and devoted community. Even when developers miss some bugs the community is always there to point them out, thus helping to make WordPress better and more secure. This is the story behind the new WordPress 2.8.3 security release. Two weeks ago when WordPress security update version 2.8.2 has been released it appeared that some holes were uncovered the WordPress community quickly found the missed places, thus the new improved version is here now. You may have already seen it in your WordPress admin area.
This is the security release thus I strongly recommend you to update your WordPress to protect data and web server better.
You can download WordPress 2.8.3 and upgrade manually or do it automatically from your admin area.
Have you ever faced any problems with your WordPress security? Do share your experience in the comments below.
Posts Tagged ‘wordpress’
WordPress Security Update
August 4th, 2009Plugins to Monetize Your Blog
July 21st, 2009
It’s not a secret that most of us are blogging to earn some money. Thus I decided to make a list of plugins that can help you with this goal.
The most popular way of making money online is Google AdSense. There are hundreds of articles on how to make money with Google AdSense and a number of plugins that make the installation easier and faster:
* Adsense Deluxe WordPress Plugin
This plugin will add a screen to your options panel. From that screen you will be able to create AdSense ad units and manage them, decide what sizes ads should be and at what parts of your blog they should be placed.
The plugins named below will help you easily add AdSense to your blog:
* Adsense Injection
* MightyAdsense
* Google AdSense Widget
As most of the AdSense WordPress plugins require editing your theme you might find Shylock Adsense WordPress plugin to be the better choice for you as it allows to insert Adsense ads to your WordPress blog without modifying the theme.
* AdSense Manager is also a very good WordPress plugin that will help you manage your ads. It generates the code automatically.
* Google Ad Wrap
This fruitful plugin wraps posts and comments at your blog inside Section Targeting tags thus giving you better targeted ads.
And these plugins will help you track your AdSense earnings:
* AdSense Sharing Revenue and Earnings System WordPress Plugin
* Adsense Clicks Tracker
* Adsense Earnings WordPress Plugin
Another popular resource of money for bloggers is Amazon.com. There are several plugins that can help you add different Amazon ad types to your WordPress blog.
* Amazon Autoposter
This free and user friendly plugin automatically posts Amazon products on any keyword you specify, thus helping you earn money with Amazon affiliate program.
* Amazon Associate Filter
This plugin will automatically add your associate id to all Amazon links in the posts and comments at your blog.
What affiliate programs do you use to monetize your blogs?
Is Your Blog SEO Friendly?
July 14th, 2009
We’ve discussed the importance of search engine optimization here more than once. But I think one more time won’t be a waste.
So, let’s revise what exactly SEO means and how it works.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is a process of improving the volume and quality of your traffic received from search engines. To understand SEO better you should know how search engines work. This is pretty easy - such search engines as Google and Yahoo use a program called a “web spider”. These spiders crawl the web and collect info about the web pages (content, links etc.) and deposit this info to the search engine’s database. When you want to find something on the web and type your query in the search box the search engine has to do one simple thing - to find the most relevant info in it’s database. To make your blog more relevant to probable queries you should make it rank for the factors that form the search engine algorithm higher. This is where SEO will help you.
Here are things you should check and plugins you should add to make your blog SEO friendly:
* All in One SEO Pack
I already told you about this extremely useful plugin. It allows you to add meta tags, titles, descriptions and keywords to your blog posts.
* Google XML Sitemaps
If you want google spiders to crawl your weblog better you should help them - create a sitemap. This nice plugin will help you do the task easily and fast.
* Sociable
This is a great plugin I’ve already mentioned at this blog, it allows your visitors to bookmark your posts at 99 social bookmarking sites. Find more WordPress plugins meant to help you increase traffic. http://www.wpdaddy.com/blog/2009/03/increase-traffic-with-wordpress-plugins/
Things to check:
* Add Titles and ALT tags to the images you use in your blog entries
* Make sure your meta descriptions are unique and do not repeat your content
* Make sure your theme uses header tags correctly:
- Your blog title (your main keyword) should be placed in an h1 tag.
- Your post titles should be placed in h2 tags.
These are very basic SEO tips for beginners, if you have more simple tips feel free to share them in the comments below.
Top 10 Video Tutorials for WordPress Beginners
July 7th, 2009
When you are new to something you for sure prefer to have an expert who will show you the basics, don’t you? Well, I decided to make a selection of the most useful video tutorials recorded by real experts. Now you can say you’ve been taught by the best WordPress professionals 
Well, what do you want to know first of all? Of course how to install your WordPress, I can recommend these tutorials:
* How to install WordPress from siteground.com
* Installing Wordpress from killersites.com
Now you may be interested in changing your WP theme:
* How to Change/Activate Themes from ithemes.com
* How to change the theme from siteground.com
* How to Modify WordPress Theme from web2whizzing.com
Good tutorials on widgets:
* How widgets work from ithemes.com
* Create your first widget
* How To Make Your Own WordPress Widget from wpinformer.com
How to install and create your own plugins:
* How to install WordPress plugins from siteground.com
* How to make a wordpress plugin from weblogtoolsvideos.com
Well, this was my top 10 WordPress video tutorials. Would you like to see more of them?
Top 5 Free WordPress Themes of June 2009
July 3rd, 2009
As you know WPDaddy collection is updated regularly, the new themes are added every day. You may also remember my post about the best themes of May, well I decided to make it a tradition and showcase my personal top 5 of the themes submitted each month. Well, here are the best 5 free WordPress themes of the June 2009
#5 Transformer 1.4
This 3 columns, right sidebar, widget ready theme designed by Zinruss Studio is nicely designed with the use of blue color palette and the theme of the new blockbuster - Transformers. If you are a fan of the movie you’ll love the theme either.
#4 Just News
This clean and stylish 3 Columns, right sidebar theme designed by NewWpThemes.com is a perfect choice for any online magazine or newspaper.
#3 Music Globe
Another theme by NewWpThemes.com is designed to be a perfect choice for music, entertainment and celebrity blogs. I really like the creative header of this 2 columns, right sidebar, widget ready theme
#2 Bali Beach
This bright theme designed by Tamara Smith is 3 columns, right sidebar, widget ready and perfectly suitable for any traveler’s blog or traveling agency web presence. The header is so tempting, isn’t it?
#1 Eiffel Tower
Do you love Paris? I do, as well as Tamara Smith who created this 3 columns, left sidebar, widget ready theme for a travel blog or travel guide, well, pretty much everything connected to vacation and travel.
Well, this was my personal top 5 of the themes submited in June 2009. Check out our collection for more brilliant Free WordPress Themes
Curious WordPress Plugins
June 30th, 2009
I bet you’ve seen hundreds if not thousands of lists of the “best”, “useful”, “must have” etc. WordPress plugins. But have you ever come across strange, odd, even funny plugins? I have, and thus decided to share these findings with you. Some of the plugins described below might be actually fruitful and some are completely useless, but all of them are rather curious.
W-P
This nice plugin has one goal - to check your posts and change all “worpdress”, “WordPres”, “worldpress” etc. to a proper “WordPress”. If you have a problem of misspelling this is a great helper. You can also add your own commonly misspelled words and use the plugin to change the abbreviations to the full words.
CA-Weekday WordPress Plugin
Nice little thing that will change the boring day names like Monday and Tuesday to funny names like Rest Day, Back to Work Day, Still Back to Work Day and so on.
The TimeZoneCalculator WordPress Plugin
This plugin might actually be useful for a travelling blogger as it calculates and displays dates and time across different time zones.
Give a Beer
This is the widget that lets your visitors to give you a virtual beer. Funny little thing for beer lovers.
Fun Facts
I find this plugin to very interesting and entertaining. It adds a sidebar widget that displays interesting, weird and curious random fun facts.
My Worst Posts
Everyone shows their best posts that are most commented, this widget on the contrary shows the less commented posts. Who knows, maybe someone would like to comment?
I’ve come across a number of strange translating plugins. They might be useful if you’d like to make your reader decrypt your posts or if you want to target the post to someone who knows the language or just have some fun with your content.
Pig Latin
Translates all your messages into Pig Latin.
Fun Filters hack
Translates posts and comments into Elmer Fudd, Pig Latin or any other silly language.
Text Filter Suite WordPress Plugin
If you are a fan of pirates, pirate stories and everything connected to them you’ll love this plugin. It converts your posts into “pirate talk”.
Well, do you have some strange or funny WordPress plugins to share?
In nowadays world everything and everyone is moving fast and time becomes more and more precious. Small wonder that everything mobile is so popular. Mobile technologies give the opportunity to safe time on doing small but so important things like checking your email or reading updates of your favorite blogs. And as everything here is about WordPress and blogging you may guess what the point of this post is going to be - mobile version of your WordPress blog of course.
Remember my post about the WordPress version for iPhone? Well, I assume not everyone has iPhone, thus lets figure out how to create the mobile version of your blog for everyone - iPhone and not iPhone users. There are actually several ways to create beautiful and lightweight version of your blog for mobile phones:
#1 MoFuse
This service is a very simple way of creating a mobile version of your blog. All you have to do is to put your URL and complete the necessary registration and your desired mobile version is ready in no time.
#2 Wirenode
Pretty much the same service as MoFuse, creates your mobile version in about two minutes.
#3 Google Mobile Optimizer
Official mobile site creator from Google creates the version in seconds. All your content, links and images will be nicely put into your mobile version.
#4 UBIK
If you want to create a mobile blog from scratch without doing the initial coding this is a good solution. The site offers a number of customizable templates for mobile phones, the whole process of creating a mobile blog here looks pretty much like building a common blog - you select a theme and edit it to look like you want it to be. That’s it.
And here are some useful tutorials on the subject:
* Make a mobile version of your blog with Google Reader
* Create a mobile version of your blog with plugin
* Creating Mobile Version of your blog with branding and customize it
Once you have your blog mobile version created don’t forget to put a link to it on your blog or improve your code to redirect those visitors who browse your blog through mobile phones to the appropriate version.
Taking care of all of your readers you give them another reason to come back to your blog, thus do consider creating a mobile version of your weblog if you still don’t have one. : )
Do you know more ways to make a mobile version of a website?
WordPess plugins for Your Blog Security
June 23rd, 2009
We already discussed the protection of your WordPress based websites, but precautions can never be excessive, thus here are some good working plugins for you to secure your blog.
* WP Security Scan
Very good plugin, it scans your weblog backwards and forward for security issues, carefully checks passwords, database security, admin protection, file permissions.
* WP AntiVirus
This little helper carefully checks your WP theme for malicious code. If someone inserts anything malicious to your code you’ll be alerted. I recommend to enable a daily scan.
* Secure Files
With this plugin you are able to upload/download files from outside of the web document root, thus your blog will be more protected. You can restrict file downloads to logged in users.
* AskApache Password Protect
This powerful plugin will secure your WP Admin with htaccess password protection. No unwanted bot will be able to enter your website.
* Secure WordPress
Good working plugin that will hide your WP version info from non-administrators and your plugin directory from the visitors.
* Sabre
No bots will be able to register at your weblog with this plugin. Among other measures it adds image verification or math test to the registration process.
* WordPress Exploit Scanner
Searches your blog inside out for anything suspicious. Not only it checks your files, comments, posts and database, but also examines the list of your plugins for unusual file names
* WordPress Firewall
This cool plugin easily identifies and stops most obvious attacks. It detects suspicious parameters and responds with a 404 error page or a home page redirect.
Do share WordPress security tips you know at the comments below.
