I had my first visit to Search Engine Journal today, and their excellent 13 Reasons Why NoFollow Tags Suck.

NoFollow is an attribute you can add to any link on a website. Its usage tells search engines that the link is not endorsed by that site. As a result Google will not use the link in PageRank calculations.

The idea was to thwart the increase in blog spam and to prevent spammers gaining PageRank from a litter of links they’d left across the blogosphere.

For responsible bloggers, though, NoFollow means they get no credit for their comments and contributions to other blogs (which is a bit of a disincentive to leave a comment, really). But on the other hand, the less SEO-aware masses may let blogs go dormant or not bother checking their comments, therefore allowing spammers to amass links back to their sites with relative ease.

One of Loren’s points is that NoFollow is a mark of failure by the search engines to deal with the problem of blog spam, identify it and penalize it in the rankings:

No-follow is a poor search engine’s solution to conceal its own failure to rank websites appropriately. What’s next, No-linking?

Search engines should be able to develop a method of identifying and devaluing links to spam sites which were placed in blog comments. Why should everyone who posts in blog comments suffer from the actions of a greedy few spammers.

Which may be a valid point, but I still think it’s a good thing that Blogger, WordPress et all have NoFollow on by default. More savvy WordPress bloggers can disable NoFollow links with a plugin called DoFollow.

By the way, if you want to be able to tell what websites use NoFollow, grab the SEO for FireFox plugin. It has a feature that highlights NoFollow links in red (might be hard to read - I usually tone down the colour!). You’ll be surprised at how prevalent the NoFollow attribute is!

Oh, and here’s a few thoughts from Dougal Campbell on the implementation of NoFollow in WordPress.

Since switching to a widgets-based layout on a couple of my blogs, it’s been bugging me that I lost the flexibility to add AdSense code to the sidebars.

It turns out that there’s an answer. You start implementing the text widget:

1. Set up your ad code in AdSense.
2. On your WordPress admin, go to Presentation and Sidebar Widgets.
3. Drag a text widget to the sidebar you want it to appear on (and in whatever order you want it).
4. Click on the text widget to configure and paste in the AdSense code.
5. Save your changes and refresh your homepage. Couldn’t be easier!

Before I discovered this fix, I’d been thinking the most complicated thoughts about how to achieve this effect. Keep It Simple, Stupid still reigns!

I’m throwing in the towel with Dreamhost. The downtime problems that started in the summer and seem to be intermittently reappearing have caused me to completely lose hope in DreamHost.

I signed up for a Media Temple Grid Server (affiliate link) account a few weeks back and have been gradually porting my blogs across one-by-one. With other people following suit, I thought I’d share my notes for moving a WordPress install over to Media Temple.

Naturally, this guide assumes that you have existing blogs on Dreamhost and a Grid Server account with Media Temple!

My Setup

I’m running a WordPress 2.0.x install with a handful of plugins and a theme I designed myself. I’ll be backing up the WordPress database and files in advance of the move and shifting them to the new server.

I also have a series of email addresses configured at Dreamhost, so I’ll want to have the equivalent addresses set up at Media Temple, ready for when the domain changes over.

I sensibly registered my domains away from 1&1 Internet, which means I don’t have the hassle of registration transfers or transfer fees! Hooray for me! When I’ve got my data migrated, I’ll simply redirect the DNS to Media Temple et voila - minimal interruption!

Step 1: Backing Up

The first step is to make sure we’ve got all our data ready to move.

WordPress Files: Fire up your FTP program of choice and download your entire WordPress wp-content directory. This is where all of your custom themes, image uploads and plugins reside, so take no chances. Download it separately.

Once I downloaded the wp-content folder, I created a backup folder on my hard disk and downloaded the entire WordPress installation to it. I was glad I did, because there were some miscellaneous directories that I might have otherwise missed!

WordPress Database: Since I run the 2.0.x version of WordPress, I have the luxury of Scott Merrill’s Database Backup plugin.

Simply browse to your site’s wp-admin folder and select Manage, then Backup. The standard WordPress database tables will be backed up by default, but you should check the additional tables for backup, as these are usually related to some of your plugins.

Set the backup plugin to download the file and then click Backup. Wait a few minutes and you’ll be prompted to save the file. Save it somewhere safe: you’ll need it later!
A word of warning: tables for stats packages can get pretty big and cause the backup to fail. If you find this happening, consider leaving out those tables and reinstalling that plugin from scratch after you’ve moved. It means starting your stats again, but might be easier for the job in hand. Part of my migration plan is to install Google Analytics anyway, so it wasn’t a tough choice.

Step 2.1: Pre-Configuring Media Temple

OK, so we’re all backed up. Don’t close your Dreamhost account just yet! If all else goes wrong, you might need to reactivate it! Let’s get things over on Media Temple ready for the move:

1. Log on to your Media Temple account.
2. Click on Domains, then Add New. I selected Add an Alternate Domain and Add DNS Zone, but you may want to register or transfer a domain name. It’s important to create a DNS zone for the domain, so that Media Temple is ready to handle the service once the domain is transferred or registered.
3. On the next page, select your Grid Service and the IP address to link it to (there’s usually only one). Click next to complete the process.

Step 2.2: Importing Your Database

Now, lets set up the database:

1. Go to the (mt) Domain List and select the primary domain (the first one you set the account up with). Click on the Manage Databases link.
2. Click on the Add New Database link and give your database a name. (mt) will prefix it with your account code. Make sure that MySQL is selected as the database type.
3. When you return to the database list, find the one you just created and click the Admin link to start phpMyAdmin.
4. In phpMyAdmin, select your database from the drop-down and it will load. In the main window, click the Import button at the top of the page. Click OK to begin importing your WordPress database.
5. That’s it! Your database is now ready - though it might be nice to let your commenters know that some comments might be lost in the transfer.

Step 2.3: Upload your WordPress Files

Now to upload our WordPress installation. Having the files in place means the blog will be ready to rock once you transfer the domain across. Remember to modify the wp-config.php file in your WordPress root folder to the settings of the new database!

1. In fact, let’s do that now. Go to the Manage Databases page in Media Temple and take a note of the username, password, internal server address and database name, and change wp-config.php accordingly.
2. Now, upload the entire WordPress installation you backed up earlier. Your account email from Media Temple has a youraccount.gridserver.com address that allows you to upload files before the domain has transferred. Simply log on to that, browse to /domains/yourdomain/html and upload everything. Take the time to ensure everything transferred successfully!

Step 3: Transfer Those Email Addresses

Now, let’s not forget those email addresses! We need to set those accounts up in advance to allow email to be delivered to them when the transfer takes place.

Luckily, my I forward all my email to my Gmail account, so this should be easy!

1. Go to the Media Temple Account Center, select your primary domain and then the Email Aliases link. Click Add New Email Alias.
2. There’s a really neat trick that Media Temple does in enabling you to forward an address for all domains in your package. So, say you have an info@ address, if someone sends mail to info@ any of your domains, it’ll be forwarded. Makes it easy to standardise addresses across sites.
3. Create the alias address, and select the domain you want it to apply to (or leave it set to all domains).
4. Then you can choose up to three email addresses to forward the messages to. Set this whatever way you require.
5. Set an optional autoresponder and save the record.
6. Rinse and repeat for all addresses you need to transfer!

Now, because I set up forwarding, this worked very well for me. If you need a dedicated mailbox, use the Email Users facility instead of aliases.

Step 4: Showtime!

Alright. Take a deep breath. Here we go.

We’re going to modify the DNS of the domain to point to Media Temple. First, I’ll show you how to do this under 1&1 (my method) and then under Dreamhost. Here’s 1&1:

1. Log on to the 1&1 Admin panel. Click Domains.
2. Select the domain you want to change and then DNS, Edit DNS Settings. Set the primary and secondary name servers to ns1.mediatemple.net and ns2.mediatemple.net respectively and save your changes.
3. Wait patiently for DNS to propagate.

And under Dreamhost:

1. Go to Dreamhost’s control panel and select Manage Domains. Find the domain you’re transferring and click DNS. The domain must be registered with Dreamhost though. In the nameservers area, enter ns1.mediatemple.net and ns1.mediatemple.net in the first two boxes and ensure the other nameserver entries are blank.
2. Click the Set these nameservers… button and then wait patiently - you guessed it - for DNS to propagate…

Step 5: Test It!

There are a couple of things to test when you’re porting WordPress to a new server. Here are a few:

1. URL Rewriting doesn’t seem to work out of the box. Go to wp-admin and then Options, Permalinks. Your permalink choice should be intact from before, so just click the Update Permalink Structure button and things should get sorted. The reason for this is probably because my FTP program didn’t backup the .htaccess file. Following the procedure above should recreate the .htaccess file as before.
2. Send yourself an email (or get a friend to send one). Verify if it got redirected.
3. Post a comment discreetly on your site and then check your new database in phpAdmin to see if it’s there. If it isn’t, chances are, DNS hasn’t transferred yet and your comment went to the old database.

Final thought: After doing another server move this weekend, I’d advise setting up the DNS zone on Media Temple at least a day in advance for it to be ready. So, it might be better to do that part of the job before you start taking your backups and everything else.

WordPress‘ default theme (Kubrick) is great, but I’ve always had a problem with the title tags that the Kubrick theme generates. They could be so much more search engine friendly, don’t you think?

<title>
	<?php bloginfo('name'); ?> <?php if ( is_single() ) { ?> &raquo; Blog Archive <?php } ?> <?php wp_title(); ?>
</title>

This usually results in the title reading like Interweb World » Perfecting WordPress Title Tags, which is fine.

But isn’t it better to serve the title tags with the title of the article first? That’s the key information, not what website it came from. And that title tag is what’s going to be used in people’s browser favourites, search engine results and social bookmarking services (del.icio.us, Digg, Stumbleupon, etc).

Improving your Blog Titles

I’ve opted for a simple bit of code which you can see below. Basically, for the homepage (is_home()), we want to display the Blog Name and it’s description or strapline. Then, for every other page (category pages included), we want the title to show up first, then the site name.

<title>
	<?php if (is_home()) { ?>
		<?php bloginfo(’name’); ?> &raquo; <?php bloginfo(’description’); ?>
	<?php } else { ?>
		<?php wp_title(”); ?> &raquo; <?php bloginfo(’name’); ?> 
	<?php } ?>
</title>

Looking good. Test this out on your own blog and see how you get on.

Modifying Title Tags for UltimateTagWarrior

If like me you use Christine Davis’ Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin for internal tagging, add the code below (just after the is_home() condition) and your tag pages will have the same effect.

	<?php } elseif (is_tag()) { ?>
		<?php UTW_ShowCurrentTagSet("", array(’first’=>’%tagdisplay%’, ‘default’=>’, %tagdisplay%’, ‘last’=>’ %operatortext% %tagdisplay%’)); ?> &raquo; <?php bloginfo(’name’); ?> 

Christine Davies has announced a new ‘vanilla’ version of Ultimate Tag Warrior for WordPress.

UTW is possibly one of the most useful plugins for tagging your blog content. For the uninitiated or the ignorant, tags are like keywords on steroids. They add another dimension to how you classify the posts on your blog. Sure, you can use categories, but too many categories clutter up your sidebar. Categories are broad.

Tags are specific to the post. They don’t show up in the navigation, but you can create a ‘tag cloud’ which shows frequently used tags in larger type and less-used tags in smaller type. They also tie in with the new breed of Web services like Flickr, Technorati and Delicious, all of which use tags to organise content.

Tags can offer a richer user experience whether linking back into the blog to display related posts, or linking out to Technorati to find additional material on other websites.

I prefer to use tagging internally to provide an alternative means of navigating the blog. I’ve used this recently on Unreality TV and will be using it on a forthcoming website, The Northern Ireland Guide.

technorati tags: Wordpress, Tagging, Tags, Web2.0, Technorati, Flickr, Blogging

On first glance, the Flock web browser only seems to allow you to set up one blog account. If you’re like me and you manage more than one blog, this is a big limitation!

Fear not, there’s another way to add extra blogs. It’s hidden away in the options, but it’s there!

How to add additional blogs in Flock

• First, go to Tools, Options
• Click on the Blogging button (second from last) and the Accounts tab should be the first one to load.
• Click on the + icon and the Blog Account Setup Helper will appear. You’ll need to give it the URL of your blog and the username and password to log on.
• That’s it. Simple, wasn’t it?

I’ve been meaning to play with Flock for a while now, but never quite got around to it. I’m using it to generate this post and it’s all going swimmingly.

One of the big benefits of not being in the wp-admin area is that I’m not tempted to check my stats, comments and all that stuff that distracts me every day.

Anyway, more on Flock later. 

technorati tags: flock, blogs, blogging, wordpress

…but apparently only from the Wordpress.com community!

I got a weird message in my Gmail that someone had added me to their wordpress blog. They must’ve been testing of made a mistake, because they promptly removed me again!

Anyway, this prompted me to check in my own wordpress.com blog (the one you’re reading) - and the screenshot below is what I found. This feature seems to have appeared out of nowhere on the Authors & Users tab. Basically you type in the username of the other person, allocate the type of role you want to give them, etc and they get a confirmation email when you’re done. After that, you can log into the blog and add posts, or whatever your permissions allow you to do.

I’m probably nitpicking, but I’d have preferred to add users from outside the community. Surely an existing member already has a blog? Anyway, I don’t see much benefit to that! I’d like to add someone who’ll contribute to my blog rather than someone who’ll have split blog loyalties!

Anyway, I just checked the Wordpress.com blog, and nothing’s mentioned there, so this is either in stealth mode and just been released, or it’s been available for ages and I’ve just not noticed. What do you think?

Bet that I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and it’ll be gone. Things like that always happen me….

Well, it’s only fair to report that my problems with Dreamhost have now been resolved. Not entirely to my satisfaction, but at least the site’s live again.

There still wasn’t much information forthcoming about the reported exploit in WordPress, so I deleted all the remote files at Dreamhost and re-uploaded WordPress. Disabled any plugins that might have included email functionality, etc, etc and changed the passwords.

To make sure I wasn’t violating any terms of service or whatever, I emailed the support guys and told them what I’d done. I asked them to leave the site live to see if the problem would manifest itself again.

Dreamhost support responded to say that they were happy with this course of action and would leave the site alone to see if this happened again. They also advised that after any perceived security breach I should change my access passwords, which I’ve done.

So I’m happy for the moment….

Pissed off this evening. Well, for the past three evenings, ever since the underwhelming Dreamhost shut down the Scribble Designs website. I came home from work to receive the following message:

Your script found at /server-path/index.php (your Wordpress installation) has been exploited and was being used to send out spam emails through our system. We have disabled the script to help prevent our servers from being used for this purpose, as it is adversely affecting the stability of our mail system. Please do not re-enable it until the security hole has been fixed (you can go to www.wordpress.org for upgrade instructions). We thank you for your attention to this matter.

That’s my business website, fools! Why’d you shut it down? Wordpress doesn’t generate email spam, does it?

Well, it doesn’t bloody seem to. I googled for a solution, hit the support forum and the WordPress Codex. Nothing.

I emailed back, asking for an in-depth answer. Why my website? What led you to diagnose this problem and pinpoint my website? Was a plugin at fault? What response did I get:

You’ll need to contact the authors of wordrpess for more information on patching the software. We do not provide support for third party scripts.

Don’t provide support for third party scripts??? You just offer a one-click install of the damned thing. You’re reknowned as a WordPress/blog hosting company. The guys at WordPress actually recommend DreamHost. They know WordPress well enough to diagnose a blog as a source of spam, but not well enough to advise of a solution. Hmmmm.

Oh yeah, and I’m sure Matt Mullenweg loves to wade in and intervene in individual support calls. Hi Matt! I’m having this problem with Dreamhost…..

So, as of right now, I’m a web designer without a website, all thanks to those lovable chimps at Dreamhost! No straight answers. No fault resolution. Oh, and did I mention that their servers are running at a snail’s pace at the moment?

Do I get my money back when I decide to move to another - better - host? I’ll keep you posted.

I’m writing this post with the new Performancing Plugin for FireFox.

Now, unless I’m being a complete numpty (always possible), there were no clear instructions for how to access this plugin. We (the blogging public) were left to our own devices to find out how to even access the Performancing plugin. After scouring the FireFox interface (I expected some kind of toolbar, to be honest), I found a new right-click option for Performancing with a sub-menu which allowed me to “Blog this page”. And yes, I did check the Performancing website for a getting started guide. I couldn’t find one.

Getting Started

When you eventually gain access to the plugin features, the interface is quite straightforward. The first thing you need to do is add a blog. This again is very straightforward and I added this WP.com blog, as it’s one of my less-critical blogs. Select the blogging platform you use, enter your username and password and that’s about it.

Performancing gives you access to your blog categories and previous post history (this is a new-ish blog, so I’m not sure how far the history goes back). On the down side, there doesn’t seem to be a way to add new categories to your blog from the plugin. That’s not a major problem, though.

I’ve not tried this with multiple blogs yet, but if I warm to Performancing, I might just add a few more….

Blogging With The Performancing Plugin

Was pissed off from the outset with Performancing. The input seemed to be working well, until I formatted some text in bold and italic. Instead of using strong and em, the plugin inserted inline CSS via span tags. Disaster!

I discovered an option in the settings to disable the use of inline CSS, so I did this and tried again. Instead of

strong

and

em

, it gives us <b> and <i>! Can someone remind me what century it is? Why, in the name of XHTML, would someone use those antiquated tags?Final gripe (before I post this) is the lack of features in the toolbar. Now, Performancing isn’t alone in this - even WordPress is currently missing what I consider vital elements. We don’t have options to insert various levels of

hx

. Coming from a bunch of guys who are promoting the idea of professional blogging, I’m surprised they can release a product that ignores the value of semantic XHTML, particularly in terms of Search Engine Optimisation! Where is the support for heading tags, strong and emphatic text? Also, enabling and advertising keyboard shortcuts for common commands would have been a big thing for me.

After The Rain…

All gripes aside, Performancing is not a bad wee plugin. It gives you what you need to blog straight from your browser, which is a definite bonus compared with flicking between tabs/windows! Oops, noticed that the plugin grabs the focus of tabs, so that CTRL+Tab cycles through the various post views. When you click into a web page it returns to normal though.

I’m not sure what the long-term future for browser-based blog editors is, though. I downloaded and tried Flock for a while, but a bookmark away was my WordPress dashboard and all the stats plugins and stuff that will never make it into a stand-alone program. And missing the ability to maintain the blog means you’ll always end up back at your dashboard.

I s’pose I’m maybe not totally sold on the idea in the first place. Which means that Performancing, like many other blogging products, has a long way to go before it tempts me away from my WordPress admin screens…..