However, I got the most from memberwing (google for it and you’ll find it, it’s the first result). This plugin is very easy to use, it has no options and that’s why it got my vote :) To use it, simply insert {+} or {++} or {+++} in your post, depending on the user level you want the content to be accessible for. For free, you go with {+}, for the premium you go with {+++} (for more info on that, read their website). Everything before that sign is free and available for the public, what’s after that sign is only viewable by the registered users. I didn’t test what will happen if you put the {+++} sign 3 times in a post :) I invite you to do that maybe you discover bugs and report them to the plugin owners.

That’s about it right now, if I’ll decide to build my own cool membership plugin in the future, I’ll let you know. If you want to be noticed when an update is out, simply read my blog and subscribe to my rss feed.

Cheers,
- Peter

It’s a pretty easy job to do, you don’t need too many skills for it, you don’t need to mess with code or anything… and it’s even easier with wordpress 2.7.

For older versions: let’s say you found a plugin on the net and you want to use it. Simply download it to your desktop, unzip it there and then upload it to your /wp-content/plugins folder on your server. After it’s done uploading, login to wp-admin, navigate to the plugins page, spot your newest plugin and hit the “activate” button next to it. That’s about it. Of course, assuming you know what FTP is and your plugin doesn’t have settings you have to mess with. If it does, you can find them (or at least for most plugins) in the settings menu (it’ll add a submenu with its name, it’s pretty intuitive). To upgrade your plugin, repeat the steps above: download, unzip, upload to wordpress plugins folder and it will upgrade the database, there’s nothing more for you to do.

For the current version (2.7), they’ve made it even easier. They’ve embeded it in the interface, so you don’t have to use FTP anymore. Simply go to your plugins page and search for the button named “add” or “add new” or “add plugin” (or whatever :) ). Hit browse, search for the plugin on your local harddrive, upload it and you’re good to go. After it’s finished uploading it will prompt you to activate it, I suggest you do so :). Same for the options, if your plugin has options/settings the chances to find them in the settings menu are over 90%. To upgrade, do the same as when you installed it.

One thing you should consider, there’s a plugin called “one click upgrade” (google it). It’ll make your live easier when speaking of upgrading your plugins. It will search automatically for newer versions and let you know if you have to upgrade any of your installed plugins (with a click of a button). You may want to give it a try.

That’s all folks :)

Happy blogging,

Peter

A variety of anchors are used by spammers: images, regular link text and even whole paragraphs.

The smiley WordPress spam techinique

WordPress spam usually comes in this format: “nice post, thanks” and a link at the end of the post with a smiley ( :) ) as the anchor. Many wordpress owners won’t notice the comment has a link because it’s hidden by that smiley, as wordpress parses the smiley text into an image. The html looks like this:

"Nice post, thanks <a href="http://spamdomain.com"> : ) </a>

It’s quite easy to spot it. Everytime someone posts a comment on my blog I’m getting an email with a notice (I don’t remember if that’s default, but there’s an option for it in the settings menu, just look for it and you’ll find it). Since my email is powered by yahoo, I see the html because yahoo transforms it into regular text (for the same purposes, html is not allowed if not properly set) and I can see it’s spam.

Another clue would be the comments admin area of WordPress. Depending on your blogs css version and settings, links are underlined (I assume this is happening for most WordPress versions). Therefore, you can check for smileys in the comment before you approve it and see if they point to some external link.

How to block WordPress Spam

Fortunately, protection against wordpress spam is available. There are many ways to fight against it and, depending on your imagination, you can come up with more.

1. Disallowing multiple consecutive submissions – You won’t see too often users to reply to their own posts. Well … spammers will do it. So a possible solution would be to check if the current user IP is not the same with the last one and if a specific time period has passed. However, this can block multiple users behind the same proxy and using the same public IP. It’s up to you if you use this or not
2. Keyword blocking – this can be one of the most effective ways to block wordpress spam. You will eliminate spam simply by banning names of popular pharmaceuticals or casino games etc. for instance, “viagra”.
3. Nofollow – it’s added by default in the newer WordPress distributions. When a search engine finds the nofollow tag applied to a hyperlink, it breaks the process, so even if you link to some external URLs, they won’t be considered as links by the search engines. Google announced in 2005 that hyperlinks with rel=”nofollow” attribute would not influence the link’s target ranking in the search engines index. Yahoo and MSN also respect this tag.
4. Validation (CAPTCHA) – a method used to detect robots. Before a form is validated, a random text verification is required to the end-user.
5. Disallowing links in posts – simply, would cut any link posted in a comment by the user or simply transform it into regular text.
6. Redirects – instead of displaying the direct link to the actual target, it would display a link to a script on the same server that redirects to the correct URL.

These are few ways to protect your blog against WordPress Spam. In case I missed something, you can post a comment and tell me (make sure you don’t include any link, lol =) ). In a future post I’ll name few plugins that would help you fight against WordPress spam.

- Peter

What is a Theme Chooser For WordPress?

It’s an addon for WordPress that makes it possible for your visitors to change the layout they want to see with just a click of a mouse. Yep, that’s possible and very easy to implement. First, you need to have multiple themes installed on your WordPress blog. Where to find them? It’s simple: google will give you all the answers you need. Just do a search for “free wordpress theme” or other related terms, and you’ll find a dozen of free themes to add to your blog. The next step is to upload them. Once you have them on your computer, unzip and use your ftp client to upload them and last, activate them from your admin area.

The next step is to ‘install a WordPress theme chooser add-on‘. By default, WordPress offers you the possibility to upload as many themes as you want, but use only one at a time. However, you can change that. How? With an addon. You have two options for this task.

The first one is “theme preview“. This one will allow your visitors to choose from a list of themes and preview them in the browser. Although there is a single theme activated as the main one and all the visitors will see it when they land on your blog for the first time, they will be able to switch to another one very easy. You don’t even need to install the themes. To install this plugin, just download it from the wordpress plugins website, unzip, upload to your server and activate it from the “plugins” menu in the admin area, then access your blog with an URL in this format: www.yourblogdomainname.com/index.php?preview_theme=some_theme (of course, change “some_theme” with your theme name). That’s it, test it and let me know if it works … or not :)

The second option is “Theme switcher“. This plugin does the same as the first one. To install it, just upload it to your plugins folder and then activate it from your admin area then add your themes as they say on the instructions page (you can find it in the settings menu). They offer 2 formats: full list or dropdown.

To conclude, if you want to let your visitors view your blog the way they want, you have at least 2 possibilities to do that, so you can’t say it’s impossible, even if your tech skills keep you far away from beeing an expert in this area. The theme chooser for WordPress makes it possible.

Hope this helps,

- Peter

Although this topic is changing all the time, it’s like a moving target, but I think it would be useful to list here the plugins I consider useful for a wordpress blog. I’ll modify this post in time, but for now, here you go:

1. Monetize WordPress – Boost your CTR and response rate with more than 30%
2. TweetMe for WordPress – A cool viral plugin to help your users spread the word about your website
3. All in one SEO pack – I consider this one the most important in my list. Why? Because it offers you a lot of SEO options (without having to learn html, of course). For instance, you can have your blog title custom for the home page and custom for all your posts. You can add meta keywords and description (which, by default, wordpress doesn’t offer). In short: get it now, you don’t have anything to lose.
4. Google XML Sitemap For WordPress – it builds a xml sitemap with all your posts, links, pages, etc and submits it to google, msn and others. Multiple options offered as well
5. No-follow Free – it removes the no-follow tag from your worpress blog comments. I don’t know what to say about this one .. the no-follow tag somehow prevents automatic link building and prevents spam on your blog. How ? Well .. knowing that by default wordpress does put this nofollow tag on the links and therefore SEs ignore those links, people won’t spam your blog with comments. However, it’s up to you if you want to use it or not.
6. Google Analytics – allows you to add your google tracking code into your blog without having to modify your theme files.
7. WordPress Polls – allows you to add polls to your website, just like the one you see on my blogs sidebar. Once you create a poll, you have to add it as a widget. Contact me or the creator of this plugin if you need any help
8. Social Bookmarks – with it, your visitors will be able to bookmark your posts and share them with their friends

Well … I personally consider these ones important. Depending on your needs, you may have other “top 5″ or “top 10″ lists. I would be happy to get this list bigger and bigger based on your comments, so, if you have other plugins to recomment, be free to do it and I will add them to this list.

Thanks for contributing.

- Peter

I’m talking about wordpress security and vulnerabilities here and there’s much to say about it, so I’ve started a new category where to post.

The very first and most important thing you need to do to help your blog stay safe all the time is to keep it updated to the latest version. That’s the most safe (at least that’s what they say). Everytime a new bug/security hole is found, the platform gets updated with a fix and then the bug is published. In short words, everybody knows about it.

If you don’t want to mess with ftp and downloads and so on, you might want to use a plugin that does your updating automatically. This way you’ll always have your wordpress blog up to date. I don’t remember the name of that plugin because I don’t use it, but if you wish to install it, do a simply search on google or on wordpress.com site and you’ll find it pretty fast. I don’t use it because I don’t like having too much “foreign” code on my server… you never know what can happen to your database or whatever. Therefore, I prefer to update it manually.

Oh … and by the way, I was talking about plugins. When you get a new plugin, make sure it’s a safe one. Don’t install any plugin just because the owner is saying on his website that plugin  will help you do this or that. Maybe use a test blog to check the plugin, or maybe get a software engineer to analyze it carefully. This way you’ll know it isn’t a threat for you or your business.