The website OnlineMBA.com has a section for ‘awarding the web’. This award system is 100% illegitimate.

Their team of “selected judges” supposedly rank websites for categories like “Top Financial Blogs,” Top Personal Wealth Blogs” and “Top Humor Blogs.” The the owner of the website ranked receives a congratulations email which goes something like this:

Hello [blogger name],

Emma and Dennis here!  Just wanted to remind you that you were the
recipient of our 2010 Top 50 Humor Blogs Award.  If you have already posted
our badge, then we thank you!  No need to respond, this is just a general
email!  We work hard to put this award on, and we hate to see it go to
waste!

Just in case, you can obtain your winners badges here:

[badge page URL for the specific category]

If you choose to decline our award, please respond by Monday, July 26.

The only reason we ask this is because if you choose to decline or not
recognize our award, then let us know so your colleagues who could qualify
for the award have a chance at recognition and take your spot.  Dennis and I
work too hard on these awards for it to be discarded, as this is our
passion.  We just want our award winners not only to appreciate our award,
but also to understand what our ultimate goal is; to take away awards from
marketing companies and make them back into what they should be: awards.

Please do not hesitate to call or email if you have any questions. Many
questions can be answered at www.awardingtheweb.com/about or
www.awardingtheweb.com/disclaimer.

Again, Congratulations, and we hope to see your award on your website!

Cheers,
Emma Lee & Dennis Anderson
2065529587
www.awardingtheweb.com

Seems perfectly harmless, right?

Well, take a closer look at the HTML code they provide for the award badges:

<a href="http://www.onlinemba.com/top_humor/">
<img src="http://www.onlinemba.com/top_humor/images/Badges/circlebadge1.png" alt="Top Humor Blog" border="0" /></a><br><font size="1">
<a href="http://www.onlinemba.com">MBA Online</a></font>

I bolded that last line of code for a reason. What it does is create a very small line of text, “MBA Online,” that may not be noticeable to the human eye but is certainly noticeable to search engines.

When a search engine crawls a page that the badge is located on, it credits the OnlineMBA website with the keyword text “MBA Online.” In a way, OnlineMBA uses the reputation of other websites, to trick search engines  into thinking their website is worthy of ranking well for the search term “MBA Online.” All of this is done without the bloggers permission.

Not only is the completely against Google policies, it is extremely unethical.

They also try to exculpate themselves from any sort of legal ramifications by providing a very crafty disclaimer:

We here at Awarding The Web work hard to find the best blogs, and to distribute our awards to those we find with the help of sponsor sites. Our affiliation with any of our sponsor sites are only in this regard. We are not employed by any of our sponsor sites, nor do we receive any financial payments from them. As Emma and I run this awards organization on our own in our own free time and finance this ourselves, we require the help of outside resources to get these awards to the winners we have chosen, most notably a website to host the awards on. We are not responsible for the material that is found on those sites, and take no responsibility for the content found on their site. We are simply a small organization of the two of us who are creating and distributing these awards because it is our passion. We look to recognize excellent web content so that those who have worthwhile content can be distinguished from the useless, bad content that plagues today’s internet.

MBAonline.com is most likely profiting through referral links on their main page. A high ranking in Google for “MBA online” is extremely valuable and OnlineMBA.com has already received a 2nd place rank for the search term “MBA online.”

Bloggers who receive the congratulations email might be a little off their guard because of how flattering receiving an award can be. This makes the scheme all that more effective.

Look out bloggers. If it seems too good to be true, it usually isn’t true.

Post by Chris Scott. Check out his humor blog at www.deadcaterpillar.com.

Related posts

• Writing blog tags properly for search engines (SEO) and human visitors
• Why the Google PageRank of your blog does not matter
• Six powerful link building tips for your blog
• Building links to your blog through commenting on other blogs
• Yahoo to release a new style guide for web writing

So how do you remove the avatars without removing the wp_list_comments function, which is much needed for outputting all of the other elements of the comment section?

The answer is to use CSS to hide the avatar. Place the following code into style.css:

.avatar {
display:none;
}

Hat tip: rhysboy84 from Sitepoint.

Related posts

• Writing Image Paths in WordPress Themes the Right Way
• WordPress Gravatars: What They Are and How to Install Them
• WordPress Custom Post Taxonomies
• The Dirty Blue Theme for WordPress
• Submitting a Theme to the WordPress Free Theme Directory [Tips and How-to]

• A new partner has jumped on board and he’s brought with him a ton of experience from the Web and IT industry.
• DoFollow commenting has been enabled so that every user that gives something to Blogtap (in the form of a comment), receives something in return.
• AdSense blocks were installed for a few days and then removed.

In this post series, I’d like to discuss the last item on the list above.

Why Google AdSense? First: The What, How and When

When considering to monetize a blog with the popular Google AdSense Pay Per Click Network, there are really only three questions that need to be asked: what is Google AdSense? how do I install Google AdSense? when should I install Google AdSense?

I’m going to explore the what question today, and explore the other questions in future posts. At the end of this post series, you will be able to answer the question “is AdSense right for your Blog?” with confidence and apodictic certainty.

What Google AdSense is Not

To answer the why question, you must first understand what Google AdSense is. And to first answer what Google AdSense is you must first answer what it is not. Have I lost you yet?

• Google AdSense is not an affiliate network where you can earn money by producing sales. At one point, AdSense did support referral ads but discontinued referral ads in August of 2008 to narrow the scope of AdSense to purely PPC ads. Google operates its own affiliate network, which is where you should go if you want income from referrals.
• Not the most flexible PPC ad network for ad customization and placement. Google allows for only these ad sizes and nothing else. You can customize the background and link colors but you cannot customize the sizes of the ad blocks. Furthermore, only three AdSense for content units, three AdSense link units and two Google search boxes are allowed per page.
• Google AdSense is not an instant approval ad network. That means if you plan on setting up Google Adsense, you first have to submit an application and wait (sometimes weeks) for the acceptance letter.

What Google AdSense Is

• A pay per click ad network. You earn money with Google AdSense not from generating sales but sales leads. When someone clicks on an AdSense ad, they are taken to a third party website where they are usually pitched a product or service.
• A crawl-based ad network. Google crawls your web pages to determine what sort of advertisements to display. The only control you have over what sort of ads are displayed is through the content you surround Google ads with.
• The leading pay per click advertisement network on the web. There are more advertisers on Google AdSense than any three ad networks combined.
• A highly monitored ad network. Spammers beware, Google hires individuals whose sole job is to weed out those advertisers that are making money through illicit means. On top of that, Google created very complex algorithms to automatically detect illicit clicks.
• Interconnected with Google AdWords. The AdWords network is the mother of Google AdSense and the two allow each other to operate. Advertisers (those who want their ads shown) create ads in AdWords and have them displayed on websites controlled by publishers via AdSense.

In short, Google AdSense is a way of making money by displaying pre-made advertisements on your site. It has a few restrictions but should be considered in any circumstance because of how large it is compared to other ad networks.

I hope this post serves as a solid foundation to answer the question: should I install AdSense on my blog? Stay tuned for future posts in this series.

Related posts

• InfoLinks In-text Advertising Network Comes to Google Blogger
• Blogging for money part 4: placing advertisements on your blog
• Bloggerwave: Harnessing the Power of Bloggers for Company Advertisement and PR Campaigns
• A free alternative to the WordTracker keyword traffic analysis software
• [Gawker - Valleywag] Google CEO ‘disses’ blogging

I have previously covered the process of Installing Custom Taxonomies in WordPress Themes. In that post, I not only detailed what custom taxonomies are, but I also explained the difference between custom fields and custom taxonomies. In short: custom taxonomies can be used cross-post while custom fields are only meant to input data specific to one post. What does that mean?

Jaquith put it this way:

Do you want URLs to query posts by metadata? You want a taxonomy. Do you just want to display largely unique metadata about a post? Custom fields.

The ambiguity arises from the fact that custom post taxonomies and custom fields both perform the same function (displaying custom meta data for a post); but while they perform the same function, the custom post type is limited in the sense that the inputed data cannot be accessed on other post pages.

Using Custom Taxonomies

By adding data (or “tags”) to your custom taxonomies in the post editor, you can then display that data in your posts and style them much like post tags and categories. You will notice a menu item named after your registered custom taxonomy under the Posts menu in the WordPress Admin CP. By Clicking on that, you can view a page that is almost identical to your Post Tags page in Admin CP.

As is with post tags and categories, managing custom taxonomies is easy. You can edit previously inputed taxonomies (one at a time or by bulk) by clicking on the values in the list on the right-hand side of the taxonomy page. You can also add new taxonomy values by filling in the Name, Slug and Description fields and then clicking Add New Tag.

Currently, you can not designate which post a custom taxonomy value belongs to within the custom taxonomy page in admin CP. To change the posts that a taxonomy value associates with, you must navigate to the post editor of the post you wish to add/remove values and input your values in the custom taxonomy menu in the right-hand sidebar. The menu looks like this:

Why Are My Custom Taxonomies Not Showing?

There are a number of reasons why your custom taxonomies may not be showing in your post pages. Below are some of the most common reasons why taxonomies are not working as well as some things to try:

• The taxonomy was not properly installed. To install a taxonomy, you must insert code into two theme files: functions.php (which registers the custom taxonomy with the WordPress core) and the template file that will ultimately be viewable to visitors (either index.php, single.php or page.php in most cases). Read the Blogtap tutorial on installing custom post taxonomies if you need help installing taxonomies.
• You may not have inputed values for your custom taxonomy. Taxonomies can only be displayed if values are inputed in the post editor. Remember that values are post specific, unless you want them to function otherwise (which involves hard-coding of course).
• In the functions.php code that you use to register your taxonomy, try changing “hierarchical’ => true” to “hierarchical’ => false” and vice versa. This determines whether or not the taxonomies will act like post tags or categories.
• Try disabling all of your plugins. A plugin may be interfering with your taxonomy.
• Try changing themes and re-installing the taxonomy. Although this might be a little bit of a hassle, you will at least be able to isolate the problem. If taxonomies work on a separate them the you know something is coded improperly in your theme.
• Make sure you are upgraded to the most current version of WordPress. Some older versions of WordPress do not have support for custom taxonomies.

If you are having difficulty with custom taxonomies, don’t hesitate to leave a comment and I will be sure to help you out.

Related posts

• Writing Image Paths in WordPress Themes the Right Way
• Submitting a Theme to the WordPress Free Theme Directory [Tips and How-to]
• Writing blog tags properly for search engines (SEO) and human visitors
• WordPress Threaded Comments – How to Install Them on Your Theme [A Guide for Dummies]
• WordPress Gravatars: What They Are and How to Install Them

What are Custom Taxonomies in WordPress?

Sometimes WordPress publishers have a need to input custom meta data in the post editor and display it on pages (whether they be the index, archive or single post pages). By custom meta data, I mean meta data other than that which comes standard in most themes (like the post tags and the Category[s]).

Think of a custom taxonomy as something no different than post tags. With post tags, you can insert information in the post editor and the bits of information (the linking post tags themselves) display on your pages when the post is published. With custom taxonomies, you can insert information in the post editor and have that information displayed on pages, just as you do with post tags.

Note: Post tags are, in essence, a custom taxonomy named “Post Tags” in the post editor and their purpose is to organize post listings, displaying them through archive.php.

Installing Custom Taxonomies: A Simple Copy + Paste Method

To install a custom taxonomy in your theme, simply navigate to your template files editor (Appearance –> Editor), click on Theme Functions and past the following code:

register_taxonomy('taxonomy_name', 'post', array(
'hierarchical' => false,  'label' => 'taxonomy_name',
'query_var' => true, 'rewrite' => true));
?>

Note: Make sure that the PHP within your functions.php file is properly closed. The page should end with ?> and you should not have the PHP tags (‘<?php‘ and ‘?>‘) nested within other PHP tags. If you are getting an error when you update posts in the post editor, then you know you improperly updated your Theme Functions file.

You now have a taxonomy registered as “taxonomy_name” and named “taxonomy_name.” Navigate to your post editor by clicking edit on one of your previously published posts and look in the sidebar for your new taxonomy. It should look like this:

Go ahead and enter a value in “taxonomy_name” and click “Add.” Update the post and view it in your browser by clicking the “view post” button in the top of the post editor.

See anything different? You shouldn’t. Because, right now, you’ve stored a value in a custom taxonomy registered as “taxonomy_name,” but you have not specified if, where and how you want the taxonomy to be displayed in your theme’s template files.

Displaying Custom Post Taxonomies in Your Theme

Now that we’ve already created a new custom taxonomy by registering it in functions.php, and put a value in the taxonomy, we just need to alter the theme’s template files so the taxonomy values will show.

First you want to ask yourself this question: where do I want the custom taxonomy to display? If you only want the taxonomy values to display on the frontpage, you will need to edit index.php; if you only want the taxonomy values to display on the frontpage and single post, you will need to edit both index.php and single.php. You may want the values to display only on in the archive; in that case, you will need to edit archive.php. In this guide, I will edit single.php to display my taxonomy values on only single post pages.

Navigating to single.php, I see a bunch of code that, had I not been familiar with theme code, would greatly confuse me. Below is the single.php code for the old WordPress default theme (the one that was replaced by Twenty Ten):

/**
* @package WordPress
* @subpackage Default_Theme
*/
get_header();
?>
<div id="content" class="widecolumn">
<div class="navigation">
</div>
<div>id="post-">
<div class="entry">Read the rest of this entry »
'); ?>
'
<strong>Pages:</strong> ', 'after' => '
', 'next_or_number' => 'number')); ?>
Tags: ', ', ', '
'); ?>
ID,  'taxonomy_name', 'Taxonomy Value: ', ', ', ''); ?>
<p class="postmetadata alt"><small>
This entry was posted
You'll need to download this plugin, and follow the instructions:
http://binarybonsai.com/wordpress/time-since/ */
/* $entry_datetime = abs(strtotime($post->post_date) - (60*120)); echo time_since($entry_datetime); echo ' ago'; */ ?>
on  at
and is filed under .
You can follow any responses to this entry through the  feed.</small></p>
<small> // Both Comments and Pings are open ?>
You can <a href="#respond">leave a response</a>, or <a rel="trackback" href="<?php trackback_url(); ?>">trackback</a> from your own site.</small>
<small> // Only Pings are Open ?>
Responses are currently closed, but you can <a rel="trackback" href="<?php trackback_url(); ?> ">trackback</a> from your own site.</small>
<small> // Comments are open, Pings are not ?>
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.</small>
<small> // Neither Comments, nor Pings are open ?>
Both comments and pings are currently closed.</small>
<small> </small>
<small> </small>
</div>
</div>
Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.
</div>

If you’re a beginner to PHP coding or WordPress theme coding or not even a coder at all, you may be a little alarmed at this point. Don’t worry. The following steps will help you identify exactly where in that mess of code you need to insert the code that references your custom taxonomy.

To identify where you need to place your custom taxonomy code in single.php (or any other template file), simply:

1. Open up one of your posts in your browser.
2. Press Control-F to open up your browser’s text finder.
3. Type in “the_tags” (minus parenthesis) and hit enter. If the search doesn’t find anything, go to step 3.
4. Type in “the_category” and hit enter. If the search doesn’t find anything, go to step 4.
5. Type in “the_author_posts_link” and hit enter. If the search doesn’t find anything, go to step 5.
6. Type in “the_time” and hit enter. If the search doesn’t find anything, you’re fresh outta’ luck!

What you’ve just done is search for references in the code that call for meta information — which is something common to all themes. Most themes will display either one, some or all of the following in single post pages: the tags, the categories the post is contained within, the author link and the time. This is relevant to us because taxonomies are most commonly used to display meta data. Taxonomies are, by definition, custom meta data. And odds are, you’re going to display all of your meta data in one spot, so let’s learn how to display your taxonomy values next to already displaying meta information in your theme.

Note: It is important to understand the difference between meta data and meta tags. The term “meta tags” typically refers to the information on a page (within the HTML meta tag) presented to search engines, consisting of things like keywords, description and other information. Read more about meta tags in WordPress here. Meta data is basic “administrative” information on a page, almost always presented to the human eye, that encompasses such things as the author name, category and date published. Read more about meta data in WordPress here.

In the old default WordPress theme, I’m going to copy and paste the code to display my custom taxonomy right below ‘the_tags’ (<?php the_tags( ‘<p>Tags: ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘</p>’); ?> in full). That way, my custom taxonomy will display right below where my tags (which are a sort of non-custom taxonomy) normally would in my single post pages. Here’s what I’m pasting in:

<?php echo get_the_term_list($post->ID,  'taxonomy_name', 'Taxonomy Value: ', ', ', ''); ?>

“taxonomy_name” represents the name I registered my new taxonomy in functions.php and “Taxonomy Value” is an arbitrary string of text I have chosen to display before the first taxonomy value. Navigating to the post I had already installed a taxonomy_name value on in the post editor (see above “Installing Custom Taxonomies” heading above), I can now see my taxonomy value displayed just below the post tags.

Note: If you are using the WordPress default theme, your results may look much different from mine. I am using the SexyBookmarks plugin to display social sharing icons below each post.

Now that you’ve created, installed and learned how to display a custom taxonomy in your single post pages, you can apply the same concept to other template files like index.php and archive.php. Odds are, you will want to display most of your meta data in the same area, so just follow the numbered steps above to identify where the meta data is and paste in your custom taxonomy code.

Customizing Taxonomies – Naming and Styling

You can obviously change the names of your taxonomies and add new ones with different names by replacing “taxonomy_name” with your own name in the above code examples. Be sure that each taxonomy is registered in functions.php with the same name called in your other template files.

You can style your taxonomies the same way you would your meta data. In the appropriate templates, place a span, list (if it’s within an ordered or unordered list), p or whatever tag around your taxonomy code with a class or id, then style that class or id in style.css.

The Difference Between Custom Fields and Custom Taxonomies

There has been a lot of confusion in the WordPress community as to the difference of custom fields and custom taxonomies. In short: custom taxonomies can be used cross-site while custom fields are only meant to input data specific to one post. For example, data inserted into post tags and categories taxonomies (which come installed default on any WordPress installation) are by nature meant to be re-used cross-site. If I put two posts into the same category (or tag) and have a link displayed on both of the posts to the category (which most themes will do), both posts are using the same data (the category link) which is a taxonomy.

Although taxonomies and custom fields are similar in purpose, the latter has limitations. That is why I recommend using taxonomies rather than custom fields in most circumstances. Even if you don’t plan on using the information cross-site initially, you may have a need to in the future. Tomorrow I will publish a shorter guide outlining everything you can do with custom post taxonomies.

Related posts

• Writing Image Paths in WordPress Themes the Right Way
• WordPress Threaded Comments – How to Install Them on Your Theme [A Guide for Dummies]
• WordPress Gravatars: What They Are and How to Install Them
• WordPress Custom Post Taxonomies
• WordPress 2.8 visual editor buttons not displaying

After two beta releases and a release candidate (called RC1), the WordPress development team released WordPress 3.0 (dubbed “Thelonious” after the American jazz musician) jam-packed with enough nifty features to make any web socialite spin in his swivel chair in utter delight, right round like a record baby, right round round round.

WordPress bloggers are able to upgrade through Tools → Upgrade or by downloading the package and uploading. The brighter control panel display and a new menu item titled “Updates” under the Dashboard menu are the first things noticeably different. With the new updates feature, users can update everything in one place. Rather than navigating to the upgrade button for each plugin or theme, users can update all plugins and themes simultaneously by clicking the “Update Plugins” or “Update Themes,” button.

But small enhancements like the new update feature are only a trifle compared to other changes. WordPress 3.0 features:

• A merge with multi-site (MU) version of WordPress. Now casual WordPress users will be able to take advantage of all the MU features like being able to manage multiple blogs from one installation and better back-end support for multiple users.
• Relevant help documentation only a click away from every internal page within the admin control panel. “What the hell do post tags do?” “What do I do with my media library?” “What does it mean to ‘send trackbacks’?” The ever-present help button in the top right corner answers all. In previous versions, the help button hardly answered anything.
• A new custom menu feature. Under Appearance → Menus users can create new menus with links to specified categories, pages or custom links (an address you type in). Theme designers can build custom menu locations into their themes, which users can fill with their custom menus through the Menus page. Non-3.0-compliant themes can also take advantage of the custom menu feature because the menus can be placed in widgetized areas as custom widgets.

Other features include: improved custom post types and taxonomies, custom header and background APIs and a new default theme called “Twenty Ten.” For a complete list of additional features and changes in version 3.0, be sure to check out the changelog in the WordPress Codex.

It’s difficult to imagine WordPress getting any better than it previously was. But the consistent fine-tuning through new releases only attest to the effectiveness of open-source, community driven software. WordPress is one free software that has not stopped getting better.

Article first published as WordPress 3.0 Released: It Just Keeps Getting Better on Technorati.

Related: Top 7 New Features in WordPress 3.0.

Related posts

• Where does WordPress Make All of its Money?
• Top 7 New Features in WordPress 3.0
• The Best Blogging Sites and Platforms | Top Blog Sites
• Matt Mullenweg announces VaultPress beta for WordPress
• Kidblog.org: a free blogging platform for the elementary and middle school classroom

Let’s say for example you want to display a logo image in the header of your theme. If you were designing the page with hard-coded paths, your hyper-linked image logo might look like this:

<a href="<?php echo get_option('home'); ?>">
<img src="wp-content/themes/theme-name/images/image-name.png" alt="logo" /></a>

Below is the proper way to code paths in WordPress themes:

<a href="<?php echo get_option('home'); ?>">
<img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/images/image-name.png" alt="logo" /></a>

The function “<?php bloginfo(‘template_directory’); ?>” will automatically find the path to the theme you have enabled in the WordPress Admin Control Panel.

You can also use the bloginfo() function to locate paths to stylesheets, like in the following example:

<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”<?php bloginfo(‘stylesheet_url’) ?>” >

Below Mitcho Erlewine, creator of the famous YARP (Yet Another Related Posts Plugin), talks at WordCamp San Francisco about abstracting your code so it is more reliable and easier to use for future developers.

Related posts

• Submitting a Theme to the WordPress Free Theme Directory [Tips and How-to]
• WordPress Threaded Comments – How to Install Them on Your Theme [A Guide for Dummies]
• WordPress Custom Post Taxonomies
• WordPress Gravatars: What They Are and How to Install Them
• WordPress 2.8 visual editor buttons not displaying

A WordPress Plugin That Will Solve All Your Liking Needs

The Facebook Like for Marketers plugin allows you to place a like button at the bottom of every post and much more. With the plugin, you can:

• Add the like button the the bottom of your posts
• Change the height and width of the area which your like button will take up
• Choose whether to show the profile pictures of people who have liked the post
• Choose between two layouts (standard or button count)
• Choose whether to display “like” or “recommend”
• Choose a light, dark or “evil” color scheme
• Choose the title, site name and thumbnail to display on Facebook within the post editor.

Download the plugin on the official WordPress.org page.

Why Should You Install the Facebook Like Button?

When considering whether or not to install the Facebook Like Button, ask yourself one question: Would I share the content on my blog with friends? Obviously blogs that are highly specialized in content are not ideal Facebook Like Button candidates. I may have an interest in collecting bugs but I doubt many of my friends do. Therefore, I should not install the Facebook Like Button on my bug collecting blog. Humor blogs are a different story. Friends often share content they find funny with other friends. Therefore, it would be ideal to install the Facebook Like button on your humor blog.

Recommended reading: Why The Facebook Like Button Might Not Be Right For Your Blog.

Related posts

• What’s So Funny About Writing a Humor Blog?
• The Custom Post Background WordPress Plugin
• MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate for WordPress Review
• How to Change Only the Main Index/Frontpage Background of your WordPress Blog

You’ve come to the right place.

Here’s what you will need to complete this guide:

• Absolutely no knowledge of HTML/CSS or PHP
• An IQ over 55 (borderline retarded)
• A computer and an old WordPress theme that needs comments threaded

Let’s get started.

Step 1: Backing Up Your Current Comment.php File

Go to Editor –> Themes –> click on Comments (comment.php) in the right-hand sidebar. Copy and paste everything inside of comment.php into a text file and save it to your hard disc. If you completely screw up following this incredibly easy, step-by-step tutorial, you will have a backup of your old working comment.php file.

Step 2: Copy and Pasting the Default’s Theme Comment.php

Go to Editor –> Themes –> click on Comments (comment.php) in the right-hand sidebar. Highlight everything and delete it (there is no need to click Update after you have done that). Then copy and paste this code into the window and click Update:

<?php
/**
 * @package WordPress
 * @subpackage Default_Theme
 */
// Do not delete these lines
	if (!empty($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']) &amp;&amp; 'comments.php' == basename($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']))
		die ('Please do not load this page directly. Thanks!');
	if ( post_password_required() ) { ?>
		<p class="nocomments">This post is password protected. Enter the password to view comments.</p>
	<?php
		return;
	}
?>
<!-- You can start editing here. -->
<?php if ( have_comments() ) : ?>
	<h3 id="comments"><?php comments_number('No Responses', 'One Response', '% Responses' );?> to “<?php the_title(); ?>”</h3>
	<div class="navigation">
		<div class="alignleft"><?php previous_comments_link() ?></div>
		<div class="alignright"><?php next_comments_link() ?></div>
	</div>
	<ol class="commentlist">
	<?php wp_list_comments(); ?>
	</ol>
	<div class="navigation">
		<div class="alignleft"><?php previous_comments_link() ?></div>
		<div class="alignright"><?php next_comments_link() ?></div>
	</div>
 <?php else : // this is displayed if there are no comments so far ?>
	<?php if ( comments_open() ) : ?>
		<!-- If comments are open, but there are no comments. -->
	 <?php else : // comments are closed ?>
		<!-- If comments are closed. -->
		<p class="nocomments">Comments are closed.</p>
	<?php endif; ?>
<?php endif; ?>
<?php if ( comments_open() ) : ?>
<div id="respond">
<h3><?php comment_form_title( 'Leave a Reply', 'Leave a Reply to %s' ); ?></h3>
<div class="cancel-comment-reply">
	<small><?php cancel_comment_reply_link(); ?></small>
</div>
<?php if ( get_option('comment_registration') &amp;&amp; !is_user_logged_in() ) : ?>
<p>You must be <a href="<?php echo wp_login_url( get_permalink() ); ?>">logged in</a> to post a comment.</p>
<?php else : ?>
<form action="<?php echo get_option('siteurl'); ?>/wp-comments-post.php" method="post" id="commentform">
<?php if ( is_user_logged_in() ) : ?>
<p>Logged in as <a href="<?php echo get_option('siteurl'); ?>/wp-admin/profile.php"><?php echo $user_identity; ?></a>. <a href="<?php echo wp_logout_url(get_permalink()); ?>" title="Log out of this account">Log out »</a></p>
<?php else : ?>
<p><input type="text" name="author" id="author" value="<?php echo esc_attr($comment_author); ?>" size="22" tabindex="1" <?php if ($req) echo "aria-required='true'"; ?> />
<label for="author"><small>Name <?php if ($req) echo "(required)"; ?></small></label></p>
<p><input type="text" name="email" id="email" value="<?php echo esc_attr($comment_author_email); ?>" size="22" tabindex="2" <?php if ($req) echo "aria-required='true'"; ?> />
<label for="email"><small>Mail (will not be published) <?php if ($req) echo "(required)"; ?></small></label></p>
<p><input type="text" name="url" id="url" value="<?php echo esc_attr($comment_author_url); ?>" size="22" tabindex="3" />
<label for="url"><small>Website</small></label></p>
<?php endif; ?>
<!--<p><small><strong>XHTML:</strong> You can use these tags: <code><?php echo allowed_tags(); ?></code></small></p>-->
<p><textarea name="comment" id="comment" cols="58" rows="10" tabindex="4"></textarea></p>
<p><input name="submit" type="submit" id="submit" tabindex="5" value="Submit Comment" />
<?php comment_id_fields(); ?>
</p>
<?php do_action('comment_form', $post->ID); ?>
</form>
<?php endif; // If registration required and not logged in ?>
</div>
<?php endif; // if you delete this the sky will fall on your head ?>

Note: With out a doubt, the absolute fastest and easiest way to install threaded comments on a theme is to use re-use the code inside the default theme’s comment.php. If, for some reason, you would like to take the long way around and amend an already existing comment.php to support threaded comments, you will need to re-do the loop and add the proper functions. In my opinion, there should be no reason why you would have to take the long way around unless you really want to understand how the loop works and be familiar with the functions.

Step 3: Enabling WordPress to Recognize Threaded Comments

Although you haven’t styled your threaded comments yet, you now have threaded comments installed. You need to let WordPress know that your theme has the threaded comments feature and that you would like WordPress to display them. Go to Settings –> Discussion. Check the box beside “enable threaded (nested) comments” and choose how many levels you would like threaded comments to go. For example, if I chose “3,” I would be able to reply to a comment that was made in reply to a normal comment (one that was not in reply to any other comment). With a level of 3 however, I would not be able to reply to a reply of a reply.

Step 4: Styling Threaded Comments

Right now, threaded comments are installed but they are not fitted aesthetically to your theme. You may want to change the indents or place a border and background on your threaded comments. To do this there are some simple changes you need to make to style.css (accessed through Appearence –> Editor –> Style.css). In Style.css, add the following at the bottom:

li.depth-2 {
   background: 1px solid #000;
   background-color: #131640;
   margin-left: 20px;
} 

Here is how the threaded comment will look on the Dirty Blue Theme, using the above CSS code:

You probably will need to change the color and border property (or remove it altogether) to fit your theme. You may need to change the padding and margin properties to suite your theme. As you can tell by the example above, the padding and margin need to be altered and the color is just not right.

To style threaded comments with a depth level of 3 (you must have “3 levels deep” set in Settings –> Discussion) you will need to create a CSS class called “li.depth-3″ and style appropriately. Typically the only thing you will need to change on the next level of threaded comments is the indent, which is changed by doubling the margin property (in the above example, “margin-left: 20px” would be changed to “margin-left: 40px“).

Step 5 (optional): Installing the Reply Form Javascript

To install the neat little Javascript that moves the comment reply box just below the comment being replied to (as opposed to being taken to where the reply form is at the bottom of the comment template), just copy and paste the following line of code into header.php, just before php wp_head():

<?php if ( is_singular() ) wp_enqueue_script( 'comment-reply' ); ?>

That’s it! You know should be able to enable threaded comments on your theme and change their appearance. If you have any difficulty following this guide, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below and I will help you out.

Related posts

• Writing Image Paths in WordPress Themes the Right Way
• Submitting a Theme to the WordPress Free Theme Directory [Tips and How-to]
• WordPress Gravatars: What They Are and How to Install Them
• WordPress Custom Post Taxonomies
• WordPress 2.8 visual editor buttons not displaying

The program automatically replaces words and phrases on your blog with affiliate links, allowing you to earn a commission every time someone purchases a product through those links.  For example, I set the key phrase “ninja affiliate” to link to the official product sales page. Should you purchase the product through my link, I would earn a commission on the $97 purchase price. I have a maximum of 3 linkable key phrases set, so not every occurrence of the “ninja affiliate” keyphrase will be automatically linked in this post.

From the WordPress admin control panel, you can control keywords/phrases to replace with affiliate links, the number of affiliate links to display per page, the affiliate destination link and whether or not you want to cloak your links. Additional functionalities include:

• Set the “ninja links” to appear in the browser status bar with you own custom URLs. I used “http://www.blogtap.net/recommends/ninja” for the “ninja affiliate” key phrase.
• Easily disable/enable keyword/phrase groups, allowing you to diagnose and fine-tune earning potential.
• Choose the number of time one keyword is replaced per post or page.
• Open clicked affiliate links in new windows.
• Add the “nofollow” attribute value so search engines ignore affiliate links.
• Custom link formatting (set the font color, font family, weight and font size of affiliate links)
• Exclude pages and specified categories from being auto-linked with Ninja Affiliate.

In short: there is absolutely nothing left out of this plugin.

I tested the WordPress plugin for a little over three days and witnessed spectacular results. I created a link called “traffic” and set it to replace the keywords “traffic,” “visitors” and “SEO” throughout my blog. I was able to get 82 raw clicks for just those keywords.

In PPC language, at about 30 cents per click, that’s about $25 earned.  I can live with paying a one time fee of $97 if I am able to earn that back in a week.

Overall, Ninja Affiliate is a fantastic plugin that is sure to be a big-earner for this blog once its traffic volume is substantial enough. All of the extra features MaxBlogPress threw in (like link formatting and cloaking) make this plugin above par and worth my dollars.

9.5 out of 10

Related posts

• What you need to know about earning commissions from affiliate links on your blog
• Blogging for money part 4: placing advertisements on your blog
• Where does WordPress Make All of its Money?
• What is Akismet?
• The Many Reasons Why You Should Allow DoFollow Commenting on Your Blog (I’ll be Frank)