I’ve come across a website today that i had  to fix, one of the plugins (WordPress automatic upgrade) had run an update and then left WordPress stuck in maintenance mode. the error you get on WordPress is:

“The Site is currently undergoing maintenance, Sorry for the inconvenience  WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plugin provided by Techie Buzz.”

Ive read a few different ways to fix it but here is what i did.

1. Disable the plugin, rename it or delete it from your plugin directory, this will probably not fix the situation
2. Go to the root of the blog and look for a page called index.php.waup.php, if this exists, then delete index.php and rename this file to index.php

This should get your WordPress working again…. Simples

WordPress Stuck In Maintenance Mode is a post from: SEO Rocks

Groupon has become Google Offers in the US, having checked it out a little, its only available in the US as the moment but its quick to detect that you are logged in and ask to spam send you offers.

NOTE****** I have just realised that Google didn’t buy Groupon! I thought they did but it seems they rejected the offer for $6Bn.

My auto presumption that it was Groupon was because it was so familiar as the Groupon website…. Naughty Google!

Groupon Becomes Google Offers is a post from: SEO Rocks

Im not a fountain of knowledge when it comes to PPC, as the title says, its more about SEO for me! however, after looking through some search terms today i spotted this in Google.com, It seems they are allowing PPC clients to ask people to sign up for a newsletter straight form the search results. Not sure if i would subscribe to this, though i did subscribe to one to see what happens!

After consulting out PPC team, it seems its a test feature for premium accounts.

New PPC Feature is a post from: SEO Rocks

Not everyone knows this, but Google actually holds information on you… no serious they do! And with that information, they target adverts through their network straight to your screen.

But did you also know, you can change what info they have on you and you can also block it. Its all located in the adsence add’s preferences.

Navigate to https://www.google.com/ads/preferences, on this page there is a ‘remove or Edit’ link, click this and be exposed to what Google knows about you!

I’ve recently deleted my data to see how fast it re generates, its been about a month and the data isn’t quite as accurate this time round, however, its not far of, the gender and age range is correct, im located in Manchester so that’s correct. Dance music and radio is spot on, i check the swimming pool opening times a lot and check my online banking.

The only thing i cant agree on is the Northeast Brazilian category, not sure what that is… honest!

Does Google Sum You Up? is a post from: SEO Rocks

Doing a search this morning i came across a Japanese listing in google.co.uk, These updates from Google are getting better and better

日本人は新しい英語です。 is a post from: SEO Rocks

I little pointless blog post today. Google recently announced that it was improving its indexing of common symbols, which include the ‘+’ symbol.

Im sure its no coincidence that this is now a priority when google + doesn’t rank for the search term ‘google +’!!

Google + Doesnt Rank is a post from: SEO Rocks

As another day passes, so does yet another style local listing. this time it doesn’t look like a traditional listing but as you can see, its in and amongst the normal listings and it has a link to expand the listing to display a map and phone number.

Ive not seen this style listing before so im not sure how new it actually is, i would rather see these type listings in the results over the traditional local listings.

Another Local Style Listing is a post from: SEO Rocks

Google has announced a change to its page layout algorithm in a change that instantly made me think Google were being very hypocritical. The new layout will affect pages that have little content but lots of advertising above the fold when a page loads.

I instantly thought of me using my netbook, or the millions of people now using 10″ tables or smaller, the amount of times a google search has been assessed with only PPC on show and loading youtube with ridiculously large adverts across the top.

When you read into it more however, this is not what Google is gunning for, Google are penalising website that make it hard to find the content on the website, if the page loads and the content isn’t visible with a scroll or makes it hard to access content then they are dropping.

Google has said that 1% of searches are effected, initially a small percentage, but this is still a large amount of searches. Thinking more about it, it dawned on me that it’s mainly file sharing websites that use this trick. The download links are generally at the bottom of the page, they have a timer on them to use, the links are always smaller than the adverts, adverts generally dominate the top of the page.

This seems a little coincidental that on the day Megaupload is taken down by the Americans, Google directly affect the rankings of most other popular file sharing websites.

I did try to fight this idea with myself by thinking all they are going to do is improve the page layout of these websites to make it easier to download from them. I don’t think this could be the case, most of these websites will have enormous running costs which are being paid for by advertising in prominent pages on the website. If the download link becomes clear, then massive amounts of revenue will be lost on these websites and who knows if they will be able to sustain operation. I dont believe enough people would pay for the service to cover the loss in advertising revenue.

I did try to perform a few searches to screenshot for this blog post, but i couldn’t even find the websites im talking about in a search, all i got presented with at the end of the search as this.

Google Backhander to Congress?? is a post from: SEO Rocks

Using a .htaccess file it couldn’t be simpler to redirect all of your pages from one URL to another. If you are moving domains then it is imperative that you redirect all the inner pages, the relevant inner page on the new url. Providing the inner pages have not changed names then the following code should be placed into the HTaccess file.

RewriteEngine on 
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

301 Redirect All Pages From One Domain To Another is a post from: SEO Rocks

Firefox is updating its version numbers like i drink beer at the moment. I always keep mine up to date but on the latest update, i noticed the Status bar had gone missing, now before i go any further, i know they took the status bar out in previous versions, but the link preview part of the status bar had not been taken out.

It seemed a bit strange that they had done this but i installed a plugin to fix it. Then earlier this week, i upgraded and had a fresh install of windows put on my PC, installed the latest version of FireFox and hay presto, the link preview was back again!

Then today, someone upgraded to version 8 of Firefox and the link preview bar has gone! It seems that its not Firefox that is removing the link preview status, but some sort of error when FireFox us performing an upgrade. As far as i can see, the only way to fix the issue would be to un install FireFox completely, delete all the profiles and start fresh, a very daunting prospect for many, but keeping a profile fresh and light is a good thing as FireFox profiles can get bogged down with old plugins, bookmarks, passwords, history etc..

Why have i blogged about this? because as an SEO, seeing where links go without clicking them is a crucial part of my working day, many SEO’s will use this feature even if they don’t realise they do.

FireFox 8 Status Bar is a post from: SEO Rocks