Q. What is WordPress?
A. WordPress is a “blogging platform”, which is a fancy way of saying “a place for you to put your blog”.

Q. I’ve heard of WordPress.org and WordPress.com. What is the difference?
A. WordPress.org is self-hosted, meaning you put the WordPress files on your own host. WordPress.com is owned and maintained by WordPress. All you need to do is blog.

Q. If WordPress.com is easier, why would I want to use WordPress.org?
A. There are pros and cons to each. Using one over the other is the difference between owning your office building and renting office space.

• With WordPress.org you own your files, you own your traffic. Just like owning your own home, you are responsible for it’s maintenance and upkeep. And just like owning your home, you have the most flexibility when it comes to changing the look and functionality of your blog. If you ever want to sell your business, owning your blog will add value to it.
• The pros to using other blogging platforms such as WordPress.com, Blogger, or Typepad is that you don’t have to maintain your own blog. There are no updates and no having to fix things that go wrong with your blog. Since you don’t own your blog you are limited to the designs that they have available. Since you don’t own your blog or it’s traffic, you run the risk of your blog getting taken down, even accidentally.

Q. I thought WordPress was just for blogs, now I see it’s a Web site. Which is it?
A. WordPress is a blogging platform but with the ability to customize themes and add pages, it works well as a Web site.

Q. I want to own my blog. What do I need to do?
A. You need to purchase a domain name and hosting. You can purchase your domain name anywhere but you have to use a hosting company that supports the latest version of WordPress. Currently most companies do support WordPress. Especially if you choose a more popular hosting company. If you aren’t sure, you can ask them before signing up. Domain names typically cost around $10 per year. You shouldn’t pay more than $10/month for hosting.

Q. What should I look for when searching for a hosting company.
A. Look for a hosting package that will grow with your business. For a small, slightly active blog, you want at least 30GB of space. There are hosting companies that give you unlimited space and unlimited bandwith which will allow your blog to grow with your business.

Also, look for a hosting company with some sort of support. Many hosting companies will charge a separate fee for phone support but will offer email support for free. Other hosting companies charge for any type of support. More than likely you will need to contact support at some point so find one that offers some sort of free support. Also, if it offers phone support, make sure the company is located in the same country you are or you may incur some hefty long distance fees. Many companies now offer a Chat Live feature for free.

Q. I want to change hosting companies. My blog is already set up. What do I need to do to move it to the new hosting company?
A. Moving the blog is fairly simple step-by-step process, but it can get tricky. You have to time it so that you don’t have a lot of down time. You may lose email for a few days, too. If you haven’t done it before, I’d suggest you contact someone who has and have them do it. This is something we will cover in WordPressMasteryClub.com in the future.

Q. I’ve heard that WordPress is prone to hackers, is that true?
A. All types of sites have been targeted by hackers – WordPress, HTML (Dreamweaver), and even Joomla. While we can’t really prevent a hacker from getting in, there are things we can do to make it harder. Things like strong passwords, not doing things that attract them in the first place (ie watch where you are linking to, not using the word F.R.E E anywhere on your site). You can also set up monitoring systems in WordPress so that you’ll know immediately if your site has been hacked.

If you have any other questions regarding WordPress, please visit the forums.

1. Bad Behavior which is just an anti-spam plugin. There are many good anti-spam plugins out there, but this one does it’s job so I’m happy with it.

2. Login Lockdown locks someone out if they get the user name/password wrong too often. You can set the amount of attempts you want them to make (I chose 10 because I tend to change passwords, then forget what I change them to, lol). You can also decide how long you want someone locked out for.

3. Firewall blocks hack attempts. The email alert is pretty scary, but you’ll be glad to see that this plugin is doing it’s job.

4. Bulletproof Security This one protects your site from common hacker attempts. It takes a bit of setting up and may be a bit complicated for many.

After all that, if a hacker does make their way into your site, you can use:

5. WordPress File Monitor which notifies you whenever a file has been changed on your site. You have to watch the emails the first few weeks and whitelist any changes that your system should be making (error-logs, for example). Then when a real hacker has added a file or changed a file, you’ll know immediately. This doesn’t stop hackers, but it allows you to fix what they did before it does any damage.

I install all these plugins on all my clients’ sites. Just recently I “got” to see the Firewall in action when an attempt was made on a client’s site. You know the saying about an ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure…

There are several things that can happen to a WordPress site.

1. You can get spam on your comments form or on your contact form;
2. You can get hacked;
3. You can corrupt your database.

There are many security measures that you can put in place to protect your blog.

SPAM PROTECTION - We all hate spam, don’t we? There’s no perfect way to get rid of spam altogether, but there are things we can do to minimize the amount of spam that we get.

1. Install a Captcha Plugin – You can install a captcha plugin to prove the commentor is human and not a spam-bot. Some captchas are in the form of a question that you have to answer, ie “Is fire hot or cold?”. Some are in the form of a simple addition problem, ie “1+2=”. Some just ask you to type in a random word. Captchas only prove that it is a human leaving the comment.
2. Install an Anti-Spam Plugin – Use the captcha in conjunction with an antispam. An antispam uses a rating system to decide if a comment is spam or not. If it decides a comment is spam, it puts the comments in a spam folder in your dashboard for you to moderate.
3. Moderate Your Comments – Approximately 80% of all blogs have their comments set for moderation. Moderation doesn’t stop spam, but it keeps it from being published.
4. Do Not Add Your Email Address Anywhere on Your Site. Spammers love to get ahold of email addresses. Don’t give them yours.

HACKERS – A hacker hacks into your Web server to put their code in your files. Many times the code downloads a tracker onto your visitor’s computer to steal credit card info and passwords. (You’ve heard of infected sites, right?) You won’t know you’ve been hacked until your host shuts your site down or Google sends you a notice that your site is harmful to others. Hackers target both websites and blogs, so this is not a WordPress issue, it’s a Web issue.

1. Use a Secure Password - Hackers use sophisticated computer programs to “crack” passwords. To prevent getting hacked, your best bet is to use secure passwords that are hard to guess and change them often.
2. Choose a Secure User Name – WordPress now allows you to choose your user name. Choose one that will be hard for a hacker to figure out. If your user name is “admin”, all the hacker has to figure out is the password. With a hard-to-guess user name you’ve doubled your protection. If your blog is already installed with the user name “admin”, you can change that in your database.
3. Use a Security Key – WordPress has a third built-in anti-hacker feature that few people take advantage of because it means editing your wp-config WordPress file. You can use a security key generator to generate a secure key.
4. Install a File Monitor Plugin – You can install a File Monitor plugin that will notify you immediately – before any computers are infected and before your host and Google finds out. How this plugin works is that it takes a snapshot of your files now so that when one of them changes, you get an email letting you know. This way you know long before the hacker can do any damage to your visitor’s computers and long before Google labels your site as harmful. Because it tells you exactly what files have been changed, it saves you time. You don’t have to search every file to see if there is hacked code added because you already know what files have been changed. The file monitor plugin doesn’t stop hackers, but it does alert you in enough time to do something about it before it causes huge, expensive problems.

CORRUPT DATABASE – You can lose all your pages, your posts, or your comments if your database corrupts. Things that can corrupt a database include plugins conflicting, files not installing completely, and electrical storms.

1. Back Up Your Database – You can install a plugin that creates backup copies. Set the plugin to create a new copy each time you create a new blog post. You will receive an email each time it backs up telling you where the backup is located in your files. These emails are just letting you know that the plugin is working in case anything bad ever happens. It’s like insurance. 99% of the time you will never need it, but the 1 time you do, you’ll be glad you have the backups.
2. Export Your XML File – Each time you post to your blog, go to Tools in the left-hand menu. Click on Tools>Export and export the XML file. The XML file is a copy of all your pages, posts, and comments. It doesn’t matter if you can read the file or not. Just keep a copy in case you ever need to restore your site. The XML file will name itself the date that it’s been exported so it’s easy to figure out which file is your most recent.

1. Replan your blog. If you haven’t done this in a while, think about your business now and the message that you want to send people. Choose several topics that you’d like to cover in your blog. These topics will become your new categories.

2. Reorganize your blog. For search engine ranking, you really only want one category per post. Edit each post using the Quick Edit feature to save time.

3.  Rewrite outdated posts. Are there any posts that should be removed because the information in them has become outdated? Update the information and them post them as new posts. Post date the new posts so that you have new posts for a few weeks, giving you time off to enjoy your summer.

4.  Remove no-longer-relevant posts. Has your business taken on a new focus yet you still have posts that reflect the “old you”? There’s no reason to keep every post you’ve ever written on your blog. I wouldn’t delete them into oblivion. I would take them down and put them in a folder for later use.

5. Submit your blog posts directly to Ezine Articles. There’s a plugin to help you do this http://blog.ezinearticles.com/2010/03/articles-directly-from-wordpress.html. You must have an ezine articles account to use this so go sign up and start driving traffic to your site.

6. Remove oudated plugins. If you’ve been reading my writing and listening to me toalk, then you’ve heard this one before. Plugins can wreck havoc on a blog so make sure the ones you have installed are ones that you are currently using.

Good job WordPress developers!

Ok, I just made this up. There’s no Wikipedia definition. But the affliction is real. Go to Google, or Yahoo, or whatever your favorite search engine is. Type in the keyphrase “top 10 plugins”. I did it. I came up with more than 25 million results. Bloggers want something to write about. When you are stuck with nothing to write about, a Top-10 list always works as a filler. When you write about blogging, a Top 10 Plugin list is perfect.

These lists fool people into thinking that they must have all those plugins. Many people try them all – and have bad results.

The first danger to using too many plugins is that they can conflict with each other giving your blog gets conflicting messages. Your blog may work well for a while and then for no apparent reason it stops working, or you can’t get into the dashboard and you aren’t sure why.

The second danger to using too many plugins is that one may duplicate what one is already doing. Recently a blog owner used two different versions of a database backup plugin. She soon had a white page where her blog used to be.

The third danger is that a blog is built on a database, meaning that when you pull up a blog page that page has to be built. You can actually see this happening if you are on a slower internet connection. First the header shows up. Then the content, then the sidebar, then the background and footer. It comes together piece by piece. Plugins are also loaded one at a time. The more plugins you have, the more work has to be done to build this Web page. A websie visitor on a very slow internet connection may leave before the page finishes loading.

Here’s how to use those Top 10 Must-Have WordPress Plugin lists to your advantage.
1. Decide what functionality you want your blog to have. Do you want it to show your Twitter stream or have a direct link to your Facebook page? Do you want to block spam comments? Do you want it to automatically back up your database?

2. Once you know what you want the blog to do, do a Google search and find a plugin (more likely plugins) that does it. Then do a Google search and see what the bloggers are saying about the plugins that you are interested in. What are the pros and cons of using each one.

3. Go to the WordPress Extended Coded or the Plugin’s home page and read about it. Take a look at the screenshots. Does this look like what you want it to do? Does it look easy?

4. Make sure that the function isn’t already built into your blog or already built into a plugin that you are already using.

The fix: If your blog stops working for no apparent reason and you can’t get into the dashboard to deactivate your plugins, go into your FTP program and remove the plugins one at a time until the blog is working again. You can easily re-install and re-activate the ones that worked.

Things to be aware of when upgrading your plugins and WordPress version:

1. Your favorite plugin may stop working. A plugin upgrade may also be needed after a version update. Sometimes the plugin designers are on top of things and send out their upgrades in anticipation of the WordPress upgrade. Sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes two different plugins that used to work well together now conflict. One tells the sky to be blue while the other tells the sky to be purple. The sky doesn’t know which plugin to listen to and you either get an error message or the plugin stops working altogether. The fix is to deactivate all plugins and reactivate them one at a time, starting with your most needed plugin. Make sure everything is working properly before reactivating the next one. This will help you narrow down which plugins are causing the problem.

2. You may get a “fatal error” across your screen where your blog used to be. This typically happens when a file does not completely load. When you upgrade using the Instant Upgrade feature, you won’t see what files failed to upload the way that you can using an FTP program. If this happens, manually upload the WordPress files using an FTP so that you can make sure they all loaded properly.

If this does not fix it, then use your FTP program to delete all plugins in case it’s one of them that’s the culprit. Download them to your computer first so that you can reinstall them (one at a time, of course).

3. You may get a white screen where your blog or your dashboard used to be. This is also caused by a file not completely loading. The fix is the same as the fatal error fix. Start by manually uploading all the WordPress files again and see if that fixes it. If it doesn’t, then delete all the plugins and reinstall them one at a time until you figure out which plugin was the problem.

4. You may corrupt your database. Here is where having proper backups helps. The way to diagnose a database corruption is to recreate the site on a dummy site, ie test.yoursite.com. If the site can be recreated using your backups, then you may have to delete everything off the main site and start over.

This is not meant to scare you into becoming one of the people who “wait until they see how it worked out for others”. It’s meant to make you aware of what can go wrong so that you are prepared. Not only do you need backups of your database, your theme files, and your pages, posts, and comments. You also need a plan B when it comes to your favorite plugins.

Yes, things do go wrong with upgrades. Just be prepared for every contingency and you’ll be fine.

Here’s what you can do.

• Go into your dashboard.
• Click on Comments on the left hand side of the page. All unapproved comments will be highlighted in yellow and are listed under Pending.
• Hover over the comment so that the Edit link appears.

I cut and paste all comment links in a new browser to see where they are going to take my readers. If it takes them to a questionable site, I delete the comment. If the site looks ok but doesn’t quite mesh with my readers, I edit the link out of the comment, and approve the rest.

Your other choice is to go to Settings > Discussion and check the box that says, “Close comments on posts older than __ days.” You can put in the amount of days you want to leave a post open. On this blog posts are closed after 60 days.

Recently I learned a very important lesson about WordPress when not one, but two, people I work with lost part of their blogs. As far as I can tell, their databases somehow corrupted leaving one woman with no blog posts and the other with no pages. Because we took the appropriate steps both blogs were fully restored.

Would you know what to do if this happened to you?

Let’s back up a minute so I can explain what I am talking about. WordPress runs on a database. A database is information placed in tables so that it can be retrieved easily when WordPress calls for it to be loaded onto a web page. Someplace in MyPhpAdmin-land is where your database lives. Many hosting companies allow you direct access to your database. Most of us have never gone to MyPhpAdmin-land – and never will. We just post our blogs the way we always did, confident that the universe is doing what it’s supposed to be doing. голова болит секс

For most of us this cozy little world we live in will never, ever change. But, every once in a while something happens to that database. It could be a WordPress version update that breaks the database, it could be a plug-in conflict. Most times we will never know the reason it happened. We will just wake up one morning to find out that our posts or pages (or worse, our posts and pages!) are gone.

Tips to Survive a Database Malfunction

1. Stay calm. Accept the fact that technology malfunctions. There’s probably nothing you could have done to prevent this from happening. And freaking out doesn’t get your blog back.

2. Become proactive. Make sure your database is being backed up on a regular basis. I use a plug-in called WP-DBManager. This plug-in backs up your database on a regular schedule that you pre-determine. You should back up as often as you post. If you post weekly, then you want to back up weekly, etc.

This plug-in will also optimize your database. Each time WordPress calls for information, there’s a good chance that it won’t be put back in the right order. Just like you need to “defrag” your computer, your database needs defragging also.

3. Find out if your host backs up your database and what you need to do to ensure that they do it. Also ask them if there is a charge to restore the database in the event of a catastrophe.

In both cases above the hosts had backups. The first host only backed up monthly and discarded old backups. They also charged $100 to do the restore. The second host didn’t automatically back up databases. I had to go in to the control panel and tick a box that asked for the database to be backed up. But in a time of crisis, they had several restore points available and I was able to do it myself with, again, a tick of a box.

download Kiss the Girls

4. Go to your blog often. In one of the cases above, the site was down a while before we knew that her pages were gone. It was less than a week but it may have been more than a few days. How long can you go with your site down?

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5. If you find out you didn’t have a back up system in place, you can try using Google Cache or the Way Back Machine to see if they have copies of your old pages. I’ve used that method in the past to find old things I’ve deleted then changed my mind and decided I wanted.

6. This may not be the best alternative but if you want to be super-sure that you have backups, you can keep copies of all your posts and pages in Word documents and store them on your own file back up system.

In 4 easy steps you can create a desktop shortcut that will take you directly to the posting page with one click. Hint: You can click on any of the images to see a larger version.

STEP 1: Open the dashboard of your blog and go to the Write Post page. Highlight the address of that page, right click, then copy the address to your clipboard as shown below. At this point you can close the blog.

STEP 2: On your desktop, right click and highlight New. A menu will pop out. The second choice of that menu is Shortcut. Click on that.

STEP 3: Paste the address that you copied in the address area as shown below. Then click Next.

STEP 4: Give your shortcut a name.

Now test your new shortcut. You may have to log in if you don’t allow your computer to save your passwords.