Five Important Tips When Upgrading to WP 2.3

Like many bloggers, I’m in the process of upgrading their Wordpress to the new version: WP 2.3. For many bloggers, upgrading will be a snap. Others will find their upgrade is technically just fine, but some plugins and widgets don’t work. Finding substitutes will take time.

So, it’s probably a good time to learn some tips for ensuring that you can maintain full functionality while you upgrade Wordpress. I’ll include steps the WP developers don’t tell you!

1. Most plugins that deal with Categories and Tags will break.
   WP 2.3 totally restructured the way it deals with categories and tags. Nearly any plugin that uses categories and tags in any way will almost certainly break.

   If you absolutely one of these plugins to work, do not upgrade until after the plugin author announces that specific plugin works with WP 2.3.

2. You should create a “test blog”.
   A test blog is nothing more than a near duplicate of your regular blog. Create it at your host; its own database so you don’t “stomp” on your main blog when you test upgrading. Then install the same theme and plugins you use at your regular blog. Write a few “test” posts just to have something in the database.

   How is this used? I pre-test every plugin or widget I download on my test-blog. That way, I can identify any incompatibilities without risking taking my real blog down.

   The test-blog is especially important during major upgrades, because there is a strong possibility that a few of the plugins you use will no longer work as advertised. If you upgrade the test blog first, you maintain your old blog while testing all plugins, widgets, theme changes and pretty much everything before upgrading your public blog. This helps you identify incompatibilities, and also gives you time to identify substitute plugins for your real blog.

3. Wrap all ’special’ ‘template tags’ calls in “if/else” blocks.
   During upgrade, you will often turn off plugins. When you do, you may see a big black mysterious error messages like this:

   Fatal error: Call to undefined function utw_showrelatedpostsforcurrentpost() in /home/…/upgradeTest/wp-content/themes/ygo-assorted/Post.php on line 38

   These blog killing errors are nearly always due to missing special purpose “template tags” a plugin developer wrote. When the plugin associated with any ’special’ template tag is active, the special template tag calls a different block only available in only when the plugin is activated. Otherwise, you get the skanky error.

   To avoid this problem, wrap all special template tags- like ‘utw_showrelatedpostsforcurrentpost();’ in “if/else” structures similar to this:

   if(function_exists(’utw_showrelatedpostsforcurrentpost’)){
   utw_showrelatedpostsforcurrentpost();}
   else{echo(’activate plugin ‘); }

4. Anticipate difficulties and delays with major upgrades.
   If you use very vew plugins, your upgrade will probably be a snap. Many bloggers just click the “one click update” and they are done.

   However, if you use loads of plugins, you could have difficulties. For example, one blog visitor tells me “adSense Deluxe” doesn’t work in WP 2.3. Also, some of the various “tag” plugins with WP 2.2.X, you may need to run a script to restore functionality. So budget some time.

   Because I’m in the process of upgrading plugins, I am also aware that quite a few “hooks” available prior to WP 2.3 have simply vanished; (one of my favorites is gone!) “Hooks” are used to pull in plugin functionality at a certain point in WP; when the hook is vanishes, a plugin that uses that hook doesn’t work at all. So, in this case, you fiddling with your theme won’t help.

5. Let the plugin developer know if a plugin breaks.
   If a plugin breaks, let the developer know. If you can’t find an email address, post about the problem at your blog and leave a trackback to the blog post where you can get the plugin.

   The big advantage to informing the plugin developer is they may be able to save you time by either confirming that a) It’s not you, it’s the plugin, b) they may point you toward the fix or c) they may schedule some time to fix the issue.

   In anycase, even though the developer may be busy and unable to look or fix the issue quickly, they will want you to let them know. They are the best person to help you!

Meanwhile: Good luck with your upgrade. Mine will be slower than most because I’m updating my plugins in parallel. I think I have “HideSponsoredCategories” finished, and “KonteraControl” is next. I’m on schedule to finish my upgrade in.. how many weeks was that? Well, soon.

With luck, and effort, a new version of Kontera Control will be available next week.

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Top 11 reasons NOT to link an A list blogger.

Recently, “Hey you SEO biggies don’t be ashamed to link to hard working newbies” hit the front page of Sphinn. I visited the author’s blog, only to discover he was, himself, rather stingy with links. In fact, he’d specifically named eleven A-list bloggers without linking any!

Oh, the irony! A d-list blogger complains A-list SEO bloggers won’t link D-listers, yet he doesn’t link them!

In honor of that post, I bring you …
The Top Eleven Reasons to NEVER Link to an A List SEO Blogger:

1. A few of the A list blogger’s visitors or fans might click the trackback and visit your blog.
2. They may comment subscribe to your feed.
3. They may click on your ads.
4. They may have B-D list blogs and link you!
5. One or two may Stumble your post.
6. The A list blogger might notice your trackback and visit your blog.
7. Your visitors may think you faked the comment left by the A list blogger.


8. The A list blogger might subscribe to your feed.
9. The A list SEO blogger may be familiar with social networks and submit your post to Digg, StumbleUpon or Sphinn.
10. The A list blogger might love your blog and eventually link you.
11. Someday, the A list blogger may invite you to guest post!

Of course, all this can only happen if you have good content. So, I figure I won’t be invited to guest post at any of these 11 blogs any time soon. That’s why I’m taking the risk and linking out!

Tags:Link Building seo traffic

Who Doesn’t Love Daegan Spam?
Or “Delete to Avoid a Google Penalty”

Fantastic! Someone thinks my post is fantastic!! See?

Daegan wrote a fantastic post today on “Dear John Reese: Are Tampon Sample â

Admittedly, the author is a bit muddled about my name, but they dropped me a link. Isn’t that exciting?! …Well….No. I know if I leave the trackback, my blog risks a Google penalty!

That trackback will soon link into a “bad neighborhood”. If you read further, you’ll discover why out-link to bad neighborhood’s could cause Google’s algorithm to suspect a blogger of posting paid links resulting in Google penalty!

But first: How to identify “Daegan Spam”:

1. A trackback will quote some of your post, nearly always attributing your words to someone else. I’ve been called “Daegan”, “AnnPlugged” and a variety of other names.
2. Often, the “Blog” consists of nothing but very, very short quotes. They don’t violate copyright and won’t cause you duplicate content issues. This may lead you to shrug it off and permit the trackback.
3. On some blogs — when the spam is fresh- the collection of links are sort of interesting.

   For example, today, a link lead me to a forum where someone advertised a LinkShield Link Protection, a service that will cloak affiliate links. That’s a type of product I might want to learn more about.

So, if you are aware of the danger, the spam is pretty easy to identify. Yet, it seems innocuous doesn’t it?

How could a link to that blog result in a Google penalty?

As the spammy trackback ages, the blog content becomes truly spammy. Idea Hustle, which originally left a trackback on my Duplicate Content Plugin, now redirects to a probably worthless paintball directory site, which could become anything in future.

If I leave this link in place and allow it to “follow”, I suspect I will soon be linking into into a site Google considers to fall in a “bad neighborhood”.

That’s bad for me because we know:

1. Google’s algorithm examines what we link to determine our trust and page ranks.
2. That paintball link look very spammy; after all, bloggers are often paid to link to these sorts of products.
3. Google has been penalizing even very good sites for anything Google considers or suspect to be a paid link.

So, clearly we need to keep links like that off our blogs — especially if we “dofollow”. Luckily, the solution is easy!

Send “Daegen Spam” to Akismet!

Sending these to Akismet gets it of my blog, and also protects all blogs from this sort of spam.

Better yet, even if I miss one or two of these, I never actually give these places a dofollow. Lucia’s Linky Love won’t give the follow until they drop at least 3 trackbacks. And after I get up date all my plugins (insert some cursing at WP here), I’m going to add a feature to LLL so I can periodically review sites that are currently “dofollowed”, that way, I can catch things retroactively. (I keep saying this… some day I’ll even do it! )

Tags:Spam trackback spam