When converting a site from Joomla to WordPress (or changing platforms), do not change the category structure or the file naming convention. In other words, don’t do what I did.

Old School

When the site was hand coded, there was only one way to access any page on the site. All a reader had to do was type in the static URL and boom…there was the page! With content management systems such as Joomla and WordPress (yes, I call WordPress a content management system), it’s different.

It wasn’t until after I received over 600 “File not found” errors (started at 90 a day and has now trickled to only 10 or 15 a day) that I had a V-8 moment.

My old school thought process of accessing each page via one URL was outdated. With content management systems, pages can be accessed in a variety of ways. I won’t get into the whole relational database structure reasoning for why that is, but take my word for it.

Changing with the Times

In the past when I changed platforms all I had to do was insert a “change of address” line from the old webpage to the new. Now, with at least 10 ways to access any one page from my old Joomla site, the redirects seem endless. You see, something as simple as including or excluding the forward slash (/) at the end of a URL can generate a “File not found” error if things aren’t redirected correctly.

So, this Redirect Queen has been putting out redirect fires as they happen. I was pleased yesterday when I only received 11 crawl errors.

How do I Find the Errors?

There are two ways to track errors. The easy and not so thorough way is by checking my Statcounter stats. When I see “Page not found” in the log, I know I need to address the problem.

The other more complete way is by signing into my Google Webmaster account. There they list all of the errors Google encounters when the bots crawl my site. Some of the errors are because of redirects but some of the errors are a result of incorrect link backs. I see some of the sites linking to Tidbits were incorrectly coded.

Additionally, I’ve found that Joomla created a few pages that made absolutely no sense to me, but I’ve redirected them anyway.

When will it End?

The way I calculate it, I fully expect to be resolving redirects for a couple of months. Fortunately, each day there are fewer and fewer redirects and I’ve got it down to a science. I can now complete my daily redirect duty before I finish my first cup of coffee.

BTW, if you find yourself with the same problem (hopefully you won’t), there’s a plugin that helps to make the redirection process a little easier. The plugin is appropriately called Redirection .

Ya gotta love this stuff or else you wouldn’t do it.

From time to time I experiment with different plugins to enhance my blog’s functionality (functionality…such a tech writing word).  Anyway, I use a plugin that is supposed to help detect hack attacks.

After having a couple of my blogs hacked some time ago, I’m a bit sensitive to hacking.

The plugin I use is called WordPress Firewall 2.  Recently I had been receiving notification emails initiated by the plugin telling me a certain IP address was attempting to insert malicious code into my site by attacking a certain file.  After receiving 20 such notification emails in a short period of time, I decided to take action.

A Little Research

I looked up the IP address and it seemed to be a Google bot.  Not being 100% sure that it was, I did a little research.  My research left me on the fence.  It could in fact be a Google bot or it could be a hacker redirecting an IP address to make it look like a Google bot.

After being online for several years and never having this happen before, I decided to err on the side of caution and ban the particular IP address.  I did so by modifying my .htaccess file and inserting the following code:

order allow,deny
deny from XX.XXX.X.XX  (x represents actual IP address)
allow from all


Sit Back to See What Happens

The world didn’t come crashing down after inserting the code and the annoying emails stopped.  Whew, dodged a bullet.

Several days later (about 3), I noticed the traffic for that particular blog dropped significantly.  Hmmm, what’s going on?  So, I searched for my site in Google and found it. The site was there in a great position on page one of the search results but beneath the site’s URL were the words “You are banned.”

Yup, I dodged the bullet when I should have employed fancy footwork.  Instead of getting shot in the upper body, I shot myself in the foot.  The IP address was actually a Google bot.  So, I immediately removed the code from the .htaccess file and temporarily deactivated the plugin. Fortunately, the “banned” statement was removed within seconds and the traffic returned.

Better Safe than Sorry

When I originally received the email notifications, my first line of action was to contact Google to see if it was really their bot.  The problem with contacting Google is contacting Google.  It’s not easy finding the right department, email address or even forum thread in which to post a query.  Instead I took matters into my own hands.

Bottom line, I lost about half a day’s worth of income, but I’d rather that than have lost several weeks or months worth by fighting hackers.  Another online lesson learned.

A couple of days ago Kristine’s comment got me to thinking. Her comment was in response to my post about the 3% increase in revenue as a result of making a few changes to my Google AdSense ad block. She mentioned that repeat visitors would eventually grow accustomed to the ad and eventually ignore the change.

Fortunately, most of my blogs don’t get repeat visitors. For the type of blog writing I like to do, the majority of my blogs provide information. They’re not warm and fuzzy and do not generate repeat business. NJFM is an exception.

Cause for Analysis

Her comment made me stop and analyze my properties. NJFM is the one blog with repeat business and it earns very little. If ad blindness occurs on any of my blogs it would be here. Let’s face it, if you come here regularly, you’re not interested in ads and you no doubt ignore the same old ad blocks. I do the same thing with blogs I follow.

I then thought “Gee, wouldn’t it be nice if I could rotate the ads and break up the monotony of having the same old ads in the same place.” I did a little research and came across the DataFeedr Random Ad plugin. When you visit their site, ignore the big “Buy Now” ad across the top of their website. The plugin is actually free.

About DataFeedr

With DataFeedr you can place rotating ads anywhere on your site. Check out the video to get a feel for what it can do.

With DataFeedr I get to reclaim some of my blog’s real estate. The ads will get less face time, but with a variety of ads displaying in one spot, it not only provides variety for the reader but also allows me to display more in less space.

The more I think about it, the more I realize this plugin will work well on some of my other blogs. It will reduce the number of ads displaying at any one time, which helps to reduce the spammy look/feel to a blog.

I’m still experimenting with the plugin, but so far I like what it’s able to do.

While on the topic of plagiarism, if you have your blog’s RSS feed set to “Full Text” I would suggest that you change that to “Summary.” A full text feed is the best type of feed for plagiarists. All they have to do is copy the entire content of your feed and place it on their site. In other words, you hand deliver your content to them to copy.

If you use the summary option, they have to actually visit your site to copy your text. And, to make it even more cumbersome for them to copy the text, install the WP-CopyProtect plugin and configure it to “Disable right click,” and “Disable text selection.” By choosing those two options, plagiarists are unable to select, copy and paste your text. It also disables Ctrl+A (select all command) and Ctrl+C (copy command).

I’ve installed it on all of my other blogs. I’m on the fence about installing it on NJFM. I don’t want to make it harder for readers who legitimately use parts of my content to help spread encouragement and motivation to others who need it.

Always a Work Around

I want to caution that this plugin doesn’t make it impossible for plagiarists to copy your text. It just makes it more difficult. Sort of like car thieves. Anti-theft devices make it a little more difficult for thieves to steal a car, but if they really want your car, they’ll figure out how to get it. What anti-theft devices do is it prevents the petty thieves that haven’t quite figured out the work around yet.

Here are some that I use:

• SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam: This is a utility plugin and is necessary for cutting down on spam comments.
• Smart Ads: With Smart Ads you can automatically insert ads in the beginning and end of each of your blog posts. You can also insert advertisements in the center of your blog posts, but in order to do that you have to manually insert the code where you want the middle ad to appear. On NJFM I only use the manually inserted ad function. You’ll see it on older posts .
• Widget Logic: I think this is one of my favorite plugins. I was introduced to this one by a fellow who wanted to purchase ad space on my blog, but he only wanted the ad to appear on the home page. With Widget Logic, you can configure the widgets to appear on certain posts or categories or tags. I use this widget most when I’m working on a mini-blog that I want to appear as a website. The blog consists of 5 or 6 pages and on each page I place an ad that compliments the page’s content.
• WP-Ban:  I use that to cut down on spam. When I receive comment spam, I take the spammer’s IP address and insert it in the WP-Ban configuration page. It then bans that person from viewing the site. When I check the stats, I see that it has protected me from over 8,000 spam comments. It’s amazing how some IP addresses continue to make so many attempts (I use this in conjunction with Akismet).
• Google XML Sitemap: Every blog should have two sitemaps; one for readers (HTML format) and the other for search engines (XML format). This plugin makes sitemaps for search engines.
• WordPress Mobile Pack: I use that to for making my blog mobile compatible. I’m not too much of a mobile device user, but I believe it’s working (my eyes don’t like small screens).
• Move Comments: I don’t use this one often, but it does come in handy when you want to take a comment and move it to a different post. Sometimes readers aren’t quite sure which post is the best place to add a comment. If they inadvertently place a comment under the wrong post, you can easily move it to where it should be.
• Add This Social Bookmarking Widget: I recently started using that one. I’m not so sure if it’s worth it, but I decided to leave it on for a couple of months to see if I notice a difference in traffic.
• CommentLuv: You see this one in action at the bottom of your comment. It displays and links back to the commenter’s latest blog post.  My biggest issue with CommentLuv is that there seems to be daily updates. Just about every time I sign onto my WordPress account, there’s a need to update Comment Luv.
• Maintenance Mode: I use this when I’m about to make major changes to my blog. Maintenance Mode displays a screen notifying readers that the site is undergoing maintenance and to check back at a later time. You can configure the message and the maintenance duration.
• WP-Copy Protect:  Protect your content from plagiarists.  This plugin makes it more difficult for plagiarists to copy your posts.  (This plugin was added after this list was originally created. Read more about the plugin in this post).

Just for Fun Widgets

These are widgets that do nothing for gaining traffic or optimizing your blog. These are ones I use because I came across them and liked them.

• Quotes Collection: I use it here on NJFM because I like hearing, reading and sharing inspirational quotes.
• LinkWithin: You can see this one in action at the bottom of the post. It’s rather effective in prolonging the reader’s visit.

Although widgets can add much-needed functionality to your blog, they also slow down the load time of your site so use them wisely.

Ok, I’ve shared mine.  I know that everyone has a favorite widget or two.  Time to fess up and share yours.