One Tip A Day » wordpress

Faster WordPress With Web Optimizer Plugin

Tony Williams — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:19:48 +0000

A 10 second search on Google will turn up numerous posts giving tips on how to speedup WordPress. In fact, a 10 second search on this site would probably do the same! If you’re tired of reading WordPress optimization posts that you don’t understand or are too hard to implement, then a quick way to speedup WordPress is to install the Web Optimizer plugin.

The WordPress Web Optimizer Plugin provides a 1-click way to automate all clientside improvements that should significantly increase load speeds. Out of the box safe presets are chosen, although there are other options that are disabled. If you do enable the extra options then it’s best to do one at a time to check that your blog is still loading correctly.

Full features:

Simple 1-click installation

overall website acceleration in 1 minute;
express install requires no advanced knowledge;
default options guarantee optimal performance;
monitor for traffic / visitor’s time savings;
average speed up is 300-500% (up to 1000% or 98 by YSlow).

Powerful and fast algorithm

caching for minimized files;
caching for gzipped files;
fast HTML code parsing (3-10ms);
server side load decrease (by number of requests).

CSS / JS files merging

dozens of JavaScript files are combined into 1;
dozens of CSS files are combined into 1;
libraries can be excluded;
inline code and external scripts are included by default;
all code is minified and compressed.

Unobtrusive JS and dynamic loading

by default scripts are moved to ;
scripts can be moved to ;
scripts can be loaded on onDOMready;
counters can be moved to ;
ads can be moved to ;
no blocking scripts!

HTML minify / strip comments

simple and fast regexp for HTML code;
comments can be striped;
one-string mode for HTML code.

Earlier flush of content (first 1-2 Kb)

can help for CPU intensive websites.

CSS Tidy / simple regexp for CSS

CSS Tidy 1.4 to minify CSS;
if no CSS Sprites and data:URI simple regexp is used;
minimization up to 50%.

JSMin / Packer / YUI Compressor for JavaScript

YUI Compressor if java is installed;
JSMin by default (with conditional compilation);
Packer for non-gzip systems;
minimization up to 50%.

GZIP for HTML / CSS / JS / ICO files

via .htaccess if it is possible;
via PHP for HTML / CSS / JS (ob_gzhandler);
static gzip to prevent CPU wasting;
additional check via cookie;
minimization up to 85%.

Optimized .htaccess for Apache

mod_gzip;
moddeflate (+ modfilter);
mod_mime;
mod_rewrite;
mod_headers;
mod_expires.

Client side caching for CSS / JavaScript / HTML files

10 years for CSS / JavaScript;
GET param to clear cache;
optional HTML caching;
conditional caching (ETag);
customizable time for HTML.

Client side caching for static assets

docs / video / others;
via .htaccess.

Server side caching for minified CSS / JS / HTML files

static gzip;
static combine & minify;
prepared HTML file.

CSS Sprites (background images merging)

up to 3 images from 100+;
optimized via smush.it;
no initial Sprites required.

data:URI (+ IE7- hacks)

for images up to 24 Kb in size;
.cur, .htc, .eot, .ttf files excluded;
* html hack for IE6;
*+html hack for IE7;

Multiple hosts for static assets

HTML images + CSS images;
15+ default hosts;
optional auto-check for availability;
need only DNS records and aliases in server configuration.

CSS Images optimization (via smush.it)

PNG can be reduced by 30%;
GIF can be reduced by 60%;
JPEG can be reduced by 20%.

PHP4/5 — Apache module or CGI

tested on Denwer;
tested on VPS;
tested on shared hosting;
tested on collocation;
PHP4 backward compatibility.

Auto-update

additional security;
no need to download & install;
all options are saved.

Blogging And WordPress Hosting

Tony Williams — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 05:01:50 +0000

Blogging is a fundamental part of today’s Internet-based businesses. Frankly, if your company makes any use of the Internet whatsoever, and there are few companies these days that don’t, then you need a blog. It doesn’t matter if you don’t consider yourself a particularly great writer or aren’t sure that your business has something special to say. You need to find a way to create a compelling, eye-catching blog and keep it filled with fresh content.

Why Blogging is Important

Blogging is what keeps a static website dynamic. You may have a great product, service or general brand to sell, but it’s hard to keep people excited about those things when you have a two-dimensional screen with content that never changes. If everyone knows what they will see on your website, then there’s less incentive to visit. When you have a constantly fresh blog, though, people will always come back to see what’s new. That’s traffic you can use. On top of that, search engines are impressed with fresh content, so a good blog can improve your search engine ratings. Finally, blogs present a good opportunity for link-building. When you visit another blog and leave a comment with a link to your own, it can direct people towards your website.

Blogging and WordPress Hosting

Of course, if you’re going to set up a blog, then you’ll need a platform and host. WordPress is a great place to start. It’s easy to set up and use, and its open source protocol means you can use the tools created by WordPress experts to constantly update and customize your blog so it’s just right for your needs. Remember, you’re going to have your WordPress blog professionally hosted. You could go to a WordPress.com free hosted blog, but this is considered less professional and won’t help your traffic as much.

For blog hosting you can find some best wordpress hosts listed in webhostingsearch.com.

Maintaining a Blog

You should always look for ways to update and improve your blog. The Internet is about keeping things fresh and keeping things moving. The more successful you are at doing that, the better you should be at generating traffic and drawing attention to your business.

10 htaccess Hacks To Speedup WordPress

Tony Williams — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:19:11 +0000

Today’s post may be a bit more technical than my usual posts, but these htaccess tweaks have made such a big difference to my wordpress blog, that I just had to share them.

Editing a .htacess file may seem daunting, but as long as you backup your old file using a FTP client, then you can’t go wrong. The tweaks in this great guide allow you to:

1 – Redirect WordPress RSS feeds to feedburner with htaccess
2 – Remove /category/ from your WordPress url
3 – Using browser cache
4 – Compress static data
5 – Redirect Day and name permalinks to /%postname%/
6 – How to: Deny comment posting to no referrer requests
7 – Redirect visitors to a maintenance page
8 – Protect your WordPress blog from hotlinking
9 – Allow only your IP adress on the wp-admin directory
10 – Banning a WordPress Spammer With htaccess

To read the htaccess tweaks in full click here

Add WordPress WP CSS Plugin For Speed

Tony Williams — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:01:11 +0000

Here’s a very quick tip for all WordPress users. Adding the WP CSS Plugin can speedup your page loading times by compressing and removing the whitespace from your CSS files. May sound too simple, but this plugin definitely works!

The latest version includes:

Ability to add CSS files to specific page/post
Concatenate CSS files into a single file (comma separated)
Improved security
Reduced URL outputted

More: WP CSS WordPress Plugin

Increase Blog Comments With CommentLuv

Tony Williams — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:05:51 +0000

Every blogger wants more comments. One way to increase the number of comments on your site is to give something back to reward readers for leaving comments. Common ways to do this is to remove nofollow tags, or to show the top commentators that week/month on your site.

The WordPress CommentLuv plugin adds yet another way you can encourage readers to leave comments, by automatically adding a link to commentator’s last post at the end of their comment. Not only will readers get a vital link to their latest posts which could get them traffic, it will also create a deeplink through to their site.

If you’re a blogger then leave a test comment below and you will see CommentLuv in action!

More: CommentLuv

Fix HTTP Errors With WordPress 2.5

Tony Williams — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 09:31:53 +0000

Ever since I updated to WordPress 2.5 I started getting HTTP errors everytime I tried to upload an image. I found a very quick fix that requires a line to be added to WordPress’ .htaccess file:

Open your WordPress 2.5 installation in an FTP client
find your .htacess file (usually in ‘www’)
add the following line:

SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI ^/wp-admin/async-upload.php$ MODSEC_ENABLE=Off

then save your .htacess file and the HTTP error message should go away

WordPress SEO Tips

Tony Williams — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 21:22:22 +0000

Some people think Search Engine Optimization is something only the experts need to do. But, all webmasters and bloggers should be concerned about SEO, particularly as many steps that can be taken to improve traffic from search engines are easy and painless.

To show just how easy it can be for WordPress bloggers, Carrie Hill and Mary Bowling have taken the time to pull together in one place many of the steps that can be taken to improve SEO into a single document, which is free. If you are an aspiring blogger then I recommend taking the time to read their document.

More: WordPress SEO Whitepaper

Reduce Page Loading Times With PHPSpeedy

Tony Williams — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 00:20:35 +0000

If you run your own website or a blog then this post is for you. PHPSpeedy is a new free script that will make your pages load at blistering speeds, by making fewer HTTP requests, adding a far-future expires header, and gzipping other page elements.

Following Everton’s instructions, I added PHPSpeedy to my site in around 2 minutes, and my pages speeded up instantly. To add PHPSpeedy to your site, do the following:

(Note: backup your index.php file before attempting this. If you are unsure of what you are doing, please don’t try this!)

Download PHPSpeedy to your blog’s root directory
Change mod the PHPSpeedy config file to 777 and then go to http://www.yoursite.com/php_speedy to configure PHPSpeedy
Choose which options you want to use (I left all on as default except for ‘GZIP Page’ as it stopped my homepage loading). Once done PHPSpeedy creates a test page to check that everything is working ok
If it is, then add the following the code as instructed by PHPSpeedy at the TOP and BOTTOM of your theme’s index.php file

Tips On Upgrading WordPress

Tony Williams — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:37:59 +0000

I finally updated this site to WordPress 2.3. It was a bit of a nerve-racking experience as it didn’t go right the first time, and I was a bit concerned that a years work was about to go down the drain.

In general, you just should always do the following before upgrading WordPress:

Backup everything !
Reviewed the current WordPress.org list of 2.3 compatible plugins.
Disable all plugins
Copy the new WordPress files over your old ones
Check the site for errors, if none proceed. If you see errors remove the corresponding code

Are You A Good Designer? Design A Logo And Win $100

Tony Williams — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 06:50:28 +0000

Connected Internet is looking for a new logo for it’s new theme and is willing to pay $100 for the best logo design. If you’re a budding designer then you can enter here.

I use Everton’s current WordPress theme and it’s the best I’ve used so far, so I’m really looking forward to the release of the new theme.

Give Your Blog A Checkup

Tony Williams — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:49:28 +0000

The problem with popular blogging platforms like WordPress is that over time your blog can get a bit grotty around the edges, due to the all the widgets and plugins that get installed and uninstalled. It’s good to set some time aside every now and then to clean up all the crap in your blog, to keep it running nice and smoothly.

DailyBlogTips have put together a nice list of housekeeping actions you can do to keep your blog running nice and smoothly:

Test Load Time
Check for Dead Links
Validate HTML and CSS
Optimize Your CSS
Test in Multiple Browsers
Run a Spider Simulator
Delete Unused Files, Pages, and Images
Clean Up Comment Spam

To read how to carry out each step, then click here.

Speed Up WordPress – 17 Acceleration Tweaks

Tony Williams — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 20:57:53 +0000

After learning the hard way about traffic spikes the first time I got on Digg, I’m very lucky now that my mate Everton is hosting One Tip A Day for me on his server, so I don’t have to worry about my site being up.

If you do host your own WordPress blog, then you really should check out this great post containing 17 Tweaks To Accelerate WordPress.

The tweaks range from simple ones like removing unnecessary plugins especially comment reporting plugins, but advice is given on various caching solutions. For the more technically minded users out there, various php and mysql tweaks are included.

More: 17 Tweaks To Acceleate WordPress

Better Alexa Redirect Plugin

Tony Williams — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 20:33:51 +0000

Although Alexa Rankings have some fundamental flaws in terms of accuracy, getting a higher ranking generally is a good thing as it can help attract advertisers and give you blogging ‘bragging rights’. If you are a WordPress user, one way to try and increase your Alexa Ranking is to install the Better ‘Alexa Redirect’ Plugin.

The particular plugin scans the entire set of links on any page of your blog while someone is watching it and it adds a JavaScritp event to each of them, which upon clicking on the link (no matter is it a Left Click or a Right Click) will prefix it with the Alexa Redirect URL: in this way the person visiting your blog will visit the desired URL by forwarding the URL to Alexa.

More: Better Alexa Redirect Plugin

Latest Version Of MyAvatars Plugin For MyBlogLog Released

Tony Williams — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 13:00:40 +0000

I’m amazed by how many of my readers have registered for MyBlogLog. I can tell because I use the MyAvatars Plugin For WordPress that displays MyBlogLog avatars for commenters if they have one. I’m convinced that the plugin is one of the main drivers of registrations for MyBlogLog.

The latest version of the MyAvatars plugin has just been released that fixes a number of issues that have emerged as MyBlogLog have updated their systems. The full features of the new MyAvatars Plugin are below:

Added nofollow for avatars
“No image bug” solved
Title attribute for avatars in english
“Big images” bug fixed
Improved XHTML validation
Gravatar support (not active by default)
Trackbacks/Pingback support (Works good, but it’s not perfect)
Support for blogs with more than 1 author, works very well
Separated CSS Style
Email address is now safe!!!
Customizable title for the avatars
Gets MyBlogLog avatars of your commenters
Links directly to their MyBlogLog profiles
Easy installation & template integration
Added email support for retrieving profiles
If not MyBlogLog member will prompt the registration page

Upgrading the MyAvatars plugin isn’t as simple as just loading up the new version, so make sure you read the instructions.

Thoughts.com: New Free Blogging Community

Tony Williams — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 19:49:02 +0000

I got a call from a friend today who has been travelling around the world for the last 12 year or so. Before he left he asked me to recommend a blogging service so that we all could keep up with his travels. At the time I recommended Typepad, as I thought it was a strong platform, but he now says that he is feeling a bit isolated and that blogging has become a bit of a chore.

One of the problems with blogging sometimes is you need a bit of support to keep you blogging on those days when you’d rather be doing something else. That’s why I think thoughts.com, who have just purchased this impartial review, is an interesting free blogging service.

Like many other services, thoughts.com offer free blogs, but the service works very hard to create a community out of its users. Thoughts, photos, videos and podcasts can all be shared with other community members. Finding like minded bloggers is easy as there’s a handy search engine, which can filter results by people, photos, videos and podcasts. Blogs are also organised into tags for quick browsing.

Having lots of similar blogs close to hand can also solve the problem that many newbie bloggers have, which is feeling that no-one is reading their material, because no comments are being left. By creating a ready-made audience for your material, thoughts.com have solved one of the biggest problems for new bloggers.

If you’re looking for a fully customizable blogging platform that you can tinker with, then thoughts.com probably isn’t for you. You probably would be better off with a platform like WordPress, which powers this site, which will give you full control over how your blog looks and how it behaves.

However, if you are just looking for a bit of a fun and nothing too serious, then thoughts.com is definitely worth a quick look.

More: thoughts

How To Publish Code In WordPress Blog Posts

Tony Williams — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 19:58:35 +0000

I love WordPress, but one of the features I’ve had problems with in the past is how to publish code in posts. I’ve managed to find my way of adding code to posts, but it’s not particularly user-friendly and not one for sharing.

Luckily, the lovely Lorelle has put together a great guide to Writing and Publishing Code in WordPress Blog Posts. As with all of Lorelle’s work, it’s very well written and laid out. Essential reading if you are WordPress User.

More: Guide To Writing and Publishing Code in WordPress Posts

Check Your WordPress Blog For Security Vulnerabilities

Tony Williams — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 03:30:46 +0000

It can be hard keeping up with all the numerous WordPress updates. One of the problems of not keeping up is that you can leave your site open to hackers and other nasty people.

A quick way of seeing if you are vulnerable is to use the WordPress Scanner that will check to see if your WordPress blog has any vulnerabilities. To use the scanner all you have to do is add a line of code to the header of your blog so that the WordPress Scanner cgi script can access the information and knows that you are indeed the owner of the blog.

It’s not perfect and it doesn’t check plugins, but it’s start. The alternative of course, is to just update your blog…..

Source: gHacks

10 Tips To Improve Google Adsense Earnings

Tony Williams — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 02:20:35 +0000

My friend Everton has written a great post with lists 10 ways he has increased his Google Adsense income from a few hundred dollars a month to over $4K/pm in just 8 months.

The post is definitely worth setting aside 10 minutes to read. I can personally testify to the benefits of using a optimized WordPress theme and removing adsense units that are getting few clicks to improve Adsense earnings i.e. less is better.

To read the full list of tips then click here.

Upgrade To WordPress 2.2

Tony Williams — Sun, 20 May 2007 17:46:32 +0000

If you missed the news, WordPress 2.2 is now out. The latest release contains dozens of bug fixes and several new features. Overall the service has been tidied up and made much more intuitive to use and friendly. I’ve just upgraded from 2.1 with no problems at all.

New features include:

WordPress Widgets allow you to easily rearrange and customize areas of your weblog (usually sidebars) with drag-and-drop simplicity. This functionality was originally available as a plugin Widgets are now included by default in the core code, significantly cleaned up, and enabled for the default themes.
Full Atom support, including updating our Atom feeds to use the 1.0 standard spec and including an implementation of the Atom Publishing API to complement our XML-RPC interface.
A new Blogger importer that is able to handle the latest version of Google’s Blogger product and seamlessly import posts and comments without any user interaction beyond entering your login.
Infinite comment stream, meaning that on your Edit Comments page when you delete or spam a comment using the AJAX links under each comment it will bring in another comment in the background so you always have 20 items on the page. (I know it sounds geeky, but try it!)
We now protect you from activating a plugin or editing a file that will break your blog.
Core plugin and filter speed optimizations should make everything feel a bit more snappy and lighter on your server.
We’ve added a hook for WYSIWYG support in a future version of Safari.

Twitter Tools

Tony Williams — Wed, 02 May 2007 21:15:32 +0000

If you haven’t heard of Twitter yet, then you must have been on another planet. Twitter is a cool online service that lets you see what other people are doing right now, and you can also share your own details. Twitter has literally set the blogosphere on fire in very short time.

One of the exciting features about online services are the services created by fans that make them even better. Here are 10 twitter tools, courtesy of Quick Online Tips that will make twitter even better.

Twitter Badge – Official javascript codes that display badges showing what you are posting on Twitter.
The Twitter Updater – a wordpress plugin that automatically sends a Twitter status update to your Twitter account when you create, publish, or edit your WordPress post. You can specify the text for the updates, and also have the option to turn the auto update on/off for the different post actions in the admin panel.
TwitThis is an easy way for people to send Twitter messages about your blog post or website. When visitors to your website click on the TwitThis button or link, it takes the URL of the webpage and creates a shorter URL using TinyURL. Then visitors can send this shortened URL and a description of the web page to all of their friends on Twitter.
Twitter Tools – This wordpress plugin creates an integration between your WordPress blog and your Twitter account. Pull your tweets into your blog and create new tweets on blog posts and from within WordPress.
Twitter WordPress Sidebar Widget – Customise the number of updates shown in your sidebar, individual links to each status update on Twitter, style your Twitterings using CSS, choose whether to display your Twitter name before each post and customise text between the post text and the relative time.
Twitter Feed – Posts your blog updates to your twitter account. Login to twitterfeed using your OpenID, provide the URL for your blog RSS feed, and how often to post to Twitter.
Twitt-Twoo – is a simple little plugin that will allow you to update your Twitter status right from your blog’s sidebar. It is AJAX powered and allows for quick and easy status updates.
SimpleTwitter – is a plug-in for WordPress which enables WordPress blog owners to easily add Twitter messages to their templates.
Twitter Sharts – ‘Shart’ your twitter status anywhere within your wordpress blog posts or pages.
RSS to Twitter – is a PHP script to feed RSS to Twitter.

Emergency Update Of WordPress Released – Version 2.1.2

Tony Williams — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 21:12:40 +0000

I guess it had to happen eventually. A cracker manged to gain access to the servers that host the WordPress code and modified 2 files, that would allow them them to do nasty things to your blog. The WordPress team have responded brilliantly since they learned of the breach, and have put a new, clean and unblemised version on the WordPress site.

The hackers only managed to get access over the last couple of days, so your blog is only at risk from this threat if you’ve updated it in the last couple of days. However, the latest 2.1.2 version of WordPress also includes a few other security updates, so my advice is for all WordPress users to update.

Download: WordPress 2.1.2

Complete Guide To Eliminating Blog Spam

Tony Williams — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:05:49 +0000

My buddy Everton over at Connected Internet has written the most comprehensive guide to eliminating blog spam that I’ve seen. Everton had to beef up his spam protection as he was receiving a server busting 250 spams a minute.

Luckily I’ve been testing the next release of Everton’s theme which incorporates all of the tweaks he’s listed in his guide (which includes one of my tips) which has been fantastic as I’ve only been receiving at most 10 spam messages per day.

The spam defence tips that Everton lists in his guide are:

Send Spam Bots On A Wild Goose Chase

This is probably one of the simplest and quickest ways to reduce comment spam. Most bots work by submitting comments directly to the wp-comments-post.php file. One way to significantly reduce spam is to change the name of the file that sends a new post to your blog, so that spam bots won’t be able to complete their mission.

To learn how to do this click here.

Create Fake Comment Forms To Trick Spam Bots

This is one of the tips I that I featured a few weeks ago. To learn how to do this click here.

Stop Referral Spam

If you haven’t come across referral spam yet, it’s when a site creates a fake referral which appears to come from a certain site. When these ‘referrals’ hit a certain level they can almost bring it down like a denial attack.

To stop referral spam all you have to do is install Angsuman’s Referral Bouncer Plugin. What this plugin does is basically turn the fake referrers away like a bouncer at a club.

Eliminate Trackback Spam

The WP-Hardened-Trackback plugin generates single-use, expiring trackback urls that are only usable for 15 minutes. Whenever a spam bot tries to send an automated trackback without a valid key it’s just ignored and discarded.

More: WP-Hardened-Trackback plugin

To read these tips in full then head on over to Connected Internet

WordPress 2.1 Users: How To Offer A Full Text Feed

Tony Williams — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 22:16:41 +0000

Full RSS feeds are like Marmite – you either love them or you hate them. I’m never quite sure which I prefer. I think at the moment I prefer full feeds because I tend to use my feedreader while I’m travelling on my cellular.

Unknown to many WordPress users who upgraded to the latest 2.1 release, even if they’ve set their blog to publish a full feed, WordPress will cut their posts off in their prime if they use the tag.

Since the number of users reading my blog has trebled this week (click here to see the full range of subscription options available), I decided I’d better make sure that I keep them happy so they don’t leave and publish a full text feed, so I went hunting for a solution. It didn’t take me long to find one.

CaveMonkey50 has created a WordPress plugin called Full Text Feed that prevents WordPress 2.1+ from adding a ‘more’ link to your RSS feed. Installing the plugin is simple. just unzip the file, upload the full_feed.php file into your plugin directoy and activate the plugin.

You can get the plugin here.

Reduce WordPress Spam By Creating Fake Comment Forms For Spam Bots

Tony Williams — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 08:52:00 +0000

Last month I gave tips on how to eliminate WordPress Spam forever. Today I’ve got an ever better tip for reducing comment spam on WordPress blogs, but should also work on other sites with comment forms.

My friend Billy came up with a neat mod to trick these spam bots on my site, which is increasingly coming under attack. Most comment spam comes from spam bots that try to post comments to the first comment forms they see. So, what I’ve done on this blog is create a few fake forms that are placed in front of the real comment form, and are invisible to real readers. This means that the stupid spam bots try and post spam to these forms first, and never make it through to the real forms so I never see the spam!

To add fake comment forms to your site do the following:

Create the Fake forms

In your WordPress comments.php file look for the following lines: