You might have noticed that you get most of your comment spam on older posts, this is because spammers target older posts as they are indexed by search engines. So it might be a good idea to automatically disable comments on older posts (posts that are 21 or more days old). This tip will be useful to you currently as Akismet is down.

For WordPress users, there is a plugin called Auto-Close Comments that will automatically disable comments after 21 days.

I just installed the plugin and I haven’t got any spam ever since even though Akismet is down

To install the plugin, go here and simply copy the plugin code provided there and paste it to your favorite text editor and save the file as autoshutoff.php. Now upload the file to your plugins folder and activate the plugin.

Continue reading ‘How To Prevent Comment Spam’

For the past half an hour I have been getting 2-5 Spam comments every minute. This same thing had happened a few months back when Akismet was down.

I was thinking of using CAPTCHAs to fight spam but this post by Mark which gives some good points about why they might not be the best solution for stopping comment spam on a blog made me decide not to use them.

Here’s a few of his main points:

• Any extra work required to comment is likely to deter some people from commenting at all.
• Sometimes the images are so distorted they’re almost impossible to read, even with perfect eyesight.
• CAPTCHAs are hackable. Spammers are smart, they can get past many of our barriers.
• Visually impaired users are completely excluded (although there are audio CAPTCHAs available now).
• Dyslexics have a hard time too.
• There are better and less intrusive solutions.

Are you you getting Spam too every minute? Also what is your opinion on CAPTCHAs? Do you think using them will reduce comments?

Comments in a blog can be very useful in converting first time visitors into regular readers. Why? Because when someone visits your blog for the first time, they may get a good impression when they see a lot of people commenting on your blog posts.

But what if your blog is new or has low traffic? Most of your posts will then have no comments and it will likely turn away new visitors as they will feel that no one reads your blog.

In this situation the best thing to do is to disable comments and enable it back when you have about 500 unique visitors a day or say about 100 RSS subscribers.

What would you do when you start a new blog? Will you leave your comment section enabled or will you be smart enough to disable it?

Another tip for bloggers with a new blog: Are you Advertising your lack of Readers?

The Google Sitemaps Generator Plugin for WordPress that automatically generates a sitemap and helps in better indexing of all pages of your blog has been updated.

Recently Yahoo, Google and Microsoft joined hands to support a single format for Sitemaps. A Sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each URL so that search engines can more intelligently crawl the site. Sitemap 0.90 is now offered under the terms of the Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License and Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft will continue to collaborate on the protocol and publish enhancements on the jointly-maintained site at sitemaps.org.

Recently the author of the plugin updated the xml-namespace definitions in the new beta version of the XML-Sitemap Generator for WordPress Plugin as per the new sitemaps.org standard.

I’ve updated the xml-namespace definitions in the new beta version of my XML-Sitemap Generator for WordPress Plugin to the new sitemaps.org standard.

Some of the updates in the latest beta version are:

• Fixed some smaller bugs
• Decreased memory usage which should solve timeout and memory problems
• Updated namespace to support YAHOO and MSN

Also, if you are using UTW (Ultimate Tag Warrior) check this addon to include your tag pages in the sitemap.

Download Google Sitemaps Generator

found via QuickOnlineTips

Comments are something I enjoy having and will always want more of them, it encourages me to post more frequently and makes my blog more active. In the past I have done a lot of things to increase the number of comments I get here and I am going to share one of them now. If you are one of those bloggers who gets less comments, try this out…

Continue reading ‘Get Your Blog Lurkers to Comment’

If you type in about:mozilla in the Firefox address bar and hit enter, you will be surprised to see a mysterious verse from the Book of Mozilla.

Here’s what you will find:

And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.

from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15

Continue reading ‘Firefox 2 Easter Egg’

Copyblogger has some interesting tips on how to get more Blog Subscribers. Some of the tips that I liked and implemented are

1. offer an email alternative to RSS (as you can see on my sidebar)

2. create a dedicated subscription landing page, like this

3. ask for Subscription at the end of each post, like this “If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.”‘

I would like to add that quality content is what can really bring you more subscribers. Also, you can try using a RSS icon to attract subscribers.

Read Copyblogger’s post for more tips on how to increase your Blog Subscribers.

Have you tried these tips before? Have they helped you in getting more subscribers?

This question has kept me thinking for a while now. If you are using WordPress, the default number of posts that will be shown on the homepage is 10.

I left it at the default value for 1 year, but now I feel I should lower the value to about 5, so that the homepage downloads more faster.

What do you think? How many posts do you show on your blog’s homepage?

Neil Patel has given a few tips on how not to get your URL banned from Digg. He states that some of the things that the Digg community considers as Spam are

* Old news
* Repeated stories that keep on getting submitted, such as “iPod Spoof Commercials”.
* Stories that provide basic information such as “How To Increase Your Blog Traffic”. Although many of these types of stories hit the Digg front page, a lot of diggers hate them and are making noise about them by marking them as spam, or even emailing the Digg staff.
* Stories submitted by website owners.

I would also like to add that I have noticed most of the Diggers hate blogs and often mark stories from them as Spam without even reading it. Even aaaz, currently Top 3 Digg user, had told me about this once -

1. Digg bans lot of blogs as splogs so be careful

2. Digg users may report your posts as Spam for fun as Digg has bad crowd

Also, read the tips from a Top Digg user on how to get to the Frontpage.

Do you agree with me that most Diggers hate blogs and often comment and mark stories from them as Spam?

When designing the new theme, I had in mind a fast loading and neat looking design. After completing the theme, the site still looked cluttered to me and I figured out that the best way to make the site look neater was to switch to 2 columns

So I removed the right sidebar and I hope my site now looks much neater and fast loading than before. Let me know if you liked it.