Okay I am not a happy person today with this notice I received from Yahoo about the closing of MyBlogLog.

Dear MyBlogLog Customer,

You have been identified as a customer of Yahoo! MyBlogLog. We will officially discontinue Yahoo! MyBlogLog effective May 24, 2011. Your agreement with Yahoo!, to the extent that it applies to the Yahoo! MyBlogLog, will terminate on May 24, 2011.

After May 24, 2011 your credit card will no longer be charged for premium services on MyBlogLog. We will refund you the unused portion of your subscription, if any. The refund will appear as a credit via the billing method we have on file for you. To make sure that your billing information is correct and up to date, visit https://billing.yahoo.com.

One of the problems with not owning what you are using is that things like this can happen. One of the reasons you really need to have something you own as your base.

If you are active on MyBlogLog what are your alternatives for connecting with others?

Facebook Fan Page for your blog could be one. You can like mine by clicking in the sidebar and follow me there as I will be adding more items there.

Have not found an alternative for their tracking that I gladly upgraded for to get full stats on my blog. If you know of a replacement leave it in the comments.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: mybloglog, mybloglog closing, tracking blog

Okay I have not ranted in quite a while but yesterday I read a blog post that pissed me off. This person was recommending that people not upgrade to 3.0.4 because it might cause a problem with their plugins.

Now it is not always necessary to instantly make sure you upgrade each and every time that WordPress releases a new version. This would be good advice when WordPress makes the version changes like the upcoming change to 3.1 from 3.0.

It is not always good to upgrade immediately in these cases. This is when you are most likely to run into plugin and theme compatibility. Waiting can be a good thing at these times.

That being said 3.0.4 was a critical update. It was not done to make any more functionality but to fix a security hole. Recommending that people don’t upgrade on a security fix is flat out WRONG.

The upgrade before that was to fix a different hole but it was only for a specific problem. Here is what WordPress said “These issues only affect sites that have remote publishing enabled.”

So telling people not to upgrade in this case if they don’t use remote publishing would be fine.

So enough ranting but you need to actually check what the update is about before recommending to others not to upgrade. Just my opinion.

Leave yours below in the comments.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: should you upgrade, wordpress, wordpress-upgrade

Time to get the dogs out to do some searching this morning. Went to get my reader in Gmail and the link was gone.

After turning the dog loose to do some searching I found it under more in the top header.

Not sure why Google thinks photos are more important than the reader link but it seems that is a decision they have made.

When someone provides a free service I guess we don’t get to bitch but that has never stopped me and this time won’t be an exception.

Hey Google I use reader a lot more than I do photos from Gmail. Move the link back. My Google Reader is something I use multiple times a day to keep current.

If you find your reader is gone too (and if you use Google Reader it is) just check under the more listing and that way you won’t have to send out the dogs like I did.

Just an old bald guy’s opinion.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: Gmail, google, Google Reader, reader link

Yes it is a pain in the you know what to moderate your comments but if you are not you are part of the problem.

Yes it is a rant day and I am pissed. Was out most of the morning and came back to get on line and sort through comments that had come in. There were quite a few but all but two of them were spam.

Not the type of spam that the plugins can catch though. Someone took the time to come comment that was not on topic but was obviously a copy and paste job.

Same basic comment showed up on 4 different posts on 2 different blogs. This person spent probably at least an hour adding comments on blogs doing this copy and paste crap.

I could tell by the timing of the comments. Now all of the ones left on my blog got marked as spam. From the topics of the posts the person was using software to find specific topics and decent pr blogs to post to.

Now I don’t have a problem with people using software to find places to comment on if they actually take the time to add to the conversation on the post. I’ll even give them a do follow link through comment luv to their last post if they add value.

Copy and pasting their blurb aint adding value. So they wasted their time at my blogs. Because I see this all the time though some must be allowing their comments or they would have quit doing it a long time ago.

So the question becomes are you being lazy and letting that crap through onto your blog?

Someone must be or this would not be a continuing problem. I do end up adding the ips and banning them when I find people like this but really don’t like to have to do that.

So if we all start moderating comments and not letting these idiots get back links then it will stop.

Back to the original point are you contributing to the problem by allowing this crap or are you helping to make it worthless so that it will stop.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: blog, blog comment spam, blog comments, blogs, copy and paste, using software

Okay it seems I lied a few minutes ago. I just uploaded a new type of post instead of a Sunday Rant and had decided that this would be the new norm and there would be no rant this week.

My apologies but right after I finished posting I was going through Twitter and found this post from Barbara Ling – Is That WordPress Plugin Update Really MALWARE Instead? How to check.

It talks about a plugin that is really nasty called BlogPress SEO. It can do some nasty things to your blog as it is definitely malware. It will allow the author total access to your blog.

It is one of the reasons to not use free plugins that are not available through the WordPress directory unless you know the author. WordPress does vet the plugins that are added to their directory which does help you to avoid potential disasters like this can be.

If you have added the plugin to your blog uninstall it and change your email address and password in your dashboard. Go to user – your profile

Then change your email address and password.

So another malicious scoundrel is out there looking to take advantage of you. Nothing new there but you can be smarter about it.

The old saying if it sounds too good to be true it is has a lot of validity. Pay attention to it.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: Barbara Ling, blog security, dashboard, free plugins, nasty things, rant, scoundrel, twitter, validity

Life can be funny. I was sitting here earlier thinking it would be a tough day to rant. Now usually at some point during the week, I get my topic but this week the queue was bare. It is a nice sunny day, Joe Paterno got his 400th win and my Eagles are coming off the bye. Al in all a nice Sunday.

Not a good way to get in the mood for a rant. Then two things happened.

One of my favorite blogs showed up in Twitter and I went there to read it. Barbara Ling wrote about turning bad publicity for your product into a positive by how you address it.

Now with the thought of turning complaints around in my mind I got a new comment on a post about trackbacks show up for approval in my inbox.

The funny point is that I knew I had addressed that point in a separate blog post specifically as it was an important part of the discussion. Here is the post. “Trackbacks are they good, bad or indifferent”

Even quoted the comment this comment was referring to. Now say that three times very quickly I dare you.

The problem was that this did not trackback and I had assumed it did. Dang caught again. That assume monster bit me in the nether regions and even though I had addressed this question from my reader in quite a bit of detail, new readers could not find it. Not a great first impression or one I want to leave with readers. Oops.

Not as bad as Barbara addresses in not taking advantage of bad comments to build rapport but…

Definitely not the impression I wanted to leave for a new reader.

So, if like me, you like to write complex replies as separate blog posts make sure that it either trackbacks properly or go back and add a reply so those finding the original post will be pointed to your answers for the questions being raised.

Stop the assume monster in its tracks before it bites you. Wish I had.

Love to hear if the assume monster gets you on occasion too. Just leave your comment below so I know I am not the only dumb @ss out there .

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: assume, assume monster, Barbara Ling, rants, reader impressions

Well it is Sunday so it must be time for a rant but it would be no matter what the day was unfortunately. As soon as I looked at my email I knew I had blogs that were hacked yesterday afternoon. And yes I did say blogs. They got more than one.

Here is the email. If you get an email like that from your blog the odds are pretty good that you have been hacked and it is time to go fix it unless you have been changing passwords.

So after saying some nasty words some more than once I knew I had a problem. Now I won’t mention the hacker’s name as they don’t deserve any publicity.

This one was a simple hack so I needed to do two things. Get back in control of the blog. Fix the files they edited.

First thing was to get my email address back into the blog as the user email. So I went into cPanel for the blog and opened up phpMyAdmin.

Selected the database for my blog and check the users table and open it by clicking browse at the top.

This will show you all the users the one that has been changed is almost always the 1st one. You will need to click the pencil to edit.

Now you will change the email back to yours (1) and then click go (2).

Go to your normal login screen for your blog and at the bottom click the lost password link.

Then fill in your email and click the new password button.

Go back to your email and click the confirmation link that you want a new password then you will receive the new password in your email. Now you can log in to your blog once again.

What is left to do is to fix your theme. The last three times I have been hacked it is usually the same. They edit the index.php page of the theme.

I keep a backup copy of my themes so I just ftp in and replace that one file. Now they are back to normal.

It only takes a few minutes to do this even though it may seem a bit complex.

Even if you use tools like WP Twin to clone your blog (and I do) you need to understand how to go in and get access to your blog once again to be able to do your restore. You can not restore with out being logged in to your blog.

As always your comments and questions are welcomed.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: fixing hacked blog, hacked blog, hackers, password changed, phpMyAdmin, WP Twin

There is no doubt that the 2008 election cycle and the Obama campaign took advantage of the social media landscape like no one had before.

That has led to this years funny time as the mid term elections close in and you are seeing even more usage across the board. Yes it is hard to watch your local TV for all of the campaign ads that are being shown but there have been some great ones put on YouTube to create viral responses.

Below is one of the latest that has picked up 140,000 + views in just 3 days.

Now regardless of the politics watching the various viral videos and how they are spreading across the landscape can give you some ideas that you can use to generate traffic for your sites.

The New York Times added a video on the making of this video.

So as you see the various viral political videos give some thought as to how you can take advantage of these types of techniques for your own business.

The politicians are using these isn’t there a way you can too?

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: campaign ads, election cycle, media landscape, new york times, own business, political arena, viral videos, youtube

Securing Fantastico Installations Download

I have been ranting about the security risks in Fantastico and there are actually two types. Those that insert a whole bunch of links through a data base injections. These are usually for a wide variety of spam products which are better left unmentioned.

They can get Google to remove you because of all the links to bad places. I know unfortunately the hard way.

Then you have the ones who take over your home page and you end up without access to your blog. They end looking like this.

This is usually easier to catch and fix if you have regular db backups.

You will usually know about the second one much quicker because doing that they change the email address and you will get notified of the change.

You will have to go in to phpMyAdmin to change the email address back to yours to get access again.

The first type of hack is harder to catch unless you are using Webmaster Tools regularly to monitor your blog or tracking clicks through something like MyBlogLog.

Either way it is important to have backups of your data base and your files. Take the time to make it harder by fixing some of the ways they get access. Grab the report I created below to make these changes if you used Fantastico to install your blog.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: Fantastcio, hackers, rant

A few questions for a Sunday morning.

• Do you have any idea what is working on your blog?
• Where is your traffic coming from?
• What links are being clicked on?

These are simple questions but the answers often highlight the difference between the people who have successful profitable blogs and those that wonder why they are blogging.

It is important to be tracking what is working and what is not. If you know the answers to the questions above you can do more of what is working.

The problem is that all too often bloggers don’t take the time to check out what is working. You are blogging because you want to create content whether it be written, spoken or video.

Taking time to set up your tracking let alone the time to check out what it shows often seems to be time you don’t have.

By not doing this you often miss the chance to draw in even more traffic. I can’t count the number of times I have found topics from checking the keywords that people use to find my blog in my analytics account.

Often they are terms that I never thought of but accidently got on the first or second page of the serps even though I never targeted them.

Follow that up with a targeted post and you can often immediately get to the top 3 of the rankings. Depending on how many searches there are for that word you can get a nice traffic bump with minimal effort.

The same thing matters for your monetization items. Where and how you are linking to items makes a difference in how profitable that may be.

If you are not tracking then you will not know when you are doing something well and when you are not.

So it takes a bit of effort to track your results but the payoff can make the time very valuable for you.

That’s my opinion and I would love to hear yours. Leave your comments below.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: answers to the questions, blogs, minimal effort, serps, simple questions, sunday morning, taking time, tracking, traffic