Blogging Tips Archives - Page 25 of 37

Have a WordPress blog? If so, you need to update your server to PHP 7 before January 1!

Posted on December 27, 2018

If you’re a blogger there’s a good chance that your blog is powered by WordPress.

If it is, I recommend that you check the version of PHP that’s currently active on your web server. If it’s running a version that’s lower than 7 you really need to update it to at least PHP 7.0 before the end of December.

If you’re unfamiliar with PHP, that’s the web programming language that the WordPress core files are written in. In other words, PHP is the engine that powers your WordPress blog.

As with virtually everything else that’s related to WordPress, older versions of PHP will eventually be retired and stop receiving security updates. And that’s about to happen with PHP on December 31, 2018.

[Read more…]

Q&A: How can I prevent WordPress from automatically installing updates?

Posted on November 6, 2018

Question from Edwin G.: I’m really upset Rick. I checked my email this morning and found that both of my WordPress blogs had been updated to the latest version during the night without my knowledge or consent. I don’t like that!

I’ve had problems in the past with WordPress core updates breaking my blogs so now I always update my blogs one at a time, then check to make sure everything still works before updating the next blog.

Is there a setting in WordPress that I can change to prevent it from installing updates automatically? If there is, I can’t find one.

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

How to keep your WordPress blog free of broken links

Posted on October 28, 2018

Update: Unfortunately, it’s been discovered that the “Broken Link Checker” plugin mentioned in this post has a very serious security flaw and the plugin’s author has chosen not to fix it.

Therefore I can no long recommend the use of this plugin.

I now recommend using the web-based broken link checking tool on this page.

Note: The original post continues below…

Broken links are a blogger’s worst nightmare. In addition to providing your blog’s visitors with a poor user experience, they also give your blog a bad reputation with the major search engines, and your search rankings can suffer as a consequence.

Even worse, if you sell advertising on your blog, broken links also make your ad space less valuable.

Tracking down broken links used to involve a boatload of manual labor. We had to visit each page and post and click on all the links to see if they were still valid. But now a nifty WordPress plugin called Broken Link Checker makes it easy to find all the broken links on your entire blog without lifting a finger. [Read more…]

Q&A: What’s the best way to hide the date/time on the comments on my WordPress blog?

Posted on October 21, 2018

Question from Keisha P.: I write a fairly popular WordPress blog and I occasionally change the dates on some of my older posts to put them back onto the first page of the blog.

But that’s causing a problem because the comments on those posts still have the old dates/times on them. I’m afraid my readers will notice the old dates and realize that the posts aren’t really new.

I’m using the Genesis framework and Executive Pro child theme on this blog. I know I can remove the code that displays the comments’ date and time from the Genesis module but I’m hoping there’s a better way. Do you know of one?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

ATTN Bloggers: Was your blog’s SSL/TLS certificate issued by Symantec? If so, you need to replace it ASAP!

Posted on September 14, 2018

By now most bloggers know just how important it is to have their blogs secured by SSL/TLS encryption.

If you’re a blogger and you haven’t yet enabled SSL/TLS encryption on your own blog(s), this post explains why I recommend that you get it done ASAP.

If you have already taken the plunge and encrypted your blog(s), there’s something you really need to know… [Read more…]