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Archives for July 2007

How to remove nofollow tags in a Typepad blog

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Karen from a strange life was kind enough to write out instructions on how to remove the nofollow tags from a Typepad pro template.


Note that I do not, nor never have had a Typepad blog. These are the steps that Karen took when changing her blog over to a do follow blog and they worked for her.

Karen in her own words:

Converting a TypePad Blog Pro Level to a Do Follow Blog for a Total Neophyte Like Me

  1. Set up your blog with all the modules you plan to use, and no widgets, because the widgets won’t make the transition. Now you’re ready.
  2. Go to the ‘Weblogs’ Tab on the TypePad Page.
  3. Choose the ‘Design’ tab in the ‘Weblogs’ page.
  4. Go to ‘Saved Designs’ in the ‘Design’ page.
    1. WARNING: ONCE YOU CONVERT TO ADVANCED TEMPLATE (IF YOU ARE ME) THERE IS NO GOING BACK. NOTHING WILL EVER WORK RIGHT IN YOUR BASIC TEMPLATE AGAIN.
  5. Check the box next to your Current Design and click on the button ‘Convert to Advanced’. The program will clone your design and make one of them ‘Advanced’.
  6. Go to ‘Current Design’ and you will see a list of Advanced Templates in 3 boxes: Index Templates, Archive Templates, and Template Modules.
  7. Open a new window and in TypePad Help search for Advanced Templates: Individual Archives Template.
  8. Open the Advanced Templates: Individual Archives Template and scroll down to Individual Archives Modules.
    1. There are 3 boxes of code under this title:
    2. Individual Entry (Module Name: entry-individual),
    3. Comment Listing (Module Name: comment-list), and
    4. Comment Form (Module Name: comment-form).
  9. Now in Current Design click on ‘Create new template module’. Click the top box of the form that comes up to ‘Individual Archives’ then type in the exact module name from the Advanced Templates help page. Now, copy all the code in the help module’s box and paste it into the new module’s box. Click ‘Save’. Do this same sequence of actions for all three of the modules shown in the help boxes. So now, under Template Modules you should have:
    1. comment-form
    2. comment-list
    3. entry-individual
  10. Now the guy who did the REAL fix comes to the rescue!
  11. Mike from the ConverStations blog wrote a post about removing nofollow from Typepad comment sections.
    1. go to this website and copy the code he has in the ‘new comment-list module’ code box. Take it to your box in Template Modules labeled comment-list and, after removing the old code, paste it in.
    2. now go to the entry-individual Template Module and find the phrase he tells you to change, and change it.

If you are persistent and pigheaded as I am, you will eventually make this into a do-follow blog!

There you have it. Between Karen’s written instructions and Mikes comment code you should be able to get your typepad blog to become a do follow blog and reward your visitors with back links whenever they comment on a post.




I’m not against website urls – I’m against comment spam

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This is in response to those who have left comments on my post “Spammy comments and Comment Abuse“. I think that some people have misunderstood what I’ve written there.

Website owners that do not have blogs are misreading what I’ve written. Please read the post again and this follow up.


I do not say anywhere in my spammy comment post that I will not accept a comment at face value from someone leaving a website url rather than blog url.

What I did say was that a few were spoiling it for the rest by abusing do follow blogs – leaving similar comments on all my blogs no matter what the post is about, adding extra links, leaving lame comments that don’t have much to do with the post or my blog.

Bloggers are doing this too, but for the most part it’s those with website urls that are the most abusive. This makes me a little more suspicious of links to websites.

However, having said that – if you haven’t gone around to all my blogs leaving deep links to your website or a different website url on each of my blogs and your comment is relevant to the post well – your comment will get posted and I’ll leave your link in.

I tend to visit all the urls that are left in my comments. By this I mean I visit blogs and websites alike. If you are leaving an url to a link farm, and your comment is not relevant or if it’s very spammy (full of links!) well I will likely mark your comment as spam.

Please don’t be offended that my guard is up.

There’s just a few rotten apples out there. I get so many comments on all my sites that it takes a while to approve the comments. When I see suspicious behavior across all my blogs my guard goes up.

I love getting comments. If you leave me a decent comment I have nothing against that. Period!

One commenter on my Spammy comment post thought I wasn’t getting the point. That comments mean an increase in site traffic and possibly that I’ve gained a regular reader.

I totally get the point.

Perhaps when you see examples of the comment spam that HUMANS are leaving you’ll get my point too.

Valid comments will never be discounted on any of my sites. Seeing comments on a post does help encourage others to stop and leave their opinion as well. It can get a conversation going and help draw interest in the blog as a whole. I know that.

However, the kind of comments that I’m calling spam will never add to my sites conversation or traffic. These people are just dropping in to get a link or to leave as many links as possible and they don’t really care what I’ve written or what other visitors have written either.

I think I’ll gather some examples of the abuse I’ve seen and make a post about it – just to make it clear why my guard is up.

Also, while I’m at it … Leave your name:

I do reply to most of my comments as well so when someone only leaves a business name or a SEO related term and doesn’t at least sign their comment it makes me feel a little weird replying.

“Good point lumberjack discount wood cutter” – now doesn’t that look strange?

I like to get to know my visitors.

I want to write about things that I’m interested in that also interest my readers.

Naturally I can only tell if I’ve written posts that interest my site visitors if they leave comments. I get it. Yes, leave comments. I love them! Just please be sure to leave a comment that is actually about the post and not an ad for your site. Oh and yes leave your name!

Not being able to put a name to a regular commenter is kind of weird. If you’d at least also leave a name in your comment I’d appreciate it. Please don’t add an extra link with your name though. I tend to edit out duplicate links.

Hopefully this clears things up.

I’m not against website owners urls. I’m against spammy comments that do nothing more than advertise another persons site rather than add to the dialog of my post.

BTW I’m not just a blogger I also have two websites. One sites been in existence since 1995 so yes I know about site promotion and I’ve been around long enough to spot people abusing a site. I don’t tend to leave my website urls in comments that I leave on blogs because my websites are about exotic pets and they’d look a little weird on most of the blogs I visit regularly.

Use Niche Secrets to boost your online earnings

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I was sent an eBook the other day. It’s called Niche Secrets, and you know what? I do believe I’ve learned a few things from this 29 page eBook.

Niche Secrets is a very well written and easy to understand booklet. It describes exactly what a Niche is, how to discover your own Niche and then how to begin writing articles, websites or eBooks about that particular Niche.

I actually learned a fair amount about Niches, marketing a niche product and how to write great articles and make money by creating product for a niche that I have a passion for, and I plan to use some of this information right away.

I’m excited about this. I’ve already got some niche blogs and since they’re already established it should be even easier for me to apply what I’ve learned from Niche Secrets and begin seeing results and having success quickly. I really believe that I could begin writing a Niche article this evening and see results by Monday – it really seems easy once you know how to do it.

I knew some of this information prior to reading the eBook, but you know how it is – you read some good information on one site, and something else on another and you try to remember all these good tips that you can apply to your own sites or to your writing techniques, but since these tips you’ve found are scattered across the internet and you’ve found them over time you never fully apply the techniques as you should right from the beginning.

That’s what’s great about this eBook and eBooks in general. You get all the information you need in one place and you can begin applying the tips and techniques right away.

If you want to learn more about making money by writing about and promoting Niche topics visit Niche Research and get a copy of Niche Secrets. This eBook is only $7 until July 31st so get your copy now.

I had to change web hosts!

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Well you probably noticed that my sites went down for a few days if you’ve become a regular visitor of The Web Files or any of my other sites.


I ended up changing web hosts after my former web host attempted to change my shared hosting account over to a TWO year Virtual Private Hosting account and charged me $642 in the process. A move and charge that I hadn’t authorized.

I’d been apparently having CPU resource issues on my former host – Lunarpages, and I worked for close to a month to resolve any CPU resource overuse issues by going over everything in my directories with a fine toothed comb, updating all of the programs that I use to run my various sites and any addons or plugins that I used with those sites and still they kept telling me that I had CPU resource over use issues.

They suspended my account on Saturday stating that my account had almost caused a server to crash so I reluctantly agreed to change my account over to VPS for one month. One single month. It took me almost 24 hours to communicate that desire to support since they are very slow to answer support email and do not have telephone support over the weekend.

Once they apparently understood that I was willing to switch over to VPS for one month they told me that it would cost $75 per hour to transfer my account, but if I wanted I could do it myself once the VPS account was set up. At that point I said No way to the $75 charge and in fact said no to the whole deal until they sent me more info about VPS, Plesk and how I might move my account on my own.

Instead of sending me information they went ahead and set up the VPS account and instead of creating a monthly account they charged me for two years of VPS service.

Right … for CPU resource issues that may or may not exist.

I say may or may not exist because after the stunt they pulled charging me for a two year VPS account I’m not all that certain that I ever had CPU resource issues.

So I spent early Monday morning creating a new hosting account at HostGator and worked on moving my domains and sites.

So far things are going well with HostGator and they’ve yet to mention a thing about CPU resource over use. Still – I think I’m going to continue going over my sites and try to lighten their load on the servers. Some of my sites are getting more and more popular so if my traffic is increasing so will my resource usage too.

“I need a new design” contest – Enter Now

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Are you tired of the look of your web site? Ready for a change?

Why not enter the “I need a new design” contest that’s being held by lifeBLUE Media.

LifeBLUE specializes in web design, graphic design, SEO, Internet marketing, application development, and web hosting. Visit the site and take a look at their portfolio. They are featuring some very nice web designs that they’ve done for past clients. You’ll be in good hands if you win the contest.

It’s easy to enter the I need a new design contest. Simply visit the LifeBlUE.com website and fill out the contest entry form. Unfortunately this contest is only open to US residents. Otherwise I’d probably enter this plain Jane site myself.

Once you enter the contest you can tell your friends, family and site visitors about the contest and ask them to vote for your site. As you’ll see by visiting the contest link above the site that’s in the lead is shown as a larger image in the collage of sites that have entered.

designcontest.jpg

The contest began and July 9th and submissions and votes will be collected until August 8th, 2007. There’s still plenty of time to take the lead and win a professionally designed web design.

The winner will receive a custom design that will be in both graphical format as well as html format. The design will be created by LifeBLUE’s experienced design team.

The winner will of course have the ability to provide feedback on the design and information about the goal and direction of the site so that the team will be able to create a suitable design that will take your site well into the future.

There are actually two ways to win this contest as two winners will be selected.

One way is to simply submit your site as described above and then to garner votes. The person who has the most votes, and likely the worst current design as determined by their voting friends, family and site visitors will win a free web design.

The second way to enter this contest is to enter the random draw. Write up a blog post and use the following anchor text to link to the main index page of LifeBLUE Media:

Link url – http://www.lifeblue.com/web_design_contest/

Text: web design, web designers, website design, web design company

I presume that the people at LifeBLUE will be keeping track of incoming links with any of those link phrases and that they will add those sites to the random draw.

Why are you still here?

Get going! Enter the contest! A free web design would be fantastic wouldn’t it?

Ever wondered how a computer virus spreads?

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If you’ve always wonder just how a computer virus works and or spreads you should take a look at this video.

Not surprisingly, computer virus work in a similar manner to that of human virus in that it just takes one virus to infect something and it spreads from there.

Check out this video from “How things Work”:

As the video says, if you don’t have anti-virus protection on your computer you are just asking for a big problem. I use Norton Anti-virus because it comes free with my ISP, but there are some very good free antivirus programs out there such as AVG.

Spammy comments and comment abuse?

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I run the do follow blogroll and lately I’ve seen a few trends going on. Over perhaps the last two weeks I’ve noticed more and more people leaving comments and using website urls when they sign the comment.

I do realize that not everyone has a blog, but prior to this, the majority of people that have left comments on my many blogs were bloggers and they would sign their comments with either their own name or the name of their blog and use their blog url when leaving their comment.

I’m suspicious since there’s been a steady increase in the amount of people leaving not just business related website urls, but they sign their comments with what could only be called a SEO term. I must suspect that they are doing this so that the links they leave will give them higher standing on the search engines.

For the most part the comments that are being left by these people are relevant to the post – but some are a little empty or seem to copy what someone before them said. Then these comments are signed with “cashmere sweaters” and a clothing business website url. That’s not a real example of what’s been left – but you know what I mean, who signs an url with a product name? Only someone practicing search engine optimization techniques.

I’m sorry, but this makes me feel a little used. That might not be the commenters intention but that’s the way I feel.

Considering that my husband and I have oh lets see 9 blogs on the do follow list and that I tend to approve all of the comments I see trends.

I see people signing their comments with different names and different deep pages within their site, people adding extra links into their comments, people using tiny url within their comments, and people that say pretty much the same thing on all of our websites that they visit.

When someone says pretty much the same thing on all of our sites I feel that the abuse is confirmed. Sure, they might actually comment on the post but then they’ll say something like “I’ve been following your site and visit it daily” on all the sites. Surely you didn’t become a fan overnight when I’ve never seen you here before?

For the most part the people on the do follow list are not abusing the list members although a few newbies need a talking to I think.

Unfortunately getting a link on a do follow blog seems to have gained popularity and people are copying the lists on to other sites and none do follow list members are going around commenting on all the sites.

Not all of these people are abusing our kindness but some are and few people abusing sites that are giving links away for free kind of spoils it for the rest.

I love getting comments on all of my sites. Especially if the comment is true feedback on my post. I just don’t like feeling used by those who are only commenting for a link. I’d prefer that people only comment if they truly got something out of my posts.

Oh yes, another thing making me suspicious of the comments I’ve been receiving lately is the fact that there’s a new company where an advertiser can hire this company to write comments on blogs to get their link out there. You can read the article that was posted on Problogger about comment spam to learn more. If I suspect that someone has left a paid comment I’ll be deleting the comment. Apparently they’ll be targeting bloggers who’s links follow.

Now that’s something to think about isn’t it?

CPU resource overuse problems continue! Any ideas?

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Well I’m still trying to figure out my web hosting CPU resource over usage problems. I’ve got a lot of great suggestions from people on forums and via comments on my sites.

One person asked if I’m using WP-Cache on my wordpress blogs and the answer is yes. I’ve been using it since last Friday and I’ve still been getting messages from my web host saying that my cpu resource usage is too high.

This is depressing!

If I ever figure out what caused the problem I’ll be sure to write about it on my sites so that others might be able to get themselves out of this mess a little quicker than I’ve managed.

Well, I’m not out of the mess yet.

I’ve finished updating everything I can think of including a joomla installation that runs one of my other sites. I think the Joomla CMS might be one of the causes of the problem. I guess I’ll find out later today when I hear from my web host. I hope that the resources are back to normal.

I wrote out more details of how I’m using the servers on my other tech blog WebStyle if you’d care to read that post. Perhaps those of you that have been through this before or know a little something about this kind of problem could read that post and offer a few suggestions? I’d really appreciate it if you would.

Also, just in case I do end up having to move to a Virtual Private Server … how difficult is that to work with? I’m pretty good about figuring out stuff but I’d like to know if I’m going to end up with a VPS headache before I make my decision to move off shared hosting.

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