Saturday, August 07, 2010

Wordpress Blues

I am not the most knowledgeable person on different platforms and stuff, but everyone keeps telling me that I simply have to use Wordpress as my blogging platform for my business. This is what I have found out about Wordpress in the very short time that I have been using it.

Wordpress is not as stable as Blogger. It does not have the simplicity of Blogger. I cannot find the way to post directly through my phone as a text message, LIKE Blogger. And I get five hundred million times the spam on Wordpress as I do with Blogger.

So far, I have posted a total of fifteen times on my Wordpress blog. I have posted 2,405 times on Blogger, counting this post. I have almost exceeded the number of spam comments on Wordpress in three weeks as I have received in five YEARS on Blogger.

I have never approved this person's spam message at all. But, so far, they have posted twenty-six messages already on the Wordpress blog. Of course, I am not using the verification code yet, I just have to approve comments right now. I do not want to add something to the blog that I do not understand totally. I could screw it up and drive traffic away for the time being. In case you cannot read the e-mail address of this spammer and maybe you might have an extra e-mail address where you want to send this person all of your business opportunities, their address is hallada@gmail.com. Of course, I did not e-mail them, so that might be a decoy addy. Use caution in your spamming!

Also, I am not posting heavily over there so I can slowly build traffic and figure out where that traffic originates. I have not dropped a single link anywhere and already I have received 600 hits with mainly some past project posts. I don't want to make the same mistakes that I have made with this blog that seems to be doing okay.

Here at MoM, we have a wonderful reader and commenter base of folks that we all know and love. I have done very little promotion and link building except in the early days. This blog's traffic has been completely organic for the most part and it is certainly not a regional blog. We got some folks from pretty much all over North America commenting here and we pretty much know each other pretty well.

That said, I do not want to take five years building my business site to 500 uniques a day. So, if you have a hankering, the folks that you know that might want to look at an architecture blog, send 'em to paulmitchelldesign.com/blog. There is a subscription sign up about half way down the sidebar. I really want to build an e-mail subscription base to build some contacts. Of course, there is also an RSS feed, too.

And gimme the site critique, too. Remember, I am a big boy and can take the heat. If you hate it, try saying something like this, "Holy shit, that site blows goats!" I value your opinion, you know?

Please take the time to comment.

14 comments:

Full Metal Patriot said...

I've had the same experience with Wordpress. Just don't like the back-end interface. For me, Blogger works better. If it ain't broke...

Paul Mitchell said...

TXMarko, WHAT THE HELL?

Full Metal Patriot, once I start something I am going to finish it, though. I set the danged thing up in Wordpress and I am gonna ride that thing for a while. PHP is kind weird, though.

Basil said...

@PaulMitchell:
Well, Texas Shooter shot your "no spam here" idea all to hell, huh?

I've done the WordPress thing, by the way. Of course, you're talking about self-hosted WordPress (the download from WordPress.org or included with a hosting package) and not WordPress.com.

WordPress.com is very stable. However, you can't have ads or include JavaScript on one of those blogs. Plus, the number of themes are limited, but they do have more than Blogger. They do look pretty good, too. Not great, but pretty good.

Hosting your own WordPress blog gives you a lot more functionality via JavaScript, theme customization, available themes, and plugins.

But, you know that (some readers here might not, so I'm providing that so they know what decisions you had to make).

For controlling spam, the best thing to do is get you a WordPress API key. Yes, that means signing up for a WordPress.com blog. But, you can make it inaccessible to everyone else (Dashboard > Settings > Privacy > Site Visibility) and use the API Key for your own WordPress blog. And that's not some trick, WordPress.com is perfectly okay with it.

Once you activate Akismet, you'll see it catching almost all of that spam.

You could tweak the Moderation and Blacklist keywords to send items to one of those queues.

There's also a RECAPTCHA plugin that works similar to the Word Verification on Blogger (it's the successor to the original CAPTCHA and works pretty well). Google owns RECAPTCHA, by the way. http://goo.gl/UKKe

Lots of people will suggest you use SpamKarma or BadBehavior to help cut spam. My suggestion: don't. Akismet works well, and I feel that running multiple plugins to do the same thing wastes resources. And "ban" plugins aren't a good idea. Too many database calls leads to trouble.

Just some thoughts.

Paul Mitchell said...

Basil, just so you know, Texas Shooter is a Tennessee fan. Danged Vols.

And believe it or not, my old MoM blog is still active on Wordpress even though I never posted there and it has been sitting dormant for almost five years.

I already have an Akismet plug in on my business blog but I have not activated it. Do I need to do the API key, too?

Basil said...

@PaulMitchell: You'll need to use the API Key to activate Akismet.

You should be able to get that API Key from Global Dashboard > Dashboard > Profile > Personal Settings.

You'll need to use it when you activate Akismet on your blog: Dashboard > Plugins > activate the plugin; then Dashboard > Plugins > Akismet Configuraton > Wordpress.com API Key.

The Mayor said...

Askimet tells me at the top of my dashboard that it has caught over 26000 spam comments to date.

Now go have a look at my blog and tell me how many they missed.

Ya.

4 7 2

Paul Mitchell said...

Basil, am I to understand that everyone must have a blog at WP.com in order to activate Akismet on a WP.org blog? What kind of Mickey Mouse crap is that?

Mayor, I believe it. My ass fell off because of all the spammer comments.

Bushwack said...

I've been a wordpress user for 4 years and I'll never go back to blogger or any other FREE service. I use a WP with my own host, we have about 6 bloggers on a shared server. Spam isn't an issue, using the right plugins help.

Wordpress gives you all the tools and abilities as a web site, if you do some studying to find out some tricks with coding and java and a few others, WP is the best.

Basil said...

@PaulMitchell: That's how you can get an API Key for free.

They will sell you one. For something like $55/year. At least, that's what the rate was.

Automattic owns WordPress (as well as WordPress.com) and Akismet. So, yeah, they're cross-promoting themselves.

Bad Behavior and Spam Karma are two alternatives that don't require a WordPress API Key. But, I think Akismet is a better product.

RECAPTCHA is a one of the best additions you could add to reduce bot-spam. TrackBack spam, on the other hand, will always be a problem on WordPress. Unless you turn TrackBacks off.

Another possibility with WordPress is to limit comments to members only. You'd need to turn on Membership (be sure to make the default user role as Subscriber). That's a way to build a mailing list. But many people don't like that. In the business world, I can't say how people would feel. Rules are different in business.

Skunkfeathers said...

I used ta git spam commenters h'yar in Blogger. I tried their wv program and other 'spam catchers', but none was a hunnerd persent. Then I tried *SPAM BANGER*, and wha la, all my spam is a hunnerd persent GAWN! YOWZA! Try an' beat that, Rham A Lamb A Ding Dong Fraternities!

*The previous is not official SPAM; no cans of lunch meat were harmed in this comment*

Gribbit said...

There is a problem with Wordpress.com hosted blogs and spam there is no doubt about that. However, Wordpress as a blogging platform on private hosting is much more stable. I have hosting available should you need some help. My only requirement is that it must be active. Contact me via email (you should have it already) if you are interested in private hosting.

Paul Mitchell said...

Gribbit, thanks for stopping by. I know you got your hands full.

My business blog is hosted now. I am not completely satisfied with the service, but I am not ready to give up on iPage yet.

paul mitchell said...

Gribbit, thanks for stopping by. I know you got your hands full.

My business blog is hosted now. I am not completely satisfied with the service, but I am not ready to give up on iPage yet.

Texas Shooter said...

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http://jmulambdachi.com
Information MSC 3518, Fraternity/Sorority Life