Events, Happenings & Cool Stuff

There was a huge buzz this weekend about a known Wordpress attack that was happening all over the world. Thanks to Twitter (and following the right people) I was notified right away.

This wordpress blog is a self hosted blog, so it required a bit more than a blog hosted at Wordpress.com (which I would never recommend).

I really wanted to take this 3 day weekend off. The computer at my office has my ftp software, my laptop at home doesn’t. So..I did.

Obviously my first goal today was to upgrade. I downloaded all of the new files from the Wordpress site. I also decided I would not be a typical guy, so I read the instructions. There were some files I had to delete, and some I had to keep. I also backed up mysql database (just in case).

As soon as I transferred the new files to my server, my site was broken. I kind of expected this to happen, because nothing is ever easy when it comes to this stuff. After doing a bit of Googling, I discovered the problem was very simple.

The files I downloaded were missing 2 entire folders:

1. wp-content
2. wp-admin

I found another download source, downloaded the file and sure enough there they were. I’m sure there are thousands of others who will go crazy this week who downloaded the same folder.

When you unzip the file, be sure there are 3 folders (besides all of the regular files). You should have :

1. wp-admin
2. wp-includes (this was the only folder from my first download)
3. wp-content

Here are a few basic tips:

• Follow These Directions
• They recommend deleting some files first. I am the king of shortcuts, so I am surprised that I didn’t skip that step. If I had skipped the step, the folders that weren’t there from my first download wouldn’t have been changed. I would not of know this, and I can imagine the bugs I would of had.
• Be sure to disable all of your plugins
• When you log into your backend, Wordpress will have a link waiting for you to update your database. Just click it, they take care of everything.
• When you are done, be sure to enable your plugins (especially your SEO Plugins – You don’t want the Googlebot and Slurps indexing new insane url’s).
• Time? It took me an hour. If I didn’t have that problem it would of been 20 minutes from start to finish.

One other note. Whenever I write a blog post, I wait 5 minutes and then do a Google Blog search for my post. It is always there. However, after performing the upgrade and creating a blog post I checked and it’s not there! It’s been about 2 hours now. Is there a ping setting I have to change?

On my printing website I have 4 different statistics programs installed. The difference between the three are enormous. I ask people to read this short article, you may learn something.

I have been in the business for many years, and I learned a long time ago not to believe the stats that my hosting company gives. In the past 2 weeks I’ve met at least 3 people who were showing me their stats. I didn’t want to take the wind out of their sails by explaining this to them, so i figured I would do a quick blog post about it and perhaps send them a link.

These are the statistics of my printing website here in Lakeland Florida from 3 different sources:

Webalizer Stats - Click To Enlarge

Webalizer Stats: These statistics come with my BlueHost web hosting account. This report says that I received 41,027 visitors during June 2009.

Awstats (Click To Enlarge)

Awstats: These statistics also come with my BlueHost Account. According to these I received 16,884 visitors with 10,949 unique visitors in June of 2009. This is a big difference from Webalizer.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics:  It reports I had 6,694 visitors in June of 2009. It’s a far cry from the other 2 reports.

BLVD Status Live Web Stats

BLVD Status: This is a great live stats program I use, and the numbers are very close to Google Analytics reporting 16,712 visitors during the month of June 2009.

Why The Difference?

There are a gazillion bots and spiders constantly scanning the web. The more links you have pointing to your website you have, the more spider traffic you will get. For this reason you shouldn’t rely on the top 2. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but that’s the way it is. You’re probably not getting half the traffic you though your were.

Stick with Google Analytics and BLVD Status for the real deal.

I’ve been living in Lakeland Florida for 3 years now and this week was the first time I have ever been inside of a Pawn Shop.

Scott from West Coast Pawn & Jewelry called me up inquiring about a website so I took a ride down there. The funny thing is he found me on Google and he didn’t even realize I was in the state of Florida, not to mention his Pawn Shop is about an 1/8 of a mile from my shop.

Anyway I’m glad i didn’t have any cash on me because I would of left with a trunk full. He has computers, stereo systems, cell phones, gold and silver jewelry, electric guitars, power tools, video games and thousands of DVD’s. He sells DVD for like 14.00 for 6, plus he’ll give you free DVD if you print out his coupon. Well about a week later his search engine friendly website is up and running with a full shopping cart:

Pawn Shop In Lakeland Florida

If you’re looking for a Pawn Shop in Lakeland Florida you need to check out this place! Visit their website at www.lakelandpawnshop.com.

Many realtors and property management companies feel they are trapped in having to advertise their property listings through 3rd party companies. People just don’t realize there are hundreds of solutions out there like Joomla.

Joomla is a free open source PHP based content management system which is available to anyone who wants to use it. These websites come with the basic coding done and you simply add on the features you want. If you have no experience at all you probably won’t be able to get one up and running to your liking but it can be good practice.

Once Joomla is downloaded and intalled on your server it takes some practice on what to do next. I like Joomla because in a couple of days you can have a fully functional website, and if you wanted to change the entire format it’s very easy to do without breaking your website.

This week’s project is a real estate and property management company in Lakeland Florida. They will have a full content rich website that the search engines will gobble up. They will also be able to post their own properties on their own website. If you’re looking for property rentals in Lakeland Florida, check them out.

Here is how it’s looking:

Rentals In Lakeland Florida

Now this isn’t your ordinary Realtor website, it is 100% search engine friendly and with the proper amount of backlinks pointing to this website I expect it to rank high on searches. It may take 60 days but in the long run they will get some great leads for a fraction of what they’re paying now. The best part is the website only costs $6.95 per month to host, and that’s your only expense!

AM PM Door Service

Last week I was contacted by AM PM Door Service. They had an existing website that just wasn’t performing and they asked for my help. I took a look at their current website and it wasn’t that bad, it just wasn’t search engine friendly.

AM PM Door Service is based out of Lakeland, Florida but services most of the United States. It’s very easy to target just one city or area but when it comes to multiple locations across the US it gets a little tricky. Considering they already had a website they were just paying for monthly hosting which really is not that expensive.

My answer was simple, keep that website and lets make another one. For less then $500.00 they will have the most search engine friendly website that will target all major cities they currently service. AM PM is lucky enough to have a girl named Melissa working for them that is pretty savvy when it comes to editing websites. My website includes a back-end where the company can easily edit and add pages to their website, including photographs.

They will also have a new blog tied to their website that will make the internet traffic rain in. I’ve been doing this for so long I know exactly what to do, so it doesn’t take me long to set it up.

This blog you are reading is tied to my printing website. I haven’t paid a dime to advertise in the last calendar year, but I am so successful with free internet traffic that I outgrew my house and moved in to a storefront in North Lakeland.

Do you have a website that needs work? Call Mike direct at (863) 937-8026 for a free consultation.