A few days ago one of my customers have submitted the ticket with questions that go beyond normal product support we offer. And while I have provided a simple answer – I have to admit that on second review of my answer – I wasn’t happy with it!

That answer wasn’t exactly what my customer was looking for and not something I was personally satisfied with. My apologies to Xavier and since “Identifying Content Uniqueness” is rather common question – I want to give detailed answer in form of post.

Blog Content Copyrights And Uniqueness

While there are some tools that will help you find if your content unique or not and if it was taken and used by someone else – Copyscape is undoubted leader. Using it is extremely simple, just enter full direct URL to your post and you will get results back:

In image above I simply entered full url to my blog post “Triple “P” Of Total WordPress Security” and it provided me with several results.

Problem is – FREE version of the tool is limited to number of results returned and if you test it – you will find that many times you get a lot of false positives. If you are working a lot with PLR content or purchasing content from elsewhere – I recommend you look at Premium account options they offer to take advantage of their technology.

If you are looking to simply watch your blog to make sure that your content is not stolen and reused by scrapers elsewhere I want to share a great free tool with you that I learned about from “Stop Scrapers and Spammers Fast” blog post on Darren Rowse blog – CopyGator!

While it is not same in functionality as Copyscape it does well what it does, and FREE!

Interestingly enough it provided me with a better results than Copyscape as far as my content concerned and a lot more accurate!

While they offer you a nice badge to place on your blog as “Option 1″ that actually turns red when your content used somewhere else – I preferred Option 2 as shown in image below simply because all I have to do is add their RPC to my ping list and provide my feed. Now every time I will post new blog post – Gator gets notified and monitors it.

Simple, Effective, Non-Intrusive!

Allow Google Alert You For Content Usage

This option is more advanced and it will actually serve as dual edged sword – protect our copyrights as well as BE NOTIFIED when someone uses it without permission!

Step 1 – Install Plugin

Although Feed Footer plugin was created a while back and haven’t been updated to latest version – I use it on all my blogs and it is part of standard “Expert WordPress” blog installer package.

Simply install this plugin and you will be provided with 10 fields you can use to provide Text, Ads or HTML content to copyright protect your blog posts. Those fields will be auto inserted into your RSS Feed on rotating basis for all new posts only and since RSS is what scrapers always use to steal your content – it will show up on those “splogs”.

You can use it to both add ads as well as copyrights message with link to your blog. I recommend using some unique key phrase that you can use for easily identifying when your feed was used outside of your blog.

See the copyright message in image below that is added to my RSS Feed:

As you can see I have a unique phrase “Copyright WordPress Web 2.0 Spot-Er” auto-inserted into ALL MY posts in blog RSS Feed and now I can move to step 2…

Step 2 – Allow Google Monitor The Web For Me

Hey, Google is good for something besides doing searching!

All you have to do now is use your unique phrase, “Copyright WordPress Web 2.0 Spot-Er” with quotes to create a Google Alert and each time it shows up anywhere – you will get email from Google! See image below

Now you just let the Big Guy to let you know  anytime your content might is stolen And since we are on topic of Google Alert – you don’t have to limit yourself to monitoring only your copyright’s message.

You can use it to monitor for your niche specific phrase to be alerted anytime new story comes out, monitor entire market to be “the man or woman to go to” for latest information in your Niche! Make yourself “The Source Of Latest Info” and you will be rewarded.

Conclusion

No matter which method you choose to use – it is important to use at least something to protect your biggest asset, content you have created!

Post from: Amarnath Online

Protect Your Blog Copyrights

Akismet
I know I’m not the first person to include this on a must have plug-in list, and I definitely won’t be the last. Akismet rocks. Enough said.  Unless you want to constantly be deleting spam comments from your blog, install this plug-in.

Have you ever noticed that the spam bots seem to find a blog before the real people do? Thank goodness for Akismet. Amen.

Bookmarks Are Sexy
I love this plug in.  I don’t use all of the provided network icons, usually Digg, Facebook,
Stumble and delicious will suffice.  If you aren’t writing at least once a week for the
sheer purpose of social network attention, you aren’t promoting your blog effectively.

The fastest way to establishing authority in your niche and building links (not to mention a reader base) is through proper social networking promotion.

SEO for WordPress
Most new themes these days are beginning to code themselves with SEO in mind, so this plug-in is starting to become obsolete.  However, for most themes it’s still necessary.  This plug in allows you to
custom build your title tags from the post edit window.  Starting the title tag with a meaty key-phrase is essential for ranking for that phrase in the search engines.

SEO for WordPress has many other handy features that make life easier.

Email To A Friend
One of the biggest mistakes I made early on was underestimating the value of this plug-in.  The coolest part about it is you can actually see who is sending your posts to who, and what they are saying about it in the email.  Is it kind of sneaky and semi-voyeuristic? Yes.  Interesting and encouraging? Absolutely.  It’s also a great way to make word of mouth marketing easy for your readers.

Robots.Txt
This is a must have. Search engines love it when you’re organized and you tell them what to do.  This automatically builds a must-have robots.txt file for your site.  Check it out.

Database Backup
I consider this plug-in my little insurance policy.  It automatically backs up your WordPress database and emails you the file daily. Talk about peace of mind.  I always have a fresh back up of all my sites sitting in the cloud in my email folders and also backed up on my hard drive.   It’s an easy, smart and prudent thing every blogger should do.

Subscribe To Comments
This one is as simple as two words: Return Traffic. Someone says something engaging, and they’re notified every time someone replies. Offering the option for viewers to subscribe to comments is promoting conversation which is generating return traffic and allowing your readers to engage and communicate, creating a community. That’s a no-brainer.

SiteMap
Lastly, building a sitemap makes it very easy for pages to get indexed, re-indexed, and constantly recognized.  This plug-in automatically draws up an .xml sitemap and submits to Google at a frequency that you set.  You should also link to the site map from the footer of your blog.  This will make it very easy for the search engines to index.

Post from: Amarnath Online

8 New Plug-ins Every New Blog Should Have

Here are this weeks newest WordPress plugins. Have a look and let me know if you are using them or trying them out.

Universal Post Manager

This plugin allow you to manage HTML tags, disable HTML tags one after another chacking according checkboxes in admin panel, filter phrases , create shortcuts (for replace to links, images) and save your posts, pages as text, html and Word Document.

WordPress Plugin – Universal Post Manager

Dean’s FCKEditor For WordPress

FCKeditor is an open source WYSIWYG text editor ,brings to the web much of the power of desktop editors like MS Word.it’s lightweight and is compatible with most internet browsers which include: IE 5.5+ (Windows), Firefox 1.0+, Mozilla 1.3+ and Netscape 7+.

View Demo of the editor.

Thank You Counter Button

This is the simple visitor’s ‘Thank you’ or ‘I like it’ click counter. Every time a new visitor clicks the “Thank you” button one point is added to the total “thanks” counter for this post. The plugin stores its counters in MySQL table. Only one “thank” for this IP-address is permitted. Plugin skips all further “Thank you” clicks from this IP-address once it is automatically registered.

WordPress Plugin – Thank You Counter Button

Event Calendar / Scheduler

An easy to implement event calendar plugin built on top of dhtmlxScheduler, which provides Ajax-based scheduling solution similar to Microsoft Outlook Calendar, Apple’s iCal or Google Calendar. The plugin allows you to manage single or multiple user events through easy and intuitive dynamic interface. Users can add/modify/delete events on the fly and easily change events dates and time by simply dragging the event boxes. You can set up different levels of permissions to people who will use the calendar.

The scheduler can be configured to display events in Day, Week, or Month view, as well as in any custom view. If there is a need to display recurring events, users can create events which will be repeated on daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis.

You can use the scheduler as an ordinary calendar on a web page to visualize some events/appointments, or as a calendar to display your blog posts archive (in this case it works in read-only mode).

The main features include:

• Day/Week/Month view + ability to create custom view
• Drag-n-drop support to configure event date and time
• Customizable appearance
• Single/multi-days events (daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis)
• Customizable time scale
• Recurring events
• Multilingual

WordPress Plugin – Event Calendar Scheduler

Pingcrawl

Aims to replicate WordPress.com’s “Possibly related posts” capability. It queries Google Blog Search for related blog posts (based on tags, or the post title if there are no tags), tries to verify that they are pingback/trackback compatible sites and, if so, adds links to such posts to the end of each blog post where it is invoked.

teachPress

Is a course and publication management plugin for WordPress.

Features:

• Publication management
• Course management
• Student management
• Enrollments system with optional waiting lists
• xls-export
• Print templates for attendance lists
• Integrated search functions
• Some shortcodes for an easy using in posts an pages

teachPress images in action.

Wp-Thumbie

Display a list of Thumbnail related posts for the current post. You can select the number of posts to be display in your content / feed. You can choose to exclude posts from certain categories as well as exclude pages.

Features:

• Display Related Posts with thumbnail image automatically in content / feed, no need to edit template files
• Doesn’t use any custom field to generate thumbnail images
• You can manually add code to your template where you want the Wp-thumbie to be displayed
• Exclude posts from categories
• Exclude display of thumbnail related posts on Pages
• Exclude pages in thumbnail related Posts list
• Related posts based on content and post title
• Set Thumbnail image size
• Turn on/off Post excerpt
• set length of Post excerpt
• Different Styling for displaying thumbnail related posts
• Display Thumbnail related posts in RSS Feeds (Styling issue)

WordPress Plugin – WP Thumbie

SBS Blogroll

This widget automatically grabs the latest posts from whichever blogs you want (enter the feed URLs into the widget setup) and displays those whenever someone visits your blog. Links can be displayed chronologically, and you can click on the link to either the other blog or the specific post that is new.

WordPress Plugin – SBS Blogroll

Final Thought

I hope you enjoyed this weeks plugins and that you maybe try a few out. I would like to know any feedback you have concerning these plugins.

Post from: Amarnath Online

Newest WordPress Plugins 08/10

Some themes already come with a contact form which makes it easier for all. Some say it’s better to use a WordPress plugin for this, but there are so many that it becomes a bit confusing now and then. I’m currently using Enhanced WP-ContactForm and am happy with the results. You can see it in action via my contact page.

Although it is plain and simple, it provides some additional information that tells me where they came from or what they looked at before contacting me.

Information about the contact form are:

• Your name
• Your email address
• Your website
• Your message
• A quick sum is asked (adding numbers together)
• You can CC yourself so that you have a copy of the message sent
• Adds your IP address in the email it sends out
• Adds your last few pages you visited

Admin settings for the contact form:

• Email address where the message must be sent
• Subject of the email
• Success message
• Error message
• You can edit the text wording
• Allow message to be CC

Other WordPress plugins for contact forms:

• WP Contact Form – WP Contact Form is a drop in form for users to contact you. It can be implemented on a page or a post.
• Contact Form 7 – Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.
• WP Contact Form III – WP Contact Form III is a simple contactform based on Ryan Duff’s WP Contact Form and Doug Karr’s challenge (antispam) mod for Ryan’s original form. What I’ve added (here’s where the “III” comes in..) is giving your visitors the option to specify the subject of their email, and proper, valid xhtml.
• SimpleModal Contact Form (SMCF) – SimpleModal Contact Form (SMCF) is an Ajax powered modal contact form. It utilizes the jQuery JavaScript library and the SimpleModal jQuery plugin. SMCF has options to include certain contact form elements, like a Subject field and “Send me a copy” option for the sender.
• Cool Contact Form – Easy to use contact form. Displays nice looking validation errors and success messages on respective failure and success while sending the mail.
• Contact Form Captcha – Easy to use contact form with captcha enabled. Displays nice looking validation errors and success messages on respective failure and success while sending the mail. The contact form can also have content of your own. The content which will be displayed at the begining of the form and then the form itself.
• SF Contact Form – SF Contact Form is a contact form that integrates with the SalesForce Web-2-Lead function. It can be implemented on a page or a post. This plugin is based heavily on the original WP Contact Form.
• Fast and Secure Contact Form – Fast and Secure Contact Form for WordPress. This contact form lets your visitors send you a quick E-mail message. Blocks all common spammer tactics. Spam is no longer a problem. Includes a CAPTCHA and Akismet support. Does not require JavaScript. Easy and Quick 3 step install.
• Spam-Free Contact Form – Spam Free Contact Form. On errors, displays elegant error messages and confirmation messages on successful mail delivery.

If I have forgotten some plugin, then please let me know and I will add it to the list.

Final Thought

I would love to know what you are using on your blog/site. Let me know and we can see what is being used by others and which ones are easier than others.

Post from: Amarnath Online

Does your blog have a Contact Form?

It is very likely this will be the most important article you read all year. Of course you can choose to skip this article, but you will regret it, especially since I am such a groovy kind of guy. Ok, I hate bellbottoms and green furniture, so maybe I’m not so groovy. However, I am going to show you an easy way to protect your most valuable marketing asset – your WordPress blog.

If you understand the difference between how to backup both your MYSQL database and your standard Word Press files, congratulations! You don’t really win anything, except peace of mind, which I consider invaluable. However, there are literally thousands of WordPress users who are in the dark about the proper way to backup their blogs (yes, I’m probably talking about you).

Unfortunately, even experienced online marketers are making this same mistake. My partner, who makes hundreds of thousands of dollars every year online, was also totally clueless. When I asked him to backup one of our membership site blogs, he sent me a zip file that just included the main WordPress files. When I asked where the database file was, he got a look on his face like he just French kissed Jabba the Hut. Since I couldn’t stand the look on his face for a minute longer, I had to explain why it was so important to have the database file.

Now this is where you should start to pay attention *cough*

Your Word Press blog is powered by a MYSQL database. This database stores all of your content and the settings for your blog. Without this database, your blog would essentially be a black hole lacking any content. Now what most people don’t know is that this database resides on another part of the hosting server. Since the file is in a different location, it needs to be backed up separately from your standard Word Press files.

So here is what all of this means; if your host has a server crash, you will not be able to restore your blog without the MYSQL database. Basically, you will be up a creek without a paddle, a boat, any food, no mapÖ you get the idea, right?

At this point you are probably telling yourself that your hosting company will backup this file for you, right? Not exactly. Many hosting companies are not responsible for backing up your files. I found this out the hard way several years ago, and it could easily happen to you next. So don’t be foolish enough to rely on your Website host to do this for you.

Now here is the good news – you can backup your MYSQL database in three easy steps by following this simple plan:

Step One:

Go and download the “Word Press Database Backup” plugin here.

Step Two:

Install the plugin on your blog.

Step Three:

Set the plugin to your desired specifications. It really is quite straightforward to setup, but you can always refer to the plugin documentation for help.

I personally set the plugin to make either a daily or a weekly backup for each of my blogs. If I post to a blog frequently, I make a daily backup. If I post infrequently, that blog is backed up on a weekly basis. I then have the backup file sent to my email. However you wish for the file to be saved is entirely up to you though. Simply use the method you are most comfortable with.

From start to finish, the entire process takes about 10 minutes per blog. That is of course if you grab a snack to slow you down. So there is absolutely no excuse not to set this up today. I would think ten minutes of your time is well worth the peace of mind you will feel when it’s done.

Now you could be lazy and find out the hard way how much fun it is to have your entire blog wiped out, with no hope of ever seeing it again.

Is ten minutes of your time worth going through that?

Discover the little known money making ideas used by the experts in my hot new ebook ‘Secret Lives of Internet Marketers’. You will discover the successful blueprint seven famous marketers used to become financially independent and how you can easily apply it to your own online business!

Post from: Amarnath Online

How To Backup Your WordPress Blog In Three Easy Steps