knupNET » Wordpress http://www.knupnet.com Learn to earn money 1 website at a time! Thu, 27 May 2010 19:13:01 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 WordPress MU experiment http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/wordpress-mu-experiment-2/ http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/wordpress-mu-experiment-2/#comments Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:46:42 +0000 knup http://www.knupnet.com/?p=382 So managing a network or several network of sites that contain multiple WordPress blogs is very tedious.  Let’s take my USportsNetwork for example.  This site currently has 20 or so sites in it and I’m in the process of increasing this to 100 or so.  That’s 20 individual WordPress installs.  Which means every time there is a WordPress upgrade, I have to upgrade them all. Yikes!  I have to upload plugins to each site, manage FTP accounts for each and so on.  Enter WordPress MU…

WordPress MU (Multiple User) is basically an extension of WordPress.  It’s like 90% WordPress code with a layer on top for managing multiple sites.  I figured I would give this a shot for one of my networks and see how it goes.  If all goes well – I will convert some of my other networks over to WordPress MU.

I’ve converted about 15 sites over currently and hopefully over the next week will have the entire USN running on one WordPress MU install.  So far…

Advantages:

  • VERY easy to spin up a new blog/site.  Just a matter of clicks.
  • Plugins all managed in one central areas and you can activate them on a site by site basis.  Very nice.
  • These blogs all share a common Users table.  Very cool!  One account that can login and manage them all.  Once I get real good at this it will be great.  Users will need one account to comment on any of my sites!  Nice!
  • Few accounts created on the server – though I do create a “parked” domain for the new sites.
  • One database!  Easier to manage.

Bad things:

  • Possible SEO issues?  I’m not sure about this but I’m wondering how Google and others will handle my sites.  Will they see them the same as they did?
  • WordPress MU has some issues with adding a new site with a NEW domain.  It’s built perfectly for subdomains.  But with some tweaks and a plugin it does the trick.  I think :)
  • Speed?  Will my sites run slower?  Database bogged down since it’s one database?  Not sure!

That’s about it for now.  Any of you ever ran WordPress MU? I’ll continue to report my findings as I plunge forward.

]]> http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/wordpress-mu-experiment-2/feed/ 76 Top 5 WordPress Plugins http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/top-5-wordpress-plugins/ http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/top-5-wordpress-plugins/#comments Fri, 28 Sep 2007 03:08:44 +0000 knup http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/top-5-wordpress-plugins/ Top 5 WordPress PluginsTop WordPress Plugin posts have been done before – but now it’s my turn.  I’ve had several people inquire about a couple of my plugins so I thought I would ‘plug’ some of my favorites.  Here are my Top 5 WordPress Plugins:

  1. Comment Relish  -  I love this plugin.  It’s pretty simple but quite effective.  Basically what it does is send an email out to users after their FIRST comment on my site.  No biggie huh?  Well, I’ve had lots of people immediately respond to that email starting further conversation with me.  Forming relationships is huge for any blog.  Highly recommend Comment Relish.
  2. Another WordPress Meta Plugin  - This is simply a plugin for inserting the META tags ‘keywords’ and ‘description’ into your posts, pages and index page.  As you all know, keywords and description META tags are a key part of SEO.  This just makes it easier to do through WordPress.  I’m actually kind of shocked that WordPress does not have this build in as a standard feature.
  3. WP-Polls  - I use Polls on several blogs (not knupNET) and love WP-Polls.  Very simple, easy to use plugin.  Allows you to create multiple polls and even have them rotate which is displayed.  Uses some nice AJAX to make it look slick on the page.
  4. Pierre’s Wordspew  -  This is a plugin that creates a live shoutbox, using AJAX as a backend. Users can chat freely from the blog without refreshing the page!  I use this on pages that I need a little chat section.  Easy!
  5. Optimal Title  - Adds a little SEO to the Title of pages.  Simple yet effective.  I use this on all my blogs.

Well, there are my Top 5 Plugins for WordPress.  I use several others and in the future might work on a 2nd tier of plugins to give you all.  But for now – happy blogging!

]]> http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/top-5-wordpress-plugins/feed/ 7 WordPress 2.3 realeased http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/wordpress-23-realeased/ http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/wordpress-23-realeased/#comments Thu, 27 Sep 2007 03:11:22 +0000 knup http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/wordpress-23-realeased/ wordpress_2_3.pngIt seems like every time I turn around it’s time to upgrade versions of WordPress again. This wouldn’t be such a problem if we didn’t have so many darn sites to upgrade. Guess I better get to work and quit complaining.

Regardless, WordPress 2.3 has been released and has some great and much needed features. This version of WordPress supports tags.  I have never used tags as I have heard from some others that they don’t help a lot.  Not worth my time I guess.  But they are supported now. There is also a nice update notification that tells you when it’s time to upgrade WordPress.  NICE.  Now if it would just do it for me  :)

There are some other features in WordPress 2.3 but these are the biggies.  I’ll update again after everything has been converted.

]]> http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/wordpress-23-realeased/feed/ 2 Check out the dealdotcom plugin http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/check-out-the-dealdotcom-plugin/ http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/check-out-the-dealdotcom-plugin/#comments Sat, 22 Sep 2007 15:53:45 +0000 knup http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/check-out-the-dealdotcom-plugin/ As some of you have noticed we recently installed the sweet DealDotcom plugin on our sidebar.  This was to help me keep up with the latest deals, and to help you see the latest deals.  If you have not signed up for DealDotcom yet – DO IT.  It’s free.  It displays a deal a day related to this specific industry that we all know and love.  Some of you have sent me an email asking where I found the DealDotcom plugin so here it is!  Enjoy and be sure to check out the program.

]]> http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/check-out-the-dealdotcom-plugin/feed/ 3 “Manage Multiple Blogs” and make life easier http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/manage-multiple-blogs-and-make-life-easier/ http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/manage-multiple-blogs-and-make-life-easier/#comments Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:45:19 +0000 knup http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/manage-multiple-blogs-and-make-life-easier/ website_art.jpgSo i read about this sweet new plugin for WordPress that allows you to Manage Multiple Blogs all from the same admin screen.  Nice!  I went out to the site and downloaded the plugin to give it a try.  I must say I’m impressed.  This went very smooth and it was super easy to add new blogs through the interface.  From there you can write posts, manage posts, manage comments and manage categories.  The creator seems very active and is going to have future releases with more functionality.

My biggest addition would be to add a dashboard that includes latest activity from ALL sites!  I would love this.  To be able to monitor incoming links and latest comments/posts across several blogs on one screen.  Now that is power.  For those of us that try to maintain several blogs across many different industry’s – this plugin is a MUST have and I want to extend my thanks to keith over at Techie Buzz!

You can check out the plugin here.

]]> http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/manage-multiple-blogs-and-make-life-easier/feed/ 4 WordPress 2.2.3 Download http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/wordpress-223-download/ http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/wordpress-223-download/#comments Sun, 09 Sep 2007 14:26:28 +0000 knup http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/wordpress-223-download/ For those of you that blog using WordPress, it is very important to keep up with their latest releases.  This latest update has a couple critical fixes related to security so don’t be lazy with this one.  You can download the plug-in here.

]]> http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/wordpress-223-download/feed/ 0 Keeping up with WordPress Security http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/keeping-up-with-wordpress-security/ http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/keeping-up-with-wordpress-security/#comments Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:21:12 +0000 knup http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/keeping-up-with-wordpress-security/ wordpress-logo.jpgAnyone else find it difficult to keep up with all the ‘WordPress Updates’ that come out?  I think it is crucial to upgrade to the latest version especially when it’s a ‘security update’, but good lord it’s tough keeping up.  I feel like I just upgraded my network of sites to 2.1.2 and now I get the 2.1.3 notice.  I know it’s not a painful task if you just run one site.  But I have a network of over 50 WordPress sites and this is just NOT FUN.  I guess it all comes with the industry though.

Are there any easy ways to perform these upgrades?  I typically go one by one and copy over the necessary files.  Not too bad I guess.  Time to start upgrading!

]]> http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/keeping-up-with-wordpress-security/feed/ 1 WordPress Plugins on knupNET http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/wordpress-plugins-on-knupnet/ http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/wordpress-plugins-on-knupnet/#comments Thu, 08 Mar 2007 05:30:29 +0000 knup http://www.knupnet.com/wordpress/wordpress-plugins-on-knupnet Below is a list of the WordPress Plugins we are using here at knupNET.  I know there are several key ones I am probably missing.  But hopefully this list will grow as the blog grows.  If I’m missing anything ‘key’ please comment and let me know:

So that’s it.  Any thoughts?

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