Top 10 things I need to do to clean up my sites

Something that I’ve been meaning to do for along time .. clean up all of my sites. In the month of December 2006 (before I have to turn this into a New Year’s Resolution) .. I hope I have the time and energy to do the following to each and every site within the HART-Empire Network ..

1) upgrade every site to the latest version of wordpress
2) standardize all the plugins that I’m using for every site to all the sites
3) upgrade all the plugins to the latest version
4) make sure all my wp-cron and automate wp backups are working properly
5) update my syndication graphic buttons from feedburner chicklet feature
6) update my About Pages
7) Make sure my Sitemaps and archives are being displayed properly
8) I’d like to create something like “Top Posts” or “My Favorites” page in each site
9) For my own sites.. more randomness surfing options
10) .. and stuff like that but may be unique to each individual site (Don’t know yet)

wpmudev.org – wpMUdev.org

* Is this really somebody’s website? Or just a support site for WordPress MU (Multi-User) developers?

It’s funny that when wordpress upgraded from the version 1.5.3 to 2.0+ and the entire dashboard was modified and splashed with color … everybody is and should be upgrading their wordpress to the latest version 2.0!

Ask yourself – how many downloads have you read around the internet that WordPress has had recently?

Now ask yourself – how many sites have you seen around the internet that actually look like the new dashboard?

Slick… i.m.o.

* I’m playing with WordPress MU and screwing up the permissions .. the domain aliases .. the chmod settings and a whole bunch more stuff!

I assure, that it’s not intentional and it’s driving me bonkers trying to figure this out – but, I will.

Sorry for any inconveniences that may result because of my triggering and tweaking .. and .. I have no friggen idea when I’ll get this working 100% again – but I’m trying! I really am!

UPDATE: This issue has now been resolved and I am in test mode experimenting now. An announcement will be announced at a later date

Instablogs.com – InstaBlogs – Community (Relaunch)

I like the way there is two columns of article teasers on the front page of each channel, as well as the main channel cover page with the new options this redesign offers us readers.

That’s my first impression. I’m still test-driving it out and surfing this morning.

GOOD JOB NANDINI

* I’ve guess you’ve heard the news … b5media spawns a new business channel ..

Well, there’s now seven new blogs out there in the long awaited business channel … I’m sure there’s more blogs out there that we don’t even know about yet .. so like everybody else .. I hope hat this channel gets bigger and better over time.

BUT – was it only ME that was HUGELY SURPRISED by the announcement that Brian Clark of CopyBlogger fame has joined b5media and its business channel?

It’s just that … well, I thought that the b5media plan was to “make heroes of its bloggers” .. Brian is probably one of the blogosphere’s biggest heroes out there, with almost as many subscribers as Darren of Problogger fame himself! I guess he has his reasons .. and it just goes to show that money does help make the world go round, the rich get richer and all the other cliche’s out there that I can think of – are true.

I can’t really put my finger on it .. but somehow this merger of the famous blog into the famous blog network is disturbing for me, the smaller network of blogs owner .. and semi-part time blogger .. searching for some validity out there wondering if what I’m doing out here is all right .. and the world is spinning correctly on its axis in my part of the world (and mind’s eye).

I mean – I won’t – but, what if I ever wanted to apply for a job at this or any other blogger network? or, try to sell this or any other of my sites out there? .. How can we even compare or be in the same class? What would us little guys need to be considered to be acquired by such a great network as b5media …. 6000 feed subscribers? It’s like a new bar to reach .. you have to get famous or be famous .. to become more famous.

OH WAIT – I just thought of the “WHY” this news sort of irks me in the slightest of ways .. I’ve kind of decided in my own mind that if b5media can’t MAKE heroes out bloggers .. it can buy them. More and more often with every new blog out there .. I personally am not seeing bloggers with passion out there … I’m seeing bloggers and associations with credentials.

* And speaking of blog networks .. InstaBlogs Live .. launches today … Good Luck! I have to check them out today

How I Blog … if this was a series – it would be Part I…

* I posted on my 1800HART blog and provided some more “Stuff for the Taking” .. which was an excel template that I use to help me keep track of preposted articles throughout my network.

Well .. here’s an example of what I did last night after my wife went to sleep, while watching a late-night movie ..

If you click the above image, you will see that I preposted 52 articles late last night- (well, actually 51 – I wrote the one on 1800HART Blog this morning ..) It’s nothing too special, so don’t think like I am trying to show off the greatest thing since slice bread or anything .. but I’ve got 35+ blogs now and if I don’t keep track of what’s being posted .. I will probably spend too much time constantly trying to figure out what has been posted!

If you look at the blogs on the list .. all articles posted were Ezine articles that I’ve been saving in my Bloglines account as “keep new”. If the movie was longer, I would have continued posting on the PetLvr line .. and probably a few more sites like AndYouRetire.com and more in the “LVR-Series of Blogs”.

The way I do it .. is like the way the image shows. When I prepost articles, I just circle the hour under the date column that I create for a blog and just fill in the blanks. Some blogs I post every 4 hours, some once a day. This week, I posted 4 on the 62-151.com blog strictly because I’ve been accumulating tons of SEO type of articles, and wanted to release a bunch and get that list lower in my Bloglines.

This isn’t a final list .. because I will get back to it during the evenings later this week and probably here and then during the day, and early mornings and later evenings. That’s why I generally keep this sheet close by and even when I “impulse blog” and do a post (like this one) .. I just add the time and date in the appropriate column and jot it down for my reference.

*sigh* yup .. that’s sounds pretty anal, eh? But – it works for me for now.

* MyBlogLog …. Anybody using this?

I was cleaning up the spam and junk emails this morning when I received an email from MyBlogLog.com .. informing me that this program automatically recognized that I visited certain “communities” a fair number of times and added me to their communities in MyBlogLog.

Heck! I didn’t know this existed! It seems interesting. Apparently I have joined 22 communities already, and didn’t know it – and my PetLvr and 1800HART site are part of my “HOME” Page!

Good news .. I see some familiar faces reading my sites 🙂 ~wave

Bad news .. I can’t remember signing up for this .. how the heck did that happen? If anybody is sending me messages in there – and I wasn’t responding (Can you even do that?) Well … I have to read up on this MyBlogLog thingie.

UPDATE:

I did find in my Email records that I did sign up for MyBlogLog on July 31, 2005 (two-oh-oh-five) … I guess my account has been resurrected automatically? Hmm

Found a new toy! Thanks to roadofstone comment on Chris Pearson’s Blog ..

sitescore.silktide.com/

SITESCORE:

I tested 5 sites .. (Overall Rank in brackets)

* Curling Blog (6.6)
* PetLvr.com – [The Blog] (7.3)
* 1-8-0-0-H-A-R-T (6.2)
* Corydon Clock Blog (6.6)
* HART-Empire Network (6.7)

You can test your site … How did you score?

Here are some of the comments and results of THIS site .. HART-Empire.com

Summary

This report tested 5 pages of www.HART-Empire.com (using Sitescore v1.8.2)

Marketing – How well marketed, and popular the website is. 5.6
Design – How well designed and built the website is. 9.1
Accessibility – How accessible the website is, particularly to those with disabilities. 6.2
Experience – How satisfying the website is likely to be. 9.6
Visitor rating – Average user rating for this site’s design

Warning This website cannot be voted for technical reasons. No votes

Visitor feedback

This website does not currently have any visitor feedback. You should try this report again later to see if anyone has rated this website.

Good / bad points

* (warning) Website is missing crucial elements which help it appear in search engines (more detail)
* (warning) This website appears to be in violation of the British Disability Discrimination Act (more detail)
* (Okay) This website is very quick to respond (more detail)
* (Okay) This website is reasonably popular (approx #1,170,655 in the world) (more detail)
* (Okay) Design makes proper use of modern technology (no table-based layout) (more detail)

Detailed breakdown

You can run live reports here, by creating a free user login account. This also allows you access more advanced features.

* (very poor) Popularity on Google – Based on your webpage title, we guessed that your website / company name is “HART”. In the text on your homepage, these appear to be the most significant phrases:

i&8217
sites
blog
plugin
network
post
hartempire
it&8217
hartempire network
don&8217

We took the top 3 phrases and searched for them in Google, along with your website/company name.

No matches on Google were found at all.

The includes searches for HART, blog, sites, i&8217.

Recommendations: If your website is more than a month old, you should always aim to score within the top 10 results for a search for your website or company name, at least. Firstly, make sure your website is properly programmed, and makes proper use of title, heading and meta-tags – in particular your homepage. Ensure that your website contains text-based content that is relevant to those searching for your website. Then submit your website to all the search engines and applicable free directories you can.

* (very poor) Use of meta tags – None of the tested webpages made use of meta tags. This website is likely to be either very old or not well designed. Meta tags help promote your web pages to search engines.

Recommendations: Add effective meta tags to your website.

* (very poor) British legal requirements * All pages were found in violation of the current W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

This website may be unlawful in Britain. The British Disability Discrimination Act makes it unlawful to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide any service provided to members of the public – including websites.

Show error details (339 errors found over 5 pages)Hide error details

Webpage www.HART-Empire.com
67 errors found – only displaying first 10 (see all results)
Line 12, column 79: end tag for “link” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
Line 12, column 0: start tag was here
Line 13, column 88: end tag for “link” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
Line 13, column 0: start tag was here
Line 121, column 15: document type does not allow element “h1” here; missing one of “object”, “applet”, “map”, “iframe”, “button”, “ins”, “del” start-tag
Line 141, column 100: there is no attribute “border”
Line 141, column 188: required attribute “alt” not specified
Line 141, column 192: end tag for “img” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
Line 141, column 104: start tag was here
Line 142, column 169: required attribute “alt” not specified
Line 142, column 173: end tag for “img” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified

Webpage www.hart-empire.com/archives/
63 errors found – only displaying first 10 (see all results)
Line 12, column 79: end tag for “link” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
Line 12, column 0: start tag was here
Line 13, column 88: end tag for “link” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
Line 13, column 0: start tag was here
Line 121, column 15: document type does not allow element “h1” here; missing one of “object”, “applet”, “map”, “iframe”, “button”, “ins”, “del” start-tag
Line 141, column 92: there is no attribute “border”
Line 141, column 179: required attribute “alt” not specified
Line 141, column 183: end tag for “img” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
Line 141, column 96: start tag was here
Line 142, column 177: required attribute “alt” not specified
Line 142, column 181: end tag for “img” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified

Webpage www.hart-empire.com/bio/
62 errors found – only displaying first 10 (see all results)
Line 12, column 79: end tag for “link” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
Line 12, column 0: start tag was here
Line 13, column 88: end tag for “link” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
Line 13, column 0: start tag was here
Line 121, column 15: document type does not allow element “h1” here; missing one of “object”, “applet”, “map”, “iframe”, “button”, “ins”, “del” start-tag
Line 141, column 81: there is no attribute “border”
Line 142, column 175: required attribute “alt” not specified
Line 142, column 179: end tag for “img” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
Line 142, column 92: start tag was here
Line 173, column 103: required attribute “alt” not specified
Line 194, column 86: required attribute “alt” not specified

Webpage www.hart-empire.com/code/
65 errors found – only displaying first 10 (see all results)
Line 12, column 79: end tag for “link” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
Line 12, column 0: start tag was here
Line 13, column 88: end tag for “link” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
Line 13, column 0: start tag was here
Line 121, column 15: document type does not allow element “h1” here; missing one of “object”, “applet”, “map”, “iframe”, “button”, “ins”, “del” start-tag
Line 141, column 89: there is no attribute “border”
Line 141, column 176: required attribute “alt” not specified
Line 141, column 180: end tag for “img” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
Line 141, column 93: start tag was here
Line 142, column 175: required attribute “alt” not specified
Line 142, column 179: end tag for “img” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified

Webpage www.hart-empire.com/contact/
82 errors found – only displaying first 10 (see all results)
Line 12, column 79: end tag for “link” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
Line 12, column 0: start tag was here
Line 13, column 88: end tag for “link” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
Line 13, column 0: start tag was here
Line 121, column 15: document type does not allow element “h1” here; missing one of “object”, “applet”, “map”, “iframe”, “button”, “ins”, “del” start-tag
Line 141, column 88: there is no attribute “border”
Line 141, column 175: required attribute “alt” not specified
Line 141, column 179: end tag for “img” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
Line 141, column 92: start tag was here
Line 142, column 177: required attribute “alt” not specified
Line 142, column 181: end tag for “img” omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified

Validation services courtesy of W3C Validator.

Recommendations: Pages should be redesigned to meet the W3C standards.

* (average) No of images – We found an average of 51.0 images per page, this is high and will make the website slower to display.

However, there appears to be good variety in the images within this website (15.0 unique images per page).

Recommendations: Consider reducing the number of images per page. Often lots of small images can be combined into a lesser number of larger images, increasing the speed at which pages display.

* (average) Size of pages – Webpages are reasonably sized and should display at a respectable speed.

* (good) Links to – About 64 other websites were found linking to this website. (64 quality links, out of 64). The website is reasonably well linked to, although there is room for improvement.

Recommendations: A large number of web directories, news and affiliate websites can be encouraged to link to you for free. Over time any reasonably successful website should pick up additional links as a matter of course.

* (good) Popularity ranking – Your website is ranked 1,170,655 in the world. This is reasonable but shows your website is not especially popular.

Recommendations: You can usually increase repeat visitors, by offering useful services or valuable content on your website (e.g. login area, downloads, forums). Ensure that your website is well linked to by others, and that you have submitted it effectively to all the relevant search engines. You should also ensure that your website is effectively designed to be promoted online – e.g. it makes proper use of titles, meta tags etc.

* (good) Speed Your website responded in 0.53 seconds, and your homepage downloaded in 1.61 seconds. This is very fast and suggests your website is running on a sufficiently powerful web server.

* (excellent) Website icon – This website includes a favourite icon. This is a nice touch.

* (excellent) Features – The following 7 features were specifically identified: Login facility, Search facility, Discussion forums, RSS feed, Moderate profanity, News, Contact details. Generally, our analysis detected a very positive selection of text and features.

* (excellent) Use of Interactive Elements – Your website does not appear to include any advert keywords in your source files and therefore displays correctly to the user with a spam blocker enabled.

* (excellent) Use of page titles – The title of your homepage was found to be “HART-Empire.com (HART-EMPIRE NETWORK)”. Your page titles appear to be fine.

We found the following unique page titles:

Page title No of times used
HART-Empire.com (HART-EMPIRE NETWORK) 1 times
HART-Empire.com » ARCHIVES (HART-EMPIRE NETWORK) 1 times
HART-Empire.com » BIO (HART-EMPIRE NETWORK) 1 times
HART-Empire.com » CODE (HART-EMPIRE NETWORK) 1 times
HART-Empire.com » CONTACT (HART-EMPIRE NETWORK) 1 times

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I guess I need a new template and a little work! 😀

These are certainly some interesting feedback and comments and will look at them more closely around my network.

Of course, the first two parts of the above may look quite differently in your header.php templates .. using wordpress code such as … bloginfo(‘template_url’) …. or … bloginfo(‘name’) … or .. bloginfo(‘url’). If you view source from the HTML view .. you will just see the actual filenames and URL location.

Here is the example in this blog. Click on the following and you will go to the HOME page here at HART-Empire Network

Now .. see how I’m doing it on the Battling-Series of blogs .. each header is the same. Using the CSS I could easily change the font, color, and text at will. Also – when you hover over it .. it doesn’t seem to be a link where you click and go to the home page – but, you do. Try this example and click on the following like you did on the previous graphic.

I think I would go with the first choice – if you have a logo and picture .. but if you don’t – you can play with the second header and have a variety of looks with changing the code. For example, using the same thing but with a few changes … For instance:

*change font-family from Georgia, Times to .. Bradley Hand ITC
* change background color #8E7070 to .. #E2F13D
* change mouseover color from 8E7070 to .. A335E2

I mean .. even without knowing CSS .. you can fiddle with it to get something unique ..

I have been posting around the week of the 10th of each month a “THANK-YOU” post, like this one, to all the advertisers from the previous month listed as at month end. That’s a permanent link in this blog, under the category heading which I call .. “Sponsor Appreciation”. I know it’s hard out there trying to figure out where to spend your advertising dollars .. and well .. THANKS for considering the HART-Empire Network.

You may advertise on this site in the form of Text Link Ads. I should note that the link in the previous sentence is an affiliate link, and if you do sign up for the first time through this link, I may earn a small commission. I should also note that if you are a new client, you can receive $100.00 worth of FREE Text Link Ads by entering “starting kit” into the promotion code at their checkout. That means you can basically spend maybe $125 worth of advertising this month – and only pay $25! (You don’t have to spend it here – don’t worry!)

But if you do want to spend it here .. I am currently offering ten (10) spots for text link ads per month, and they will appear on every page in our sidebar, under the SPONSORS section. At this moment, all ten (10) spots are available.

Our site is currently available at Text-Link-Ads at this URL ..

Please Support Our Sponsor From October 2006

~~ None as at last Month-End~~

Thank-You future Sponsors!