Optimize Your Web

People have made wordpress plug ins for everything, but there are certain ones that every blog needs. The following plug ins are compatible with WordPress 2.6.1:

Askimet – http://akismet.com/ and use your Wordpress API key http://wordpress.com/api-keys/
aLinks – http://alinks.headzoo.com/ – Automatically links keywords
All in One SEO Pack – http://semperfiwebdesign.com/ – Add SEO techniques to your blog. Change your settings once, get the benefit each time.
cforms – http://www.deliciousdays.com/cforms-plugin
Google XML Sitemaps – http://www.arnebrachhold.de/redir/sitemap-home/
Sociable – http://yoast.com/wordpress/sociable/
SRG Clean Archives – http://www.idunzo.com/projects/clean-archives/
**Replace Smart Archives on nickswitzer.net

Subscribe to Comments – http://txfx.net/code/wordpress/subscribe-to-comments/
WWW Redirect – http://www.justinshattuck.com/wordpress-www-redirect-plugin/
WP-Cumulus – http://www.roytanck.com/2008/03/15/wp-cumulus-released
or Another Tag Cloud Program

Optional Plugins
FlickrRSS – http://eightface.com/wordpress/flickrrss/
Exec-PHP – http://bluesome.net/post/2005/08/18/50/
LinkXL – http://www.linkxl.com/wp_plugin/ – for TLA

This is just a quick little list, if you have any questions or want some advice, please contact me.

I always check my Askimet Spam on my blog just in case something accidentally get’s marked as spam.  I was checking it a few days ago and ran across a comment that seemed to be pretty decent, the only thing was that the website it was promoting was a spam site full of text-link-ads that obviously is just there for spammers.  This wasn’t what actually made me think twice about it actually being spam.  In the actual text of the coment, there was no links to give it away, but the fact that in the word “I’m” there was a backslash which was probably a mistype in their html code for the spamming of comments.  Anyhow, I learned my lesson and will believe Askimet when I do not know who the commentor is that their filter is probably correct.  Just wanted to give you a little first hand experience with the great work that Askimet does as a spam filter.

The first thing to do is to have a site. You can either go to one of the top blogging spots and get a site off of their domain, or what I would recommend, buy a domain. If you plan on either blogging for fun (family, etc.) or for business, a unique domain name is the way to go. Take a look at a few sites which you may want to take a look at which also offer hosting of the site also: (in no particular order) (continue reading…)