Everton, from Connected Internet, posed an interesting question today concerning robots.txt and WordPress. It got me thinking about what exactly I do and don't want indexed by Google. It also got me reviewing my Google Webmaster Tools account to see how Google was doing while indexing my site.

What followed was an afternoon of reviewing the way robots.txt works as well as how the meta tag for robots works. I had originally planned on just implementing the changes and leaving a comment on Connected Internet but ultimately it was more deserving of a full post. Read the Rest of this post

This one totally slipped under my radar until today.

Did you know that Google has added an "open results within my own page" option to their AdSense for Search program? Now, rather than sending readers to an off site search result page you can actually build a local template to handle search results on your site! Using some tricky JavaScript Google actually generates search results and places them within your own page.

One of the major reasons I wasn't using AdSense for Search originally was it's lack of customization options. Beside being unable to customize the search box I was also disappointed with the lack of options for customizing the results page. That's all changed today.

While Google still restricts a lot of your options for displaying results (you can't display results in a space smaller than 500px) they have opened up a lot of potential. On this site, for example, I've managed to build a new WordPress theme page specifically for handling Google Search Results. Using a custom page templates, a blank page, and some code from Google you too can get AdSense for Search working in WordPress!

Here's how it works: Read the Rest of this post

Earlier today I installed a new WordPress plugin that I thought was worth mentioning. If you regularly post files (like themes or plugins,) or if you have one or two files that you would like to track, you've probably thought once or twice about finding a "download counter."

I've tried searching for them in the past with little to no success - none of the ones I've found have been particularly helpful.

Until today...

Today I discovered a download counter over on Yellow Swordfish that was exactly what I was looking for. Besides being able to track downloads it also gives you the ability to put a download counter on your page. I'm pretty sure (there may be a bit of tweaking involved) that it can also be used with Google Analytics for goal tracking.

It is specific to WordPress but it's also quite a helpful tool. Head on over and check it out.

By this weekend I hope to have a new version of the diggIntegrator plugin up and running for everyone. While that release date moves closer I thought I'd offer up a little code snippet for anyone interested in including the new Digg Buttons without adding a plugin.

One of the major downsides Digg's newest implementation is the lack of a "not dugg" state. You basically just get a digg counter set to 0 until your post is submitted and dugg - that's why the diggIntegrator plugin is so nice. Now, if you're ok with the 0 count then there's a quick way to get the JavaScript up and running without a plugin - here's how it works.
Read the Rest of this post

After recently moving to my new theme I thought I'd take a minute and throw out some links for the plugins that currently help the site work.

1. Akismet: If it's good enough for WordPress.com it's good enough for me. Since installing Akismet it's successfully blocked 16, 417 pieces of spam. That's roughly 36 pieces of comment spam for each of my 500ish posts. Good Job Akismet!
2. doFollow: A recent trends among blogs has been the removal of the 'rel="nofollow"' tag from comments. It's a great way to encourage more comments and I'm totally behind it. From here on out if you leave a comment on Bill2me Dot Com you'll get an automatic link back to your site.
3. Feedburner Feed Replacement: This one is one of several givens. It's a great plugin for anyone using Feedburner along with their WordPress blog.
4. Google Sitemaps: The Google Sitemap generator is an absolute must have for anyone who wants to have their site indexed by Google and other search engines.
5. Landing Sites: I started using Landing Sites awhile back and it's absolutely great. The plugin basically sniffs for incoming search engine traffic and then serves up special code for any visitors coming in from them. Once it identifies a Search Engine visitor the plugin serves up a list of posts related to the search engine query. It's great for cutting down bounce rates and pushing users deeper into your site.
6. Script Enabler: If you regularly put Javascript in your posts, like when you're posting videos from sites that require it be served with Javascript, Script Enabler comes to the rescue.
7. Simple Tagging: Wow! This plugin is absolutely fantastic. I'd been using Jerome's Keywords for awhile but it appears abandoned now. Simple Tagging imported all the old keywords and offers added functionality like a "Related Posts" function which lists postsbased on how they're related to keywords in any given post. Absolutely great!!
8. Text Link Ads v2: This is pretty much a must have for anyone who wants to sell text link ads on their site.
9. Via: While I was recently able to move most of my "toolbox" plugin to functions.php this was the exception. Via puts a dialoge on your Write Post page which allows you to create a "via" link in your post meta. You can see them all throughout my site.
10. WordPress Database Plugin: Here's another must have. Every couple days I use this to backup my site and guarantee the database isn't lost.
11. WP-Amazon: I've written about WP-Amazon before. It's one of the best plugins I've found for incorporating Amazon Associate links into your post text quickly and easily. I should warn you that it doesn't appear to work with WordPress 2.1.2 yet,at least not for me.

Thanks to all these plugin authors for their great work. They've made running this site an absolute blast!