WordPress is the most feature rich and extensible blogging platform. WP is easy to use and there are lot of plugins and themes available. However, newbies might find it difficult to install WordPress for a self-hosted blog.

After reading this tutorial, you will be able to install WP in one of three ways:

• Via FTP
• Without FTP
• Using Fantastico (An Automatic Script Installer)

Short On Time? Get WordPress Installed in Fewer Than 5 Minutes

Before We Get Started

Some Basic Definitions

• FTP: Stands for File Transfer Protocol. FTP is used to upload/download files directly to/from a web server (your host).
• Script: In this tutorial, script simply means a package/software. For example, WordPress is a blogging script means that WordPress is software that is related to blogging.
• Fantastico: Fantastico is an automatic script installer. It can install 40+ free scripts without needing a single line of code from you.

Recommended Reading

• Why You Should Use WordPress: I listed in this post some reasons that make WordPress the best and most popular blogging platform around.
• How To Choose A Good Host For Your Blog: In this post, I give useful tips to keep in mind when selecting a good host.

Now, on to installation. I will explain each of the three methods step-by-step. You need to pick one and get started.

Installing WordPress Via FTP

FTP is the slowest method of all. If you have a good host that provides Fantastico, then there is no need to install via FTP. So skip to next section.

Tools Needed

• FileZilla: A free FTP client that lets you upload/download files to/from web host. It is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Download.
• 7 ZIP: A free software that can unzip archives files. It is also available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Download.
• A web browser: Any browser of your choice!

Step By Step Instructions:

1. Download WordPress from WordPress.org or click here to download the latest version.
2. Use 7 Zip to unzip the contents of downloaded files. Save these in a separate directory.
3. Log into cPanel of your web host.
4. Click on MySQL Databases icon.
5. Enter the name of database and click “Create Database”.
   

   Creating New MySQL Database in cPanel

   

   New Database is Ready

6. Click “Go Back”. Now, scroll down a bit and look for “Add New User”. Enter a username, password and create user.
   

   Adding New user

   

   New User is Ready

7. Below “Add New User” there is “Add User To Database” option. Select appropriate database and username and click “Add”.
   

   Adding New User To Database

8. On next screen, select checkbox “All Privileges” and click “Make Changes”. Now, the newly created database is ready for WordPress.
9. Now, connect to host via FileZilla and upload all WordPress files(unzipped) from your pc to public_html directory.
10. Once all files are uploaded, go to your website address(i.e. the domain associated with your host). Start the setup.
11. Continue with setup, nothing special to do on “step 2.” On “step 3″, you have to enter the database name, username and password(that you just added to DB in step 6 of this tutorial). Database host does not need to be changed in most cases. If you are getting errors, you should contact your host. You can change table prefix(default wp_) to anything else if you plan multiple installs in single database.

    Usually, name of database goes like <cpanel-login-name>_<database-name> and username like <cpanel-login-name>_<username>. For example, let’s say your cPanel login name is xyz123 and the name of database you created is WP, then the database name to be entered in database field of setup is xyz123_wp, not just wp!Also, the password you have to enter is database password and not the one you want to use for login.

    

12. Click submit. If everything is fine, you should see a screen like this saying all is okay:
13. Click Run the install. Next, you will be asked to enter blog name and your email address.
14. Click Install WordPress and sit back. In less than a minute, you will be greeted with this, ’success’:
15. WordPress is installed. Click log in and enjoy blogging!

Installing WordPress Without FTP

Many people may not be comfortable with FTP clients. If you want to install WordPress but do want to use WordPress, here’s a life saver: EasyWP WordPress Install Script.

Easy WordPress Install is a small script that automatically downloads WordPress to your web server and unzips it.

Step By Step Instructions:

1. Create a new database and user as described in steps 3 to 8 above.
2. Get Easy WordPress script from download page. Unzip it.
3. Now go to cPanel, click File Manager.
4. Go to /public_html. Click Upload button near the top. Upload easywp.php file(that you unzipped in step 1) to server using web interface.

   If you want to install WordPress in a subdirectory, that is you want blog address to be my-site.com/blog, just go to /public_html and create a new folder with name blog and upload file to it.

5. Now, go to your website and add easywp.php after it. For example, if you had uploaded easywp.php to /public_html, just go to my-site.com/easywp.php. If you had uploaded it to /public_html/blog, go to my-site.com/blog/easywp.php
6. Fill out the form and hit “Go!”

Now, you can log in to your blog.

Installing WordPress Using Fantastico

If your host has Fantastico script installer, you do not need to do any of the above steps. Only thing you will need to do is follow few simple steps and fill out a simple form!

Step By Step Instructions:

1. Go to cPanel!
2. Look for a blue smiley with “Fantastico De Luxe” written below it and click on it.
3. In the left side, you will see a long list of scripts. Search for WordPress and click on the link.
4. On the next screen, click “New Installation”.
5. Enter the details and click “Install Now”. Here’s a screenshot of the form:
6. On the next screen, you will be told that Fantastico will create a new user and database for this install. Nothing to do here, click “Finish Install”.
7. WordPress will be installed. From the next screen, go to login URL and start blogging!

Which Way To Go?

It depends on what you want. Here are suggestions according to your requirements:

• Quick And Easy Installation: Use Fantastico. It is fastest method for installing WordPress.
• Quick Install On A Host Without Fantastico: Use Easy WP Install script.
• WordPress Install In Existing Database: Use anyone of the FTP or Script methods. When configuring the database, use existing username and password but a different table prefix than existing script.

That was all you need to know about WordPress install for self-hosted. Any suggestions, questions or comments are always welcome. Feel free to leave them in comments.

If you liked this post, consider bookmarking it on Delicious or a Thumbs Up on Stumble Upon.

Clock image from photoXpress. Some WordPress setup images from WordPress Codex.

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Noticed something new?

Blogging With Success blog has just turned one! The first year has been great for us and we have learned a lot from the experience. Heading into second year, we decided to change a bit.

Design

Now that’s hard to miss! The new design is based on the best WordPress theme framework out there. Yes, you guessed it right, this is Thesis.

We have retained only the essential elements and removed everything extra(including banner ads).

Next, we eliminated an “irritating feature”(at least for me!). When someone replied to comments, page had to be reloaded and this was an unnecessary step even if it took only a few second. Now, when you press reply button, the comment form comes to the position you are at!

Content

We have already given the content top priority. With this update, we are just changing our publishing strategy a bit. We will not publish as frequently as before. Instead you’ll get in-depth coverage of topics that make your blog even more successful.

Speed

Thesis + Doreo = Speed! We are already on Doreo’s litespeed server. Add the Thesis framework to equation and you get a fast blog. We have made every effort to keep layout light and code clean. This has resulted in about 30% speed increase(Just surf around and you will notice it). And finally, Thanks to you, all the readers. Without your support, we would never have been able to reach where we are. Have any suggestions? Do let us know through comments.

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This post shows you how to include snippets of code in blog posts or comments — in such a way that they don’t disappear. The only way to display real code is to help the html  “escape” your platform’s  built-in editor.

Why do I need to see html code?

Good question.

Here are a few instances where showing code comes in handy:

• Getting help with a new widget
  Some readers had problems installing the Grab My Button scrollbox. They asked for help and pasted their html code into the comment box. But after they  pressed  “submit comment,” their code disappeared! Then I had to use my crystal ball to determine the problem.  A nice code snippet would prevent headaches and breakdowns on both sides of the blog table.
• Participating in a user or discussion forum
  Similar to the point above, as a forum member you may have to provide your troubled code. You could also want to offer your magnificent solution for others to use. Many forums provide an icon to frame and show your code rather than act on the tags.
• Tutorial instructions
  If you provide blogging tips, chances are you need to show code that readers can just copy and paste into their blogs. But remember your Editor is on the lookout for raw html to execute  — translate into formatted text (e.g. tables, paragraphs, color, background, text areas, etc.) So you need a way to say “display but don’t translate.”

How can I show my html code in comments?

Another good question.

In a previous post we told you that some commenting systems let you use the <code></code> tags.  If so you can then frame your html to show plain text. However this does not always work in forums or on all blog commenting systems. Basic Blogger commenting will not accept that tag, while it does work on JS-kit (third party) commenting.

Surprisingly, the code tag doesn’t work on our comments even though the tag is allowed! So instead of getting this when you frame the html:

<img src=”http://bloggingwithsuccess.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/logo-bws1.png”>

your comment would show the actual image:

The foolproof method  is to use online converter software to add “escape codes.” You can then copy and paste  into your comment or forum entry.

What is an escape code?

Yet another good question.

The goal is to prevent WP or Blogger from butchering your attempt to display html in your comments or posts. To do this you have to “disguise” the html tags and get past the html sensors. Escape codes hold the key.

Escape codes are special characters like ampersand (&) followed by letters like “lt;” or “gt;”.  These escape sequences cause the html tag to be displayed instead of executed. So “&lt;” displays as the  less-than symbol and is not treated as the real html tag, “<”.

How to let your html code escape

The Bulletin Board Code Converter is a good resource.

1. Paste or type your comment, including the html, into the conversion box.
2. Press the “html to text” button.
3. Copy and paste the new text, strange looking characters and all, into your comment! Then submit the comment.

If you want to use the code in a tutorial, paste the new text into the html tab, and it will display as text. Putting it in the visual tag will show the escape codes! For WP you can use a plug-in like  SyntaxHighlighter for most instructional code. However, it never hurts to have a backup plan.

The Bulletin Board converter also has buttons for transforming html to bulletin board code ( bbCode) and bbCode to html.The boards  use “[" and "]” symbols to frame commands.

I’ve also used the Html Escape site, which escapes other codes like “space to &nbsp;”.  Okay, that last sentence was too much information to share!

Summary:

Don’t be at a loss when you need to display real html codes. Add this trick to the other seven “sweet and simple” html tags to spruce up your comments. For more detail,  read our background on CSS/HTML for the beginners.

Be sure to leave a comment on how you’ve helped html escape. Your secret is safe here.

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When it comes to productivity, there’s a lot of misinformation available (both online and offline). You can hear different people saying different things, and they all claim to have discovered the definitive way to be productive. Unfortunately, they all seem to focus on doing more, and if you follow their methods, you may end up working more and enjoying your life less.

image: byJeff Hester

I think another reason this misinformation exists is because there’s a huge market around productivity. Everyone wants to make money with it and it’s hard to do it without following some expectations.

The following is a list of ten things they usually don’t teach you about productivity. It is based on my experience, but it should apply easily to everyone.

1. Do less. The first productivity tip is to remember that you should eventually do less. It doesn’t make sense to adopt a system if that doesn’t save you time.
2. Use a productivity system. Previously, I told you that most productivity systems are bad, but that shouldn’t stop you from building your own. For example, I have a software where I keep track of all my projects and tasks. I also use a separate daily to-do list where I write three or more high value activities I want to accomplish during the day. This works for me because I don’t want to see all my projects and tasks throughout the day, but instead I want to focus on the important things.
3. Focus on important things. Do you remember the Pareto rule? If not, it basically states that 80% of results come from 20% of your actions. That means you should focus on doing the important things and procrastinate on low value activities, like checking emails, watching videos on YouTube, etc.
4. Have a plan. It doesn’t make much sense for you to do anything if you don’t have a road map. Before doing anything, you should ask yourself if what you are going to do will move forward on your goals or not. Remember that if you do something everyday to achieve something big, you’ll eventually get there. Persistence and patience are your friends.
5. Avoid starting new things. I usually have 2 or 3 new ideas I would like to implement every day, but I can’t do them all. If I did, I wouldn’t have the time to finish anything and my life would look like a big mess. As a general rule, when you have a great idea you would like to implement, write it down and return back to it after two days to see if it’s still valid.
6. Use time box. When you have something to do, allow yourself to work on it for a specific amount of time, for example one hour. After that time is finished, you stop and move to something else. This is a tremendous productivity tip because when you work this way, your brain will do its best to finish the task before the time runs out. Try it.
7. Don’t wait for motivation to come. Motivation is the reason why you do something, but it’s also the reason why you often procrastinate. When you would like to do something but you lack motivation to do it, what you should do is just get started. It’s easy to start doing something without focusing on the big task. As soon as you do it, motivation will come to complete the whole task.
8. Do other activities. When you are stuck with a problem and you are going nowhere, consider taking a break, and walk outside to clear your mind. You’ll be amazed at how much faster you can solve your problems this way.
9. Learn to relax. If your body is tense, it’s hard for it to function well. There are many relaxation techniques you can use, but the most common is probably to just lie down and enjoy a few minutes of silence without doing anything.
10. Stop worrying about productivity and start doing it. This is probably the most important tip. If you want to do something, just go and do it; don’t worry about productivity.

I hope these tips will help you achieve some of your goals. Remember to keep experimenting to find what works for you. That’s the only way to figure out what’s best for you and not for everyone else.

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Who does not want to improve his or her blog? I want a blog that readers appreciate, and so do you. In fact, everyone wants one!

If everyone wants this kind of success, why do so few achieve it?

Because most bloggers do not hear the voices of their readers. They make decisions by themselves, thinking that doing this or that will help improve this or that, but such decisions often do not pay off!

The best way to improve is by asking your readers!

How Do You Ask Your Readers?

Of course, this is easy to say, but how do you execute it?  Here are four practical ways to ask your readers:

1. Polls. Polls are easy, and people tend to participate a lot in them. After all, it does not take much time to click two buttons and record an opinion! If you want to use a poll for feedback from readers, make sure to write about it and place the poll in a sidebar. See our Complete Guide To Using Polls On Your blog
2. Comments. If you look closely at your comments, you may find areas where you can improve. The comments will be much more helpful if you write a post specifically asking readers for suggestions.
3. Social Networks. If you usually connect with readers via social networks, ask there. Since social networks are more personal, you can ask directly. For example, “Do we need to write more posts about xxxx topic?”
4. Surveys. Surveys are the best method for collecting feedback. You ask your questions, and readers answer simply by selecting different options or filling in answers. This way, you get feedback that is targeted – focused on a specific area. You can use PollDaddy to create free surveys with up to 100 responses each.

Help Us Improve

Our Blogging With Success team is planning to improve our blog. You can help us by taking a small survey! Click here to start.

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Most of us don’t think much about our current blog design unless someone complains or we get tired of the theme. We go merrily along creating great content.

But not taking stock of existing design flaws is like skipping your annual doctor visit or car inspection – just waiting for something to go wrong. Blog readers and fans are a little like your Mom. They don’t want to hurt your feelings by telling you your design needs retouching.

This post kicks off our Design Checkup Station. This and followup posts will put your blog through some tests and inspections to reveal “leaking visitors.” If you participate, you’ll be better equipped to plug those holes with minimal effort. Best of all, it’s a free DIY (do it yourself) inspection.

The Design Checkup Process

Let’s keep each post short by focusing on one design aspect. You’ll do the initial assessment of where your blog stands on each checkup. Posts will list steps for fine-tuning and adjusting your results.

You leave a comment with your test results. I’ll take a look at your website if you need advice on the next step. If you fix anything, tell us what you did and what worked best.

The Design Color Contrast Checkup

One of the most important elements of your blog is CONTENT. So make sure it’s not only engaging but legible. Together your combination of text fonts, color and background play a critical role in readability. The wrong background colors and images can undermine your post.

“Two colors are considered to provide good color visibility if the brightness difference and the color difference between the two are greater than a set range.” The range suggested by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is >125 for  brightness and >500 for color difference.

Finding Your Blog’s Color Codes

First you’ll need the color codes for your background and foreground (font) colors. Don’t look in the template. (You can breathe easy now.) The easier way is to use a color picker tool. I use Firefox’s Colorzilla, which puts an eye-dropper tool in the browser to get a color reading from anywhere on your screen. Click the eye-dropper, then click on the background to see the color code. Do the same for the font color.

If you don’t use Firefox, download a Windows utility that puts the picker in the system tray. This one is free: ColorMania.  Having a color picker will be useful, so take the time to get one!

Test Color Contrast

I used the Color Contrast Ratio Analyzer software. It has a simple box to accept your color codes. Then press the Calculate button and you get immediate pass/fail results. The question of proper contrast is easily settled.

You should run the test for your post content colors, sidebar and footer (if they are different). This is what I keyed for BloggingWithSuccess post text: #FFFFF (white background) and #444444 (dark gray font).

Results showed:

“The contrast ratio is: 9.74:1″  and “Passed at Level AAA: The luminosity contrast ratio is very good for the chosen colours“

I looked at colors on two other sites:

“The contrast ratio is: 3.98:1  and Passed at Level AA for large text only : (at least 18 point or 14 point bold)“

“The contrast ratio is: 2.96:1 and Fail: The luminosity contrast ratio is insufficient for the chosen colours“

Adjusting Color Contrast

Let’s walk through a tool that can help you adjust or even drastically change the color contrast.

1. Select either the background or the font color as the one you want to stick with. More than likely, the background fits your overall theme. If you want to “start over,” use your color picker to get another background code. Use that value in the next step below. Let’s assume you want the red background #78000, but need a better font color.
2. Go to the RGB-Hex Code Converter, but page down and use the tool called “enter hex color code to get the inverse value.”  Then press the “inverse color” button. Basically, this returns the exact opposite on the color wheel.  Two snippets magically appear, showing you how they match.
   
3. Use the Color Contrast Analyzer again to verify the luminosity.
   

   “The contrast ratio is: 9.88:1; Passed at Level AAA: The luminosity contrast ratio is very good for the chosen colours (#780000 and #87ffff).

If the color contrast fails or is only passable, then try the standard font colors of black (#000000) on light or white (#FFFFFF)  on dark backgrounds.

Change Background and Font Colors

This is the part you may dread if you need to adjust your colors to better complement the content.  Depending on your platform and comfort level, you can do one of the following:

A. Blogger: Use the feature called “Fonts and Colors”

The post on Mapping Blogger and Custom Template Colors tells you how to use the Fonts and Colors feature in Blogger. For purposes of this topic, concentrate on changing these variables only:  ”page background color” and “text color.” Just key in the color code number and watch the preview pane – a great way to see how the page looks before you save changes. Blogger does the rest and updates the html.
(click for larger view.)More experienced bloggers can find and set the template variables ($bgcolor and $textcolor) directly, using Layout, Edit HTML tab.

B. WordPress.org: Modify your template style sheet

C. WordPress.com: Use Color Customizer

WP.com users can go to Dashboard, Appearance and select “Color Customizer.” For my WP test blog these are colors I can change by keying in the color code:Like Blogger, you can preview before you make permanent changes. There is no way to change the background color.

Summary

The best time to check if your blog background and text colors work is before deciding on a theme. However, it is fairly easy to make adjustments later. This post gives you the tools to start that process. For more expert advice, you can turn to a friend who has confidence in changing templates. If necessary, you can also contact us for a quote on our consulting services.

The next step is yours; take the test and report your results in the comments. If you post the lowest fail results within the next week, you’ll be our lucky ‘winner’ – complimentary help in making the proper adjustments. That’s our way of saying thanks to our readers.

Any suggestions for the next topic are welcomed. As always, your feedback is appreciated.

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Take a look at a “Top Commentators” widget I recently stumbled upon:

All it takes is a look at this list to see how much the owner cares about his blog. Clearly, the top commentators are just trying to get links to their sites from a well-ranked blog.

Now, do you get comments from people with names like these?

In this post, I will discuss some common spam comments that you will get and, of course, how to avoid them!

Here are some common spam comments:

• Thanks for this post.
• Great Post. I learned a lot!
• Hi, I liked your blog a lot and want to subscribe. But I can not find how to get RSS feeds. Please help.
• I have been reading your blog for a while and it is great. Keep up good work.
• I am sure this will help me a lot. Thanks!

If you get comments like these, you should mark them as spam without any second thoughts!

How To Avoid Spam

Here are four simple tips on avoiding spam comments:

1. Use Common Sense. If comments are not related to the post, it is spam. For example, here’s a comment I got on a post about Page Rank from “Free Credit Report”: “rankings are very important. Google is ranked #2 and Yahoo is ranked #1 on Alexa.” Now, that was not totally irrelevant. So, I followed the link in the URL field and found a site that was anything but a blog. This brings me to the second point:
2. Follow Back. Many times, spammers leave related comments but leave links to undesirable websites. If you find a comment suspicious, follow the link. Before you do, however, make sure you have good anti-virus and anti-phishing software installed!
3. Have a Good Anti-Spam Solution in Place. Apart from Akismet, you can also try other good solutions, such as the next suggestion:
4. Filter Words/IPs. Go to your WordPress Dashboard and follow Settings –> Discussion. In the comment blacklist, enter the IPs/words you frequently get in spam comments. You can also enter email addresses you want to block.
   Block IPs with care and only when you are sure that this is a spammer’s IP. Leaving good people out of your blog is not an intelligent option!

How do you avoid spam? Do tell us through comments!

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Last month we started the BWS Quotes Roundup:  inspiring, funny and thought-provoking quotes found on blogs or social networks. So sit back and enjoy some quotes from our reading lists, including your comments on Blogging With Success.

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” DOUGLAS ADAMS “…” AdviceToWriters One day to go for my design-deadline; “…”MichaelKisOk One of my fave quotes “…”takinpitchas @lou1492

Ruchi, ChoosyInfo

They either can make this world a beautiful place or destroy it by their work. Politician through his powers can make such policies which are beneficial for the whole society or he can do things which are in his personal interest, while  programmer can either make the best antivirus software’s or can make the people life hell by making viruses. – from Similarities between programmer and politician.

Blogging With Success Posts – Reader Comments

Elmot on Serendipity Is a Blogger’s Muse

For my part, I try to find inspiration by maintaining a blog under blogger for which I just write anything that comes up to my mind without the pressure of what will my readers say and all. It is relaxing for me then, and gives me additional source of focus and inspiration when I go back to my main blog.
Bob Bessette on Want to Improve Your Blog? Be Human!

I think it is important to remind all bloggers what the MOST important feature of your blog post should be. That is, delivering value to the reader because without that, your blog will never be a success…

poch on Content Is Not King

I know this is true because most of my most visited posts are really not my best!

illustration by r8R

Related posts:

1. Serendipity Is a Blogger’s Muse Every blogger experiences “writer’s block,” and many have written about it. Often the work-around is to find inspiration in unlikely places. Take a break, sing a song, think of something else to free your mind – it will return refreshed. This process involves some serendipity. “Serendipity is the effect by...
2. New Bloggers Success Stories Part 1 We recently started a discussion on BlogCatalog “New to Blogging? Share your success stories.” To get the ball rolling we asked “Have you been blogging for less than a year? If so what is your best success story related to your blogging. If it hasn’t happened yet, how would it...
3. What Readers Said About Blogger Learning Image by James F Clay via Flickr Recently we asked you to tell us if you’re here to ‘learn to be a successful blogger’ and if we’re up to the task of teaching that subject matter.  The response rate was very (very) low: Only four non-spammy replies in the...

On a recent guest post, I got this comment:

Please do not call dial-up “normal”. We are in a time where broadband is more normal thing.

So what and where is the problem?

Well, the post was not about internet connections; it was about small and useful software. And the line that the comment referred to was “these (big) softwares may take hours to download on a normal dial up connection!”

As you can see, the comment is not related to the content and does not add anything new!

Now, sit in a good yoga position (optional), take a long breath and ask yourself:

Do I leave comments like this?

Remember the two golden rules when writing comments:

1. Be Relevant. Do not stray from the post topic. Leave only related comments!
2. Add Something. No blog post can sum up everything. With just a couple of minutes of thought, you can easily come up with something that has been left out. Just add it.

How Bad Comments Can Hurt You

Bad comments can cost you.

1. Traffic. When people read a quality comment, they visit the commenter’s blog or website. The opposite is also true. If you leave weak comments, people will just ignore them.
2. Brand. All of us promote our own brand when we comment, be it personal or professional. Leaving bad comments hurts your brand image.
3. Other Blog Comments: If some blog owner marks your comments as spam, sooner as later, other blogs will also start blocking your comment. This will result in a lot of wasted time!

Here are two great examples of good comments:

timethief on Why I Am Not Getting PageRank?:

Without doubt Google has made it clear that they are looking for natural linking patterns. Another thing that has become clear as well is the Google sandbox phenomena. The Google sandbox debate arises when Google does not assign PageRank to a new website until after six (6) months. This is presumably to serve the purpose of giving new websites time to develop or disappear altogether. The sandbox has become a normal everyday reality for ranking on Google, and most SEO’s now accept that. The result is that to rank on Google for any kind of competitive keyword, you need to be able to leverage some degree of “trust”. What expedites PageRank is building trust via the methods you have shared in your post.

In fact, as Michael Gray astutely put it – “The sandbox isn’t something you are trying to get out of, it’s the trustbox that you are trying to figure a way into.” — From an educational post for those seeking to determine if their blogs have been Google “sandboxed”.

I’d like to share some additional tips. Make it part of your blog strategy to focus your attention on the following:
* publishing high quality unique content frequently;
* creating clean code and ensuring your site validates;
* tagging properly so the content can be found and indexed;
* linking to exceptional content on authoritative sites with PageRank;
* being careful not to link too link to frequently to sites with lower PageRank.

That’s almost a Guest Post! It added a lot of value and points I did not include in the post.

Lauren on Blog Contest Fraud:

Ha ha! Good for you for being real and standing up for honesty in the “blogosphere.”

Thank you, it is these tactics that really need to be brought to light. How pathetic, I mean, we all want traffic, but if you have to resort to posting generic comments just to get your link out there, your site/content must really suck.

But then again, we are talking about “spammers” here, which by definition are frauds whose content is bogus.

And in the scheme of things, such elaborate blogging scams like the contest you experienced, can only be likened to scams on the street perpetrated by low-life’s and thugs. It’s criminal; they do not fit in with the rest of the blogging society and make up the web’s seedy underbelly.

I have been spending quite a bit of time on your blog, really enjoying your articles. You are really a talented blogger, the honesty and integrity alone is beneficial to bloggers and the blogosphere in general. And I’m pretty conceited, I think I am a pretty good blogger myself, I don’t hand out compliments everyday.

Keep on doing what you do, glad I stumbled onto your blog, will definitely be a return visitor.
Have a great day. ~Lauren

This comment has quality, and most importantly, it left the writer (SBA) almost speechless!

For more about improving your comments, you can download Commenting Guide For Bloggers. To get it, sign up for our newsletter.

Related posts:

1. Reader Question: Why Am I Not Getting PageRank? Bob asked: I was just wondering what your feeling is about Alexa rank and what is the quickest way I can get a page rank on Google? My Alexa ranking has dropped from 21,000,000 to 3,000,000 in about 2 weeks, but I still have no Google page rank. I have been blogging...
2. Top 5 Ways to Bring Traffic to a New Blog New bloggers have one problem in common: they find it hard to attract traffic. They write a couple of posts, do some promotion, wait for people to come, but then, what happens? Nothing! No comments, very few visits and a lot of frustration! In this post, I discuss five ways...
3. How Much Ham is in Your Blog Comments? Okay, you’ve installed effective anti-Spam measures and spammers can no longer drop comments on your blog posts. You can now boast that your comments are real Ham (i.e. ‘not spam’)! But is that enough? What is the nutritional content of a comment?  Based on a daily blog nutrition pyramid,...

It started quite innocently with a short and sweet comment on one of our blog posts. But after a few weeks, it turned into a curious battle of sorts between post author (SBA) and a particularly clueless spammer. Normally, there’s no contest between spam bots and spam defender plugins that stop them at the door. But human and sometimes clever spammers are another story. Their innocent comments can sneak right past the best spam bouncer. This post examines the frustration and surprising resolve on both sides of the battle.

The First Encounter with the Clueless Spammer

SBA:Welcome. Your comment was put in spam because you’re using keywords instead of a personal name. The url you left was not a blog — are you setting up a business blog? You might also consider using a gravatar.

Clueless: I am working as a SEO I had just start it. I am new in this business. Promoting site its my work I am working for my client . I know its a business site its not my mistake. My client want this keyword up for site so, I am using. I would be very pls if you give me link with this keyword. Pls reply me here. Thanks.

SBA: I’m usually a sympathetic person, but not in this case. Your job is to promote your site, mine is to provide an interactive reader community around blogging (human and technical sides). Readers want to visit commentator blogs as part of social networking; they use google search for products and services. We welcome your comments on your own time, using a blank url or better yet, why not start your own free Blogger or Wordpress blog.

Human Spammers Can be Sneaky

I guess I told her! But was that the end of her visits? A few days later, she left another compliment which shows she did not read how much ham is in your comments? :

Clueless: I am very much concern with you my friend. These are really unique one and absolutely helpful thanks for these tips.

Of course, she still had no gravatar image and used the same spammy keyword name (Landscapers Brisbane)! So I removed the link to her client’s commercial site. Subsequent comments went to spam. I copied a few from email notices to illustrate her persistence. Also, how the mood can change from sweet to sneaky “wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

image -evelynsaenz

Clueless started to get clever and imitate real comments – by copying them. Naturally, we let those stay in spam. She copied part of a reply I made a month earlier to another reader’s comment. The excerpt made absolutely no sense, except as a way of bypassing spam detection. However, the smarter spammers will use phrases that seem to be part of the dialog.

Another gem on the same post: “hello ….it has been the great comment.” Who knows how many other attempts there were? I can only hope her boss or client finds the company’s name in a Google search pointing to this post. Okay, I sort of feel sorry that someone has to earn a living this way. She has been “going above the call of duty.” Maybe it’s a cry for help: “Somebody stop me, please!” But in the end, she is consciously abusing countless blogs out there.

Why Do Otherwise Intelligent Beings Spam Our Conversations?

“Comment Spam … is done by automatically posting random comments or promoting commercial services to blogs [and other websites that accept and display] hyperlinks submitted by visitors. [It}…artificially increases the site’s search engine ranking…, increasing the number of potential visitors and paying customers.” – Wikipedia

In the case of human spammers, I’d change “automatically” to “mindlessly.”

You might wonder what’s in it for the human spammer. Don’t they know many comments are “nofollow”? That means major search engines don’t give the links any importance in ranking the spammer’s site. Their Google Page Rank is 1. BUT… as Mr. I pointed out,

“They can be used to hide link building techniques from people using Yahoo Site Explorer.”

Yahoo’s Site Explorer ignores “no follow.” For the site in question, Google shows 9 authority linkbacks, while Yahoo’s tool gives the client a list of 750 inbound links – many from article directories and generic topics like photography. However, there are spam comments.

No blogger wants to cut off discussion from folks who have blogs or write on business websites. I can see how some of the comments with follow links sound “normal.” But others just don’t fool owners who read their comments and look at the link’s url. Several blogs about blogging contributed many links to a landscaping site. One was on a post called “100 outgoing links could hurt your blog.” Clueless wrote, “It very good info regarding mater. Its really helpful I will mind it.” How ironic is that?

What’s a Blogger to Do?

Make no mistake; this is a real battle, if only of wits! I for one will not let human parasites feed on my blog posts. Here are a few ways to detect and defend against such nonsense that can pass the best spam filters.

1. Read your comments.
   Most of us do that to reply to intelligent and genuinely complimentary comments. We know that many bloggers are promoting their blogs with links, but that’s the name of the game. We are not competitors, so we can share readers. By reading comments you know when they have not read the post and give you canned text.
2. Check out links.
   Be quick to unlink spammy keyword names and give the person the benefit of the doubt the first time. Salvage halfway decent comments while protecting your readers.
3. Don’t be too nice.
   Would you be nice to a mosquito after shooing him away a few times? Remember, your first responsibility is the integrity of your blog. Comments and links are part of that. Bad links can hurt.
4. Publish Comment Policy Guidelines.
   Here’s an excerpt of guidelines on OneCoolSite:

   * Commercial links, post links, signature links, etc. : …all links are subject to review and may be removed prior to posting. …if I believe that they are just link dropping in an attempt to divert readers to their own blog post(s) or to game search engine results, then I… delete the links. Example: Anchor text – If a keyword is entered into the name field rather than a name I will either break the link and post the comment or I will delete the comment.

Summary

Remember, every comment becomes part of your blog, is indexed and read by future visitors. It’s your responsibility to make sure they don’t click on a junk link or read gibberish. They might conclude you’re “asleep on the job” or don’t pay attention to the community aspect of blogging. But we know you care, and now you know what to do! On Guard!

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1. Beware! Your Comments are Being Hijacked Bloggers, Beware! You will not even know and someone will hijack your comments. Keep an eye on comments of your blog as well as on comments you make. What is Comment Hijacking? Comment hijacking is a technique that spammers use to “steal” links from Top Commentators widget. It is all...
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