WordPress originally appeared on the scene in 2003 as a collaboration between Mike Little and Matt Mullenweg, two software developers from Houston, TX. Mullenweg first came up with the idea of WordPress as an updated version of the recently abandoned b2/cafelog blogging project. At the time he set out to do this Mullenweg was only 19 years old and a freshman at the University of Texas. Today he is recognized as one of the pioneers of blogging software and a major force in the IT world.

When a major WordPress competitor, MoveableType started charging for their blogging platform, this led many users to seek out a free open-source alternative. By 2005 nearly 1 million users had downloaded WordPress and it quickly snowballed to become one of the top blogging platforms on the world wide web.

The first version of WordPress that users of the software today would recognize is the 1.5 “Strayhorn” release. It came out in February, 2005 and featured the now famous theme system as well as excellent comment moderation. The current version of WordPress is the 3.2 “Gershwin” release. It features a slick backend, improved API access, a micro posting format, and many security updates.

Today, WordPress is not only the software of choice for tens of millions of bloggers and website developers, major corporations have also chosen WordPress to power their important website operations. Prestigious news organizations like the New York Times, CNN, Forbes, and Reuters all use WordPress for their journalist’s blog sections. Some of the most heavily visited websites in the world also use WordPress such as I Can Has Cheezburger which is a network of sites that include LOL Cats and Fail Blog.

WordPress has a bright future thanks to its excellent developer community and open-source ethos. The very best hosting companies remain committed to WP and with thousands of dedicated developers working on plug-ins, features, and attractive themes with little to no cost for the end user, WordPress is the most attractive blog software on the market right now and for the foreseeable future.

This guest post was written by Martin Jenkinson of the popular web hosting review and resource portal Businesswebhostingplans.com.

Google Analytics is a great option and happens to be free of charge. Once installed, you can access your dashboard where you can see all sorts of data such as unique visitors, top content, and the top search queries that brought traffic to your site. You can even see your visitors on a map overlay and get a feel of where your visitors are in the world.

To set it up, here’s a great tutorial that walks you through the process of setting up Google Analytics on a self-hosted WordPress blog:

Here’s a great video from the Montreal WordCamp that talks about the various differences and why one version might be better than the other for your website or blog:

For even more information on the differences, check out the official comparison page.

Quick summary of the two versions:

WordPress.com

The free version of WordPress is a breeze to setup and requires no investment on your part. The hosting is provided free of charge, along with a URL to your blog. You can purchase upgrades if you wish which will allow you to use a custom domain, premium themes, as well as make CSS changes.

WordPress.org

The self-hosted version of WordPress gives you the most flexibility. It requires a hosting account and domain name to get started, which you can find over on our WordPress resources page.

The biggest advantage to using the self-hosted version of WordPress is having complete control over your content, as well as WordPress installation. You are free to add your own plugins and themes, as well as have the ability to modify any of the code on your website.

After you have found cheap WordPress hosting and you have launched your WordPress blog, one vital step you must never skip is to protect your WordPress blog from getting hacked. If you are new to WordPress security and Web security in general, you might hope that there is a thick book, which lists, in detail, everything you need to do in order to protect your WordPress blog from getting hacked and then you have the safest WordPress blog on Earth.

The bad news is that there isn’t such a book and it is not possible to write one. However, there are some steps you should follow in order to at least make your WordPress blog a bit more secure. WordPress is secure but some additional hardening is always necessary.

Minimize the Damage

As with many things in life, prevention is better than treatment but you should always be prepared to react in case the worst happens. One of the best medicines you have at your disposal is a backup. There are some WordPress tools, which allow to backup either the WordPress database only or the whole installation, so get one of them and start using it regularly. Many WordPress hosts, including cheap WordPress hosts, offer various backup tools, so it doesn’t require much effort to find the right backup tools.

Real-time backup is the safest option but in most cases you won’t need it, even if it is available. Weekly or daily scheduled backups are very often exactly what you need. Backups don’t take much time but they are a life-saver if hackers manage to bypass your security.

Peace of Mind with Anti-hack Measures for Your WordPress Blog

Once you get the habit to make regular backups, the next steps in securing your WordPress blog and your peace of mind can be grouped into the following categories:

1. Common sense security.

Security starts with the most basic steps many web masters tend to neglect. Some common sense security steps include the installation of patches and updates as soon as they are released, use of strong passwords (and their frequent change), caution about the places you log from (because if you login from an insecure location and your password can be intercepted, this kills all your efforts to secure your WordPress blog), etc. The careful selection of a reliable wordpress hosting provider also falls into this group of measures – cheap WordPress hosts can be secure but you need to double check.

2. Limit access.

Many hacking exploits happen because the web master was generous in granting access. You should always keep to the least privilege rule and grant permissions restrictively. For instance, if you impose IP restrictions to the wp-admin directory, this could stop many unauthorized access attempts. However, be careful not to cut your own access and lock yourself out! Additionally, you can make many files read-only and give privileges to selected users only.

3. Harden your web server.

Many exploits are possible not because of WordPress weaknesses but because of server vulnerabilities. This is why you need to harden Apache or whatever web server you are using.

4. Secure plugins.

Plugins are what gives power to WordPress but they are also responsible for many vulnerabilities. Sometimes it is the given combination of plugins that makes your WordPress blog an easy target, while in other cases it might be just a separate plugin. Anyway, make sure that you have followed the steps needed to secure your WordPress plugins.

5. When done, check with the WP Security Scanner.

It is naïve to think that it takes only 4 (groups of) steps to secure your WordPress blog – in fact, there is much more you can and should do. If you want to run a security check and see what the report includes, WP Security Scanner will give you an idea of what else you need to fix. The tool in the link is one of the best tools for the purpose, so download it and run it.

These 5 measures are just the beginning in making your WordPress blog secure. Don’t skip them, they are vital.

Laura Hayes is a full time Senior Writer for Web Hosting Search, one of the strongest guides for web hosting. She blogs about WordPress techniques and online marketing.

Photo Credit: CarbonNYC

Here’s a video with a brief overview of all the features:

Here’s some details about a few upcoming WordCamps:

WordCamp Boston

January 23
Boston, Massachusetts

WordCamp Indonesia

January 30
Jakarta, Indonesia

WordCamp Greece

January 30
Greece

WordCamp Miami

February 20
Miami, FL

WordCamp Fukuoka

February 27
Fukuoka, Japan

To see more details along with a list of all the upcoming WordCamps, check out the official WordCamp website.

Our personal favorite is the new photo editing tool. It makes cropping, rotating, and editing images a lot easier now that you can do it directly in WordPress. Awesome!

If you haven’t updated your WordPress website yet, we highly recommend doing it as soon as possible. Just go to the tools section and choose upgrade.

One of our customers emailed us asking if they could promote the course in exchange for a commission. Unfortunately, we did not have an affiliate program setup when we launched the course. However, we have since decided that it would be a great idea to add one.

Our New Affiliate Program

We’ve gone ahead and listed our online WordPress Crash Course in the Clickbank marketplace. Now you can promote our course on your website or blog. We’ll pay you a 40% commission every time you make a sale through your affiliate link.

To become an affiliate, you need to head over to Clickbank and sign up for a free account.

Once you create your account, all you need to do is send traffic to the following link:

http://YOURID.one1000.hop.clickbank.net

Make sure to replace “YOURID” in the link above with YOUR ClickBank Username!

Free Banners

We’ve also put together some banner ads that you can use for free on any of your websites. To access the banners and get more information, please check out our affiliates page.

We look forward to bringing you on as an affiliate!