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Couple of weeks back noted there were no comments for moderation on my blog, I was concerned a bit because not even 1 spam comment was there. I think I was the first person to worry for not having a spam comment - but seriously I just left it for a while until I tried to provide a comment. First I thought it is a version problem and then upgraded my wordpress blog from 2.5.1 to 2.6.1 and that did not solve the problem. Tried to remove extra trails in the wp-config and checked comment page and nothing seem to help out.

I was trying to modify all files because my other domains which has 2.5.1 was receiving comments without problems. Finally what helped me fix this issue was with the table wp_comments. Below are the steps that I followed to fix this bug temporarily and will get to know in some days whether is it going to repeat or not?!

1. I am using SQL Browser, so you can use your hosting sql tool or any third party to open database.
2. Right click on wp_comments and click edit.
3. In the advance option you will find the “Auto Increment” value.
4. For me it was around 42,xxx (I think it is 42620 not sure), the real comments was like in hundreds. The reason is that for every spam comment an index will be used - so with thousands of spam the index went to some 40 thousands.
5. The datatype for the field comment_id is bigint(20) - then it shouldn’t give problem. But I am not
sure.
6. So I checked the last (max) comment id for the table wp_comments which was like 30 thousand something (now I can redesign the table removing constraints and stuff and keep it simple - but I haven’t done that yet).
7. Reset the Auto increment value to be the number (max comment id = latest comment id) + 1
8. Now the comments are inserted into the table with no issues/problems.

I do not remember changing anything with database after upgrade (2.6.1) or earlier and if it is a wordpress bug - I hope we can expect another version pretty soon at wordpress.org.

Let me know if this helps.
Regards,
Shiva

Update from Editor of Sphinn:
This post is very misleading. Passwords are only reset after email verification - if you don’t click the link in the email, your password isn’t reset. We also tell people to change the password as soon as they login with the default password. This was already on our radar, and we will be changing the process of resetting a password. It is not however a security risk. For more you can check http://sphinn.com/story/67930

And this is my response:
I agree the passwords are reset only after email verification, I have not written anything about that in post - what I was pointing is that the password is reset to “password” for everyone who does that and not auto generated - I am glad it is in the radar and actions are taken

And below is the original post
Have your ever forgotten password in Sphinn? There are various types of security one had to take, network security and then development security when developing websites.. (Striked it after that update section, to my knowledge handling querystring, XSS (cross site scripting), issues like password reminder falls under the development security area on the design level, but I give respect to Sphinn guys and leave this issue here).

Especially a site popular like Sphinn (on Internet Marketing) should take enough consideration in changing the logic behind the change password.
I forgot my password and activated to generate a new password for me. Check the below screen shot

By default they reset the password to password, Wow - I thought maybe it is random and tried again, hmm the same thing. For people who think it is not a big deal - wait… assume there are atleast 50 users at a given time who had reset their passwords - so all their password is “password”, i.e, until they change the password again. With technologies right now, you can find whether a username is taken or not and try whether it can be logged in with the password “password”. Once that is done - that user profile is hacked.

This though looks like a small issue, it is not, I am not sure how many of you remember mailcity like 10 years before, they will display the password and the security questions will be like, what is your favorite pet? which city you were born? And once you answer them correct they dont mail the password they just displayed your current password. After lots of complain that time - they changed it.

What Sphinn had to do is very simple, when user click on link that they receive, just state in the page that “the new password is sent to their email”. Generate a password (random code - with Uppercase, number etc.,) and send it to them. And when user login take them to the profile page and ask them to change the password right away.

This is not Search engine Optimization, but a small technical part that you have to consider when you were building an social website. Will SPHINN take action - maybe it will if you SPHINN this post!!

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*Sigh* - Last few days the ranking of a lab site went down particularly in google, not in msn or yahoo search results. I totally forgot about the Geographic target country that I changed using the google webmaster tools.

When I noticed that my website wasn’t even visible for most popular keywords it used to, I thought it happened due to recent permalinks change in my wordpress blog (the site is arrahman.net) and used a plug-in to do 301 permanent redirects.

I just got up because of a dream (3:10 morning now) - because of past few hours - the numbers 3, 0 and 1 are flying like stars around my head. This 3:10 reminds me of 3:10 to yuma movie by James Mangold. 301 had become like a number 23 movie. The search for 3:10 brings you most sites related to the movie, results that have 3/10, 3,10 etc., and some of bible related sites. I think any number search with a colon will bring up a bible related website.

Ok topic is going somewhere else, a new cell had born in the place of a dead cell in my brain I guess and joined the dots that I changed the geographic target few weeks back to some other country. I changed it back to be “Do not associate a geographic location with this site”. In another few days should get to know the SERP’s.

Lesson Learnt: Note down when any SEO work is done, even if it is minor - I always do that (can I say that now?) - so I haven’t always done that - but few setting changes needs to be noted and when something is changed had to think what are all possible things could happen because of that. Many business website owners ask me that the ranking got affected on their website completely or on a particular page or sometimes that their website is not even listed.
You could be up and down in ladder because of the competition and your SEO strategies, but you will not vanish just like that, if not for a mistake. And in an SEO work, keeping track of what is changed/created is very important.

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.

Recently, started receiving emails (automated one’s) with different website url’s that belongs to me and offering $4800/month with email subject - I have visited your website *url* - I do not want to tell about that company (.ca) and give free advertisement - but they will send your URL and say it has good traffic rank and link popularity.

Other is, a person named, D L (I am not specifying the complete last name) -sends an Interesting Business offer, that too as a reminder mail.

***
Hi,

I hope you are well and remember me from my last email. If not, allow me to remind you. After coming across your site yourwebsiteurl.com while doing some browsing on Google, I found it somewhat related to the subject of my sites. That is why I offered to buy spot for text-links on your site.

Do come back to me on this if you would like to hear more.
***

We should not forget there might be legitimate offers, most of them will be spam (new trend)

How do they do that?

1. Collect emailid from the whois registrar of the domain name and spam it.
2. Collect from your own website if its specified in some url.
3. Gather data (search data) - perform query in Google/MSN/YAHOO and then collect the url’s for those keywords, then follow step 1.
4. With the collected data, they have automated emails generated by an executable that plugs in the appropriate urls and sends the mail out.

What do they benefit:
1. Free traffic
2. New business
3. Quick way of forming links
4. Collect email of people who replies and sell that CD’s
5. Again spam them with marketing emails.

If you read carefully, you will definitely get to know, whether is it a normal correspondence and remember if its too good to be true, then it is. That said, there are good websites for checking link price calculator online - you can check your url and make sure how much you could ask for, it is based on popularity, traffic and other factors such as PageRank, SERP’s etc.,

Update on April 25

: The person that I mentioned D L, seems to be legitimate unlike others. I am not sure about his business or marketing strategies, but he is a real person rather an automated spam machine.

I kept this blog running so long, just to find out that it was more than passion. Yes, I have recently started my own Internet Marketing Agency based in New Jersey, USA. This I wanted to do, because I believe with my efforts and interest, the experience that I have over 10 years in the Web development industry; having designed and developed complex search algorithms; as Project manager for Fortune 500 clients and had been a huge support for start-up companies to work hard so they grow from 4 people to 100 people; interviewed and recruited candidates with right skills; had been a technical liasion for the marketing division; had led multiple projects at same time; earned good amount of money in consulting, traveled most countries; and with that experience and direct technical knowledge on knowing how things work, I will be able to provide better services for all online business sites.

I had been investing all money into this new SEO/SEM company, because I know this is going to work irrespective of recession, this blog site itself is a proof of my online presence on SEO work.

Coming from a family that runs successful business with more than 500 employees, I decided to work for another employer rather being in ready-made managerial position right away. So, after around 11 years of work in different industries, there were lots of experiences, ability to understand things as employee, understand client needs, undergo work tension, expectations on deadlines, commitment and the budget factors as a project manager. I have good clients now and I am discussing with some more, I just have to and want to do things right for them.

There is more to work on forming this organization, recruiting candidates, discussions going on in Europe and as well in Asia to start branch locations or to find right partners. If you have a business website that you would like us to work, please feel free to contact me at shiva@pagerank0.com or use the contact form above.

Everyday we use search engines or other websites to find information, to locate places, food order in restaurants, search for local doctors, nearby law firm, clearance sales on clothes or electronics or furnitures, to check the climate, find news, download software codes, ebooks, write blog at the end of day, check office and personal mails, stock news, to go to woot.com, orkut.com, facebook.com, linkedin.com, flickr.com, youtube.com, adult related websites and many many others based on the individual needs, work, time, geograhic location etc.,

Given a hair, scientists will find out the complete DNA of the person whom it belongs to, same way the webhistory or the journal of what you do online - could define who you are, what you look for and where do you spend more time - one day if you note it down, you can learn a lot different things to do things appropriately and to utilize that time efficiently.

Below are few examples that I provide - which gives you an idea/glance at another person (that is myself) web activities on a particular day or you can compare yourself with (you searched for something and you ended up here or you are a regular visitor of my website). Some common routines we might share

1. What websites do I visit?

Everyday visits atleast couple of times:
Google mail, hotmail, yahoo (haven’t consolidated to one email provider yet and also have multiple email ids), Linkedin.com, Orkut.com, CNN.com, youtube.com, flickr.com, facebook.com (facebook - very rare nowadays), Couple of local websites (in my native language - Tamil), Wikipedia, google patents, internet marketing related news, technorati.com, Webhost4life.com, rapidshare (use google and then download free ebooks, tutorials, sample documents, graphics etc.,), godaddy.com, pcnames.com, all of the websites that I own and maintain (check blog roll and continue doing that) and all other websites which I don’t remember (as I visit them through google - work related)

And in other days:
I visit one new website each day, Visit my friends websites such as Muthu, Saravanan, and then for movie reviews visit Rotten Tomatoes, bank websites to see whether I have anything left at all to invest more in what I do, check weather.com when traveling, use maps in google, check competitors website (argh - now can I say that?!), Craigslist.org, meetup.com

If you see clearly, there are bunch of sites that you would visit frequently - it may or may not be in the list and I would have had not covered all the sites that I check. Now, what you may not know is that or what you know but cannot avoid is the internet addiction, if you check your email like half hour once as though every minute you expect something might pop up and finally to just see couple of junk mails and coupon saving promotion emails to be deleted waiting in the queue - that frustrates. At the end of this post - I will tell you how can you save some time.

2. What keywords do I search for?

Now, this vary from day to day, based on my needs, as how I started this post, it changes. But as of now, as of today and there are few search keywords, there are patterns in how people search for things, an internet savvy will not type “how do I find a dentist near my house?”, he/she will rather type dentist “location name” and thats it. There is a pattern how users search for, what they search for and how quickly they find relevant data/information. And this pattern is based on the individual skills of that person, geographic location, like how accent and usage varies from a Texas person to Newyork one.

Below are very few keywords that I provide that I use to search for some purpose, but for various different reasons, you can easily guess few and some you will definitely be wrong.

blog headers, “blog headers”, free blog headers, seo expert, seo consulting, adsense, site:www.themeheaders.com, seo new york city, adwords, business plan, successful entrepreneur, internet marketing agency, and a lots and lots of keywords

You might have your own bucket of keywords for everyday and the way you form the sentence to search them also maybe different.

Tips for saving time:

a) When you are not expecting mail, avoid checking mails frequently.
b) Learn type writing, old school way, asdf ;lkj, just learn it, in 3-4 months you can type 60 wpm (words per minute) - well I learnt it 15 years ago. (You can check this website for online typewriting resources here)
c) Do not type http:// everytime, and sometimes you do not need to type the www. as well, just type in the domain name and you do not have to type .com as well, use ALT + ENTER key after typing the domain name.
d) CTRL + N (pressing ctrl key and n in keyboard together will open another new browser)
e) You can find lots of tips online to save time by learning few computer tricks.
f) Do not read the same article again and again, do not watch the same video again and again just because it is the buzz.
g) If you are in Stock business, every tick is important - but you cannot be checking that by every second.
h) Bookmark sites, if it is your personal computer tick “remember me” checkbox - so you do not have to login each and everytime.

Let your colleagues and friends know these simple tips and get to know what websites do they check frequently and what keywords they use to search for. (only things which does not compromise their privacy). If you have time, you can comment it here on how you visited this post and for what (even if it means you are here to market your business website) and the sites and keywords that you use.

Cheers,
Shiva

Today, one of the top 10 SEO Internet Marketing Agency firm in US was down from morning until now (2:40pm), probably around 5 hours (based on the time I first noted).

It was a minor website database user problem, but they have good number of employees and unfortunately none had checked their own web site. Probably relaxed being a Friday or busy working for their client websites.

Some negative factors caused because of this is:

a) New clients who try to reach through search engine could not access the website.
b) The money they spent on Adwords is probably like $5 for a click and for 5 hours all the clicks turned out to be nothing.
c) They have a dedicated server and that increases more responsibility to maintain and constantly check for 99.9% uptime.

Now, this could happen to my website as well as yours, but then facing problem or down time is not the issue, we had seen issues with hotmail, even google at times - but fixing the issue in a timely manner is what is important.

I thought they would fix it when I first noted it, then after few hours (say like 5 hours) checked to see that it was still down, I called them up and they fixed it in a minute. Well, I know I saved them atleast few hundred bucks for today with a minute call of mine and I earned this post

Starting April 2008, google adwords is mandating that the new ads will be required to have the same URL (both in destination and display). But what was not mentioned, is about the status of the existing advertisements and whether the display and quality score will be affected, and whether what kind of impact this new policy change is going to bring to old advertisements.

Many ads will show display url as microsoft.com or google.com or even competitors site and the landing url will be of someother local company website. This has drawn many visitors to easily pull towards their business or site, most users were unhappy about this practice and some companies too.

Isn’t it common sense not to allow in the first place to make sure that the display and destination page to be the same. Many people earned through affliate commissions as the destination page url will be with affliate id and pointing to a different business site, whereas the display url will be giving an impression that it will lead to an informative site.

I guess certain malpractices will stop because of this action.

What are the various ways to get useful inbound links to the website?

1) Provide useful content/information that people like to refer from their website/blog.
2) Request your friends, colleagues and family members to use appropriate anchor link and to have your website in their blog roll.
3) Purchasing links from high PageRank websites (not favored by many search engines)
4) Getting listed in appropriate directories (vertical directories)
5) Develop free css templates, wordpress themes and have your credits in footer links with appropriate anchor text and link and circulate it.
6) Request site visitors to link to your website.
7) Viral media (socialize using video’s, podcasts etc.,)
Participate in social network sites to promote your site.
9) Provide useful images and documents that people could refer.
10) Write technical or similar articles and have them posted in business related article sites.

Regards,
Shiva