Composing Your Blog Post

Composing a blog post is a lot like typing an e-mail: You give it a title, you
write the message, and you click a button to send your words into the world.
This section covers the steps you take to compose and publish a blog post
on your site. By using the different options that WordPress provides — like
discussion options, categories and tags, for example — you can configure
each post however you like.
You can collapse or reposition all the modules on the Add New Posts page to suit your needs. The only part of the Add New Posts page that can’t be collapsed and repositioned is the actual Title and Post text boxes (where you write your blog post).

Follow these steps to write a basic blog post:

1. Click Add New on the Posts drop-down list.
The Add New Post page opens, as shown in Figure 1-1.
2. Type the title of your post in the Enter Title Here text box at the top
of the Add New Post page.
3. Type the content of your post in the large text box below the Enter

Title Here text box.
You can use the Visual Text Editor to format the text in your post. We
explain the Visual Text Editor, and the buttons and options, later in this
section.
4. Click the Save Draft button in the Publish module, located at the top
right of the Add New Post page.
The page refreshes with your post title and content saved, but not yet published to your blog.

By default, the area in which you write your post is in Visual Editing mode,

as indicated by the Visual tab that appears above the text. Visual Editing
mode provides WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) options for for-
matting. Rather than have to embed HTML code in your post, you can simply
type your post, highlight the text you want to format, and click the buttons
(shown in Figure 1-1) that appear above the text box in which you type your
post.
If you’ve ever used a word processing program, such as Microsoft Word, you’ll recognize many of these buttons:

✦ Bold: Embeds the <strong> </strong> HTML tag to emphasize the

text in bold. Example: Bold Text.
✦ Italic: Embeds the <em> </em> HTML tag to emphasize the text in italic.
Example: Italic Text.
✦ Strikethrough: Embeds the <strike> </strike> HTML tag that puts
a line through your text. Example: Strikethrough Text.
✦ Unordered List: Embeds the <ul><li> </li></ul> HTML tags that
create an unordered, or bulleted, list.
✦ Ordered List: Embeds the <ol><li> </li></ol> HTML tags that
create an ordered, or numbered, list.
✦ Blockquote: Inserts the <blockquote> </blockquote> HTML tag
that indents the paragraph or section of text you selected.
✦ Align Left: Inserts the <p align=”left”> </p> HTML tag that lines
up the paragraph or section of text you selected against the left margin.
✦ Align Center: Inserts the <p align=”center”> </p> HTML tag that
positions the paragraph or section of text you selected in the center of
the page.
✦ Align Right: Inserts the <p align=”right”> </p> HTML tag that
lines up the paragraph or section of text you selected against the right
margin.
✦ Insert/Edit Link: Inserts the <a href=” “> </a> HTML tag around the
text you selected to create a hyperlink.
✦ Unlink: Removes the hyperlink from the selected text, if it was previ-
ously linked.
✦ Insert More Tag: Inserts the <!--more--> tag, which lets you split the
display on your blog page. It publishes the text written above this tag
with a Read More link, which takes the user to a page with the full post.
This feature is good for really long posts.
✦ Toggle Spellchecker: Perfect for typo enthusiasts! Checking your spell- Book IV
ing before you post is always a good idea. Chapter 1
✦ Toggle Full Screen Mode: Lets you focus purely on writing, without
the distraction of all the other options on the page. Click this button to
make the Post text box expand to fill the full height and width of your
browser screen. To bring the Post text box back to its normal state, click
the Toggle Full Screen button again. Voilà — it’s back to normal!
✦ Show/Hide Kitchen Sink: Lisa saw this button and thought, “Wow!
WordPress does my dishes, too!” Unfortunately, the button’s name is a
metaphor that describes the advanced formatting options available with
the Visual Text Editor. Click this button to make a new formatting list
drop down, providing options for underlining, font color, custom charac-
ters, undo and redo, and so on — a veritable kitchen sink full of options,
such as

• Format: This drop-down list allows you to select the different text for-
matting available.
• Underline: Inserts the <u> </u> HTML tags around the text to dis-
play it as underlined.
• Text Color: Displays the text in the color chosen.
• Paste as Plain Text: Useful if you copy text from another source, this
option removes all formatting and special/hidden characters from
the text and adds it to your post as unformatted text.
• Paste from Word: Useful if you’re copying text from a Microsoft Word
document because Word inserts a lot of hidden HTML and charac-
ters that could make your post text look funny on your Web site.
Use the Paste from Word feature to transfer posts from Word to
WordPress to preserve formatting without the hidden mess.
• Remove Formatting: Removes all formatting inside the post.
• Insert/Edit Embedded Media: Easily embeds media (video or movie)
files such as Flash, Quicktime, Shockwave, Windows Media or Real
Media video files from outside, third-party sources. Here, you can
configure options for the size of the embedded media, alignment
within your post (top, right, bottom or left) and background color
(optional), for example.
• Insert Custom Character: If you click this option, a pop-up window
appears, offering different characters (see Figure 1-2) such as $, %
&, and ©. In the pop-up window, click the symbol that you want to
include to add it to your post.

• Outdent: Moves indented the text to the left one preset level with

each click.
• Indent: Moves text in to the right one preset level with each click.
• Undo: Click to undo your last formatting action.
• Redo: Click to redo your last formatting action.

• Help: Pops open a window that displays helpful information about

using the text editor, including timesaving keyboard shortcuts.

You can turn off the Visual Text Editor by clicking Your Profile in the Users

drop-down list. Deselect the Use the Visual Editor When Writing check box
to turn off this editor if you want to insert the HTML code in your posts
yourself.
If you want to embed your own HTML code and skip the Visual Text Editor, click the HTML tab that appears to the right of the Visual tab. If you’re
planning to type HTML code in your post — for a table or video files, for example — you have to click the HTML tab before you can insert that code. If you don’t, the Visual Text Editor formats your code, and it most likely looks nothing like you intended it to.

WordPress has a nifty, built-in autosave feature that saves your work while Book IV
you’re typing and editing a new post. If your browser crashes or you acci- Chapter 1
dentally close your browser window before you manually save your post, you can access it again when you get back.
Directly above and to the left of the Visual Text Editor row of buttons, an Add Media area has a row of four icons. These icons let you insert images/ photos, photo galleries, videos, and audio files into your posts. WordPress has an entire Media Library capability, which we describe in great detail in Chapters 2 and 3 of this minibook.

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Creating and Editing Tags

In this post, you can find out all about publishing your posts in
WordPress and how you can assign different tags to your content. This sec-
tion takes you through the steps of managing tags, which is similar to the
way you manage categories. To create a new tag, follow these steps:

1. Click Post Tags in the Posts drop-down list.
The Post Tags page opens.
Unlike categories and links, WordPress doesn’t create a default tag for you, so when you visit the Post Tags page for the first time, no tags are listed on the right side of the page.
2. The left side of the Post Tags page displays the Add New Tag section.
3. Type the name of your new tag in the Name text box.
Suppose that you want to create a tag in which you file all your posts
about the books you read. In the Name text box, type something like
Fictional Books.
4. Type a name in the Slug text box.

The slug is the permalink of the tag and can help identify tag archives on
your site by giving them their own URL, such as http://yourdomain.
com/tag/fictional-books. By default, the tag slug adopts the words
from the tag name.
5. (Optional) Type a description of the tag in the Description text box.
Some WordPress templates are set up to actually display the tag
description directly beneath the tag name. Providing a description fur-
ther defines the category intent for your readers. The description can be as short or as long as you want.
6. Click the Add New Tag button.
That’s it! You’ve added a new tag to your blog. The Add New Tag page refreshes in your browser window with blank fields, ready for you to add another tag to your site.
7. Repeat Steps 2 through 7 to add an unlimited number of tags to
your blog.

You use the Tags and the Categories pages in your Dashboard to manage,

edit, and create new tags and categories to which you assign your posts
when you publish them. Book IV, Chapter 1 contains a lot of information
about how to go about assigning tags and categories to your posts, as well
as a few good tips on how you can create new categories and tags right on
the Edit Posts page itself.
Many WordPress Web sites have a cool feature called a tag cloud, which is a unique way to display a list of tags used on your site to give your readers navigation options to view your content. Figure 7-7 shows the tag cloud displayed on the sidebar of Lisa’s design blog.

At the top of the right sidebar in Figure 7-7, the tag cloud gives you an at-a-

glance peek at the topics Lisa writes about. You can tell the topic she writes about most often because that tag appears in the largest text; likewise, the topics displayed in small text aren’t written about quite as often. You can tell by her tag cloud that Lisa’s quite a fan of WordPress.

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Creating new categories

Today, tomorrow, next month, next year — while your blog grows in size and age, continuing to add new categories further defines and archives the history of your blog posts. You aren’t limited in the number of categories and subcategories you can create in your blog.

Creating a new category is as easy as following these steps:
1. Click Categories in the Posts drop-down list.
The Categories page opens.
2. The left side of the Categories page displays the Add New Category
section (see Figure 7-5).

 

3. Type the name of your new category in the Name text box.

Suppose that you want to create a category in which you file all your posts about the books you read. In the Name text box, type something like Books I Enjoy.
4. Type a name in the Slug text box.
The slug creates the link to the category page that lists all the posts you
made in this category. If you leave this field blank, WordPress automati-
cally creates a slug based on the category name. If the category is Books
I Enjoy, WordPress automatically creates a category slug like http://
yourdomain.com/category/books-i-enjoy. If you want to shorten
it, however, you can! Type books in the Category Slug text box, and
the link to the category becomes http://yourdomain.com/
category/books.
5. Select the category’s parent from the Parent drop-down list.
Select None if you want this new category to be a parent (or top-level)
category. If you want to make this category a subcategory of another
category, select the category that you want to be the parent of this one.
6. (Optional) Type a description of the category in the Description
text box.
Some WordPress templates are set up to actually display the category
description directly beneath the category name (see Book VI). Providing a description further defines the category intent for your readers. The description can be as short or as long as you want.
7. Click the Add New Category button.
That’s it! You’ve added a new category to your blog. Armed with this
information, you can add an unlimited number of categories to
your blog.
You can delete a category on your blog by hovering your mouse pointer on the title of the category you want to delete, and then clicking the Delete link that appears below the category title.

Deleting a category doesn’t delete the posts and links in that category.
Instead, posts in the deleted category are reassigned to the Uncategorized category (or whatever you’ve named the default category).
If you have an established WordPress blog that has categories already cre-
ated, you can convert some or all of your categories to tags. To do so, look
for the Category to Tag Converter link on the right side of the Category page
in your WordPress Dashboard — click it to convert your categories to tags.
(See the nearby sidebar, “What are tags, and how/why do I use them?,” for
more information on tags.)

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Changing the name of a category

When you install WordPress, it gives you one default category called
Uncategorized (see the Categories page shown in Figure 7-3). This cat-
egory name is pretty generic, so you definitely want to change it to one
that applies to you and your blog. (On Lisa’s blog, she changed it to Life in
General. Although that name’s still a bit on the generic side, it doesn’t sound quite so . . . well, uncategorized.)
The default category also serves as kind of a fail-safe. If you publish a post
to your blog and don’t assign that post to a category, the post is assigned to
the default category automatically, no matter what you name the category.

 

So, how do you change the name of that default category? When you’re logged in to your WordPress Dashboard, just follow these steps:

1. Click Categories in the Posts drop-down list.
The Categories page opens, containing all the tools you need to set up and edit category titles for your blog.

2. Click the title of the category that you want to edit.

If you want to change the Uncategorized category, click the word
Uncategorized to open the Edit Category page (see Figure 7-4).

3. Type the new name for the category in the Name text box.

4. Type the new slug in the Slug text box.
The term slug refers to the word(s) used in the Web address for the spe-
cific category. For example, the category of Books has a Web address
of http://yourdomain.com/category/books; if you change the
Category Slug to Books I Like, then the Web address is http://your
domain.com/category/books-i-like (WordPress automatically
inserts a dash between the slug words in the Web address).
5. Select a parent category from the Parent drop-down list.
If you want this category to be a main category, not a subcategory, select None.
6. (Optional) Type a description of the category in the Description
text box.
Use this description to remind yourself what your category is about.
Some WordPress themes display the category description right on your
site, too, which your visitors may find helpful. (See Book VI for more

about themes.) You know that your theme is coded in this way if your site displays the category description on the category page(s).

7. Click the Update button.
The information you just edited is saved, and the Categories page reloads, showing your new category name.

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Building categories

In WordPress, a category is what you determine to be the main topic of a
blog post. By using categories, you can file your blog posts into topics by
subject. To improve your readers’ experiences in navigating through your
blog, WordPress organizes posts by the categories you assign to them.
Visitors can click the categories they’re interested in to see the blog posts
you’ve written on those particular topics. You can display the list of catego-
ries you set up on your blog in a few different places, including the following:
✦ Body of the post: In most WordPress themes, you see the title followed
by a statement, such as Filed In: Category 1, Category 2. The reader can
click the category name to go to a page that lists all the posts you’ve
made in that particular category. You can assign a single post to more
than one category.
✦ Sidebar of your blog theme: You can place a full list of category titles in
the sidebar by using the Categories widget included in your WordPress
installation. A reader can click any category to open a page on your site
that lists the posts you made within that particular category.
Subcategories (also known as category children) can further refine the main
category topic by listing specific topics related to the main (parent) cate-
gory. In your WordPress Dashboard, on the Manage Categories page, subcat-
egories appear directly below the main category. Here’s an example:

Books I Enjoy (main category)
Fiction (subcategory)
Nonfiction (subcategory)
Trashy romance (subcategory)
Biographies (subcategory)
For Dummies (subcategory)
You can create as many levels of categories as you like. For example,
Biographies and For Dummies could be subcategories of Nonfiction, which is a subcategory of the Books category. You aren’t limited to the number of category levels you can create.

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Archiving Content with WordPress

When you create a post on your WordPress blog, you can file that post
under a category that you specify. This feature makes for a nifty archiving
system in which you and your readers can find articles/posts that you’ve
placed within a specific category. Articles you post are also sorted and orga-
nized by date (day/month/year) so that you can easily locate articles that
you posted at a certain time. The archives page on Lisa’s Web site (see it at
http://ewebscapes.com/sitemap) contains a Chronological Archive
section, which has a list of months followed by the content she published in
that particular month and year. If you click a date on that page, a listing of
articles from that month drops down, and each article title is linked to that
article.
You can easily create an archive listing like the one on Lisa’s Sitemap page

by using a WordPress plugin called Clean Archives
Reloaded, which you can find in the WordPress Plugin Directory at http://
wordpress.org/extend/plugins/clean-archives-reloaded. This
plugin is easy to install, and to use it, you just need to create a page and add
a short code segment ([cleanarchivesreloaded]) to the page content;
that code automatically builds a Chronological Archives page that links to all
the content you’ve published on your site. Easy archives!

WordPress archives and organizes your content for you in more ways than

by date and by category. In this section, I give you an overview of the several other ways — then later in this chapter, I show you how you can leverage those archive types to create a dynamic Web site that’s easy to navigate for your readers. The different types of archives and content include

✦ Categories: Create categories of topics in which you can file your
articles so that you can easily archive relevant topics. Many Web sites
display content by category — typically referred to as a magazine
theme, in which all content is displayed by topic, rather than in a simple
chronological listing. Figure 7-2 shows an example of a magazine theme.
You can find out how to create one of your own by using the information
in Book VI; also be sure to check out Book VI, Chapter 6 to discover how
to use template tags and category templates to display category-specific
content — exciting stuff!

 

✦ Tags: Tagging your posts with microkeywords, called tags, further

defines related content within your site, which can improve your site for SEO purposes by assisting the search engines in finding related and relevant content, as well as provide additional navigation to help your readers find relevant content on your site.
✦ Date Based: Your content is automatically archived by date based on
the day, month, year, and time of day you publish it.
✦ Author: Content is automatically archived by author based on the
author of the post and/or page — you can create an author archive if your site has multiple content contributors.
✦ Keyword (or Search): WordPress has a built-in search function that
allows you and your readers to search for keywords, which presents an
archive listing of content that’s relevant to your chosen keywords.
✦ Custom Post Types: You can build custom post types based on the
kind of content your site offers — you can find detailed information on
custom post types and how to create them in Book VI, Chapter 7.
✦ Attachments: WordPress has a built-in media library where you can
upload different media files such as photos, images, documents, videos,
and audio files (to name a few). You can build an archive of those files
to create things such as photo galleries, eBook archives (PDFs), or video
galleries.

✦ Links: Build your own link directory of resources by using the built-in

Link Manager in the WordPress Dashboard, and then create a page to
display the links on your site.

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Displaying Link Lists on Your Site

With the different options you have available with the Link feature (categories, images, RSS feeds, and so on), you can display a simple listing of links in your sidebar by using widgets, or you can create a full page dedicated to your links in your Dashboard’s link lists.
Some site owners use the Link feature to create a full-blown link directory on
their sites, which you can easily do by using link categories, images, descrip-
tions, and so on. Following the instructions provided in this chapter, you
can create your link categories, add your links to the categories, and then
display them on a page by using different template tags that are available in
WordPress.

A page of resource links on a business Web site. You
can create this kind of page by using the Image Address on the Add New
Link page in your Dashboard, discussed previously in this chapter. Figure
6-6 shows another way of displaying a listing of links that appears more like
a directory than just a simple list. This page was made possible by creating
several link categories, assigning links to the categories, and then (with a

simple WordPress template tag and a little CSS magic) creating the page to display the links like a directory page.

 

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Editing existing links

You can edit the links in your blog by clicking the name of the link you want to edit on the Links page; the Edit Links page opens.
When you first view the Links page, some links are already assigned to your
blog. By default, WordPress provides seven links in your link list. These links
go to some helpful Web sites that contain information and resources for the
WordPress software. You can delete these links, but we recommend saving
them for future reference.

Here’s what you can do with your links:

✦ Edit an existing link. Click the name of the link you want to edit. The
Edit Link page opens. Edit the fields you need to change, and then click
the Save button at the top right of the page.
✦ Sort the links. Select Link ID, Name, Address, or Rating from the Order
by Name drop-down list. Likewise, you can sort your links by category
by selecting the Link Category you want from the View All Categories
drop-down list.
✦ Search for specific links by using keywords and phrases. Enter your
keyword in the text box at the top-right side of the Edit Links page and
click the Search Links button. If any links match the keywords and/or
phrase you typed, those links appear on the page.

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Organizing Your Links

Sometimes, having a large list of links below the Blogroll heading is just too
generic, and you may want to display groups of links with different headings
that further define them. Like with posts, you can create multiple categories
for your links in the WordPress Dashboard if you want to have more than
one link list.
By default, WordPress provides one link category called Blogroll. You can
keep this name as-is or change it by using the same method you use to
change a post category name (for more on changing the name of a category,
see Book III, Chapter 7) — simply click the name of the link category to view
the Edit Link Category page and edit the details however you want.

You can organize your links by creating link categories in the Dashboard
and then assigning links to the appropriate categories. To create link categories, follow these steps:

1. Click the down arrow to the right of Links menu title in the left navi-

gation menu, and then select Link Categories from the drop-down list
that appears.
The Link Categories page opens, as shown in Figure 6-1. The left side of the Link Categories page displays the Add Link Category section.

2. Type the name of the link category in the Link Category Name text

box.
3. Type the slug of the link category in the Link Category Slug text box.
The term slug refers to the word(s) used in the Web address for the specific category.
4. (Optional) Type a description of the link category in the Description
text box.
Providing a description further defines the category for your readers.
You can make the description as short or as long as you want. Some
WordPress themes are set up to actually display the category descrip-
tion directly beneath the category name (check out Book VI for informa-
tion on template tags that allow you to add category descriptions).

5. Click the Add Category button.

The Link Categories page refreshes and displays your new link category.

You can create an unlimited amount of link categories to sort your link lists
by topics. (We know one blogger who has 50 categories for his links.) Revisit
the Link Categories page any time you want to add, edit, or delete a link. To
edit or delete a link category, hover your mouse over the link category you
want to manage, and then click one of the three links that appears below the
link category name:
✦ Edit: Open the Edit Category page, where you can edit the name, slug,
and description of the category.
✦ Quick Edit: Opens an inline menu (the menu drops down without leav-
ing the Link Categories page) on the Link Categories page, where you
can edit the name and slug of the category.
✦ Delete: Delete the link category completely, but not before confirming
your decision to delete the category in question by clicking OK on the
message that pops up.
Adding new links
After you create your link categories, you just need to add some new links! Book III
To add a new link, follow these steps: Chapter 6
1. Click Add New in the Links drop-down list.
The Add New Link page opens, as shown in Figure 6-2.
2. Type the name of the link in the Name text box.
Enter the actual name of the site that you’re adding to your link list.
3. Type the URL of the link in the Web Address text box.
You want your visitors to go to this destination when they click the
name of the site. Don’t forget to include the http:// part of the Web
address (http://lisasabin-wilson.com, for example).
4. (Optional) Type a description of the site in the Description text box.
Providing a description helps further define the site for your readers. Some WordPress templates display the link description directly below the link name by using a specific WordPress template tag.
5. (Optional) Assign your new link to a category by selecting the check
box to the left of the category in the Categories module.
If you don’t select a category for your new link, that link is automatically assigned to the default category. Figure 6-3 shows the list of link categories that Lisa has in her blog.
If you don’t use the Link Category option regularly, you can collapse

(close) this module by clicking anywhere in the Categories title bar. You can also move the Categories module to a different position on the Add New Link page by dragging and dropping it to a new location.
6. (Optional) Select a target for your new link by selecting a radio button
in the Target module.
Select one of the following radio buttons:

• _blank: Loads the link in a new browser window

• _top: Loads the link in the top frame (if your site is designed with
frames)
• _none: Loads the link in the same browser window as the one you
are currently browsing in
The third option — None — is the standard/default option here — leaving your visitors to decide how they want to open links on your site. If they want to open a link in a new browser window, they can use their browser tools to make that happen.
You can reposition the Target module by dragging and dropping it to
a new location on the Add New Link page. You can also collapse this
module.
7. (Optional) Set the Link Relationship (XFN) options.
XFN stands for XHTML Friends Network and allows you to indicate the relationship you have with the people you’re linking to by defining how you know, or are associated with, them. Table 6-1 lists the different relationships you can assign to your links.
You can reposition the Link Relationship module by dragging and drop-
ping it to a new location on the Add New Link page. You can also col-
lapse (close) this module.

You have four options in the Advanced module:
• Image Address: In this text box, enter the URL of the picture that you
want to appear next to the link in your link list.
This option associates an image with the link. To use it, you need to
know the direct URL to the image source (such as http://your
domain.com/images/image.jpg). Figure 6-5 displays the
Resources page on a business Web site; that page uses the
WordPress Links feature to assign image addresses to links.
To find the URL for an image that appears on a Web site, right-
click the image and choose Properties from the pop-up menu that
appears. Copy the image address (URL). The image’s URL starts with
http:// and looks like a Web address. Then paste it into the Image
Address text box in the Add New Link page.
• RSS Address: Add the site’s RSS feed alongside the link that appears
on your site. (Not all WordPress themes accommodate this feature.)
To find the RSS URL of the site you’re linking to, visit that site and
locate the RSS link. (It’s usually listed in the sidebar or footer of the
site.) Right-click the link, and from the pop-up menu that appears,
choose Copy Shortcut (in Internet Explorer) or Copy Link Location
(in Firefox). Then in WordPress, paste the link in the RSS Address
field.
• Notes: Type your notes in the Notes field.
These notes don’t appear on your site, so feel free to enter whatever notes you need to define the details of this link further. A month from now, you may not remember who this person is or why you linked to her, so add notes here to remind yourself.

• Rating: Select a number from the Rating drop-down list to rate how

well you like the link from 0 to 10, 0 being the worst and 10 being the
best. Some WordPress themes display your link list in the order in
which you rate your links, from best to worst.
You can reposition the Advanced module by dragging and dropping it to
a new location on the Add New Link page. You can also collapse (close)
this module.
9. In the Save module, choose whether to make the link public or
private.
To keep the link private, select the Keep This Link Private check box. No one can see the link. If you want the link to appear publicly on your blog, leave that check box deselected.
You can reposition the Save module by dragging and dropping it to a
new location on the Add New Link page. You can also collapse (close)
this module.
10. To save your changes, scroll to the top of the Add New Links page and
click the Add Link button.
The Add New Link page refreshes and displays a message to you that your new link has been added.

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Tackling Spam with Akismet

Before blogs came onto the scene, you often saw spammers filling Internet
guest books with their links but not leaving any relevant comments. The
reason is simple: Web sites receive higher rankings in the major search
engines if they have multiple links from other sites. Enter blog software, with
comment and trackback technologies — prime breeding ground for millions
of spammers.
Because comments and trackbacks are published to your site publicly —
and usually with links to the commenters’ Web sites — spammers got their
site links posted on millions of blogs by creating programs that automati-
cally seek Web sites that have commenting systems, and then hammer those
systems with tons of comments that contain links back to their own sites.

No blogger likes spam. In fact, blogging services such as WordPress have
spent untold hours in the name of stopping these spammers in their tracks,
and for the most part, they’ve been successful. Occasionally, however,
spammers sneak through. Many spammers are offensive, and all of them are
frustrating because they don’t contribute to the ongoing conversations that
occur in blogs.
All WordPress installations have one significant thing in common: Akismet, a WordPress plugin.

Tackling Spam with Akismet
It’s our humble opinion that Akismet is the mother of all plugins and that no WordPress blog is complete without a fully activated version of Akismet run-
ning in it.
Apparently, WordPress agrees because the plugin is packaged in every
WordPress software release beginning with version 2.0. Akismet was created by the folks at Automattic, the same folks who brought you the WordPress. com-hosted version.
Akismet is the answer to combating comment and trackback spam. Matt
Mullenweg of Automattic says Akismet is a “collaborative effort to make
comment and trackback spam a non-issue and restore innocence to blog-
ging, so you never have to worry about spam again” (from the Akismet Web site at http://akismet.com).
Lisa has been blogging since 2002. She started blogging with the Movable
Type blogging platform and moved to WordPress in 2003. While blogging
became more and more popular, comment and trackback spam became
more and more of a nuisance. One morning in 2004, she found that 2,300
pieces of disgusting comment spam had been published to her blog.
Something had to be done! The folks at Automattic did a fine thing with

Akismet. Since the emergence of Akismet, she’s barely had to think about comment or trackback spam except for the few times a month she checks her Akismet spam queue.
We cover the use of plugins in Book VII. However, this chapter wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t show you how to activate and use the Akismet plugin on your site. Book VII covers the use, installation, and management of other plugins for your WordPress site.

Akismet is already included in every WordPress installation, so you don’t
have to worry, at this point, about downloading and installing it because it’s already there. Follow these steps to activate and begin using Akismet:
1. Click the Plugins link in the left navigation menu of the Dashboard to
load the Plugins page.
2. Click the Activate link below the Akismet plugin name and
description.
A yellow box appears at the top of the page, saying Akismet Is Almost
Ready. You Must Enter Your WordPress.com API Key for It to Work (see
Figure 5-7). An API key is a string of numbers and letters that functions
like a unique password given to you by WordPress.com; it’s the key
that allows your WordPress.org application to communicate with your
WordPress.com account.

3. Click the link in the yellow box to navigate to the Akismet

Configuration page.
The Akismet Configuration page asks you to enter your Akismet API key.
You can obtain an API key free from your WordPress.com account. If
you’re a professional or corporate user, click the Get Your Key link to
visit the Akismet Web site, where you can purchase an API key.
You need to register for an account on WordPress.com (http://word-
press.com) in order to get access to a free API key. Be sure to visit the WordPress.com Web site to register your account before you proceed with the following steps.
4. In a new browser window, log in to your WordPress.com account and
click the Edit My Profile link in the WordPress.com menu.
The My Public Profile page opens in your Web browser.
5. Click the API Key and Other Personal Settings link.
The Personal Settings page appears in your WordPress.com Dashboard. Your WordPress.com API key appears at the top of that page, as shown in Figure 5-8. (We blurred out Lisa’s API key.

6. In your Dashboard on the Akismet Configuration page, enter the API

key in the WordPress.com API Key text box and click the Update
Options button to activate the Akismet plugin fully.
A message appears, telling you that your Akismet API key has been
verified. You’re now protected against comment spam because you’re using the Akismet plugin.

Akismet catches spam and throws it into a queue, holding the spam for 15
days and then deleting it from your database. It’s probably worth your while to check the Akismet Spam page once a week to make sure that the plugin hasn’t captured any legitimate comments or trackbacks.
You can rescue those non-spam captured comments and trackbacks by following these steps (after you log in to your WordPress Dashboard):

1. Click Comments in the left navigation menu.
The Comments page appears, displaying a list of the most recent comments on your blog.
2. Click the Spam link.
The Comments page now displays all spam comments that the plugin
caught.

3. Browse through the list of spam comments, looking for any comments

or trackbacks that are legitimate.
4. If you locate a comment or trackback that’s legitimate, select the
Approve link directly below the entry.
The comment is marked as legitimate. In other words, WordPress recognizes that you don’t consider this comment to be spam. WordPress then approves the comment and publishes it on your blog.

Check your spam filter often. Lisa just found four legitimate comments
caught in her spam filter; she was able to de-spam them, releasing them from the binds of Akismet and unleashing them upon the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Dealing with Comment and Trackback Spam

If you have your options set so that comments aren’t published to your blog

until you approve them, you can approve comments from the Comments
page, as well. Just click the Pending link to list the comments that are pend-
ing moderation. If you have comments and/or trackbacks awaiting modera-
tion, they appear on this page, and you can approve them, mark them as
spam, or delete them.
WordPress immediately notifies you of any comments sitting in the modera-
tion queue, awaiting your action. This notification, which appears on every
single page, is a small circle, or bubble, in the left navigation menu, to the
right of Comments. Figure 5-6 shows that Lisa has 20 comments pending
moderation. She’d better get busy and deal with those comments!

 

Ugh. The absolute bane of every blogger’s existence is comment and trackback spam. When blogs became the “It” things on the Internet, spammers saw an opportunity. If you’ve ever received spam e-mail, the concept is similar and just as frustrating.

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Managing Comments and Trackbacks

When you invite readers to comment on your site, you, as the site admin-
istrator, have full access to manage and edit those comments through the
Comments page, which you can access on your WordPress Dashboard.
To find your comments, click the Comments link on the Comments menu; the Comments page opens.

 

When you hover over a comment with your mouse, several links appear that give you the opportunity to manage the comment:

✦ Unapprove: This link appears only if you have comment moderation
turned on. Also, it appears only on approved comments. The comment
is placed in the moderation queue, which you can get to by clicking the
Pending link that appears below the Comments page header. The moder-
ation queue is kind of a holding area for comments that haven’t yet been
published to your blog.
✦ Reply: Makes a text box drop down, where you can type and submit
your reply to this person. This feature eliminates the need to load your live site in order to reply to a comment.

✦ Quick Edit: Opens the comment options inline, without ever leaving

the Comments page. You can configure options such as name, e-mail
address, URL, and comment content. Click the Save button to save your
changes.
✦ Edit: Opens the Edit Comment page, where you can edit the different
fields, such as name, e-mail address, URL, and comment content
✦ Spam: Marks the comment as spam and marks it as spam in the data-
base, where it will never be heard from again! (Actually, it’s stored in the database as spam; you just don’t see it in your comments list unless you click the Spam link at the top of the Comments page.)
✦ Trash: This link does exactly what it says; it sends the comment to the
trash can and deletes it from your blog. You can access comments that
have been sent to the trash to permanently delete them from your blog,
or restore them.

If you have a lot of comments listed on the Comments page and want to bulk-

edit them, select the check boxes to the left of all the comments you want to
manage; then select one of the following from the Bulk Actions drop-down
list at the top left of the page: Approve, Mark as Spam, Unapprove, or Delete

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Comment and trackback display

Almost every single WordPress theme displays comments at the bottom of
each post published in WordPress. You can do custom styling of the com-
ments so that they match the design of your site by using several items:
✦ WordPress template tags: Tags related to the display of comments and
trackbacks. For more on these tags, see Book VI, Chapter 3.
✦ Basic HTML: Using HTML markup helps you provide unique styles to
display content. For information about the use of basic HTML.

✦ CSS: Every WordPress theme has a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) template
called style.css. Within this CSS template, you define the styles and
CSS markup that creates a custom look and feel for the comment and
trackback display on your site. You can find more information about
using CSS .

✦ Graphics: Using graphics to enhance and define your branding, style,
and visual design is an integral part of Web design. Because we can’t
fully cover graphic design in a single chapter, you may want to check
out WordPress Web Design For Dummies, which Lisa wrote, for great
information on graphic and Web-site design with WordPress (published
by Wiley).

✦ WordPress widgets: WordPress has a built-in widget to display the most
recent comments published to your site by your visitors. You also can
find several plugins that display comments in different ways, including
top comments, most popular posts based on the number of comments,
comments that display the author’s photo, and more. For information
about widgets and plugins for these purposes.

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Tracking back

The best way to understand trackbacks is to think of them as comments, except for one thing: Trackbacks are comments left on your blog by other blogs, not by actual people. Although this process may sound mysterious, it’s actually perfectly reasonable.
A trackback happens when you make a post on your blog and, within that
post, you provide a link to a post made by another blogger in a different
blog. When you publish that post, your blog sends a sort of electronic
memo to the blog you linked to. That blog receives the memo and posts an
acknowledgment of receipt in a comment within the post that you linked to
on their site.
That memo is sent via a network ping (a tool used to test, or verify, whether
a link is reachable across the Internet) from your site to the site you link
to. This process works as long as both blogs support trackback protocol.
Trackbacks can also come to your site by way of a pingback — which, really,
is the same thing as a trackback, but the terminology varies from blog plat-
form to blog platform.
Sending a trackback to a blog is a nice way of telling the blogger that you
like the information she presented in her blog post. Every blogger appreci-
ates the receipt of trackbacks to their posts from other bloggers. Figure 5-3
shows one trackback link, below the Who’s Linking Here header.

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Interacting with Readers through Comments

People can leave notes for you that are published to your site, and you can
respond and engage your readers in conversation about the topic at hand
(refer to Figure 5-1 and Figure 5-2). Having this function in your blog cre-
ates the opportunity to expand the thoughts and ideas that you present in
your blog post by giving your readers the opportunity to share their own
thoughts.
In the WordPress Dashboard, you have full administrative control over who

can and can’t leave comments. In addition, if someone leaves a comment
that has questionable content, you can edit the comment or delete it. You’re
also free to disallow comments on your blog. The Discussion Settings page
in your Dashboard contains all the settings for allowing, or disallowing, com-
ments on your site; flip back to Book III, Chapter 3 to dig into those settings,
what they mean, and how you can use them to configure the exact interac-
tive environment that you want for your site.

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