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If you are an internet marketer, you probably have quite a bit on your plate already.   You have spent a great deal of time putting together a good website or blog and are really concentrating on how to deliver your product or information.   Unfortunately, there are a certain breed of people out there in cyberspace whose self appointed mission is to break into your vault and create havoc.

If you are using WordPress as a platform to blog from, here are a few tips on how to secure WordPress

Keep WordPress Updated and Backed Up

Older versions of WordPress still have many vulnerabilities that are widely known in the hacker community.  To their credit, the WordPress people are always doing their best to plug security holes and are updating constantly.   So your first line of defense is to keep your blogging platform updated.

Medical Tip:  To avoid increasing your blood pressure, always be sure to make a backup of your blog before installing any updates.   Its a good idea to regularly to keep your WordPress backed up regularly anyhow, since any number of things can go wrong.

Another tip is to delete the meta tags that tells the world of the version of Wp you are using.  This info is usually in the header file.

Keep Your Plugins Hidden

One of the great things about using WordPress is the plugins. While they greatly increase your blogs capabilities, they too contain certain bugs and vulnerabilities that are exploited by hackers.   So be sure to keep them updated also.

It is easy for anyone to see what type of plugins you are using by visiting the wp-content/plugins folder.   To keep potential intruders from finding out the plugins that you use, create an empty  ‘index.html’  file and place it in your plugins folder

Its also a good idea to check your plugin folder and make sure the plugins there are the ones you want.  Some hacker, once they get into your files upload their own plugin.   So if you see something that you are not familiar with, delete it.

Here is a  Free WP plugin that keeps track of the attempts to login to your site.   Many hackers use brute force to try and get your password.   So, if there are too many of them coming from the same IP address within a short period of time, the plugin will disable the login function for that IP range.   Login Lockdown:  bad-neighborhood.com.  Click on login lockdown and you will be taken to the download page.   Be sure to check out their other plugins to.

Change Your Passwords

This is an easy hack that is often exploited.  You can have a more  secure blog by making up a crazy, difficult password.   Even change it monthly if need be.

But not only your WordPress login.  Don’t forget your hosting account and your ftp passwords as well.

Headache tip: Be sure to write your passwords down immediately and keep all your them all in a safe place.

Secure the /wp-admin/ directory

Your  most sensitive Wordpress information is stored in the /wp-admin/ folder.  By default, WordPress leaves that folder open, so people can access these files to make changes  if they know what they are doing.

To secure this folder:

Place an .htaccess file inside the /wp-admin/ folder to block the access to all IP addresses, except yours.

Here is the code you need to put in the .htaccess file:

AuthUserFile /dev/null

AuthGroupFile /dev/null

AuthName “Example Access Control”

AuthType Basic

order deny,allow

deny from all

allow from xx.xx.xx.xx

allow from xx.xx.xxx.xx

Now, ff you ever find your site being redirected to another website you will need to:

Check For Hidden Code

This requires a bit more knowledge of the inner workings of WP on your part, so don’t mess with it unless you know what you are doing.

Browse your theme files

Log into your WordPress control panel, go to the theme editor, and look inside your theme files.   See if there are any lines of code that are not supposed to be there, or that contain a PHP code that you don’t recognize.

Check your database tables

Some hackers upload fake images to your “Uploads” folder and activate them with a plugin call.   To detect this you need to open PHPMyAdmin, browse the “wp-options” table, and edit the “active_plugins” record.

On that record you will see a list of all the plugins that active on your blog.   Delete any that seem unusual or that you aren’t using

Browse your site files through FTP

Log into your FTP account and browse through the folders on your site.   You are looking for any files that have a strange name or that look suspicious.    If you have another WordPress blog installed on another site, compare the structure of the files to make sure they match up.

Tip to avoid a heart attack:  Remember: Backup, backup, backup, before you star messing with anything!

Be Fearless

Billy Ojai

No matter how great your web design is, your website/blog is incomplete without plug-ins. There are different kinds of plug-ins that work for different websites and hence we have sorted out the top ten plug-ins that are indispensable to your WordPress website.

1. Kaltura Interactive Video Player Plug-in
This plug-in allows the upload and import videos directly from the player as well lets others add their own videos. It is so flexible that users can add comments and annotations that can have text bubbles and subtitles and edit the videos as they like. Users are also allowed to report abuse to any offensive content, they can rate the video and these can be shared and embedded with any widget as well.

2. All in One SEO Pack Plug-in
This particular plug-in plays a key role in optimizing the blog you have on WordPress. It does so in way that the posts written by you and the pages are indexed for the search ability of the search engines. The All in One SEO pack plug-in is so effective that it singles out pages individually and increases their visibility.

3. WordPress Database Backup
Just like it is necessary to keep a back up of the data we work on, similarly it is important to save a back up of the database we work on. Say for example, you have installed a system where in your email allows the option of attachment along with it. Now, if you do not have a database backup plug-in installed for your website, you will lose this feature and you may have to re-install it which is time consuming.

4. Akismet
Your website just cannot do without this plug-in. The primary feature of this add-in is to filter all the spam/junk comments, links and keep them away from your website. It is known as Automattic Kismet.

5. Feedburner Feedsmith Plugin
This is a vital plug-in for your WordPress website - the Feedburner Feedsmith Plug-in helps in redirecting the clicks made on your standard website to the feedburner RSS feeds that allows the subscribers.

6. Max Blog Press Unblockable Popup
This plug-in is very useful in letting people know about your latest updates through the newsletters. The best thing about this is that it comes as a unblockable pop up that obviously cannot be ignored. So, people are bound to notice it.

7. Google XML Sitemaps
The best way to navigate through your website is sitemap. Getting this plug-in means that no matter what changes you make in the website, addition/deletion of pages and this plug in informs Google about it and it gets updated automatically.

8. WordPress Auto-Tagger
As the name suggests, whatever posts you put in your blog/website, the plug-in selects the apt tags for them by analysing the popular ones on Yahoo and other search results related to your website content.

9. Redirection
Redirection plug in comes along with WordPress basically to take care of the 301 redirections, errors like 404 and basically manage any aspect that your website is lacking in. This plug in proves useful when you are trying to migrate pages from some old webpage.

10. RSS Includes Pages
If you want your pages to appear in the RSS feeds, simply go ahead and get this plug-in for your WordPress website or blog.

cosmin_dan2002 asked:


i need to use wordpress as a CMS rather than a blog..i need to create a few pages and easily update images and text from it…how can i do that?how can i transform the sidebar in a left column with links, menus etc?thank you

Create a video blog

Jen asked:


I’m looking for a photo-blog style Wordpress theme that I can add a Paypal cart feature to each photo, but also contains photo albums and not just a gallery. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks x

Create a video blog…instantly.

wowzers333 asked:


After I embed the code in the “Add arbitrary text or HTML” widget sidebar for WordPress and click “save” the HTML that I added in the box disappears… wtf? Completely gone and obviously doesn’t show up on my wordpress blog page.

Any Suggestions?

Thanks

IT Support

MatthewBredel asked:

www.matthewbredel.com How to Install, turn on and activate the Wordpress plugin Askimet. This plugin will protect your blog from annoying spam.

Free Tech Support

Andrea F asked:


I am no tech wizard, but it looks pretty simple to export my blog over to Wordpress. I have had offers to have it done for me (I would have to pay them), but I want to do it myself.

Any thoughts or advice?

Free Tech Support

alcor1 asked:

Molto semplice ma per chi non lo sapesse spero sia utile lnx.rickyounge.com … wordpress themes “install themes” “how to” “come installare” blog

Surrey City BC