These horses are somehow not cool. Speeding up your blog is.

I am working on a WordPress project that has a pretty heavy database, and I want to be able to auto-optimize the WordPress database. Even though they are integrating this functionality into WordPress 3.0, I want it now, and without having to use a plugin (I have had some issues with WP-DBManager configuring properly on a few sites).

If you add the following code to your functions.php file, it will automatically optimize your WordPress database every 6 hours, keeping it squeaky clean.

Add to your theme’s functions.php

function kws_optimize_tables() {
	$debug = false;

	// Check to see if the lastOptimized option has been set (it's just a timestamp)
	$lastOptimized = get_option('lastOptimized');

	// If it's been longer than 1 week since it was last optimized, do it up!
	if(!$lastOptimized || $lastOptimized < strtotime("-1 week", time())) { 

		// Update the lastOptimized option to the current time
		update_option('lastOptimized', time());

		// Do some MySQLing to optimize each table in the WordPress DB
		$query = 'SHOW TABLES FROM '. DB_NAME;
		$result = mysql_query($query);
		if (!$result && $debug) {
			print('Invalid query: ' . mysql_error());
		}
		$num_rows = mysql_num_rows($result);
		if ($num_rows){
			 while ($row = mysql_fetch_row($result)){
		         $query = 'OPTIMIZE TABLE '.$row[0];
				 $result = mysql_query($query);
				 if (!$result && $debug) {
				    print('Invalid query: ' . mysql_error());
				}
			}
		}
	}
}
add_action('init', 'kws_optimize_tables');

Just wanted to share some quick code. If you want to change the frequency of the optimization, change “1 week” to whatever PHP strtotime() variable you want. Make sure to keep the minus sign in there though!

Related posts:

1. How to tell if your WordPress Plugin or Widget is Activated in WordPress
2. Get Adjacent Images – More WordPress Functions
3. Mad Mimi Plugin for WordPress

If you want to disable the WordPress plugin WP-DownloadManager‘s download-css.css file from being loaded, add the following code to your functions.php file:

remove_action('wp_print_styles', 'downloads_stylesheets');

Alternatively, if you would just like to use your own stylesheet, you can add a file named download-css.css to your theme’s directory, and the plugin will automatically load your stylesheet instead.

Related posts:

1. How to prevent your Google background image from fading in slowly.
2. How I fixed WP-DownloadManager 404 errors
3. Constant Contact WordPress Widget – Add a Newsletter Signup Form to your Sidebar

The Shopp default RSS/XML/Google Base solution was not enough.

I needed to have a Google Base feed that featured all the store products. For some reason, the recommended process wasn’t working for me. It was either showing only recent products, or it wasn’t working at all.  Here’s how I fixed it:

This code will show you the way to full indexing. Trust it. Feel it.

Add the following code before case "newproducts-rss": (near line 1295) in Shopp.php:

// This adds sitemap functionality for all products
case "catalog-rss":
	$CatalogProducts = new CatalogProducts(array('show' => 50000));
	header("Content-type: application/rss+xml; charset=utf-8");
	echo shopp_rss($CatalogProducts->rss());
	exit();
	break;

Once you add that, you will be able to see a RSS feed of your entire catalog by visiting yoursite.com/your-shop-location/index.php?shopp_lookup=catalog-rss

If the RSS feed is empty, try commenting out (add // before it) the following code near line 484 in /core/model/Category.php: $item = apply_filters('shopp_rss_item',$entry,$product);

Hope this helps!

Related posts:

1. Edit Product Link for Shopp Plugin
2. Add Canonical Tags to Shopp Plugin for SEO
3. Fixing the Interspire Google Base Feed

I’ve been using Joost de Valk’s Simple Taxonomies plugin for a couple of projects, and I’ve been very disappointed by the formatting of the terms output code.

When configuring the plugin, you have the option of choosing “Add terms to the end of posts” or “Add terms to the end of excerpts.” If you do, you get a <div> and a couple of spans. Not very semantic. Also, the code uses an #id, instead of a .class, meaning that if you have more than one post on a page with taxonomies, it no longer validates.

Simple Taxonomies uses terms, so let’s make a list of them!

Here’s a way to reformat the code and prevent overwriting in future plugin updates. We’re going to strip the code and use a definition list instead (<dl>). Definition lists in HTML have a term and description; just as a custom taxonomies creates a taxonomy and its terms.

Add this code to your theme’s functions.php file:

// Remove the default Simple Taxonomies Formatting
remove_filter(   'the_excerpt', 'yoast_simple_taxonomies_excerpt_filter', 10, 1 );
remove_filter(   'the_content', 'yoast_simple_taxonomies_content_filter', 10, 1 );

// Make your own filter
function custom_simple_taxonomies_filter( $content, $type ) {
   $opt  = get_option('yoast_simpletax');
   $output = '';
   foreach ( $opt['taxonomies'] as $taxonomy ) {
      $filter = false;
      if ( $type == 'content' && $taxonomy['filter'] ) {
         $filter = true;
      } else if ( $type == 'excerpt' && $taxonomy['filterexcerpt'] ) {
         $filter = true;
      }
      if ( $filter ) {
         // For each term, create a dd wrapper (Definition Description)
         $terms = get_the_term_list( $post->ID, $taxonomy['name'], $taxonomy['label'].':</dt><dd>', ',</dd><dd>', '</dd>' );
         if ($terms)
            // For each taxonomy, create a dt wrapper (Definition Term)
            $output .= "\t".'<dt class="taxonomy-'.$taxonomy['name'].'">'.$terms."\n";
      }
   }
   if ($output != '') {
      // Wrap the shebang in a dl (Definition List)
      $content .= '<dl class="yoast-taxonomy">'."\n".$output."\n".'</dl>'."\n";
   }
   return $content;
}

// Recreate the functions
function custom_simple_taxonomies_content_filter( $content ) {
   return custom_simple_taxonomies_filter( $content, 'content' );
}
function custom_simple_taxonomies_excerpt_filter( $content ) {
   return custom_simple_taxonomies_filter( $content, 'excerpt' );
}
// Add the filters back on the content
add_filter(   'the_excerpt', 'custom_simple_taxonomies_excerpt_filter', 10, 1 );
add_filter(   'the_content', 'custom_simple_taxonomies_content_filter', 10, 1 );

So, just paste the code into your functions.php file, and then you just need to style the output so that it looks the same (or not), and you’re all set.

Related posts:

1. Strip Extra ImageScaler Attribute from Plugin-Generated Code
2. Simple Vertical Align Plugin for jQuery
3. Add Custom Taxonomy Title Tags Support to All-In-One SEO Pack

Set up a testimonials category — no need for a plugin.

There are a couple of plugins designed specifically for testimonials, but I didn’t want to use them; they use their own databases, and don’t keep with WordPress’ simplicity. If possible, the best way to work with WordPress is to use it’s built-in functionality.

I also wanted to have the testimonials as a category in WP, rather than as a separate plugin. This code will work for any type of category, not just a testimonial.

Here’s how to create a random post item in your sidebar:

1. Create a Testimonials Category

   I created a category for testimonials. In this example, the category ID is 3

2. Create the Query

   query_posts('showposts=1&cat=3&orderby=rand');

   Let’s break down what is going on in the code above:

   1. Request one result (showposts=1)
   2. Define the category ID for testimonials (cat=3)
   3. Randomize the result (orderby=rand)

3. Display the testimonial

   <li class="widget">
   <h2>Testimonials</h2>
   
   	<?php
   	if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post();
   	?>
   <h3><?php the_title() ?></h3>
   
   		<?php the_excerpt() ?>
   	<?php endwhile; endif; ?>
   </li>
   
   <?php wp_reset_query(); ?>
   

With the simple code above, you can add testimonials to your WordPress website as a basic category, and have a random testimonial displayed in your sidebar.

To take it one step further, you can create a Testimonials template page, and have it as a static page on your website by simply having query_posts('cat=3).

Use Advanced Category Excluder

You can exclude the testimonials category from your sidebar category widget and many other places on the site without having to tear up your theme and add a lot of custom code. Simply download and install the Advanced Cagtegory Excluder (ACE) plugin for WordPress.

Note: I updated this post to be more relevant and simple. The original post was on 2/21/2008.

Related posts:

1. How to tell if your WordPress Plugin or Widget is Activated in WordPress
2. Save Coding Time by Creating Special-Case Categories in WordPress
3. Constant Contact WordPress Widget – Add a Newsletter Signup Form to your Sidebar

WordPress, just get the adjacent image links. I’ll tell you what to do with them!

WordPress is normally great about providing functions that have a return and an echo version.  In WordPress, if a function has the prefix get_, then it does not echo (print it into the content), but rather returns the result so that it can be saved as a variable, like so:  $example = get_example();

There are some functions that only have echo capability, so I wanted to share my work-around with you all.

Updated image_link functions

• adjacent_image_link() » get_adjacent_image_link()
• previous_image_link() » get_previous_image_link()
• next_image_link() » get_next_image_link()

To add the functions, paste the following code in your theme’s functions.php file:

// These functions are copied directly from wp-includes/media.php
// and modified to return the result instead of echo it.
function get_adjacent_image_link($prev = true) {
	global $post;
	$post = get_post($post);
	$attachments = array_values(get_children( array('post_parent' => $post->post_parent, 'post_status' => 'inherit', 'post_type' => 'attachment', 'post_mime_type' => 'image', 'order' => 'ASC', 'orderby' => 'menu_order ID') ));
	foreach ( $attachments as $k => $attachment )
		if ( $attachment->ID == $post->ID )
			break;
	$k = $prev ? $k - 1 : $k + 1;
	if ( isset($attachments[$k]) )
		return wp_get_attachment_link($attachments[$k]->ID, 'thumbnail', true);
}
function get_previous_image_link() {
	return get_adjacent_image_link(true);
}
function get_next_image_link() {
	return get_adjacent_image_link(false);
}

Now you can use these functions on your website.  Any questions?  

Related posts:

1. Nofollow SEO for your WordPress Functions
2. Auto-Optimize WordPress Database without a Plugin
3. Get medium image size in WordPress

When moving from WordPress.com, my Digg shortcodes broke.

I wanted a simple way to transition my Digg chicklets to a WordPress.org installation.

I created a function that does nothing special, except for reproducing the Digg shortcode functionality on WordPress.com. All you need to do is enter [digg=http://digg.com/path_to_story_on_digg], and it will create a Digg This chicklet for you. Here’s the code in action →

function kwd_digg_shortcode($content = null) {
    $url = $content[0];
    if( substr($url, 0, 1) == '=') { $url = substr($url, 1); };
    $content = '
    <div class="alignright"> <!-- for layout only; you can modify -->
    <script type="text/javascript"> digg_url = "'.$url.'";</script>
    <script src="http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    </div>
';
    return $content;
}
add_shortcode('digg', 'kwd_digg_shortcode');

How to install this on your blog

Simply copy the code above into your theme’s functions.php file. Any existing Digg shortcodes should automatically start working again, and you also will be able to use the functionality as you were doing on the WordPress.com site.

Related posts:

1. Nofollow SEO for your WordPress Functions
2. Save Coding Time by Creating Special-Case Categories in WordPress
3. Auto-Optimize WordPress Database without a Plugin

Mountain America Jerky Redesign

Mountain America Jerky - Before and After Redesign

I’m happy to announce that today the new Mountain America Jerky website launched. Check out the site and try some of their crazy-good Garlic Black Pepper Beef Jerky. One perk of working with a nice client who sells beef jerky is getting samples of the product! Seriously, though, it’s the best jerky I’ve ever had.

I started working with Mountain America Jerky as a SEO. Jerky is a competitive field, and they wanted to improve their ranking. After working with Chuck on the website’s optimization, he told me he wanted to go big and rebrand the site. The result is a rustic, functional, beautiful website.

Developing with Cufón

Making text look nice is now a joy.

When creating a visually rich site, there is often a tradeoff between aesthetics and functionality. That is especially true when you’re trying to make sure the site is SEO-friendly.

When creating the design for the site, I wanted to keep the nice fonts I was using, and I had just heard of Cufón text replacement, an alternative to using images or Flash for text. Little did I know that I would end up using Cufón for the entire site’s content…and that it would look great.

Cufón is not without issues

There were a few issues I encountered while developing the website:

1. If there was white space around a tag or in between tags, Cufón creates additional canvas blocks that would completely screw up the layout.
2. No CSS word-spacing property support
3. JavaScript size of the font files

1. Removing white space for Cufón

Instead of coding without any line breaks, or tabs, I used PHP gzip functionality to save the HTML as a variable, then strip out all the line breaks. That means by the time Cufón touches it, the white space is gone and the problem solved.

Add the following code to the top of your site’s PHP files (may not work on your server, but something similar should. Taken from  this WebsiteTips.com article):

ob_start ("ob_gzhandler"); // Initialize ob_gzhandler to send and compress data
ob_start("compress"); // Call the function 'compress'
header("Content-type: text/html;charset: UTF-8");
function compress($buffer) {
/* remove comments */
$buffer = preg_replace('!/\*[^*]*\*+([^/][^*]*\*+)*/!', '', $buffer);
/* remove tabs, spaces, new lines, etc. */
$buffer = str_replace(array("\r\n", "\r", "\n", "\t"), '', $buffer);
/* remove unnecessary spaces */
$buffer = str_replace(array('   ', '  ','  '), ' ', $buffer);
$buffer = str_replace('{ ', '{', $buffer);
$buffer = str_replace(' }', '}', $buffer);
$buffer = str_replace('; ', '; ', $buffer);
$buffer = str_replace(', ', ', ', $buffer);
$buffer = str_replace(' {', '{', $buffer);
$buffer = str_replace('} ', '}', $buffer);
$buffer = str_replace(': ', ': ', $buffer);
$buffer = str_replace(' ,', ' ,', $buffer);
$buffer = str_replace(' ;', ';', $buffer);
$buffer = str_replace('. ', '. ', $buffer);
return $buffer;
}
Once that’s added to your site, the output should be super-condensed (view the page source), and the Cufón additional layout issues should be fixed.

2. Word Spacing for Cufón

There are more technical ways to do what I did to solve this issue, but here’s what I did: I enclosed the spaces that were too large with , and gave .smallspace a font-size:.35em;. You’ll want to play with the size a bit; the font I was using had spaces that were way too big.

So, instead of the headline code being <h1>Beef Jerky</h1>, it became <h1>Beef<span class="smallspace"> </span>Jerky</h1>

. That made the word spacing much better for the longer headlines on the site.

3. Reducing the size of the font files

The fonts were the largest file in the whole site, but I really wanted to use them! So, what I did was:

• Combine the three fonts into one Javascript file
• Put the code at the bottom of the page (which makes the content show up unstyled for a moment, but it saves people from slower connections from a long-ass wait). Load speed improved noticeably.
• Used the great SmartOptimizer to automatically implement many load speed best practices, including caching, far-future expires, and more. Check out both SmartOptimizer and YSlow for more information, it’s GREAT; you won’t regret it!

So the home page went from 830Kb to 675Kb (still large, but much better), and after the first page load, a huge amount of the site’s resources are cached, resulting in load times of under 1 second.

Summary

Working with Cufón was great, and it is definitely on the top of my list for neat tools. It would have been SO easy just to replace the headlines, but having replaced almost all the site’s text, I can say that it’s possible, and not too hard.

Any questions about Cufón, the process, or thoughts about the website?

Related posts:

1. Denver Roofing Company – Website Launched!
2. Career-Magic.com Launched
3. Denver SEO informative website launched: DenverSEO.info

Update: Now use the SEO WordSpinner plugin to implement this concept.
Use the get_seo_spin() PHP function in your theme’s footer.php file.

Footer links are dropping in SEO value

How to stay relevant while getting great links

As a web designer and SEO, I place links in the footers of most of my designs. Clients don’t mind (I always request the link), and it’s a high-quality link. Most small web design and SEO companies do.  Footer links have become very spammy, however, and sites try to stuff as many links there as possible.

SEOmoz has an article about footer link optimization and claims that

Footer links may be devalued by search engines automatically
Check out the evidence – Yahoo! says they may devalue footer links, Bill Slawski uncovers patents suggesting the same and anecdotal evidence suggests Google might do this (or go further) as well. Needless to say, if you want to make sure your links are passing maximum value, it’s wise to avoid the footer (particularly the footer class itself).

The era of the PageRank-passing footer links are coming to an end. The search engines have a good reason for devaluing the links — but how can we get the juice back?

Let’s consider the following issues:

• Footer links are being devalued by search engines
• Footer links have a low click-through rate
• Having the same link on every page makes the link less valuable
• Google doesn’t like spam

Stop footer link extinction by understanding the cause.

Why footer links are being devalued

The problem search engines have with attribute links is that they’re on every page in the same place, are off-topic, and exist solely to build links.

The irrelevant links at the bottom of a page, which will not be as valuable for a user, don’t add to the quality of the user experience, so we don’t account for those in our ranking.
Priyank Garg, Yahoo! Search Technology

Links that are not seen as valuable for a user or add to the quality of the user experience will be ignored. The key, then, is to provide users with value. Value = unique and relevant content.

1. Placement & Structure: Links are on the bottom of the page. Many footer DIVs are named something like #footer, so are easily identifiable.
2. Anchor Text & Outbound Links
   1. Not Unique: Attribute links are often the same on every page, obviously not unique content. Links often go to the same URL. 
   2. Not Relevant: How often do you see a relevant and unique-seeming attribution link? Never.

a) Placement & Structure: Randomize link location

Step 1: Let’s randomize!

It’s well known that having the same code on every page isn’t as valuable as having different code in different places. So, instead of having a link always at the bottom, randomize the placement.

Step 2: Change up the tag

Now that your link and text is in a different place, you want to also make sure that there’s another variable to add an additional layer of uniqueness.

• <h2><a href=
• <h3><a href=
• <h4><a href=
• <h5><a href=
• <strong><a href=
• <em><a href=
• <span><a href=

b) Anchor Text & Outbound Links: Be unique and relevant

If you’re pushing the same, highly-targeted keywords on all the affiliate links, that is a problem.  Or, rather, it will be a problem when search engines really start coming down hard on this issue.

Step 1: Randomizing the anchor text and link provides variety

Instead of having one message, mixing up the text will make each link unique.

• Denver SEO
• SEO Denver
• Denver SEO Company
• WordPress SEO
• Blog SEO
• Etc…

You see the value in that? Yeah, well the algorithm will, too.  Unfortunately, it’s a little spammy, and the humans doing quality control might not like it as much.

Step 2: Making the links and anchor text relevant

If you’re working on a Widget site, then the obvious way to make the link more on-topic is to have your links go to a Widget SEO post on your blog, a Widget Site Portfolio page on your website, or even perform a search on your blog for widgets.  Even if it turns up an empty result, the links will be more on topic.

• How SEO Helps Widget Companies – points to an article on your blog
• Our company got Small Business SEO services – points to page on your website
• We LOVE our new website – points to Widget Co. testimonial on your website
• How we rank well in searches – points to article on Widget site about your SEO company

Each of the unique anchor text options now go to a relevant, targeted page, and most important: the links are not spammy.  Of course, if you want to stick with the Step 1 version and use “spammy”-seeming links, that is fine, too. Until your site gets banned.  For a less spammy tactic, you can add another variable: the title attribute. Hover over the links above. Not spam, but a good link that has value to the user AND is chock full of SEO awesomeness.

Check out the SEO Randomizer code

Based on the concepts in this article, I have been working on a PHP script that could be added to a WordPress functions.php file.

Check out the SEO Randomizer demo and here’s the SEO Randomizer source code. Use the SEO WordSpinner plugin to implement this concept.

WordPress ‘User Value SEO Plugin’ to come

Katz Web Design is going to be developing a plugin for WordPress that will incorporate all of these features into a wonderful SEO plugin.  Stay tuned.

Update: Katz Web Services has released the SEO WordSpinner plugin that allows you to put this concept into practice today. Try it out, and leave a comment with what you think of the plugin!

What do you think? Leave comments, improvements, criticism, etc. below.

Related posts:

1. SEO Google Profiles – Google Adds NoFollow to Links
2. Nofollow SEO for your WordPress Functions
3. Kick SEO Ass with SEO WordSpinner Plugin for WordPress

Pretty crude idea of nofollow, isn't it?

While working on a recent website, I became frustrated by the lack of nofollow support in many WordPress functions.  Make that, most WordPress functions.

There are a few WP functions that I wanted to add nofollow to, so here’s a list and a download link:

Download the nofollow_functions.php file

next_posts_link() → nofollow_next_posts_link()

When you’re in a single post, you can use next_posts_link to generate a link to the next post.  The title can be the name of the next post, or something as simple as…well…”next post”. If you’re using your blog title as the anchor text, you already will have the same link coming from your archives page — and probably inside a H2, which is much more valuable. To give that link more weight, we add nofollow. If you have some other text, like “next post”, then you definitely will want nofollow.

previous_posts_link() → nofollow_previous_posts_link()

Same issues as nofollowing the next_posts_link() function.

post_comments_feed_link() → nofollow_post_comments_feed_link()

I didn’t want search engines spending their time indexing the comments feed for each post — they should be automatically checking the new comments anyway, so why have that issue arise?  Nofollow it is!

comments_popup_link() → nofollow_comments_popup_link()

If you have a link to leave a comment on your archives or index page of your blog, you have a slew of links that say “leave a comment” or something similar. That’s just not great link sculpting going on there, now is it? Nofollow it is!

next_image_link() → get_next_image_link() &
previous_image_link() → get_previous_image_link()

In an attachment.php file, next_image_link() and previous_image_link() are similar to next_posts_link() and previous_posts_link() — except they provide links to the next image in the gallery, rather than the next post in the blog. I wanted to be able to have the functions return a value rather than echo one, so I added these functions that keep the WordPress structure of adding get_ before a function to represent it does the same thing.

the_category → nofollow_the_category &
get_the_category →  nofollow_get_the_category &
get_the_category_list → nofollow_get_the_category_list

Added 2/20/09: I’ve modified these category functions to be nofollow.  If you want to list the categories your post is in without having them followed, use these functions instead of your standard ones.

Installation

Once you download these WordPress nofollow functions, if you don’t have a functions.php file yet, rename it to functions.php and copy it to your theme’s folder.  If you do have a functions.php file, copy and paste the code into the file. Then, use the nofollow versions of the functions in place of the standard versions in your theme.

Leave any questions in the comments below!

Related posts:

1. Get Adjacent Images – More WordPress Functions
2. Blog Comments Now Pass Juice – No More `nofollow`
3. SEO Google Profiles – Google Adds NoFollow to Links