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Thursday, 15 March 2018 17:13

Create a Blog - Part 8 (Q & A)

Still got questions, then hopefully they should be answered here. This is basically the research I used to make this series of articles.

Common

General Alias Articles

Profile Images

Google

Delete a Gmail profile picture

Forwarding Gmail email

Migrate my Android phone to new Gmail account

Delete an Android Calendar.

Google Play - You Don't Have Any Devices

Wipe contacts on my android phone but not from my Google account

Android Samsung Notes / S-Memo

How to Sync Google Calendar with Outlook

Google Play how to see my purchased apps

Gmail Aliases

Moving Google Services to another account

Moving Google Analytics Property

YouTube Channel

  • How To Make A YouTube Channel! (2018 Beginners Guide) - YouTube - This is a tutorial on how to make a youtube channel for beginners 2018. In this video, i'll guide you through the process of creating an account and even show you how to upload a video along with channel art.
  • Manage your Brand Account - Google Account Help - You can set up and manage a special kind of account for your business or brand, called a Brand Account. You can use certain Google services, like Google+ and YouTube, with this account to create an online presence.
  • Create a new channel - YouTube Help - With a Google Account, you can watch and like videos and subscribe to channels. However, without a YouTube channel, you have no public presence on YouTube. Even if you have a Google Account, you need to create a YouTube channel to upload videos, comment or make playlists. You can use a computer or the YouTube mobile site to create a new channel.

Google Maps vs Google Places

Feedburner

Microsoft

Moving an xbox profile

Move an email alias between Microsoft accounts

There is an element in risk because the aliases become available immediately after release or up to 30 days. Read these articles to decide.

Microsoft/Outlook.com aliases

Change Xbox Gamertag

Xbox Gamerpics

Installing Skype (not from the store)

I do not want to install skpe from the store because I do not want to login into windows with my Microsoft account.

Delete a Skype account

Things have changed now. If you have an old skype account you have to link it to a Microsoft account and then delete the Microsoft account which will delete both.

Change a Skype Username

The answer is you cannot. It is tied into your Microsoft account. I do not know if changing your primary alias will change your skype username.

What is my Skype ID

Multi Skype

outlook.com emails going into spam

Where to view my Microsoft/Xbox support requests ?

Yahoo

Close a Yahoo Account

Delete a Flickr Account

You can delete a Flickr account without deleting your Yahoo account and then create a new Flickr account if you want.

Forward Yahoo email

Switch between Classic and Basic Yahoo Mail

Yahoo Aliases

Flickr General

Change Flickr Screen Name / Real Name

Facebook

Facebook app namespace is “Already used by some other app”

When I followed the instructions from EasyBlog I got this error. It is caused by the namespace easyblogapp is already used and you need to add your website.

  1. Go to your App.
  2. Select Settings option from the left sidebar.
  3. then add a namespace.

Facebook app namespace is "Already used by some other app" - Stack Overflow

and

  1. Click Apps and then select your app.
  2. Click the Settings button on the left side of the screen.
  3. In the Basic settings, click the Add Platform button below the settings configuration.
  4. Select Website in the platform dialog.
  5. Enter your URL (localhost works here).
  6. In the App Domains text input, add your domain that matches the one in the URL.
  7. Save your settings.

why I am unable to add apps domain to my app ? | Facebook Help Community | Facebook

Create a Facebook Page

  • How To Create a Facebook Page - YouTube - How To Create a Facebook Page- Derral demonstrates and explains how to create a Facebook page for business, public figure, charity or cause, any reason that you may need to create a Facebook page.
  • How to Create a Facebook Fan Page for Your Blog - A step-by-step tutorial on creating a Facebook fan page for your blog or website. I choose 'Brand or Product' and then 'Website' for my blog.

Delete posts from Facebook

Facebook Instant Articles

Twitter

General

Wordpress

Username

  • Change Your Username — Support — WordPress.com
    • Videos on how to change your username.
    • Once you change your username you will not be able to change it back and the old name will not be available for you or anyone to use. If you just want to show your name differently please only change your Display Name.

Gravatar

Other

Change a GitHub username

Disqus

OneSignal

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Tuesday, 20 February 2018 09:28

Create a Blog - Part 7 (What Now?)

What Now!!!

So your blog is now all setup, you have you Online Social Identities at the ready, autoposting and other integrations are all done and the question you are asking is: What now?

I will outline some of my thoughts on what is next but you have to appreciate that I have only just got to this stage myself and I have used the process of building my own blog to create these instructions to help me and othersas I go.

What not to do

This is important to get a well liked blog by both Google and the general internet public:

  • Popups - People hate these
  • Too many adverts - It is ok to have adverts (if you want them) but dont over do it.
  • Keyword adverts - not sure what this is.
  • Blackhat SEO - This will get your blog penalised.

Don’t be scared to changes things

  • If you change categories, slug format or other stuff that might affect Google rankings, don’t be scared to make the changes as Google will sort itself out. You most likely will only make major changes at the beginning anyway.
  • I would advise not to make these changes lightly or all of the time. It is true things will sort themselves out but you should only do this when absolutely necessary.

Social Marketing / SEM

Now you have your site up and running your need to advertise it or push it, 'just because you build it, does not mean they will come’. It will take a while for Google to find/index your new site/blog and this is especially true for new domains.

  • Create a site map and submit it to Yahoo/Bing/Google
  • Google Analytics (does help despite what people say because Google knows you site exists and is run by a human)
  • Make sure Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media are linked correctly.

Newsletters

  • Having a newsletter can be good thing if you dont send them out all of the time.
  • A newsletter when you are a blog is most likely just going to be a list of recent articles, so you will might not need a seperate newsletter in this case. The 'newsletter subscription' could just be a wrapper for the blogging system article updates.

Monetise

General Advertising methods will be discussed in another tutorial.

  • Disqus with advertising.
  • Google/Bing/Yahoo advertising
  • Affiliate Links
  • Links to your own products
  • RSS feeds with adverts via Feedburner
  • Newsletters (with stuff in them)
  • Cloaked links (where you see an ad before going to the link) – not a fan of these
  • Direct advertising banners
  • Sell your own advertising

Running your Blog

Just some general ideas that need a mention. I might add to this as I go.

Writing Articles

long articles: pagination / long page / separate articles

when you have to split an article into many parts, it is acceptable to use 1 folder as you might reference the same image through the article, imagine an article like 1 large word document.

All images and media will be stored in

Blog Attribution

This is a worked example of blog attribution ssing this orginal source Article - Repair a Broken Ethernet Plug: 10 Steps (with Pictures) | instructables

  • Search on google for articles 'Ethernet cable plug repair clips'
  • And you will see the primary article from instructables heavily copied but everyone has a link back to the original article. Usually it is the article title hyperlinks or the websites domain name.
  • Example Articles that uses the instructables article in some way.

 

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Sunday, 18 February 2018 16:25

Create a Blog - Part 6 (Configure EasyBlog & Komento)

I will not descibe how to config every feature in EasyBlog and Komento, however below is a list of the main interaction features I would setup.

These features tend to focus on user interaction and social integration and just because you set all of these features up does not mean you have to use them but makes life easier to turn them on at a later date.

EasyBlog (System)

EasyBlog (Author/User)

Komento

Sort these

I think one of these will belong to facebook ssytem and one to facbook author

 

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Sunday, 18 February 2018 15:42

Create a blog - part 5 (Conclusions)

Step 19 - Bringing it altogether, what should I use?

Now you have read all my research let’s just review what has been said and then read the final conclusions.

Blogging System

Unless you want to use WordPress as a dedicated blogging system there is only one system you should use for Joomla, Easyblog. Easyblog has additional features such as remote blogging, inbuilt commenting, automatic Twitter and Facebook posting, Team Blogging, configurable URLs and much more rather than just dealing with the content. The beauty is you do not need to start finding additional plugins to do all the basics as you would with Joomla (only) or K2. There are other blogging systems for Joomla but they are paid and even so Easyblog seems to get the most votes and support. I can highly recommend the support, second to none.

My choice: Easyblog

Reasons: Lots of social integrations, configurable URLs and excellent support. Best blogging system for Joomla by far.

Commenting System

Local

If I were going to use a local commenting system I would choose, kommento. I would choose this over Jcomments. Komento it is well supported and has extra features such as automatic comment moderations, technology borrowed from WordPress. It is also made by Stakideas, the same producer as Easyblog. There would be no lag in displaying comments as they are stored in my database.

Remote

There is only one kid on the block for this, Disqus. It is everywhere and you can control comments from multiple sites in one control panel. The downside is the comments are not stored on your website. The comments  are Ajax driven and Google has only really just started indexing them.

My choice: Komento

Reasons: Well designed, allows my to control comments from different areas on my website and the comments are stored locally.

 www or non-www

This is a simple one to answer because I am runing a website with more than a blog on it and it is 2018. but for completeness there is another option if you are runngin a company website giving 2 options

  • http://mydemosite.com/ - This should be used for personal websites or blog websites, but if you prefer www you can still use it.
  • http://www.mydemosite.com/ - If running a company website you should always include the www as it seems to be the accepted standard.

My choice: non-www

Reasons: It is 2018 and QuantumWarp is more personal than corporate.

http or https

Again because it is 2018 and security and privacy is an issue an easy one to answer for all types of website.

My choice: https

Reasons: This is required for good ranking and security.

News or Blog

One thing to consider is whether your blog is a dedicated blog, personal blog, company websitee witha blog.

  1. If you are running a dedicated blog you should have your articles running from the root
  2. If you are running a website with more than a blog I would run it from a subfolder/menu item called ‘blog’
  3. If you are running a company website I would run it from a subfolder/menu item called  ‘news’

My Choice: /blog/

Reasons: QuantumWarp is more personal than corporate and I have other stuff on my website.

URL Slug

The only options I would consider are the following basic structures

  1. Date Based
  2. Article Tiltle Only

Date Based: If you do 5 articles a year why would you need to divide your articles up in too months and days? The answer is you wouldn’t and just using the year would probably be ok. For medium article volume sites using the year and the month seems enough this also seems quite popular online. See my notes from earlier on deciding the segmentation based on article post frequency for more information.

If you move your articles from category to category its URL will not get affected and therefore any link juice pointing to that page or indeed incoming links will not be affected. However if you change the article title it would be.

Article Tiltle Only: This URL structure is the simplest and a few large online blogs use it. Again like option 1 changing of an articles category will not affect it and so this is quite resilient. The articles are not arranged by a date in the slug but search engines do not really need this information in the slug anymore.

Not having category information in the URL does not seem to cause many online blogs issues.

My choice: https://www.mydemosite.com/{article_title}

Reasons: This slug is resistant to category change and is a popular method.

Asset storage

NB: This is only required if your bloggin system does not have an inbuilt method of handling assets.

Now this might sounds a really stupid thing to consider but when you are creating your blog articles you want to know where to put the images because of rules rather than having a guess each time or randomly creating a folder or worse, just dumping files anywhere. At first these methods will save you time but the longer you do it the harder it will be to find images, what to call folders and so on... until you wished you started doing things properly in the first place. After research I have came up with an excellent method for storing your images. It is expandable and prevents folders from becoming infinitely full (which can be a pain when enumerating folders with an FTP software) See my notes from earlier about deciding the segmentation level based on article post frequency where you should of already decided what level you requrie.

  • images/blog/{year}/{month}/{day}/{article_title}    (For large sites)
  • images/blog/{year}/{month}/{article_title}                (For medium sites)
  • images/blog/{year}/{article_title}                                  (For small sites)

Again like URLs they can be slightly tweaked to match your needs. The above URLs use Joomla’s image folder as their root as do most content driven stuff in Joomla. I have denoted the blog content with its own folder. These URLs are to be used irrespective of how you actually set you SEF URLs, but that does not mean you cannot match them i.e. if you use in both /{year}/{month}/{day}/{article_title}/.

If you start off with just using the year you can always add in a month folder later if you find you are writing to much content for 1 folder. At the very least you can run with just the year, for one year and then after that start adding in month folders to accommodate your extra writings.

As for the article title, once you have finished tweaking the article you are not likely to ever want to change this, and in the unlikely event you need to alter the article and altering its links will not be the end of the world.

My choice: images/blog/{year}/{article title}

Reasons: My website will only a have a small posting frequency of high quality articles.

 

 

Step 20 - Copy and Paste This!!!

This is an overview of what I have chosen and will act as a checklist for my future blog developements.

My Choices

  • Blogging System: Easyblog
  • Commenting System: Komento
  • Domain Prefix: non-www
  • Protocol: https
  • Location: /blog/
  • Slug: /{article_title}
  • Asset Storage: images/blog/{year}/{month}/{article_title}
  • Full URL: https://mydemosite.com/blog/{article_title}

 

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Sunday, 18 February 2018 15:39

Create a Blog - Part 4 (Commenting Systems)

Commenting is very important for a blog it allows your audience to engage with you and your content. One other advantage is sometime other people can help you improve your content by spotting mistakes or giving you enhancements. I would always want comment system on my blogs.

16- Types of Blogging Systems Research

There are basically 2 types of commenting systems, Local and Remote which i will now go into more depth below:

Local

This is where the software and the comments are made, stored and maintained on your website.  Some blogging systems come with commenting inbuilt and these enough for most people. Then there are the more complex commenting systems you can use to upgrade or replace default one or just install because you don't have one. Some of these systems can have some online services for auto moderating comments integrated to reduce spam, remove bad words and other such things but they do not store any data in the cloud but just the processing power of these services and then store the comments locally on your server after processing.

Pros Cons
  • you control the comments
  • You own the comments
  • You can edit them as needed
  • You can control the users
  • You can use 1 login for the/your website (i.e. other services such as project fork)
  • You can collect email address and sign them up to newsletters
  • No 3rd party revenue stream

Remote

This is a new and growing trend in the social internet. I will just list the main pros and cons of using one of these services:

Pros Cons
  • Free
  • Cross Platform
  • Have their own control panel
  • Automatic moderation system in place
  • Antispam built in
  • Can control multiple websites from 1 control panel
  • Can moderate lots of your websites from 1 control panel
  • Customers can use one login across multiple websites
  • Decreases server load by remote server handling your comments
  • Can earn money from advertising
  • Requires specific plugins/support
  • Can cause slow pages loads (i.e. the comments don’t load instantly)
  • Ajaxed based, might have issues with Google not seing the comments
  • Dependant on a 3rd party system
  • Dependant on URL as Identifier
  • Comments are not stored on your website
  • Does not store the comments in the pages HTML
  • Asynchronous loading from server
  • I suspect that the comments are URL based so if you changed any links on your site the comments might move
  • You have to login to the service's server to manage your comments
  • Stored on remote server so if they go down so do all of your comments
  • You might have to pay an ongoing and ever larger subscription to keep the system operating or loose all of your comments.

17 - Commenting Systems for Joomla Research

Apart form Disqus all of these commenting systems are for Joomla only.

K2 (inbuilt)

K2 has its own internal commenting system

Pros Cons
  • Free
  • Connects to the article not the URL
  • Well supported on forums
  • Updated regularly
  • Limited to K2 Articles
  • No automatic moderation
  • Comments are siloed into K2

Easyblog (Internal)

Easyblog comes with its own in-built commenting system. It is similiar to Komento but i dont think it has all of the same functionality.

Pros Cons
 
  • Free (by proxy)
  • Has API links to automatic moderating services
  • Has quite a few options
  • Ideal if you only need comments on the blog
  • A lot of options
  • Comments are made in schema format (option)
  • Only does comments for Easyblog items
  • Comments are siloed into Easyblog

Komento

This is a paid for extension from Stackideas, the makers of Easyblog and is constantly maintained.

 Pros Cons
  • Supports EasyBlog
  • Updated often
  • Excellent support
  • Akismet integration (antispam service)
  • Seems to have all the Easyblog features inbuilt
  • Large number of extensions supported from the 1 component
  • Can be controlled from your website admin area
  • Kommento can be enabled/disabled per component
  • Centrally control comments from multiple systems
  • Easy to integrate other Joomla extensions to use Komento
  • Extra modules and plugins
  • Commercial
  • End User documentation does not exist.

JComments

This is the orginal commenting system for Joomla and is free. It does not seem to be actively maintained anymore but still works.

Pros Cons
  • Free
  • Extensively support
  • Popular
  • Good reviews
  • Large number of extensions supported
  • Can embed videos in comments
  • BBcode support
  • Can be reskinned very easy
  • lot of Joomla modules
  • Can control comments from multiple systems
  • Not updated that often
  • Only 1 programmer maintains this
  • You have to use a tag each page you want comments on in easy blog. For Joomla articles you can set this on by default I think
  • No antispam features except for a banned word list

Disqus

This is a cloud based commenting system that is free to use and offers the possibility of advertising revenue. However on large traffic sites you do have topay to use the service. End users never have to pay it is just for the website owners taht the costs can creep in. You need to take this into account if your website is going to scale up. For small websites using this service is an option.

Pros Cons
  • Free
  • Cross Platform
  • Have their own control panel
  • Automatic moderation system in place
  • Works fine for article and K2
  • You can sync the comments locally (not tested)
  • Antispam built in
  • Can control multiple websites from 1 control panel
  • Can moderate all of your websites from 1 control panel
  • Possibility of using API to store local cached copies of your comments
  • Customers can use their 1 disqus login across multiple websites and if they have one already are more likely to social engage?
  • Can use disqus as a social tool like twitter or Facebook
  • Decreases server load by having disquss server your comments
  • Can earn money from disqus
  • Can change URLs via a csv for disquss etc... so no longer tied in to one URL
  • Can control comments from multiple systems and sites
  • Works cross platform i.e. Wordpress, Joomla and many other CMS and website software.
  • Customers can use their 1 disqus login across multiple websites and if they have one already are more likely to social engage?
  • Can change URLs via a csv for discuss etc... so no longer tied in to one URL (not tested)
  • Requires specific plugins/support for each component
  • Can cause slow pages loads (i.e. the comments don’t load instantly)
  • Ajaxed based, might have issues with google
  • Dependant on a 3rd party system
  • Dependant on URL as Identifier
  • Comments are not on your website
  • Might have issues with specific Joomla extensions
  • Does not store the comments in the pages HTML
  • Asynchronous loading from server
  • I suspect that the comments are URL based so if you changed any links on your site the comments might move
  • You have to login to their server to manage your comments
  • Stored on remote server so if they go down so do all of your comments
  • Cannot join the paid program until you meet minimum requirements i.e. traffic + comments
  • Cannot be disabled per Joomla component (unless you use module permissions)
  • Might have issues with specific Joomla extensions
  • You do not own the comments
  • If disqus servers fail your comments dissapear
  • You can not move comments from article to article
  • You might have to pay an ongoing and ever larger subscription to keep the system operating or loose all of your comments.
  • Disqus has a tiered payment model for supplying the service.

Step 18 - Choose a Commenting System

After reading all of this information, answers to the following questions will allow you to choose the commenting system you want to use:

Do I want local or remote comments?

Followed by:

Which blogging system am I going to use?

 

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Sunday, 18 February 2018 15:13

Create a Blog - Part 3 (URLs and Assets)

Step 12 - Research of Live Blog Sites

Visit loads of online and large blogs and examine their URLS to see how everyone else does it and then consider which is the best format for your blog. URL research online, is a great way to work out what URL you want to use

Below is my research of various blog sites and how they setup their URLs and asset storage.

Step 13 - Blogging System URLs

I will list here the various CMS systems and their URLs. This will help to see what other people use and why.

Joomla

URLs are purely controlled by the following things. This allows a lot manual control but can be time consuming.

  • Menu item/Menu Alias
  • Category/Category Alias
  • Article Alias

K2

URLs are purely controlled by the following things (same as Joomla). This allows a lot manual control but can be time consuming.

  • Menu item/Menu Alias
  • Category/Category Alias
  • Article Alias

Easyblog

Below is the list of Easyblog URL options and I will go through each one.

  • Enable Unicode aliases - If enabled, EasyBlog will insert an id of your content as part of your permalink. E.g. 24-your-blog-title. This will support any Unicode characters such as Hebrew, Russian or Polish languages in your permalinks.
  • Enable language translations for URL - Enable or disable language translations on EasyBlog URLs. If you choose to enable this option, your language file for EasyBlog must be able to support this feature.
  • URL Format for your entry - see table below

Easyblog URL Pros and Cons

 URL setting Pros Cons
Default
http://yoursite.com/menu/view/title
  • Resistant to category change
  • Simple
  • No category information in URL, may harm SEO
  • Will have the word entry in the URL (where view is)
  • Not resistant to article title change
Date Based
http://yoursite.com/menu/view/year/month/date/title
  • Resistant to category change
  • This length of URL is suitable for complex blogs with lots of posting
  • Will have the word entry in the URL (where view is)
  • No category information in URL, may harm SEO
  • Not resistant to article title change
Category Based
http://yoursite.com/menu/view/category/title
  • NOT Resistant to category change
  • Category information in URL, may help SEO
  • Will have the word entry in the URL (where view is)
  • Not resistant to article title change
Category & Date Based
http://yoursite.com/menu/view/category/year/month/date/title
  • Category information in URL, may help SEO
  • NOT Resistant to category change
  • Will have the word entry in the URL (where view is)
  • Not resistant to article title change
Simple
http://yoursite.com/menu/title
  • Resistant to category change
  • No ‘entry’ in URL
  • No category information in URL, may harm SEO
  • Not resistant to article title change
Custom
http://yoursite.com/menu/view/{%year_num%/%month_num%}/title

Available values for custom SEF:

  • %month% - Month Name
  • %day% - Day Name
  • %year_num% - Year digit
  • %month_num% - Month digit
  • %day_num% - Day digit
  • %category% - Category Title
  • %category_id% - Category ID
  • Example: %year_num%/%title%
  • Conditions can vary
  • Not all the URL variables are settable i.e. cant remove ‘menu’ and ‘view’ (see Easyblog notes)
  • Will have the word entry in the URL (where view is)
  • Conditions can vary

Overview Pros and Cons of Easyblog URLs

This will give an overview of the Easyblog URL setup because it has so many different internal options

 Pros Cons
 
  • Can set URLs independent of categories and articles
  • Can set a WordPress style URL (but with the word ‘entry’)
  • A custom URL option (but has the word entry in it)
  • Integration with Joomla URL router
  • Most of the URLs have the word ‘entry’ in them (this is where /view/ is)

WordPress

Now we will look at the WordPress URL options and list them here. WordPress calls SEF links Permalinks.

Primary URL Option

URL/Permalink Setting  Pros Cons
Plain
http://www.yoursite.com/?p=123
  • Resistant to category change
  • URL resistant if article title changes
  • No category information in URL, may harm SEO
  • No article title in the URL might hurt SEO
Day and name
http://www.yoursite.com/2018/02/18/sample-post/
  •  Resistant to category change
  • No category information in URL, may harm SEO
  • Not resistant to article title change
Month and name
http://www.yoursite.com/2018/02/sample-post/
  •  Resistant to category change
  • No category information in URL, may harm SEO
  • Not resistant to article title change
Numeric
http://www.yoursite.com/archives/123
  • Resistant to category change
  • URL resistant if article title changes
  • No category information in URL, may harm SEO
  • No article title in the URL might hurt SEO
Post name
http://www.yoursite.com/sample-post/
  •  Resistant to category change
  • No category information in URL, may harm SEO
  • Not resistant to article title change
Custom Structure
http://www.yoursite.com/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/
  • Conditions can vary
  • Conditions can vary

Wordpress Optional URL Settings

If you like, you may enter custom structures for your category and tag URLs here. For example, using topics as your category base would make your category links like http://www.yoursite.com/topics/uncategorised/. If you leave these blank the defaults will be used.

  • Category Base
  • Tag Base

Conclusion

As you can see, WordPress allows very specific configuration of its URL structure. This is by far the most configurable URL system. Most people running blogs use only the primary URL option as it suits most needs.

All of the URLs above (before adding ‘Category Base’ and ‘Tag Base)

Pros Cons
  • Category change resistant
  • Simple
  • No category information in URL might affect SEO

Step 14 - Category and Article URLs

Planning your URLs is very important, it is how search engines access and index your website. You cannot change an established link without consequences but it can be done if needed. How often have you added a link to your bookmarks only to come back to it later to find the page is no longer there. I am trying to avoid this situation by having good planning.

Using the information from the research above I made the following notes and my Joomla Blog Software research

  • All articles should not have category routes on them? (SEOrountable.com uses this method). This allows you to move an article to another category without affecting its UR and therefore SEO ranking
  • All large dedicated blog sites use the root for their blog
  • News sites and non-dedicated blogging websites tend to put their blog in a sub-folder/menu such as ‘news’ or 'blog'
  • Seoroundtable, seobook and lifehacker all use the URL format - http://www.mydemosite.com/{article_title}
  • Best to only put your article in 1 category and use tags
  • it is the URL that is important and cannot be changed without hurting SEO, whereas not so important for the images and assets as these can be moved without hurting SEO (not much if any) and they primary location is decided by organisational considerations i.e. /2014/ , /2014/12/
  • You need to use SEF URLs at all times not those ugly ones with ?/= in them
  • Do not use .html at the end of your link. It is the old way of doing things.
  • If an article title or category have an ID in the URL this is ok because google understands them. These can also prevent duplicate URL/content because the item Id are always unique.

I recommend to use one of the following, no date or category in the url. However if you choose to use wordpress I would read the 'How many articles will you write?' section.

Step 15 - Image/Asset storage location for articles

We now have addressed what URLs to use for the articles and blog but the articles will most likely have images or assets that need to go somewhere. The rules to where you store your article assets are separate to the URL format however they could match depending on your setup.

Blogging systems with in-built asset handling:

  • Wordpress
    • Will store all assets in a folder based on date e.g. wp-content/uploads/2017/12/profile-cropped-300.jpg so there is no real manual intervention you can do or need to do. The date structure is based on what Permalink Common Settings you select in the Wordpress admin options. I have not verify the different possibilities but this is an educated guess from my live blog research above.
  • EasyBlog
    • By default Easyblog uses /images/Easyblog and possibly needs changing
    • Easyblog has team blogging and a user’s files will be stored in a folder such as /images/Easyblog/user_files/789/{assets here} . A user’s image folder is separate to everyone else’s images,  /images/Easyblog/user_files/789/ is their root folder.
    • When using Easyblog a particular users image files will be in a different root folder and will have the users ID added as a folder to its root, this being said you should follow the same rules you pick for the rest of the site but applied to individual users if you want all of their files separate.
    • You can use my rules below in EasyBlog but you should stick with the in-built system.

Blogging systems without in-built assets handling:

This is my attempt to create a generic system for storing your files and will reflect the frequency of new articles created in your blog and these rules really come into their own when the system you are using does not have an automatic system for handling assets. Using these rule will require you to manually place those assets according according to the rules unless you can configure the system you are using to follow these rules. These rules can be applied to systems that are not blogs.

The reason for these rules are:

  • Make writing articles easier to write because the author knows where to place the assets.
  • Single folders will not hold 1000s of assets. This can cause enumeration issues aswell as making it difficult to identify what assets belong to which article.
  • Make it easier to manage assets already on the server.

How many articles will you write?

Before making your selection you should figure out how many articles are likely to be created on your blog. You can use any of these levels for any amount of articles but there is no point in overcomplicating things so these guidelines below will help you determine what the level of folder structure that is required to keep your files organised and prevent a single folder becoming bloated.

  • 1 article every 5 days = 73 articles a year
  • Use /2014/{article_title}
  • 1 article every 3 days = 121.667 articles a year
  • This is on the limit of /2014/{article_title} you should use /2014/12/{article_title}
  • 1 article every 1 day = 365 articles a year
  • Use /2014/12/{article_title}
  • 1+ article every 1 day (or team blogging) = 365+ articles a year
  • Use /2014/12/31/{article_title}

Once you have picked a level, you need to stick with it for a year. Come the next year you can then choose upgrade/downgrade/same depending on the amount of articles you have done or have not done. Doing this keeps all your files in order and maintains the 'year' container so the rules are not swapped mid-stream causing issue about which rules to follow.

You now need to check over the information and select which option is best for you:

Asset Location
 Pros Cons Notes
images/blog/
  • URL resistant if category changes
  • Can be used where an article is in multiple categories
  • Will create one humungous folder with 100 – 1000s of images
  • Folder will only ever get bigger
  • No order to images
  • Hard to manage
  • Slow to index
 Don’t use this one.
       
images/blog/{article_title}/
  • URL resistant if category changes
  • This seems a popular method.
  • Can be used where an article is in multiple categories
  • The single directory can get very full with a medium/large blog
  • Articles are not sorted in to categories
  • If you decide later to add things in to categories you would find it very difficult and would require a lot of intervention in the code (but not impossibly)
  • No category in the URL might hurt SEO
  • Number of article folders will only grow
  
images/blog/{category}/{article_title}/
  • Articles are in categories for easier management
  • If you choose a flat folder method you can easily remove the extra category part of the URL with a SQL script
  • Category in image URL good for SEO?
  • If you change an articles category the URL is not resistant
  • When a category is changed you would need to code edit
  • Possibly hurting SEO if category is changed
  • Cannot be used for articles in multiple categories
  
images/blog/{year}/{article_title}/
  • Each year you would get a new folder for storing articles keeping the number of articles in that folder from ever expanding for infinitum
  • Articles would be category changing resistant
  • Similar to the WordPress method of storing which seems to work well and is popular
  • You could further sub-folder the year to add the month in if there are too many articles
  • The year is a logical order not tied to categories or a filing system
  • Not over complex
  • Can be used where an article is in multiple categories
  • Each year folder could have a very large number of articles in it
  • No category in the URL might hurt SEO
 {year} = 2013, 2014, 2015
Ideal format for small sites
       
images/blog/{year}/{month}/
  • URL resistant if category changes
  • Can be used where an article is in multiple categories
  • No category in the URL might hurt SEO
  
       
images/blog/{year}/{month}/{article_title}/
  • URL resistant if category changes
  • Can be used when an article is in multiple categories
  • No category in the URL might hurt SEO
 {WordPress format} 2013/08
Ideal format for medium sites
images/blog/{year}/{month}/{day}/{article_title}/
  • URL resistant if category changes
  • Can be used where an article is in multiple categories
  • The {day} option adds 1 more layer of filtering.
  • No category in the URL might hurt SEO
 {WordPress format} 2013/08/31
Ideal format for large sites
       
images/blog/{article_id}/
  • URL resistant if category changes
  • This seems a popular method.
  • Can be used where an article is in multiple categories
  • URL resistant if article name changes
  • The single directory can get very full with a medium/large blog
  • Articles are not sorted in to categories
  • If you decide later to add things in to categories you would find it very difficult and would require a lot of intervention in the code (but not impossibly)
  • No category in the URL might hurt SEO
  • Number of article folders will only grow
  • No article name in the URL might hurt SEO
  
images/blog/{category}/{article_id}/
  • Articles are in categories for easier management
  • If you choose a flat folder method you can easily remove the extra category part of the URL with a SQL script
  • Category in image URL good for SEO?
  • URL resistant if article name changes
  • If you change an articles category the URL is not resistant
  • When a category is changed you would need to code edit
  • Possibly hurting SEO if category is changed
  • Cannot be used for articles in multiple categories
  • No article name in the URL might hurt SEO
  
images/blog/{year}/{article_id}/
  • Each year you would get a new folder for storing articles keeping the number of articles in that folder from ever expanding for infinitum
  • Articles would be category changing resistant
  • Similar to the WordPress method of storing which seems to work well and is popular
  • You could further sub-folder the year to add the month in if there are too many articles
  • The year is a logical order not tied to categories or a filing system
  • Not over complex
  • Can be used where an article is in multiple categories
  • URL resistant if article name changes
  • Each year folder could have a very large number of articles in it
  • No category in the URL might hurt SEO
  • No article name in the URL might hurt SEO
 {year} = 2013, 2014, 2015
Ideal format for small sites
images/blog/{year}/{month}/{article_id}/
  • URL resistant if category changes
  • Can be used when an article is in multiple categories
  • URL resistant if article name changes
  • No category in the URL might hurt SEO
  • No article name in the URL might hurt SEO
 {WordPress format} 2013/08
Ideal format for medium sites
images/blog/{year}/{month}/{day}/{article_id}/
  • URL resistant if category changes
  • Can be used where an article is in multiple categories
  • The {day} option adds 1 more layer of filtering.
  • URL resistant if article name changes
  • No category in the URL might hurt SEO
  • No article name in the URL might hurt SEO
 {WordPress format} 2013/08/31
Ideal format for large sites

Table Notes

  • {article_title} is the SEF URL slug generated for the article.
  • {article_id} is the article ID of the article.
  • Because I am using the Joomla, the base folder for all user assets is /images/and therefore is the one I am using. If you do not use Joomla you might want to select a different base folder.
  • All assets for the blog should be within a /blog/ folder and then that folder should be within the base folder you choose e.g. /images/blog/.
  • All Joomla blog images should be in /images/blog/ as the blogs image root.
  • All of these assume the article title will not change.
  • Size of the site referers to new article creation frequency.

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Sunday, 18 February 2018 10:24

Create a blog - Part 2 (Blogging Systems)

Step 10 - Research Software

Because I use Joomla I need to look at all of the different blogging systems available along with commenting systems. I will assess them to see shich is the best setup.

Joomla Only

Using Joomla as is can be an option for some.

Pros Cons
  • Free
  • Has basic blog features
  • Jcomments will work with it to provide a commenting system
  • Large community
  • Lots of extensions/plugins
  • Community writes lots of extensions because k2 content can be access easily
  • Not all in one solution out of the box
  • Not all features i.e. auto blog system with integrator tools etc...
  • will require plugins for a good blogging platform
  • cannot configure URLs except by the menu, category structure and article title/alias
  • no inbuilt RSS

Conclusion

Too basic and not enough control over URLs. This might be ok for a news section of a website.

K2

This is a Joomla CCK with lots of content features but has blogging abilities. It does not have things like autoposting to social media built in.

Pros

Pros Cons
  • Free
  • k2 is a basic blog with lots of content features
  • Jcomments will work with it to provide a commenting system
  • Large community
  • Lots of extensions
  • Community writes lots of extensions because k2 content can be access easily
  • Has its own commenting system
  • Not all in one solution out of the box
  • Not an all features i.e. auto blog system with integrator tools etc...
  • will require plugins for a good blogging platform
  • cannot configure URLs except by the menu, category structure and article title/alias
  • needs a plugin to handle RSS feeding correctly

Conclusion

Has more than standard Joomla such as image auto resizing and an inbuilt commenting system but is still too basic without plugins for a dedicated blog. Too basic and not enough control over URLs. This might be all right for a news section of a website.

Easyblog

Easyblog seems to be a blogging system with all the tools built in.

Pros Cons
  • commercial
  • Remote blogging integration
  • Has its own commenting system built in (I suspect a cut down version of komento)
  • Can integrate with many different commenting systems
  • Can auto post to Facebook and twitter
  • Can link to social profiles including google+
  • Easyblog has all tools for blogging built in
  • integrates with easy social /easy discuss/mighty touch/ jomsocial/ AUP/ PhocaPDF/ AdSense/ zemanta/ pingomatic/ Flickr
  • supports ‘Team Blogging’
  • can import/export settings
  • correctly handles pagination with canonical tags
  • inbuilt pingomatic support
  • inbuilt RSS feeding
  • can override RSS feed in place of a syndicated Feedburner feed
  • integrates with 3rd party Joomla software
  • Has its own media manager and can cause issue with keep images organised (investigate)
  • Image name management sucks
  • Does not use the Joomla template and you have to use its own template
  • Has its own login system with in the component
  • Not much documentation

Conclusion

Easyblog is basically trying to be a clone of WordPress running as a native component in Joomla. It has all the features of a dedicated blogging system and allows the use of Joomla content plugins. One of the selling factors of Easyblog is that you can, like WordPress, configure the URLs separate to articles and categories. Easyblog also has a lot of social integration making it an ideal choise. This is a must as you won’t lose SEO ranking or traffic because you have a reorganise.

Links

WordPress for Joomla

There are 2 WordPress integrations for Joomla. Both of which have slightly different reviews.  There are some bridges and post copier extensions but I would not count these as use for this project.

WordPress is the go to standalone blogging platform but I am looking at this whilst using Joomla as I want all the benefits of Joomla with a Blog. You could in theory run WordPress and Joomla side-by-side with the same themes but this is extra work and would take more configurations.

Pros Cons
  • gives you a streamlined blogging system that is WordPress, in Joomla
  • is an excellent rated blogging system that 17% of the websites are made off
  • inbuilt RSS feeding
  • WordPress has its own inbuilt commenting system
  • doesn’t fully support all WordPress plugins
  • to add functionality you need to start installing WordPress plugins
  • have to learn another system
  • have to run 2 systems

Conclusion

WordPress is without doubt an excellent blogging system but that is all it is. It is similar to Joomla in that you can use plugins to extend the platform but when you start doing this it is much easier to use Joomla. WordPress for Joomla does not allow you to use Joomla plugins for the content in WordPress and not all WordPress plugins will work. So basically if you want to use WordPress, use it but without the Joomla wrapper anything else seems pointless

Joomla Integration Plugins

Step 11 - Choose Software

Now you have read my research you can either can look at some of the other platforms on the internet or pick one and move to the next step.

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Thursday, 15 February 2018 18:48

Create a Blog - Part 1 (Setting up)

These instructions are meant to be platform independent however this tutorial is geared towards setting up a Joomla blog because this is what I use but most of the rules will apply to different blogging platforms.

You have to consider what your blog is going to be about before starting anything. What is your niche? What are you going to write articles about? It is always good to write about something you are passionate about and even better if you are a professional in that field. It could be you are just a hobbyist and want to share you experience.

You should write a blog because you want to, not because you want to make money. The reasons for this are 2 fold, you won’t make money straight away and if you are writing it from the point of view of just making money your blog will most likely have low value articles because you don’t care that much.

Do not rush setting your blog up, but do not be afraid to try things out.

Step 1 – Select your niche

What is your blog about, don’t try and write about everything and making sure your blog has some direction. This will allow you to put the occasional rant or general article in it if setup right.

Step 2 – Brainstorm Categories and Tags

This is important for setting up your blog. You need enough categories to put all your stuff into but not too many so that they become overwhelming,  I think 10 is probably enough.

But what happens if you need more than 10. You can have more than 10 if you really need to, but this is where tags come in.

Tags are simliar to categories except they do not have a hierarchy and are used for categorisation rather than display. Generally articles can only belong to one category but have many tags. They can be used like mini categories, see the example below:

  • Category: Online
  • Tags: Prestashop, Joomla, SEO, html, CSS

So all of these different types of article can go in the online category even if they are just about Prestashop. You should note that if one of the large portions of your writing is about Prestashop you should give it its own category.

These need to be nailed down before going any further. The way I would do this is write down every category you possibly want and then see if you can fit them in to 10 parent categories, this will give you your tags and categories.

Example Categories and Tags Brainstorm

This is my category brainstorm for my blog. Think of all the categories your articles could fit into, and then reduce the main categories to about 10 and the rest could be tags.

  • You can also research other blogs in your niche and see what they use.
  • Do one large list and then arrange it like below so you can see your categories and tags emerge.
  • Tags can be present in more than 1 category.
  • Some systems allow articles to be present in more than 1 category. I would avoid this unless really necessary.
  • It is recommend no more than 10 categories. Use tags for extended grouping.
  • News
    • Tech news
    • Security news
  • General / Misc
    • offers
    • Rants
    • Reviews
  • Security
    • Malware
    • Virus
    • Mobile
    • General
    • Web
    • personal
  • Web / Online
    • Prestashop
    • hosting
    • Joomla
    • Blogging
    • SEO
    • Online TV / Streaming services
  • Electronics
    • Soldering
    • BGA
    • Reflowing
    • Jtag
    • diagnostics
  • Software
    • free software
    • software reviews
  • Hardware?
    • Printers
    • Hard drives
    • monitors
  • Technology
    • Android
    • Hardware
    • Mobile
    • Mac OS
  • PC repairs / Computer Repairs?
    • Hardware
    • software
    • Windows
  • Programming
    • PHP
    • Java
    • Code snippets
    • MySQL
    • .htaccess
  • Computer Repairs
    • Useful tools
    • Malware software
    • Techniques
    • Solutions of note – how to fix a 0x80008 error
  • Other Category Ideas
    • Android software
    • Misc
    • Musings
    • General
    • Other

To finish this exercise and to make sure you have the right categories for your blog:

  1. Write a description for each of the categories (you will need these later anyway) and see how you feel.
  2. Write a couple of article titles and see how they fit, or better yet, use the titles of articles you already have or are thinking about writing

Step 3 – Brainstorm Articles

You do not need to write the articles now but I am guessing if you have not written them you know what you want to write about.

What I would do here is brainstorm all the ideas you have in your head for articles and write them down in a big list, this mean you can come back to them later without them rattling about in your head.

Step 4 – Select the look and feel of your blog

This speaks for itself you need to go and find a Joomla template you like the look of and don’t be shy for paying for one. They are not that expensive in the grand scheme of things, but there are loads of really good free ones.

  • Make sure you get a template that is mobile responsive.
  • Do not use dodgy templates i.e. Ones downloaded from pirate sites. They will most likely have viruses in that you cannot see.

Step 5 – Select a good domain name

Now you have some content and have direction for the site in your head, you need to decide what to call it. Follow some of the guidelines below for selecting:

  • Spend a good amount of time on this.
  • Don’t have a name that is too long.
  • Make sure it is easy to spell and say.
  • English words are better (wider audience).
  • Consider relevant keywords in your domain.
  • If your blog is a general blog make your domain name non-specific (i.e. buildinghouses.com is specific to building houses and would be no good for electronics.).
  • .com is preferably, but some articles say you get indexed easier in your country by using a country specific suffice (egg .co.uk).

I have used 123-reg.co.uk in the past for domains. They are not the cheapest but their system is really easy to use. They also have an excellent domain name checker.

Step 6 – Setup Hosting

This is a must for obvious reasons. There are many different solutions which can fall in to 3 groups

  1. Free
  2. Cheap
  3. Commercial

There is an adage that you get what you pay for, this is very true but when you are starting off because you do not need to buy a dedicated server costing $50 a month just to server 5 pages.

Always use a hosting service that uses the cPanel setup. This make your life much easier in maintaining your sites backend (databases, emails, crons etc...)

Free

The free services can be problematic and very restrictive and if a blog is going to be a main part of you probably don’t want to start with this.

Pros Cons
  • Free
  • Can get your website online quickly
  • You probably will get email
 
  • Limited number of email accounts
  • Limited number of files allowed
  • Limited number of MySQL databases allowed (if any)
  • Might not be able to use your own domain
  • Limited bandwidth
  • On really overloaded shared services
  • Limited support (if any)
  • Advertising in the control panel
  • Possibly advertising on your site (not good)
  • They will always try and up sale you
  • You will find you need to upgrade your package before too long
  • Shared server, which will be holding possibly thousands of websites
  • Might not be the most reliable service Support will not be manned by the most technically adept people. They will be able to do simple stuff but after that you are on your own. I recommend using bullet points here in emails. (if available)

Cheap

These services are not bad for the money but the support is not usually that good. Most of the cheap services such as hostgator/hostmonster/justhost/bluehost have all been bought up by one company, EIG.

Pros Cons
  • Cheap
  • Unlimited bandwidth (Fair Usage Policy)
  • Unlimited files (some limit the inodes to 50,000)
  • Limited support / Poor support
  • Shared server, which will be holding possibly thousands of websites
  • There will be adverts in the control panel
  • Might not be the most reliable service
  • Support will not be manned by the most technically adept people. They will be able to do simple stuff but after that you are on your own. I recommend using bullet points here in emails.
  • If someone spams from their site the whole IP is blacklisted
  • Adverts in the control panel

I would probably use Justhost for this option. I have used them in the past and they are ok.

Commercial

These can vary heavily in price and level of support. It is definitely worth shopping around here. I would not go for a dedicated server or any of that, if you need one of those you don’t need to be reading this blog post as you already know everything. I would stick with a base level shared server hosting package with a good level of bandwidth and storage, usually with unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage but not always. You will find it better to get a data center based in the country you are living in for quicker load times. If there is nothing for a good price, US based services are always a good alternative.

Some good services do restrict the service they give you like bandwidth and storage so their servers do not get overloaded making sure your site is always on (99.99%). If you only every use 200mb storage, do you need unlimited storage?

Pros Cons
 
  • Good support
  • Unlimited bandwidth (usually)
  • Unlimited storage (usually)
  • Unlimited MySQL (usually)
  • No adverts in control panel
  • The companies will not try and upsell you
  • Servers will not be as overloaded (less sites per server)
  • Better uptime usually
  • Not the cheapest

I use hostdime for my websites and bought their reseller package. Their support is second to none. I am always impressed with the quickness and the quality of their answers. You can contact them by phone, live chat or ticket system

Tips:

  • When you have a real tricky issue it is always better to type it out and submit a ticket because the technicians that deal with the tickets have more time and less pressure to deal with them than on live chats.
  • If a live chat gets tricky the tchnician will create a ticket for you anyway.
  • Live chat is useful when you do not know what to ask for.

Step 7 - www or non-www

This is a very important selection because www.quantumwarp.com and quantumwarp.com as far as google is concerned they are two different websites and over time having links pointing to both of them will affect your ranking.

So which do I choose?

  • Blogs tend not to have the www.
  • Blogs should all be non-www (it is 2014, people know what a website is)
  • Corporate websites should all be www.

NB: Make sure that you setup a 301 redirect from the www to the non-www version of your website or vice versa so that there becomes only 1 website.

Step 8 - http or https

You absolutely need this nowadays. https allows secured connections to your website. Google and other search engines recogise this a positive factor so this will also help you SEO rankings.

You can get a cheap SSL certificate and install that yourself but as we speak more and more companies are automatically providing SSL certificates via the LetsEncrypt service with webhosting packages.

NB: Google and other search engines also recognise websites on http and https as different sites so make sure that you setup a 301 redirect from the http to https version of your website if both are exposed so that there becomes only 1 website.

Step 9 – Other things on your site and Blog Location

You know that your website is going to have a blog on it because that is the whole point for this article but you should now consider whether you want other services or features on it such as:

  • Knowledge Base
  • Tools
  • Custom Searches
  • Forum

Laying out a website is quite important and there are a few distinct options we can choose from. Select from the following list what you want your website to be:

  • Blog (in the website root) Only
  • Blog (in the website root) with other stuff present on the website 
    • https://quantumwarp.com/
    • This can be done but it could get a bit messy down the line when you try and figure out where to put stuff.
  • Blog (in sub-folder) with other stuff present on the website
    • https://quantumwarp.com/blog/ or https://quantumwarp.com/news/
    • If you are going to have more on your website than a blog, then this is the prefered option.
    • This silos the blog and stops it getting in the way of any other features/services you want to install or use on your website now or later.
    • Easier to expand your website.

If you choose either of the options to have you blog in the root then you can skip to the next step, but if your blog is going to be part of a larger website then you need to make a further choice below about what you call your Menu Item which also controls the URL slug. In a non-Joomla world you can just use a sub-folder for the same effect.

News or Blog

This is quite a common question so I have looked in to it and put my thoughts down below about when you should choose a to use menu item named Blog or News. This assumes you are putting your blog in a Menu Item/folder which you decided on above.

News

https://quantumwarp.com/news/

Choose 'News' if your website is:

  • Corporate
  • Faceless
  • Big Company
  • Articles not really written from the heart by one guy
  • The articles are more information giving than personal articles (i.e. we now sell 3.5 inch chrome brackets)
  • Not updated that much
  • Just informs about events
  • Single topic, company news
  • Sharing events and awards

Blog

https://quantumwarp.com/blog/

Choose 'Blog' if your website is:

  • Small company (mostly)
  • Personal messages
  • Articles written by a passionate person who is personally invested in the company/product
  • Articles are written by a human not scrapped from other sites
  • Updated fairly regularly (I would say once a week)
  • Gives some benefit to the reader other than selling goods
  • Hobby site
  • Personal site
  • Social Club site

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Thursday, 15 February 2018 18:08

Online Social Identity - Part 3 (Social Media Accounts)

By now you have created your Online Social Identity(s) which will now need as we go throught the various Social Media sites on the internet.

This article will help you configure these services to use them as a normal person but will not go into advanced integration, that is for another day.

Social Websites and Services

There might be more than these websites and services but these are just the ones I have come across or might feeel the need to use.

Online Services

  • Google
  • Microsoft
    • Email @ outlook.com
    • Windows login (optional – but I think it links your stuff, not quite social)
    • Skype
    • Xbox
    • Webmaster Tools
    • Windows Phone
    • LinkedIn (Does not need a Microsoft Account)
  • Yahoo
    • Email @ yahoo.com
    • Flicker
  • Facebook
    • Instagram (Does not need a Facebook Account)
    • Facebook Business Page
  • Twitter
  • Wordpress.com
    • Akismet (AntiSpam)
    • Gravatar
    • Ping-o-matic (no account needed)
  • AppleID
    • iTunes
    • iOS developers
  • Pinterest
  • Disqus
  • OpenID
  • Tumblr
  • Reddit
  • Blogger
  • Stumble Upon
  • LiveJournal – add the other writers list from easyblog - https://stackideas.com/docs/easyblog/administrators/remote-publishing
  • MySpace
  • GitHub
  • Forums and blogs – most of these when you login allow you to change your email

Security Services / Antispam

I have added these here because they either require you to use an online identity to be allowed to use them or they are involved in controlling social activities.

  • Project Honey Pot - The Web's Largest Community Tracking Online Fraud & Abuse |
  • Stop Forum Spam - A free service to block spam on your forum
  • reCAPTCHA v2
  • 2 factor authentication ( i.e. google 2 factor)
  • Google Safe Browsing API Key - Sever Key
  • Cleantalk - Cloud spam protection for forums, boards, blogs and sites
  • Akismet

Other Online Services

YouTube Share Links

These links are from a standard YouTube page and shows you the sites that YouTube regard as important in the social media and thus the rest of the web.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • reddit
  • Blogger
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
  • BKOHTAKTE
  • LinkedIn
  • Stumble Upon
  • LiveJournal

Social Sharing Accounts

In this section I will add my notes that I used when configuring the various accounts. If there are not notes it does not mean I did not set that service up.

Google

Google+

Google+ is very similar to Facebook (and also looks it).

  • To use Google+ you must have a Google account
  • In your google account you create your Google+ profile
  • Your Google+ profile must be a real person (i.e. you)
  • You cannot use a Google+ profile for a business, organisation or other sort of entity
  • You can create pages in Google+ which can be used for business, brands or other entities etc...
  • You can transfer the ownership of a Google+ page to another user (2 week transfer period)
  • You can have multiple editors on a Google+ page
  • All the Google+ pages must have a personal profile attached to edit them
  • You can set a vanity URL for a Google+ profile
  • You can set a vanity URL for pages
  • Vanity links can be changed after being set
  • Your Google+ profile can be linked to your YouTube account (and will be?)
  • How to change primary email address of a Google+ Profile? – plus many other Q&As
  • View & edit your Google+ profile – official google page
  • you can change your name in Google+ only 3 times in 2 years
Google+ Vanity URL

YouTube

Microsoft

Outlook/Live

Xbox

Skype

  • You need a microsoft account now to use Skype and cannot create an account seperately.
  • These were applicable before you required a Microsoft Account for Skype:
    • Always create a skype account first and then link to your outlook account (if you want).
    • I recommend setting up your skype account first to guarantee you get a decent name otherwise you get one assigned automatically (see here)
    • Skype – you can link and unlink to a Microsoft profile. (Limited number of times).
    • You do not need to link your skype account to a live account
    • Always create a skype account seperate and then link. This gives you a proper login for the skype service, otherwise you will get an automatically assigned skype id and can only access this via your Microsoft live account
    • You can have multiple Skype accounts attached to 1 email address.
    • If you want to see all your Skype accounts assigned to your email address, you need to perform a password reset. Once you click on a link it will take you to a list of your usernames and ask you which one you wish to reset the password on.
    • Contact skype customer support to see what other names are attached to your email address and have them remove them.
  • Can link skype to Facebook
  • How can I contact Skype Customer Service? – this official page is the quickest way of contacting Skype customer services
  • Can I delete my Skype account? – Official Skype Page
  • How to Contact Skype Customer Service – Discussion - Check this (I need to login)
  • There are several different levels of account deletion:
    • Don’t use the account and after 72hours it will be removed from the public directory, but not people who have added you already in to their contacts.
    • Edit the account and remove all personal information. Skype recommends this method. The rule above then applies.
    • Completely delete the account via Skype customer services. You have to contact Skype by customer services to have the account completely delete but because of some laws they have to do this. This link says you should send an email to delete@skype.com (contacting customer services should be the same if this email does not work)
    • You can simply contact customer support to request to unlink your email address from those unknown accounts – Not confirm this method and whether it is the same and a full account delete. Forum thread here.

Yahoo

Yahoo Mail

Flicker

  • A yahoo account is now needed for flicker (see link)
  • When you log in to Flickr with a google or a Facebook account a yahoo account is created behind the scenes
  • Yahoo account for login to Flickr is becoming mandatory
  • How do I transfer my Flickr photos from my old yahoo user ID to a new yahoo ID? – Yes, but read this before you do anything.
  • You can set a vanity URL on your Flickr account
  • A vanity URL can only be set once and then not changed again

Facebook

To setup Facebook account I first need to explain a few things.

Creating a Facebook Page

These are instructions related to creating a Facebook page.

Facebook Vanity URLs

Here are a few things to keep in mind when you create a custom vanity URL/username:

  • You can't claim a username someone else is already using.
  • Choose a username you'll be happy with for the long term. Usernames are not transferable, and you can only change your username once.
  • Usernames can only contain alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9) or a period (".").
  • Periods (".") and capitalization don't count as a part of a username. For example, johnsmith55, John.Smith55 and john.smith.55 are all considered the same username.
  • Usernames must be at least 5 characters long and can't contain generic terms.
  • You must be an admin to choose a username for a Page.
  • Your username must adhere to Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.
  • Facebook vanity URLs are case insensitive
  • All variations of your URL will redirect to your chosen URL (I.e. ‘quantumwarp’ is the same as ‘QuantumWarp’). Facebook performs a 301 redirect.

What Now

So after reading the points above which should answer a lot of questions you have, I would recommend that you

  • Create a Facebook profile (if not already created one)
  • Carefully decide what you want your page to be called.
  • Create a page for your Website / Blog / Software (If appropriate)
  • Get 25 likes and set your chosen vanity URL.

Twitter

Vanity URLs

What Now

  • So set up a twitter account with a relevant name.
  • If your username is not available try Twitter support for recovering it

Set These Accounts Up

You should create an account with the following services and where necessary create a vanity URL. These services are the most essential ones to have even if you do not use them yet and don't forget you should setup these for each of your online identities.

The big three all have username dependent services and these can be created at anytime because you have already reserved your by signing up to the big three at the beginning of this series.

  • Google
    • Google+
    • Google+ Business Page (where appropriate)
    • YouTube
  • Microsoft
    • Skype
  • Yahoo
    • Flicker
  • Facebook
    • Instagram (Does not need a Facebook Account)
    • Facebook Business Page (where appropriate)
  • Twitter
  • Wordpress.com
    • Gravatar
  • Disqus

 

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Thursday, 15 February 2018 18:07

Online Social Identity - Part 2 (Vanity URLs)

Before going any further we need to discuss vanity urls, what are they, who uses them and should i have one. Not all services need or use vanity URLs and some services will give you a premade link that you cannot change which will be linked to your username/Email address. For those that dont you can either keep everything the same as we discussed in the previous part to this series or you can furhter use these rules to decide your Vanity URLs.

A vanity URL is a unique human readable web address that is usually easy to remember and share. These can be for companies or individuals.

  • Vanity URLs are better for SEO and makes you easier to find
  • Once you decide on a suitable URL you should use it throughout your social media to keep a brand going
  • Not all services allow you to change your Vanity URL once set.

NB: Don’t rush in setting up your Vanity URLS, it won’t make that much difference at the beginning if you want to do this later. It is easier and better to do this step at the beginning though.

Example Vanity URLs

These are examples URLs from JoomlaShine framework that show you what all main social networks have for their vanity URLS

Facebook Vanity URL Examples

Twitter Vanity URL Examples

To Capitalise or Not (vanity/SEF URL)

This question might not be as simple as you think.

I asked this question to a local internet company:

I am in the process of setting up my online presence, and after working out how it all works and my last stumbling block is ‘Vanity URLs’.  I need to know whether it is better to use capitalisation for better readability or all lowercase which might reduce 301 redirects. Is there a standard to be followed. I will also use my chosen standard across all my social platforms.

Eg a test blog , greenfields.com , but should all my URLs be like

and got this response:

In general, we’d always advise lowercase, as that is the “standard” (as much as there is one) for the web. In practice it doesn’t matter too much what you name your pages as long as they link together correctly. I would also avoid redirects from upper to lowercase, as really if someone hits something they shouldn’t, a good 404 (page not found) should be able to point them in the correct direction.

With Capitals (CamelCase)

Pros Cons
  • Easier to read
  • Can be used to help branding (i.e. see TWiT)
  • Not all systems might support capitals
  • Someone is most likely to type the address in with no capitals
  • When you go to a similar address (i.e. QuantumWarp/quantumwarp) the site will most likely 301 re-direct
  • Google might see 2 pages when people only post the all lower case link
  • Many variations of the same word.

All lowercase

Pros Cons
  • Fairly standard
  • All systems support lowercase URLs
  • Not likely to get similar links (i.e. QuantumWarp/quantumwarp) pointing to your page, so is better for SEO
  • Only 1 version so duplication should arrive
  • Someone is most likely to type the address in with no capitals
  
  • Slightly harder to read
  • Plain (boring!)
  • Not as easy to say out loud

What I have decided and why

All lowercase - e.g. quantumwarp

  • Look at JoomlaShine, they have 2 words in their name but use all lowercase
  • There is a 50/50 split on lowercase/capitalised social URLs in big companies
  • SEO companies seem to use lowercase (check this statement)
  • Easy to make sure all my social sites will be the same (not all might support capitals (further research here required)
  • Blog sites seem to use lowercase (arstechnica) this might be because it matches their domain name and is better for SEO
  • Companies with a brand that are not running a blog site but has another purpose i.e. TWiT seem to use capitals. So that being said, those who are running a blog and have their social links the same as their blog name, should use all lowercase.
  • Not all services perform a 301 redirect to your chosen URL. i.e. twitter does a re-write so you can have multiple URLs with the same content
  • The response from my local internet company who do this more than I do.

Vanity URL Links

 

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