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Most Useful Wordpress Plugin, Ever

Filed under: web 2.0 — Tags: — taewoo @ 12:29 pm May 14, 2010

Insights.  Bestest everest.

How To Do Link Building with WordPress

Filed under: web 2.0 — Tags: — taewoo @ 7:15 pm April 10, 2010

Ok, it’s not really a a how to, but more what I discovered working extensively with wordpress (especially themes) lately.

This post is for two types of people

  1. Developers/Web people who are looking to build some links to sites they own
  2. People who’ve downloaded themes from these ‘free wordpress theme” sites and installed them.. only to find out that the them maker has plastered his/her own ads or links all over YOUR wordpress

Before I continue, am I in no way saying that all wordpress theme makers are bunch of link baiting douche trying to get some free links. I do recognize that they’ve done all this work technically for free, and that we (as leeches) should give back by letting them back link to their sites. And also am i in no way condoning the behavior of “leech” people stripping out stuff that the theme author has intended to be there… Nor am I saying that the people should let these authors get a free ride either.

In another words, I am not saying shit so don’t blame me or put words in my mouth. I am just telling you what I found out.

I am certain people downloaded + installed wordpress extension modules - mainly plugins and themes. Wordpress is a great content management system and its network of artists + developers make wordpress quite possibly the best open source web software on the planet.

Here are some ways I’ve found people trying to link bait, i.e. put links back to their sites, with these methods:

Beginner/Noob Method

Straight up HTML embedded in their code. It’s quite easy to find and remove them if you find them annoying. Even the most beginner web person or people w/minimum HTML knowledge can figure this out.

Intermediate Methods

  • - Encode” the HTML into something people can’t quite figure out, like base 64 encode function
  • - Put the HTML tags in the database, which gets called + rendered on the browser. If the “leech” person isn’t
  • - Combine #1 and #2.

Advanced Methods

This method is by far the “smartest” method of preventing the leech user from stripping out the backlink.

  • - “Call home” to a server and get instructions on what to do.
  • - Store “instruction” as an add_option that gets executed when certain even handlers fire.
  • - Serialize or base64 encode the instructions into the database.
  • - Have serialize or base64 encoded checks in the file to make sure that the stuff is still there. If not, throw a 404 or something ridiculous like that.

Last night, I was setting up a blog for a friend. I downloaded a theme and noticed it had back links plastered all over it. I tried removing them from the file and voila! The blog was rendered useless. It took me about an hour to figure out what was going on.

Very very sneaky.

*edit* I actually had more explicit instructions on this advanced method but I think I will take it out. I personally wouldn’t encourage any theme developers doing this nasty type of stuff.

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