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I’ve been called in a couple of times recently by clients to fix hacked sites.  What makes it worse is that they were victims of a very pernicious attack know as the Pharma Hack.

I want to make you aware of this hack and give you tools to find if you are a victim and how to fix it.

What Is The Pharma Hack

When your site is infected with this hack, you will be inadvertently giving links to Pharma sites selling Viagra and Cialis and other disco drugs.  Not the most professional thing for people to see in Google linked to your site.

The hack is a black hat SEO attack, these people are trying to increase links to their site for the keywords viagra, cialis et al.

Your post descriptions in Google will contain references to drugs rather the the real title you set for you post.

Why Is It So Tricky

It cloaks itself from the site owner very carefully, unless you regularly check your site’s index on google you will not see the  effect of this hack, to the site owner it looks very much like business as usual.

It searches for your most high ranking pages and only links from them.  It selectively decides which pages to infect, why bother with low ranking posts!!

It has many layers and if one is compromised, the others enable the “hack owners ” to re-actiave the scripts on your site.   It infects the following layers

• WordPress core files
• Plugins
• Uplaods direcotry
• Databse wp-options table

This is cunning coding, if these people put this type of skill into useful projects they would make a million.

Identifying If You’ve Been Attacked

The quickest way is to run a check on your site to see if you have been infected,  is to check on your site’s index in Google.  Run the following search in Google:

site:{yourdomain.com} viagra

If you see unusual meta descriptions in Google linked to legitimate blog posts then you have probably been hacked.

What Can You Do?

There is a very detailed fix supplied by Securi.net, but in essence you need t:

• Clean up WordPress
• Clean up your plugins
• Clean up your uploads directory
• Edit your database to remove rogue entries

All of this is pretty technical stuff, you need to understand how WordPress works at a pretty low level to fix this, miss just one infected component and your site will be re-infected.

UPDATE: Dec 2011

I’ve written a follow up post on cleaning up your index in Google after the hack Refreshing The Google Index After Pharma Hack

Need More Help Fixing Your Hacked Site?

I’ve create a WordPress Hack Recovery Course

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I’m going to extend the focus of wpdude in the coming months and start to write about some of the things I am passionate about outside of the tech arena.  I hope they are of intetest, it not just tell me to shut the F!!K up in the comments.

Today I want to talk about building a digital career.

What Is A Digital Career

I think of it as digital entrepreneurship, running your own business (probably as a solopreneur) online.  This means you sell your products or service solely online via online marketing practices such as email lists, search engine marketing and social media marketing.

I class myself as having a digital career, all of my clients come to me via the internet, I fix their sites over the internet, take payment and communicate via the tinterwebs.  Everything I do is online.

There are a growing band of people building their own fulfilling digital careers and I think it is in the realms of possibility for many people out there to cut the corporate leash and strike out alone

In My Experience Corporations Crush The Spirit

Working in a corporation was, to me, one of the worst things ever.  I did it for 16+ years.  It was what was done, you went through school, got into a good company worked your way up, took shit for 30-40 years retired and died not long afterwards.

I saw freelance contractors in corporations, but they were just another cog in the wheel, taking the same nonsense as permies.

You put your poor old body through the daily commute, crawl into your cubicle or desk and attend to the days nonsense.  Take abuse from management, attend stupid meetings, the annual appraisal, the networking and brown nosing to wriggle your way up the ladder, only to be told your position is going to be outsourced for a couple of pence per hour.

That’s a gross generalisation I know there are many people who love their jobs and the sense of identity it give them, so the rantings in this post are not for you, but if you crave some freedom read on.

Working For Myself Is The Best Thing I Ever Did

Stepping away from the culture of meetings, human resource departments, set annual leave, control over your daily life, and an expectation that you would make yourself available 24/7 for phone calls was a joyous thing for me.  I remember carrying a box of stuff to my car on that Friday with a huge smile on my face.

I setup on my own, and while it has not been all plain sailing, I don’t regret a thing, I have grown as a person, I am much more happy, and I love being my own boss.  The simple joys of nipping off for a two hour coffee break with a friend, having a huge amount of time with my two amazing daughters, deciding which projects I take and which I don’t all get marked on the plus side of building a digital career.

I sent out a tweet the other days saying something like:

“Sent an invoice to a client in Australia, spoke to a potential client in Sweden, working on a client project from Boston, working online rules”

I got several replies confirming how cool the whole working online thing is.  That is why I love the idea of building a digital career and would like to help other people do it.

You Can Reach Millions Of People Cheaply

The internet has changed the way people do business, 10-15 years ago you would need a huge advertising push to start a new business.  you would need dozens of contacts a business plan, startup capital and take huge risks.

Starting a digital business could cost as little as $100-200

• Hosting $50
• Theme $50
• Domain name $10
• WordPress Free

Hang Up Your Shingle

It doesn’t have to be complicated, create your website, sell your time as a service business and bingo you are ready to take orders.  Setup your paypal account and hey-presto you are taking money.

You don’t need a business plan, an exit strategy business cards or a smart new suit, you just need a service or product people value enough to cough up cash for.  And I bet most people have the skills to do that.

I had an argument with a friend about this, he is a fireman, and he says he cannot setup as a freelance solo fireman, true he cannot so I told him to be creative, what is he great at, answer he plays the game Eve and is very very good, he can write an e-book on eve strategies and sell that online from a blog on the subject.  The point is you don’t have to think of your core employee skills as your route to a digital career.

Start On The Side

You don’t even need to quit your day job to start your new business, you can do it on the side.  Offer something that is not dependant upon you providing one-to-one time, my tech support services could be done over the weekend, as long as a client has his or her expectations managed they don’t care when the work is done.

A great story I heard is from Dave Navarro from http://www.rockyourday.com/ he used to give consulting calls from his car during his lunch hour.  A brilliant way to start on the side.

It Can Evolves As You Do

Your digital career is not set in stone, you can change and evolve as you grow and learn.  This post is part of my evolution, I’m keen to help people to build a digital career of their own.  If I get enough positive feedback I might spawn a new site, neil-matthews.com has been purchased and is awaiting it’s purpose.

If you decide to add a new set of services or products to your portfolio you can.  In the old world you were (for example) an accountant, your joined a firm, counted up and divided by a number till the end of your career, you could retrain, and move over, but could you be an accountant on a Monday and a marketing chap on Wednesdays, no you could not, but a digital career means you can pursue a number of avenues, take on new challenges.

Corporations Don’t Mean Security

I think anyone who has watched the recent corporate meltdowns has to agree that working for the man is not that secure anymore.  It only takes one mouse click on a spreadsheet to turn you from dedicated employee to redundant, and will that nameless, shameless bean counter give a rats arse about you, no, that’s why self serving digital career building is so important.

Even if you are not working full time a diversified income stream is very useful.  It helps to even out the bumps in the road and pay for extra luxuries.

Build  A Business Not A Job

You don’t have to just swap one time for money job for another, when you build a digital career, you can build a true business.  I have a list of clients, they come back to me time and again for more and more work, that’s a business not a job.  I have developed a new product wptroubleshooting which can be sold again and again with little or no input from me, a digital career allows that, a corporate job does not.  I’m looking to expand my portfolio into digital career consulting and products.

These are assets and can be sold when you move on or grow board, you cannot say that about the paper shuffling you are doing today.

What Do You Think?

Are you investing time and effort into building your digital career?  Do you think the internet is freeing us from corporate bullshit and allowing people to blossom?

Have I sparked up an appetite for digital entrepreneurship in you, if I have let me know in the comments and I will write more about the subject.

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Let’s start the week with a little bit of open discussion.  I want to pose the following question:

“How can you use a commentors email address?”

Let’s step through the process, to leave a comment on a WordPress site you need to leave your email address.  Is this an indication you want to be contacted, have you given your email address over to be contacted by the site owner?

The email addresses are sitting there in your WordPress database, with a little effort they can be exported and use by the site owner to send content or offers to the email address holder.

Have They Opted In?

Has a commenter opted into your stream of messages by leaving their email address?  Have they given their permission to be contacted?

This is a grey area, in my heart of hearts I think they have opted in to discuss a particular post and not to be added to your full list.

But … they have shown interest in your site, they are engaged enough to leave a comment, what if you have some excellent content only available to your email list members.

Can You Ask for Further Permission?

Is it acceptable to export their email addresses and then request their permission to contact them further?  How would you feel if you got a message like this

Hi {name}

I’m contacting all of the people who have left comments on my site to tell you about a free download I have created.   My ebook entitled “The ten best widgets in the world” is available to download at no cost by joining my email list.  You can do this from this link>>

Once they are on your list that is definite permission.

Using Email Addresses

A client of mine wanted to use the email addresses of his commentors to market an upcoming publication.  The site has an active discussion going on in the comments, these people are invested in the site and enjoy the content being created.

I’m pretty sure they would be interested in the offer being made.

Export Emails

I used this plugin to extract all of the email addresses from the comments database so they can be imported into an email service such as Mailchimp.

http://www.joeswebtools.com/wordpress-plugins/export-emails/

I tested the process using my own site, I extracted a CSV of everyone who has commented on a post, took that list over to Mailchimp and imported it to make sure the process works.

I now have 124 email addresses in Mailchimp in an unused list.  I know these are people who are interested in WordPress, to be blunt, these all meet my target demographics and are potential clients, there are several potential projects in there, should I mine that data,

What Is The Agreement

How would you feel if you got an email from a site you had commented on?  To me this does not feel right, let’s get this discussion moving in the comments (honest I won’t add you to my list, you will need to opt in first) how can you use an email address?

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I’m quietly opening the doors of my online store this afternoon with the general release of my first mini course, WP Troubleshooting.

What’s Am I Selling In My Store

I’m going to build a series of mini courses from my store.  The course will solve particular WordPress problems.

The mini guides will be held in their own micro sites where you can watch the video tutorials, download text and PDF documents and get support from me via forums or comments

How Much Will The Mini Courses Be?

I’m planning to charge 20-40 dollars per course depending upon the subject matter and th amount of time to create the content

Come On In

Come on in, browse the aisles hopefully I will have a course for you.wpdude.com/store.

I’ve just found a nifty thing about twitter in Jade Cravens Twitter mini guide (aff) and thought I would share it.

Not a lot of people know this but you can store up certain tweets in your twitter feed and use them as a type of testimonial list

The Favourite Function

When you mark a tweet as a favourite it is stored in a permanent store against your twitter account, you can then direct people to that URL and use people’s comments as a series of 140 character testimonials.

Your Testominal Engine URL

If you go to http://twitter.com/{YOURID}/favourites you can get a list of tweets that you have marked as a favourite.

How To Create A Testimonial Engine

Every time you get constructive feedback via a tweet from a customer or client, simply mark this as a favourite.   How you do this depends upon your twitter clients, for example I use tweetdeck and there is a favourite menu option.

From twitter.com, when you hover over a tweet, a favourite icon appears to click.

Why Haven’t I Been Doing This For Years

Doh! I would have a testimonials list as long as my arm.  Here are the few I have collected recently

http://twitter.com/wpdude/favourites

It’s Easy To Get Tweetstermonials

I just made that up, I should register that domain name and make my millions.

If you ask your clients for testimonials (you are asking your client for testimonials aren’t you) there may be some resistance to knock up half a page of copy, but a 140 char tweet takes no time so there is less resistance.

Can I Have A Tweetstermonial Please

If we have worked together recently or you like the content I produce jump onto twitter and send me a tweet @wpdude and I will add you to my tweetstermonials list.

For more great Twitter tips, check out Jade Craven’s Twitter Mini Guide (aff)

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This is a guest post by Areej from WinkPress.com.

When most people hear WordPress, they think “blog.” But WordPress is more than a tool for making blogs. If you understand how WordPress works, you know that it can make any type of website–even a website like Amazon.com!

Two different types of Amazon Associates can both use WordPress effectively.

Bloggers who’re using WordPress have a plethora of Amazon Associate tools at their disposal. WordPress is their best choice. Similarly, affiliate marketers who’re building Amazon niche stores also have access to tools that could transform WordPress into an Amazon.com replica. That’s why WordPress is also their best choice.

Here’s why WordPress’s flexibility makes it the best choice for the Amazon Associate blogger and affiliate marketer.

The Amazon Associate Blogger

WordPress (mostly) makes blogs, right? If you blog, you can complement your posts with related Amazon products–it could be additional reading, a movie, an instrument, an electronic gadget, what have you. Log-in to Amazon Associate Central and handpick products to promote. Take the embed code and insert it in your post.

If you don’t want to handpick products for a post each time, you can still make money with Amazon. Use Amazon’s Omakase widget. It’s contextual, like AdSense. Amazon knows who your visitor is because they have cookies in her browser. They also have robots that scan your post content. Based on this data, Amazon displays relevant ads your visitor is most likely to buy!

Use Amazon contextual ads any where on your blog–WordPress won’t mind. Inserting ads in posts and the sidebar is easy. But for other spots you may find yourself limited by your understanding of WordPress templates. It’s not hard to understand, though.

There are plugins that make product insertion even easier. Choose a frequently updated and improved Amazon plugin, like WordPress-Amazon-Associate or Amazon Product in a Post.

At any rate, displaying Amazon products in WordPress posts is not a feature that will impress many people. Don’t get me wrong, WordPress does this better than any other blogging platform. But the beauty of WordPress is in its ability to transform itself into something very different!

The Amazon Associate Niche Store

You can use WordPress to build money-making Amazon niche stores that look nothing like blogs–and who wants to make an online store that looks like a blog? Nobody. Yet, people still do. I guess they’re unaware of WordPress’s flexibility.

Just because it is WordPress, doesn’t mean it has to display a chronologically ordered list of posts on the front page.

“Posts” — in WordPress — don’t have to be blog posts. A “post” can be anything: a personal profile, a product page, an image, a song, a podcast, or any other digital entity. Posts are the building blocks of a WordPress site. For an Amazon Associate who is building a niche store, a post is a product.

Product title is post title. Product description is post description. Product image is post featured image. Additional product images become a WordPress gallery. Your affiliate link is in the clickable image and the “Buy from Amazon.com” button.

So, fill up WordPress with products in this way then arrange them in online store layout and you’ll have yourself a proper Amazon niche store–powered by the most versatile and search engine friendly CMS.

If you’re discouraged by the seemingly tedious process, don’t be. There are plenty of Amazon WordPress plugins whose sole intention is helping Amazon Associates build niche stores filled with products in a matter of minutes!

But a good plugin alone will not change how WordPress looks–WordPress also needs a magazine theme. Haven’t you noticed this? The front page of magazine themes look a lot like online store layout. Next time you’re building a online store with WordPress, use a magazine theme.

You know — you could choose a web script that only does Amazon niche stores, and such a script does exist. But it won’t do it as well as WordPress combined with a good plugin and theme. Or you can choose a blogging platform that just does blogs, but I hope by now, I don’t have to tell you that you’re better off with WordPress.

—

Areej is the coauthor of WinkPress.com–a web resource about leveraging WordPress and its tools for online publishing. She enjoys anime and dreams of becoming a pianist.

@rejo311

UPDATE: I’ve caused a ton of confusion with this page and I have taken it down while I re-write the copy

As a complement to my by the hour services that I have been offering for a number of years, I have decided to build a number of packaged solutions to help solve a number of common WordPress issues

If you check out my new services page you can see what I plan to offer as well as my by the hour support.

I’m going to do mini launches of each new service so as not to overwhelm people, this week it’s my WordPress site review service

What Is A WordPress Site Review

This is where I gain access to your site and review how you have configured WordPress.  Because WordPress is so complex and big, many people are unsure if they are using WordPress to the optimum level, I check over their config and produce a report recommending any changes I see.

The review covers the following areas

• Your Theme – how is is configured, and what is it telling your site visitors, is your call to action being displayed.
• Your Plugins – Are you using the best plugins to support your site and business.
• Your Security – Is Your site secure and safe from hackers.
• Your SEO – Will you attract the maximum number of search engine visitors due to your SEO configuration.
• Your Site Speed – Site visitors and search engines are turned off my slow loading sites, can you WordPress install be faster.
• Your On-Going maintenance – are you maintaining and keeping your site up to date.
• And more – any other issues I find will also be highlighted.

Want More Details?

If you want more details or would like to book a review please visit my WordPress site review page.

Coming Next

The WordPress security review, keep the hackers out of your site

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