The Back and Forth of Entrecard’s Ever Evolving Drop Policies
Vague Wording of Policies Leads to Confusion for some Users
As some of you may know from reading my previous article entitled Great EntreCard Power Dropping Tips and Information, entrecard has a large community of users who engage in “Power Dropping” to quickly acquire Entrecard credits to promote their blogs online.
As of last night EntreCard sent out an email to users informing them that they were cracking down on this type of activity. In the email EntreCard management states
“Quick drop pages devalue our network as a whole, by motivating members to drop on the same, quick loading pages, en masse to gain credits quickly and efficiently.”
At the same time EntreCard has recently launched a service that allows users to purchase credits directly from entrcard.com, which in turn allows users to circumvent the entire dropping process altogether.
After reviewing the “Entrecard Official Ebook” that users are provided with at the time of registration, I found a specific reference in regards to practices which are considered to be “breaking the rules”. In this section they state:
“be warned. If you attempt to automate your drops in any way, you will find yourself having lost all your credits.”
The issue here is that power droppers have not automated their drops. They actively drop their cards by visiting a list of fast loading sites that they have created. In most cases this has required the power dropper to visit a vast number of sites to compile an effective list.
So in many cases power droppers have visited more blogs than your average user who may only drop a handful of entrecards per day.
Once users have removed their “Power Drop” pages I would assume power droppers will compile lists of fast loading blogs with minimal content or widgets to produce the same effect that was created by quick drop pages which only featured a widget.
At this point will EntreCard specify the amount of content that is required on a page to host the EC widget? Will the Widget require a set amount of time being spent on a page before the drop is accepted? At what point can we draw a line defining what a legitimate drop is and what devalues the network.
It will be interesting to see what changes are required from users in the following months to build the EntreCard network as the developers see fit. With all the policy changes that have been taking place in the past month users need to keep their ear to the ground to make sure they do not get penalized due to the short notice provided to users about changes.
Visual Editor in WordPress is Missing or Broken
Visual Button Disappeared from the Word Press Blog Editor
I setup another blog for a friend this weekend. This installation went almost perfect except for one small nagging issue.
Problem Description
When we installed WordPress onto his host and logged in for the first time we noticed the “Visual” button was missing from the WordPress Editor. It only gave him the option to write his posts as HTML, and all the buttons that are associated with Visual Editor were missing as well.
Troubleshooting
We thought it might have been a problem with how the files had been uploaded to his host. His hosting service has a very poor FTP system which errored out three times while we were upgrading to the latest version of WordPress.
We uploaded the files again to make sure nothing was corrupt. Once we had done this we deactivated any plugins that were running to make sure they were not causing issues either.
After looking on the WordPress forums and realizing other people were running into this issue, we checked around for people’s recommendations.
A lot of the advice on the forums was that it was some sort of bug in WordPress, or that you needed to install TinyMCE or TinyMCE Advanced. Unfortunately none of these answers were the “True” answer.
It turns out the problem is much easier to fix than most people think.
Solution
This may vary depending on your situation but what we found was that this was actually an option that needed to be toggled within WordPress itself.
There is a setting in Word Press that allows users to disabled the Visual editor if they choose not to use it.
To turn the Visual editor back on and get your “Kitchen Sink” back you need to go into:
Users > “Your Username” > Visual Editor (At the top of the screen)
Because this was a new installation of WordPress this option had apparently never been enabled (although it is usually on by default). When I create user accounts, it is usually just to give someone access to an existing blog and this has never been an issue.
Near the Visual Editor Option make sure there is a check mark in the box next to “Use the visual editor when writing”.
Once this is done scroll to the buttom of the screen and click the “Update Profile” button. WordPress will now save your user settings and you should now have access to the Visual Editor once again.
Great EntreCard Power Dropping Tips and Information
An experienced EntreCard dropper knows that you can only drop up to 300 cards per day, and this is the max. Once you have hit this limit you need to wait a day before you can drop more cards.
Now 300 cards may sound like a lot when you are new to EntreCard you will soon realize there are many methods people use to “Power Drop” cards. Power Dropping cards means to hit your max of 300 drops in the shortest amount of time possible.
After searching Google and using some techniques and resources other bloggers have mentioned, I have thrown together a very effective power dropping routine that I would like to share with those who are looking to get the most out of EntreCard.
The method I use allows me to drop 300 cards in 30 minutes flat, without violating TOS rules listed on EntreCard’s website. The authors of the EntreCard site themselves have stated that they do not want EntreCard to take away from people working on their blogs.
I actually have two methods I use depending on what I am trying to accomplish that day. I have a speed method which is good when it’s late, or I am in a hurrey and I am also developing a “Power Follow” method to help get even more out of your drops. Let’s cover the Power Drop method first.
Power Dropping
To power drop people will usually compile a list of blogs which load FAST so they can drop as many cards as possible without page load times, or lag. The author of http://www.powerdropping.com/ has come up with a great list of fast loading sites that are work well for speedy drops.
The only problem I had with his list was most of the links opened in the same Window causing me to go back and reload the page. Another resource on his list had links that didn’t change color once they had been visited so it made it hard to tell what sites I had already been to.
I decided to improve on the excellent work they had already done, and created a new Power Drop list which can be located here. New and Improved Power Drop List
My list is an HTML file you can run on your PC, and every link on the list opens in it’s own Window. All the links will also change color once they have been visited, making it very easy to sort out where you have been.
Using this list, I will usually click on 10 links at a time and open 10 new windows. Then I will drop my card on each site, and use the “Alt+F” “Alt+X” command to close the windows. This method is fast! I can usually drop 10 cards in a minute or less. If you are using FireFox you can do the same thing (although I usually open 1 tab at a time because of how they close) and use the “CTRL+W” option to close the tab quickly.
This way you can burn through a list of 300 sites in about 30 minutes flat. Once you get used to opening 10 windows and using the Alt key options to close them things start to really go fast.
The first 25 links on the list do load somewhat slow. They were additions I made because I had open spots on the list after weeding out slow or broken links, You may want to start at 26 and work your way through for the fastest sites. (The other 25 can be used with my Power Follow method to get more return on your drops)
The next method I use I like to call “Power Following” it works in the same way as Power Dropping but adds a little bit more time onto the drop schedule because you are not dropping on completely optimized sites. There is a reason for this, which provides a big benifit that is outlined in the following section.
Power Follow
This method can actually benefit you more than Power Dropping because it gets you a return investment on the 300 cards you drop. I have started compiling a list of self proclaimed “followers” from the “You Drop, I Follow” crowd. There has been some debate as to how well some of these people return your drops but for the most part I have found people tend to be good followers.
The second list that I am working on (which can be downloaded here as a work in progress - “Power Follow List”) has about 150 people who are more likely to drop a card back to you, if you drop one to them. My recommendation would be to use this list for 2-3 days and then do the Power Follow drops from your inbox on EntreCard. This way you will only be dropping to people who have actually dropped back to you, and after 2 or 3 days you should have a good idea of who those people are.
When you drop from your inbox you can “Right Click” on any EntreCard logo you see that has a custom graphic and choose the “Open in new Window” to open several windows just like you would with the Power Drop list. Anyone that does not have a custom logo will need to be clicked on separately as right clicking will not bring up a menu. (Luckily most people have custom EntreCard logos)
This will once again allow you to perform a bunch of speedy drops. Best of all you will get people dropping cards back to you which will allow you to get more than 300 credits a day.
Once you have gone through your inbox and dropped a card back to everyone (who will now drop a card back to you tomorrow) you can work off the “Power Drop” list to finish the other 150-200 drops quickly. You can get a good routine of daily drops back to your account if you use this method.
Additional Ways to Get Credits
Another thing you can do to get more drops back to your account is setup an optimized HTML page for people who Power Drop to use. (And hopefully add to their list)
Because so many of us run Adsense, Referrals, Amazon Widgets, Digg Plugins etc most blogs can have annoying load times when you are trying to power drop 300 cards. Because of this, some users have setup optimized pages off their blog, which are just plain HTML pages that users can bookmark to drop their card to.
If you do this and let people know about your page it is likely that they will add it to their power drop list, which they will go through on a daily basis. The more people that add you to their list the more credits you will get as they drop their card each day.
Good rules to follow when setting up an optimized page are:
01. Create a page just to feature your EntreCard widget. Please do not put ads on this page. It is very annoying and defeats the purpose of doing this.
02. Put a link under your widget so people can get to the main page of your blog. After all EntreCard is about exploring new blogs so give people a way to check out your site if they want to.
03. HTML pages are preferred because they usually load really fast. I have seen some blogs setup an optimized page by keeping ads and widgets to a minimum but for most of us this isn’t possible, so a separate HTML can be very handy.
Please feel free to add Pseudorant’s optimized EntreCard page to your drop list! It can be located here:
http://www.pseudorant.com/powerdrop.htm
That’s about all the information I have for now. I am pretty new to EntreCard myself but I think it is a really great idea for a service. I wanted to share some of the ideas, and things I have been working on since I joined the site.
As always thanks for checking out Pseudorant. We appreciate the support!
Detailed .HTACCESS Setup Information for WordPress Blogs
Today’s guide is going to cover creating and setting up an .HTACCESS file for your web server and blog. This will allow you to create custom rules for how traffic and server requests to your site are handled.
I have broke the guide into sections based on questions I had when going through this project and learning how to configure the .htaccess file myself. You can follow the entire guide if you would like a detailed overview or read the title of each section to find the information you need.
(WARNING: Always backup your HTACCESS file before making any changes. This way if a change you make affects rules that are already in use they can be restored.)
01. What is HTACCESS and what does it do?
The .htaccess file is the default name of a configuration file that specifies rules for the way in which requests to a web server are handled. This can be something as simple as a 301 redirect from an old page to a new page (in the case that the old page has been removed or renamed) to something as complex as changing the format in which permalinks are displayed on your site.
It can also cover advanced functions like blocking specific IP addresses, or specifying file permissions on the web server.
02. How can I create and setup an .htaccess file
To setup an .htaccess file you need to first create the file itself. To create the .htaccess file, “right click” on your desktop and select the “New” > “Text Document” option.
Once you have created this file name it “htaccess.txt”. We will be changing this later but you need to do this to create a file we can edit. If you try to add the period before the file name (which is needed when the file is on your server) you will get a Windows error message that states.
** Rename ** You must type a file name
The reason this happens is because Windows will not handle files that start with a period, but unix and linux systems will. The htaccess file is a common component found on Apache web servers which are usually loaded on these types of systems.
To get around this we will make our changes to htaccess.txt in Windows, and then upload this file to the web server where we will rename it to .htaccess
To create a basic rule set for your .htaccess file you will need to copy the following code into the top of your text file.
RewriteEngine on
Followed by whatever rules you would like to assign for how your webserver should handle various requests. For our example lets assume you have an old website with a bunch of articles that you have converted into a blog.
To redirect traffic from existing links that point toward old HTML files, and send them through to the main page of your new site you could use the following command in your .htaccess file.
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^([a-z]+).html$ /directory/newpage.html [R,NC,L]
Where /directory/newpage.html would be the location where you would like to send this traffic.
In the above example the carrot ^ designates that the base directory of your site is where the .htaccess file is located. (example www.yoursite.com). The .htaccess file must be located in the root directory of your website to work properly.
The $ indicates the closing of the rule or function you are specifying in your file.
You will see these used in other rules that can be used in the .htaccess file. For a comprehensive list of these commands and rules check the following link:
HTACCESS Configuration, Rules and Settings
The web server I was working on was a friend’s website which is hosted by Netfirms. If you are working with an htaccess file on a Netfirms account refer to the following documentation for examples of htaccess commands.
Netfirms HTACESS Command Examples
03. Windows will not let me create a file beginning with a period? What do I do?
As I mentioned above this is not a problem. The way to get around this is to take the htaccess.txt file we created and to copy it to the root directory of your web server via FTP. (of however you transfer your files.) Once the file has been transferred to your webserver it can be renamed to “.htaccess” because it is no longer on a Windows system.
Make sure that if you have an existing .htaccess file on your web server that you back it up. You don’t want to lose the file by overwriting it as it may already be specifying rules that are in use on your server. This is almost definitely the case if you are running a blog.
04. When I uploaded my .htaccess file the links to articles on my blog stopped working!?! HELP!
Uh oh! It sounds like you overwrote the existing htaccess file on your web server. Not to worry…
WordPress will create an htaccess file on your web server by default when you specify any custom permalink structures for your blog. This means if you have gone with the /%postname%/ option a lot of authors recommend, WordPress will have written a custom htaccess file to implement this permalink structure throughout your site.
To resolve this issue you need to recreate this file so the article links will work again. This can be done by going into your blogs admin panel, and selecting the “Settings” > “Permalinks” and clicking “Save Changes”. This should recreate your WordPress htaccess file and restore your broken links.
05. WordPress is overwriting my .htaccess file?
Yes. WordPress will overwrite your custom htaccess file if you upload one to your server and then change anything in the permalink options within WordPress, or load a plugin that utilizes these features.
This will cause your htaccess file to be overwritten and you will lose any changes you have made.
06. I need to use custom rules in the .htaccess file in addition to the changes WordPress makes. How can this be done?
You can actually edit the htaccess file that WordPress creates and add your own custom rules to it. This is very helpful if you are maintaining a large site or are converting old HTML documents to a blog format and need to redirect old links.
To do this you first need to generate the WordPress htaccess file. This can be done by following the steps in part #4 of this guide.
(Go into “Settings” > “Permalinks” > and click “Save Changes”)
Once you have done this, you should see an htaccess file appear in the root directory of your webserver. Copy this file to your computer via FTP so that you can edit it on your local machine.
You will notice that since you have copied the file from the web server, it has a file name that starts with a period and Windows will allow you to modify and save this file. (even though it wouldn’t allow us to name the file like this before.)
Open your file in a text editor so that we can make the necessary changes and apply your custom rules.
We are looking for an area in the file that looks like this:
# BEGIN wordpress
<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c>
rewriteEngine On
rewriteBase /
rewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}!-f
rewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}!-d
rewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</ifmodule>
# END wordpress
If your code looks different than this it is most likely because your looking at the file in notepad. We will actually need to use a proper text editor to modify this file correctly. If you do not already have one read sections #7 and #8 for a good free PHP editor.
Once you see the block of code I referenced above you will need to make the following change. Add this block of code above the “# BEGIN wordpress” section in the file:
<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
CUSTOM RULES ARE ADDED HERE
</ifmodule>
Once you have done this your file should look similar to the example below:
<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
redirect 301 /olddirectory/oldpage.htm http://www.newsite.com/
</ifmodule>
# BEGIN wordpress
<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c>
rewriteEngine On
rewriteBase /
rewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}!-f
rewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}!-d
rewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</ifmodule>
# END wordpress
The rule above is just an example. For more information on htaccess rules refer to section #2 and the links provided for the proper use of different rules and functions.
Now that you have made the listed changes you can upload the htaccess file back to your web server and overwrite the old one. (As mentioned before always backup the old htaccess file incase something goes wrong.)
The file should now utilize your custom rules in addition to allowing WordPress to update the file as needed without overwriting the changes you made.
The custom rules need to be listed outside of the “# BEGIN wordpress” tag and need to come before this function to avoid being overwritten by WordPress.
You should now be able to test your custom rules by trying to access old files on your server. If run into an issue triple check your rule syntax to make sure it is correct as this could cause a problem.
(Keep in mind that you cannot easily test custom rules by overwriting your WordPress htaccess file with one you created in Windows, because any permalink structures you reference will be destroyed when you overwrite the WordPress generated htaccess file on the server.)
From here any issues you might be running into will most likely need to be researched in Apache help for htaccess or on various forums. Good luck!
The following sections provide additional information on other issues that may come up during the process I outlined, or questions people may have that were not covered in the previous sections.
07. When I open the .htaccess file created by WordPress it is garbled, and shows carriage return characters. (Squares)
It sounds like you are looking at the file right through notepad. To display the information correctly you need to download a proper editor. Since we are working with PHP files for most things with our blog we should download a PHP editor to use with our files.
08. Where can I get free PHP editor software for editing my files?
When I was working on this issue the other day I came across a great free editor called “Arisesoft Winsyntax”. It is a very small download, does everything I need it to do, is easy to use, and is completely free to use.
You can download it from the authors homepage here:
09. I have seen the custom .htaccess code created by WordPress mentioned on other blogs but no one has told me where I need to go to find and edit this code.
The code be located in the custom .htaccess file that WordPress creates on your web server. Follow the steps outlined in section #4 of this guide to create the file.
Once the file appears on your web server in your root directory you will need to download this file to your computer so you can edit it. Open this file in a text editor (as outline in sections #7 and #8 and you will see the code people have been referring to.
10. I am trying to create some custom rules for an old site that I am converting over to blog format, but some of the pages I am trying to redirect are not working. It seems like .htaccess is ignoring these files?
Hmm. It could be a number of things. The main cause I found for this issue is that the file you are trying to reference in your .htaccess file is using characters that are not “web friendly”.
In my friends case they had created file names like index[new].html and new page title.htm
.htaccess really seemed to take issue with the fact that they were using strange chacters like ] [ and spaces in the file names. Always make sure you are using web friendly file names and urls to help minimize potential problems down the road.
Overview
I hope this guide has helped answer some of the questions people may have about creating and setting up the .htacess file. This information can be used for a standard server also, but a lot of the situations I outlined pertain specifically to WordPress blogs.
If you have any questions of comments please feel free to post, and I will try to answer them if I can. I am not an .htaccess guru by any means. I am just outlining the pitfalls I ran into to help others avoid these problems.
Thanks for checking out Pseudorant. We appreciate the support!
Wordpress Stats Plugin is not Working or Gathering Information
WP Stats is not displaying any information for my blog!
If you are a blogger then you probably use the WordPress Stats plugin. For those who don’t, it is a plugin that gathers various statistics from hits to your blog. It gathers information on the number of page views, the most popular posts, search terms people use to find your blog, what sites send send you traffic, and lot of other great stuff.
Now imagine how lost you would be without this information. I recently ran into a situation where this was the case, and after a little research I was able to find out why WP Stats was not working on this particular blog.
I was helping a friend get their blog setup, and we ran into quiet a few issues. They were transferring an old website they barely maintained over to a blog format to make it easier to update and manage the information they already had.
During all the troubleshooting involved in switching the old site over to a blog, I noticed the WordPress Stats plugin was not gathering data. I tried several things to fix this, deactivating and restarting the plugin, re-entering the API key, checking settings in the admin panel and on WordPress.com, uninstalling and reinstalling the plugin, updating the plugin. None of this seemed to work.
Then I came across a post on the WordPress.com forums talking about this issue. Apparently on some themes there is a function that is left out of the footer that is needed for WP Stats to work correctly. If this is the case with your theme, that is probably what is causing the problem. To fix this you need to go into the “footer.php” file in your theme editor.
In the footer.php file scan to the bottom and look for the “</body>” tag [without the “ “]. Once you have found the tag you will need to insert this line of code above it:
<?php wp_footer(); ?>
Once that is done update (save) the file and then test WordPress Stats to see if it is working.
You may want to do this by logging out of your blog admin panel, and them clearing your cookies and temporary internet files. Once you have done this go back to your website and browse through a couple pages and this should generate a couple page views in WP Stats.
You need to make sure you are logged out of admin, and to clear your temp files or else your blog will not count hits from you because it will think you are the admin.
Hopefully your WP Stats plugin should be working now, and you will see your test page views showing up in the stats. If you see those page views WordPress Stats should now be working correctly.
Thanks for checking out Pseudorant. We appreciate the support!
-
Buy a Review!
-
Sponsored Links
