Changing your permalink structure on WordPress is non-trivial. It can break your site, orphan your content, and do murder to your SEO. I have a heap of very old links from Lifehacker and other domains that point to content on my old domain, when I was using an old permalink structure. So I needed to be able to…
The Difference Between Organic and Direct Web Traffic
If you host any type of website you’ve probably heard the terms “organic” and “direct” with reference to web traffic. Many people confuse the two, so here’s the difference. Organic traffic is traffic from search engines. Direct traffic is traffic from someone typing your URL into their browser or using a bookmark to get to your site.
From Chartbeat to Google Analytics
I’ve been using both Chartbeat and Google Analytics for a couple of years now. I basically used Chartbeat for elegant and cleanly displayed realtime metrics, and Google Analytics for the drilldown data. Google Analytics released their Realtime view a long time ago actually, but it simply didn’t provide the kind of data I wanted to see. But with…
Top WordPress Attack Passwords
As the creator and one of the maintainers of the SecLists Project, I like creating lists of usernames and passwords that are live and used in the wild. So I decided to capture some data on what usernames and passwords were being attempted against my site’s WordPress install over a single day. Here are some of my findings:…
The Difference Between a Category and a Tag
If you’re into blogging at all you’ve probably come across the terms “category” and “tag”. There’s a lot of confusion around them, as they’re both terms that you assign to posts so that your readers can find them. Here’s a simple explanation of the difference. Categories Categories define a taxonomy to your site, meaning they’re hierarchical, (like folders…
List all Social Shares of Your Website Using Google Analytics
There are many services out there that show you how many tweets you’ve received. Or how many Facebook likes, Google +1’s, etc. But it’s been more difficult to see all shares of your site across all networks. Turns out, Google Analytics actually has this built in; you just have to hunt for it. Clicking “Overview” in the Social…
Google Pagespeed Not a Good Choice For High-traffic Sites
So I have just finished optimizing my web stack to the nth degree. Host, web server, application server, database, caching, DNS, CDN—everything. One of the components I used was Google’s Pagespeed, which comes in two forms. Here I’m speaking of the local version, i.e. the package you compile into Nginx and then configure. From there it optimizes content…
Speeding Up Nginx Caching With tempfs
If you’ve done anything with optimizing the speed of websites, you know that caching is a must. It basically means you’re creating a page once, and then using it multiple times—as opposed to having to create it every time someone asks for it. So caching is good, is what I’m saying. Caching 2.0 There’s a caching superpower that…
How to Add Social Media Sharing Buttons Without JavaScript
If you’re like me, you are conflicted on the issue of social media buttons on your site. You want people to be able to share your content, but You hate the performance hit that comes with social media buttons Social media buttons seem innocent enough until you look at your site loading with them. They usually add significant…
Using Reddit for Blog Comments
A little bit ago I wrote a post about how I was disabling comments on my blog, and how I’d be using Twitter and email for comments instead. One of my fellow pentester buddies, Rob Fuller (@mubix), commented that he liked the idea, but that he’d rather just use Reddit.
TLP: The Blog You Should Be Reading
I’ve told you before about The Last Psychiatrist, but you didn’t listen. I’m telling you again: this is some of the best social commentary out there. Add it to your feeds. Read it. Here’s a sample. Propaganda doesn’t succeed because it is manipulative, it works because people WANT it, NEED it, it gives their life a direction and…
Is Twitter Replacing Blog Comments?
I just turned off comments on my blog. There are many reasons, but I think they’re best summarized by Matt Gemmell. Here are his big ones:
How I Collect and Display Interesting Content I Find Online
[ NOTE: Yahoo Pipes has been murdered, so a lot of this post is now stale. ] Like many others in technology I spend a good amount of time reading news and marking content that I may want to come back to later or share with others. Given the number of sources I consume it’s difficult to do…
If You’re Blogging on Facebook, Stop It
I have a number of friends who actually post insightful ideas and comments on Facebook, and they do so semi-regularly. It’s an absolute waste of time and creative energy. If you’re actually writing anything you value, to any degree, and doing so consistently, you should be doing it on an actual blog–not on Facebook. Here are a few…