Tips Tuesday – WP Sells User Data, Ranking Factors, Modified Date Plugin

Hello Happy Site Owner!

Tips this week include:

• Removing Spectra is a pain
• Update on Looker Studio
• New plugin tutorial for Change Last Modified Date
• New Cloudflare settings tutorial
• What a consultation client shared that just made my day
• Ranking Factors workshop this week
• Google claims their search has improved – in court
• Automattic to sell user data for AI training
• AI is all about who gets paid
• Are you making money with AI yet?

BlogAid Happenings

Removing Spectra is a Pain

I got Spectra off my 3 BlogAid-related sites.

But I used the UAG/Spectra blocks extensively on my Heartwood Art site and my book site.

So, I wanted to see what would happen if I just deactivated that plugin.

I cloned a site and found out.

Content only disappeared where I was using a grid block.

On the page where I was using Advanced Rows and Columns for extensive tool image and affiliate link layout, all of the content is there, but no longer in columns, and no styling like background and borders.

And then I’ll need to touch a big group block on every post that has the tools used layout, as it has bunches of columns and sections too.

And you better believe that I’ll just be using all native WP blocks when I rebuild it too. A group block with a background and then a row of columns that has a header block with a different background color in between the rows is going to be just as organized and easy to scan.

I’m going to take it 30 minutes a day until it’s done. I hope I’ll be finished by the end of the month.

How are you doing with removing Spectra from your site?

Looker Studio Update

I’m so grateful to the beta testers who are helping to improve the 7 report pages that will be in the standard package I’ll be offering.

There will be 4 GA4 pages, 2 GSC pages, and 1 page for YouTube.

That’s all you need to easily glean actionable info about what’s happening with your content marketing.

And their feedback has been amazing!!

I’m creating the starter tutorials this week, to familiarize users with each page of the report. And then give you an example of research you can do by clicking on certain elements in it.

Next, I’ll be creating the tutorials for a course to take you deeper into the reports so you can get the most from them.

I’ll keep you posted on progress.

New Change Last Modified Date Plugin Tutorial

To help preserve our post ranking when we are making updates, we’ve been using the Limit Modified Date plugin. But, it is no longer being supported.

The dev suggested we use the Change Last Modified Date plugin.

I made a tutorial for us on it. 

So please do make the switch.

New Cloudflare Settings Tutorial

Cloudflare gives me and my peeps awesome site security by kicking bad actors before they ever hit the hosting, much less our site.

And that saves a ton of resource usage at our host and reserves that for human visitors.

And all of that makes our site load faster too.

Well, Cloudflare got a little zealous in some of their security settings and it caused too many visitors to see a splash screen that said they were being checked prior to seeing the site.

And some of those visitors freaked out a bit. They were concerned the site was hacked or such.

So, I made a tutorial for my site audit client Hub members as well as my Webmaster Training designers for how to tweak one of the settings so that we still get great protection, but fewer legitimate site owners see that splash screen.

This Made My Day

A few months ago a new client contacted me to help her pivot her lifestyle blog into a more narrow niche.

We inventoried her current content. 

Then we made a plan for a new Content Silo.

Then she learned Gutenberg and did her own page layouts for those Silos. She even did the new layout draft for her home page that features those Silos instead of categories too.

And now she is taking her visitors on a well-planned journey through her site and straight to her funnels and offerings too.

The other day she got an email from someone, connected to that niche, who complimented her on the extraordinary layout and content that has truly streamlined the visitor’s journey.

That just made my day!!!!!!!!!

My client took the info in the consults, put butt in seat and did the work, and now she’s getting confirmation that folks are most definitely noticing.

And we’re not done yet.

She has been so impressed with the progress she’s made that she signed up for a migration/audit combo. We just moved her off some seriously expensive hosting to a far superior host. And we’re in the process of cleaning out years of old plugins and orphans and getting her site fast and secure too.

She’ll be getting a new theme that is all Gutenberg later this year as well because she see’s how dated her current theme is and how much it limits her in the kind of pages she can build herself now too.

This is exactly why my clients stick with me for years. 

They get results they can see with every step they take.

Are you ready to start seeing real results too? 

Check out all the Site Services I offer and get in touch with me.

SEO Tips

Ranking Factors Workshop This Week

I’ve had to completely revamp the Ranking Factors workshop in the DIY SEO course.

That’s because what it takes to rank has been stood on it’s head since late last summer and through the fall.

We’ll be meeting live to discuss case studies on what got sites tanked and what recovery methods some folks have used.

And then we’ll cover the ranking factors that we still believe Google considers important too.

Google Claims Their Search Has Improved – In Court

The DOJ has leveled an anti-trust suit against Google. It involves, among other things, the quality of search as it impacts ads.

Google released their post-trial brief where they boldly declare that IS (Information Satisfaction) has actually gotten better.

Uh, no, Google. It hasn’t.

WordPress Tips

Automattic Sells User Data for AI Training

404Media is reporting that Tumblr and WordPress will be selling their user’s data to train AI models.

To be clear, this is WordPress.com which offers free hosting for WP sites. It’s not the WordPress.org version that you are self-hosting.

Both WordPress.com and Tumblr are owned by Automattic.

The data will be sold to both OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, and to Midjourney, which is the leading AI image generator.

This deal is not without controversy, especially with Tumblr’s product managers.

I suggest you read the article for yourself for all the details.

And then see this TikTok by Morten Rand-Hendriksen, who has been an Open Source advocate for decades, for his take on it.

And then see this post on the 10 questions he has publicly put to Matt Mullenweg about this.

Plus, see the WPTavern post about it, with Automattic’s response.

FYI, this is an optin-by default setting. Automattic has not yet released info on how to opt out. My guess is that they will do that when this deal is finalized.

AI Tips

It’s All About Who Gets Paid

Tips Tuesday Plus subscribers got the rest of this tip. Subscribe now.

Are You Making AI Money Yet?

But, that certainly doesn’t mean that creators aren’t making money!! Far from it!!!

I want you to think about something.

As a blogger, how much free, Open Source tech are you using to make money with your site?

WordPress is free.

Most of your plugins are free.

The blog post you’re reading right now is free.

That’s a WHOLE LOT of volunteer manhours to produce all the free things you get to use.

Do you feel like you’ve ripped off anyone by consuming/using all these free things in your endeavor to make a profit?

Of course you don’t.

That’s because you are using these free things with permission from the creator.

AI models are making some folks a bunch of money. 

A whole other economy is emerging – the SAME way a whole other economy grew out of the internet and blogging.

Right now you have the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the AI economy as a tangent to what you are already doing, and then use that to grow into a whole other area of profit.

I’m already making money with AI. And I plan to make more.

I hope you find a way to do the same because it’s only going to grow and will eventually become a normal part of our every day lives, just like the internet has.