Did you type up a lovely Twitter card description and then realise there is a glaring typo after your page has gone live? No? Surely it can't just be me. :p
The easiest way to fix that is to update your card description and then validate your URL with the Twitter card validator. That should clear the cached description and then you can merrily tweet away without the typo staring at you in the face.
Hope that helps someone! :)
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Monday, October 30, 2017
Redirecting Old Blog Posts
Well, I can't put it off any longer. I'm slowly and laboriously adding "this article has moved" links to all my old posts on my old domain to try and retain any links floating in cyberspace. I've thought about it for far too long. I did set them all to private but that still makes them accessible by anyone with the link. I could just delete them all but that would break the chain of any existing links. (I've taken part in a fair few blog hops, over the last year.) So... that pretty much leaves the manual link update. I'd do a permanent redirect at the root but it's a free WordPress domain so that's out. It's tedious but it has to be done. Maybe not all in one day though! x
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Brand Accounts for Google Services
So, did you know that brand accounts are a thing? I didn't - for the longest time! I've finally got my SLOAH brand account up and running, set up the Google Plus page and the YouTube account... and now need to consider what on earth to do with the "personal" account that was meant to be the blog account but is now rather superfluous.
That's the thing about blogging - there's always something new to learn. Just yesterday, YouTube was the scariest thing ever and I had never uploaded a single video. Today, I've uploaded 67 seconds and managed to type up close captions (subtitles). I feel rather accomplished! :)
Anyway, there's a modest amount of content on the "personal" blog account and I'm not convinced it's hugely weighted in terms of my social media impact. I've followed the handful of followers on the brand account, and I'm going to start pushing my updates on to the brand account... All things being equal, I can see myself deleting the "personal" G+ page and cutting my losses there. Which means I'll be able to set the name properly on the email, with nice formatting, as that's been bugging me for a while.
How's your bloglife going? Learned any new skills today? :)
That's the thing about blogging - there's always something new to learn. Just yesterday, YouTube was the scariest thing ever and I had never uploaded a single video. Today, I've uploaded 67 seconds and managed to type up close captions (subtitles). I feel rather accomplished! :)
Anyway, there's a modest amount of content on the "personal" blog account and I'm not convinced it's hugely weighted in terms of my social media impact. I've followed the handful of followers on the brand account, and I'm going to start pushing my updates on to the brand account... All things being equal, I can see myself deleting the "personal" G+ page and cutting my losses there. Which means I'll be able to set the name properly on the email, with nice formatting, as that's been bugging me for a while.
How's your bloglife going? Learned any new skills today? :)
Monday, September 04, 2017
Up and Running, Again!
That was a job and a half! I've ported my Wordpress site from their hosting to my new web host, so I could use a self-hosted package. (I've been dying to get my hands on full Google Analytics implementation!)
My domain was languishing on mapping, even though I'd updated my nameservers. I couldn't figure out what the problem was (asides from impatience at the treacle movement of DNS propagation). I flushed the DNS. I cleared my caches. I badgered the Wordpress team, on the forums and via Twitter. There seemed to be a major security issue, so I updated the SSL certificate. (Alas, I've been too accustomed to other people doing this on behalf.)
However, the main thing is it's now all working again! I have Analytics! (Yay!) I have plugins! (Double yay!) I also have a slightly guilty conscience that it may have been more to do with invalid security certs and a lack of patience. I'm very grateful to a friend who did a lot of kind hand-holding, and to the Wordpress team for putting up with my rants and fixing the unmapping.
Job done. On to the next job. :)
My domain was languishing on mapping, even though I'd updated my nameservers. I couldn't figure out what the problem was (asides from impatience at the treacle movement of DNS propagation). I flushed the DNS. I cleared my caches. I badgered the Wordpress team, on the forums and via Twitter. There seemed to be a major security issue, so I updated the SSL certificate. (Alas, I've been too accustomed to other people doing this on behalf.)
However, the main thing is it's now all working again! I have Analytics! (Yay!) I have plugins! (Double yay!) I also have a slightly guilty conscience that it may have been more to do with invalid security certs and a lack of patience. I'm very grateful to a friend who did a lot of kind hand-holding, and to the Wordpress team for putting up with my rants and fixing the unmapping.
Job done. On to the next job. :)
Sunday, September 03, 2017
Hosting for Keeps
After a mere 2.5 months of opting for the WordPress premium hosting package, I'm already feeling buyer's regret! I'm really hacked off by the lack of Google Analytics integration and not inclined to triple my original payment to upgrade to business hosting.
So, what are my options? The first and most obvious is: choose to live with the restrictions - for at least another 9.5 months. That's like having a third pregnancy! I don't handle that kind of timescale well. The second option is also obvious: pay for the business upgrade and suck up the huge expense. My budget is extremely tight, right now, and that's not something I really want to consider. The third and final option is: move to self-hosting with an independent web host. That's going to be a regular headache of choosing a cheap package, repointing the domain name, dealing with my site stats tanking for up to 24-48 hours at least, and trying to get a refund on the remainder of my WordPress subscription.
To be honest, none of these 3 options are filling me with joy. I think I might look into the hosting options and then decide whether it's worth the hassle and whether I can live without Analytics for longer. After all, I managed without for nearly 10 months on the free WordPress account... it's just so tantalising when I'm focusing on pro-blogging to have such a useful tool almost within reach but not quite there. (It's also really annoying that it's super easy to implement on my secondary Tumblr blog. Analytics, Quantcast, you name it and I can stick it on my Tumblr blog.)
I think I kinda know what I'm going to do in the end. I just don't want to face it right now. I have a lot of background issues that are taking higher priority over blog admin. Even this post is a bit of displacement activity - in a rather cryptically therapeutic way!
So, what are my options? The first and most obvious is: choose to live with the restrictions - for at least another 9.5 months. That's like having a third pregnancy! I don't handle that kind of timescale well. The second option is also obvious: pay for the business upgrade and suck up the huge expense. My budget is extremely tight, right now, and that's not something I really want to consider. The third and final option is: move to self-hosting with an independent web host. That's going to be a regular headache of choosing a cheap package, repointing the domain name, dealing with my site stats tanking for up to 24-48 hours at least, and trying to get a refund on the remainder of my WordPress subscription.
To be honest, none of these 3 options are filling me with joy. I think I might look into the hosting options and then decide whether it's worth the hassle and whether I can live without Analytics for longer. After all, I managed without for nearly 10 months on the free WordPress account... it's just so tantalising when I'm focusing on pro-blogging to have such a useful tool almost within reach but not quite there. (It's also really annoying that it's super easy to implement on my secondary Tumblr blog. Analytics, Quantcast, you name it and I can stick it on my Tumblr blog.)
I think I kinda know what I'm going to do in the end. I just don't want to face it right now. I have a lot of background issues that are taking higher priority over blog admin. Even this post is a bit of displacement activity - in a rather cryptically therapeutic way!
Sunday, August 13, 2017
Tags, Labels & Blog Fables
Once upon a time, there was a little blog with short daily posts. After a month, the posts grew into longer, more intermittent entries. After a year, it grew into a large, healthy blog with lots of lovely posts on many different (but interrelated) topics.
When the blog was very little, a few tags and labels were enough. As it grew older, it became clear that this was insufficient and that the blog needed more tags and a wider range of subject labels.
So, dear readers, the blog owner will have to take the time to go through all the old posts (67 published and at least 2 pending) and reorganise the entire lot. When one has a fledgeling blog, however small, one really should look to the future when said blog is likely to become a big grown up blog and one really ought to prepare a sufficient range of tags and categories in advance!
When the blog was very little, a few tags and labels were enough. As it grew older, it became clear that this was insufficient and that the blog needed more tags and a wider range of subject labels.
So, dear readers, the blog owner will have to take the time to go through all the old posts (67 published and at least 2 pending) and reorganise the entire lot. When one has a fledgeling blog, however small, one really should look to the future when said blog is likely to become a big grown up blog and one really ought to prepare a sufficient range of tags and categories in advance!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)