After posting my recap of the Thesis GPL drama, I got a lot of questions about how I incorporated the various tweets I cited.

If you didn’t see the post, I’ll include an example below just to bring you up to speed.

In the past when I wanted to cite a Twitter message, I’d have to copy the text (boring) or take a screen shot. If I wanted to cite an entire conversation on Twitter, it was nearly impossible. Trying to make each screen shot the same size & shape was incredibly time consuming and I almost never got it right anyway.

So, when Leland from ThemeLab tweeted about a new plugin to handle tweets, I was pretty eager to try it out.

And as you can see, I wasn’t disappointed.

The plugin, Twitter BlackBird Pie by themergency, uses a short code and automatically pulls in the desired tweet and displays it against the background used by the Twitter member you’re quoting.

Installation

Like most plugins these days, installation is only a matter of a few clicks.

Use

Using the plugin is just a little bit more involved. You have to insert a short code of [blackbirdpie id=”N”\ and in place of N insert the ID of the Tweet you’re wanting to quote.

This is where the plugin really stands out from Twitter’s official version of Blackbird Pie. To include just a single tweet, you’d need to copy and past all this code!

Problems

The plugin is still in it’s infancy so I can’t be too hard on it. However, there are a couple of issues I’d love to see fixed sometime soon. The most prominent issue is a glitch when trying to use the full URL of a tweet. Although the documentation claims it should work, I never could get the plugin to pull in a tweet using the full URL.

The other issue I’d like to see addressed is the fact that tweets have a built in shelf life. Twitter’s archives only go back so far and eventually the tweets I’m citing in this post will disappear. It should be pointed out this is really a limitation of Twitter’s Blackbird Pie functionality itself, not specific to themergency’s plugin. And, while I’m not quite sure what a possible fix for this issue could be, I suspect support for some sort of Twitter archiving system (TweetBackup perhaps?) would be a step in the right direction.

Verdict

Despite those two minor issues, I am in love with this plugin. It saves me an untold amount of time, allows users to click links within the tweets I’m quoting, and helps break up the content of my posts. By simply dropping in a quick short code, I can quickly quote a tweet and give my posts added info and a helping of eye candy. What’s not to like?

Earlier this month I was solicited to review a new premium plugin called Ninja Affiliate which has been released by the folks over at MaxBlogPress.

The plugin is $97 and allows you to automatically turn certain words into trackable affiliate links. For example, every time I typed the phrase “Thesis theme” (*Watch out Martha! That there’s one of those tricky affiliate links!*) I could have the plugin turn that into an affiliate link for me. Not only that, but it would be a cloaked link (sent through a redirect) and I would be able to track the number of clicks on that link.

Pretty cool right?

In fact, this method alone helped Jean-Baptiste over at Cats Who Blog increase his affiliate earnings by 30%!

Why Not Buy It?

So why am I telling you not to waste your money on this plugin? Because you can get the same functionality for free.

When you combine the two free plugins SEO Smart Links and GoCodes, you can automatically create the same type of cloaked affiliate links that Ninja Affiliate offers. In fact, that’s the very combination I used to create the affiliate link to Thesis earlier in this post.

Just like Ninja Affiliate, SEO Smart Links allows you to determine how many automatic links will be created per page. And just like Ninja Affiliate, GoCodes will let you track how many times that link is clicked.

Now, Ninja Affiliate does allow you to customize the look of your affiliate links with a little drop down menu, but personally, I’ve seen any reason to do this. Plus, it could fairly easily be achieved via some CSS.

And last but not least, Ninja Affiliate offers support. If that’s worth the $97 to you, by all means, pull the trigger. But I can tell you I’ve never once had a problem with either of the free plugins I mentioned in this post and they’re both incredibly easy to set up.

So do yourself a favor, download and install SEO Smart Links and GoCodes before plopping down 97 of your hard earned dollars. If you still think you need Ninja Affiliate after that, I’m sure they’ll still be happy to sell it to you.

Image source: 3dom

Search Engine Optimization is one of those illusive things that can really have a huge impact on your sites ability to attain new viewers. A previous post by Ben, The Truth About WordPress SEO, laid out a lot of the pros and cons of WordPress SEO, but the takeaway was this:

Keep writing, keep creating good quality content, but don’t turn a blind eye to SEO and assume it will all happen naturally either.

For those of us that like to focus on writing and not as much on the ins and outs of SEO here is your godsend: Scribe SEO. This little plugin/service sits in WordPress quietly waiting to look over your shoulder and make sure you did a good job combining your content and your necessary SEO. Think of it as a spellchecker for search engine ranking. Let’s jump right in and take a look at the guts of this plugin.

Setup

If you have ever installed a plugin on your WordPress site before, then you’ll be able to install and use Scribe. Once you have an account, watch the installation video and you’ll be up and running in about 5 minutes. One note: you do need a premium WordPress theme like Thesis or Headway, or an SEO plugin like All in One SEO Pack, FV All In One or Platinum SEO Pack.

Use

Now it’s off to the races. To start reaping the rewards, login to your WP Admin page and add a new post. On the right side where your Publish and Categories box are, you should see a box for Scribe Content Optimizer. All you have to do is enter the relevant post information (title, keywords, description) into your theme or SEO plugin of choice, then click “Analyze” and your post gets graded. After it finishes analyzing, you get a nice report. Here is what the report looks like at this point in the review:

And… Holy!!! I didn’t think I was doing that good, but apparently Scribe thinks I’m knocking on the proverbial door of search engine optimization perfection.

This overview gives you quick reference in to what areas you are covering well and what needs some work. Getting more detail is pretty darn easy by clicking on the links across the top.

The Keyword Analysis and SERP tabs are particularly useful as I can quickly see what keywords I need to add into my content and what the search engine results page will look like. This let’s me know that I am not just going to rank well, but that my link is interesting enough to click on.

With Alternate Keyword suggestions and Best Practices right in the results window, going back and updating your content to improve your score is a snap.

After each analysis, the status bar on the right hand side of your post updates with your Content Score and the Primary Keywords. Very handy indeed! It just sits there, unassumingly waiting to be clicked on and do its magic. It really is that simple.

Other Uses?

Now, this is a WordPress specific blog, but, Scribe can actually be used with Joomla, Drupal and you can even log in to your account and upload content directly for review.

Support

On the support side, I am happy to say that I have only had to use support once, and that was for an issue with my web host, but the response was fast and there was even a little Scribe Compatibility Checker that helped us diagnose the issue.

Overall Impression

This obviously isn’t your typical “review” of a plugin. I’ve been using it for a couple of months now, and honestly, I can’t live without it. I’m biased.

I don’t have the time to learn all of the ins and outs of content optimization for search engines. I know what I want to write, and Scribe watches my back to make certain I am going to achieve optimization bliss. I would highly recommend this to anyone that isn’t an SEO expert. Go try it for yourself.

For those wondering, after completion of this article, my Content Score is still at 100% and the Primary Keywords are scribe, seo and plugin. Just what I wanted.

Jason Wietholter is a problem solver, content creator and entrepreneur. Helping people build business through relationships is his focus. You can find him at JasonWietholter.com or on Twitter, @jasonwietholter.

Note: Several links in this review are affiliate links. Buying through our links doesn’t cost you anything extra and allows us to get paid for the quality information and recommendations we provide.

image source: nenyaki

Update: I figured it was probably time for me to update my review of Gravity Forms, the premium plugin for WordPress forms. You see, when I wrote this the first time, Gravity Forms had just been released & I’d only played around with it on this site.

In fact, I didn’t think the developer license would be worth the added cost.

This is one of those times, I don’t mind admitting how wrong I was.

Two days after publishing this post, I ran into an issue that I realized Gravity Forms would make 10x easier. I had been searching for months for a method to make user generated content easy, without requiring users to log into WordPress. Just a few tweets to @carlhancock (one of the partners at Rocket Genius, the creators of Gravity Forms), and presto! Gravity Forms allowed automatic publishing of user submitted posts in their next update.

Now I’ve spent quite a bit of time online, and I can tell you it is RARE to find interaction & service like that on a product. I upgraded to a developer license the same day & couldn’t be happier. Gravity Forms has joined an elite group of plugins that I install on every single WordPress site as part of the initial set up.

On one site alone I’d estimate I’ve saved 15 hours so far.  For me, that’s well worth the $199 price of a developer’s license.

But, if you have only one site, or aren’t quite sure that you’ll love Gravity Forms as much as I do, give it a shot with the single use license. It’s only $39 and you can always upgrade later.

I’ll leave my original review for you to read below. I just felt like I’d be doing you guys a disservice if I didn’t update this post to completely rave about such a solid plugin.

Enjoy!

When a plugin has hundreds if not thousands of competitors, you instantly know two things: there’s a HUGE demand for the functionality it provides, and it’s going to be tough to rise above the crowd.

Such is the case with Gravity Forms, the newest premium plugin to tackle the form issue. If you do a quick search for “form” in the plugin directory you’ll see over 800 results shown. If you narrow that down to “contact form” you’re still left with well over 150 different options.

However, if you keep tabs on the WordPress community, you’ll know that Gravity Forms hasn’t had much trouble getting noticed, despite the crowded plugin landscape.

How’d they manage to pull that off? Amazing functionality.

Now that’s something that’s a lot easier promised than delivered but even with my sky high expectations from the hype that’s been surrounding the plugin, I wasn’t disappointed.

Gravity Forms (yes, that’s an affiliate link for all of our FTC friends out there) basically allows you to create a whole host of different forms with just a few clicks of the mouse with no coding required. The interface (as seen below) is extremely intuitive and I had no trouble finding my way around. If you want to add an element to your form, simply click which field you want to add & drag it where you want it positioned.

In about 10 minutes time I was able to reproduce the contact form that I had been using via Contact 7 plugin as well as create a brand new Guest Post Submission page.

Not only does the form allow any fan of WordPress to submit a guest post for my consideration (including post images), it automatically turns that submission into a draft within my WordPress dashboard!

It’s the Flexibility, Stupid!

The Thesis theme disrupted the market by offering incredible flexibility from your theme. Gravity Forms has done the exact same thing. The incredible functionality makes blogging life easier and the unprecedented flexibility eliminates the need for any other form plugin.

The features I’ve highlighted really are just the tip of the iceberg but thankfully you can check out all the different features, take a video tour, and even play around with a demo installation over on the Gravity Forms site.

It Costs WHAT?

As I’ve already discussed, I love the functionality offered by Gravity Forms. But the one aspect of the plugin that I pretty much hate, is the pricing structure.

A single use license is $39, a 5 site license will run you $99, and an unlimited use license will cost you a wopping $199.

I mean, it’s a plugin for crying out loud!

If you’re a web designer or make your living with your websites, $199 might be well worth the time you’ll save using the plugin but I bet your jaw still drops a bit from sticker shock.

Now will I end up breaking down and forking over the money at some point down the line?

Probably.

But, when a plugin is more expensive than two of the most popular (and expensive) themes on the market right now, Gravity Forms is going to have a long way to go convincing people that a plugin’s developer license should cost more than the developer license for their premium theme.

Would I Recommend It?

Given my obvious misgivings about Gravity Forms’ prices, would I still recommend the plugin?

Absolutely.

Most people are never going to need a developer’s license. And, at $39, the plugin doesn’t need to save you much time at all before it’s well worth the small investment.

User Feedback?

Have you used Gravity Forms? What did/do you think of it? What kinds of interesting applications have you found for the functionality offers? Or, do you know of other plugins (premium or free) that you like better?

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below!

For those of you who have seen my Thesis skins, you’ve probably noticed the content slider section at the top of the home page on many of the designs. That slider is made possible by the Dynamic Content Gallery plugin, or DCG for short.

While I love the plugin, there are a ton of options and it can be kind of troublesome to set up and get going the first time around. So, I decided to throw together a quick video walking you through the process of getting ready to use this powerful plugin.

Just a few quick notes before we get started though:

1. I need a better screen capture program that let’s me zoom in and make the content on my screen a bit clearer to see.
2. I need to thank Raven SEO Tools (that’s an affiliate link because I seriously have a man-crush on this company) for giving me the Flip camera that I used to shoot the beginning of this video. I won it in their #RavenHunt Twitter contest and I really can’t say enough good things about their company. They recently announced a $19/mo option so there’s really no reason NOT to use them.
3. Let me know in the comments below whether you find this useful or not. As I say in the video if people like this I’ll do more. If not, I’ll take my ugly mug back behind the screen

I think that’s it so enjoy the video!

image source: fensterbme

Update: If you don’t want to pay $39 for All in One SEO Pack PRO here’s a free alternative that has the exact same functionality. It also doesn’t require that you continue to pay $39/mo for updates.

As I installed the All In One SEO Pack (AIOSEOP) plugin on a new site today, I noticed the admin panel was promoting a new PRO version of the plugin.

My first reaction was “Awesome! I wonder what kind of cool new features they’ve come up with.”

Unfortunately, I was met with serious disappointment after clicking over to WPplugins.com.

Apparently Michael Torbert, the creator of AIOSEOP, didn’t feel the need to actually introduce any cool new features before releasing the “PRO” plugin.

So what does that $39 (soon to be $69 if WPplugins is to be believed) actually GET you?

Why it removes the ads from your AIOSEOP admin panel of course!

Call me crazy, but I just don’t think that’s worth $39.

As if that weren’t enough, you have to pay an extra $39/per month for support and upgrades!

Now I could MAYBE understand someone paying the one time $39 fee to receive support in getting the plugin set up. But those settings aren’t something you should be changing on a regular basis. There really should be NO need for ongoing support, especially not at price of $468 a year!

To top it all off, the upgrade process (which was an automatic process with the free version of AIOSEOP) is now a manual process that will be over-written if you accidentally use the automatic upgrade.

For those of you keeping score at home, we’ve taken a free plugin, added no new features, removed the ads, removed the automatic upgrade feature, and slapped a $39 price tag on it that explodes into $468 per year if you want support & upgrades.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like the plugin. I use it on several of my sites. But I just can’t get past these facts:

• There’s still a fully functioning version of the EXACT SAME PLUGIN for free download
• There are several other free plugins that offer the same functionality
• And most importantly… The Thesis theme has 95% of the functionality BUILT IN

I mean if Thesis would allow control over Tag pages, there’d be no need for AIOSEOP at all, not to mention an expensive but featureless PRO version. If you don’t use tags on your blog, take part of that $468 annual fee, buy the Thesis Theme and migrate all of your settings from All In One SEO Pack into Thesis using this handy tutorial.

And, when you consider the $468 annual price tag of the All In One SEO Pack PRO plugin with support & upgrades, the Thesis theme becomes an even better bargain.

Personally, I’d recommend taking that $39 and buying yourself a license for the Gravity Forms plugin which, by the way, includes lifetime support & updates.

Image source: 3dom

Word on the street is that some WordPress blogs are being hit with a brute force attack that is essentially a script that continuously tries to guess the admin’s password.

Dennis Fisher has all the details over on Threatpost summing up the threat with the following:

The wp_brute_attempt() function takes 3 parameters, $ch which is cURL’s structure (cURL is a command line tools that can be used to perform HTTP requests). The other two parameters define the site and the password that will be tried. If the script logged in successfully, the page that gets returned by the server will contain the phrase “Log Out”, and the function will return a true value.

So how can you protect yourself from this kind of attack?

It’s actually fairly easy. Change the default administrator’s login name from admin to something unique and use strong passwords with numbers, capitalized letters, etc.

There’s also a plugin designed specifically to prevent this sort of brute force attack, called Login Lockdown.

The plugin “records the IP address and timestamp of every failed WordPress login attempt. If more than a certain number of attempts are detected within a short period of time from the same IP range, then the login function is disabled for all requests from that range.”

And last but not least, as a last line of defense you should always make sure to regularly backup your WordPress installation in multiple locations.

I know posts like this seem like nagging or a waste of time but the first time your blog is hacked you’ll be kicking yourself for not taking action.

Image Source: kadath

One of the most important lessons my mother taught me growing up was the one she repeated most often…

“When it comes to protection,” she’d say, “the key is multiples, multiples, multiples!”

If one is good, mom reasoned, 3 would be better. And, while her intent at the time was to avoid having grandchildren before she hit 50, she was in fact teaching me an important lesson that applies to many areas of life including blogging.

As any teenage soon to be parent will attest, you might never think it will happen to you, but it only takes once to really mess things up.

No, you don’t have to worry about getting knocked up online, but if your blog gets hacked, your web server crashes, or a Russian virus wipes out your web host’s database, your blogging life as you know it could change forever.

So what forms of protection should you use? Just like in the real world the only fool proof method is abstinence. But since staying off line would sort of defeat the purpose of blogging, here are 3 methods that when combined are 99.99% effective.

WordPress Database Backup

Much like birth control, backing up a blog (or data of any kind for that matter) seems to be one of those things that if it’s not easy & convenient, people just won’t use it.

Thankfully, there are couple of plugins that automate the WordPress backup process. WordPress Database Backup by Austin Matzko, oddly enough, allows you to create on demand backups of your WordPress databases including any that have been created by plugins you use.

WordPress database backup options

As you can see in the image above, the plugin also allows you to schedule automatic backups and email them to a location of your choice.

I’ve selected to backup the database once a day and instead of storing the backups on my own machine, I opt to send them to my gmail account to take advantage of the enormous amounts of storage space they assign to each account.

Not only does this preserve my hard drive space, but I’m also protected should anything ever happen to my local machine. While Gmail certainly isn’t infallible, I figure if Google’s backbone of servers goes down, there’s probably bigger things to worry about than my blog backups.

WordPress Backup

Now that we’ve taken care of our databases, the only thing left to backup are the actual files themselves. While most of the WordPress files remain static, customized files such as the images you upload, the plugins you install, and your theme files all need to be backed up on a regular basis.

To automate that task, I turn to the WordPress Backup plugin which, you guessed it, allows you to create scheduled backups of your Upload, current theme, and Plugins directories.

options for the WordPress Backup plugin

Once again, you can select the frequency of the backups and send them to an email account. In addition, the plugin creates zip files that can be downloaded on demand by simply clicking a link in the control panel.

With both of these plugins installed and scheduled to run on a regular basis, you should never need this last option. Of course, sometimes strange things happen and it never hurts to have a last line of defense.

Web Host Backups

Having to rely on your web host’s backups is like having to take the morning after pill. Sure you’ll probably avoid a major catastrophe, but it’s going to cost you and there could still be some damage done.

Any quality web host will regularly backup their data, but it never hurts to check before signing up. You should also ask about the availability of those backups. Hostgator for example, does weekly backups but offer no guarantees on their backups, and will charge you a $15 fee should you need to use their file.

And, if the problem you’re dealing with is due to a problem with your host, you never know what backups will be available to you or when.

While you certainly want to make sure your host can act as a last line of defense, you’re much better off taking the proper precautions before hand.

Better Safe than Sorry

Just about every blogger I know has had to deal with a hack or an attack of some type. And, while they’re never fun or enjoyable, your life will be a LOT easier if you take a few minutes to set up the simple methods of prevention.

Install the plugins, backup your site before upgrading WordPress for the 19th time this month, and store your backups in multiple places in case your local machine were to suffer some sort of failure.

“Multiples, multiples, multiples!” was my mothers mantra, and while I’d certainly never admit at the time, mothers really do know best.

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peachy92/

The easiest way for a plugin to make it’s way onto the list of Essential Plugins for Your WordPress Toolbox is for it to save users time, or help them earn more money.

GoCodes as it turns out, does both.

So, it should come as no surprise that it’s up next in our continuing series profiling the most useful WordPress plugins available.

Description & Benefits

Believe it or not, GoCodes’ functionality is fairly simple and straightforward. It allows you to quickly and easily create redirect or shortcut URLs from within your WordPress dashboard.

And when I say quick, I mean quick. You can literally create a shortcut url in a matter of seconds.

For a comparison (and so you’ll appreciate just how much time this plugin will save you) check out this excerpt from a post I wrote two years ago, explaining how to create jump pages.

Here’s an example of one of my affiliate jump pages:
<html>
<head>
<insert tracking scripts here>
<meta http-equiv=”Content-Language” content=”en-us”>
<title>Sign Up with Text Link Ads</title>
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex, nofollow”>
<script>window.location=”affiliate url“;</script>
<meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”1; url=”affiliate url“>
</head>
<body>
<p align=”center”>You will be taken to the correct page shortly.
<br>If this page does not load after 5 seconds, please
<a href=”affiliate url“>click here</a>.</p>
</body>
</html>

Every time I wanted to create a new jump page, I had to copy this code, insert the URLs into the correct spot, and upload the file to my server.

With GoCodes, I simply enter the URL I want to use as a shortcut, and the destination URL. That’s it.

Installation

If you’re feeling a bit nostalgic and want to install GoCodes the “old fashioned” way, you can download the plugin and then upload the entire folder into your Plugins directory.

Or, you can take advantage of the quick and easy installation option WordPress now provides for most plugins. In the left hand sidebar of your WordPress dashboard, expand the Plugins drop down menu, and click Add New. Search for GoCodes and click the little blue “Install” link.

Similar Plugins

There are a few other plugins such as Simple Link Cloaker or Affiliate Link Cloaker that have a similar functionality, but I haven’t found anything that really measures up.

The GoCodes interface is very intuitive and keeps all your shortcut URLs organized in one easy to manage location. Plus the redirects it creates are SEO friendly 301 redirects which means you won’t lose any “link juice” if create GoCodes for your internal pages.

Another often overlooked feature the plugin offers is click tracking. For each shortcut URL you create, GoCodes will track how many times links to that URL are clicked which can come in very handy when trying to track individual link performance.

And, if those two items weren’t enough to convince you, it was created by Matt Harzewski aka @redwall_hp who is active in the WordPress community and Twitter. If you’ve ever grown attached to a plugin, only to have the creator abandon the project, you know what kind of difference having an involved plugin author can make.

Recommended Use

The most popular use of GoCodes is undoubtedly masking affiliate links. Instead of having a long and ugly URL like http://www.diythemes.com/thesis/get-thesis?a_aid=skitzzo&a_bid=88100db6 I can instead use http://wpblogger.com/recommend/thesis.

This not only makes the link appear cleaner, it also improves the sense of trust by using the word recommend.

And, as far as Google and the other search engines are concerned, the link is simply pointing to another page on my site. While Google doesn’t necessarily have anything against affiliate links specifically, I prefer to err on the side of caution.

And if, at any time, I should need to change the destination URL, I don’t have to scrounge around looking for each and every affiliate link I’ve created on the site. I simply change the destination URL in the GoCodes admin panel and I’m good to go!

When partnered with SEO Smart Links, you can instantly create loads of nice clean looking affiliate links targeting a URL you can change on a moment’s notice.

Of course, these clean URLs can be used for linking to internal pages as well, perhaps on social sites such as Twitter. Instead of having to post the full, long URL of a post, you can use GoCodes as a sort of URL shortener as well.

If In Doubt, Try It

While this certainly is not an exhaustive list of the possible uses of GoCodes, I would hope by now you see how useful this single plugin can be. As you can tell, I’m a pretty big fan.

You'll love it, I guarantee it!

The plugin is free to use, and better yet, I’ll back it with my 100% satisfaction guarantee it!

Give it a try and see for yourself what you think. If its as useful for you as it is for me, come tell me how right I was and feed my ego. If you absolutely hate it, let me know why and I’ll double your money back! (Did I mention it’s free?)

And, if you have any other creative uses for GoCodes, I’d love to hear those as well. As always, I value your feedback.

Original toolbox image source: Off beat Mum, Guaranteed image source: jparis

Update III: Read my review before buying the All In One SEO Pack PRO plugin.

Update II: Just so we’re clear, this post only applied to the 1.6.2 version of the All In One SEO Pack. However, I believe new installations of the plugin noindex category and tag pages by default which I highly recommend against.

Update: There is another update to the All In One SEO plugin that I am told will maintain the settings.

However, if you made the previous update and have not yet made sure your category pages are indexable by search engines, the newest update will maintain the noindex tag on your category pages.

Basically, if you updated the All in One SEO plugin prior to today (July 14th) this post still applies to you.

With the release of WordPress 2.8.1 last week, several of the most popular plugins are being updated as well.

And, just like upgrading WordPress’ core files, upgrading plugins has become an automated process as well, most requiring only a couple of clicks.

Unfortunately, if you’re not paying attention, the recent All-In-One-SEO plugin update could wind up costing you BIG time.

After upgrading to the new version you’re informed that the plugin is not active and you’ll need to adjust your settings to activate it.

That’s unusual for a plugin, but not a big deal. I jumped over to the plugin’s admin page. From there I was told that I needed to update the database options.

Again, not a big deal. I clicked the button (since I’d already backed up the database prior to upgrading to WordPress 2.8.1), and everything went smoothly. I clicked the checkbox to activate the plugin and very nearly made a critical mistake.

Had I left it at that, and assumed everything was fine, I would have instantly put a large percentage of my traffic at risk. For one of sites, I would have lost 90% of my traffic when Google noticed the noindex tag and began dropping my category pages from their index!

What was the problem?

Apparently upon upgrading the plugin, All In One SEO decided that it would be a good idea for me to put a no-index tag on my category archives!

Now, as I mentioned in my SEO Guide for WordPress, many SEOs recommend putting the noindex tag on archive or tag pages. I vehemently disagree with that approach and to carry it over to your category pages is completely ludicrous!

Worst of all, since updating the All In One SEO plugin apparently overwrites your previously selected options without alerting you, thousands of blogs that are using the plugin could be losing organic search engine traffic as we speak.