MickMel SEO

If you’re like me and you’ve been using WordPress since before 2.5 came out, your wp-config file is probably missing a “SECRET_KEY”.  This is a new, one-line entry to the config file that generates a unique cookie for your site.  Some of the recent WordPress attacks have involved cookie spoofing, and this will help prevent that kind of thing.

As far as I can understand, WordPress 2.5.1 is completely secure even without a secret key.  I think this is just a pre-emptive move to prevent cookie-based attacks in the future.  Extra security is always a good thing.

Adding a key is very simple.  Just open up your wp-config.php file and add something like this:

define(’SECRET_KEY’, ‘8675309 abc 123 secret key dont hack me’);

You don’t need to remember the phrase, so make it as long and complex as you can.  If you want, you can visit this WordPress page which will generate a unique key every time you load the page.

WordPress 2.5.1 has just been released, and it’s strongly suggested that you upgrade as soon as possible, due to some security concerns.

Other fixes include:

• Performance improvements for the Dashboard, Write Post, and Edit Comments pages.
• Better performance for those who have many categories
• Media Uploader fixes
• An upgrade to TinyMCE 3.0.7
• Widget Administration fixes
• Various usability improvements
• Layout fixes for IE

Go download it now, or read about the full list of fixes (over 70 of them) here.

John Lamansky, the “WordPress Expert” has noticed a little snippet of text from WordPress developer Matt Mullenweg that implies we may see WordPress in the next iPhone.  The quote John used:

Mobile is really important. Blackberries, iPhones… and other things… are coming. And I’d like that to be in a core cell phone. They were hoping to do it in time for WordCamp and announce it here, but there is a device maker who is working on actually building WordPress into the device, so it’ll come bundled with it — which will be pretty interesting. I can’t say who it is yet, but there’s only a few out there so you can probably guess.

It sure sounds like the iPhone, doesn’t it?  As John said, even if it’s not bundled with the 2.0 firmware, it’s quite likely we’ll see a third party app that handles it.

We’ll find out soon - probably around June 9.

I think this is a first.  I was looking for a domain name for a new project that I’m working on and came across Red Clay Media.  I really only cared that the URL was taken, but I was curious about the site.  Wow!  It’s a brilliant example of why you should never use mystery meat navigation.

What surprised me even more was the random RSS icon they had on the left side of the screen (I drew the awesome yellow arrow pointing at it in the screen shot above).  You can’t click it!

Anyhow, just had to share that.  Don’t try to be so cool that you forget about basic usability and standards.

Last month I posted some revenue stats about my sites, along with a few goals.  I thought I’d try to re-visit that data at the beginning of each month.

My goals were to diversify better among my sites, diversify better in terms of revenue sources, and then to obviously generate more total revenue.  I only managed to improve one out of three, but for good reason.

My largest site saw a significant boost in AdSense revenue, thanks to some changes that I made.  As a result, that site now has even more of my total revenue, and AdSense still has about the same amount.

Generate more revenue

This is the biggest one, and it’s trending up.  Total revenue across my sites was up by 10.1% from February to March. Woo-hoo!

Diversify among my sites

This month, my largest site accounted for 90.8% of my total revenue.  Again, this is due to some AdSense changes that I made, which I’ll dig into in a later post.

Diversify away from AdSense

I have no problem with them, but I don’t like keeping all of my eggs in the same basket.

• In February, AdSense accounted for 89.7% of my total revenue.  This month it creeped up to 89.8%.
• FastClick’s share increased from 7.3% to 8.4%, as I made a few small changes there.
• FeedBurner revenue fell from 1.6% to just 0.5%.  I can’t explain that one, as the feed that I use for it is only getting larger.
• In an effort to diversify, I ran some ads from Kontera and Chitika.  They were both pitiful, each earning less than 0.1% of my total revenue.  Kontera is now gone from my sites, and Chitika is just about there.

I still would like to diversity a bit more, but it’s tough.  AdSense is doing so well that I hate to turn away from it at all.  The areas I really need to work on expanding are:

• Direct ad sales.
• Affiliate ads.

My overall goals remain the same — have my largest site generate less than 50% of my total revenue, and have AdSense account for less than 50% of my total revenue.  As soon as some of my smaller sites start gaining momentum, I should see some progress toward those goals.