My many questions

[Ms Naughty]

I made a little list of the blogging questions that I keep wondering about and never find the time to fix. They are:

How do I get rid of the ">>" in my post headings?
e.g. This post:
http://www.msnaughty.com/blog/2007/0...more-than-men/
The title at the top reads ">> Feminoglers: Women ogle more than men : Ms Naughty Porn for Women Blog"
I hate that little >> thing.

How do I make Wordpress put a space in my category and page headings
so it doesn't read "Premium Porn Sites for WomenMs Naughty Porn for women Blog"

How can I put an RSS feed into my sidebar so it lists the latest posts on my other blog?
It would be cool to be able to send traffic over to my newer blog by having the post titles in the sidebar, kind of like my "recent posts" bit. Is there a plugin for this?

Why is my search page so messed up?
Instead of building it like a normal page, I end up with the results stacked on top of the sidebar. I guess this is probably my own fault, I've messed with the theme, but I don't know why Wordpress can build the other pages fine but can't get this one right.

What's the deal with feedburner?
What's the point?*

And then there's my tag questions...
UTW creates individual pages for each tag on my site... is this a good idea? I've currently disabled UTW because of my concern that it's creating duplicate content which Google frowns upon.

Is it worse to link them to technorati? And if UTW is making little tag pages on my site, does Technorati automatically pick them up?

* You know, I find myself asking this question about a lot of things with blogging LOL And the whole Web 2.0 in general. Sometimes I feel like I've been left behind a bit, I'm still operating on technology and knowledge that was great 3 years ago but is no longer current.

Oh, and it's late now, but tomorrow I'm going to try and post about something useful instead of just asking questions

[walrus]

Originally Posted by grandmascrotum

I made a little list of the blogging questions that I keep wondering about and never find the time to fix. They are:

How do I get rid of the ">>" in my post headings?
e.g. This post:
http://www.msnaughty.com/blog/2007/0...more-than-men/
The title at the top reads ">> Feminoglers: Women ogle more than men : Ms Naughty Porn for Women Blog"
I hate that little >> thing.

I think this annoying little thing is buried somewhere deep in the code. I look closer into it tonight.

Originally Posted by grandmascrotum

How do I make Wordpress put a space in my category and page headings
so it doesn't read "Premium Porn Sites for WomenMs Naughty Porn for women Blog"

I thought you'd be happy you didn't have the damn ">>".

I think it has something to do with the length of the title but not sure.

Originally Posted by grandmascrotum

How can I put an RSS feed into my sidebar so it lists the latest posts on my other blog?
It would be cool to be able to send traffic over to my newer blog by having the post titles in the sidebar, kind of like my "recent posts" bit. Is there a plugin for this?

I posted a plug-in I have yet to try in my blog development post that can do this. Or you can use Feedburner. They offer a function called "Buzz Boost" which you can format and it gives you a little java script to call snippets of your feed from.

Originally Posted by grandmascrotum

Why is my search page so messed up?
Instead of building it like a normal page, I end up with the results stacked on top of the sidebar. I guess this is probably my own fault, I've messed with the theme, but I don't know why Wordpress can build the other pages fine but can't get this one right.

Your template probably has a search page that needs some adjustments.

Originally Posted by grandmascrotum

What's the deal with feedburner?
What's the point?*

See "Buzz Boost" above.

Feedburner also makes your feeds readable as html as opposed to "some script type of looking thing". This is especially nice when your blog is still young as many times your feed will rank higher than your blog.

Stats - Its sort of like checking PR. It may not mean much but it sure is cool to see that a couple hundred people have read your feed in the last 24 hours.

Originally Posted by grandmascrotum

And then there's my tag questions...
UTW creates individual pages for each tag on my site... is this a good idea? I've currently disabled UTW because of my concern that it's creating duplicate content which Google frowns upon.

Is it worse to link them to technorati? And if UTW is making little tag pages on my site, does Technorati automatically pick them up?

* You know, I find myself asking this question about a lot of things with blogging LOL And the whole Web 2.0 in general. Sometimes I feel like I've been left behind a bit, I'm still operating on technology and knowledge that was great 3 years ago but is no longer current.

Oh, and it's late now, but tomorrow I'm going to try and post about something useful instead of just asking questions

Now your trying to steal some of the stuff I was going to get into in my blog development thread. First, make sure you don't have UTW convert categories to tags. Then you can copy your index.php and rename it tag.php. Edit the WP loop for excerpts rather than full posts. If your really concerned about duplicate content.

Technorati does read a "tag" whether the link points to it or not. So does delicious and most of the others. Is it worse? Only because someone may be interested in what you have that is tagged alike and instead of seeing more of what you have, they go to see what more technorati has.

[Ms Naughty]

Walrus, thank you for taking the time to reply to my post. I was thinking it was too much to ask all at once.

[walrus]

Originally Posted by grandmascrotum

I made a little list of the blogging questions that I keep wondering about and never find the time to fix. They are:

How do I get rid of the ">>" in my post headings?
e.g. This post:
http://www.msnaughty.com/blog/2007/0...more-than-men/
The title at the top reads ">> Feminoglers: Women ogle more than men : Ms Naughty Porn for Women Blog"
I hate that little >> thing.

Edit template-functions-general.php. Around line 139 you find

function wp_title($sep = '»', $display = true) {

Edit it to look like this

function wp_title($sep = '', $display = true) {

No more pesky >>

Putting a space in may solve your other problem so it would look like this

function wp_title($sep = ' ', $display = true) {

[Ms Naughty]

Ooh thanks Walrus, I'll give it a go.

[Ms Naughty]

YAY! It works on posts, although in Wordpress 2.1.2 the template to edit is called general-template.php
Thanks so much Walrus.

And I've just solved the problem of the page titles by... editing the page itself and simply adding a space into the title.

[Ms Naughty]

Actually, here's another question I've just thought of. Say I wanted my individual post pages only to be titled only with the post name, without the added name of my blog after it...

I feel like RawAlex helped me with this, I just need to search for it...

[Ms Naughty]

OK, found the thread here
http://greenguysboard.com/board/showthread.php?t=29637

My title bits in the header currently read:
<title><?php wp_title(); ?><?php if ( is_single() ) { ?> : <?php } ?><?php bloginfo('name'); ?></title>

I took out the bloginfo name bit and it worked! YAY

[Ms Naughty]

Nope, never mind, that takes the title off the main blog page, which I don't want.

I'll stop posting now LOL

[walrus]

Originally Posted by grandmascrotum

Actually, here's another question I've just thought of. Say I wanted my individual post pages only to be titled only with the post name, without the added name of my blog after it...

I feel like RawAlex helped me with this, I just need to search for it...

This should do it

<title><?php if (is_home()) {
bloginfo('name');
}else {
wp_title();
}?></title>

[Ms Naughty]

Walrus, you are a wonderful human being.

Messing around with the code today I'm feeling a bit more confident with it. php is still a foreign language to me but I'm starting to understand snippets.

[Thumbler]

What you should do for your page titles is to use the SEO Title Tag plugin http://www.netconcepts.com/seo-title-tag-plugin/ With the latest version you can call each individual page anything you want.

[walrus]

While I'm sure this is a worthwhile plug-in and performs exactly the way the authors intended, I think things like this distract from the truly important part of what your doing and that is developing content that is truly interesting for the surfer.

Given the opportunity to develop something that the surfer will like vs something the SE's will like, I'll pick the surfer anytime.

But thats just me and what the fuck do I know!

[oast]

Originally Posted by walrus

Given the opportunity to develop something that the surfer will like vs something the SE's will like, I'll pick the surfer anytime.

Whilst I agree with that Walrus, there is still the case of presenting a site that the SE's will like.

The better the search engines like your page = the higher up the SERPs your site will appear = more surfers will visit your page = more surfers to like your pages = more cash in pocket.

[walrus]

Originally Posted by oast

The better the search engines like your page = the higher up the SERPs your site will appear = more surfers will visit your page = more surfers to like your pages = more cash in pocket.

I'ts quite possible I was a bit hasty, I just have tired of the "must have" SEO plug-ins.

So I gave this plug-in a little look and if it worked it could be a useful tool. Unfortunately, in reading the comments on it, I wouldn't recommend it. Too many people having problems on a plug-in that's on its 8th beta version.

[Ms Naughty]

I think I'll just stick with Walrus' hack on this one, for which I am very grateful.

I think just having the post title alone means the post itself looks more relevant. I've been trying to get rid of any duplication (possibly to the point of paranoia) so removing the blog name from my posts has got to help.

I should also say that I've found an answer to all the questions originally posted, so I feel like I've achieved something. Again, thanks Walrus.

[walrus]

Glad I could help!

and am ready for the second round