I recently noticed a sharp drop in my Google traffic. Logging in to my webmaster panel I noticed the site was now popular with terms such as poker and viagra. Definitely not what I want to be linking to. An investigation at the blog revealed no visible links. However, looking into the source code they were there but hidden by a css trick of placing them outside of the viewable screen area.

By disabling wp_footer by simply commenting it out in the theme files the problem went away. However, it wasn’t a permanent solution. An upgrade of the theme I was using (WooThemes) didn’t fix issues.

Further investigation into the MySQL table revealed an MySQL insertion had occurred:

Table: wp_options
option_id: 1120
blog_id: 0
option_name: siteurlpath
option_value: (really long)

The option_value was huge with a base64_decode where the hack was hidden. I deleted this entry from WordPress and low and behold the hack disappeared. Re-enabling wp_footer the links were still not showing in the source code. Wp Footer hack removed!

I believe the hackers got in through the TimThumb vulnerability present in many WooThemes files. Therefore, I upgraded it to the new version to be sure no similar attacks can be made. As a precaution I also changed all of my passwords (admin, FTP, cpanel etc).

I hope this write up helps others deal with these issues. I’m happy to take questions in the comments but do be aware this isn’t my main area of strength. I’m a writer not a WordPress programmer.

I’ll update this post if any further WordPress hacks appear and let you know how I dealt with them.

Pretty easy to do but as no one had a video online demonstrating how I thought I should add it. You can also export directly from Google Maps onto a connected Garmin.

The first thing I did was crazy images. So presque – sounds like press queue for me. So I imagined someone pressing against a queue trying to get to the front. I also remembered queuing for an Arctic Monkeys gig and tried to install that image of pressing up the front of the queue to get a ticket.

Unfortunately that failed. Probably because whilst the imagery is vivid it doesn’t link in with the meaning of the word.. “almost”.

Next I tried thinking of sentences it could tie into. I almost met Prescott. I almost pressed the question.

That doesn’t seem to be working either. I can’t really relate it to other French words either. So I continue on trying to learn the word presque. Je presque finaliser mon blog post.

Via bike snob NYC

Heres one picture:

How about a video?
.. Dont know how to do video.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:London,United Kingdom

This can be downloaded as part of the Windows Live Essentials package.

Above is a screenshot of the desktop blog editor in action showing this post as it was being written.

One way of monetizing my cycling site is through the use of Affiliate Links. My audience is interested in cycling products so whenever I mention a product that I genuinely like, trust and would use myself (remembering trust is everything) I add a link. Often these links look very unsightly. Take for example this typical affiliate window link:

http://www.awin1.com/cread.php?platform=dl&awinmid=1857&awinaffid=87595&clickref=&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wiggle.co.uk%2Fp%2Fcycle%2F7%2FErgon_GC2_Handlebar_Grips%2F5360036781%2F

It’s like Shrek of the affiliate links. The solution is to cloak the link. So it looks a little something more like this:

http://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/go/ergon/

That’s much more snazzy.

People are more likely to click on the second link as it looks more trust worthy. For a start it has your brand name behind it and secondly there is not a ton of scary looking characters that they don’t recognise.

It is links like the first one that I first discovered affiliate marketing because I typed in awin1.com to see what it referred to. It is how I came across affiliate window and the sites such as Wiggle and Evans Cycles that you can promote with it.

How you link cloak in wordpress

To do this all you need is a plugin called the Link Cloaking Plugin. It works wonders with WordPress and I’ve never had any issues with it. The founders behind the Link Cloaking Plugin have also recently released a premium version which adds some great new features in particular the ability to look at detailed statistics of how many clicks the link has received.

Once the link cloaking plugin is added to WordPress you can click on Tools > Cloaked links and add new links. You can also change the /go/ part of the link from the Settings > Link Cloaking page.

Give the plugin a download today and remove all the ugly links from your site.

Soon I’ll discuss in detail how to use the plugin. I’ll also take a look at some competing link cloaking plugins and go into the features of the advanced version.

http://sharemyplaylists.com/

In particularly I focus on the playlists by Iamnottheenemy. He produces a good roundup every month of good new tracks.

Overall it’s been a hectic month. From before February I realised I was going to be putting together the whole eBook myself so I set about doing a route per day. Sometimes that worked and other times I found myself getting too tired. My fitness levels are definitely way up on what they were before.

I’ve released the eBook yesterday and I’m busy contacting as many people as possible to let them know it has been released. So far quite a few people have downloaded and the feedback has been very positive. I’m still looking for some people to be critical so I know which areas I need to improve on.

I want to put up some guest posts with what I learned from releasing my first eBook because there is definitely not enough information on the internet about it. I will be contacting some of the top blogs to see if they will let me write for them.

The favourite London cycle route I did is hard to decide. The nightride was very liberating because so many hours had gone into it and it was my final route knowing I could relax afterwards. The most eventful was probably Rickmansworth to Denham ending up falling down in the mud. The longer was the London to Chichester. The best one though… “From a suit to a fluorescent jacket”

If you want to take a look at it, it is available at:

London Cycle Routes

The code I ended up using:

$chosen = mt_rand(1,3);
switch($chosen){
case 1:
include ‘first.php’;
break;
case 2:
include ‘second.php’;
break;
case 3:
include ‘third.php’;
break;
default:
echo ‘something went horribly wrong’;
}

From: Random HTML snippets with PHP include?

This worked very well for me. I simply removed case 3 and changed mt_rand(1,3); to mt_rand(1,2);

This then randomly chose between my first block of text and my second block of text. This meant I could split test their effectiveness by embedding two different aweber forms. When the first form is randomly loaded it counts it in Aweber and then when the second form randomly loads again the results are counted. This meant I could customise the text in a way I wanted and not have to use Awebers built in e-mail forms which were not effective and looked ugly.

Hope this helps someone looking to randomise the way content appears on a page.