I have an exciting project that offers interesting opportunities for bloggers, SEO publishers and their subscribers - it's a challenge game that is designed to be an interesting content for bloggers' subscribers.
As part of this project, bloggers will be able to upload their own photos or images to the gallery of this game, as well as add images, photos or avatars for greeting screens and splash screens. In doing so, the resulting clone of the game - the refub - bloggers will be able to promote to their subscribers.
This project involves an opportunity for bloggers' subscribers to feel part of the game process.
Each participant of the process, including both bloggers and SEO publishers, will be able to earn in the amount of their specified markups from each sold copy of the game.
SEO specialists act as publishers and also earn from sales in the amount of their specified markup on each copy of the game sold.
Special attention is paid to personal motivation and congratulations: subscribers who upload their photos or images will receive a personalized greeting from a blogger inside the game, which will help them keep their spirits up and motivated.
I would like to hear your opinions and ideas on how to promote this project online.
What strategies and methods of promotion would be the most effective?
I would be grateful for any ideas, advice and for your recommendations!
Pointing domains… nameservers… figuring out DNS… it can all feel daunting! Fortunately, WPMU DEV makes it easy, whether you’re working with a domain purchased from us or from another provider. We break it all down in this article.
Keep reading to learn how to easily connect your domain to our hosting service.
If you purchased your domain through another DNS provider and are hosting with us, the tutorial below will show you exactly what you need to do and explain why this is also a great choice.
Prepping for a Change in Domain Nameservers
Nameservers are often referred to as the phone book of the internet, sending you to the correct domain when you type in a web address.
There are two primary components to making your website accessible to the public:
Your domain name (purchased from a registrar)
Nameservers (provided through a host)
The first must point to the second to connect the two.
The registrar you purchased your domain from also has its own nameservers (if it offers hosting), however if you want them managed elsewhere you must change the DNS records.
Doing it all from a single location is ideal, as it cuts out the middle agent and puts the same quality that powers your sites behind your DNS.
DNS propagation is the term for your site’s nameservers and other records (e.g., A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, etc) updating across the web. This process can take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple days to finalize.
If your site was already live, it might become briefly inaccessible to visitors during the nameserver change. You could create a temporary page with info regarding the approximate downtime, then publish it just prior to the server change. (Remember to change it back once the process is complete).
It’s also helpful to handle nameserver changes during a period when traffic volume is typically on the low end.
Importing Your Domain Records to WPMU DEV
Alright, we’re ready to start our edits. The first thing we’re going to do is navigate to The Hub on WPMU DEV.
Click on Domains from the top menu bar, then Connected Domains from the submenu, then the Connect Existing Domain button.
Connecting domains in WPMU DEV’s The Hub.
The Add New Domain modal will pop up. Here you will enter your domain name in the text field – making sure to include the extension (e.g. .com, .net, .xyz) – then click the blue button.
Step 1 of 2 in WPMU DEV’s Add New Domain modal.
The Hub DNS Manager will run a scan for common DNS records, then automatically import and list them for your verification.
Verifying the scanned records to import into a WPMU DEV DNS configuration.
Here you’ll see the summary of record information, which will include:
Type – A, CNAME, MX, TXT
Hostname – @ for root; www for www. subdomain
Value – if record is an alias, directs, or returns
TTL (seconds) – Time To Live is how long the DNS query caches before expiring and needing a new one. (The lower this number, the better/faster.)
You can remove any records, if you want to exclude them from being imported, by clicking on the Trashcan icon.
You can also manually add any records that are missing. See Add or Edit DNS Records for details.
If you’re in any doubt as to whether records should be added or deleted, just reach out to support (any time, day or night) and they’ll happily walk you through it.
Once you’re satisfied with the populated DNS records, click the blue button once more.
After the ellipsis bounce, the page will load with the imported information specific to your domain.
WPMU DEV nameservers are listed towards the top of this page, where you’ll see there are three of them.
WPMU DEV’s trio of nameservers, ready to copy/paste into your domain registry records.
Keep your Hub page open, as we’ll be copying & pasting the nameservers in the next step. (Or, do what I do, and just copy the first one, then replace the “1” with “2” then “3” as you paste each, since these ordinal numbers are the only difference.)
Putting WPMU DEV Nameservers in Your Domain Registry Records
Now that we’ve imported your domain details into WPMU DEV, the next step is to overwrite the nameserver records of your registrars with ours.
There are a lot of registrars, so how your domain details are kept and displayed will vary, but they should all have the same key elements. We cover more than a dozen of the most popular ones here.
In the case of registrars that serve as hosts, what they permit when it comes to allowable changes in nameservers can vary. For example, pointing nameservers to another host is not permissible for a Wix-purchased domain. However, you can transfer your domain away from them (although it involves a different process).
Assuming your domain registrar allows for pointing nameservers away from them, or that you’ve taken any necessary prior steps in preparation, login to their website and locate the records for your domain.
Changing nameservers through the Registrar; in this case, Namecheap.
Popping back over to the Hub, copy that first nameserver, then head back to your domain registrar details page, pasting it in the appropriate text field. Do this for all three nameservers, then save your input.
Depending on your registrar, you’ll probably get a confirmation message with time estimates on how long it will take the DNS hosting server to update.
As with any significant edit, verifying everything is working as it should is an important last step.
Some registrars will send you an email notifying you that the propagation is complete. With others, you might need to revisit the site and continue checking.
Either way, we can verify things through The Hub. Let’s head there, and navigate to Domains > Connected Domains.
For the domain name in question, if you see the green check marked Propagated correctly under Nameservers Status – you’re good to go. If it says Pending, click on the vertical ellipsis icon to the right, and select Manage DNS from the dropdown.
Managing DNS through WPMU DEV’s The Hub is effortless.
If everything was done properly and the process has completed, you’ll see a row of green highlighted text, confirming Your nameservers are propagated correctly. If that message isn’t displayed, click on the Check nameservers button.
Success! Nameservers have been propagated to WPMU DEV.
You’re all set! Your nameservers are successfully pointing to WPMU DEV as your acting DNS provider.
As an additional option, you can use this DNS propagation checker to verify the current IP address and DNS record information for your domain name(s).
The Benefits of Pointing Domains to WPMU DEV Nameservers
Nameservers are essential in directing internet traffic as they locate and translate hostnames into IP addresses.
If you host your own or your client sites with WPMU DEV, pointing your domains to our nameservers has definite advantages.
For starters, subpar nameservers will experience difficulties more often, and your visitors could get “DNS server not responding” messages. Quality nameservers, like ours, can limit or avoid that altogether.
Additionally, pointing your domains to our nameservers allows you to keep the settings with your current email client as is, eliminating the hassle of making a bunch of changes in that regard. (Just make sure existing MX records are imported during the DNS record setup.)
Finally, with the ability to purchase domains now directly through WPMU DEV, managing client sites becomes even more centralized, as your hosting provider and domain provider will be one in the same.
This gives you all of your domains in one place/one dashboard, with auto renewal, free protection, and a built-in grace period; priced incredibly low for Agency members.
WordPress uses Gravatars to display user profile photos or Avatars. It is a third-party service that allows users to have the same profile photo on different websites.
Gravatars are highly useful, particularly in WordPress comments. However, some users may not want to use Gravatars at all.
In this article, we’ll show you how to easily disable Gravatars in WordPress. We’ll also show you how to use local avatars instead.
Why Disable Gravatars in WordPress
Gravatars are a third-party service that allows users to add a profile photo to their WordPress website and use it across the internet.
Basically, you create an account and then upload your profile photo.
After that, whenever you use that particular email address on a website that supports Gravatar, it will automatically show your profile photo from the Gravatar website.
Similarly, some site owners may not want to use Gravatar due to privacy concerns.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily disable Gravatars in WordPress.
Disabling Gravatars in WordPress
WordPress makes it super easy to customize or turn off Gravatars on your website.
First, you need to login to the admin area of your website and then go to the Settings » Discussion page.
From here, you need to scroll down to the Avatars section and uncheck the box next to ‘Show Avatars’ option.
Don’t forget to click on the Save Changes button to store your settings.
WordPress will now disable Gravatars across your website. You’ll now see a generic user icon in the admin toolbar instead of your Gravatar image.
Similarly, the comments page inside the admin area will also stop showing Gravatars.
WordPress will also stop showing Gravatar images in the comments area under your posts and pages.
How to Replace Gravatar with Local Avatars in WordPress?
Some users may want to disable Gravatar but still want to display profile photos under author bios and other places.
This allows you to keep the avatar functionality in WordPress and enable users to upload their own profile photos. At the same time, it disables Gravatars and prevents your website to make any requests to Gravatar website.
Upon activation, you need to visit the Settings » Discussion page and check the box next to the ‘Block Gravatar’ option.
Don’t forget to click on the Save Changes button to store your settings.
The plugin will now block any requests to Gravatar.com while allowing you to keep avatar functionality.
To upload profile photos, users will need to upload their own images under their profiles.
Simply go to Users » Profile page. From here, you can upload an image from your computer or use one from the media library.
Don’t forget to click on the Update Profile button to save your changes.
WordPress will now use custom profile photos instead of Gravatars. For all unregistered users it will show the default avatar image you have set in the settings.
For all registered users, it will use the custom avatar image that they uploaded. If a user hasn’t uploaded their custom avatar image, then the plugin will use the default avatar image.
The Honeynet Project, a security research organization that focuses on internet risk mediation, has collaborated in the creation of a new open-source intelligence (OSINT) tool that collates threat information from a multitude of sources. This new resource dubbed Intel Owl provides developers access via API to the resulting threat analysis data.
It’s a stroke of luck for mischief makers on the internet if they can find a way to harm WordPress websites. With just one trick up their sleeves, they can take a shot at almost 30% of the websites on the internet. That’s the downside of WordPress being the most popular CMS. As website owners, […]
I am new to internet marketing and would like to ask for advice. I came across the service https://www.articleforge.com/ and content-edge.net, which claim to be able to generate unique content in a minute. Have you encountered this? Is it wise to use them to create a PNB?
Last week, Facebook announced its acquisition of Giphy, one of the most popular GIF sites across the internet. In its announcement, Facebook disclosed that the Facebook family of apps already makes for half of Giphy's traffic, with Instagram making up half of the overall Facebook traffic. Accordingly, the Giphy team will become part of Instagram which has enjoyed API integration with Giphy for quite some time.
Whether you’re a fan of boxing, the beautiful game of soccer, or America’s favorite pastime of baseball, there is a blog out there for you, with dedicated webmasters and writers who have spent years developing and fine-tuning their sites. As a homage to these heroes of the internet, we thought we would piece together a mishmash of some […]
The number of cyber threats faced by businesses and individual internet users seems to increase by the minute. As such, individuals and enterprises that treat cybersecurity as an afterthought are often prime targets for hackers, data thieves, and malware spreaders.
When such unsavory characters are able to find their way onto private networks, the damage they do can be far-reaching.
The internet has become a utility as essential as electricity and water for organizations worldwide. But it’s also an unparalleled security threat, an inviting doorway for global criminal networks.
Malicious hackers still seem to have the upper hand even with billions spent on cybersecurity and a high level of awareness of the growing danger. The 2019 Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report found that 61% of firms reported a “cyber incident,” which stands as an increase from 45% from the previous year. The median loss also increased from $229,000 to $369,000, not counting brand damage.1
It’s a stroke of luck for mischief makers on the internet if they can find a way to harm WordPress websites. With just one trick up their sleeves, they can take a shot at almost 30% of the websites on the internet. That’s the downside of WordPress being the most popular CMS. As website owners, […]