Hack WordPress

How To: Building a Google Custom Search Engine (GCSE) into Your WordPress Blog Posted: 03 Dec 2008 02:00 AM CST Over the holiday weekend I decided to spend some time cleaning up a few of my websites and while doing this, I ended up installing Google’s Custom Search Engine on a couple of my WordPress blogs (as of this post I haven’t done this on WP Hacks yet, but will probably end up doing so here as well). For people wondering how to easily install Google’s Custom Search Engine (GCSE) on their WordPress blog, here are two resources I recommend: Build Your Google Custom Search Engine - The first step is to actually create your Google Custom Search Engine.   The post by Maki over at Dosh Dosh does a GREAT job of explaining how to do this.   Towards the end Maki explains how to actually integrate it into your WordPress blog, but rather than go through all those steps, you’ll want to instead check out the second step. Integrate your Google Custom Search Engine into WordPress - Once you’ve built your custom search engine, head over to this post and figure out a quick and easy way to integrate it into your WordPress blog.   This method ONLY requires you to alter the searchform.php and search.php files (which most themes come with), so it is really easy. Why Use Google’s Custom Search Engine? With the current setup of the WordPress search engine, posts are displayed with the most recent post first based upon the search term.   Using Google’s Custom Search Engine, it will use Google’s search algorithm to display your posts with the most relevant post on top and you can actually integrate it into your WordPress blog, so it looks natural.   Using this also allows you to display Google AdSense ads, which can earn you money on some blogs. The main downside with this method is that Google has to actually index the post before it will appear in your blog’s search results, but that won’t be a problem for most blogs.  It will just add a small delay before posts appear in your search results. Related posts: Google Releases Official Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide Search Engine Optimized (SEO) WordPress Theme Gallery Building a Multi-Author Blog with WordPress How To: Using a Custom Page as Your Homepage

WordPress 2.7 Coming to WordPress.com Thursday Afternoon Posted: 02 Dec 2008 09:01 PM CST If the WordPress 2.7 Release Candidate 1 release announced yesterday wasn’t enough of a sign that WordPress 2.7 is close to an official release, now it looks like the WordPress team just announced that WordPress.com will get the official WordPress 2.7 upgrade Thursday afternoon/evening here in the United States and early morning on the eastern half of the globe.  That is only two days away! Here is the official announcement from the WordPress.com team: As promised, here is the advance notice that WordPress 2.7 is coming to WordPress.com, and will go live on Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 8pm Eastern Time. That's 5pm Thursday in California, 1am Friday in London (UTC), 8am Friday in Jakarta, noon on Friday in Sydney…find your time here. Some people like to learn how to use new things by jumping right in and exploring, while others like to read the manual first to get the lay of the land. This post is a written version of the 2.7 interface tour/feature review I have been doing at WordCamps, and will tell you what's new in the administration interface of WordPress 2.7. There are a lot of new features, so fair warning: this post is pretty long. If you're more of the jump-in-and-play kind of person, you can skip this post for now, but you might want to remember it's here just in case you get confused when 2.7 arrives at WordPress.com in two days. A note on browser capabilities: WordPress 2.7 makes extensive use of JavaScript to create the user experience outlined here. If you have JavaScript turned off in your browser, some features may not be available or may work a bit differently than described here. In addition, using a recent standards-compliant browser will ensure that you have an optimal experience. Older browsers that are not supported by their manufacturers any longer may not look as expected; we recommend Firefox 3, Google Chrome, and Safari 3. Anyone notice they don’t recommend IE8?   Related posts: WordPress 2.5 Officially Released WordPress 2.4 To Be Delayed WordPress 2.7 Beta 1 Now Available! Automattic Acquires Intense Debate - Comment Improvements Coming?

Domaining Manifesto - A Guide to Successful Domaining Posted: 02 Dec 2008 08:32 PM CST Throughout the past few years I’ve had quite a bit of success buying, developing, and selling domain names.  Over that time I’ve managed to collect close to 300 quality domains using many basic domaining techniques. In the past I’ve mentioned a little bit about my domaining experiences here on this site and it usually leads to questions from our readers.   How does domaining work? How do you earn money domaining?  Where do you find those domain names? For any of our readers that have an interest in finding answers to these questions, I just found out about this deal and wanted to let our readers know about it.   You can now get a free copy of the extremely popular Domaining Manifesto - Guide to Successfully Domaining ebook!  All you need to do is simply sign up over at Domaining Revolution and you’ll receive the 88 page ebook for free. Related posts: Guide to Making a Successful WordPress Theme Would You Be Interested in a WordPress eBook? Hack WordPress Turns 1, A Redesign, and a Theme Giveaway! Google Releases Official Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide

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