WordPress 2.1, Implosions and PageRank
I’ve been following the travails of some blogfreaks who have piled into WordPress 2.1 while it’s still wet behind the ears. Not a pretty sight (or “site” — either will do).
I’ve also read a few posts on what it contains. Very impressive. But one “improvement” caught my sparrowhawk eye : changes in the table structure of the database which may cause some favourite features to implode.
Call me old fashioned, but it’s that word “implode” which jumps out at me. I’m an old hand at imploding websites, probably having imploded more than the average online tinkerer. One thing I know about implosions — they are virtually impossible to get out of without starting again at the very beginning.
Imploding 50 WordPress websites is definitely not on my list of priorities.
So the WordPress team, or community, as open-sourcers prefer to call themselves, can keep their implosions to themselves. Thanks, but no thanks, guys.
All is not totally lost, though. One of the WordPresseers, Lorelle VanFossen, has compiled a magnificent article on the trials and tribulations of 2.1. It contains enough hard information and instructions to put me off for several lifetimes.
Update : You thought I was going to chicken out, didn’t you? Well, I’ve just updated our test site to WordPress 2.1 with no problems at all, except that our version of “Subscribe to Comments” doesn’t work. There doesn’t seem to be a problem with the database either, updating from 2.0.5.
I think the problems stated in the articles are for high-tech users who run very sophisticated scripts and plugins. But, for us, no implosions yet, although I can’t get the call to the sidebar to work in the single post template. Any ideas, anyone?
Google PageRank
Jumping quickly back to the Google PR regrade. All of our newer sites now have PR4, and some later ones have regressed to that. The Google dance is still going on, apparently.
However, I’m noticing that many other sites have been pulled back — even The Blog Herald has lost its PR7 and recoils to a 6. There’s clearly something in the new algorithm which penalizes interlinked networks and possibly text link ads too.
As a commercial network, we’ll just have to accept that the Google model index is now downgrading business and blog networks.
You have a choice, it seems : you can have great PR in the poorhouse, or you can earn income with a poor PR.
Take the money and run.
John .. Besides the upgrade script .. you are supposed to also go into your options and refresh the Permalinks. It might look like there are no posts until you do that – then they will come back.
I’m upgraded 3 out of 40 so far
Gonna see how many I can do on the weekend. My biggest peeves are WP-Admin-Bar-2 and some category and linking on my sidebars .. a few other plugins that don’t work well, I can live with – and am adding new ones.
By HART (1-800-HART) on January 27th, 2007 at 4:44 am
No problems with the posts or most of our plugins, HART. Everything’s fine except for the get_sidebar call on archive posts (single.php). And, yes, I’ve remembered to change “widecolumn” to “narrowcolumn”.
Three out of 40 is good going, but it’s a mountain to climb, isn’t it? We’ve still got around 10 on 1.5.2, including Syntagma and our highest trafficked sites. Not looking forward to that.
Btw, our test site is not noticeably faster that in its previous version (2.0.5), so I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. I presume it’s mainly security and backend stuff.
By John Evans on January 27th, 2007 at 9:11 am
G’morning.
I’ve now done 5
I’m documenting every single one, just in case. I myself still have 3 more on 1.5.2 version (I always liked the upload best on this version). I’ve had one instance that affected the blogroll in the sidebar, but I deleted the code .. (and template will be changing eventually anyway)
PS.. i guessed the test site wrong .. I thought it was the iSyntagma site that needs to be permalink reloaded .. there’s no posts, I could have sworn there was that wordpress starter message before
By HART (1-800-HART) on January 27th, 2007 at 9:25 am
HART, Aaron explains the blogroll issue in Technosailor. You have to substitute “bookmarks” for “links”, I think — but check out Aaron’s piece to be sure.
Yep, I’ve upgraded iSyntagma too. It only had the WP welcome message on it, but I’ve taken that down. As a bare site it was easy to convert.
By John Evans on January 27th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Yes I’m aware about the blogroll changes and such. It’s just not an issue now for me. I plan to scatter upgrade 5 more .. then finally pick a firm set of plugins that I am using and standardize every site. They start to add up with the UTWs, the sitemaps, the related ones, the subscribe ones, etc. But, that’s next week’s project.
Have a good one!
By HART (1-800-HART) on January 27th, 2007 at 9:39 am
Well good luck with all that, HART. Let me know if you find a Subscribe to Comments version that works with 2.1. The one here on Syntagma doesn’t.
Enjoy your weekend of tinkering
By John Evans on January 27th, 2007 at 9:49 am
John .. my Subscribe to Comments work – use version 2.1
http://txfx.net/code/wordpress/subscribe-to-comments/
By HART (1-800-HART) on January 27th, 2007 at 9:52 am
Thanks, I’ll give it a try.
By John Evans on January 27th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Oh, and HART, the filosofo Old Style upload plugin works on 2.1 and gives you the same upload features as 1.5.2. I’ll email our version to you. Just stick it in the plugins folder and activate.
By John Evans on January 27th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Well, I’m happy with the Google update this time. Bloggertalks went straight to PR5.
There is quite a speed increase with WP 2.1, but there are also issues. I’ve disabled my links page for instance. Will have to check that out later on. While there’s promises for support on 2.0 branch, I’d recommend everyone to consider 2.1 for speed’s sake.
By TDH on January 27th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Yes, you need to use bookmarks instead of links_list in the fetch code. Aaron’s got the details on technosailor.com.
Congrats on the PR5. Wait till your network gets going, though, then they’ll start to drop your rankings.
By John Evans on January 27th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
I’ll stealth Google with my network!
By Thord on February 1st, 2007 at 5:41 pm