WordPress is an extremely popular cms. On the one hand, this is a great advantage, as an active developer community is always striving to develop new features and plugins. On the other hand, software that is as popular as WordPress naturally also attracts other groups of people who want to make profit from security gaps or who only act in a destructive manner.
The most important basic rule is to always keep the WordPress installation used up to date. This means that if a version update has come out, this should also be uploaded to the local Wp installation. At least when security-relevant gaps have been fixed.
5 Best Security Plugins for WordPress Compared
In addition to keeping the blog software up to date, there are plenty of other tips and tricks to make WordPress more secure. The following list is only a guide on how to proceed. Only Worpdress “on-board resources” are used. Of course, there are also a number of plugins and additional modifications that can further improve the security of WordPress.
- Change database prefix
A database prefix can be specified during installation. By default, this is wp_ This can be easily changed during installation.
- After the installation: Delete the install.php and update.php
These are no longer required and can possibly pose a security risk.
- Change the admin directory.
By default, the WordPress administration area can be reached via domain.tld / wp-admin /. You can easily change this by renaming the folder.
- Change standard
user After setting up a WordPress blog, the first administrator is initially called Admin. This can be changed very easily by creating a new user and granting him admin rights. Then you can delete the originally automatically created admin.
- Delete the meta tag “generator”.
This shows in the source text which WordPress version is being used. To do this, simply delete the corresponding line in the header.php in the WordPress theme used.
- Blocking via Robots.txt Directories that are
not to be released for search engines can easily be blocked using robots.txt. Attention: If you use the tip under point 3, it may be counterproductive to specify the changed path to the admin area, as this can then be read out again.
Make absolutely sure that the new path to the admin area is not linked.
Basically, it is advisable to look at the source text of individual blog posts and that of the blog’s home page from time to time and check for unwanted links. This has the following background: The webmaster often does not notice that the blog has been changed because the attackers are secretly placing hidden links.
These links serve to increase the link popularity of other websites and are often not visible so that the blogger does not notice them, even if he calls up his own blog. Even if the links are not visible, they are still often rated by search engines and can also lead to the blog being penalized, since the search engine usually assumes that these hidden links were placed by the webmaster himself.
Output links to the latest entries
Depending on the WordPress theme used, it can be useful, for example in the sidebar, to display links to the latest articles. If you also want to do this on the home page, it can happen that some posts as well as the links to the new posts are in the immediately visible area.
To avoid this overlap, it is advisable to not display the links to the articles in the navigation on the start page, which are in the immediately visible area.
The following code can be used to achieve this:
This example results in the output of the latest 4 postings beginning with the 3. This means that the links to the two most recent postings are not output.
It should be noted here that not all visitors may come to the blog’s sub-pages via search engines, for example. Not having the overview of the last entries from sub-pages start with the latest article is different from the one on the start page, since the latest entries may be immediately visible here.
From a Seo point of view, too, it makes sense to link the entries that already appear on the home page, which are linked to the respective posting in most themes, again in the navigation.
If you do not want to have the 10 postings appearing on the start page linked again in the navigation, you can use the following code:
The links to the next entries, which no longer appear as articles on the start page, are then output here.
Change WordPress language
If you have installed a German-language WordPress version, the language can easily be changed after the installation.
To do this, simply open the wp-config.php file and search for “de_DE”. Now you can easily change the language settings by entering en_EN for English, for example. If other languages are required, the corresponding file must be stored in the “wp-content / languages /” directory.
English also works without having to upload an extra file to the languages folder. Remove html from WordPress comments
There can be various reasons for displaying the comments in WordPress without clickable links. So there are of course anti spam plugins and the possibility to set the links to “nofollow” so that they are not followed by search engines.
These instructions refer to removing all clickable external links from the comment area.
To remove html links from WordPress comments, the following code can simply be integrated into funcions.php in the theme:
add_filter (‘comment_text’, ‘wp_filter_nohtml_kses’);
add_filter (‘comment_text_rss’, ‘wp_filter_nohtml_kses’);
add_filter (‘comment_excerpt’, ‘wp_filter_nohtml_kses’);
If you also want to prevent the name from being linked to the website of the person who wrote the comment, you can simply remove the “_link” from the following tag in comments.php.
<? php comment_author_link ()?>
Then only the name of the author is displayed without a link.
Offer text links and earn money
Some may wonder why you can make money by setting a conventional text link. This has a very simple background: search engines rate the relevance of websites, among other things, according to how many other websites are linking to this website. This means that a link is evaluated as a recommendation, so to speak. According to this logic, a website that has many incoming links – so-called backlinks – must have a certain relevance. This in turn flows into the search engine ranking or is the most important factor at all.
6 Best Contact Form Plugins for WordPress
So now website operators have an interest in having as many other webmasters as possible set a link from their blog or website to their own website. This is exactly where so called text link marketplaces or text link exchanges come into play. On these platforms links from the own homepage can be sold as well as links can be bought on other websites . This is often much more efficient than time-consuming research for potential link partners.
The advantage in contrast to other web forms is that neither calls nor clicks are counted. It’s all about setting the links. Whether or not visitors are actually sent to the linked websites is irrelevant here. In this way, even smaller blogs and websites can generate calculable income.
There are a variety of platforms to sell or buy text links. Some offer specially developed scripts that ensure that the links are displayed automatically, while others have to set the link manually.
Teliad.de
Is one of the most famous marketplaces for links. After registering, you can offer your own blogs and websites on which you want to rent out links. You can also determine how much money you have to pay per month for the link.
After a prospective customer has been referred, you will be informed of their link request and can now freely decide whether you want to set this link or not. If you decide to include the link in your own website, the paid service period begins immediately after confirmation. This means that from now on a fixed monthly fee will be paid for this link, regardless of whether it is clicked or not.
Backlinkseller.de
This service is even more automated. After registering a website on which the link is to be offered, a php code must be incorporated. This ensures that booked links are automatically displayed. There is no need to set the booked links by hand. This saves work on the one hand, but on the other hand you have no direct control over which links are set. A pre control is carried out by Bakclinksellers, but it is possible that other criteria are set for your own website with regard to linking other websites. However, it is possible to delete booked links yourself in the backlinkseller account at any time.
Backlinkseller is particularly suitable for webmasters who do not want to keep adding expired links and adding new ones. Currently, up to 500 subpages are supported on a domain and automatically provided with paid links when the corresponding bookings are made.