Change the Password Approach

The first thing that would come to mind is change the password. Now the user can never access the site right? Well not exactly. They can always reset the password, so you would have to change their email address. WordPress requires a unique email for each user. So while this method would work, it is not the most efficient method.

User Locker

We found a plugin called href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/user-locker/" title="User Locker Plugin for WordPress" rel="nofollow">User Locker which lets you lock or disable the account. Let’s install and activate the plugin. Once you have activated it, a new menu option will be added: Settings » User Locker.

This has the default settings. Unlike the href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-and-why-you-should-limit-login-attempts-in-your-wordpress/" title="Limit Login Attempts in WordPress">Limit Login Attempts plugin which bans the IP for a specified period of time, this plugin has the option to lock the account indefinitely.

src="http://cdn4.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/userlockersettings.jpg" alt="User Locker Settings" title="User Locker Settings" width="520" height="432" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8223" />

Now the real useful part comes in when you go to edit a user. Click on the Users tab and edit any user. You will see new fields called User Locking. This lets you manually disable or lock any user account. You can also store reasons for disabling or locking. If you use the @ sign then, it stores it as a private reason.

src="http://cdn.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/userlockerprofilepage.jpg" alt="User Locker Profile Page Settings" title="User Locker Profile Page Settings" width="520" height="233" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8224" />

Once a disabled user tries to login to your WordPress account, they will see an error message like this:

src="http://cdn2.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/userlockerss.jpg" alt="User Locker Login Page Screenshot" title="User Locker Login Page Screenshot" width="520" height="413" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8225" />

This is a pretty handy plugin. If you have other methods of locking or disabling user accounts in WordPress, then please let us know.

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Milestone Widget like WordPress.com

If you have used WordPress.com blog, then you know that there is a widget called Milestone. Recently a new plugin was launched to clone that functionality. The plugin is called href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/milestone/" title="Milestone" rel="nofollow">Milestone. All you have to do is install and activate the plugin.

Go to Appearance » Widgets. Then drag the Milestone Widget to the appropriate sidebar. Add your dates and you are good to go.

src="http://cdn4.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/milestone.jpg" alt="Milestone Plugin for WordPress" title="Milestone Plugin for WordPress" width="520" height="365" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8213" />

Countdown Widget in WordPress

The milestone widget above doesn’t have the way for you to include the milestone in your post. Secondly, it doesn’t have a live countdown. Thankfully, there is no shortage of plugins for WordPress. We found a plugin that is written by one of WPBeginner readers and works very well. It is called href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wpcountdown/" title="WordPress Countdown Plugin" rel="nofollow">WordPress Countdown. Install and activate it.

Then open your post or page and paste the following shortcode:

[wpc_countdown targetdate="2012-10-17"]

The output would be a live counter that would look something like this:

src="http://cdn3.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/wpcountdown.jpg" alt="WordPress Countdown Screenshot" title="WordPress Countdown Screenshot" width="520" height="96" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8214" />

Unfortunately, there is no sidebar widget for this. However, you can use our technique: href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-use-shortcodes-in-your-wordpress-sidebar-widgets/" title="How to use shortcodes in your WordPress Sidebar Widgets">how to use shortcodes in your WordPress sidebar widgets to use the above shortcode.

We hope that you find these plugins helpful for the next time you want to add a milestone on your WordPress site.

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What is Post Meta Data?

Post meta data is the information you provide to viewers about each post. This usually includes the post author, post category, time of publishing, post tags, etc. Depending on the theme styling, post meta data can be placed in one of many positions like below post title, at the bottom of the post, top sidebar etc.

How to Display Byline like WPBeginner?

All you have to do is inside your post loop, paste the following code:

By <?php the_author_posts_link(); ?> on <?php the_time('F jS, Y'); ?>  in <?php the_category(', '); ?> <?php edit_post_link(__('{Edit}'), ''); ?>

Note: only logged in editors will see the “Edit” link. Users will not.

Unlimited Possibilities

While what we have on our site is a very common example, displaying post meta data has unlimited possibilities. Depending on your theme, you can choose to style it creatively. Below are some screenshots to get the ideas rolling:

src="http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/digwpmetadataex.jpg" alt="DigWP Meta Data Example" title="DigWP Meta Data Example" width="520" height="268" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8192" />

If you look at the image above, they show the date and author name right below the title. However, category, tags, and comments are shown at the bottom of the post.

src="http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/csstricksmetadataex.jpg" alt="CSS Tricks Meta Data Example" title="CSS Tricks Meta Data Example" width="520" height="204" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8193" />

Chris Coyier shows the date next to the post excerpt. The second number is the comments count.

src="http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/smashingmagmetadataex.jpg" alt="Smashing Magazine Meta Data Example" title="Smashing Magazine Meta Data Example" width="520" height="171" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8194" />

Smashing Magazine shows the author name right below the title. For date, tags, and comments, they have an icon associated with each item.

src="http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/mennonitesmetadataex.jpg" alt="Mennonites Meta Data Example" title="Mennonites Meta Data Example" width="520" height="304" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8201" />

Mennonites website shows the date, categories, author, and tags in the left sidebar.

As you can see that there really are unlimited possibilities when it comes to displaying your blog post meta data creatively.

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All you have to do is open your theme’s functions.php file or a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/what-why-and-how-tos-of-creating-a-site-specific-wordpress-plugin/" title="Site Specific Plugin">site-specific plugin and paste the following code:

add_shortcode('wpbsearch', 'get_search_form');

Then use the shortcode in your post/page content like so: [wpbsearch]

This will display the default search form. If you want to display a custom search form, then you can do so like this:

function wpbsearchform( $form ) {

    $form = '<form role="search" method="get" id="searchform" action="' . home_url( '/' ) . '" >
    <div><label class="screen-reader-text" for="s">' . __('Search for:') . '</label>
    <input type="text" value="' . get_search_query() . '" name="s" id="s" />
    <input type="submit" id="searchsubmit" value="'. esc_attr__('Search') .'" />
    </div>
    </form>';

    return $form;
}

add_shortcode('wpbsearch', 'wpbsearchform');

We hope that article will help all those who wanted to create a search form shortcode in WordPress.

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Why is my Feeds Not working in Chrome?

Not all browsers have the capability to interpret feeds, and one of the most popular browsers lacking this feature is Google Chrome.

How to Fix it?

Well, if you just want to fix it for yourself, then download the href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nlbjncdgjeocebhnmkbbbdekmmmcbfjd" title="RSS Subscription Extension by Google" rel="nofollow">RSS Subscription Extension (by Google).

If you want to fix it for all of your users, then start burning your feeds with services like href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/step-by-step-guide-to-setup-feedburner-for-wordpress/" title="Setup Feedburner">FeedBurner or href="http://www.feedblitz.com/" title="FeedBlitz" rel="nofollow">FeedBlitz. Then simply use the FeedBurner or FeedBlitz link on your RSS icon. Or you can just href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-redirect-wordpress-feeds-to-feedburner-without-a-plugin/" title="How to Redirect WordPress Feeds">redirect your WordPress feeds to the appropriate service.

href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/wordpress-feeds-not-working-in-chrome-well-here-is-how-to-fix-it/">FAQ: WordPress Feeds Not Working in Chrome? Here is How to Fix it is a post from: href="http://www.wpbeginner.com" rel="friend">WPBeginner which is not allowed to be copied on other sites.

src="http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/selectiontext.jpg" alt="Change the Default Text Selection Color" title="Change the Default Text Selection Color" width="520" height="230" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8139" />

Open your style.css file and add the following styles:

::-moz-selection {
    background-color: #ff6200;
    color: #fff;
}

::selection {
    background-color: #ff6200;
    color: #fff;
}

Don’t forget to change the background color to match your theme’s color scheme.

The ::selection selector is used by Chrome, Safari, IE9+, and Opera. Firefox likes to use their own ::-moz-selection. This is the reason why they are on two separate lines. If you try to combine them, it will not work.

For demo, simply select any of the text on this site.

Source: href="http://www.briangardner.com/text-selection-color/" title="Brian Gardner" rel="nofollow">Brian Gardner

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Before we discuss any of the questions listed above, we need to understand what is categories and tags. In the WordPress nomenclature, both categories and tags are known as taxonomies. Their sole purpose is to sort your content to improve the usability of your site. Meaning when a user comes to your site, they can easily browse through your content by topic rather than browsing chronologically which is how blogs were initially setup.

What’s the difference between Categories and Tags?

src="http://cdn.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/sortingyourcontent.png" alt="Sorting Your Content" title="Sorting Your Content" width="520" height="250" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8172" />

Categories are meant for broad grouping of your posts. Think of these as general topics or the table of contents for your site. Categories are there to help identify what your blog is really about. It is to assist readers finding the right type of content on your site. Categories are hierarchical, so you can sub-categories.

Tags are meant to describe specific details of your posts. Think of these as your site’s index words. They are the micro-data that you can use to micro-categorize your content. Tags are not hierarchical.

For example if you have a personal blog where you write about your life. Your categories can be something like: Music, Food, Travel, Rambling, and Books. Now when you write a post about something that you ate, you will add it in the Food category. You can add tags like pizza, pasta, steak etc.

One of the biggest difference between tags and categories is that you MUST categorize your post. You are not required to add any tags. If you do not categorize your post, then it will be categorized under the “uncategorized” category. People often href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/rename-the-uncategorized-category/" title="Rename the Uncategorized Category in WordPress">rename the uncategorized category to something like Other, ramblings etc.

Another difference is the way your category and tags permalinks (urls) look. If you are using a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/seo-friendly-url-structure-for-wordpress/" title="Custom Permalink Structure WordPress">custom permalink (URL) structure, then your base prefix will look different. Example:

http://yoursite.com/category/food/

vs.

http://yoursite.com/tag/food/

What’s the optimal number of WordPress categories?

Up until WordPress 2.5, there was no built-in support for tags. This led to very long category lists because people were using it to define micro-details. Tags were added to improve the usability of your site. Having that said, we believe there is no specific optimal number of categories. The optimal number varies based on the complexity of your site. However, for the sake of structure and usability, it is best that you utilize sub-categories and tags.

src="http://cdn.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/optimalnumberofcategories.jpg" alt="Optimal Number of Categories" title="Optimal Number of Categories" width="520" height="200" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8169" />

Categories are meant to encompass a group of posts. It is always best to start with generic categories and work your way down with subcategories as your site grow. After having run multiple blogs, we have learnt that blogs evolve. There is no way that you can come up with all the right categories. Chances are when starting out, you are only writing one post a day. Or maybe 3-5 posts a day. Having 30 top categories is pointless specially when some of them will only have one or two posts. You are better off with 5 generic categories that have fresh content rather than 30 top categories where majority are not updated.

Let’s take a look at an example. Say that we are starting a social media blog in 2012. We want to share how-to tutorials, news, tools, case studies etc. We can create top categories like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn etc. As sub categories of each, we can have tools, how-to’s, case studies, news etc. However that is a very short-term mindset, and we will run into issues in the future. What if one of the social media network dies and a new one enters the game? You will be required to add yet another top level category and more sub-categories.

A much better way of structuring this social media blog would be to have top categories that are future-proof. You can have your categories like How-To’s, News, Case Studies, Tools, etc. But how would people know that it is about twitter? Well your categories are not suppose to do the entire job. This is where tags come in. Let’s say you wrote a how-to post about twitter, simply add the tag twitter. In your design just add a section called Popular Topics and control that manually with links to popular tags like Twitter, Facebook, Google+ etc.

When do you add Subcategories?

Let’s say that you do a case-study posts where sometimes you interviewed an expert for a specific case-study. Because there is no category called “expert interviews”, you will add that as a tag on that case-study post. If you find yourself doing a lot of interviews for case-studies and your expert interviews tag has 10+ posts in it and is consistently growing, then you should consider adding expert interviews as a sub-category of your main category “Case Studies”.

Yes, you will have to go back and edit your older posts. If your URL structure is /category/postname/, then you have make sure you are using the href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-track-404-pages-and-redirect-them-in-wordpress/" title="Redirection Plugin for WordPress">Redirection plugin. It automatically redirects your modified posts to their new URL, so you can keep all the search engine rankings.

Do I have to use sub-categories?

No ofcourse not. You can always leave popular tags as tags. In our example above, almost all posts will have a tag for a specific social media network like twitter, facebook, etc. But we are not creating those as categories. The only reason why you add sub-categories is to make it easy for your users to find the content. You are more than welcome to simply add the Expert Interviews tag in your site somewhere.

Remember the whole purpose of categories and tags are to make it easy for your users to browse your site.

Is it okay to assign one post to multiple categories?

You might read on other sites that assigning posts to multiple categories can hurt your SEO. Some say that you can get penalized with duplicate content because of that. We believe that statement is not entirely true. First of all, don’t get lost with SEO. Remember the purpose of sorting your content efficiently is to help users find it. By the nature of how top categories should be setup, you shouldn’t be able to classify one post into multiple top-level categories. For example, if your blog has three categories “Advertising, Marketing, and SEO”. Your posts often tend to fall into multiple categories. Perhaps you need an umbrella category for all three? Maybe they should all fall under Business? Or you can have one category called Advertising & Marketing. Then have SEO as a sub-category for those.

There is no SEO benefits to adding multiple categories. If you think it helps your users, then you are more than welcome to add one post into multiple categories. However, if you see this becoming a regular issue, then you should consider restructuring your categories. Maybe some of your categories need to be tags. Or maybe they should be subcategories of one major category. It is mainly about making the user experience better.

If you are super concerned about duplicate content penalty, then simply (noindex, follow) your category taxonomy using the href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-install-and-setup-wordpress-seo-plugin-by-yoast/" title="WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin">WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin.

src="http://cdn4.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/yoastnoindexcategorytaxonomy.jpg" alt="Yoast No Index Taxonomies" title="Yoast No Index Taxonomies" width="520" height="283" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8163" />

If you only want to (noindex, follow) specific categories, then you can do so by editing the category themselves. Yoast plugin has the setting to override the global settings.

Basically when you (noindex, follow) certain thing, it tells Google and other search engine bots to follow all post links in these categories, so all posts can be indexed. However do not index the main category archives to prevent duplicate content.

Short answer: WordPress allows you to add one post into as many categories as you like. Yes it is okay to assign one post into multiple categories as long as you think it helps your users. However, if you think of categories as Table of Contents for your blog where posts are chapters, then can you have one chapter in two separate sections? The answer to that question is NO.

Is there a limit of tags we can assign to each post?

Short answer to this question is NO. WordPress has NO limits on the number of tags you can assign to a specific post. You can add 1000+ tags if you like. However, the purpose of tags is to relate your posts together. Again think of tags as the index or your book. These are popular keywords that you can use to loosely relate your posts. This makes it easy for users to find your posts specially when they are using the WordPress search. It also helps if you are utilizing the tag archive for users. We say add no more than 10 tags to your posts unless you can justify it. For example: if you are running a movie review blog, you may add multiple tags: actor/actress names (this alone can be over 10). But chances are that you may review multiple movies that have Adam Sandler in it. But for other simpler scenarios, you should really limit the amount of tags you use. Otherwise, you may find yourself with over 10000+ tags with only 300 posts on the site.

Do tags work like meta keywords?

Often people mistake tags to be like meta keywords for your blogs. This is the main reason why they try to add as many tags as possible. Tags are NOT meta keywords for your blog. At least not by default. Popular plugins like WordPress SEO by Yoast allows you to use your tag values to be in the meta keywords template. But if you don’t have these plugins configured to do that, then your tags DO NOT work like meta keywords.

Categories vs Tags: What’s better for SEO?

The most asked question that we see being asked on this topic is: Are there any SEO advantage of using categories over tags or vice versa? The simple answer to this is NO. You should NOT look at this as categories or taxonomies. They are meant to work together. If you have read this post, then you should be able to understand the individual purpose of categories and tags as well as their combined purpose for your site’s usability.

Conclusion

Your site is about your users not search engine bots. The goal of every search engine is to think the way users think when valuing your content. If you make your decisions based on usability, you will almost always find yourself reaping the SEO benefits. Categories and Tags are just the two default taxonomies that comes with WordPress. Most advanced sites use custom taxonomies for sorting their content alongside with categories and tags. Think of your blog as an ever evolving book. Choose the Table of Content (categories) wisely. Make sure that they are broad topics, but be cautious to not make it too vague. Use tags to loosely relate multiple posts. If you see a certain tag is becoming popular, then consider adding it as a sub-category. However, if you have to add the tag as subcategory of multiple top-level categories, then leave it as a tag. The goal is always to make the site as user friendly as possible.

We hope that this article helps clear any and all confusion when it comes to the topic of categories vs tags. We would love to hear your thoughts on this matter. How do you sort your content? what best practices do you follow?

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All you have to do is install and activate the plugin called href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/preserve-editor-scroll-position/" title="Preserve Editor Scroll Position" rel="nofollow">Preserve Editor Scroll Position.

src="http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/preserveeditorscrollposition.jpg" alt="Preserve Editor Scroll Position" title="Preserve Editor Scroll Position" width="520" height="168" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8128" />

There is no settings that you need to configure. It works out of the box. Best of all, this is one of those plugins that have no impact on your front-end load time. Absolutely love plugins likes this. This is just one of the href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/blueprint/" title="List of all the plugins that we use at WPBeginner">many plugins we use in our WordPress install to keep things as smooth as possible.

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