If you just clicked this link, The Gunner is betting you probably don't know. Maybe you have an idea or you are just curious. Well if you want to protect YOUR INCOME and stay off the radar of Google and it's darling Wordpress, Wildgunner suggests you read on.
What you are about to read might seem far fetched, but the Gunner guarantees to those of you who don't know the information that will be revealed to you in this post despite any offical claim or stance, the knowledge you are now getting can and will help protect you from possible future attacks.
But first, answer this question?
Do you always get the latest and greatest, most up to date version of everything, despite the fact that what you currently are using perfectly serves your needs? Are you the person who sells what they own just to get the newer model that has ALL of the same functionality and features, but this years model is a different color, has chrome, shiny graphics?You get the idea.
How does this relate to affiliate marketing, Wordpress and YOUR INCOME?
The Gunner is glad you asked.
Back a few millenia ago Wordpress upon introduction of 2.3 added the wonderful tagging feature to the core. If you were like the remainder of the horde, you joyfully dumped the Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin and readily imported your tags into the new system. The new addon wasn't without fault, but a few updates later the tagging feature is a very welcome integration to the core of WP.
Well my friend, tagging was not the ONLY new core functionality added to Wordpress. The other and even more welcome newness came with, the plugin update notification feature. Now this was discussed in great length and many people were pissed when this happened, but you may be new to WP or might have simply missed this.
Simply put the Update notification feature sends your blog URL, plugins and what version of WP you are running to their database and compares it all with existing values and then updates your admin panel accordingly. Or so they say that's all it does, but believe me it can do so much more.
In the arguments that popped up over this and instead of the suggestion to use token values or some other method to provide this service WP effectively gave you the finger.
Why is this a big deal?
Maybe you don't know this but Wordpress in it's latest form (2.7) makes at least 20 upfront calls home and the another half dozen silent calls just when you login. Thats not counting the 4 calls to Google. Google? Yeah, Google.
Now provided Wordpress effectively hordes most plugins into its' database it can sort them accordingly. You know effective, ineffective, useful or not, good or bad, bad or evil. Are you running a special content writer that rewrites content just like grandma did in the old country? How about that nifty snatch and grab plugin that gleefully shows videos and comments from other sites? You wouldn't be running a mass installer would you?
You're not telling everybody on the forums what you are running, but you are telling. And if you run similar installs, you are leaving foot and fingerprints all over the place. It would not take much to effectively create a list of YOUR domains or bad plugins which could then be used to blacklist domains and pass them off to askimet as spam or to Google for who knows what...They do know YOUR URLS, and your entire setup, down to the version of php you are running.
Heck they even know when you post. PING!
Well now tha you've pissed yourself, go get these two plugins and install them on everything, everywhere and hope and pray that somehow the project does not mysteriously end up on the no longer developed plugin list.
The first is disable Wordpress Plugin updates. - This kills the auto "looks it's new" on your admin backend, but this was all explained above. just do what you did before, 2.3 and if you weren't around before 2.3, imagine what people did when they wondered if a new version was out and do that.
The second plugin is disable Core Update - This does the same thing that the plugin listed above does except this one covers the core of your install.
Both plugins are written by John Blackbourn, who is a scholar and a gentleman of grand capacity, who no doubt will be under serious pressure to fold his efforts and become borg. Applaud him and his work and should he die the death. well thems the breaks well just have to update this without him.
Should you require to keep these handy backstabbing "features" functioning on your installs, the Gunner suggests you keep a lily white WP setup where you can monitor status of your favorite plugins without revealing your empire of nefarious activity. Good places to do this would be on your Hannah Montana, korean soup recipes or NAMBLA sites.
What you are about to read might seem far fetched, but the Gunner guarantees to those of you who don't know the information that will be revealed to you in this post despite any offical claim or stance, the knowledge you are now getting can and will help protect you from possible future attacks.
But first, answer this question?
Do you always get the latest and greatest, most up to date version of everything, despite the fact that what you currently are using perfectly serves your needs? Are you the person who sells what they own just to get the newer model that has ALL of the same functionality and features, but this years model is a different color, has chrome, shiny graphics?You get the idea.
How does this relate to affiliate marketing, Wordpress and YOUR INCOME?
The Gunner is glad you asked.
Back a few millenia ago Wordpress upon introduction of 2.3 added the wonderful tagging feature to the core. If you were like the remainder of the horde, you joyfully dumped the Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin and readily imported your tags into the new system. The new addon wasn't without fault, but a few updates later the tagging feature is a very welcome integration to the core of WP.
Well my friend, tagging was not the ONLY new core functionality added to Wordpress. The other and even more welcome newness came with, the plugin update notification feature. Now this was discussed in great length and many people were pissed when this happened, but you may be new to WP or might have simply missed this.
Simply put the Update notification feature sends your blog URL, plugins and what version of WP you are running to their database and compares it all with existing values and then updates your admin panel accordingly. Or so they say that's all it does, but believe me it can do so much more.
In the arguments that popped up over this and instead of the suggestion to use token values or some other method to provide this service WP effectively gave you the finger.
Why is this a big deal?
Maybe you don't know this but Wordpress in it's latest form (2.7) makes at least 20 upfront calls home and the another half dozen silent calls just when you login. Thats not counting the 4 calls to Google. Google? Yeah, Google.
Now provided Wordpress effectively hordes most plugins into its' database it can sort them accordingly. You know effective, ineffective, useful or not, good or bad, bad or evil. Are you running a special content writer that rewrites content just like grandma did in the old country? How about that nifty snatch and grab plugin that gleefully shows videos and comments from other sites? You wouldn't be running a mass installer would you?
You're not telling everybody on the forums what you are running, but you are telling. And if you run similar installs, you are leaving foot and fingerprints all over the place. It would not take much to effectively create a list of YOUR domains or bad plugins which could then be used to blacklist domains and pass them off to askimet as spam or to Google for who knows what...They do know YOUR URLS, and your entire setup, down to the version of php you are running.
Heck they even know when you post. PING!
Well now tha you've pissed yourself, go get these two plugins and install them on everything, everywhere and hope and pray that somehow the project does not mysteriously end up on the no longer developed plugin list.
The first is disable Wordpress Plugin updates. - This kills the auto "looks it's new" on your admin backend, but this was all explained above. just do what you did before, 2.3 and if you weren't around before 2.3, imagine what people did when they wondered if a new version was out and do that.
The second plugin is disable Core Update - This does the same thing that the plugin listed above does except this one covers the core of your install.
Both plugins are written by John Blackbourn, who is a scholar and a gentleman of grand capacity, who no doubt will be under serious pressure to fold his efforts and become borg. Applaud him and his work and should he die the death. well thems the breaks well just have to update this without him.
Should you require to keep these handy backstabbing "features" functioning on your installs, the Gunner suggests you keep a lily white WP setup where you can monitor status of your favorite plugins without revealing your empire of nefarious activity. Good places to do this would be on your Hannah Montana, korean soup recipes or NAMBLA sites.
