We once had an interesting conversation in a webmastering forum. We asked if forum members will click on a bare affiliate link. Most of those who replied said they won’t. One particular member was insistent to the extent that he would prefer affiliate IDs to be cloaked and hidden from him in order to click on a link.

However, hiding affiliate links isn’t only about getting clicks. Sometimes we need to hide links that are too long or too ugly. For those who want to hide affiliate URLs in WordPress blogs, we found two (2) plugins that’re easy to install and use (yeah, we tried them a while back):

1. Hidden Affiliate Links.

2. GoCodes.

Hope somebody finds them useful.

Oh, we’d like to ask too if people would prefer to click on affiliate links whose IDs aren’t hidden…

The new WordPress 2.7 admin dashboard is loaded with eye candy. However we wanted something that will access the individual menus faster. Something that have some fly out functions.

Fortunately, we got introduced to the Fluency Admin 2 dashboard theme. It makes the WP dashboard friendlier to the eyes with its gray shades and, yes, it got menus that flies out the side of the bar.

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Fluency is a plugin so it installs like other WP plugins. Here are two screenshots we borrowed from the developer’s site.

Note: This post is not about wordpress admin blank, wordpress demo admin, or wordpress admin section css formatting.

Spam comments are all over the blogosphere but their favorite target seems like the make-money-online and web development niche. ReapMoneyOnline still gets a lot of spam with multiple porn and drug links but lately there were more creative varieties like the following, which got us fooled the first time:

1. “I found your site on faves.com bookmarking site.. I like it ..gave it a fave for you..ill be checking back later.”
2. “I regularly Check your blog and find your articles interesting.. keep the good work up.”
3. “Sunday In searching for sites related to AdSense but more specifically to %KEYWORD, I found your site which has great content.”
4. “I liked your blog, I will return with more time, greetings.”
5. “found your site on del.icio.us today and really liked it.. i bookmarked it and will be back to check it out some more later ..”

ReapMoneyOnline also got the following hits from Google: “comment*luv en*abled” and “this*blog*uses key*word*luv.” The asterisks were added to disguise the words. For anybody familiar with the CommentLuv and KeyWordLuv plugins, the mentioned keywords appear in the comment form. Seems like a lot of enterprising folks are specifically targeting comment-friendly blogs.

Well, for those who are using CommentLuv, the plugin now has an option to use images instead of text to remind commenters of its presence. For KeywordLuv, we tried the blackhatters’ trick of disguising a URL with asterisks. Althoug, it will probably have little effect on reapMoneyOnline now since the relevant keywords are already in the SERPs.

Oh, we have a particularly endearing spam comment… “Dear friend, i find your post, very interesting. I run a website related to porn industries, and such a information are very valuable.” Honest fellow.

Got some memorable spam comment to share?

There are a nearly a dozen popular WordPress plugins for AdSense. RMO has tried nearly all of them but there is one that we have consistently used for nearly a year: WhyDoWork AdSense Plugin for WordPress. We call it a secret because we can’t find it in WordPress.org’s extend directory. Here are the reasons why we love this AdSense plugin for WordPress and consider it the best:

1. It accepts 7 different codes. Even none-AdSense scripts and HTML.
2. It is compatible with AdSense’s managed ads feature. We simply copy and paste the Adsense script into the code box and configure all setting in our AdSense dashboard. Simple and straightforward.
3. We can make 3 different codes appear in any location within up to 3 posts in the front page. It is running the ProjectWonderful ad at the first post’s footer at the moment.
4. It can place 3 different codes in 3 positions within a single page.
5. It has the option to display 3 different codes in 3 positions within a single page after a set number of days. Nice for showing a different set of AdSense and other adverts to visitors from the search engines.

It was made even better by BinaryAnt by adding an option to make the ads appear only to visitors from the search engines. Follow his instructions here.

BTW, this WordPress AdSense plugin allows us to monitize traffic from Google and Yahoo with Pay Per Click ads without bothering our loyal readers with the strategically-positioned link ads.

ReapMoneyOnline is a DoFollow blog. We believe in rewarding readers who interact with the blog authors or with each other. RMO has installed the following WordPress plugins to remove the NoFollow tag from comment authors and for them to benefit fully from their comments:

1. NoFollow Free by Michelle.

We have been using NoFollow Free for a nearly a year and it’s one of the most hassle-free way to remove “nofollow” tags. It also comes with it’s own top commentators/commenters widget. The author requests that whoever uses it help spread the word.

2. CommentLuv plugin by FiddyP.

This is one of our favorite WordPress plugin. CommentLuv retrieves the latest post of the commenter if the URL placed on the comment form is a blog and parses it with his/her comment. Coupled with NoFollow Free, this plugin automatically creates an outbound link to the post that can be followed by bots, an SEO technique called deep linking.

3. KeywordLuv by Scratch99.

RMO tries its best to reply to comments ASAP. It will be nicer to reply to a name than to keywords used as anchor text so we installed KeywordLuv. With this plugin in place, comment authors can now use both a name AND anchor text in the name field of the comment form, simply enter “yourname@yourkeywords.” Placing RMO@make money online in the field returns RMO from make money online in the comment form.

ReapMoneyOnline’s comment system rewards comment authors with two (2) DoFollow links back to their blogs: (1) a link to the home page (or anywhere in their blog) with their chosen anchor text and (2) a deep-link to their latest post via CommentLuv.

Being a DoFollow blog has two (2) disadvantages: (1) RMO holds PR like a basket holds water and (2) It has become a target for spammers, like all DoFollow blogs in the make-money-online niche. To minimize PR leakage and spams, RMO will implement the following comment policy:

1. RMO does not manually moderate comments. We totally rely on Akismet to classify what is spam and what is not. Akismet places what it cannot immediately identify as spam in the moderation queu.
2. Do not place a link within the comment itself. KeywordLuv and CommentLuv will do the linkng. We are being deluged with comment spam and Akismet has been holding for moderation legitimate comments with links in them. Please understand that RMO’s queu has 35 to 40 long spams in it daily. Any legitimate comment can get lost in between.
3. RMO will only accept comment URLs from other blogs. Make a blog or leave the website field blank.
4. Comments must be relevant to the topic or discussion. Anyway, we should not comment on anything that we know nothing about.
5. Comments with links going to what Google perceives as bad neighborhood will be deleted.

ReapMoneyOnline appreciates most of the comments made by our readers and remains steadfast in supporting our friends.