This petition is the highest ranking petition on TakingITGlobal.org, with over 13,500 signitures online (at the time of this post).

I’m going to spend some time this weekend learning a bit more about this issue. Cause it’s sounds scary to me.

Here are some great WordPress security tips that are simple, effective and DEFINITELY worthwhile employing. Some tips are slightly more advanced in their implementation, but everyone will find something in here to make your website somewhat more secure.

1. Steven Sanders with 7 WordPress Security Tips
2. Matt Cutts on WordPress Security
3. Skull Bits’ “Stealth Login” Plugin for WordPress
4. Semper Fi Web Design’s WP Security Scan Plug In

Clearly someone has some serious connections, skills, and/or vested interests, and are more than capable of hacking and sending fake emails from Australian government email addresses. So yes, I am spooked, and way out of my depths. So Pissed Off Person, I know you’re reading this (and quite possibly my entire email account), so my game of curiosity ends here.

This is the story of “Googleplexter and the Invisible Text”, made possible by some dude who calls him/herself “Fork Spoon Man”.

There’s a website that’s ranking well for some keywords in the botox and beauty niche of the plastic capital – Gold Coast, Australia. This is one of “those” niches that has to contend with Trademark issues, regulatory issues and (therefore) questionable SEO issues. In Australia, using the word botox in website copy, under certain conditions, is in breach of the Therapeutics Goods Administration.

So when I received an email questioning a particular website’s ranking quality, it didn’t take long to see what was happening. The invisible text on the homepage was like a beacon saying “look here, look here!”. How so you ask? Well there’s an isolated, single word of visible text sitting just above the footer with not a single other word surrounding it. That word is “Googleplexer”.

A closer inspection beneath “Googleplexter” reveals a host of arguably-invisible keywords, coloured the same as the website background ( I’ve highlighted the invisible text so you can see them in these screenshots). The homepage is just one of many pages on this site to use the same invisible text tactics.

This website is that of an MBBS qualified doctor, who’s also part of the Cosmetic Physician’s Society of Australasia and the Australasian College of Cosmetic Surgery, so you have to wonder who’s bright idea this was? The Good Doctor is clearly qualified, in medicine. (For the record – it’s NOT the bright idea of the web hosts or CMS provider (so says Fork Spoon Man in a follow-up email)).

Now, if you’re a Gold Coast website using invisible text tactics, against Google’s recommendations, and for the sole purpose of HIDING keywords from users, you should probably make sure you hide ALL the words, especially one as random and obscure as “Googleplexter”. Then at least your users won’t be inquisitive enough to further investigate (like Fork Spoon Man did). That way only the search engines will punish you, and your readers and the TGA will never know that you’re cheating the system.

After all, it’s safe to say that if this spam checking tool knows there’s invisible text issues, Google certainly does/will sometime soon.

So, the million dollar question … does anyone know who or what “Googleplexter” is..?  Because unless it’s the user “Googleplexter” from NUMA, Google doesn’t know either.

As it stands, web designers and developers are forced to spend time and money to ensure websites work properly inside IE6. Hello people, and corporates, IE6 was outdated more than 2 years ago for the improved (and free) IE7. So why won’t you upgrade..?

After reading adii’s IE6 support delima, I can see the time is coming; IE6, your days are numbered. The fact that high profile web wizards like adii are even suggesting a total drop of support for IE6, could kick start a global revolution for the immediate end to all IE6 support.

And how cool would be..?

The little people, we small time designers & developers who spend our time and money fixing Microsoft poor workmanship, revolting on a global scale, to speed up the inevitable end of a browser that’s way past its expiry date.

We should do it.
Someone start something.  (or has someone already..?)
Spread the word from here.  (digg, reddit & sphinn this story)
Something will happen.  (and we can all rejoice)

RIP IE6.  (that could be our campaign name..?)

Yesterdays I wrote about StatPress: the analytics WordPress plugin. So this morning I awoke and checked Google to see what was ranking where for “StatPress”. The results speak for themselves; the top 10 results were all indexed pages of WordPress PlugIn directories. Do you really want your WordPress admin pages (and links) listed in Google..?

The moral of this story – if you use WordPress, make sure you also use Yoast’s Meta Robot PlugIn to prevent Google indexing your WordPress admin pages.

There are 26 articles packed with expert, onsite SEO advice. The advice is easy to read and easier than you might think to implement. This really is a thorough beginner-to-intermediate guide that will enable you to twist and tweak your own website to an SEO level that WILL reap rewards.

While you’re at hobo-web.co.uk, do yourself a favour and sign-up for their email newsletter or RSS feed. Hobo are in the “must read” list or our gReader and we’re disappointed any day of the week when they don’t have new news. That’s a true sign of quality content.

I’d be very interested to know the client value of this content..? So Hobo, If you read this, how much would the industry standard price be to implement your SEO steps to a website..? (I’m asking purely to gain a worth of your content to anyone reading this post. I imagine when people understand the monetry value of your articles, they will pay even closer attention to the content).

So thanks again Hobo – a job very well done, and much appreciated by us.

In the blue corner, defending old browsers, is Litmus. They have a vested interest in the fight, as their business generates income from testing websites in old versions of browsers. So they’re fighting for money. In fairness, Paul’s article is only questioning the non-support of IE6; I’d like to know who he’s really fighting for (which could be difficult considering Litmus pay his wage).

In the red corner, attacking old browsers with a free webtool is PushUp. They’ve released a free scipt that detects when outdated browsers view your website, and advise the viewer (in a subtle, clean manner) that a newer, safer, up-to-date version is available.

Refereeing this fight is Profy who seem to be scoring towards the blue corner..?

I’m cheering the red corner all the way. PushUp are the underdogs, and they’re fighting this battle for love not money.

I’ve left comments on both stories, so you can more there. Interestingly everyone seems to be cheering for PushUp according to the comments on Profy.

It’s a single page, beautifully laid out, with every tag and use clearly defined. Whether you’re a code guru or code rookie, you’ll love this.

Do yourself a favour, bookmark this page. And a shoutout to the creators of this WordPress Heaven, DBS, who also build INCREDIBLE websites.

Yes RSS can be both addictive and time consuming. But we say it’s worth its weight in gold(en information).  It’s impossible to put a price on the free, targeted, expert advice we get from our daily RSS dose. And we’re not just talking free advice, we’re also talking product & service reviews, images & icon sets, plus the latest industry news.

You name it, and it gets delivered straight to us, almost instantaneously, 100% free, less the unobtustrusive email bombardment. The time and money we save through RSSing far outweigh the time costs we spend in skimming our beloved gReader every day.

We do admit that you need to keep an eye on your RSS “balance”. If you see feeds that are “costing” you time but returning you nothing, delete them. You need to constantly “balance” your RSS books.

Good RSS feeds give incredible returns. So if you’re a freelancer at any level, DO NOT declare RSS bankruptcy. Just stop wasting your time with “expensive” feeds, and make sure you subscribe to free, invaluable feeds like ours and Freelance Switch’s.