When I first began using wordpress, I was completely revamping one of my websites to be purely a craft based blog, with the blog being the index page. In the past, I had used Site Meter as my general counter sort of wanted to use it again. I feared that I’d have to play around with php to make it appear on the main page, something that I really wasn’t comfortable with doing at the time.

A quick browse of the wordpress plugin’s and widgets and I found several easily downloadable counter and statistics systems that you can add to your layout through the dashboard of your wordpress account. All you need to do is uploaded them to the plugin’s directory of the wordpress files, all of which is carefully explained on the wordpress website! It really is worth just having a look around the widgets and plugin’s, there’s some great alternatives to the things you’d use on a regular HTML based website there!

Comment spam is the bane of blogging. We’ve all seen it in blog comments - either outright ads for porn, drugs or gambling, or meaningless comments (”Nice site!”) with the spam URL included. This kind of spam is more than just a nuisance for the blogger - it provides valuable linkbacks for the spammers; plus it gives a bad impression to readers. So it’s important to keep spam off your blog.

For Wordpress users, the Spam Karma plugin is the answer. Very easy to install, it straightaway starts blocking spam and can be configured to various strengths. You can even choose to put a little counter in your blog’s footer to tell readers how much spam Spam Karma has “eaten”.