If you haven’t subscribed to Google’s Official Search blog “Insider Search”, point your RSS feeds there now. (If you aren’t sure what an RSS feed, you can learn what an RSS feed is here.)

For most of you who have ads located at the upper areas of your site, this is probably not an issue. Google has made this change primarily to impact sites that are almost nothing but ads. You’ve probably seen them before: you click a search result on Google and end up on a page that has a ton of advertising and nothing looked like what Google said it was.

If you do have a site that is more advertising that useful content, or are considering it, rethink it. You’re considered a spammer by search engines. You think this is going to be fast cash, but a web page of nothing but ads is probably not going to make you a lot of money. Odds are good that to do that successfully, you’ll need more time, know-how, and money than you have to start with.

For the rest of you, if you plan to cram more advertising on your site, especially to be “above the fold,” weigh that carefully. As it is, advertising slows your site down, and page load times impact your Google rankings as well.

Also, remember that one of the points of a website is to have people come to it, stay on it (and want to be there), and come back later. If your site is too ad-heavy, website visitors may hit the back button before the page loads up. At the very least, they may decide coming back isn’t something they want to do again.

Another important thing to consider is this: just because the page loads quickly on your computer doesn’t mean it does the same for all your visitors. Some are still on dial-up. What about your smart phone visitors? Have you ever looked at your site on your phone?

So consider your ads carefully. Are you making enough off of them to warrant the number of them, the size of them, and their location? Or is it time to consider if you have other, more important goals for your site, such as selling a service or product?

Then I realized that I have more people reading this, who also have a need to understand this potential law and what it means to them.

GeekArtist Web Solutions, LLC stands with other businesses, individuals, and non-profits that are against this law.

As I wrote in my blog, there are a number of problems with these potential laws, but some my biggest issues are, in a nutshell, that this bill will

1. Require banks to cut off relationships with, and web hosts to shut down websites, of anyone who is ACCUSED of piracy. Not convicted. Accused.
2. Currently, under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) those accused can counter-file with their web host, and get their site back up, often within hours or days.
3. Under SOPA, those accused have no recourse like this, but must go through a long process to prove they own copyright.

Here’s an infographic that may also help you understand the bill that is proposed.

Yes, copyright infringement is bad. I firmly stand against it. I do not knowingly put up content that infringes on copyright. But I want laws that are more useful and better manage the issues than what is proposed. What has been put forth by Congress demonstrates a lack of understanding of how the Internet works.

Will you take action regarding this bill too?

Google has released their version of business pages for Google+!

See GeekArtist Web Solutions, LLC Google+ business page (my first post is my picture…enjoy).

Go forth, and make your Google Plus business and non-profit pages!

Not sure if you want to try it yet? It’s very easy to use. And quite a number of people have either abandoned Facebook entirely, or like me, use both. I believe it is a viable social network and won’t go away anytime soon. It is certainly more popular than Google Buzz (which, Google will be closing soon).

If you have any questions about Google+ pages, just ask. Or you can check out Google’s Help section.

Freelancer and business owner have different meanings to a lot of people. But they face similar challenges and have similar needs.

As a result, I’d like to introduce a lot of you to a very helpful site called Freelance Switch. And I’ll do that by sharing 3 posts that may benefit you and your business.

10 Simple Website Changes that Will Increase Your Freelance Sales – If you’re looking at your site trying to figure out what you need to do to improve it, this is the post for you.

6 Sources to Find Sales Lead Lists – A very simple list with a few simple, but sound, ideas.

30 Inherently Useful Tools for Freelancers – A great list, covering everything from accounting, to cheap credit card processing services.

What services do you use for your business that you just can’t live without?

• Part 1 of WordPress Plugins: Do’s and Don’ts for WordPress Plugins
• Part 2 of WordPress Plugins: 14 Awesome WordPress Plugins

To keep this post short, from a security standpoint, for now I’m going to focus on spam and blocking various IPs from your WordPress site. I’ll address other security issues in a future post.

As before, I’m going to give you 2 links: one for the WordPress plugin repository, one for the plugin author’s site. You can get the plugin at WordPress.org plugin repository, or via your installation of WordPress by going to Plugins > Add New and putting the name of one of these plugins in the search box.

I link the author’s site for those who want to do further research for the plugin, and as a bit of SEO love for these WordPress plugin developers.

This is not a comprehensive list of all plugins. This is just a list of those I have the most experience with or people I know have recommended. Feel free to join in the comment section with any WordPress anti-spam plugins you have found.

Sometimes, just one plugin isn’t enough. Sometimes plugins fight with each other. So installing all of these is not a good idea. At the very least, installing plugins that do the exact same thing is not always a good idea.

Because of that, I’m going to group the plugins below by how they prevent blog spam. So if one doesn’t work in your theme, or with your current plugins, or for whatever reason, you’ve got an alternative to try.

Admittedly, I have combined plugins that do the same thing, in a few cases, and having both helped.

Comment Checking and Moderation
I have 3 I recommend. All 3 of these services require you to sign up with their website, and then copy and paste a special key, or userid and password, to your plugin setup page. So don’t just install these and think you are set. Definitely read the instructions any time you install a plugin.

Akismet is very popular. It is free for personal use. For businesses, there is a fee for it though. WordPress author plugin site

The free alternative to Akismet is TypePad AntiSpam. This is great for smaller businesses on a budget, and with lower site traffic. WordPress author plugin site

Another way to deal with comment spam is to install a third party comment system, like Disqus. Some sites used Disqus in addition to either Akismet or TypePad AntiSpam. Disqus can play nicely with the other two plugins. WordPress author plugin site

IP Checking
On one of the sites I work with, we use AVH First Defense Against Spam. They check visitor IPs against those at by Project Honeypot, Stop Forum Spam, and Spamhaus. WordPress author plugin site

We have successfully used AVH First Defense Against Spam with Simple Trackback Validation. This is also very nice and, as the title says, simple plugin. WordPress author plugin site

A friend, Christine Gregory, recommends http:BL WordPress Plugin, another plugin that makes use of Project Honeypot. WordPress author plugin site

Site Registration
Sometimes, you’ll have individuals or bots trying to register for your site, that you just don’t want. Then bring down the Ban Hammer! WordPress author plugin site Love this plugin (and the name)!

Sabre is another one used for controlling site registration. We’ve actually use this successfully with Ban Hammer. I know I’ve discussed my dislike of CAPTCHAs, but if things are getting really bad and you need a bit of help locking down a bot trying to repeatedly register for your site, they have a few different CAPTCHAs you can enable. One is a simple math problem that is solved (such as 3 + 7 = ). The nice thing is, the CATPCHA is optional; you do not have to enable that function. Sabre has a number of ways to deal with spam registration, the CATPCHA is only one of the methods. (I can’t seem to locate this author’s site.)

Not sure which plugins to use for your site? Not comfortable installing them? Hire me to handle your WordPress plugin installations for you.

Don’t see a plugin you use on here? Tell us about it! Which anti-spam plugins have you had success with?