This is my first post on Bing (Microsoft’s Search Engine). There are hundreds and thousands of bloggers blogging about Bing Search Engine.

I want to share a tip on how to get your Website or Blog indexed by Bing Search Engine.

Bing also offers a facility like Google Webmasters tools where you can “submit the your site URL to Bing” so that their search engine can do indexing of your web pages whenever they are published. This way your site can be included in the Bing and get some traffic.

With this Bing Webmaster Tools, you can submit site, also troubleshoot the crawling and indexing of your site (if problems are there), submit sitemaps and view statistics about your sites.

Add a Website URL to Bing Search Engine

How to submit Website URL to Bing using Bing Webmasters Tools

1. To add your site to Bing Webmaster center, Visit Bing Webmaster Tools page.
2. To submit the website, first you need to login using Windows live ID (Hotmail, Messenger, Xbox LIVE). If you don’t have login id, then create one (I created a new one). Now, enter your website URL and sitemap (optional) and then Submit.
3. After you submit, It will ask you to verify your site. There are two options
   - Upload XML file in root directory of your website
   OR
   - Add a META tag in the head section of your website html page.

   I used the second option.

NiharsWorld after adding to Bing Webmasters

If everything goes well then, Bing bot will start crawling your site and start indexing the pages. Then you can see results like: Backlinks, top search keywords, Outbond Links, “404 File Not Found” pages

If you don’t want to submit this way, there is one more simple way. Just visit http://www.bing.com/docs/submit.aspx web page and simply “SUBMIT YOUR SITE TO BING”.

Hope that you start getting Traffic to your website from Bing!

Few days back, Atul from Ocean of Web left a comment at How to Block Visitors from specific IP using .htaccess hack.

This is what he asked :

Hi Nihar
Make sure you backup .htaccess file before you making any changes.

for this line in red color box with cross mark, are u using any plugin for this

You can check the comment here

In above post where he left the comment, I have put the following:

Make sure you backup .htaccess file before you making any changes.

Today, i am going to share the CSS and images and also tell you how you can add these Custom Paragraphs or Sentences to highlight them in your Blog post

How to add Custom Paragraphs or Sentences in your Blog post

1. First open your Theme’s style.css file and then copy the below CSS snippet at the end of the file. Note: all themes doesn’t have css filename as style. So, check accordingly.

   .info {font-size: 11px;color: #191919;background: #ebe9ce url(images/info.gif) no-repeat 5px center;font-family: Verdana, sans-serif, "Courier New";line-height: 125%;margin: 10px 0px 0px;padding: 12px 12px 12px 25px;display: block;font-weight: 400;width: 80%;border-top: 2px solid #DAD6A5;border-bottom: 2px solid #DAD6A5;}
   .warning {font-size: 11px;color: #191919;font-family: Verdana, sans-serif, "Courier New";line-height: 125%;background: #e3aeae url(images/warning.gif) no-repeat 5px center;display: block;margin: 10px 0px 0px;padding: 12px 12px 12px 25px;font-weight: 400;width: 80%;border-top: 2px solid #D68585;border-bottom: 2px solid #D68585;}
   .download {font-size: 11px;color: #191919;font-family: Verdana, sans-serif, "Courier New";line-height: 125%;background: #d5ecd5 url(images/download.gif) no-repeat 5px center;display: block;margin: 10px 0px 0px;padding: 12px 12px 12px 25px;font-weight: 400;width: 80%;border-top: 2px solid #A9D8A9;border-bottom: 2px solid #A9D8A9;}
   .alert {font-size: 11px;color: #191919;line-height: 125%;background: #FFE5BF url(images/alert.gif) no-repeat 5px center;font-family: Verdana, sans-serif, "Courier New";display: block;margin: 10px 0px 0px;padding: 12px 12px 12px 25px;font-weight: 400;width: 80%;border-top: 2px solid #FFC46A;border-bottom: 2px solid #FFC46A;}
   .note {font-size: 11px;color: #191919;font-family: Verdana, "Times New Roman", Times, Georgia, serif;line-height: 125%;background: #eaf2f5 url(images/note.gif) no-repeat 5px center;display: block;margin: 10px 0px 0px;padding: 12px 12px 12px 25px;font-weight: 400;width: 80%;border-top: 2px solid #B7D2DD;border-bottom: 2px solid #B7D2DD;}
   .click {font-size: 11px;color: #191919;font-family: Verdana, "Times New Roman", Times, Georgia, serif;line-height: 125%;background: #fcfbed url(images/click.gif) no-repeat 5px center;display: block;margin: 10px 0px 0px;padding: 12px 12px 12px 25px;font-weight: 400;width: 80%;border-top: 2px solid #F2EDB0;border-bottom: 2px solid #F2EDB0;}

2. Now, if you check the above css code. It is using some images. Below, i am providing the images.zip file. Please download it and upload it in your THEME DIR/images/ directory. If you don’t see images directory under your THEME directory, then create one and extract the images from the images.zip file.

   Download Images for above CSS code

Its done. Now you can start using these in your post. I will give you the code for each also real-time implementation below.

Info message

If you want to give some information then use info class. Here is how you can do it.

Code

<span class="info">This example is to show message using Info</span>

Code’s output

This example is to show message using Info Class

Warning message

If you want to give some information then use info class. Here is how you can do it.

Code

<span class="warning">This example is to show message using warning</span>

Code’s output

This example is to show message using Warning class

Download message

If you want to give some information then use info class. Here is how you can do it.

Code

<span class="download">This example is to show message using download</span>

Code’s output

This example is to show message using Download class

Alert message

If you want to give some information then use info class. Here is how you can do it.

Code

<span class="alert">This example is to show message using alert</span>

Code’s output

This example is to show message using Alert class

Note message

If you want to give some information then use info class. Here is how you can do it.

Code

<span class="note">This example is to show message using note</span>

Code’s output

This example is to show message using Note class

Click message

If you want to give some information then use info class. Here is how you can do it.

Code

<span class="click">This example is to show message using click</span>

Code’s output

This example is to show message using Click class

I hope you liked this post and is useful for you. I also hope that you implement it and use it in your future posts in your Blog!

In this post i have also used Syntax Highlighting, this is achieved using Beautify code using Syntax Highlighter Pluging

If you are new to CSS and want to learn about, then Do check this Learn CSS by reading this Book. Download It Free!

Do check it out!

If you have any questions or suggestions, Please do share via comments.

Yesterday, i posted a .htaccess hack to Block Visitors from specific IP using .htaccess

Today, i am here again to share with you one more .htaccess hack.

What is HotLinking?

Avoid / Prevent Hotlinking of images or files (Credit http://www.conquerhosting.com)

Inline linking (also known as hotlinking, leeching, piggy-backing, direct linking, offsite image grabs and bandwidth theft) is the use of a linked object, often an image, from one site into a web page belonging to a second site. The second site is said to have an inline link to the site where the object is located.

Recently, i noticed one blogger published a post in his blog, instead of uploading the image in his own site, he linked the image of my site. Every time somebody visits his post, the image will be downloaded from my site.

There are two problems

- Loss of bandwidth.
- Image Theft (you might have created the image after a lot of hardwork and wouldn’t like somebody using your image without your permission)

There is a way in which you can stop this. It can be done by adding few lines of code in .htaccess.

Prevent Hotlinking of file and images using .htaccess hack

I am assuming that you know about .htaccess file. It resides in the root directory of your website. The root directory could be /www/, /httpdocs/ or /public_html/ directories. Any of them depends on the hosting service.

Make sure you backup .htaccess file before you making any changes.

1. Login to your hosting service site and open code>.htaccess file. Make sure you backup the file before making any changes.
2. Add the following code in code>.htaccess file and save the file.

   RewriteEngine on
   RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://niharsworld.com/.*$ [NC]
   RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://niharsworld.com$ [NC]
   RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.niharsworld.com/.*$ [NC]
   RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.niharsworld.com$ [NC]
   RewriteRule .*\.(htm|jpg|jpeg|bmp|png|gif)$ - [F,NC]

3. From the above line, you can make out that i am blocking hotlinking of htm, jpg, jpeg, bmp, png, gif files.

   You may remove or add any file extension that you want to avoid HotLinked.

If you know any other way, please share via comments. Hope you learned something from this post!

Technorati Tags: Hotlinking, .htaccess hack

I am sure most of the Website owners or Blog owners have faced this problem. Some visitor is nasty or jealous and wants to trouble by posting abusive comments or do harm to the website.

One of the solutions is to Block or Deny the access to your Blog or website.

Yes, you can block a Visitor of your website. Read on to know how to do that….

Block Visitor from Specific IP Address using .htaccess Hack

I am assuming that you know about .htaccess file. It resides in the root directory of your website. The root directory could be /www/, /httpdocs/ or /public_html/ directories. Any of them depends on the hosting service.

Make sure you backup .htaccess file before you making any changes.

• Grab the IP Address of that visitor by checking your favourite Stats webservice. I use StatCounter to get the IP Address or Wordpress Dashboard (if the visitor has left a comment).
• Login to your hosting service site and open code>.htaccess file. Make sure you backup the file before making any changes.
• Lets say i want to block a Visitor coming from this IP Address 120.120.120.120. I will add the below entry in .htaccess at the end of the file.

  deny from 120.120.120.120

• Now save the file

If you want to block more visitors, just keep adding the ip addresses in .htaccess file .

In this way, you can also block the automated spammer.

If you know any other way, please share via comments. Hope you learned something from this post!

Technorati Tags: block visitor, .htaccess hack

Jonny from Jonnys Blog left a comment few days back on my Previous Post Broken Links Remover – A must Wordpress Plugin. He mentioned a freeware tool that can check all the broken links of any website. I took a look at that freeware software. It is a great tool to use for all the webmasters.

Xenu’s Link Sleuth is a freeware tool to check Broken Links of your website. It uses multi-threading to scan broken links. Hence, it is very fast compared to any other link checking software. Given the URL of the website, It can come up with all the broken links withe the details like title, type, size etc. It does all this pretty quickly.

How to use Xenu’s Link Sleuth

1. Download and install the program
2. Run the program and enter the URL of the website which you want to check
3. Now it will check for all links like normal links, images, backgrounds, style sheets, scripts and java applets.

Find Broken Links of any website. Image Credit : Xenu’s Link Sleuth

After this, It will display a continuously updated list of URLs which it has scanned so far. You can sort the list based on a certain criteria. Since, it also displays the size of each page / image, you could use this tool to check any fat pages and large images and try to optimize them to reduce the page size and the load time.

It will also scan and list out all the In-bound links and Out-bound links so you know which of your pages are most linked and contain the most outgoing links. It also displays the Missing titles and Missing Alt Text for images. This way you can find out the problems and fix it to improve your SEO score.

A full report can also be generated which can be used.

I liked this tool very much because of it’s Mult-purpose usage. Its main purpose is to find Broken Links, But as you saw in above, It can be also used to find Missing Title and Missing Alt text and can be used to improve SEO score. It can be also used to find out any fat pages and large images.

If you want to improve your SEO for your Blog or Site, then do read this:

– Increase Blogs internal linking using SEO Smart Links Plugin

– How to Show different posts for Search Engine Visitors

I recommend each and every WebMasters / Blogger to use this tool and if you know any other tool. Do share it.

Download Xenu’s Link Sleuth

Technorati Tags: find broken links, SEO, software, utility, freeware, blogging, webmasters

Few days back, I shared a wordpress trick on How to Add categories to Nav Bar. Today, i wan to share one more Wordpress Trick.

If you look at the Header section of this blog, you will see the Nav Bar. It includes pages and also some categories.

You can see from the above, that i have included following 3 pages along with the some categories. Also notice that they are not one after the other in serial order:

• Archives
• Contact me
• Earn Money

How do you do this?

It is pretty simple. You need to have some knowledge in Wordpress and you should find out in which theme file your Nav Bar code is residing.

Instructions to Add Pages to Nav Bar

My theme has nav_menu.php file. This file contains the menu code. I have put the following code in this file:

<?php wp_list_pages('include=9&title_li='); ?>
<?php wp_list_categories('orderby=name&include=3,25,42,11,10&title_li='); ?>
<?php wp_list_pages('include=225,23&sort_column=menu_order&title_li='); ?>

You can see from the above code, I have am making two calls to wp_list_pages function and in between wp_list_categories. This is the reason you see the pages and categories are mixed in the Nav Bar.

I have specified the pages that i want to include using “include=225,23″ parameter.

Each Page is assigned with a Page ID. To find the Page ID, just go to Pages -> Edit and hover over the title of any Page. The status bar of your browser will display a URL with a numeric ID at the end. This is the Post ID. You can see from the below url: 23 is the Page ID.

http://www.niharsworld.com/wp-admin/page.php?action=edit&post=23

One important thing to notice about wp_list_pages function is that the Pages are sorted alphabetically by Page title. But, if you want them to be in another order then use sort_column=menu_order parameter.

For each Page, you can assign the Page Order from Write > Page administrative panel.

For ex: If I want Contact me to appear at the end. I will assign a higher number to Contact Me than other two pages I am displaying.

wp_list_pages function generates each page as list <li>..<li/>. It marks the current Page with HTML class current_page_item.

For more instructions on wp_list_pages and Styling of Category List, Please check wp list pages.

Please leave a suggestion or doubts if any by leaving a comment

Technorati Tags: add page, How-To, nav bar, TipsNTricks, Wordpress, Wordpress Page

Have you noticed Home Page of this blog? On the right of each Post Title you will see a balloon image which shows number of comments for the post. This is a hyper link, if clicked will take you to the comments section of the post.

Check right top of the image

Most of the themes comes with this feature. My theme also has these feature.

Now, I wanted to display the same type of Comments Link in Single Post.

This is what I did, I opened index.php theme file. Found the following code and copied it.

 <div class="comm"><span><?php comments_popup_link('0', '1', '% '); ?></span></div> 

Then, I opened single.php and pasted the code just above the title and saved the file.

I then opened the post in the browser to see the whether the comment link is appearing in the Single post or not.

I was surprised to see that there was no Comments Link in the post. Then, I opened the source code of the page, but was unable to find the code that i pasted.

After doing some research, I found out that Comments popup link will only work inside a loop. index.php uses the loop, but single.php (Single Post) doesn’t.

I found some clue to the solution. If you closely look at the start of the comments section below:

Display number of comments in comments header section

You can see that number of comments are displayed in the header of the comments section. I immediately headed to comments.php and found that there is a comments_number function which is outputting this. I then used that function to achieve my goal.

Do the following to add Comments Link in Single Post:

1. Copy the below code.

    <div class="comm"><span><?php comments_popup_link('0', '1', '% '); ?></span></div> 

   Note: You have to use CSS classes to give the styling. Here, comm class is being used.

2. Open single.php
3. Paste it just above the title.
4. Save the file

Try opening any post in your browser to see the change. If you see the comments link in the post, then you are done. Otherwise try checking what went wrong.

This how I used different function to display Comment link in single post!!!

I hope this helps…

If you have any doubts or suggestions, please do leave a comment.

Check out more tips on Wordpress!

Technorati Tags: wordpress, wordpress functions, wordpress tips

Arun from BeFolks has asked me a question.

The question was “How to include categories on the Nav Bar”?

I thought if i blog the solution, It can also help other readers of this blog.

If you look at the Header section of this blog, you will see the Nav Bar. It includes pages and also some categories.

You can see from the above, that i have included following 5 categories along with the some pages:

• Blogging
• Bollywood
• How-To
• P2P
• TipsNTricks

Now, the question is how do you do this? It is pretty simple. You need to have some knowledge in Wordpress and you should find out in which theme file your Nav Bar code is residing.

Instructions to Add Categories to Nav Bar

My theme has nav_menu.php file. This file contains the menu code. I have put the following code in this file:

wp_list_categories('orderby=name&include=3,25,42,11,10&title_li=');

I am only including some categories. I have specified the categories that i want to include using “include=3,25,42,11,10″ parameter.

Each Category is assigned with a Category ID. To find the category id, just go to Posts -> Categories and hover over the title of the Category. The status bar of your browser will display a URL with a numeric ID at the end. This is the Category ID. You can see from the below url: 3 is the cat id.

http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/categories.php?action=edit&cat_ID=3

wp_list_categories generates each category as list <li>..<li/>. It marks the current category with HTML class current-cat.

For more instructions on wp_list_categories and Styling of Category List, Please check wp list categories page.

Please leave a suggestion or doubts if any by leaving a comment

I know lot of guys out here who have a website or blog has to know a bit of about CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to make changes to the themes and website to design it in a better way.

Here is some some offline resource to learn CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

Learn CSS!

The Art & Science of CSS is a good CSS book (read reviews at Amazon) packed full of practical examples.

I think this book will help you a lot in learning more about CSS techniques like making rounded corners, creating navigation tabs, styling web forms and list, designing web page backgrounds with images and so on.

Here is a direct link to download the eBook. It’s about 24 MB in size.

Via Labnol

Technorati Tags: learn css, css, free book, book

Yahoo Buzz service by Yahoo is now open to public. It is similar to Digg. If you find a post which is interesting and want to share then just submit it. Anybody who likes it will Buzz on that post.

If you have a Yahoo account then you can start using Yahoo Buzz service.

Here is how to add Yahoo Buzz button on blog easily so that your readers can start submitting your posts on Yahoo Buzz:

1. There are lot of Yahoo Buzz submission buttons to be chosen from Yahoo Buzz Submission Buttons
   From the above link:

   Important! You must replace the word ARTICLEURL in the code with the URL of the page you want to submit to Yahoo! Buzz.

   If you own a WordPress blog like my blog, Just replace the ARTICLEURL with:

   <?php the_permalink(); ?>

   It’s a built-in WordPress function to print out the permalink URL of the current post. Simply put the modified Yahoo Buzz button code on your Single Post theme file (single.php)

2. Use a third party plug-in/widget.
   If you are a WordPress user, there is a wordpress plugin called “Add to Any” that has already included Yahoo Buzz on the bookmark list (I’m will start using it). For other platforms such as Blogger, Typepad, etc, you can check it out yourself on Add to Any site.

If you found this post useful or any other post on my blog, consider trying to “Buzz” the post to share it to other fellow bloggers.

Will you put this on your blog ??

Thanks to Mike

Technorati Tags: yahoo buzz, digg, add yahoo buzz button

I know lot of bloggers like me and website owners are concerned about one thing that is…

Is the website compatible on different browsers?

Whenever a webmaster changes the website design or theme or tinker with CSS code. The only question that comes to the mind is the above question.

There are lot of browsers and every one uses the browser they like. As a webmaster, you don’t want the visitor to see a crappy web design. You want to make sure that your website or blog layout is consistent on all browsers.

I found one website BrowserShots.

Using this website you can type in your website url and select any browser of your choice to check how your website design looks.

It is a very useful tool to check and make sure that your website is consistent in most of the popular browsers.

How it works?

1. Type in your website url
2. Select the browsers for which you want to check (i selected firefox 3, IE 7.0 and Opera 9.51
3. It will prepare the screenshot (note: takes some time to generate the screenshots)

You are almost done. After the screenshots are generated you will know if your website design or layout is breaking in any browser or not?

If your website layout is breaking then try to find out the problem and fix it.

I have tested my website on firefox, IE and opera…

Hope you found this post helpful. If you have any suggestions or feedback. Drop in a comment.

Test your website now BrowserShots

Technorati Tags: Website compatibility, blog layout compatibility, Test your website

Lot of webmasters are very much interested to get a page rank(PR) for their website(if they don’t have PR) or want to increase their page rank(if they have already have).

NiharsWorld has page rank 2 from February 2008 and has not increased till now

I came to know from a friend Hitesh that there are some sites out there which actually analyse the website you input and can give possible page rank that you may get in future.

Sounds very interesting!!!

I am not sure how much of this is true. But if this is,then i am excited.

Below is my Future PR:

I found the above page rank of my site from first site from the following sites listed:

• Page Rank Predict
• IWebTool PageRank Predict
• Predict Page Rank

You can find your current page rank using this link

Some more information on Page Rank :

Page Rank (or PR) is a tool using which a webpage is assigned a particular weightage. The weightage or the rank assigned is done using an algorithm that is based on link assessment. The link assessment algorithm is a smart algorithm that checks the key word density and the cohesiveness of the data carried by a web page. Each web page is reached using a link, and the link assessment algorithm assesses the presence of keywords that a particular hyperlink points at.

The numeric weightage that a web page receives is represented as page rank of the element and is abbreviated as PRE. The concept of Page rank was introduced by google and is a very efficient way of determining the factual data a page carries.

The page rank prediction tool or the predict pagerank tool is another smart program that can provide a rough estimate of the page rank that a web page can actually reach. The page rank predictor can be used to judge the cohesiveness of the data and actually foresee the standings and ranking a web page is capable of reaching.

Future PR of a web page can be known by providing the uniform resource locator better known as URL, in the predict page rank tool. These tools are mostly available online and have a potential of precisely determining the page rank that a particular web link can reach.

Page rank predictor tool is mostly used by the search engine optimizers to get an idea of the future ranking of their web page. By getting the future rankings of a web page the SEO can manipulate and re arrange the data and the back links present in a web site, so that the ranking is further improved. To predict page rank, the page rank prediction tool works as really smart way to ameliorate the page ranking of any web page.

Technorati Tags: page rank, PR, predict page rank, predict future page rank, page rank predictor tool

Have you ever thought that you can actually record your visitors activities on your website?

ClickTale

Record visitors’ every action as they browse your website. Watch movies to understand visitor behavior, gain valuable insights and improve your website’s usability.

Let me first put some details about traditional Web Analytics websites, then will proceed with details on ClickTale
There are many many website trackers but most of them can just track the following:

• Came From : From where the visitor has come to your site (Site Referrer)
• Visitors Path : Your website webpage navigations
• Keyword Analysis: Search Engine Keywords

Some of the traditional Web analytics websites that offer good service for free are
StatCounter | SiteMeter | Google Analytics.

I use statcounter. Which analytics do you use? Leave a comment…

ClickTale – Record – Watch – Understand :

ClickTale is different with the traditional web analytics. It provides information about individual visitor’s behavior. This is a must for those who want to analyze their visitor’s activities on the website. With this you can actually find out what visitors does as soon as they land on your website. With this data you can fine tune your website and make changes.

ClickTale offers both free and paid plan. I am subscribed to the free plan. Under free plan, you can do 100 recordings per week. You can check the pricing page for paid plan. I would suggest first you get a free plan see how it goes if you like it and want more recordings then go for a paid plan.

I actually wanted to upload my site recording uploaded in youtube so that you can check it here. But just now found out that my recordings are deleted because i have logged into the site after a long time

ClickTale is an interesting service. If you want please signup and leave comments.

ClickTale

Technorati Tags: clicktale, statcounter, sitemeter, record visitors activities, web analytics