Maybe you should consider moving to Pulse CMS then. It’s a great flat (no database) CMS. It will come out with a migration tool (for WP and RW) very soon 
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Migration tool you say! That could be a game changer. By any chance would it also be able to export content? I would love to have the contents of “report” pages in a Filemaker Pro database. In the past I had “template fields” in a database and I could output html pages. ie “Title” “Date,” “Byline,” “Content” along with meta data, path data, etc.
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Hold on with the horses… nice idea, but we cannot do magic.
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Forgive me for repeating myself, and forgive me for these no doubt simplistic questions, but having not received a response to my previous query, I am still curious:
A few questions regarding this very interesting discussion:
What does it mean if a site is infected? What are the implications?
Does the infection occur only if the site is actually hosted on Wordpress? Or might the same problems arise if one were, for instance, to use Wordpress as a blog on a site that is otherwise pure Foundation RW?
I do not want or need CMS, but would love a relatively simple blog solution for the demise of the Workman Tumblr connection.
Thanks.
My understanding is that an infection can manifest itself in all sorts of ways.
The site might not load
It might try and inject malware into a visitor’s browser
It might display a message saying ‘you have been pwned’ or something similar
It might add extra content to your content
Imagine WordPress is Windows and Rapidweaver is OSX. Hackers go where the most traction is, so they’ll target WP - and because it’s a database-driven system I believe it’s more susceptible to attack, especially if you don’t keep the install and all the various plugins up to date.
I’ve never used the WP Blog plugin so have no idea whether that could ‘carry’ an infection across to your RW website or not.
Rob
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That’s pretty funny. 'Nuf said.
Thanks so much for the explanation. Any suggestions for a REALLY simple blog on a Foundation website?
A blog that someone can edit from web browser or do they/you have Rapidweaver?
Rob
Yes indeed, I have Rapidweaver.
If I create blog within RW, then I have to upload each time…is that correct?
If I create blog online, then it happily does the dirty work itself?
So much confusion. And so much work figuring it all out. Wondering, at this point, if blogs are completely overrated.
I use Rapidweaver’s built in blog. I know some people moan that it’s
underpowered but for kind of stuff I need to do it’s fine. For blogs that
can be edited from elsewhere I’m looking at Armadillo.
@Butternut Some very quick replies.
- infections/bugs tend to happen much more with WordPress. It’s huge. It means it’s much more fun for hackers to tackle and create mayhem with. I suppose it’s “possible” to hack another CMS but they all tend to be much smaller: not much “hacking rewards”. So, I think realistically WordPress is the main problem. (It also has a ton of plugins, some of which are more vulnerable than others.)
- per above. It doesn’t matter how much/little you use Wordpress (whether on its own or with Foundation). The potential advantage of using only the blog portion of Wordpress is you’d be using (probably) fewer addons so there might be lesser potential problems.
- well Wordpress is a CMS. One huge advantage of any CMS is the author or authors can make contributions/posts directly by logging into a special webpage. That’s big. If you are creating the blog posts yourself, then I’m not sure there’s a big advantage of a CMS over RW blog pages. Most of my websites involve multiple authors (for courses). I use Armadillo as my CMS. I certainly think of it as simple, but there are other options out there too.
Thanks so much @Mathew @robbeattie for your feedback.
I am infinitely smarter, if not necessarily wiser, as a result.
I know you might think Total CMS is overkill for you, but it creates a POWERFUL blog. And with it being Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you never know when a sale will happen (and I honestly do NOT know if Joe is having one or not).
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Fingers crossed Robb- I know of someone who is weighing Armadillo vs. TCMS (I installed the 30 day trial about three weeks ago for him). He needs a CMS for a couple of different domains, and would prefer TCMS. Among the things he’s weighing is the per-domain charge vs. one-time-charge. A Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale might push him over the fence.
If you look at the code a blog page is a web page. The biggest difference is how navigation works and how it syndicate itself.
- Apple killed RSS for the most part so one of the biggest advantages to blogging does with it. There are still services like www.Pingomatic.com but this usually attracts spam not targeted traffic.
- Syndication without RSS is mostly Social Media (Open Graph Tags) and syndication websites, (like www.Medium.com) The built in RW blog does not do this.
- A blog uses categories like a website uses traditional tier-1 page navigation.
- A blog uses tags, something a standard web page does not have. Tags can be good but only if they are used by the author of the blog properly if at all. Most authors add so many tags to their blog post they are worthless. They should be used like keywords, 1-3 per post only so it works kind of like a search engine.
- Blogs build followers, followers like fresh content. A new post must go up 1-3 times per week to have a follower.
Does a blog fit your needs or does a standard website?
EDIT: If you don’t need a remote log-in then you can build a standard website with RapidWeaver with the theme of your choice, build 1-3 pages per week, use Open Graph tags, syndicate to related syndication websites, post to social media, build a names list with Sitlok or Post Office and there you go!
I just converted my 800+page blog to all Stacks pages. Most of our traffic is coming from SE searches directly to the pages and we had even stopped using the categories and archive even when it was a blog. I added a very powerful search engine (Zoom) which I tweak and make sure works and count on a simple Alphabetical Page (Sitemap Plus) to list all pages. With the hits from search engines, the Alpha Page, and the Search tool, I have no need of a blog…
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Wow. Who knew? Your analysis is a revelation.
Basically, I have a website (pomelopress.com) which I jokingly refer to as my magnum opus, my War and Peace. It has taken me FOREVER to create and launch, and now that’s it’s 95% there, I would really like people to visit, to sign up for my newsletter, to buy my products. You know, the normal stuff…
The website is built completely on Foundation, therefore no blog page. And, truth be told, a blog is not critical, except insofar as to draw attention to the site, which is my goal. Toward that end, I have reluctantly begun to pursue some social media avenues. It is a fascinating process, but so enormously time-consuming that it’s taken over the joint. Is there life after Twitter? I am not so sure.
I am familiar with Zoom only when it appears as an option in Google search results. Not quite sure what kind of website you have, but I am curious as to how Zoom benefits you specifically, and how you set it up. Presumably it is a paid service.
Whatever are you doing awake at 4:45 am? Getting up? Not yet gone to sleep? Maybe you are not on the West Coast, but me, I have no excuses.
I THANK ALL OF YOU FOR YOUR INVALUABLE FEEDBACK.
https://www.wrensoft.com/zoom/
It’s expensive but it has tons of options for tweaking weights of url, meta data, content, etc. It also generates url lists, sitemaps, and will report bad links, and give warnings of poor/bad html. It is highly configurable. But admittedly, priced out of range of most people. You can also create “categories.” ie: After a search return is shown the user can refine by selecting results in categories. For example, you can see results for “Store” category only, or “Reports,”, etc.
I should say that it is a php script/system than you install on your web server. You buy and install one time.
Allow me to ask one more question, if you would:
Right now, if I google “Pomelo Press”, a whole lot of stuff comes up, including a ton of images. I am impressed and delighted.
But if I simply google “greeting cards” or “giclee prints” or even some of my very specific page titles, I am nowhere to be found. (Bauwauhaus worked, though…that made me happy).
So the burning question is whether Zoom waves some kind of red flag that would allow Google to pay more attention.
Thanks.
Zoom has nothing to do with Google or any other Search engine nor does it have anything to do with how your pages will rank with Search Engines. Zoom is a site search tool just like Google (that I run on my own site) and it determines how pages are returned when someone is on my site and using the search box on my site. So users FIND my site and pages with Google and such, but once on my site they use my search box (Zoom) which I can setup and control (determine weightings and etc) Hope that helps. Remember, I have over 1600 pages. It’s important that visitors be able to find the exact thing they are looking for whether it’s a “basketball” article, or a “basketball” in the store, or a “basketball” video.
Having said all that, if you use Zoom you will more than likely get better returns from other search engines but only because you are paying very close attention to search terms, meta data, etc. But you can do that obviously without Zoom or any other site search tool.
Got it. Thanks for the clarification.