That’s right WordPress 2.8 is just around the corner.

The exact date it will be available I am not sure of but there are some cool changes with the widgets and theme installer.

I installed the beta (on a non working site of course) and created a quick video to show you some of the changes that will be coming.

Watch the video below and let me know what you think.

By the way if you noticed the Twitter Bribe below, I might as well tell you there is no bribe if you want to know more about that Robert Plank plugin you can read about it in the Tweet Rewards From Your Blog post.

Using blog comments to generate back links to your site is becoming more and more prevalent.

There are a lot of people out there that will tell you don’t bother to use blog comments because all the blogs have no follow tags now and the search engines don’t record the links.

This is both true and not true at the same time. Yes, a vast majority of the blogs you find will have the no follow tag on the comments. But there are some that don’t have no follow tags.

The default installation of WordPress automatically adds the no follow tags to the comments but if you know what you are doing you can find blogs that don’t have the no follow tag or will remove the no follow tag in return for you making a certain number of posts.

Before I get into what to look for to find blogs without the no follow tag I want to cover comment etiquette.

If you are going to leave a comment on the blog MAKE SURE the comment is relevant to the post.

For example if the post is on blog comments your comment should be related to that post and have something to do with the content of the post. Don’t leave a comment talking about how to conquer the newest MLM offering.

Don’t put links in the body of your comment. This is very bad etiquette unless the link is to a resource that expands on your comment. This doesn’t mean if you have a site on sports fishing you can put a link to your site in the comment body but if the post is on a new way to string a leader you can put a link to a page (on your site or another) that shows how to do this.

I personally have my comments set up so that if you put links in the body of the comment it will go to moderation and not be posted until I get around to reviewing the links. This might be done quickly or it might take me a week to get to it. Remember, some people never check the comment moderation.

Now your name or I should say the form field where you enter your name. This should be your name or your moniker. For example I will use Randy The Hermit because more people know me that way than by my normal last name. Your moniker can have keywords in it (only helps if there are not any no follow tags) but it should be related to you or what you do. For example if you teach people how to blog you could use the moniker Blog Boy or Blogging Teacher but your moniker should stay the same no matter what you use for a link.

That pretty much covers the etiquette but I can hear a lot of you out there screaming, “Why should I bother if it is going to have the no follow tag on the back link?”

There are a number of reasons why you should do this:

1. It is still a link to your site that people will see and possibly follow. If you leave 5 blog comments per day that is 1,500 links in a year that might catch the eye of the reader and could get you traffic.
2. If you are posting relevant comments people will remember your name and you will start to build a reputation for yourself, especially if you only used one name.
3. If you post an interesting comment people will click on your link to see what else you have to offer.
4. Some of the ad services and search engines, like Ask (the last time I checked) don’t read the no follow tag. With the ad services this means that you site will look more relevant and it could lead to higher pay outs on your ads.

Now how to tell if the comments have the no follow tag applied to them.

One way is to go to the blog and find a post with comments and look at the page source, find the comment and see if it has no follow tag on the link. This is a pain but it works.

An easier way is to use FireFox or Flock browser (If you are not using one these you should be) and get the SEO for FireFox addon (It works in FireFox and Flock) you can find it as SEOTools.com or just search for it in Google.

Once this is installed all no follow links will be highlighted in red so they are easy to notice. If the link (the name) in the blog comment isn’t highlighted that mean the no follow is shut off for the comments on that blog.

Then there is another plugin that some people add to their WordPress blogs that will reward the frequent commenter. It is called Lucia’s Linky Love.

How it works it the owner of the blog can set the plugin so that after so many posts the no follow tag is removed from the comments of that person.

It does require that you use the same name and the same email address for every comment (I believe I mentioned using the same name above).

The owner of the site can set the limit from 3 to whatever they feel like but most of the time if they are using the plugin it is set from 3 to 5. This means you will have to leave a relevant comment 3 to 5 times before the no follow tag is removed but when it is removed it is removed from any comments you make from there on.

You might now be wondering how you find blogs that are using Lucia’s Linky Love, the easiest way to do this is to go to Google’s Blogsearch and search for your keywords in quotes plus Lucia’s Linky in quotes (it should look like this “keyword phrase”+”Lucia’s Linky” ) and you should find some posts for your keywords that this will apply to.

I use this on my blogs and I have it set at three. Because I read the comments and if they are spammy I delete them manual link spammers never get the three links they need for the no follow tags to be removed. This encourages better comments and more comments.

I am not going to tell you that there is only one “best” hosting service for WordPress blogs but I will tell you that some are considerably better than others especially with the release of WordPress 2.7

What are you looking for when you look for hosting for a WordPress blog?

For the most part the same things you will look for in any reliable hosting service:

• Lots of storage space
• Lots of bandwidth
• Fast reliable support
• Very little down time
• Low cost

This are the common factors you want to look for when you are looking for hosting for any site but when it comes to a WordPress blog there is one other feature you might want to look for, suPHP.

Right about now most of you are saying, “What the heck is suPHP?”

I can give you a very technical definition that I barely comprehend myself or I can tell you this. It is a php code that lets you run files and folders on your site with different permissions.

Permissions (CHMOD) are set to let the server, user or anyone modify a file on your site and are usually represented by numeric values such as 777 (let anyone in the world modify this file) sometime files need to have the permissions changed to a value that is not secure and invites hackers into the site, such as the 777 above.

Once you have suPHP installed the site will use different permissions to have the files modified without opening them up to every body in the world.

So why does this affect WordPress blogs?

With WordPress 2.7 new features were added that will let you automatically update your version of WordPress or automatically download and install plugins. If you have suPHP running on your server these features work very well without modification or the need to FTP into your site to change permissions.

If you don’t have suPHP on your site you will have to change the permissions of files and folders to make sure everything works correctly. With some hosting you might have to set the permissions at 777 and this could just be inviting hackers to your blog.

How do you know if your host is using suPHP?

The easiest way to find out is to ask them?

If you aren’t already hosting with them this would also be a good way to find out how well their support system works before you purchase.

Just go to the support section (make sure your request goes to technical support and not sales) and ask them if they are running suPHP. If it takes them a week to get back to you then you probably don’t want to use this service. If they get back to you in less than 4 hours it is a reasonable response anything under one hour is good.

One thing that might happen to you that will point out that your server has suPHP running on it is, if you ever change a file or folders permissions in a PHP script and you get an error, specifically a 500 internal server error that usually means you are running suPHP. To fix this error set all your folders at 755 and all your php files at 644 and it everything should work for you.

I am sure there are a lot of reliable hosting services that offer everything that has been mentioned here but one that I have worked with and have personal experience with their support and service is HostGator. For blogging purposes I haven’t found a better hosting service for Blogging Beginners.

If you know of any other services that have all the features listed above go ahead and leave a link as a comment to this post. But do not put in more than one or your post will go to moderation.