Blog Spring Cleaning

It was a long winter here in Saskatchewan, and it seemed like it took forever for the snow to disappear. Then when it did finally melt it keep coming back with a snow storm here and there. Almost like it was just not quite ready to leave yet. But spring has finally come and there is lots to do inside and out. Spring is also a great time to do some spring blog cleaning, not to say you can’t or shouldn’t do these things at other times of the year.

Backup - You really should be doing this regularly anyways, but I will often make backups using the cPanel control panel once a month in case I need to restore lost files as well.

Bad Links - Run a link checker to see if all those links to other blogs, images in posts etc are all still working.

Spam Comments - Occasionally spam comments will make it through your spam protection. It never hurts to go through the comments to make sure nothing slipped past.

Update Plugins - Plugins need to be updated just like WordPress. It has gotten easier with WordPress 2.5 so make sure you upgrade those plugins.

Remove Unused Files - You don’t need all those other theme files lying around taking up room on your web server. If you are not using them, why not delete them. If you need the default you can always upload it again.

Spelling - We don’t always catch all of our spelling mistakes the first or tenth time around.

Contact Forms - Check that your contact forms are actually working. Occasionally they can break with a bad upgrade or any number of other reasons. It only takes a second to make sure they still work.

Pages - Is your about page still accurate? How about your disclosure page? Take a few minutes to go through them and make sure they are still accurate. (Rhett)

Coding Errors - While I am not a code puriest, it never hurts to make sure your html, css, javascript and php code are still error free. This also will let you know if you have been unknowingly hacked.

404 Errors - Are you getting a lot of 404 errors in your log files? Might want to check out what that is about.

Whois Record - Check the contact information for your domain name and make sure it is correct.

Password - Have you changed it recently? Never hurts to change it once in a while.

Cross Browser - Does your blog still look great in all the latest and greatest browsers out there? Better check. Sometimes even little changes can mess up a site.

Security - Review your security. 5 WordPress Security Essentials.

Robots.txt - Check make sure it is still accurate to keep the search engine robots out of the places you don’t want them.

Google Webmaster Tools - Use Google Webmaster Tools. It is a good resource to help you check your robots.txt file, see links, and all kinds of interesting information.

Time to get that spring cleaning done on your blog. Is there any other regular blog maintenance items that you do that you would recommend to people?

Photo by Noël Zia Lee