I have been a security freak for all of my websites. A few of my websites have been hacked in the past, and I hate the period. I have written in the past a post about how to protect your blog from hackers. Today I will talk about another key thing that Wordpress have which makes it a lot more secure than people think.

A client recently told me that Wordpress is an open source software hence not secure. Obviously understandable from someone who does not know anything about wordpress. Yes a lot of open source softwares have some security issues, but wordpress is getting stronger and stronger after each release.

In the release of wordpress 2.6 and onward they have included this feature of secret keys. Which adds an extra layer of security to your blog and make it more secure. In order to do this you would have to open your: wp-config.php file, and right after the other define tags add the following:

define(‘AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);
define(‘SECURE_AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);
define(‘LOGGED_IN_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);
define(‘NONCE_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);

You’ll find these lines in the wp-config-sample.php file as well.

These three unique phrases should be random. Anything 60+ characters and relatively random will work. They should each be different. In other words, you need three phrases, not one.

Note that doing this will invalidate all your login cookies, so everybody on your site will have to re-login, but doing it will greatly increase the cookie strength of WordPress 2.6. This means that your login cookies, if intercepted, won’t be able to be reproduced as easily. It also means that somebody who gains read-only access to your database through some other means won’t be able to login to your site.

** DO NOT SHARE YOUR SECRET KEYS BECAUSE THEN THEY WON’T BE SECRET **

Alright this will be a short post because I am asking you guys to help yourself and help me. I have notice that a lot of genuine comments are going into the spam box. Not in the Pending Box, but in Spam Box. If you never see your comment on one of the posts, don’t make a duplicate comment instead you should head over to my contact page, and check the option feedback. And write to me with your name which you commented with, with the email address, and the website that you used.

I have noticed that a lot of the genuine comments were in the spam box as I checked, and I am sure I missed a lot of them because I was just taking a quick look.

Some ways you can prevent this from happening is use your name when you comment rather than a long keyword like make money online or something like that because spam detectors does not like that name.

Also if you ever have a problem with the website, send me an email instead writing a comment because when you write a comment, i might not even see it if it is in the spam box.

I just wanted to clear things up with my readers.

Alright a month ago, we launched a contest which was sponsored by one of my favorite affiliate networks Market Leverage. Well I have finalized and sent the winners of to Dina and they should have already received the emails. Although I was informed that one of my winners did not respond back. So I will post this post, just in case if they see it, and they can contact me asap.

This contest was open to all publishers that joined under my referral. A mandatory part in this contest was to be a Market Leverage Affiliate. Only one person followed that direction in this contest. So technically there was only one legal winner. But due to the generosity of our sponsor, we will be giving away both prizes away.

First Winner: CD16072 (Asus)

Second Winner: Deanna of WinwithDeanna (deanna@j******.com) [Have Not Contact Us Yet]

So Deanna if you see this post, please contact me with your details. If she does not contact, a substitute winner will NOT be announced.

I would like to thank all of my contest members who tried, and I would strongly recommend anyone who has not joined Market Leverage yet to JOIN Market Leverage, this link will let you join under a publisher who came from Balkhis which means you will be able to compete in our future contests and have a leverage over others.

Special Thanks to Amanda Roberts of Balkhis for helping organizing and maintaining this contest.

Sincere Gratitude for Market Leverage Staff and Mike Jenkins and most specifically Dina Riccobono for helping me launching this contest.

Alright guys, yesterday’s post was a April Fool. A lot of you caught me, and a lot of you thought it was real because I built it up with the post before on when to quit. I received 29 emails yesterday asking me whether it was true that if I am quitting. I really appreciate all the love and care. You guys should know that I wouldn’t quit, unless there is a freaking big circumstance that is stopping me from blogging.

But I think a lot of people fell for the Joke because today as I logged into feedburner, I saw myself being short of 632 subscribers. Now it might be a glitch from feedburner’s end, but It didn’t seem like it.

I want to ask you did I succeed in this condition, or did I fail?

Because my succcess is a failure yet my failure is my success.

The joke apparently worked, so I got what I was going for, but in order to get there, I lost this many subscribers.

Haha, I have no doubt that these people will be back.

A few days ago, I explained the reasons when you should stop and quit. I wrote that post, so you guys would be more understanding when I break this news to you.

I will no longer be posting anymore new content on Balkhis. Although all the helpful content that I have posted in the past will stay here for future use of my users and myself. I think I will be shifting towards more of product development and target some other niches rather than web-development.

I would like to thank all of you guys who followed me through on this blog and other networks. I hope you will see my new website soon when you search my name in google, or if you follow me on twitter, it will be there.

I am really sorry if this break anyone’s heart, but I will still be around. Uzzz Productions will still stay intact, so feel free to contact me through the contact form in Uzzz if you have questions, or twitter me. I have been offered a few jobs at some very prestigous companies, the names shall not be revealed at this time, but I might take up on one of those jobs aside from my investing adventure.

Best Regards,
Syed Balkhi