FaceBook is Changing Public Sharing With WordPress

July 31, 2018 / Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / 6 Comments

Posts to

If you’ve followed the news, the stock markets, or for that matter your Facebook account, you have already noticed something wrong. Is there ever. I won’t go into all of the details, suffice it to say, I’m close to shutting all of it down. I’m sure many of you might feel the same.

Now, WordPress must make changes. So, in an effort to give you some idea of what and how to address these changes, I will give you some bullet points, links to fix, and what I’m doing.

Starting August 1, 2018:

third-party tools, like Publicize, will no longer share posts automatically to Facebook Profiles.
This includes the WordPress. com tool that connects your site to major social media platforms ( Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook).
Any Facebook Profile connected to social sites will no longer share your posts to Facebook.
if you have a Facebook Page connected to your site — all your content should still appear directly on Facebook via Publicize.

Don’t know the difference between a Profile and Page?

Check out Facebook’s explanation.

What You Can Do:

If you want to keep your profile and still your followers to see your posts, you have two options.
1. Once you publish a new post, copy its URL and share the link in a new Facebook post.
2. The other option is to convert your Facebook Profile to a Page.
3. Review and change your social sharing settings at My Site(s) → Sharing on WordPress.com.
4. to share your concerns with Facebook, head to their Help Community to comment.

What I am Doing:

Currently, I have two Facebook profiles. One profile is for family, friends and the second profile is focusing on writing and those friends and acquaintances interested in all things writing.

To make things less confusing, I have taken the following steps. I will keep, for now my personal profile to stay in touch with family, friends, and social events within my communities. Politics of any kind, disruptive, or disrespectful comments, post, cartoons, or related will be blocked from my site. This is a personal , social, and family site. I will keep it that way or do the following: delete the offending post, meme, etc or delete my site entirely. The phone works just as well, if not better.
I’m converting my second Facebook Profile, previously used for writers, authors, and writing information, to a Facebook Page. It may, however, not transfer all followers, so if you get another invite,I hope you will accept. Again, this will be a page related to all things on writing. Pictures or post related to family should be shared on my personal profile. Family is welcome to follow but keep in mind this is a page dedicated to authors and writers. And, the same policy on politics, stated above applies to his Page.

My Facebook Addresses and Links:

Change is never easy, but sometimes necessary. So, check out the new page and if you’re not on it, send me a request!

What do you think about all the changes?

I’d love to hear your comments. Talk to me. Tell me your story. I’m all ears and look for me on Facebook at SheilaMcIntyreGood, Pinterest, Bloglovin, Twitter@sheilamgood, Contently, and Instagram. You can follow my reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.

SEO Basics: To Grow Your Site’s Traffic, Make It More Visible

June 15, 2018June 15, 2018 / Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / 13 Comments

If you’re like me seeing the terms SEO, METADATA, or ANALYTICS, makes me dizzy. It feels as if I’m trying to decipher a foreign language without a clue how to begin. Thankfully, WordPress offers plenty of resources to help.

So, if SEO confuses you as it does me, check out this article on the basics of SEO.

via SEO Basics: To Grow Your Site’s Traffic, Make It More Visible

I’d love to hear your comments. Talk to me. Tell me your story. I’m all ears and look for me on Facebook at SheilaMGood, Pinterest, Bloglovin, Twitter@sheilamgood, Contently, and Instagram. You can follow my reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.

Mayhem in the Cow Pasture

August 24, 2017August 24, 2017 / Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / 18 Comments

Stock Up/ Picjumbo

Okay, maybe the title is a bit melodramatic, but then it seems appropriate given the craziness everywhere else. Anywhoo, that’s another topic for another day; let’s move on.

No the mayhem to which I refer is all on my WordPress blog. You may have noticed over the last couple of weeks, some changes taking place in the Cow Pasture. Here’s why and what’s been happening. I’m sharing this because if you have a WordPress blog, you may be seeing some of the same behavior or glitches.

Have you noticed any of the following?

Your blog pages loading slowly.
Blog freezing when you’re trying to post.
Page insight analysis shows a drop in speed. This tool, it identifies ways to make your site faster and more mobile-friendly.
Strange strings of code showing up in your blog posts.

At first, I thought it might be my computer. So, I did all the appropriate checks – no malware, no viruses, nothing from my MAC seemed to be causing this. The biggest and most mysterious issue I discovered, were pages of code attached to my blog postings. Here’s a portion of the code (usually at least two pages long) and what it looks like. Rest assured this is a photo copy of the code.

I notified WordPress Support, and we’ve been on the hunt for the cause for weeks. In the meantime, their recommendation was for me to go through 520+ posts and delete the strange string of code, manually! For the love of God! Seriously?

So, that’s what I’ve been doing. It’s a time sucking demon and here’s the catch. On occasions, it reappears after I’ve deleted it. Can you say, lost in a circle of hell? So, for whatever reason, revisions it appears (whether a word or paragraph) can trigger this code. It has taken at least 3-4 engineers from WordPress working with me to try to figure this out. I’m not sure we have, but among the causes so far (we think) include:

links
Revisions
And, in particular, images from Pinterest.

A definitive cause has not been discovered. So, for the time being, I’m on a scavenger hunt looking for this damnable code that’s hiding in plain sight in over 520+ posts, pages, and images.

Other issues have been identified Page Insights, as well. Which explains each problem and how to fix it. However, this creates, even more, confusion for me. 1) it all looks like jibberish; as do the instructions, and 2) WordPress does not give us the option to add plugins (which might be helpful) unless you’re at the business level. As a result, WordPress has told me they’re responsible for correcting this stuff. Really? These are typically the issues Page Insights will identify.

I can’t tell you how much time I’ve spent going through my blog making sure every image is optimized, compressed, and deleting the rogue code. A couple of suggestions and helpful resources I’ve found to date are:

For image optimization/compression:

ImageOptim – offering a downloadable MAC version as well as a WEB version and supports JPEG, SVG, anim GIF, and PNG.
Compressor – 4 file formats supported – JPEG, PNG, GIF, SVG.
Compress JPEG – Supports JPEG, PNG, PDF’s.
HTML Compressor – which I’ve just discovered and will get back to you on its effectiveness.

Long story short, the Cow Pasture with much love and attention, is healing. However, should you encounter a post with a missing picture or other, please be patient – WordPress and I are working on the problem.

I recommend should discover the same code in your posts, please notify WordPress support. Additionally, if you have experienced something similar or have answers or suggestions, please let know.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Join the conversation. Talk to me or tell me your story. I’m all ears.