Beginning today mikestrawbridge.com will be owned and managed by Jennifer Bryan. I will not go into the reasons behind this change but trust that the site is in good hands.

From this point forward, Jennifer will be responsible for the content of the site and will collect the commissions it generates. She will also be answering the questions you send via the “Contact Mike” form. If you need any Crown Parts, she will be able to get them for you.

Thank you for your support and I hope you will continue to support this body of information by supporting the advertisers here. They pay for the web hosting and other expenses associated with running the site.

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Incorrect tiles and descriptions showing in Google search results

On October 14 my web traffic went down to less than a fourth of what it normally is. It took me a day or so to find out why. From my viewpoint my blog was fine. I finally did a google search on my most popular term expecting to see some drop in ranking. What I did see shocked me. Instead of the normal title and description, my blog post – still ranked number one, now said “Buy Viagra with a prescription.” The cached preview showed a page titled “SOMA for sale.”

However, if you actually clicked the link, which few people were doing, you got the original page. I was really confused.

I did some forum searches to see if other people we having the same problem with Google. It turned out they were but all the post I found were closed to comments and there were no answers. It took quite a bit of digging to find out what was causing the trouble. It turns out that 90% of the people who are reporting the problem are hosted on Godaddy like I am. There seems to be a security problem with he Godaddy servers. If my trouble returns, I will switch away from Godaddy. I hate to because I have had good service over the years from them but this lack of security is not acceptable. See this article for more info: http://smackdown.blogsblogsblogs.com/2010/05/13/hosting-with-godaddy-might-want-to-rethink-that-decision/

I followed the helpful guide at this link: http://smackdown.blogsblogsblogs.com/2008/06/24/how-to-completely-clean-your-hacked-wordpress-installation/

I began by making a copy of the wordpress directory on my web site. I used Filezilla to make the copy. Next I had to learn how to make a copy of my SQL data base. This took a lot of reading before I was able to learn to use the data base controller software on Godaddy’s hosting controls. I also installed a plug on the blog that makes backups. This let me make a copy of the database easily.

In the process, I accidentally changed the password on the database so my blog was down with errors overnight until I realized the problem. I had to edit the wp-config file to fix it. It took more reading to learn how to do that.

By this time I was more comfortable using the Hosting control software and I had backups of everything on my hard drive.

I had also figured out some of how the hack worked. Somehow they inserted code that redirected the traffic if the googlebot was doing the surfing. I used http://web-sniffer.net to find out what was being presented to Google.

I got the courage to hit delete and cleaned up all the old files from the server. I left the database in place.

Instead of letting Godaddy reinstall WordPress for me or trying to install it using Filezilla, I used a program called EasyWP WordPress Installer. It is available here: http://smackdown.blogsblogsblogs.com/2008/06/18/easywp-wordpress-installer-cause-there-aint-no-such-thing-as-too-easy/

I simply downloaded the file to my computer and then used Filezilla to copy it up to the server. I then used my browser to run it. I had to open a separate window in the browser to get the right data to access my SQL database on Godaddy. I had to change the hosting parameter that is says 99% don’t need to change but all the info was on the Godaddy info page. I just copied and pasted it into the form.

The program loaded up a fresh install of wordpress and sucked in all the data from my database. At first the blog was still blank because there was some error with the theme. I simply reloaded the theme and it cleared right up. I did have trouble for a while getting 404 errors on individual blog posts but that cleared upon its own after a few minutes.

I then checked through all the photo files in the backup of the upload directory. I had read where some people had had their site hacked by someone putting php files in the photo directories. I did not find any suspicious files so I uploaded all photos using filezilla. That took a few hours. Once the photo files were back in place the blog posts looked fine again.

I then began the tedious task of reinstalling plug ins. I tried to get fresh versions of as many as possible. However, there were a few that I had to restore form my back ups. I really have no way of knowing if they were clean. I have tried to use web sniffer to check regularly to see if any of the posts have been re corrupted but so far none have.

I have to give a special thanks to the folks at smackdown for providing lots of good and useful info on how to fix my blog. Hopefully Google will rescan the affected articles soon and correct their files.

I have learned a lot about how WordPress works and I will be able to rebuild the blog a lot faster next time. I used this event as an opportunity to clean up some plug ins I don’t use anymore and make some other changes to the blog I have wanted to do for a while.

I have no idea what the motivation for the hack is. There are no links I see that would make anyone any money or bring them clicks. The only issue for me was destroying my search results. I guess some people like to cause trouble just because they can.

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I did a little trail maintenance this weekend. The big storms in the early summer put a tree down right across the intersection for three trail and right at the creek crossing. I cut the tree off the trails but at the time I was not able to move the stump out of the creek.

I had really hoped that the flooding would wash the stump down the creek. However, after several floods, the stump stayed put.

The trouble was that in order to cross the creek with a vehicle with limited articulation, you had to enter the creek where the bank was not so steep, drive along the creek and then exit at another place where the bank was not too steep. With the stump in the middle of the creek, this path was not possible.

There was enough water in the creek most of the summer to make access to the stump difficult, so I just left it alone. Now that the creek has dried up some, I decided to get in there with the chain saw and see if I could clear the path.

I began by clearing the mud off some of the larger roots. I did not want to damage my chain saw chain by trying to saw dirt. It seems nothing dulls a chainsaw blade faster than dirt.

I used an adz to chop away the small roots and free up the entrapped dirt. I was able to cut off several large section of the roots and clear a path past most of the stump.

I tried it with my off road Jeep. I could get by easily but I noticed that my rock rail was still hitting the stump as I went past. That would not bode well for street Jeeps trying to use the path to the campground.

I cut off part of the tree stump that was still sticking up and I noticed that I could now move the mass of roots around some. I decided to try winching it.

I could not get in a position to remove it from the creek bed. However, I was able to roll the stump up on its side and up against one of the stream banks. This provided plenty of room to drive past the mass of roots. I trimmed a few more of the ones that stuck out just to be sure.

Driving by in the off road Jeep with 33” Maxxis Buckshots was no trouble at all. So after some rest and a drink, I decided to try my Daily Driver XJ.

I had not trouble at all on the first pass. I went down to the campground and turned around. Getting back into the creek took some maneuvering to get the right angle to go past the stump. I went slowly and I sunk in the mud. I had to rock back and forth a few times before my 30” BFG ATs found enough bite to pull me through the mud.

I think as soon as the creek flows some it will wash some of the loose mud away and make it more passable. Or if it stays dry, it will simply dry up enough to get through.

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