Just after we updated many sites to 2.0.6, the development team at automattic brings out 2.0.7 to fix some issues. If you did upgrade to 2.0.6, you don’t have to do all the files:

Development Blog › WordPress 2.0.7
Because this is a much smaller update than previous versions, you do not have to update all of WordPress’ files if you’re upgrading from version 2.0.6. Here is the list of files that have changed since 2.0.6:

* wp-admin/inline-uploading.php
* wp-admin/post.php
* wp-includes/classes.php
* wp-includes/functions.php
* wp-settings.php
* wp-includes/version.php

With 2.1 around the corner- if you are still at 2.0.5 or below- you think, ah, I’ll just go for 2.1- well, guess what: 2.1 changes some basic calls in a big way, so it might not work for everyone. We’ve had it break a large site under development. But, here’s the big news from further in the Dev blog post above:

And just as a reminder, the next major version of WordPress (2.1) is due out by the end of the month, but the 2.0 branch of WordPress will continue to be maintained for several years.

So- if you aren’t able to reconfigure your site to work with 2.1, 2.0 will live on.

We’ve been saying it all along- WordPress is a great Content Management System (CMS)- now mega-companies are starting to figure out that Googlelove is more important than Flash driven sites.

With a lot of CSS wizardry, you can make your WordPress site look like anything you want- Take a look at Ford’s site:

Ford Motor Company – NAIAS Detroit 2007 » At The Show

Apparently, Ford doesn’t quite get it- the site is down as of Monday 15 Jan 2007

One of our new staff members pointed me to Seer Interactive’s site– and I liked what I found. Here is a company focused on getting real results from the web for their clients- much like us.

They dissect Nike.com as an example of how to be too slick for search- I’ve only quoted the first 2 mistakes- but, the whole article is worthy of a read.

If you are wondering how well you do on search- look at your keyword search stats- and see how diverse it is- if everything has your brand name in it- and none of your competition you should be instantly worried!

Overall, big brands typically screw up search in two big ways, and Nike is no different:1. Missing out on long-tail terms: If you are not familiar with the term “Long Tail” as it relates to search, you can get the basic idea from a blog post by the search Granddaddy himself, Danny Sullivan.

Typically, big brands want to target the big unbranded terms like “tennis rackets,” “golf clubs,” or “running shoes.” I do recommend that they target such terms as a way to position their brand in the minds of people who are searching, but they often miss terms like “golf club reviews” or “women’s trail running shoes.” Typically, these long-tail terms are the ones that convert best.

Even worse, in Nike’s case, it doesn’t show up in the top 10 for the term “Nike trail shoes.” That is a term that includes its brand name. This happens a lot with Nike branded search terms. If I were Nike, I would start on the branded terms because they are the easiest to rank well for given its existing Web assets. They are most definitely the low-hanging fruit, just waiting to be plucked. People searching for products using the word Nike in their search are already familiar with the brand and are probably calling out for you to show up—but there’s Nike, hiding from them on page 80!

2. All-Flash sites with no alternative version: Does it make sense to spend significant amounts of money on heavily Flashed branded sites—but not on driving people who know the brand to the branded site using organic (natural) search engine optimization… AKA free clicks?

So maybe you are saying… “Hey Wil, maybe Nike doesn’t want to use search at all in their marketing.” I thought about that. When I did a search on Google for “Air Max,” I got this page:

Nike is paying to be in a top position on PPC, which means that search matters as a way of gaining exposure, brand awareness, and possibly, just maybe, sales. But when I clicked on the PPC link for “Air Max,” I was taken to the Nike store homepage.

see the whole article here: Eight ways Big Brands Screw up Search – A case study: Nike.com

We’ve been railing on Crispin Porter Bogusky build websites for the very same reason- and a quick search on vdub rocks in Google has The Next Wave above them – except for the paid placement above.

There is no reason to pay Google for search results- if you take our Websitetology seminar.