Oh boy, have I had some trouble! You wouldn’t think that installing a couple of plugins could cause so many problems. I have been wanting to change the WordPress share plugin I was using on my detox blog to one that included a prominent Pinterest Pinit button for some time.
One that was recommended by James Penn in his Facebook Thief Warrior special Offer, that I bought recently, was the Really Simple Facebook Twitter WordPress Share plugin.
James said that it worked wonders for increasing the sharing and to get more traffic to his blog and when I took a look at it on his blog it appeared to be exactly what I wanted. I went ahead and uninstalled the one I was using and installed the new one.
Everything seemed to be fine until by chance I was checking out what another plugin looked like on my blog in Internet Explorer and I saw my blog “blow up” as it loaded. It seemed to start off loading properly but then went wild and ended up looking a real mess with all the left hand column missing.
It looked fine in Firefox, Chrome and Safari but not in IE. At first I thought it was the What Would Seth Godin Do WordPress plugin that I also installed on James’ recommendation, (that’s another story), but when I disabled it I soon discovered that it was the Really Simple Facebook Twitter Share Plugin that was causing the problem.
The immediate solution was to find another plugin that had the all important Pinit share button that I wanted. After asking around on a few forums for a good WordPress Share Plugin the one that was recommended the most was the “Share This” plugin.
I installed this one and configured it to show the icons I wanted and it worked perfectly in all three browsers that I tried. Whew, what a relief!
I should go back to the developers of the Really Simple Facebook Twitter Share Plugin and let them know about my problem. Perhaps they can get it resolved but in the meantime I have got one that looks good and makes it easy for my readers to Tweet, Like, Google +1 or Pin my posts.
All this shows how important it is to always check your site in all the main browsers when you make any changes to your site just in case there is a problem.
I expect there are plenty of other WordPress Share Plugins that include the Pinterest Pinit button as it is such a popular site. Do you have a favourite? Let me and my readers know in the comments.
Hi
I havent got much to comment on regarding Pinterest. I am looking at signing up to Pinterest and Linked in. I have though recently changed my theme and framework to Genesis which did cause me some issues with my sidebars and varies widgets which depending on what web browser I used made the format of the site different. Took some time to sort out with help from an SEO friend
I love WordPress however I think it can be treacherous if you combine the wrong plugins or fail to back up your database. That’s why I stayed with blogger for so many years. Congrats that you were able to fix it yourself!
Hello Sandy,
Though WordPress is a hot cake it’s not faultless. But yet its positive prospects are much more higher. That’s why I prefer it.
Hi Tammy,
You are so right. Sometimes it’s because one plugin conflicts in some way with another. A good tip I recently came across for installing new plugins on your blog is to set up a test blog exactly as your main blog and try it out on that first. If it works then it is safe to install on your main blog.
Sandy
Admiring the persistence you put into your blog and detailed information you offer. It’s awesome to come across a blog every once in a while that isn’t the same unwanted rehashed material. Great read! I’ve bookmarked your site!
Dear Admin,
I landed upon your article”Wordpress Plugins”from google, Actually i am doing a research work on”Wordpress Plugins”,found your article useful for my research work. Actually i was looking for more related articles on your blog but unfortunately didnt find anymore of it.Hope read more related articles in coming days…I will keep following your blog till then
Regards
Mia
Oh my! We’ve all been there. I’ve tried to reduce the number of plug-ins to reduce the chances of a bad interaction between them. Whenever I can now, I try to put the code within the theme and only touch the core WordPress files if absolutely necessary. It’s technical, but less likely to cause that haywire effect.
Thanks for the warning about this plugin, Sandy. After I install a plugin into my WordPress blog, I take a look at it in the different browsers to make sure it’s working properly. And I always install and test one plugin at a time, so I know what’s causing the problem. Of course, it may be the interaction of plugins that cause the problem, and not just a single one.
Yes, that’s the wise thing to do Leo. I like the idea of having an identical test blog that you can install plugins on first to see if they conflict in any way with ones you already have. That way you don’t risk messing up your blog.
Sandy
Hi, Sandy. The plugin you’re talking about in the article is great. I use it on most of my blogs and I’m really happy with it. I like your idea about a testing blog. I’ve had troubles with same problems like you and it takes a lot of time to deal with them. It will be great to test the plugins on a test blog and after that apply to your main one.
Hi Alan,
I don’t doubt that it works well for some. After all it was recommended by another marketer who found it helped him get shares. But for some reason it was incompatible with another of my plugins.
Sandy
the other issue with WordPress the more plugins you install the slower your load rate becomes, i’ve just removed some of my plugins which has spend my load time up. i was on touch 9seconds I’m now down to 2-3seconds
You are right Richard. I have already had to remove some of mine too. It also helps to completely delete any plugins that have been de-activated.
Sandy
Ouch Sandy, too bad that plugin didn’t work as expected.
The ones I used are Digg Digg or Sharebar and I believe that you can include your own service (in this case the Pin It button) to both of them but I believe it will have to be done manually.
I still don’t think it should be that difficult to do, hope that helps but so far, your new current social sharing icons look perfectly fine here! (Chrome)
Sergio
Hi Sergio, The problem happened on my detox blog but I am happy with the share plugin I have on that now. Thanks for the recommendation.
Sandy
I have had that happen on my websites, thank god i backed my website up an hour before i did this..Somehow this didn’t install on my test website properly but worked fine on the admin panel, it didn’t work on the browsers however.
Sorry that it didn’t work on your website properly..
Yes Patrick, it certainly pays to have a test website. Fortunately it did not do any damage to my blog – just wasted a lot of time!
Sandy
Yes, you should generally test the plugin on test environment first before installing on live. Same thing happened to me with adsense manager plugin it seemed to stop working all of a sudden, i had to un-install it finally.
I love testing new plugins and enhancing the functionality of my blog, but always with a little fear of destroying everything… I have a test environment setup for this kind of testing… and a automatic backup for my main site.
You check your blog in three browsers? I seldom do a through check, but when I try to use all four big ones: Firefox, Chrome, IE and Safari.
Hi Anna, It’s always good to be on the look out for new ways of enhancing your blog but I wouldn’t say I love it. Definitely a good a idea to try them out on a test blog first.
I must admit I always forget about Safari! Best to check that too. Thanks for the reminder.
Sandy
Dear Admin
What a great article i am searching in google from couple of days about “Installing A New WordPress Share Plugin Blew Up My Blog!” but didnt find any great way,but my search came to an end after visiting your blog.!!!Do you have any more related articles or ideas related to “Installing A New WordPress Share Plugin Blew Up My Blog!”,it will help me in my further research work…Will keep following your articles…
Regards
RIA
Hi Ria, It’s heartening to know that my blog comes up in a search. There is a list of related articles at the end of the post. It’s generated by another plugin called “Yet Another Related Posts Plugin”.
It is a free Worpress plugin.
To your success
Sandy
What a great article.I am searching in google from couple of days about wordpress plugin.but i din’t find any complete knowledge.But now my journey came to an end.Thanks a lot for this informative and useful article.
Sorry to hear about what happened to your blog, Sandy. I hope this will not discourage you from trying new plugins etc. It must have been a glitch the developers overlooked so it’s really kind of you to share this thorough analysis you did. This is very helpful for startup bloggers like me, so thank for the warning about this plugin. Hope the developers would resolve this.
You might also want to visit http://www.seomcompany.com 🙂
Hi Sandy, I never install a plugin without searching for reviews in WordPress forums, and then I install it on a test server. You can easily create a test environment on your local machine by downloading the WAMPSERVER package.
(include wordpress, mySQL and web server). It is very useful, hence you can check out new themes or modifications to you website (blog).
Be careful about those plugins or themes you didnt hear about before.
Hi Denis,
The plugin was recommended by another Internet Marketer who runs a very successful blog so I didn’t have any doubts about installing it. Thanks for the great tips.
Sandy
hey sandy
great blog, hope youve sorted everything now. I see you are a student of Alex jeffreys I’ve been following Alexs training now for about eight months now seeing some great results.
all the best
Darren
Hey Darren,
Yes, I took one of Alex’s coaching courses. It was a great eye opener as I was not in the Internet Marketing Niche. I leaned a ton of stuff.
Good to hear you are getting good results. Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog. Always glad to meet a fellow student of Alex Jeffreys.
Sandy