This theme is based on my own blog design. But in many ways, this theme release is better (and with neater mark-up too). It has been tested on Firefox, Safari and Windows IE. Seven things are significant and quite unique about it.
This is one of the first Wordpress themes that comes with Adsense blocks built in. The adsense blocks have been tested to have optimised positions and optimised colours.
Unlike other themes which come sans-features, this one has built-in features using a single functions file that comes with the theme folder. So it does not rely on any plugins.
It is a bit of a serious theme with a very corporate colour scheme, not usually the kind preferred by personal bloggers.
Heavy interlinking for search bots to easily find pages. And page titles are automatically customised to the post titles.
There are a few features that allow you to promote yourself and allow visitors to the site to share it with others if they find it interesting.
Ok, that’s not a real word, but it simply means particular attention was paid to the internal navigation. Links to other posts are placed prominently and throughout all the blog pages to invite visitors to click on them.
The positions of the sections, colours and font sizes have been prioritised to the immediate communication needs of the first time visitor. The theme is space sensitive and is thus very content focused, keeping much of the important details at the top or near the top of the fold.
And those are also the reasons why the theme is called Problogger Clean. If you choose to use this theme, please do email me or leave a comment about it on the support forum. We’d really like to see how you use it so that we can get more ideas on improving themes.
Proceed to download Problogger Clean or view the documentation.
Most of the features in this theme are unique to this theme. If you are a theme developer or interested theme user, please feel free to download the files and grab whatever bits you like. Many of the most important features have been added by Ozh who did the testing and who was very encouraging and supportive despite many of the silly things I screwed up with his code. Thanks, Ozh, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you!
The theme comes with adsense ads built in (no client ID specified) and follows optimisation recommendations made by Google Adsense as well as the new section targeting guidelines to ensure that only the actual content gets indexed for adsense context. With the desire for most bloggers to monetize their blogs, I think every theme should come with optimised adsense positions and colours. (For one thing, I’d hate to see theme users messing with really poorly chosen colours with my theme.)
This code was supplied by Ozh. It streamlines the code supplied by Google into a single line which affords complete control over the way your ads look. And it also improves out of box experience of the theme by making you insert your adsense user id in only one location for it to be used throughout the them.
A cookie-based safety feature was added so that if you accidentally click on your own Adsense ads, the clicks won’t be counted. This is to prevent Google thinking that you attempted click fraud.
Ozh has a great idea for theme development. Both of us would rather prefer it if themes came with some of the features of our favourite plugins built into them. Then we could plan for the code and the positions and the colours of those features before the theme is released instead of having to make contingencies in the layout for optional plugins. So Ozh has included an added-functions file that can be inserted into any theme to make it more full-featured. Mine is the first theme to have it. Right now it holds the adsense-streamlining code and the code for asides. And I reckon Ozh is working on more features to put into the functions file.
If your visitors think your blog is too ad-heavy, they can turn them off. The ad remover links work by switching stylesheets between one that makes the ad blocks invisible and one that makes them visible again.
Internal linking, internal linking, internal linking. Nothing is more important (besides good content) to maintain site stickiness. Your visitors can scroll between one post and another from the individual post pages using navigation links at both the top AND bottom of each page. And at the end of each post, they are prompted to check out articles that you have categorised as similar and related. Each page has an archive calendar to lead visitors to earlier posts. And included are two important navigation links that are often forgotten in most themes — the Back to the Top and Home buttons at the bottom of each page.
Social bookmarking sites are a great source of visitors. Each post has two prominent links which insert your post url and post title automatically into the del.icio.us link form — one of those links is at the window of opportunity at the end of each post with an invitational prompt. Unlike the currently available Del.icio.us link plugin, my del.icio.us links are available on the home pages as well as the single post pages. When clicked, the del.icio.us form page does not load into the visitor’s browser window, but opens a pop-up (works even when pop-ups are blocked by Firefox or Safari) so that your visitors don’t lose their position on your pages (I hate it when that happens).
Every page on this theme is reachable by search engines (and by your readers) within two clicks. There is a convenient category list on all your pages and the archive page has a complete list of all your posts.
Each post page has a tell-a-friend form that allows your readers to email someone else about your post. Not very popular, but still very handy for post promotion. It has a bit of javascript validation so that all the form bits are filled in before the email is sent. Ozh fixed much of my own code and made it finally work perfectly!
Subscription buttons for popular RSS feed reader services with links to your feed are included with this theme. They help improve rapport with your readers who will be more tempted to subscribe, seeing that you have conveniently added support for their favourite reader. There’s even support for third party subscription services — in this case, Feedburner. Just tell the theme control panel your Feedburner ID and it will generate the Feedburner chicklet for you.
To connect with your first time visitors, it is good to introduce yourself and make your contact details available. The content of the contact details are controlled from your profile in your admin control panel. The ‘About’ column comes from your user description. This feature works on the assumption that you, the administrator, are the only author of your weblog.
The links to the IM services in the contact section are based on code from onlinestatus.org. When clicked, the visitor will be automatically taken to their IM client with a window open to send a message to you. A very handy contact method.
Another way of cross-promoting your posts through heavy internal linking. The sidebar of the index.php pages has a list of posts you made earlier while all the post pages and even the archive and search pages have a list of your most recent posts.
The theme control panel also provides you to a way to gather your favourite articles and generate links to them in a list of “Highlighted Articles” in the sidebar.
On the homepages, the browser title will show your blog’s name. On the individual post pages, it will show your blog name along with the title of the post. Handy for search engine optimisation.
Using the same method as the customised page titles, the description metatag of each post page shows the page’s title too. It isn’t very significant in search engine optimisation, but some search engines like MSN do read the description metatag.
In other words, this theme supports the more quicktag and the nextpage quicktag. So you can split your longer posts into separate pages or just leave it to run without pagination if were a short post.
This code was supplied by Ozh. Asides are like little blogs within the blog. In this theme, the asides are posted between the main blog posts on the homepages only - just like how Kottke.org does it. They’re often used for interesting but trivial posts like “Did you know” or “Link of the Day”. Hint: If you post an asides after you post an article, the asides will appear above the article. So try to post an asides before or edit the time of the asides if you don’t want them to appear before an article.
You can add the calendar (or remove it) to your theme from the theme control panel. No need to mess with the template. The theme control panel does the work for you.
This is small but handy. You know that copyright message with the year at the bottom of most websites? There is one included with this theme, but you don’t have to remember to update the year every year. When your server clock turns, so does your theme.
# Andy @ blogvp on November 18th, 2005
Hey Tim, first time here. Looks like you have an interesting template going here. I think we need something that’s specilized like you have it here. I downloaded it and will test it out. Any issues with Google policies?
Drop me a line or msn blogvp @ hotmail.com
# Markus on November 18th, 2005
this looks very nice. I will give it a try.
# Jackdaw on November 18th, 2005
Great idea, but the design isn’t good. The page all merges together, the columns, ads and posts mix, making reading an uncomfortable experience.
Very clever but consult with someone that understands design for V3.
# Ozh on November 19th, 2005
We’ve asked Google about an official statement over this issue. We will let people know when they reply.
Anyway and whatever their answer will be, this feature will probably remain a “use at your own risk” feature
# Caught in the World "Wild" Web » Problogger Clean - Adsense featured Wordpress theme on November 19th, 2005
[...] Tim Yang and Ozh have released Problogger Clean, a clean 3 columns theme for WordPress. [...]
# Hakukoneoptimointi » Google Adsense optimoitu blogiteema on November 19th, 2005
[...] Voit ladata teeman täältä. Tulemme myös kokeilemaan tarkemmin kyseistä teemaa hakukoneoptimointi.comi:ssa lähiaikoina. [...]
# George on November 19th, 2005
Hi Tim, Great work. I’m the sort that likes to keep everything simple, and this theme fits my needs perfectly, as I prepare to launch my first WordPress blog.
Yeah, I’m also wondering if there’re any issues with Google policies.
Also, I’m wonding how to get WP excerpts displayed in the homepage and in the RSS feeds. I’ve nil PHP experience!
# Tim on November 19th, 2005
George,
This template does not support excerpts. But you can add them easily. Go to the Presentation menu then Theme Editor. Edit the Main Template and place this code which I got from the Wordpress Codex and replace the <? php the_content; ?> line:
<? php if(is_category() || is_archive()) {
the_excerpt();
} else {
the_content();
} ?>
That should do it. Any other tips, Ozh?
# andy @ blogvp.com on November 19th, 2005
I just noticed that digitalpoint is doing something similar, they are manipulating google code, and not just copying what google provides.
Let us know what you hear from google, if anything.
# Sanjeev on November 19th, 2005
Hi Tim and Ozh,
This is a terrific idea! As a non-techie, I love the ease of using it — no mucking around with PHP code!
I have a question that may be rather dumb.
I often write several posts at one time and set them to publish on future dates - say, 1 post every 2 days or so. To ensure that wordpress pings pingomatic and other services each time a post appears, I use a plugin called WP-Corn in conjunction with WP-Cron Future Pings. (Plugins authored by Scott Merill, his site is at: http://www.skippy.net/blog/plugins/)
(These plugins are required because by default, wordpress sends out pings at the time you save a future date post, not when the posts are actually published. In other words, WP sends one single ping for all future posts, not one ping each time a post is published.)
So my question is: will the above plugins continue to work if I’m using your template? Wondering if there is anything in your theme that will nullify the effect of those plugins.
Like I said, this may be a dumb question — I don’t know the first thing about any coding!
Thanks and best regards,
Sanjeev
# Hakukoneoptimointi » Google Adsense optimoitu blogiteema on November 19th, 2005
[...] Voit ladata teeman täältä. Tulemme myös kokeilemaan tarkemmin kyseistä teemaa hakukoneoptimointia.comi:ssa lähiaikoina. [...]
# Tim on November 20th, 2005
Ozh has had a reply from Google regarding the changing of the Adsense code. The reply is posted here. It looks like they are not giving their blessing, but they are not going to interfere with this usage of their code.
# Tim on November 20th, 2005
Sanjeev, I shouldn’t think anything would interfere with the use of your plugin. The PHP in the theme doesn’t use cron jobs. All the PHP code as far as I remember is for display-only purposes.
# Paul on November 20th, 2005
Hi Tim, am currently testing your new Problogger Clean template on my site.
One problem though: my blogroll doesn’t appear for some reason and I don’t know why and I would like your help.
Thanks!
# AG on November 20th, 2005
This new theme is really great. I’ve got a couple of suggestions for improvement (unless its due to the way I implemented it or due to my misunderstanding of how to use it).
• add WP-ADMIN button on page
• add EDIT button under individual post
• hide COMMENT button under post if commenting is disabled
• add support for PAGES (these appear on the default them, can be used to reference disclaimers, terms of use, facts about blogger, etc)
• when I use the Del.icio.us button, I can go populate the info but when I click SAVE, it either (i) says page not found or (ii) posts it but hangs (and when I try to close it, it closes all browser windows)
# AG on November 20th, 2005
sorry about the above. I inserted a dash at the start of each point and it translated that into a font change
# Englishman in New York » Sunset in the City on November 21st, 2005
[...] Some exciting new WordPress theme links for today (all courtesy of Blogging Pro): The purpose of theme (besides putting out something that’s different from the herd) is to promote the use of social networking within Wordpress…Other neat features include an advanced layout, support for multiple plugins, the ability for registered users to add tags, livesearch, ajax commenting and an archives page with support for extended live archives. Squibble . No CSS or graphical showcase here, the theme focuses on the content you are writing. A close attention has been given to internal navigation, internal linking, article promotion and search engine optimization, so that both readers and the Googlebot can easily find everthing they are looking for. Several features of this theme are concerning Adsense. When most (all ?) themes today come ad free and are a blogger’s hell to nicely implement ads in a layout that was not designed for it, Problogger Clean comes with built-in ads, with optimized colors and positions.Problogger Clean . Enable your visitors to recreate their reading experience by customizing your website live with the power of AJAX in the back. Many new built-in plugins with interesting functions included, like “sticky notesâ€, “global bookmarks†and “off site content aggregationâ€, to name a few. One of the most innovative functions is the possibility to load your presets on every BP powered website. Bloxpress. Technorati Tags: Blogging Manhattan New York WordPress [...]
# Englishman in New York » Sunset in the City on November 21st, 2005
[...] No CSS or graphical showcase here, the theme focuses on the content you are writing. A close attention has been given to internal navigation, internal linking, article promotion and search engine optimization, so that both readers and the Googlebot can easily find everthing they are looking for. Several features of this theme are concerning Adsense. When most (all ?) themes today come ad free and are a blogger’s hell to nicely implement ads in a layout that was not designed for it, Problogger Clean comes with built-in ads, with optimized colors and positions.Problogger Clean. [...]
# Rain City Geek » WordPress Theme Issues on November 21st, 2005
[...] Downloaded a new theme for WordPress last night: Problogger Clean. Only problem that I found with it after implementing it was that there is no link to get to the Admin section of the blog. Makes it a little tough to get back in (now that I have the URL path it wouldn’t be as much of an issue). So, for the moment I’ve gone back to the current theme. Maybe I’ll poke around it a bit more and see if I can configure it a little more for the way that I like. Posted by Rod @ 9:27 am :: CSS, Blogs Comment RSS :: Trackback URI [...]
# Tim on November 21st, 2005
AG
The link to the admin control panel from the blog is worth considering. I do believe the edit button on individual posts is already there. The link looks like a little UP-pointing arrow head. The hiding of the comment button is a good suggestion that we’ll put in the next version. The support for the pages is definitely there already because it is needed so the Search and Archive pages on the top menu can be linked. I’m not sure what the issue with the del.icio.us button is — could it be that you are not logged into del.icio.us already before you posted to del.icio.us?
# Tim on November 21st, 2005
AG
This theme doesn’t have a link to the Admin Control panel. But because many people have requested for it, it will be in the next version.
In the meantime, you can add the link to the admin control panel to both the sidebar files using the built in WP theme editor. Edit the two Sidebar files. The WP Codex has information at: http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/wp_register.
The simplest syntax is <? php wp_register(); ?>
# Rick on November 21st, 2005
Having issues with the sidebar templates moving over the top of the post when comments are allowed and not logged in as a user. If logged in then everything displays fine. Seems to me the comment box breaks the sidebar…. not sure. Anyway, great theme! So far I dig it! Would like the tags etc. that you have on here to be part of the build but overall a great project.
# WP Themes: Problogger Clean at ericsetiawan.com on November 23rd, 2005
[...] WP Themes: Problogger Clean. Tim Yang and Ozh made this 3 column Wordpress theme. It has a nice clean simple layout. Optimized Adsense block built in. Search engine optimization. And many more to help you start making money from your blog. Just don’t forget to keep blogging good content, will you? [...]
# Link Right 2 » Tim Yang’s Geek Blog » Problogger Clean Theme for Wordpress on November 23rd, 2005
[...] Tim Yang’s Geek Blog » Problogger Clean Theme for Wordpress [...]
# Arthur on November 24th, 2005
I am using this theme on my blog. The adsense blocks appear when viewed using MSIE, but do not appear when using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.
# Arthur on November 24th, 2005
How do I change colors from the built-in adsense blocks?
# JLT on November 26th, 2005
I have your theme installed. I love it, and thanks.
I am trying to find away to have the default adsense set to off. I will want the adsense once I get approved for an account, but do not have an account yet.
Is there a way to just turn it off or have it default to off?
# JLT on November 27th, 2005
Tim,
Another problem I am having and after hours of trying to figure it out I thought I would ask you the pro. I can not get sidebar 2 to be at the top where it needs to be. It is always below sidebar 1.
Any help here?
# Jeff on November 28th, 2005
I found your site searching for wordpress themes optimized for adsense. I downloaded your template and tested it out on one of my blogs using firefox. I noticed some of the stuff on the page overlaps and looks weird. I also think there is too much going on, it needs to be simplified. Great effort though. I’m sure a lot of people will use it.
# Tim on November 28th, 2005
Arthur, can you try clicking on the “Reload this blog with ads” link on the sidebar? If you clicked on the “Reload this blog without ads” link in any blog page using this theme recently, the cookie may still be active and may be making all the ads disappear.
# Tim on November 28th, 2005
JLT, Jeff
We are working on the sidebar in IE issue. There seem to be two separate issues in some versions of IE — first the blogposts block stretches too widely, pushing both the sidebars underneath; second, the right sidebar gets pushed underneath the left sidebar, but only in the single post pages. If that is not the case, please let us know.
# carey on December 13th, 2005
I didn’t see my comment, so I guess it has to be moderated, but the long and short of it is that I’m getting a “done but with errors” warning when I load my home page, then it freezes. I checked for similar errors found at http://wordpress.org/support/topic/50412 by going to the w3 validator. It came out crystal clean, so the markup is fine.
# carey on December 13th, 2005
Okay, I tried it in firefox. The homepage pops up okay, but gets all scrambled when I click on anything… like
http://natural-health-reviews.com/?p=1
Neither the search nor archive pages work, and I did check them in setup.
Any suggestions?
# carey on December 15th, 2005
Today’s report — Everything shows up but the ads. It totally freezes up showing everything on the page accept the ads.
# carey on December 15th, 2005
Well, I took out all the adsense channel #’s and it is working now.
# carey on December 22nd, 2005
how much does problogger clean rock? a lot. are ya’ll developing for w.p. 2.0?
# Rionya on December 28th, 2005
Tim, after i try use your theme, i see something maybe wrong.
I try to see source code after my site opened by firefox, and i see 460×60 ads appears in every record ( up to 10x ).
I think this can make my site get banned by google.
So, i change my theme back to classic :D.
Try open my website and you will see ads only show in record 2 and 5. maybe you can use this script in problogger clean theme.
CMIIW
# Tim on December 28th, 2005
Rionya
Can you switch back to the theme or start a test blog? I can’t see the issue you are having.
# Larry on December 31st, 2005
Tim, I am trying your theme on my new blog (just beginning). I think it’s a great theme.
I would like to justify text in post and in any archive or page. How can I do this?
Thanks in advance
# Rionya on December 31st, 2005
Sorry TIM, I dun know if you visit my site. I Switch Now
# Rionya on December 31st, 2005
hi Tim.. sorry i post again. Maybe you can delete this post. Try to view your source at http://timyang.com. You will find my problem in your site too. You will find a lot of adsense code. i’m affraid if this can make me banned from adsense.
# Anurag on December 31st, 2005
How can I add a google search bar on the right most side bar..
any help
thanks.
# Rionya on January 1st, 2006
@Anurag :
Just open sidebar.php and add your search bar code there. Find text like About Me.
See my website at http://article-articles.com
# Claudine on January 20th, 2006
I would like to remove the Adense code and use this template with Yahoo ads. How do I do that?
# rosh on February 1st, 2006
I’am not able to display my blogroll links…how do i do that?
# Dave on February 2nd, 2006
Tim,
I love your theme. I have the same question that Paul had above - do you have an easy way to cause the blogroll to show up? My site is community-themed, and it’s important that I acknowledge the folks on it.
Thanks!
# Eric on February 5th, 2006
Tim,
I’m running WP 2.0.1, and have installed and switched to the theme. Upon doing so, I suddenly get the following error on ALL pages (including admin pages), when logged in:
Fatal error: Cannot redeclare problogger_adsense_test() (previously declared in /home/fyre/public_html/politics/wp-content/themes/problogger-clean/functions.php:85) in /home/fyre/public_html/politics/wp-content/themes/problogger-clean/functions.php on line 85
Please advise?
Thanks,
-Eric
# Thierry on February 7th, 2006
Eric : you only need to replace themetoolkit.php with the upgrade here
# Brian on February 11th, 2006
After a lengthy hiatus I decided to resurrect by blog.
Installed problogger clean and entered my AdSense ID in the WordPress config. page for problogger clean.
No Adsense Ads.
Dumb question - do I modify the .html files in the adsense folder?
What am I missing?
Thanks and DUH!
Brian
# Brian on February 11th, 2006
I’m blowing everything out and starting from scratch… we’ll see what happens.