The really simple solution we came up is resource-friendly while he can keep all of his links. Most probably the best thing of this simple usage of WordPress functions: it’s entirely based on WordPress’ template tags and there is no need for another plugin.

WordPress Template Tags

Our weapon of choice is the wp_list_bookmarks template tag. It comes in handy if you use a new WordPress theme as starting point, which already uses this tag. If not, now it’s the time to get rid of deprecated tags like get_links() or get_links_list().

To start, open the file where your link-list is located, most probably sidebar.php or footer.php. The default usage for wp_list_bookmarks is:

<?php wp_list_bookmarks(); ?>

Useful parameters: limit and orderby

Remember, we need to limit the output because of the new design while still giving link-love to all of our blog-friends. To achieve this goal, we applied two parameters to the tag:

limit and orderby.

The Function

These two parameters combined provide us with the limited set of randomized links we need. Seven randomized links fit into the available space, so here is the final template tag with two parameters applied:

<?php wp_list_bookmarks('limit=7&orderby=rand'); ?>

Jupp, it’s remarkably simple, but it works exactly as intended.

With the help of Arne’s Google XML Sitemaps plugin you can easily create a Sitemap for Google Webmastertools and check your blog for any inconsistencies after Googlebot re-indexes your site. I was presented with some easy to fix 404′s, which resulted from an earlier permalinks structure. The next thing was to remove the “post feed links” and “trackback-URLs” from the Google index to avoid duplicate content.

You can tell Google not to index a certain URL by applying rel='nofollow' to the link. Open single.php from your theme’s folder and replace

<?php post_comments_feed_link('RSS 2.0 Feed'); ?>
with
<a href="<?php echo get_post_comments_feed_link() ?>" rel="nofollow">RSS 2.0 Feed</a>

The trackback-URLs are easier to fix. In my case they came attached with

rel="trackback"
to which I added a ” nofollow” so it resulted in
rel="trackback nofollow"

Repeat this procedure with all the files with “feed” and “trackback” URIs and upload them to your themes folder. Finally, wait and let the magic happen.

Although the solution is quite simple, it’s a kind of annoying: the widgets are in use and hidden in the 2^nd or 3^rd sidebar – WordPress does not provide a simple way to deactivate or rearrange your widgets if you use a theme with only one sidebar and you have no access to the 2^nd or 3^rd sidebar.

• Switch back to a theme with two or more sidebars.
• Remove all the widgets from the sidebars.
• Switch back to your new 1-sidebar-only theme
• Reactivate your widgets.
• Enjoy ;)

Remember: the content of Text-Widgets gets lost if you deactivate them!