Everyone is advised to update to one of these latest versions - they contain security updates that will protect your sites from malicious attacks.

The primary point I'm hoping to get across, and I think Michael (micblame) is echoing, is that there are far more direct ways of improving your online position than seeking out backlinks. Secondary to that point is it is far easier to backlink wrong than it is to backlink properly and effectively. The challenge we face here and hope to communicate to more web stewards is how to build their ministry's online strategy on a firm foundation for the sharing of the Gospel.

That has been, and still is, the goal and mission of this website - to educate, encourage, empower, equip and enable others to carry on the work of Jesus Christ. Help them separate the easy from the simple.

Something that avid web promoters sometimes ignore is the implications of posting links in irrelevant locations. When posting a link, the general idea is that it lends additional information to the ongoing conversation. Offering a link as an example of "This is what we did at our church" in a relevant forum is appropriate and beneficial. Including your church website in your signature on every comment left on various forums, however, quickly becomes irrelevant or obnoxious to readers, depending on the topic of the forum. That will inevitably temper any potential advantages that might result from backlinks. There is a definite distinction between reasonable promotion and spam. 

Which raises an important consideration: services, such as SeoDataService.com, raise rankings, but via questionable means. True, they can be effective, but the theoretical function of these services are to lend false importance to your site by creating irrelevant links to your domain. While this is a popular and accepted activity in many circles, are such attempts to increase the perceived significance of a website appropriate methods for a church? While the results might yield a favorable result (higher search engine rankings, which would presumably mean greater traffic), is this method of generated recognition an ethical means of business? My personal opinion is no, but that is, of course, my opinion. I personally believe that diligent attention to content, effective use of those tools available (such as social networking, professional email, and legitimate backlinking via relevant forums) is the upstanding, legitimate means to produce traffic of consequence and disseminate information that is applicable to users.

Have content that encourages participation and then respond when you get it. The average person online has 130 friends on Facebook, which is more than the average congregation size in the USA. That means your choir can reach over 1,000 people without even trying. And that's only the first ring - each of those 1,000 people has friends, too.

Next question - is the goal to get people to visit your website, or to visit a church?

How this affects you

Maybe it doesn't - if you aren't looking at the keywords that bring people to your website, then this doesn't change anything for you. If you are looking at your keywords and their performance (and you should be), then this will. If you use any of Google's services, it will affect behavior when you search, follow a link and then try to get back to the search results.

Version 1.3 is a transitional release for ImpressCMS, as it is the leading towards the removal of a majority of legacy functions. Most of the modules and themes currently supported by earlier versions of ImpressCMS do work in the new version and that was a major consideration in this release. But, not all modules will be able to make the leap. You are well advised to do some testing before you apply this upgrade. There are some new messages in the developer debug area to assist with the transition.

What's New in 1.2

• 3 new tags have been introduced <[Siblings]>, <[Children]> and <[Headings]>
• RSS feeds (see rss.php)
• Global notification options - any new page, any page modified, any page deleted, any page restored
• New event for notification - page restored
• When previewing a page, any tags or summary you have entered will be preserved
• Improved page performance and fewer database queries