WP Blog Host Video Tutorials » .htaccess

How To Move Your WordPress Core Files Out Of Root

WP Blog Host — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 18:33:46 +0000

This tutorial is meant to show you how to clean up all the system WordPress files that clog up your root directory by moving them into a subdirectory.

Watch The How-To Video

How To Create A Simple Maintenance Page

You could always download a WordPress maintenance mode plugin, but in this case it probably won’t work. During the move process you’ll be moving your /wp-content folder, which contains all your plugins. This will cause your site to not load; therefore, it’s best to have your own maintenance page independent of WordPress.

So, here’s how to create a custom maintenance page without a plugin.

Step 1

Create a simple html file and place it in your blog’s root directory. Name it something like, maintenance.html. Inside the maintenance.html file you can put anything you want. “Hi. I’m out to lunch for a few moments while the construction crew is busy at work . . .”

But why stop there? Your site is better than that. Customize the page with your site’s colors and images. Maybe add a video or your latest blog post. CSSgirl wrote some tips and shows some examples on the topic of creating a memorable maintenance page.

Step 2

Ok so now you have your maintenance.html page set up; the next step is to redirect everyone to it while you’re doing your upgrade.

Navigate to your blog’s root directory in your web hosting control panel and open your .htaccess file.

Once opened, you’re going to add this code at the top:

# Use this code to redirect visitors to maintenance.html file while upgrading
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^618\.124\.259\.25
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/maintenance.html$
RewriteRule $ http://your-site.com/maintenance.html [R=302,L]

The yellow parts above are the areas you need to change. Visit What is my IP address? to find your IP address and put those numbers in under the first yellow highlight. Next add the url path to your own maintenance page in the second yellow part.

And that should do it. Your site should now show a maintenance page to everyone except you (your IP address was whitelisted). To see what everyone else sees, add a # sign in front of the IP line:

# RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^618\.124\.259\.25

The # comments lines out.

When you’re finished, leave the code in your .htaccess file for next time. To disable the code, just add a # in front of each line:

# Use this code to redirect visitors to maintenance.html file while upgrading
# Options +FollowSymlinks
# RewriteEngine on
# RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^618\.124\.259\.25
# RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/maintenance.html$
# RewriteRule $ http://your-site.com/maintenance.html [R=302,L]

How To Upgrade WordPress Manually

WP Blog Host — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 18:25:11 +0000

How To Create A Simple Maintenance Page

You could always download a WordPress maintenance mode plugin, but in this case it probably won’t work. When you follow the upgrade instructions on WordPress.org, you’ll notice it says to deactivate all your plugins.

So, here’s how to create a custom maintenance page without a plugin.

Step 1

Step 2

Ok so now you have your maintenance.html page set up; the next step is to redirect everyone to it while you’re doing your upgrade.

Navigate to your blog’s root directory in your web hosting control panel and open your .htaccess file.

Once opened, you’re going to add this code at the top:

And that should do it. Your site should now show a maintenance page to everyone except you (your IP address was whitelisted). To see what everyone else sees, add a # sign in front of the IP line:

# RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^618\.124\.259\.25

The # comments lines out.

When you’re finished, leave the code in your .htaccess file for next time. To disable the code, just add a # in front of each line:

Remember, if you need help with upgrades, visit the blog services page and use the contact form there to get in touch with me.

How To Password Protect a Directory Using WP Blog Host Hosting

WP Blog Host — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 15:03:01 +0000

At times you may want to upload something to your hosting account but only allow a select group to view it, for example a family photo or backup file. Here’s how you can password protect a directory so that you can limit who can view anything contained within it.

A Complete Guide To Setting Up FeedBurner On WordPress

WP Blog Host — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 14:04:38 +0000

The 3 videos are shown below.

Sorry for a 3 part video (YouTube only allows up to 10 minute videos), however I wanted to make sure this was a COMPLETE tutorial on how to set up a FeedBurner account and hook it up to your WordPress blog. It will show you how to:

Set up your FeedBurner account
How to add a RSS image to your blog’s theme if there’s not already one there – and how to link it to your FeedBurner’s feed
How to set up a “Subscribe by Email” box which users can subscribe to your blog by email
How to redirect all the default WordPress feeds on your blog to your FeedBurner’s feed through a .htaccess file
All this is done without the use of a FeedBurner plugin (which I don’t like using)

1. Your Feed Address
Your default WordPress feed address you’ll need to type or paste into FeedBurner will look like this:

http://your-site.com/feed

If your blog is contained within a subdirectory, say /blog, your feed’s address will look something like this:

http://your-site.com/blog/feed

2. How To Redirect Your Feeds To FeedBurner Through .htaccess

UPDATE: Thanks to feedback from viewers, we’ve discovered that this code doesn’t always work with your theme. If it doesn’t work, you may have to go into your header.php or sidebar.php file and manually replace the default WordPress feed’s address with your FeedBurner’s address.

If your WordPress theme already includes a RSS icon, it will link to your default WordPress feed and not your FeedBurner’s feed. To link it to your FeedBurner’s feed, log into your web hosting control panel, navigate to your WordPress installation’s directory and either create or open the .htaccess file.

Paste in the following code to your .htaccess file. Don’t forget to edit the feed address in the code below (shown in blue) to your own feed. Save the .htaccess file and your RSS icon should now link to your FeedBurner’s feed.

# Redirect your WordPress feeds to your FeedBurner's feed automatically

 RewriteEngine on
 RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !FeedBurner    [NC]
 RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !FeedValidator [NC]
 RewriteRule ^feed/?([_0-9a-z-]+)?/?$ http://feeds2.feedburner.com/wpbloghost [R=302,NC,L]

How To Set Up FeedBurner Video 1 of 3

How To Set Up FeedBurner Video 2 of 3

How To Set Up FeedBurner Video 3 of 3

Setting The Best Permalink (url) Structure For WordPress SEO

WP Blog Host — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:39:19 +0000

When it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), your blog’s url (i.e. web address) is highly relevant. One of things you can do to optimize your search engine rankings is to insert keywords into your url.

So for example, if someone goes to Google Search and does a search for baked chocolate chip cookies, which web address do you think Googlebot is going to think is most relevant for its user:

http://funcooking.com/?p=1
http://funcooking.com/baked-chocolate-chip-cookies

Number 2, of course. So here’s how you can change your WordPress permalink structure to maximize your site’s search engine optimization.

Doing It Yourself

By following the steps in the video tutorial, WordPress does all the work for you. If you’re good with that, don’t even bother with this part.

If, however, you want to add the code to your .htaccess file yourself, here’s what you need to do.

Go to your blog’s root directory and create a file named .htaccess if there’s not already one there. Once created, open the file and add these lines of code in it:

# BEGIN WordPress
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
# END WordPress

Questions? Leave a comment below.