Configuring WordPress – Templates, Plugins, Themes, Services – Part 2
February 16th, 2006 // 8:02 pm @ Amar
One of the first things I needed was to get my blog indexed properly with search engines. I generally write a lot of workarounds, and tips and tricks to overcome various bugs or tough situations in software. I plan to write more helpful tutorials and articles on this blog, but still the majority of my readers from referred from google. So anything that will index my pages better is very welcome. One of the first rule is to have better urls. The current method of wordpress ?p=1 to indentify posts, will not suffice.
WordPress does support a lot of options for formatting your permalinks. None of the out of box options served my purpose. On my Yahoo account, I found a plugin called Customizable Permalinks already activated. I could access the options from Options -> Permalinks menu. The date and name based, came very close to what I wanted, but still not very user friendly as it has a lot of sub folders. Again it was Emily Robbins to my rescue with her article on configuring wordpress to create search engine friendly links. It was exactly what I wanted. The custom format of /%postname%.htm worked very well. But then it instructed that I have to edit my .htaccess file and add a bit of code to make sure everything works properly. Here I came across a snag with Yahoo. Their file manager did not show the .htaccess file, now did it let me create or upload one as the filename begain with a “.”. So I was stuck. Having paid for the yahoo account just yesterday understanding that it was the best option for advanced wordpress configurations, I was a bit taken aback with this limitations. Have mailed Yahoo support regarding it, but unfortunately as the mail id they provide is yahoo based, it is blocked from the network here. Will have to check from home to see what they say.
However I think I found a way to overcome that limitation. I cannot loging to my account using direct ftp from this place due to firewall issues, so cannot confirm if it will work or not. Yahoo online help pages say that they currently do not allow .htaccess files to be uploaded.
Will write about how I overcame this limitation a bit later. At least I think I did, but that only time will tell.
Previous article : Configuring WordPress – Templates, Plugins, Themes, Services – Part 1
Category : Blogging
Emily from How to Blog
5 years ago
Hi Amar,
Thanks for the link and the kind words — I’m glad my site has been helpful for you!
I’ve actually finally taken the plunge and moved How to Blog from it’s previous location on TypePad to a WordPress powered site at:
http://www.emilyrobbins.com/how-to-blog/
I’d really appreciate it if you could update your links to reflect the new location
For example, the article you site above is now located at:
http://www.emilyrobbins.com/how-to-blog/how-to-configure-wordpress-to-create-search-engine-friendly-urls-for-permalinks-242.htm
Any luck on hearing back from yahoo regarding the limitation with editing the .htaccess file? Have you tried something like creating or uploading a file named “trick.htaccess” and then renaming it to .htaccess?
Lemme know how it’s going for you.
Best regards,
Emily Robbins
Amar Galla
5 years ago
Done Emily
All the best for your new blog home. It must have been a real pain to migrate all that content and setup on your new domain.
Sadly I did not manage to get across the .htaccess limitation on yahoo. It is just plain silly and annoying. Do not have enough time to cancel my account with yahoo and shift to some other provider, and hence, will have to make do with this as of now, and home yahoo allows .htaccess files or wordpress comes up with an alternate way of managing permalinks.
Mittineague
5 years ago
My FTP utility won’t let me upload htaccess files either. But it will let me upload htaccess.txt and rename it to .htaccess
Maybe this technique would work for you too?
James McCarthy
5 years ago
Letting christmas fade off to the past and going thru some of my bookmarks…I was here before because I have this blog bookmarked…. But Ido not recognize it, so you must have made some serious changes in the design?
Amar Galla
5 years ago
Hi James,
Yes you are right. I had reverted to the default template as I was attempting to move my blog to another server and was having troubles with the existing template. Will get it back to usual as soon as I get some time