Allow Me To Solve Your Biggest WordPress Problem
[tag-tec]WordPress[/tag-tec] is awesome blog platform but as with any script there are many opportunities for things to go wrong. Now add to the mix multitude of plugins that extend functionality and enhance our blogging experience and we are looking at a real issue.
And let’s not forget about the themes available for free download… Can you see what I’m getting to?
I have decided to to give back to community from which I have already benefited so much. I think it will be only fair to at least in some form give back and since technical knowledge is my favorite area, I would like to make an offer…
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Allow Me To Solve Your Biggest WordPress Problem
Quite honestly I don’t know what exactly will come out from this offer but just in case I would like to lay some ground rules. Obviously this offer will not include me going to your blog and fixing your problem.
- Instead – do you have an issue that is been bugging you for a while and unable to find solution to it?
- Do you have a question related to doing something specific with your blog and need someone to outline in details how to get it done?
- Any other issues I can provide a solution to in form of HOWTO guide shared on this blog …
If your problem within my knowledge – I will post a solution!
Please post your questions via comments and I’ll do my best to provide answers in form of new article dedicated to solving issues that might surface from comments below. One thing you might want to do is subscribe to my feed if you asked a question. This way you will not miss solution to your problem.
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58 Responses to “Allow Me To Solve Your Biggest WordPress Problem”
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[...] Me To Solve Your Biggest WordPress Problem November 12th. 2007, 6:32am Hurtin wrote an interesting post today [...]
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Allow Me To Solve Your Biggest WordPress Problem…
WordPress is awesome blog platform but as with any script there are many opportunities for things to go wrong.
I have decided to to give back to community from which I have already benefited so much. I think it will be only fair to at least in some fo…
-
Allow Me To Solve Your Biggest WordPress Problem…
I have decided to to give back to community from which I have already benefited so much. I think it will be only fair to at least in some form give back and since technical knowledge is my favorite area, I would like to make an offer…
* Allow Me T…
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[...] Alex says, “WordPress is awesome blog platform but as with any script there are many opportunities for things to go wrong. Now add to the mix multitude of plugins that extend functionality and enhance our blogging experience and we are looking at a real issue”. Allow Me To Solve Your Biggest WordPress Problem… [...]
My 2 biggest WordPress annoyances are:
1. Trying to get Javascript based ads and widgets to behave right in sidebars, headers and footers. Technically these are more CSS issues than WordPress but it’s still a pain.
2. Trying to get the RSS feed to always be a full feed. There seem to be dozens of ways to make it a partial feed, even by accident, but none to force it to always be a full feed.
Frank C’s last blog post..Veterans Day Salute 2007
I want to ask a couple of this is there a really good way to create a membership blog as we want to be a membership site which up to 3 types of members trial, free and paid.
These will be in support of the online radio network we are building which will be up to 10-20 channels of awesome music split by genre. To this want to make our site a blog that offers the three types of membership.
What is the best solution, in the meantime take a listen too HotSpot Radio http://www.hotspotradio.com
Paul
I am having a hard time adding a logo to the header of my blog. I can add the logo without the title text but it does not display correctly. I can add the logo and everything integrates perfectly but the title text remains over the top of the logo. I would like to find a way to add the log seamlessly into the header in the most SEO friendly and seamless manner possible.
Mark Pilatowski’s last blog post..Hardcore Rap – SEO Style
Alex,
Fantastic offer of giving back to the community.
I don’t know if anyone has started the ball rolling but if not, I’ll be the first.
My question today is actually multi-part. On a blog that covers several subjects, ie: travel/health/financial etc. how and where do you place the RSS feeds from a variety of sources on the different subject pages so the relevant feed shows up on the correct page?
Also, can you make posts on the same blog to different pages? and how?
I am using WordPress.org
Thank you for your help, I follow your stuff religiously.
Best,
Abi
I have a problem which is sending me around in circles. I wanted to change the permalinks (which I stupidly hadn’t done before I started) but I didn’t want to break all of the links on the sites.
I tried the two main plug-ins to allow for 301 redirects and neither worked – I think it is because I am on a Windows server.
Is there a way to change them, and put redirects in for the posts I have currently created, or do I have to sigh and realise I have rubbish links or worse, break my site and lose all of the inbound links I do have.
If you could help me with this, I would be eternally grateful!
Thanks for the questions guys! I’ll see what I can do about answers that require more extensive answers but some require immediate response and easy to solve so here they are…
@Franks C – if you are on a WordPress 2.0+ it is by default cuts off your feed at “more” tag. You need a plugin to force full text RSS feed. I describe it here:
http://www.howtospoter.com/web.....-wordpress
@Paul – yes, you can do that with WP. Have a look at this plugin: http://gootix.com/
@Mark, this will require more extensive answer … Stay tuned.
@Abi, I need a bit more info on this one and it will require more extensive answer if at all possible.
@Nancy – sorry, I don’t work with Windows servers and my expertise is useless here. Windows bxes don’t support .htaccess and that is where you run into issue. Most plugins will work on modifying that file … another reason I don’t like “Windblows” servers
sorry for the pun …
Alex
Alex,
I’ll try to explain a little better.
Both questions are related. Basically, all posts typically go to the index page. My question is can I make posts to show up on different pages so the article is actually relative to the page it is on. As on my blog which I am just starting I have one page for travel and a different one for cigars. 2nd question is basically same as first but can I place different RSS feeds on different pages, again, different subject matter and if I ca, how?
Thanks again,
Abi
Abi,
OK, now I understand your idea …
Answer is simple and complex at same time – anything is possible …. or almost but it will require some coding knowledge on your part to present articles in relevant pages and plugins that go with it. In nut-shell you will create a new page for each category and use custom PHP code on it to pull posts from specific category.
Obviously front page will need to be modified as well to exclude those posts. On RSS for each page – you best bet is a tool provided by Jack Humphrey (not free) that allows you to present different RSS feeds based on keywords:
http://www.jackhumphrey.com/fr.....-released/
I think multiple pages dedicated to subject might be a good HOWTO in making
Alex
Alex,
Thanks once again for all your help. Just found a book on PHP and I’ll start reading. I have also learned a lot from other peoples questions of course.
Keep it up.
Best,
Abi
You are welcome Abi.
This post seem to generate interest. I’ll see what I can do to address some of the questions in form of howto soon and perhaps will make another run at this format.
Alex
Here’s something that might help Nancy: WordPress Hacks for IIS
Frank C’s last blog post..The “Quick Excerpt” Splog and Why You Shouldn’t Worry
Hi,
I am new with wordpress. Just setup my first blog at http://www.fredchanblog.com. I experienced some problem with permalinks. Initially I set the permalinks to show dates, directories, name (ie. change it from basic). The comments link dissappear (ie can’t make comments). I thought it was my wordpress installation problem as I changes some scripts in the theme directory.
The problem persist even after I re-installed wordpress. Then I found in google search a forum stating that by changing the permalink from basic to other, the comments doesn’t work with some theme. I am using silver-lotus theme.
Any idea which php script that I should amend to allow me to change the permalink from basic to others?
Hope you can help.
Regards.
Fred Chan’s last blog post..Hello world!
A very simple query. I want to get the related posts below each post. I have activated the WP23 Related Posts and configured it. But I am not getting the related posts on this blog – Instant Food
Rangoo
Rangoo’s last blog post..Should I Smear the Pan With Oil Before Making Dosa?
Rangoo,
You have to replace code as I explain in upgrade video. Reason it doesn’t work right now is because your single.php file has code to use UTW and it needs to be replaced with code to WP23 as I advise in upgrade video.
Please contact me via normal support means if you need further help wit hthis one.
Alex
Sometimes I come across some really good PHP scripts. I’ve tried using customizable widget plugins that allow you to use your own PHP code, but I lack the coding experience to get them to work. There must be an easier way.
Also, I can’t get any of the Adhesive or Sticky Post plugins to work with my Super Adsense theme.
Michael Weir’s last blog post..Struggling to Build an Email Marketing List?
@Fred Chang – interesting question and I will research it …
@Michael – PHP-Exec plugin now does that. Starting with new version he released couple weeks ago – you can insert php code into widgets. On your theme – contact Gobala Krishnan who is the author of the theme and let him know. He is great guy who I personally worked with on several occasions and since he is the author – he will be most qualified to help you with it.
Also on side note: looks like you are doing keyword stuffing (whole bunch of em at the top of your blog when I visit it) – I would advise against it. It will only hurt your blog.
@Mark – it is worth looking into. Link exchange should be integral part of any blog and there should be plugin that allows that. Will investigate.
Alex
Dear Alex,
I am very new in blogging and wordpress, so I hope you don’t mind if I ask a few more questions.
My first question that I sent you was on the permalinks.
Below are a few more:
1. I have installed a pluggin from Alex King to put smiley in my posting and comments. I activated them but I can only get the “character” sich as ;lol; and not the picture in my posting. Although the smiley pictures appear a the bottom of the form.
2. I sign up with ShareIT and installed the pluggin. I managed to paste the code. However the ShareIT logo appear right in the middle of the bottom half of the page. How do I change the alignment or position of the logo just like in your blog?
3. Also on ShareIT logo, I selected a few services and when I try clicking the logo in my site, the windows appear is overlapped by my right sidebar (ie. half the shareit window can’t be seen). If I can place the shareit logo to the left of the page, the shareit windows might not be obstructed. Any suggestion?
4. I managed to add subcribe to my feed link with feedburner but I can’t get the feed for my comments. Maybe its because my site, http://www.fredchanblog.com is only 2 days old and there is no comment available that feedburner link generator for comment feed cannot create the link. Do I have to enter my own comment first before trying with feedburner again? Or is it due to my permalinks problem.
Hope you can help.
Thanks.
Fred Chan
Miracle Kids and WordPress
Fred Chan’s last blog post..My 1st Blog
Fred,
Here are some quick solutions for you:
1. In your blog Admin panel go to Opetions->Write and place check mark next to option “Convert emoticons like
and 
to graphics on display” and save. This will convert your smiles code into images.
2. and 3. Which version of ShareThis are you using? His latest release or the old one?
4. In order for feedburner to generate feed for comments – you have to have them first. So yes, make one comment on your blog and then try it.
On permalinks: what you describe points to possible problem with theme. First try to go Admin->Options->Permalinks and click Update Permalink Structure. This should fix any issues with permalinks and if doesn’t I recommend looking into another theme.
Dear Alex,
Thanks for you advise.
Managed to change permalinks but as my earlier posts were with the basic permalinks, I get error message when I click comment. I think I can rectify that by reposting them after I change the permalinks since I just started a few posting.
I was using shareit ver 2.0. Alex King just posted an upgraded shareit classic that allow user to position the logo. I will try that.
Thanks again.
Fred Chan
Miracle Kids and WordPress
Fred Chan’s last blog post..Starting a blog with WordPress – Information Overload
Can I just say thank you to both Alex and Frank C for taking the time to try and help me with my permalink nightmare…
Still haven’t got it fixed but I really appreciate the response.
Nancy
@Fred – yes, since your blog is so new, I would experiment first and make sure everything works the way you want it to before going forward with too many posts …
@Nancy – sorry I’m not much of help for you. Windows based hosting is just something I never even considered and as result I have no experience with it. While I don’t know your situation Nancy – your blog looks great and provides very interesting info. I personally would migrate to Linux hosting in this case because permalinks are just SO important to WordPress SEO …
I know quite a few plugins that written specifically for Apache running on Linux and the frustration will only mount on your part as you continue to use WP on current platform …
Alex
My Biggest PROBLEM is……..
1….Planning My Blog
2….Implementing My Blog
3….Keeping…keeping On.
REALLY appreciative of your offer Alex, Thanking you.
There’s an ancient Israelite saying…….
Place enough bread on the “waters-of-life”
and in TIME, it will return to thee in ABUNDANCE.
Hey Bronco,
You missed one …
4…. Finding time to do ALL above
IMPORTANT: based on all questions asked above I’m working on creating a post that will cover more detailed answers.
If you have a question, feel free to ask it here and I’ll do my best to answer it here but more then likely it will not be included into Answers post.
Alex
Alex,
First off I would like to thank you for all help you have given, in your info and videos and links.
The problem I am having is to put a contact form on my WordPress blog and hook it up with responder. I have a responder unfortunetly not Aweber, but I have a responder with another programand want to use that at this time.
So how and where do I put the form from my autoresponder, should I use the
responder and email with my host or do I just make a form with my responder and use the mail feature there? And how do I make this all work. I haven’t been able to figure out how to set up email with my host to put a contact email in my mailings when I get people in my auto-responder.
I have seen a lot of info on setting up the blog and plugins, themes etc but nothing ob hooking this up, any help ob this would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Darwin
Darwin,
If I understand you correctly you are trying to add people to your list when they attempt to contact you? I hope you are not serious about it ….
You have to ask permission from a person to be able to email them at the very least. I actually use double optin option, where people have to not only requested info from me but also confirm their request.
Adding that type of form is as simple as placing subscription code into your text widget.
Alex
Alex,
Thanks for the quick reply, I am definately going for the double opt in like you do. But I have no idea what a widget really is, let alone a text widget. That’s where I am getting stuck, I know how to create the form in my auto responder, but then what do I do with it? I looked over the WordPress website and checked the cPanel help section and haven’t got the answers need to get my forme on and hook up my email in cpanel.
Thanks,
Darwin
Darwin,
I think you need more help then you suspect. I recommend learning basics on your blog and once you do, login to Admin panel, Presentation->Widgets.
Add text widget and place your code inside that text widget.
If you are looking for a way to learn your blog I can only recommend my product Web 2.0 Wealth or any other that will teach you how to work with your blog. Sorry, I will not be covering basic usage of your blog in this thread.
Alex
Hi Alex, i hope you will not regret for this offer quite soon
My biggest problem with WordPress is font problem for my Turkish blog http://www.evdenisyapiyorum.com. I am using Voda Host as hosting service, and they have one click WordPress setup feature. I installed WordPress to http://www.evdenisyapiyorum.com. After a while i understood that it does not support Turkish. Thus as a beginner (1 year ago) i removed the VodaHost manually, and then copied one which supports Turkish fonts. But even in that case i could not achieve Turkish fonts to appear correctly. What do you suggest me to do ? Your help will be appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Cheers,
Mert Erkal
Mert Erkal’s last blog post..See How Easily You Can Increase Traffic
Mert,
I never had to do a localization of WordPress but looks like Turkish language localization has quite a support. I recommend you have a look at what options they provide.
http://codex.wordpress.org/Wor.....e_.28tr.29
Usually those are best places to get the support you need since people have a first hand experience with your specific issue.
Alex
OK guys,
I will be posting tomorrow a post with Solutions that required more extensive answer or research. I covered parts that are most common and my quick hits answers couldn’t address.
From this point ANY answer will be provided here ONLY in form of comment.
Alex
Hi Alex,
I have two pesky problems with my wordpress blog:
1) I am using the Mandigo theme and have a “break” right between the header and body of the blog, I do not know how it happened as I have not done any editing of the header. You can see what I mean at my blog:
http://www.MarkEdwardBrown.com
2) I have installed wpads but can not figure out where to place the code in my sidebar so that the plug-in will actually work. Right now I just have a banner in a text box however wpads would allow me to rotate banners which is what I really want to do.
Thanks Alex,
Mark Brown
AKA – The Militant Marketer
Mark Brown’s last blog post..Web 2.0 Growth Continues
Hey Mark,
I have actually already answered questions posted in this thred and was planning to open new one but since you ask …
1. I would first check your header to ensure there is no extra tags in it and then plow through style.css file in section that define following divisions:
div id=”page”
div id=”header”
div id=”headerimg”
Backup file first and then play around with it by making changes and see which one might work. If something goes wrong – you can always use backup file to restore it.
2. On this one I would install PHP-Exec plugin which now allows you to place PHP code in widgets
– that should do the trick!
Alex
Hi Alex,
Many thanks!
Mark
Mark Brown’s last blog post..Web 2.0 Growth Continues
Alex,
This is an awesome idea and a great load of help. I have a problem with permalinks. I am hosting on linux redhat enterprise 5 and have created a few blogs. None of them allow for use of the permalinks feature even after activated and rights on the .htaccess file have been moded to 755. What could be the solution?
Ron’s last blog post..Vintropolis
Ron,
If you have done your configuration – I can easily point you to your host. Contact them and ask them if they enabled “mod_rewrite” for the webserver. It has to be configured on server itself and should be already done by your host for each directory (user). There is nothing you can personally do about it if they don’t address the issue outside of switching your host. If needed – I can highly recommend hostgator.
TheSpot-er,
Hello, I’m glad I found your website about WordPress. I’m a blogger for about 1 year. I started to switch in hostgator as my host. My blog has more than 6K unique visits and consuming 100gig bandwidth. My host (hostgator) suspended my blog twice because I am consuming more than 25% of their CPU usage which affects other servers (because I am only using shared hosting).
My questions is how to prevent this over usage of CPU usage? My host once told me that I have to disable all plugins, but then I was again suspended because of recurrence of same problem.
I have a website which my competitor, an she is using WordPress too, and she said her blog has never suspended.
Is there any problem? Is this a wordpress issue or basically my host issue?
Ada,
Interesting, I’m assuming you get 6k a day to introduce this type of load. Honestly I haven’t reached this limit so I can’t speak from personal experience but because this is something I would love to know – I’m willing to help you investigate and possibly solve
Answer to your question is something that might become and answer to other people problems and I would love to work with you on this one. Please contact me using Feedback form on About page if you would like my help.
Alex
Very nice of you Sir. I already sent a Message in your contact form.
Ada,
Honestly – I got your message and replied. I’m more then just a bit confused as to what you need help with. Please check for my reply and answer my questions. I’m willing to help and actually I see it as a challenge I want to tackle as long as it fits within the WordPress issue.
Alex
Hello,
I didn’t receive any message from you. I always check my inbox, but then, I didn’t found yours. Maybe, it is my spam folder and I never notice it.
I am hoping that you will send it again using my email address here.
Thank you so much.
Ada.
Ada,
I just resent it. Please check your SPAM folder if you don’t get it.
Alex
I too am having the same CPU overuse problem. This is a new issue with me, just started happening last week. I cannot for the life of me understand what’s going on, the host claims I’m using 49%.
I installed WP-Supercache, and that seemed to help, they told me my usage was in an acceptable range. But this morning I got another notice that I’m over the limit.
I upgraded to WP2.3.3 last week. Have there been any other issues with this happening? Oh, and I’m not a very busy blog, I get under 100 unique visitors a day, but awstats claims I had 30,000 page views over the month of February. But that includes me and search engines, but whatever rogue bots are hitting my site.
Do you have any suggestions? I disabled a lot of plugins, but they never gave any problem before. The only odd one I’d recently installed (and was activated but not in use) was a top posts by category. I deactivated and removed it today, along with a few others not in use. I can’t afford a dedicated server, since I don’t earn any money from the site. Do you have any suggestions?
Sue’s last blog post..ALF Spring Spectacular and More
Sue,
I just had similar issue with mine last weekend and 2 plugins identified as source were “wp-users online” and “post rating” I had to disable those plugins although I NEVER had issues with them before.
This one is weird and since I don’t have access to the server itself – only thing we can do is to address the issue as it comes up. Sorry as I don’t have the answer either way for you because this one is a mystery to me as well – why would plugins that worked fine for over a year become CPU hog …
Thanks for the reply. I did have post ratings enabled, though not in use and deactivated and deleted it. I also suspect top posts by category, another one that was activated but not in use. I’ve disabled all other unecessary ones, and am waiting word from the business manager if it helped.
If I was at any other host beside the one I’m at, I’d be wondering if the creation of their new “business class” is behind this. They’ve always been known for honesty, but still, I have to wonder, since it was suggested I move to that level. I never thought my non-monetized, very very niche site would cause so much problems on shared hosting.
Sue,
I wouldn’t disable too much if I were you …
Their technical services should be able to provide you with output of the “ps” command and point out which exact processes are consuming CPU with your user ID. As was the case with my blog it identified the two plugins I had to disable and since both are utilizing AJAX – it makes sense (processor intensive).
Tell them to provide you with info on WHY they think your blog is the top consumer and details on WHAT is doing it. As SysAdmins they have to be able to provide you with this info.
I had the same problem of over CPU usage.
The webhost blocked me a couple of times and refused to let me in the third time.
It was shared webhosting.
I had to shift all my sites to another webhost and lost some of my WordPress blogs because of my lack of knowledge in shifting wordpress posts.
1. There was a spam attack.
I learnt how to create a robot.txt file to block that spammer.
This worked and I was ok.
2. Problem repeated – this time the hacker was able to create “warm” something… sorry I don’t know … some virus
The webhost blocked me. They killed the worm
3. The attack was repeated. The webhost could not advice me. They did not know how it was happening or did not care to inform me.
I shifted to another webhost – Lunar Pages.
After joining Lunar pages I got the message a specific kernel file was created within my help desk folder.
I found and deleted it. Deleted the OS Ticket help desk I was using.
I changed my way of contacting my subscribers.
I checked all the sites for hackers’ folders created without my knowledge.
So far ok. No problems.
Lunar Pages gives me 15000 GB transfer and unlimited add-on domains and they have not yet told me anything about CPU usage.
I keep my fingers crossed and hope there won’t be any more problem.
Rangoo for safe webhosting’s last blog post..Unlimited Add-On Domains with Basic and Business Plan of Lunar Pages