PLEASE Help With Permalinks!!

  • I am sooooooooooo frustrated with SEO CRAP!!!
    This is the 4th CMS system that I have tried, and the big reason I chose this is because of the apprent ease of optimization by using the Permalinks feature.
    However, in searching the forums and reading the documentation, I have not found a STEP-BY-STEP tutorial for utilizing the Permalinks feature.
    I first started by reading through a dozen or so posts on the subject, and came away more confused than I started out. SO I decided to try it on my own.
    This is a brand new clean install with no modifications or even any posts except I added 3 categories.
    I then went to the Permalinks tab, and since I had no success in finding a step-by-step explanation of how to come up with the directory structure of choice, I copied and pasted the example structure:
    /archives/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/
    And then I copied the output, pasted it into my .htaccess file, saved it and held my breath.
    I then clicked the View Site link and got an internal server error. It is an Apache 1.3.27 server with PHP 4.3.8 I have confirmed that mod_rewrite is INDEED installed on the server.
    I could not go anywhere on the site once I modified the .htaccess file with the suggested output, so I deleted the .htaccess, and modified the structure like so:
    /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/
    I then pasted the output into a new .htaccess file and tried again, but another internal server error.
    Please, someone, anyone, help me get through this! I have the feeling I am missing something that was not adequately described in the instructions.
    Thank you!!!!

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • Thread Starter Anonymous

    Also, I have another question. Why are some people’s .htaccess files so long compared to others? I must be missing something here.
    Thanks again!

    Some use 1.2.x and some use 1.3
    My suggestion would be to use permalinks of the type
    example.com/index.php/2004/04/03/the-post-name
    That is done without any .htaccess modification, just by using index.php before the permalink string on the permalink options page.
    It works fully dependent on WP. No apache related problems. As far as search engines are concerned, it is as if you were storing your old posts in a directory called index.php, so they don’t frown on you.
    Good luck

    Thread Starter Anonymous

    Thank you!!!! THE reason I didn’t try the index.php option is because I thought it would look funny to google and other Search Engines, but if it has no effect on the SE’s then I will happily use that option!

    Cool down man! It took me 3 weeks to figure out Permalinks! ??
    You may want to try my approach:

    /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/

    Leave the Custom Prefix blank.
    Copy and paste the generated code into your .htaccess file.

    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteBase /
    RewriteRule ^category/(.*)/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$ /wp-feed.php?category_name=$1&feed=$2 [QSA]
    RewriteRule ^category/?(.*) /index.php?category_name=$1 [QSA]
    RewriteRule ^author/(.*)/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$ /wp-feed.php?author_name=$1&feed=$2 [QSA]
    RewriteRule ^author/?(.*) /index.php?author_name=$1 [QSA]
    RewriteRule ^([0-9]{4})/?([0-9]{1,2})?/?([0-9]{1,2})?/?([_0-9a-z-]+)?/?([0-9]+)?/?$ /index.php?year=$1&monthnum=$2&day=$3&name=$4&page=$5 [QSA]
    RewriteRule ^([0-9]{4})/?([0-9]{1,2})/([0-9]{1,2})/([_0-9a-z-]+)/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$ /wp-feed.php?year=$1&monthnum=$2&day=$3&name=$4&feed=$5 [QSA]
    RewriteRule ^([0-9]{4})/?([0-9]{1,2})/([0-9]{1,2})/([_0-9a-z-]+)/trackback/?$ /wp-trackback.php?year=$1&monthnum=$2&day=$3&name=$4 [QSA]
    RewriteRule ^feed/?([_0-9a-z-]+)?/?$ /wp-feed.php?feed=$1 [QSA]
    RewriteRule ^comments/feed/?([_0-9a-z-]+)?/?$ /wp-feed.php?feed=$1&withcomments=1 [QSA]

    Save the file as text-only and upload it as an ASCII format.

    that didn’t work for me either.
    So far the only thing that has “kinda” worked was using the custom prefix /index.php/archives/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/
    To use this you have to edit the index.php with the RSS URL
    Also, the “RSS feed for comments on this post” link doesn’t work.

    Thread Starter Anonymous

    I’m new to this as well but maybe I can help since I had the same kind of problem – I fought with this issue for hours and got a lot of help from some great people here in the forum
    The server that I use has Apache 1.3.27 and PHP 4.3.2 – and I’m using WordPress 1.3 alpha-5
    Everything is working for me now – I’m using the same setting “/archives/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/”- but this is what “my” problem was:
    I made an htaccess.txt file in notepad – uploaded it to the server – and thought I renamed the file properly, but I did not – when I renamed the file, I removed the .txt part but forgot to add the dot in front – the file name went from htaccess.txt to htaccess instead of .htaccess
    Double check and make sure you did not do the same thing – when looking at code for hours, it’s a very easy mistake to make as I found out.
    My second suggestion is to change the chmod setting for the .htaccess file to 766 – someone had suggested a setting of 666 but that didn’t work – when I changed it to 766 everything worked ok – not being well versed in this stuff, I’m not sure if this change from 666 to 766 causes any problems elsewhere but at least it fixed this problem.
    Once I corrected these two issues – I no longer had to worry about copying and pasting all the generated code into the .htaccess file because wordpress did that automatically for me
    It seems that when you press the “update permalink structure” button in the wordpress admin panel, wordpress will only generate the code that is needed for the .htaccess file, if it cannot write to the .htaccess file itself – If you push the button and no code appears at the bottom of the page, then everything should be ok
    You can check to see that .htaccess has been written to by going to Manage/Files in the admin panel and selecting “.htaccess (for rewrite rules) in the right had column.
    Hope this helps correct your problem.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • The topic ‘PLEASE Help With Permalinks!!’ is closed to new replies.