Giving WordPress Its Own Directory – Which Directory?

I do not think it makes any difference as to the name you give the directory you install the files in.

I’d agree with BPartch on that though I did read that Matt Cutts of Google recommended using blog rather than wordpress for the folder.

https://wordcamp.info/2007/07/21/whitehat-seo-tips-for-bloggers/

I asked this question in another place but haven’t received an answer.

I have worked at the instructions in Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory referring to suggestions here. I eventually got it to the point where my Admin panel opens fine but when I click on “view site” I am directed to a login for my control panel.

I had trouble following the instructions so that may be the problem.
My difficulties included:
#7 Copy the index.php and .htaccess files from the WordPress directory into the root directory of your site (Blog address).

There are several index.php files (I know because I looked through most of the site for the .htaccess file) so I used the one from the main WordPress directory – I assume that is correct. The instructions say copy – does that mean a copy should remain in the WordPress directory?

There was no .htaccess file in the WP directory so I uploaded one from another site and changed the site name info. But when I access the remote location from my FTP client it doesn’t show in the list of files – maybe that’s typical. It does show up inside my backup file on my desktop.

Would either of these actions result in the above problem?

I have read about “pointing a domain to a host” but don’t know what that means or how to do it. If that’s the problem could you please point me to some instructions. Thanks

Put this in your web-root folder as index.php (assumes WordPress files are in the wordpress folder)

<?php
/* Short and sweet */
define('WP_USE_THEMES', true);
require('./wordpress/wp-blog-header.php');
?>

Thanks. That exact code was already in my web-root folder as index.php and the rest of the WordPress files were/are in the wordpress folder as you indicated. So my problem still exists. ie. the correct URL is displayed but the page that comes up is a login to the control panel with this info:

Welcome to imaginethat-haircare.com
Your account has been created.
You can access your Web site right away using d4774831.u45.websitesource.net. Over the next few days, DNS servers all across the Internet will
update themselves with your new site name. Once that happens, you will be able to access your site at its permanent address, imaginethat-haircare.com.

It’s been many days so I think there’s a problem.

Do you have any other suggestions? btw do you know anything about pointing my domain to the host? I still am confused about that and whether that could be the problem.

The instructions say copy – does that mean a copy should remain in the WordPress directory?
Yes.

There was no .htaccess file in the WP directory so I uploaded one from another site and changed the site name info.
Bad move… If you don’t use the “nice” permalinks you don’t need any .htaccess file!
DELETE it.

https://www.imaginethat-haircare.com/ – you see what you see because you have an index.html file there:
https://www.imaginethat-haircare.com/index.html
Delete it.

I deleted the .htaccess file off my desktop backup copy. There was never one that appeared on the “remote site” side of the screen in my FTP client (even when I had uploaded it from the desktop – that has confused me).

I deleted the index.html.

Now when I go to my site there is a blank page.
Any more ideas?

Most FTP clients, by default, do not show the .htaccess file. You have to make it show by adding “-a” to the “remote file mask” dialog. It may be a different way in different ftp clients. I am talking about WS_FTP.

And,

have you done the following?

• In the box for WordPress address (URL): change the address to the new location of your main WordPress core files. Example: https://example.com/wordpress
• In the box for Blog address (URL): change the address to the root directory’s URL. Example: https://example.com
• If you have set up Permalinks, go to the Permalinks panel and update your Permalink structure. WordPress will automatically update your .htaccess file if it has the appropriate file permissions. If WordPress can’t write to your .htaccess file, it will display the new rewrite rules to you, which you should manually copy into your .htaccess file (in the same directory as the main index.php file.)

S.K

I really appreciate you taking the time to walk me through this. Since it looked like your suggestions were the directions I had been following, I decided to delete WordPress completely from both my remote server and local drive and reinstall, going through all the paces….and it worked! There must have been some corrupted files.

Now I’m looking forward to playing with all the Themes and plug-ins ??

Thanks again.

hey there,

i’m having similar issues, but have not found the answer yet.

i started out trying to actually move all my files from ./thesis/blog to ./thesis in order to shorten my URL, before realizing that i should follow these directions to simply redirect. so i deleted the mountain of wordpress files that i already copied into the root folder and followed these instructions.

i changed the blog address and wordpress address, copied index.php in the root folder and edited text to redirect, and copied .htaccess into the root folder fine.

but when i got to “change permalinks,” i failed to log in. i was getting a “500 error” message when i attempted logging into codex. the page was also not linking to the css file. no theme. help?

thanks so much!

-liz