mckinney3

Usually the simplest thing is the answer to a problem.

OK, the Google Webmaster Tools finally choked on the sitemap url problem and started posting a long list (one for each url in sitemap) of errors. All were the same and the reason is that my original domain was https://www.pixelpointgrphics.com. Somehow in repointing the domain name to another host and installing WordPress and ?, the domain name pointing to the site is now pixelpointgraphics.com.

I really do not know the particulars of that.

So, my website name in Tools is https://www.pixelpointgraphics.com. I had to remove the sitemap asociated with that domain and more importantly create a new site “account” (pixelpointgraphics.com) and get it verified using the html page method and then resubmit the sitemap. After doing that all worked fine!

Sure you can point everything to everywhere if you have the skill sets and understand all of this perfectly but I believe in keeping everything neat and tidy and all in the same “original” file hierchy. This makes it much easier to later move it again as you do not have to remember where everything is located and what is pointing to what.

I think it is best to put the WP files at the root. And yes, you can change the pointer to where the image files are kept but again all the image files are uploaded somewhere “odd.”

I am just saying that the folks who are lost on all of this seem to get it better by having a simple fix for their issue 1.) Prepare your root, 2. Change both pointers in the Dashboard BEFORE moving files 3.) Move all the files, 4. Fix the links.

And somewhere you need to tell folks that when they change their dashboard settings that they lose access to their Dashboard until they move the files. That part is pretty scarey if you are not prepared for it.

ooooopppsss!!

You have to relocate VERY WP file and folder to the root.

You have to relocate EVERY WP file and folder to the root.

I went through a similar journey.
You are almost there.
You have to relocate VERY WP file and folder to the root.
Make sure that index.html from your old site is not there aany more.

Now once this is working , you will have more work to do. Unfortunately the hard links to any graphics that you placed in pages will have broken links. You have to fix everyone of them manually.

This is not too bad a task.. Just pne the Dashboard and open each page. Take a look at the code for each page with the HTML view instead of the VISUAL view. Take a look at the code and you should see the old folder in the path name. Just delete that folder/ and all should be well. Be sure to hit update.

Said another way, (I am pasting description of problem posted elsewhere)

I have a sitemap on the root of my website (pixelpointgraphics.com) to help with my Google searches. The sitemap is sitemap.xml and is generated by a WordPress Plugin called Google XML Sitemaps

I was checking Google Webmaster tools to see if, indeed , the site map was showing up. When I click on their button to show the sitemap, I get an error message instead of seeing the actual sitemap. This makes me think that Google’s bots may not properly index this site.

The url for the link from Google is: https://www.pixelpointgraphics.com/sitemap.xml

Click on that link and you will see the same error message that I get if I click on that link in Google’s Webmaster Tools program.

Now, I notice that whenever I hover on any page for my site including the index page (home) I get this link:

https://pixelpointgraphics.com/ The www. stripped out. So try clicking on https://pixelpointgraphics.com/sitemap.xml

You will see the correct link and the sitemap file.

If I type https://www.pixelpointgraphics.com/sitemap.xml into a browser or if you click on this link you will sometimes see
the www. stripped away and the page will be correctly displayed. Sometimes it is not stripped and the error will occur.

If I type in ANY other url to the site (graphics or framing or..) then the www is always stripped and the proper page always displays. The problem only occurs if the link is https://www.pixelpointgraphics.com/sitemap.xml which has been described is the link that is created by Google on their webmaster Tools Site.

I am very interested in your thoughts!

Yes, I agree. That is the sitemap at the root of my site directory on my server.

What concerns me is that if I click on the see site map button on the Google site, I do not see my site map. I see the error message that I reported in the first post. I am linked to that as my sitemap which makes me believe that Google is not really reading my sitemap.

With all my other sites, if I click on that same link for that site’s sitemap, I see the actual sitemap.

I see this difference.
The link on Google’s site is https://www.pixelpointgraphics.com/sitemap.xml

That link takes me to error message.

You point out that link should be: https://pixelpointgraphics.com/sitemap.xml and yes that is the sitemap link.

If I type https://www.pixelpointgraphics.com/sitemap.xml into a browser I am linked to the correct sitemap as the www is stripped but Google Webmaster site tries to link to https://www.pixelpointgraphics.com/sitemap.xml and that yieldss the error message.. Something is happening with https://www.pixelpointgraphics.com/sitemap.xml vs https://pixelpointgraphics.com/sitemap.xml

That something is preventing webmaster tools from properly indexing this site. (I think)

I never had any luck with any arrangement of a redirect 301 inserted into the .htaccess file running on a GoDAddy Linux shared server.

However I did have great luck by using Rewrite Rule syntax. I also found that:
1. The RewriteRule code must come before the WP inserted code
2. If old url has spaces then this MUST be addressed with a reverse slash (\) before the space. If this not done, the server will be thrown into a tizzy and you will get plenty of Internal Server Errors and that is not a good thing.
3. The flags must be set properly
4. I had trouble at first getting the .htaccess file modified. I was trying to do this thru Dreamweaver and the server Permissions did not like this approach. I was successful by using GoDaddy’s file manager editor directly. Also the change was in effect immediately and I did not have to wait until the top of the hour when GD refeshes the .htaccess file.

Having said that, here is one actual RewriteRule along with the correct pre-code that works and works well. This example works if both the old and new urls reside below the same domain name. For this example, the original url was https://www.site_name/3rd_Level_pages/Contacts.html The new WP “friendly” link is https://www.site_name/studio/contact/

The R=301 specifies a permanent redirect and Google will permanently update its search engine
The NC flag specifies that the addy is NOT case sensitive
The L flag stops the processing which ultimately enables the WP code that follows these additions to be executed.

# Begin old site rewrites
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^3rd_Level_pages/Contacts.html /studio/contact/ [R=301,NC,L]
# End old site rewrites

Here is an example with spaces corrected with the (\):

# Begin old site rewrites
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^4th\ Level\ Pages_Gallery/Jones\ Pottery/Jones\ Pottery.html /artisan-galley/artisans/matt-jones/ [R=301,NC,L]
# End old site rewrites

This is an example with the 2 rewrites AND the WP installed Code
# Begin old site rewrites
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^3rd_Level_pages/Contacts.html /studio/contact/ [R=301,NC,L]
RewriteRule ^4th\ Level\ Pages_Gallery/Jones\ Pottery/Jones\ Pottery.html /artisan-galley/artisans/matt-jones/ [R=301,NC,L]
# End old site rewrites

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

Just insert one line of RewriteRule code for each re-direction that you desire. When finished , be sure that the WP code is still intact.

By the way, I am not a guru on this subject but for those that are interested I can put you in touch with the fellow that is!

Problem Solved…

The mysterious code is inserted if the web browser that is being used for the edit of a page has the app Leo Highlights installed.

Well this rings a bell! My daughter is editing pages for me after I do the power typing. She edited this one on a work computer that must have had this plg in installed. She will check to see and I will post the finding.

Thanks dnovotny for the tip!

No, I wrote the copy directly into the dialog box. I took and managed the pictures included in the page.

Thank you for your responses!

dan

I only have one plugin – Akismet

Only after posting a page did all this code just show up as appended to the code for the page after all my content. I can post the entire code section if it would help figure out where this comes from. leoHighlights shows up over and over and over. I realize that Leo is some type of language but the documentation on the WEB is VERY arcane.

I deleted all the code and updated the page with no change in functionality. This was the last page I created and none of the other 23 pages have any code like this at all.

Mystery!

I have the same problem. I want to see the gallery feature for the convenience of loading a bunch of pix, etc. But I have neve been ale to figure out how to link a picture in a gallery to something other than the large image or the “descriptions” special page.

Do I just create a regular page and load my pix in one at a time from the Media Library to create my own “gallery.” By doing this I can assign a link to the pix for any destination.

An example is at :
https://pixelpointgraphics.com/journal/?page_id=27
Only two pix are loaded and linked but you can see how it works.

dan

Thank you! That solved my problem.