Welcome to the DDF Zone Diaries.
Last December 2009, we added a Blog to The Double Diamond Zone.
In the past 9 months, the knowledge gained from the
many resources available for wordpress, is incredible.
It truly is an awesome community. That is the GOOD.
The BAD is that NO Planning went into the initial Blog.
The UGLY is, that now as more knowledge is gained,
we are now Re-Creating a Proper Structure for the Blog.
The FIRST and MOST IMPORTANT step is your KEYWORD Research.
The SECOND is to make sure your BLOG is OPTIMIZED for your KEYWORDS.
A Key Part of that Optimization is “Pretty Permalinks” / Friendly URL’s.
Wordpress Admin> Settings > Permalinks > Custom Structure>
We originally set up the permalinks as Default: “Ugly”.
http://example.com/?p=1846
This structure is not optimized for SEO Domination.
Once we learned the importance of “Pretty Permalinks”
we changed the settings to Custom Structure>
/%year%/%category%/%postname%/
hoping to see
http://example.com/2010/category/postname
But instead all we saw, was 404 errors on every page.
DDF Zone Tip:
By adding the year at the beginning of the structure,
you drastically decrease the number of rewrite_rules
which increases the performance of your blog.
Optimize rewrite rule generation
What follows is the illustrated Roadmap on how our BLOG got “Pretty”.
In order for WordPress to create “Pretty Permalinks”
it uses an apache add-on called “mod_rewrite”.
If you are hosting your site on anything Windows, PROBLEM !
IIS (Internet Information Server ) doesn’t load apache mods.
SOLUTION !
Helicon’s_ISAPI_Rewrite_3_Lite_Freeware Version
An Apache mod_rewrite URL rewriter for Microsoft IIS server.
We downloaded and installed following Kyle Caufields post:
Permalink for WordPress – IIS 6 mod_rewrite FIXED – Free
.
On Windows XP Pro, IIS is accessed under Computer Management
.
The Default install location for ISAPI Remote is the Local Directory.
We installed the ISAPI_Rewrite3 Filter under the Default Web Directory.
If you plan on supporting multiple Web Sites, you will need the Full Version.
Hit up the ISAPI Rewrite Support Forums for more detailed support
.
But we still had 404 errors.
We tried every configuration option we could find,
and almost gave up since almost every solution
was based on Windows Server 2003 and IIS 6
and none on our current system:
- OS Version: Windows XP Pro SP 3
- Server Version: Microsoft-IIS/5.1
- MySQL Version: 5.0.17
- PHP Version: 5.2.5
- WordPress Version: 3.0
So, it would be natural to assume that you
must run on a server platform for this to work.
NOT GIVING UP !
.
After more hours, articles and posts we discovered
Andy Stratton’s plugin for WP that not only handles the rewrites for our
top-level pages but also the child pages under the drop down menus.
Get WordPress Permalinks Working with Windows, IIS, and ISAPI Rewrite
We installed and activated the plug in,
created and configured an .htaccess file that mirrored the ISAPI Rewrite http.conf file
and placed it in the root WordPress Directory.
.
404 ERRORS are still with us. More Reading and Testing!
404’s on WordPress Permalinks (IIS with ISAPI Rewrite)
What was learned from Almeros’s Coding Blog was:
to pay attention where the 404 Error’s are coming from, WordPress or IIS.
and a way to get feedback from the system.
“This piece of code prints out the array of PHP server variables which are present
at the time of the HTTP request performed, including HTTP URL request parameters.”
You add the following code
inside {wordpress} /index.php just below the first define statement:
echo “<pre>”;
print_r($_SERVER);
echo “</pre>”;
.
Another useful Plugin for dealing with WordPress Apache Issues is:
AskApache RewriteRules Viewer
After reviewing the information and logs generated,
we started to go back and look for posts and comments
focusing on directory issues, since our blog is not in the root directory.
The SOLUTION was adding our actual “subdirectoryname” into the
ISAPI Rewrite http.conf file and the .htaccess file.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /yoursubdirectoryname/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . index.php [L]
.
Not sure if we need the .htaccess file for the mod-rewrite
but we will need it for security measures later, SO WE WILL KEEP IT.
.
We have found a lot of very valuable knowledge
and help in the numerous blog comment secctions.
One Possible Warning.
If you change the “permalink” settings you will break any links created.
Not sure if there is any way to Fix this if it happens.
Not a huge issue with our blog since it is so new and has few links.
But for someone who has a high number of links,
it may not be worth the broken links.
Hope you have found some useful knowledge
from you time spent in the DDF Zone Diaries.
Join the Conversation
And as Always
Lead, Follow and Share !
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Dennis recently posted..DDF Zone Diaries – WordPress Pretty Permalinks – Windows IIS 51