Wordpress - Need some help...

[sadiessay-so]

Anyone who owns a domain and uses Wordpress - I am in need of some serious help. I've figured out how to connect it to my domain. Here's my next problem. Why is it still showing the WP address in the address bar? I want it to show blog.sadies-skinny.com. I mean, it's great that it redirects traffic and everything, but, I'm not paying money every year for a domain for people to think I'm hosting free on WP...

My next thing is - what's going to happen to my feed? Do I need to do anything to it, or since the domain is getting redirected do you think it's okay? I was singing praises about GoDaddy's customer services a few threads ago, but they aren't helping me at all right now because it isn't their product... ugh.

I'd really appreciate any help. Even if anyone knows of any articles I can read. I've been looking around for some too, so maybe with a joint effort I can make some sense of it all.


edit: Also - how come some of the html I'm adding with the 'text' widget option disappears when I hit save? Like Entrecard - I can't make it save. So... How do I make those kind of things work?

[lol_gronland]

If you are pointing your domain to your free WP account but don't want to have your free WP address visible in the address bar, you'll need to log into your account where you purchased the domain and then select the options for web forwarding. I'm sure it'll differ with each provider but the option you want is framed forwarding as opposed to non-framed forwarding.

I took a quick look and as you said, blog.sadies-skinny.com is pointing to sadiesskinny.wordpress.com. Just make sure that your sub-domain (blog.sadies-skinny.com) is configured for framed forwarding and then enter the destination address (i.e. your free wp account) as normal. Once you've done that, anyone visiting blog.sadies-skinny.com should see blog.sadies-skinny.com in the address bar. Sorted.

As for the feed, you shouldn't need to do anything. You're being hosted with WP free of charge and as long as you haven't made any wild modifications in FeedBurner, your feed will be exactly the same. The only thing you purchased from GoDaddy (from what I can gather) is a domain name and that's basically virtual ID to associate with your host.

As for the widget question, it may be something to do with free WP accounts having restrictions on what codes can be used and what codes can't. I used to have a free WP account ages ago and encountered a similar problem so it's probably that.

Hope that helps.

--

Addendum: I looked into the WP.Com widget thing problem of yours and can confirm that it is because they don't want you using certain codes on your free WordPress page. Click here for more information. The only solution to that is to shell out some more cash and get yourself some paid hosting. But that's capitalism for ya!

[sadiessay-so]

Originally Posted by lol_gronland

If you are pointing your domain to your free wordpress account but don't want to have your free wordpress url visible in the address bar, you need to log into your account where you purchased the domain and select the options for web forwarding.

I'm sure it'll differ with each provider but the option you want is framed forwarding as opposed to non-framed forwarding. Hope that helps you out buddy.

Hmm - yeah, that helps some. At least now I have an idea of what to search for on the GoDaddy help pages.

[sadiessay-so]

Originally Posted by lol_gronland

As for the feed, you shouldn't need to do anything. You're being hosted with WP free of charge and as long as you haven't made any wild modifications in FeedBurner, your feed will be exactly the same. The only thing you purchased from GoDaddy (from what I can gather) is a domain name and that's basically virtual ID to associate with your host.

As for the widget question, it may be something to do with free WP accounts not allowing users to paste certain codes. I used to have a free WP account ages ago and encountered a similar problem so it's probably that. Solution? Shell out some bucks and get some decent paid hosting.

Hope that helps.

The feed is set up for blog.sadies-skinny.com - so it should be okay? It's always been that way because that's where the original blog was.

For the widgets - Should the page technically be hosted on my GoDaddy account now since I'm moving it to my domain? I set it up on my hosting account last night as a subdomain (at least I thought I did). I thought it was just going to use WP as a platform but be hosted from my domain. From what I understood I could make changes from my ftp server?

[lol_gronland]

Originally Posted by sadiessay-so

The feed is set up for blog.sadies-skinny.com - so it should be okay? It's always been that way because that's where the original blog was.

Nope, you're hosted on a free account at WordPress.com - all GoDaddy did was supply you with a domain. You don't need to worry about your feed. Well not unless...

Originally Posted by sadiessay-so

For the widgets - Should the page technically be hosted on my GoDaddy account now since I'm moving it to my domain? I set it up on my hosting account last night as a subdomain (at least I thought I did). I thought it was just going to use WP as a platform but be hosted from my domain. From what I understood I could make changes from my ftp server?

...so you purchased hosting with GoDaddy but you're not currently using it, lol! To do that, you'd need to install your blog software (WordPress I'm assuming) and then configure it however you want it.

If you want to import all your posts from your free WP account, log into your free account with WP, click "Manage" and then "Export". That'll let you download an XML file of all your archived posts, comments, blah blah blah. Make sure to backup any images you want as well.

All you do then is log into your hosted WP account, click onto "Manage", "Import" and put all your posts onto your hosted account. Once you've done that, you'll obviously have to install what themes you want, upload images you want via FTP and so on, so forth.

Installing WP will give you a new Feed URL - update this in FeedBurner so that all your subscribers go over to your new feed. Once everything is setup, just send out an email to your mailing list letting everyone know about the change. Simple!

[lol_gronland]

If you want some help with it, drop me a line. I've got to nip out to buy groceries right now but I'm not doing much later on this afternoon. Hopefully, it will be sorted out by then but if not, I'll happily help out. Take it easy and good luck!

[sadiessay-so]

Originally Posted by lol_gronland

...so you purchased hosting with GoDaddy but you're not currently using it, lol! To do that, you'd need to install your blog software (WordPress I'm assuming) and then configure it however you want it.

If you want to import all your posts from your free WP account, log into your free account with WP, click "Manage" and then "Export". That'll let you download an XML file of all your archived posts, comments, blah blah blah. Make sure to backup any images you want as well.

All you do then is log into your hosted WP account, click onto "Manage", "Import" and put all your posts onto your hosted account. Once you've done that, you'll obviously have to install what themes you want, upload images you want via FTP and so on, so forth.

GoDaddy has really confused me... lol So they had me install WP... I installed it to my ftp as a separate folder. So I need to put everything in there and map the subdomain to there? Not sure how, but at least this is starting to make sense... lol

[skleiner]

Go-Daddy is a bit confusing when it comes to some of the stuff! You are not alone! I find the interface working through go-daddy to be far more time consuming than going through your ftp

I know the free-wordpress offers a place where you can also direct that one to your new site, I think it's 10.00 for a year.. that way anyone that had the old address will just be re-directed and you may not have as many headaches.

[sadiessay-so]

So I just got off the phone with GoDaddy. They told me that they could tell me how to install WP to my ftp but that was all they could do. When I told them that I wanted to know how to redirect to my subdomain, they told me that they didn't know how - that I"d do that in WP. Well, when I told them that everything I read told me that I needed to do that in my host, they didn't know how to do it. So, I'm still super confused, so, I'm just going to go with it. Wish me luck... We're going to start with sadies-skinny.com/blog and see if along the line I can switch it back.

edit: I got the subdomain working! Now the only problem I'm having is the widgets.... It's like it won't save complete html. Do any of you other WPers use Entrecard, Adense, Adgitize, or just random, self-made html that you copy and paste into the 'text' widget?

[sadiessay-so]

Next question... I'm just realizing that I need Wordpress.ORG (GoDaddy is about to get a not very nice phone call from me...) - so I'm starting over, again. I just got finished downloading the files and designating a folder on my ftp server. Then I uploaded everything. Now I'm following the directions in the Read Me. I'm at the spot there I have to alter the wp-config.php file. I'm not sure what to put into all of the spots, though. Can someone please help me? I really owe you guys for this... Here's the file:

<?php
/**
* The base configurations of the WordPress.
*
* This file has the following configurations: MySQL settings, Table Prefix,
* Secret Keys, WordPress Language, and ABSPATH. You can find more information by
* visiting {@link Editing wp-config.php « WordPress Codex Editing
* wp-config.php} Codex page. You can get the MySQL settings from your web host.
*
* This file is used by the wp-config.php creation script during the
* installation. You don't have to use the web site, you can just copy this file
* to "wp-config.php" and fill in the values.
*
* @package WordPress
*/

// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'putyourdbnamehere'); Here I put the name of the folder on the ftp where the files are?

/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'usernamehere'); Here I put the user name I use to log into my ftp?

/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'yourpasswordhere'); Here I put the password to my ftp?

/** MySQL hostname */
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost'); What do I put here??

/** Database Charset to use in creating database tables. */
define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8'); What do I put here??

/** The Database Collate type. Don't change this if in doubt. */
define('DB_COLLATE', ''); What do I put here??

/**#@+
* Authentication Unique Keys.
*
* Change these to different unique phrases!
* You can generate these using the {@link http://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/ WordPress.org secret-key service}
*
* @since 2.6.0
*/
define('AUTH_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here');
define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here');
define('LOGGED_IN_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here');
define('NONCE_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here');
/**#@-*/

/**
* WordPress Database Table prefix.
*
* You can have multiple installations in one database if you give each a unique
* prefix. Only numbers, letters, and underscores please!
*/
$table_prefix = 'wp_';

/**
* WordPress Localized Language, defaults to English.
*
* Change this to localize WordPress. A corresponding MO file for the chosen
* language must be installed to wp-content/languages. For example, install
* de.mo to wp-content/languages and set WPLANG to 'de' to enable German
* language support.
*/
define ('WPLANG', '');

/* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

/** WordPress absolute path to the Wordpress directory. */
if ( !defined('ABSPATH') )
define('ABSPATH', dirname(__FILE__) . '/');

/** Sets up WordPress vars and included files. */
require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-settings.php');
?>


I put questions in there, bolded... Is there anything else besides the questions I asked that I need to do?

Again, thanks for the help. I know I'm confused and all turned around. I really appreciate all of this. It's making a lot more sense than it was this morning, so maybe by tomorrow night I'll have it all put together.