Visitor’s Email:

Hello Mr. Laplana,

This has nothing to do with sales or promotions or anything like that.  I just noticed that you have wordpress and your website looks very nice and functional.  I just got hosting through godaddy yesterday and have been trying to transfer my wordpress.com blog to godaddy and I can’t figure it out.

Thank you
Ma**** Biel

My Answer:

So you have a blog hosted by Wordpress.com. But the problem is, there are lots of restrictions and limitations that the management of Wordpress.com implemented into the blogs they’re hosting. You want to make money online but it is not allowed in the Wordpress.com blogs.

Finally you decided to transfer your blog from the servers of wordpress.com to your own server, or to the servers who’ve rented from any commercial webhosts.

But the problem is how could you do it?

Well, transferring your blog from the Wordpress.com servers to your own server is just easy. Just follow the steps below:

1. Log-in to your yourblog.wordpress.com/wp-admin using your own or admin’s username and password.
2. At the left side of the screen, click on the TOOLS >> EXPORT menu as shown on the image below:
   
3. Then after that, click the “DOWNLOAD EXPORT FILE” button. Then WordPress will create an XML file for you to save to your computer. The file in a format which is called WordPress eXtended RSS or WXR, that contains your posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, and tags.
4. You’ll be prompted to open or save the file like what is shown below:
   
   Choose “SAVE FILE” and click “OK“.
5. Usually, the file has been saved at the desktop of your computer. And it is now ready to be imported to the Wordpress installed on your new server.

The steps above is for exporting the content of your blog at yourblog.wordpress.com in the form of XML. The next thing you need to do is to import the downloaded file into the Wordpress installed at your new server.

In other words, you need to install first the Wordpress software into your new server.

1. Log-in to the admin panel of your new blog at yournewblog.com/wp-admin/ using your admin username and password.
2. In the step 2 above (exporting process), you clicked the TOOLS / EXPORT menu. But this time, just click the TOOLS/IMPORT menu.
3. After that, you’ll be shown few of the blogging formats or platforms. Just click on the WORDPRESS.
4. Then another page will be shown. This time click the BROWSE button and locate the XML file you downloaded earlier during the exporting process you did on the steps above.
5. Now, click the UPLOAD FILE AND IMPORT button.

Then Wordpress will upload the WordPress eXtended RSS (WXR) file or the XML file you downloaded earlier and then will import the posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, and tags into this blog.

PROBLEM?

Kindly email me or leave your comments here if you encounter problems or if you want to share your experience in doing the exporting and importing processes.

Thank you.

More Questions:

1. Question: Can I move wordpress free blog to a new domain and host?
   Answer: Yes! Of course! The process is similar to what has been described above.
2. Question: Can I transfer my wordpress account to a new one?
   Answer: Yes, you can transfer your wordpress account to a new one by simply exporting your blog from the old wordpress account and then import the exported file to your new wordpress account. Just read the article above for it contains guide on how to export and import blog’s content.

Have you tried visiting a blog that takes time to load the content that you want to read? It’s frustrating to visit a blog that loads too slow, isn’t it? Often times, once you are trying to open a blog like that you just close the browser or simply click the “Back” button of it.

In other words, blog that experience this problem often times lost visitors. Since they lost visitors, so they lost money because visitor or traffic is money.

Why Blog Loads Slow?

There are lots of reasons why your blog’s loading time is slow. Few of them are:

1) Server Problem

Blogs that are hosted in a shared hosting will most likely experience slow loading. It’s because the servers’ resources are being used by all the websites hosted by that server.

The server’s configuration also affects the speed of the websites it is hosting.

2) Blog’s Design

Blogs with colorful and beautiful images as background, buttons, etc., is very much attractive to look. But the loading speed of the blog will be affected by these, because colorful and large images usually are very large file that will take you time to download.

3) The Settings

If you choose to display full content in the homepage of your blog, then mostly like your blog will take time to completely load the homepage.

4) Third Party scripts

Third party scripts like the advertisement’s codes and other media tend to slow down the loading speed of your blog.

How to Optimize Your Blog for Faster Loading Speed?

Here’s the list of ways on how to make your Wordpress blog load faster.

1) Find Better Server

Just like what I said above, slow server will make your blog load slower. But even if your blog’s server is fast but it is hosting lots of websites, your blog will still be slow.

So, if you have enough money to spend for your blog, then why not rent a dedicated hosting, if not you can take the VPSed hosting (hosting installed with Virtual Private Server).

Consider reading my article, “How to Pick the right webhost for your blog?”

2) Minimize the number of posts to display in the mainpages or archive pages

If you choose to display the whole content of every post in mainpages or archivepages, then minimize the number of the posts that should be displayed because it greatly affects the loading speed of your blog.

3) Images and other Media

If possible, avoid using large and colorful images. Edit first the images that you want to include in your post using the photo or image editor, resize the images and save them in GIF, PNG, or JPG for web.

Avoid also using auto-played video or music files and Flash files.

4) Put all the java script at the bottom of the page.

Most of the javascripts takes time to load. And browsers tend to wait while the javascripts are still loading. So the content next to the javascript code will not be loaded while the browser is still processing the javascript.

So the solution is to put the javascript at the bottom of the page. But except of course the codes of the ads like the code of Google Adsense because if you’ll put the Google Adsense at the bottom of the page, then your Google Adsense income will be affected.

5) Make your main content to be loaded first before the sidebar content and other miscellaneous contents.

If you are using a 2 or more columned Wordpress theme, make sure that the article or blogpost will load first before the links and other content placed at the sidebars.

To understand what I mean, please read my May 2007 article, “How to Design a Three Columned Blog’s Theme?”

6) Use <div> instead of <table>.

If the theme of your blog is still using the <table>, then change the design to the one that uses the <div>.

Why? It’s because the browser tend to read all the content enclosed by the tag <table> and </table> first and then display them all at once. While if you’re using the <div>, browser will display one at a time until the whole content enclosed by the tag <div> and </div> are displayed.

7) Install WP-Super-Cache Wordpress Plugin

The WP-Super-Cache plugin will generate static HTML files of every pages of your blog and this static HTML files will be served to your blog’s visitors instead of processing the PHP codes of Wordpress everytime a visitors visit your blog. With this, your blog will use only small part of the server’s resources, thus speeding up your blog.

For more info about this plugin, please click here.

More Tips

I know that there are other tips that are not included on this article. If you knew one, please feel free to sent it via email or by dropping them at the comment section of the liver version of this blog at “how to make your wordpress blog load faster?”.

Feed Subscriber’s Email

I noticed that you changed the domain of your Maasin City News blog from its old subdomain “www.maasinnews.com/” to its new domain “maasinnews.com”.

I also wanted to move my blog from its old domain to the new domain that I recently bought. Can you please tell me how did you move your blog to a new domain?

Moving a Wordpress Blog to a New Domain

To let you know, I am not that good in site management. The successful transfer of the Maasin News blog from its old subdomain to the new domain is just the product of my research, planning, and the proper implementation of what has been planned.

So much for that, here’s how I move the Maasin News blog to its new domain:

1. Create a backup copy of all files inside the “WWW” or “Public_HTML” folder of my webhosting account which hosts the blog. The backup copy should of course be saved on to the computer’s harddisk.
2. Create a backup copy of the database of the blog and save it on to the harddisk.
3. Open the backup copy of the database using the MS Wordpad and change all the URL entries of the old domain to the new domain. For example, the old domain used by the Maasin News blog was “www.maasinnews.com/”. And using the Search and Replace feature of the MS Wordpad, I change it to “www.maasinnews.com/”. After that, save the changes and close the Wordpad.
4. Signed up a new hosting account for the new domain. Install the Wordpress script using the Fantastico feature of the CPanel of that new webhosting account.
5. FTP the “wp-content” folder from the back-up copy of the blog to the “WWW” or “Public_HTML” folder on the new hosting account.
6. Change the permission settings of all the files inside the folder of the theme that the blog is using to 777.
7. Create an “.htaccess” file in the “Public_HTML” folder and change its permission settings to 777.
8. Login to the Cpanel of the new domain. Access the MyPhPAdmin, and open the database used, and drop all the tables inside. Then import the back-up database.
9. Log in to “newdomain.com/wp-admin” (replace the “newdomain.com” with your new domain) and if prompted to install the database, just affirm and follow the links. Use the username and password that has been used when the blog is still hosted by the old domain.
10. Check all the settings, plugins, and themes. Then update the Permalink structure.
11. The blog is now live using the new domain.

You should take note that the steps listed above are written not for the internet user who knows nothing about the CPanel, MyPHPAdmin, Fantastico, FTP, etc. So if you know nothing about them and have the hard time understanding what I wrote above, please feel free to ask by replying this article at your email or by dropping your comment at our comment section.

However, the process of moving the blog from the old domain to the new domain is not yet done. We still need to redirect all the traffic coming into the blog through the old domain to the news domain. To do that, just follow the steps I presented on the article, “Redirect all pages of the Old Domain to the New Domain“. This process also makes sure that the Search Engines are informed that your blog is already moved from that old domain to the new one. So the SERP ranking, and links weight of every pages of your blog will be carried even if the blog is already using the new domain.

I hope this article answers your query. Thank you so much.

The hacker left a message at my Photo Gallery blog which goes: “Hey All , i was hacked your site because i like ^_^” and the title of the message is: “This Site Was Hacked By Only.”

I have no knowledge about this hacking style, whether it is a SQL injection done by a bot or any other method in hacking the Wordpress system installed on that Photo Gallery blog.

The Wordpress version installed as of the time the site was hacked is version 2.6 which was released last July 15, 2008. The plugins that installed are: “Add Meta Tags”, “Akistmet” and “Optimal Title”. The theme used is the default Wordpress theme. The password of the admin user that was hacked is complicated one that contains special characters.

I really don’t have ideas how the hacker got the admin access of that blog. If you have ideas, please post them at our comment section.

Currently, I am installing the latest Wordpress version 2.6.1.

Some of you maybe be noticed that on my Pinay and Sex related posts, Adsense ads are not displayed, even the free ads from Adsense. You might wonder if it is Google Adsense own feature but it’s not. Actually, it’s the work of the Wordpress plugin that I personally created which I called “No Adsense on Banned Pages”.

Consider examining my Pinay Scandal post.

Adsense ads is supposed to be displayed in between the Post-Title and the Post-Content according to the design of the Wordpress theme that this blog is using. However, the said Wordpress plugin disabled the displaying of the Adsense ads on that post.

Actually, there are few reasons on why I created a Wordpress plugin that functions like that. The following reasons are:

• To increase the Adsense CTR. I’m not really sure if the free ads displayed on pages with banned contents generate Adsense impression. I am still studying it. But if it really generates impression for Adsense then disabling the display of Adsense ads on banned pages will surely decrease the Adsense impressions while increasing its CTR.
• To make use of the users clicks on Adsense ads. Based on my observation (using the data collected by the MyBlogLog, there are many adsense clicks generated on the pages where only the free ads from adsense are being displayed. I’m sure that this clicks are not counted as valid clicks since the ads displayed or the ads that are being clicked are just free and no one is paying for them. Now, with the use of this plugin, there will be no free ads that will be displayed that might received clicks from our visitors. So, the attention of our visitors will now be diverted to our blog’s own links or to other paid ads.
• To minimize the annoyance resulted by the free ads from Adsense. Well. I know that the way the adsense ads displayed on this blog are annoying. However, it is more annoying in my part to see free adsense ads or a blank space on the portion where adsense ads should be displayed. At least with this Wordpress plugin that I created I make sure that no free adsense ads are being displayed on some pages of this blog.

The Wordpress Plugin’s Design

Actually, I was planning to create a Wordpress plugin that automatically search the content of the current post for keywords that would trigger the Adsense system to display free ads. Some called this kind of keywords as “Adsense Banned Terms”. However, I am no programmer. I might have little knowledge on PhP programming for the Wordpress script but it’s not enough to create a plugin based on the mentioned design.

So, I decided to write a Wordpress plugin that do the following functions:

• During the activation of this Wordpress plugin, “POST” table will be added by a column named “Adsense_Status”. This column has a default value of “0″.
• On the Write or Edit option of the Wordpress Admin CP, a form was added that let the admin enter a number “0″ or “1″. When the SAVE or PUBLISH button is clicked, the value of the column “Adsense_Status” of that particular post will be set to the entered value. “0″ means the post doesn’t contain adsense banned terms. “1″ means the post contains adsense banned terms.
• This plugin contains functions that will be called at the Wordpress Theme which will decide whether the Adsense ads will be displayed or not. If the it finds that the value of the column “Adsense_Status” is “0″ (zero) then Adsense Ads will be displayed. Other wise, the Adsense ads will not be displayed.

Wordpress Plugin, Not Released

Currently, I decided not to release this Wordpress Plugin for public use. I am not ready yet to make it available to those who wants to use it. However, if you have knowledge on PHP programming for Wordpress, then you can write your own plugin by making use of the functions and features I mentioned above.

I upgraded the Wordpress engine of this blog last Tuedsday (April 1, 2008) to the latest version of the Wordpress which is version 2.5.  This version is really better than the old ones in terms of features. But I don’t like the design. The previous design is really better compared to this in terms of orderliness and cleanliness.

How the upgrade procedure?

Well, the latest upgrade that I did is the worst one. I spent 3 hours in upgrading it. But the problem is not on the Wordpress compressed files, not my host’s servers, but of my laziness and carelessness.

Of course, I read the upgrade instructions, and other information and guides when installing or upgrading Wordpress software. The only problem is I am very much confident that the process that I knew is much faster than what has been instructed.

Update:

The problem is fixed already. Thank’s a lot for your help. And as proof that it’s fixed already, I uploaded this image:

Original Post:

You know, I am a little bit disappointed with my webhosting-reseller account. My problems in commenting at my wordpress blogs were already fixed but new problems are now disturbing my blogging and SEO activity.

You see, I failed to post blog-articles according to the schedule I set before because of these problems. I am just so lucky that even if I failed to do some of my main activities for my blogs, my blogs are still earning money for me. I need to thank God for that blessings.

So now, I am still busy troubleshooting all the accounts in my webhosting-reseller program. They all experience the same problem. They all can’t upload images using the Wordpress Upload Function.

Few of the steps I did are:

1. Change the Folder Permission
   This problem started when the webhost fixed the CPanel settings on changing File Permission. The problem was fixed, but I noticed that some of the files that have set to 666 File Permission settings were changed to 644. So, I suspected that the Permission setting of the folder for the images uploaded using the Wordpress Upload function was changed. I tried changing it to 666 or 777 Permission settings. However, the upload process still failed.
2. Check the Wordpress Miscellaneous Option settings
   This is actually the setting for the Wordpress Upload Function. The setting was not actually changed. It’s the settings the affected Wordpress blogs used prior to the existence of this problem. So, I assume that this is not the real problem. Besides, the folder’s name on the setting exists on the server.
3. Check the WHM settings for the affected sites
   Just like what I said, my webhosting account is a reseller one. So, I have my own WHM panel. I checked the settings for the accounts under my reseller especially the disk space and the disk usage of each of the account. But found no problem.

Currently, I am already on my limit. The error message actually says:

File is empty. Please upload something more substantial. This error could also be caused by uploads being disabled in your php.ini.

If you have knowledge about it, please tell me what to do. At least give me some hint on what to check and what to do.

For several weeks already, almost all my time are spent searching for the information that might help me fix problems on my blogs. Just like what I told you last January 2008, this blog failed to redirect commentators to the right post where they commented (Check my posts: Wordpress Redirect Function Problem, Commenting Problem, Not Yet Fixed, Wordpress Redirect After Commenting, Failed and Wordpress Problem at this Blog). This problem is until now not yet fixed.

And then after the upgrade of my host of their server, my Songs Lyrics blog experienced this problem too. But not only that, the redirection function of the Wordpress is not functioning in the Admin section.

I already tried several ways as suggested by other users who experienced the same but didn’t work on my blogs.

These problems really affected myblogging and SEO activities.

Read also: How to redirect from old domain to the new domain?

I already talked about this problem before at my posts: Commenting Problem, Not Yet Fixed, Wordpress Problem at this Blog and Wordpress Redirect After Commenting, Failed. And I just want to share you what I am thinking about the causes of this problem.

Last week, Pinoy Blogero tried to help me correct the problem. He asked me a lot of things that might help him identify the real cause.  But after several minutes, he finally gave up.

It’s not only Pinoy Blogero who tried to help me find the cause of the problem of this blog. There are three more, and all of them gave up after checking my blog. Why? Well, maybe because the problem is not on the Wordpress system not even on the theme and plugins I am using but on the conflict between the Wordpress functions and the server’s settings.

To let you know, my Songs Lyrics blog has no problem on commenting. Commentators can easily post their comments and they are redirected immediately to the right page. Well, it’s true prior to February 21, 2008.

What happened on February 21, 2008?

February 21, 2008 is the day when the Nurse Licensure Examination result was released. My main blog, “Learn Lessons with SELaplana” receive huge traffic. And since, it almost crushed the server, the webhost personnel transferred my account into their newest server. Of course the webhost personnels don’t know what really is the cause why my hosting account ate up too much server’s resources. They thought that I installed a buggy plugins into my blog and then messed up.

So, this blog and my Songs Lyrics blog were suspended for several hours as they transferred my files to other server. My Songs Lyrics blog is of course affected because it was part of the selaplana.com account.

When these two blogs went online, I immediately tested if the commenting feature of the blogs are affected. And yes… I found out that my Songs Lyrics blog is now experiencing similar problem with my “Learn Lessons with SELaplana” blog.

What does it mean?

It only means that the real problem is not on the codes of the Wordpress software, not even on the themes and the plugins that the blogs use, but on the settings of the server. I can’t really tell what settings is it because I am not familiar with the server’s settings. But one thing I can sure of is that there’s a setting on the server that stops the Wordpress Redirect Function to perform its task. Remember that redirecting users to the right page is the task of the Wordpress Redirect Function. I just don’t know if personnel of my webhost can help me solve this problem especially if they’re not familiar with the codes of the Wordpress software.

I’m sorry to tell you that this blog has problem in redirecting you to the right page after posting your comments.  Thank you so much for emailing me your concern regarding our blog. Actually, once you clicked the submit button after writing your comment, then your comment has been posted already. It just happened that the redirection function of the Wordpress system failed to bring you back on the page where you commented.

Actually, the page you saw after you posted your comment is the Error Page. I customized it to look like our homepage, so that even if you encountered error while visiting this page, you’ll still see the content of our blog instead of the error message.

I am still looking for the real cause of this error. I also mentioned it already on my post “Wordpress Problem at this Blog.”