If you’d like to do this, first ask yourself if you feel comfortable editing the code in your theme files, and if you feel comfortable using FTP to upload the edits to your web server. Remember to use a plain-text editor to make all of your edits, not a word processing program like MS Word. If you can do those things without hesitation, you’ve made it over the first hurdle.

The next thing you have to do is decide whether you are going to make the domain name point to your WordPress folder or if you are going to copy the site files from your WordPress folder to the folder that the domain name points to.

• If the domain name is changing, you can often point the new domain name to the WordPress folder when you add it in your hosting control panel, and not have to copy or move any files at all.
• If the domain name is not changing but the path to the site is (e.g. moving WordPress to the root folder), and/or you don’t know how to point your domain to a specific folder at the hosting level, you can simply copy all of your WordPress site files via FTP to the folder that the domain name points to.

Two things to do before you upload your site files

Check the .htaccess file in the WordPress folder: WordPress usually writes entries to a .htaccess file in the main WordPress folder. If you are moving the site from a sub-folder to the root or vice-versa, you will have to edit this file. If your site is in a sub-folder called /blog, the .htaccess file in your WordPress folder will contain these lines:

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

If your site is going to be in the root folder, the references to the sub-folder need to be removed, making it look like this:

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

Add two lines of code to the functions.php file of the Default theme: As shown in the WordPress Codex article Changing The Site URL, you can add these two lines of code to the top of your functions.php file to tell the database the new site URL:

define('WP_HOME','http://example.com');
define('WP_SITEURL','http://example.com');

Replace example.com with your actual domain name and any sub-folder name that points to your site. The only reason I suggest doing this to the functions.php of the Default theme is so that you don’t have to mess with your active theme’s files. If you prefer to edit the functions.php of your active theme, that will work too. It is advisable to make backups of your functions.php file and your WordPress database at this time.

If you have chosen to edit the functions.php of the Default theme and that is not your active theme, go to your site’s admin at the old URL and activate the Default theme. If you edited the functions.php of your active theme, you can skip this step.

Now that you’ve done your edits, you can upload all of the necessary files to the proper folder. If the folder is not changing, you only need to upload the new functions.php, and possibly the new .htaccess file. If you are changing the folder, upload the entire site to the new folder.

Now simply go to your site at the new URL. It should work. Assuming it works fine, you can upload the backup version of the functions.php (i.e. one that has not been edited). It is important to remove those extra lines of code. Your site is now ready to go.

Additional considerations:

• If you are using a plugin that references a file in your folder structure such as the Google XML Sitemap Generator or a database backup utility, you may need to change the path in the plugin’s settings to the new path.
• You may also need to change the path to your uploads folder in Settings > Miscellaneous
• You may want to use the Broken Link Checker plugin to make sure that you don’t have any broken internal links or redirects in your site caused by the URL change.
• If you feel brave and have a lot of internal links that need to be changed, you can use the Search and Replace plugin to change them all simultaneously.
• If you have moved your WordPress site to a new folder on the server, remember to delete the old files.
• If you have changed your domain name remember to put in a .htaccess 301 redirect from the old location to the new one.
• It is advisable to put a robots.txt file in your root folder so that search engines will crawl and re-index the site. Google may reject your sitemap if you don’t have a robots.txt file giving them access to crawl the site.

If this seems too difficult for you, you may be interested in my article on Accessing Your WordPress Site From The Root Folder, which explains how a simple .htaccess redirect file can point requests from your root URL to your WordPress folder.

Have fun!

This article copyright © John Nasta 2010 – All Rights Reserved

Related posts:

1. Accessing Your WordPress Site From The Root Folder Update June 06, 2010 – This is an old post and I actually never do...
2. Excluding Your Web Site From Search Engines People often write about how to increase your search engine ranking by using noindex and...
3. WordPress Theme Review – Alternate0 Basically, unless you are a very good coder, you should forget that you ever heard...

I see a lot of people asking how to make their WordPress site accessible from the root directory folder. In most standard installations, WordPress is installed in a sub-folder and the only way to access the site is to add that sub-folder name to the site’s URL.

If you read the wordpress.org support forum you’ll find posts suggesting that you move the WordPress index.php file to the root folder and change a few things in that file. You’ll also see replies from people who have tried it unsuccessfully.

Here’s a little trick that will allow you to access your WordPress site from the root URL without moving or modifying any of the WordPress installation files. This method will “hide” the WordPress installation’s folder name when people access your home page but they will see the folder name in URLs when they start clicking around…

Check your root folder for a file called .htaccess (note that the dot is before the file name). If there is one, download it. If not, create one with a plain text editor such as Windows Notepad. Make sure that when you save it, the file type is set to “All Files” so that your editor doesn’t try to add an extension onto the file name.

Make sure that these lines are included in your .htaccess file. For this example the root URL is shown as domain.ext and the WordPress folder is shown as wpfolder. You will have to change these values to match your own domain name, extension, and WordPress folder name:

RewriteEngine On
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} domain.ext$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !wpfolder/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ wpfolder/$1


Upload this file to the root directory of your web server as a plain text file. You’re done!

Now go to Google Webmaster Tools and let them know the “preferred URL” of your home page so you don’t get penalized for duplicate content.

This article copyright © John Nasta 2009 – All Rights Reserved

Related posts:

1. Changing The URL Of Your WordPress Site WordPress web site owners often come to realize that they want to change the URL...
2. Excluding Your Web Site From Search Engines People often write about how to increase your search engine ranking by using noindex and...
3. WordPress – Getting started without getting startled WordPress is an amazingly effective tool for allowing users to generate a cohesive, feature-rich web...

Domain Name

• By installing WordPress on your own server, you can drive traffic to your own domain and increase your web site’s overall search engine ranking.
• On wordpress.com you can buy a domain name for $15 per year or map to an existing domain name for $10 per year. If you don’t have a domain of your own and don’t wish to purchase one, you can have a subdomain on wordpress.com (e.g. http://yoursitename.wordpress.com) for free.

Installation & Setup

• Setting up on wordpress.com is as simple as providing a valid email address and filling out an online form. Just about anyone can do it.
• Installing WordPress on your own server can also be very simple. Many web hosts provide an automatic installer, which again only requires completing an online form. I like Lunarpages because for only $4.95 per month you can get unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, and an unlimited number of subdomains, add-on domains, POP email addresses, and databases. They also have an automatic installer that allows you to set up multiple instances of WordPress whether on one domain or different domains.

Disk space

• You get 3GB of disk space for free on wordpress.com. You can add 5 GB for $20/year, 15 GB for $50/year, or 25 GB for $90/year.
• On your own domain, you potentially have unlimited disk space. With Lunarpages, unlimited disk space costs $4.95/month, $59.40 per year, or $118.80 for 26 months (approximately $4.57/month).

Advertising

• When you install WordPress on your own server, you can host ads and generate income from your site.
• When your site is on wordpress.com, WordPress places ads on your site (they only show to visitors who are not logged in). If you don’t want the ads on your site, that will cost you $30 per year.

Users

• When your site is on wordpress.com, you are limited to 30 users. If you want to remove the limit, it will cost you $30 per year.
• When you install WordPress on your own server, you can have an unlimited number of users.

Privacy Settings

• On wordpress.com, privacy settings allow you to make your site public, hide your site from search engines, or make your site only accessible by logging in.
• When you install WordPress on your own server, you can make your site public or hide your site from search engines, but making it only accessible by login requires a plugin.

Themes

• On wordpress.com, you can choose from over 60 themes, and you can customize the CSS.
• When WordPress is installed on your own server, you can choose from literally thousands of free themes, purchase premium themes, or design your own themes. You can also modify the CSS as well as the theme scripts, which allows you to modify a stock theme to make it look completely original. Checkout the WordPress Themes Directory. You can also search Google or other search engines for Free WordPress Themes.

Widgets & Plugins

• On wordpress.com you can choose from about 25 widgets. WordPress adds widgets to the list by popular demand. You can’t install plugins.
• When you host your own WordPress site you can choose from thousands of free plugins that add functionality to your blog including email subscription managers, shopping cart, database tools, social bookmarking, photo galleries, event calendars, the list goes on and on. Many of these plugins include widgets that allow you to display additional information in the sidebar along with the standard WordPress widgets. Check out the WordPress Plugins Directory. You can also write your own plugins and widgets, or have custom plugins and widgets developed for you.

Upgrades

• On wordpress.com upgrades are done automatically. You don’t even have to think about it.
• On your own installation you simply click a link to upgrade WordPress or your plugins. Since version 2.7 there is no need to upgrade manually or install an automatic upgrade plugin. Automatic upgrading is built in.

Now that you know many of the differences, what do installing WordPress on your own server and hosting your site on wordpress.com have in common?

• Create web pages, blog posts, or both
• Pages and posts can be public or private (require user privileges)
• Subscribe via RSS
• On-site search engine
• Allow users to add comments
• Upload and insert media
• Add links to your favorite sites
• Your site can be public or private (hidden from search engines)
• Same great support forums
• Akismet spam filtering (optional on your own installation)
• Import content from other blogs
• Export content from your blog to another blog
• Multiple user levels (visitor, subscriber, contributor, author, admin)
• Delete your site at any time

Still can’t decide? Then start a site on wordpress.com, get your feet wet, and see if you want to dive in. It’s totally free to begin and you don’t have to register a domain name or find a hosting company. You can always export your content into a WordPress installation on your own server if you decide to do that at a later time. Conversely, if you find that hosting your own installation hasn’t worked out for you, you can always migrate it to wordpress.com.

This article copyright © John Nasta 2009 – All Rights Reserved

Related posts:

1. Changing The URL Of Your WordPress Site WordPress web site owners often come to realize that they want to change the URL...
2. WordPress – Getting started without getting startled WordPress is an amazingly effective tool for allowing users to generate a cohesive, feature-rich web...
3. Accessing Your WordPress Site From The Root Folder Update June 06, 2010 – This is an old post and I actually never do...

Having said that, the manual installation procedure does require that you know how to upload files to your server, how to create a MySQL database using MyPhpAdmin, how to set the variables in the wp-config.php file, and in some cases how to set file and folder permissions on your server.

If you don’t feel up to what I’ve just described, you still have options. If you already have a web hosting company, check your control panel to see if they have an automatic installer for WordPress. I personally recommend Lunarpages. They use a program called Fantastico, which allows you to install a long list of scripts simply by filling in a few variables (i.e. the folder name for the installation and other simple information).

Your third line of defense is to create your blog on the wordpress.com web site. The advantage here is that it’s the quickest and easiest way to get your blog going. You don’t even need a domain name or a host. The bad news is that if you do have a domain name and you don’t have your blog hosted on that domain name, you’re not contributing to your search engine ranking for that domain. Blogs are a great way to generate content, and having more content does help your search engine ranking.

Watch this site for more info for WordPress bloggers!

This article copyright © John Nasta 2009 – All Rights Reserved

Related posts:

1. Accessing Your WordPress Site From The Root Folder Update June 06, 2010 – This is an old post and I actually never do...
2. WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org Finally, a post about Wordpress for people who have never used it. Are you "wp-curious"?...
3. Changing The URL Of Your WordPress Site WordPress web site owners often come to realize that they want to change the URL...