Permalink Issues on the previous IIS Windows based host
If you visited Inspirit Blog in the last few days you probably might have encountered a HTTP 404 – Page Not Found or even a Error Establishing Database Connection page! Before Inspirit Blog went down, I had somehow managed to set up pretty permalink structure even as I was on an IIS based server over the default (SEO-unfriendly) ugly permalinks which look like http://www.inspiritblog.com/?p=134. But then I found myself in another trouble, which usually happens when you go off-the-track! I was cool with having the SEO friendly pretty URLs set up on my blog, but in my previous posts (and on other blogs that linked to posts on Inspirit Blog) the links were directed to the older permalink structure AND those links didn’t redirect to pretty permalinks like they should do.
301 redirects that never worked fine
So, I decided to use 301 redirects on my blog to redirect the old ugly permalinks to the new pretty permalinks. I tried many available wordpress plugins like Yoast’s Permalink Redirect, Deans Permalinks Migration, FUcoder’s Permalinks Redirect and Advanced Permalinks to serve the purpose but nothing seemed to work. The level best that I could achieve was with Scott Yang’s permalink redirect plugin which reloaded a page with new permalink after it had already loaded with old permalinks. This meant that a page was loaded twice for a one time access! And besides this, what really sucked was that my homepage started reloading infinitely in loops. While I left this up while working on finding a solution, for some days – I didn’t realize how much bandwidth Inspirit Blog was eating up like a monster!
I realized this only when I talked to my friend Leo about it when I found Inspirit Blog not opening up once, and other time when I saw a database error. Leo had been so generous to me (And I am really thankful to him for that), he had provided me webhosting on his host for so long! and this silly plugin ate so much bandwidth that it might have costed him some extra bucks!
Decided to move to a Linux based host
Well, I was already giving up on editing that plugin and nothing else seemed to work. Also, I had earned some money from this blog that I could use to buy some webhosting for myself. This was the time when I made up my mind that I’d finally move to a Linux based web host and free myself from all these issues! Plus, if I got my own hosting and space, I’d also start some new projects that I have in mind. More control with cPanel, fantastico support, webmail, mod_rewrite support, etc. I just so wanted it all!
Error Setting Up Inspirit Blog on Sameer’s Host
I talked about my plan to switch host with my friends Sameer and Mohit and wow, these amazing people were so ready to support me on their own respective hosts when I was thinking to BUY webhosting for myself! In fact, I really liked a plan at NetFirms and decided to go for it, but they don’t accept Paypal and I don’t have a credit card. So, the netfirms idea was dropped and I couldn’t afford the hosting packages at other sites…
Sameer helped me move the Inspirit Blog files and database to his host and I pointed the domain to his host. I updated Leo, that I had moved to a linux based host and that I had changed the DNS and I’d be fine if he removed the database and files from his host. I had all in the backup. But for some unknown reasons, things didn’t work out. Probably that was an error in my database that Inspirit Blog redirected to the root of the directory in which Inspirit Blog was installed, instead of opening my blog from its own directory!
Finally on linux based hosting with HostGator – Thanks Mohit!
Then, Mohit helped me set up Inspirit Blog on Hostgator. We put the database and the files where they should be. Then Mohit created an add-on domain for Inspirit Blog and I pointed the DNS to Mohit’s host and erased the ones pointing to Sameer’s host. I knew it would take a couple of hours for the DNS update to take place and in the meanwhile I reviewed my database in order to manually remove some clutter that I didn’t want and thought, might be causing the problems.
That is when I spotted a problem in siteurl and home field under the wp_options table. Even after the DNS update had taken place, opening InspiritBlog.com still redirected to the root of the directory in which Inspirit Blog was installed at Sameer’s host, instead of opening my blog from the installation on hostgator. I cleared and updated the set parameters in siteurl and home under the wp_options table in the database, and lo! God smiled on me.
A Better “Inspirit Blog“
Everything is now back to normal. In the last 4 or 5 days that Inspirit Blog has been up again on its new host, I have optimized the blog’s theme, removed some plugins that I don’t use and installed some new ones. I have also made some changes to the navigation bar. Its better organized now and more comprehensive. Another major change is integration of Google Custom Search into the blog. I have replaced the default WordPress search with a Custom Search Engine powered by Google. How I did it without using any extra pages, posts or plugins is interesting and useful as well, and I will cover that in a dedicated post soon.
I am now going to catch up the free blog reviews thing soon. I am planning to set up a sub-domain here that will be dedicated to free blog reviews. Thus, I’ll clear the main site off all the reviews and keep them in one place at the sub-domain. I believe it would be nicer, that way. Anyway until further update, dig through my previous posts. I hope you find them helpful. Enjoy your stay here.