How to correct error in customized posttype WP site
-
Hi folks
Can anybody help me. I foolishly, dogedly followed a Lynda.com tutorial for developing an 'online portfolio in WP'. Little did I know that my initial assumption - to use the 'twenty twelve' rather than the 'twenty eleven' theme would land me in such deep water.
I was attempting to learn php on my own. All went well, until, --- the index page for the customized post type.
Now I have two beautiful customized posttypes, 'companies' 'coverage' and no idea how to create an index page for either. I can't do the next step! I have tried every permutation - changing the permalink settings, changing them back, desperately searching for any handle to the nebulous links within the menu section. The only thing I can do (and have done for now) is to link the menu item 'company' and the menu item 'coverage' to a single post. Then the poor visitor has to scroll through the posts individually.
I tried contacting the tutor and Lynda.com, to no avail! I have searched forums and found this is a common problem, but because I am so confused and novice to php they might as well be speaking Chinese.
To compound my problems, looking through 'Wordpress SEO' for Yoast, I am painfully aware I can't go to the first basic step and fix the peramilinks to 'Postname' as that just makes my flakey menu collapse like a pack of cards.
Help!
-
Thank you Dan:)
I'll do as you advise.
-
I forgot to mention WordPress has a really good forum where there may be someone who can help you more directly http://wordpress.org/support/
-
Hi Catherine!
At this stage I think your best bet is to reach out to someone who can assist you directly, as it's a little tricky to work out the troubleshooting in the Q&A. You could contact Geoff (from Distilled) who is the person who developed the plugin http://geoffkenyon.com/ or I'm not sure if you know of any developers who could help with the technical stuff? Moz has a really good list of recommended companies as well! http://moz.com/community/recommended
-Dan
-
Well - at the moment I just have list of the of titles under the page title and txt (see attached url) - what I'd like to do is make it more like http://sugarrae.com/reviews/ - with image and some of the post's text. I've no idea how to go about achieving this.
I do know to get the plugin to work I had to set 'the page template for category pages' to 'Front Page'.
Sorry if I'm being dim!
Thanks for replying
Catherine
-
Catherine
When you say customize, what sort of things would you like to do with it?
-Dan
-
Hello Dan
I have finally managed to get near to the examply you posted. I've failed totally to find any help documentation however and so for my test site 'www.seoherts.co.uk' I've got a test customized category page minus anything other than the titles.
Could you be even kinder and direct me to some help for customizing the plugin? You help has really been amazing, you actually helped me back out of a corner. Now I'm nearly home an dry.
Thanks Dan
-
Let us know how it goes!
-
Ahh, it took me two weeks, but you could be right....
I probably would have been better off talking to you before I started!
That's what comes of teaching yourself. I'll give it a try tomorrow. Will let you know - and thanks again Dan!
I will have to give up the Recent 'Coverage' Recent 'Companies' list in the footer (which I was rather proud of!)
Catherine
-
Hi Catherine
Really sorry to hear there's still trouble with it I see what you mean, the custom posttypes have their own categories apart from the normal blog categories? Can you scrap the custom posttypes and create the categories as normal?
-Dan
-
Hello Dan
I did as you suggested and got the options for categories of my 'blog'. The problem is that I've got these posttypes with their own categories. I'm probably asking too much of the plugin - but it doesn't give me the option to set up a page template with these as it doesn't recognise they exist. I seem to have lost them deep down in WP...
-
Hi Catherine
Thanks for the additional details and site name (being able to see the site helps). Unfortunately as a Moz Associate we are not able to accept account information - but I think I can help you anyway with what you provided.
Is all you are trying to do is have a "customized category archive"? For example, "Coverage" is a category with blog posts in it, and you want to customize that page so it's unique and has additional info?
For example, this page is a category, but it is customized and you see the list of posts below: http://sugarrae.com/reviews/
If so, all you need is this fairly new plugin WordPress Custom Categories. I think that may get you what you need without any custom coding etc. Let us know!
-Dan
-
Thank you David
I will try again, but I have told them three times over the course of three months. I was told to first contact the tutor, which I did. I got no response! I contacted them again two more times and got no response at all!
-
Hello Dan
Would it be ok for me to send you the login details? I'm finding it hard to explain because as I was lead by the nose by the tutorial I was a little lost in the woods in the process.
What I was aimming to achieve was to create two additional dynamic content pages i.e. 'companies' and 'coverage'. My client and old friend is successfully getting new businesses and national coverage for them on a daily basis! The 'online portfolio tutorial' on lynda.com appeared to meet the need.
In the tutorial (using twenty eleven) the tutor takes you through setting up two different posttypes, 'recipes' and 'one other, I've forgotten now'. I basically followed doggedly setting up these two seperate posttypes and ended up with 'companies' and 'coverage' which actually do work.
The problem came when I tried to display these as a list - as you do with a blog page. In the tutorial you simply had to change the default permalinks, then somehow magically the option to select the url for this illusive list appeared in the Menu option. This doesn't happen when you follow the same set of operations in twenty twelve, and I know it is to do with a change in function somehwere in the php. As I don't really understand php to this level I ended up with a terrible fudge as you will see at www.maxwellcomms.com.
If it is appropriate and if you are able to help would you like me to send you login details? I will totally understand if you think it's too big and ask.
I have tried hard to get help from Lynda.com but they only insisted I contact the tutor, he didn't respond! Ahh....
-
Catherine
Hi! I'd like to offer some suggestions, but second the request for a little more info or screenshots etc? By index page, do you mean an archive page listing all of the posts in each category?
Thanks!
-Dan
-
I'm not sure what you mean by "index page." Do you mean a static front page like the index.html page in a regular website? If so, that is set using the Settings==> Reading Panel. However, you can only use one static front page. You may be able to customize the content of the index page by using PHP to call different content in response to a given condition.
Also, I am a Lynda user. The best thing to do is contact Lynda directly. They are good about responding. It sounds like the issue is that the tutorial is outdated, which is usually something that they want to know about.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Does adding new pages, new slugs, new URLS in a site affects rankings and visibility?
hi reader, i have decided to add new pages to my site. if i add new urls, i feel like i have to submit the sitemap again. my question is, does submitting sitemap again with new slugs or urls affects visibility is serps, if yes, how do i minimize the impact?
Web Design | | SIMON-CULL0 -
Can I safely asume that links between subsites on a subdirectories based multisite will be treated as internal links within a single site by Google?
I am building a multisite network based in subdirectories (of the mainsite.com/site1 kind) where the main site is like a company site, and subsites are focused on brands or projects of that company. There will be links back and forth from the main site and the subsites, as if subsites were just categories or pages within the main site (they are hosted in subfolders of the main domain, after all). Now, Google's John Mueller has said: <<as far="" as="" their="" url="" structure="" is concerned,="" subdirectories="" are="" no="" different="" from="" pages="" and="" subpages="" on="" your="" main="" site.="" google="" will="" do="" its="" best="" to="" identify="" where="" sites="" separate="" using="" but="" the="" is="" same="" for="" a="" single="" site,="" you="" should="" assume="" that="" seo="" purposes,="" network="" be="" treated="" one="">></as> This sounds fine to me, except for the part "Google will do its best to identify where sites are separate", because then, if Google establishes that my multisite structure is actually a collection of different sites, links between subsites and mainsite would be considered backlinks between my own sites, which could be therefore considered a link wheel, that is, a kind of linking structure Google doesn't like. How can I make sure that Google understand my multisite as a unique site? P.S. - The reason I chose this multisite structure, instead of hosting brands in categories of the main site, is that if I use the subdirectories based multisite feature I will be able to map a TLD domain to any of my brands (subsites) whenever I'd choose to give that brand a more distinct profile, as if it really was a different website.
Web Design | | PabloCulebras0 -
Tools for understanding customer behaviour
Hi Can anyone recommend any tools for understanding how people interact with a page? We use events in analytics and have previously used hot jar. I didn't know if there were any new ones? Thanks!
Web Design | | BeckyKey2 -
Site is getting crushed by spam traffic and Google Webmaster Tools giving crawl warnings. Also...
Currently hosting a site I'm planning on moving to a new server ASAP, 301 redirecting and have a domain that has nice authority and very old. On the current site I need to clean up the blog. I have a few questions actually.... 1. I'd like to remove most of the blog articles as I want the new site to be very high quality, but isn't it dangerous to do a 301 redirect to the same page for all these articles? 2. I want to focus on the new site as the current site has too many issues but still managing to hang in their. is highly outdated yet I don't want to spend a ton of time on the site before the 301 redirect. With the Pigeon and Panda 4.0 rumors being released soon, I want to get the new site completed ASAP. Do you think it's better if I fix the 3. Would removing cloudflare make things better or worse with the crashing of my site due to high traffic (mainly spam on the blog.) 4. My best article by far is outdated, but should I waste time updating it before redirecting or should I just get the new site going? I did way too many guest posts thinking content is king, but at least checked the outgoing links Domain Auth, Page Auth, and MozTrust in OSE, but first off I'm going to remove a page that mentions I'm looking for guest bloggers. I tried to keep the posts relevant but at the time you could get away with 5. Anything I can do to slow down these spammers on Wordpress? I noticed most of them are checking for vulnerabilities but I'm keeping it up to date, have caching setup. Thanks!
Web Design | | eugenecomputergeeks0 -
Old site to new WordPress site - Client concerned about Yahoo Ranking
Hello, Back Story I have a client (law firm) who has a large .html website. He has been doing his own SEO for years and it shows. I think the only reason he reached out to a professional is because he got a huge penalty from Google last fall and fell very far down in rankings. Although, he still retains a #1 spot in Yahoo for his site for the keyword phrase he wants. I have been creating a new WordPress theme for the client and creating all new pages and updating the formatting/SEO. From the beginning I have told the client that when we delete the old site and install a new WordPress site (same domain name, but different page hierarchy) he will take a bump in the search engines until all the 301 redirects get sorted out. I told him I can't guarantee any time frame of how long the dip in SEO will last. Some sites bounce right back while others take longer. Last week, during a discussion, he tells me that if he loses his #1 ranking on Yahoo for any length of time he thinks he will go out of business. Needless to say I was a little taken back. When it comes to SEO I use best practice techniques, do my research, stay on top of trends but I never guarantee rankings when moving to a new site. I'm thinking of ways I can help elevate any type of huge SEO drop off and help the client. Here is what I was thinking of suggesting to the client and I would love some feedback. Main Question He has another domain he isn't doing anything with. It's pretty much his domain name with pc added. I was thinking about using that domain to create a simple 1-2 page WordPress website with brand new content (no duplicate content) aimed at attracting his keyword phrase. I would do as much SEO as I could with a 1-2 page site and give it a month or so to see if this smaller site can get into the top #10 in Yahoo, or higher. Then, when we move the site he will still have a website on the first page of Yahoo for his keyword phrase. I hope I explained it clearly 🙂 I would be open to any suggestions anyone may have. Thanks
Web Design | | Bill_K0 -
Pulling old site-map and URL structure of a site
Hey guys how do I pull an old sitemap or URL structure of a site ! This company I am helping out . Build a new site without any 301 redirect ! It's been about 2 months and hosting company sent me. SQL database file said we basically need to build another site ! Wondering if there are any other ways to see what exact urls were existent before their change over
Web Design | | BizDetox0 -
Visits to Site and Serps?
Do google and bing factor in how many people visit your site per month to determine your serps rankings? If so, does it matter if they visit your site by searching a keyword phrase or by typing in the name in the search bar? My instinct tells me that if the search engine sees 1000 hits per month for a site by keyword phrase and that is high for the industry then they might rank that site higher in the serps. I was wondering if the same would be true if the site is designed and coded properly for a keyword phrase but receives the same 1000 hits per month from visitors typing in the sites name in the search field rather than the search phrase, would that then translate to higher rankings for the keyword phrase? Thanks for your help.
Web Design | | bronxpad0 -
Hey, So I know wordpress is built with a user capability, but what about databasing custom user data?
Hi everyone, so I am working on a project with a friend of mine, without getting into too much detail, here's the problem. We need users to sign in, then for instance, click a button, and then have that action record a value of 1 in a database on our server (preferably accessible through the wordpress admin interface, and in .csv format so that we can make it easy to work with) Any help with databasing, or if wordpress is already built with SOME database technology, etc, etc For instance, SEOmoz's "mozpoint" system.. Wordpress comes built with the ability for users to log in and have profiles with special access, etc, but does it have the ability to log points and values to a specific user as well? Where should I look? What should I google to figure out options? Who could I call / hire?
Web Design | | TylerAbernethy0