Some things in WordPress just slip past the experts-and having “blog archive” show up in our page titles was a bit embarrassing. See, it’s not an archive- it’s a post that has value (just because you use WordPress as your Content Management System, doesn’t make the site a blog).
We are showing up as number 1 in Google less than 24 hours after making a post about Firefox 3’s spellchecker not working in WordPress as you type, and the words “blog archive” were showing up in our titles. So- to remove the “blog archive” I did what I recommend to all my students- I googled for answers:
eHowToGuru How to remove “Blog Archive” from your WordPress post title
The Title section in Header.php contains the codes which displays your WordPress title. This is important because search engine listings will display your post title followed by a description of your post. I began to notice that all of my listings had the words Blog Archive in them which was unnecessary and caused part of the titles displayed to be cut off.To remove the words Blog Archive, do this:
1. Log into your self hosted WordPress blog and click Presentation
2. Click on Theme Editor
3. On the right handside of your browser window, select Header from the list of theme files
4. Look for this line of code just a few lines from the top.<title><?php bloginfo”name”); ?> <?php if ( is_single() ) { ?> » Blog Archive <?php } ?> <?php wp_title(); ?></title>
5. Remove this section
<?php if ( is_single() ) { ?> » Blog Archive <?php } ?>The remaining portion should look like this:
<title><?php bloginfo”name”); ?> <?php wp_title(); ?></title>
6. Click Update File to save the file.
To tell if you were successful, save a post. Then either look at the top of your browser window once you’ve isolated the post (clicked on it’s headline to only have it showing as a single post)- or try to bookmark it. The new page title should show up without >>blog archive>>
Note- this won’t change your search results or break incoming links- since those are to the URL, not to the title. It’ll just shorten your page titles and get right to the meat of your content.
If there is one thing that seems overly complex to new WP users it’s FTP. I’m not quite sure why, maybe it’s the overly complex/techie look of most FTP programs (we like Transmit for the Mac- very sexy and sweet)- or recommend the FireFTP plugin for Firefox.
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol- and it’s a fancy way of saying- copy files from your computer to a Web server. Not so hard. But, when it comes to loading a new plugin or theme for WordPress you used to have to go through all these steps:
Backup your Database
Once you’ve found a plugin or theme in your browser (preferably Firefox)- download it to your computer
- Unstuff it on your computer
- Open an FTP program and connect to your site
- Navigate to the WP-Content folder
- Browse your computer to find the file you’ve downloaded
- Upload it to the WP-Content folder
- Open your WordPress admin, go to Plugins or Presentation and activate the new addition.
Along comes Anirudh, and he writes this one click plugin- and all that goes away!
OneClick for WordPress | Thought Outflux | Anirudh Sanjeev
OneClick is a WordPress Plugin Firefox Extension combo which will change the way you look at wordpress forever. It reduces the effort needed to install a plugin or a theme for wordpress to just one simple click. It’s excellent for admins, non-techies, people with restrictive firewalls, and just about anyone who uses wordpress and installs plugins and themes.
Not only does this WordPress tool backup your files, providing role-back if your new plugin may bork your WP install, it has auto update notification (if he releases updates to it- a norm for Firefox installs- but not for WordPress, yet) so you will never be using the old version.
The one caveat is that it may be harder to delete some of your new themes or plugins- unless you go through his provided file nuke protocol.
We probably will stick to using our FTP process (we bill by the minute 🙂 – but for many of you, this may be another key to making WP the easiest system on the planet for publishing on the web.
If you do like his plugin- please go to the plugin rating contest and give him a thumbs up!
WordPress isn’t just for blogs- in fact, the word blog needs to die. WordPress builds a website- actively served, using a sophisticated Content Management System that is easy to use. It’s so easy- that smart companies are starting to use it to manage content and keep their site up-to-date, and W3C compliant for a lot less money.
Here are some of the sites we’ve found using WordPress as a back end. To verify- you just type /wp-admin after the url.
- http://www.xxlmag.com/ home isn’t WP, but it all leads to interior pages managed by WP.
- http://autoshows.ford.com/
- http://wildscotsman.com/whisky/ must be of age to view
- http://redblock.com.au/
- http://whoisjengordon.com/
- http://agenturblog.de/
- http://www.deliciousdays.com/
- http://allthingsd.com/
- http://www.2checkout.com/
- http://www.houseofnaked.com/ (it’s an ad agency- don’t worry)
Some, more than others look like a more conventional site. The point is, data from a database can be formatted anyway you want. The key is understanding the real beauty of a WordPress site is that everything offers the ability to build community.