When wordpress permalinks 404

The 404/Not Found error message is one of the most hated screens on the Internet; it indicates that though you, the browser, were able to communicate with the server, the page you need was not delivered either because it was not found or because the server for some reason was configured to not fulfill the request (which is happening in some countries with pages containing illegal content).

The page you actually see is not generated by your computer; instead, it is a special page on the server you've tried to contact. Many web sites create their own special 404 pages either for artistic reasons, or because the site owner wants to put specific data, like contact or redirect information, on the page. In Apache, having your own special 404 page is as simple as modifying the. htaccess file. (The only caveat: the page must be larger than 512 bytes or IE will not display it.)

In most cases, the 404 error comes up when a page has been moved or deleted from a site. However, in the case of WordPress, an annoying bug can cause permalinks to point to the 404 page instead of the page you want to have it bring up.

How Do WordPress Permalinks Work?

Permalinks are permanent URLs generated to point to your individual weblog posts, categories, and weblog lists. Other bloggers will use a permalink to point to your post from their own articles, or you can send links to other people via a permalink. When they are linked to an individual post, the URL is supposed to be permanent, not dynamic (changing).

The three types of permalinks WordPress delivers are the Default (aka "Ugly") form, mod rewrite ("Pretty"), and PATHINFO ("Almost Pretty").

Default links are formatted according to the default settings of a new WordPress install, and will work on all server environments. It looks like this: example. com/?p=N , N being a number. It is neither neat nor elegant, but it does the job. Pretty mod rewrite links look more like this: example. com/yyyy/mm/dd/post-name/ . These permalinks require Apache's mod_rewrite module, and won't work on other server types. PATHINFO permalinks look like this: example. com/index. php/yyyy/mm/dd/post-name/ , and will work on other server types besides Apache.

Because you're going from a dynamic to a fixed environment with your permalinks, a variety of things can go wrong with them. For instance, if your server includes Frontpage Extensions, permalinks will not function at all without doing a manual fix. Without this fix, any changes to the permalinks section from the WordPress admin interface will corrupt the Frontpage server extensions because it interferes with the. htaccess file.

Long permalinks can get chopped off as well, with only part of it working properly or with the entire link disabled. This will cause a 404 error to be generated – but not because there's something wrong with your permalink, rather because the title is too long. You can fix it by editing your. htaccess file to add a line:

RewriteRule ^post/([0-9]+)?/?([0-9]+)?/?$ /index. php? p=$1&page=$2 [QSA]

You can also make a habit of posting URLs with angle brackets () on either end. Most email and other problematic software won't truncate URLs formatted this way.

Permalink Structure in WordPress

When your links don't work, it's often because you didn't update your Permalink structure. Every time you add a new static page to your WordPress files, you must generate and update new rules to the. htaccess (which in newer versions is taken care of through the admin control area). If you don't get a page returned at all, even a 404, and you use PHP 4.4 or 5 with Apache 2, you should look that up in the PHP bugs and issues pages. This is a specific known bug.

When you're creating permalinks, another strange thing can happen: your WordPress blog must start the process of creating a permalink before it knows whether or not the page you're creating one for actually exists. If it doesn't, too late – your link is already pointing at a 404 page. To repair this, you need to include a 404 direction in the header of your. htaccess file so that your rewrite conditions allow for a not-found error, and simply eliminate that page from your permalinks task. Try adding the following line above the WordPress rewrite rules, outside of #BEGIN Wordpress[...]#END Wordpress. Some plugins will overwrite this part if you edit the permalinks structure if it's in the wrong place.

ErrorDocument 404/index. php? error=404?

Another solution is to use this following:

ErrorDocument 404/foo/index. php? error=404

foo = the directory you are using as a blog. The structure should be like this:

/foo/%category%/%postname%/

If you call a nonexistent directory, however, you're still going to get that 404 permalink.

You can automate your permalinks tasks with several plugins, though. The Ultimate Tag Warrior (UTW) has gotten some good reviews, especially for search-engine sensitive pages. Google Sitemaps is a good plugin as well.

One more thing: if you use the xampp setup, your WordPress permalinks won't work at all in the default installation..

The ultimate solution is actually to install WordPress 2.0.2; this new version has repaired the permalinks problem as well as a number of other problems.

Always double-check all your pages before you start working with permalinks, and after you've permalinked them. In some cases, you may have to delete all the permalinks and start over, but in most cases just taking a look at what you're telling your server to do will prevent you from making a lot of stupid mistakes.

Learn about wholesale distribution companies

Whole sale distribution companies have proliferated over the last few years. The main reason attributable is the expansion of the online marketing and internet. The internet opened up new opportunities for large scale marketing of a variety of consumer and other products without any worries of owning and maintaining a physical store or sales force.

The demand for the various fast moving products from a cross section of internet marketing community has triggered the birth of many whole sale distribution companies offering products at varying and competitive discounts to be resold to the online consumers.

Whole sale distribution companies though have mushroomed in the recent past the fact remains that few of them are genuine whole sale companies and the rest being simple middlemen. The chain of such companies operating today are benefited of varying discounts, and the ultimate internet entrepreneur is devoid of the product for the genuine whole sale price.

Whole sale companies that are genuine and established exhibits reservations for supplying to small volume internet operators that leads to the above mentioned situation. Further the inability of the back end supplier somewhere in chain to supply the article leaves you in the lurch with the only gain of a bunch of unsatisfied and angry customers.

The unhealthy middlemen chaining ultimately leaves very less margin for the tail ender. One should not be lured by the catchy advertisements one sees on the whole sale distribution and its merits. You are well advised to have a pragmatic approach and objective assessment in respect of such lucrative offers irrespective of the fact whether you are a prospective internet entrepreneur or a an enthusiastic consumer.

However, there are still a lot of wholesale companies on the internet where you can get great products at a great discount. But as with everyhting these days: you have to be careful and make sure you are not being scammed.

Why translating your website in hindi makes better sense

Why Translating Your Website in Hindi Makes Better Sense

Did you know that in 2002, an estimated 32% of Internet users were non-English speakers? With the phenomenal growth of computer usage and the spread of the net fever, especially in the third world countries, the figure would have multiplied manifold in the past 4 years.

In fact, the Internet is fast becoming the basic and fundamental source and dissemination of information, purchases of goods and services worldwide. In addition, those computer and Internet users are increasingly from non-English speaking countries. This figure is constantly rising. In response, businesses have quickly become aware of the benefits of making their websites relevant to the native languages of the target audience.

Marketing is all about speaking the customers’ language

There is no denying that the rest of the world outside of English-speaking countries is coming online faster than never before. What is the state of affairs, and how does that impact businesses worldwide? How serious is the impact of everyone "going global"? And, more importantly, what needs to be done with our Websites to fully take advantage of this wave of non-English-speaking people coming online?

Whether or not a person speaks English has really nothing to do with the responsibility of a Website to communicate in the language of the target markets. Indians read English just fine, and yet they feel comfortable to surf in their own language. They live their life in their own language, not in English. If you want to attract their attention, your site has to go where they are, and speak to them in their own language.

Outside the seven countries where English is native, and India too, there is no form of marketing in any country that happens in English. If someone doesn't believe this, they should visit Europe, Asia or South America. People live their life in their own language, and your marketing better follow, whether the media is newspaper/magazine ads/articles, radio/TV, billboards... or Websites.

Enter Website Translation

Translating a Website is a viable answer because you then make an existing website accessible, usable and culturally suitable to your specific target audience. This requires both programming expertise and linguistic/cultural knowledge.

In the majority of cases it is the lack of linguistic and cultural input that lets a website localization project down. In order to give an insight into the impact culture has on website localization the following examples depict areas in which a solid understanding of the target culture is necessary.

Some very good reasons to translate your website into Hindi

• One of the official languages of India, with a population of over 1 billion. Hindi has 366 million first-language speakers; additional 121 million second-language speakers. Spoken throughout northern India: Delhi; Uttar Pradesh; Rajasthan; Punjab; Madhya Pradesh; northern Bihar; Himachal Pradesh.

• Hindi is also spoken in Bangladesh, Belize, Botswana, Germany, Kenya, Nepal, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Uganda, UAE, United Kingdom, USA, Yemen, and Zambia.

• With the growing numbers of Indans buying PC’s and Internet access available from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, English speakers will soon be in the minority when it comes to Internet use.

• Results of research carried out by Nielsen-Net ratings in March 2005 described foreign internet markets as “low hanging fruit,” i. e. if you have the will and foresight there are massive revenues to be found for relatively little effort.

• As Kaizad Gotla, senior analyst at Nielsen-Netratings states, “The easiest opportunities are in countries where Internet usage patterns and user/site relationships are less established. Acquiring users in markets that are currently in their growth stages will lead to a loyal user base that will pay dividends for Internet companies in the future.”

• The ability to communicate to a whole new audience in their own language will undoubtedly yield results not only in a financial sense (cost efficiency) but also in terms of marketing and creating awareness of your brand, service or product.

• For non-English speaking users looking for your product or service, you automatically capture their attention.

• A Hindi website shows you are thinking about the customer. That little extra effort shows you have thought and cared enough about them to offer the website in their language.

• For many cultures, more so in India, there is an issue of trust when it comes to buying over the Internet, especially if they feel it is in a language they are not fully proficient in. Offering them a language alternative allows the customers to feel secure

• Search engines lead people to your site. In countries such as China, Japan and France, Google, Yahoo and MSN are not the default search engines. Homegrown search engines are emerging and they are proving successful because they work in native languages and are focused on the habits and needs of their users. In addition, many of the key search engines, especially Google, are developing the capacity to run searches in Hindi. Having pages of your site available in Hindi ensures maximum potential for your site being picked up in searches.

Making a website in Hindi or translating the existing website does not complete the task. There are a lot of important, cultural, ethnic issues which form an essential part of the contents of the website in Hindi. Some examples, which need to be decided upon, in greater details, are mentioned below:

• Images and pictures – as they carry subtle cultural intonations in them.

• Symbols - as with pictures, symbols can cause problems. Icons using fingers such as an OK sign or V-sign may mean different things to different cultures. Western symbols do not always mean the same abroad.

• Colors – they are also loaded with cultural meanings.

• Ease of navigation - Access to certain pages is also a factor that can be considered as relevant.

Culture affects everything we do, say, read, hear and think and even websites cannot escape the influence of culture.

The impact of culture on the translation of a website is huge. The above few examples are literally the tip of the iceberg.

Simple effective small business website tips

When you are a small business looking to create a space online (and it’s not your area of expertise), in many cases, less is more. Keep your website simple with only needed information that will not appear outdated or have one functional area that can feature updated items. Often people fail to realize the dedication and time it takes to keep a content heavy and interactive website fresh. You need to spend your time capturing and responding to leads, as well as the other hats you may wear.

To start look through the eyes of the customer to identify what information is really needed on your website. Don’t try to be flashy, always focus on filling a need.

Next try to define your business in less than 2 paragraphs. Use bullet points and tag lines to get across the most important messages. People digest content in bite-size portions online.

Always have multiple ways to contact you – contact forms are the easiest way to be contacted and also shield your e-mail address from spiders that might see fit to crawl and add you to their spam list. Depending on your situation include a business address and telephone number.

Come up with one, great promotional opportunity that can be a part of your website always. This makes marketing easy if you just focus on a main promotion that you do not need to update regularly. It can be something like 10% off if they found you via Craigslist or $10 off for all new customers. It’s a great way to be acquisition aggressive, while enjoying a tracking mechanism as well.

Some other helpful hints:

- Don’t Use Frames

- Always Own Your Domain, Graphics and Content.

- Buy a Domain Made up of Great Search Terms

- Name Pages on the Website with Target Search Terms

- Use Flash Only if You Must – Most Businesses Should Not

- Get a Maintenance Contract with a Reputable Web Designer. This Keeps Costs Down and Makes Changes Easy.