We recommend open source software whenever we can, and the Firefox browser from Mozilla is one of our favorites. Firefox 3.6 recently came out with persona support, allowing users to skin their browsers with favorite designs and brands. WordPress users everywhere seem to love the W symbol (at WordCamps it shows up on everything from t-shirts to iPhone skins), so it was only natural that WordPress personas would come along.

To kick it off, designer Chad Pugh created two WordPress personas based on the WordPress brand: “Vintage Press” and “Inkwell.” These two designs are a great way to show the WordPress love, even if you’re only showing it to yourself.

	The “Vintage Press” Persona is inspired by the style of old-fashioned printing presses and the mechanics of working with type. This persona might appeal to WordPress developers and users who appreciate the way things work under the hood.
“Inkwell” is more of a palimpsest* & watercolor hybrid that might appeal to the artists among us. Music, script and spills of color combine…

Okay, I’m starting to feel like an art critic so I’ll stop there. Check out the WordPress personas for Firefox and decide for yourselves.

WordPress is one of the best and most popular open source CMS/blogging platforms. The down side of its popularity is that it is frequently exploited by hackers wanting to take over and deface your website. In fact, one of the WordPress sites I work with prevented 716 hacking attacks between July 8, 2009 and November 23, 2009. One important way to prevent hack attacks is to keep your WordPress up to date. This article will show you how.

One of the most common methods used by hackers is to look for security holes in WordPress is by looking for the WordPress version of the site they hope to attack. Even if they didn’t know the WordPress version (some webmasters will hide it), they can still perform a trial and error of the known exploits to see if they work.

As advised by the creators of WordPress, it is extremely important to update the installed WordPress in your website as frequently as possible. However, updating is not simple in all website development scenarios, and lots of webmasters make serious mistakes that can prevent them from easily updating their WordPress website.

This article aims to educate you about updating WordPress. This is very important, particularly if you are still new to WordPress and plan to work with it on a daily basis. If you are ready, then keep reading.

WordPress Core Files and Themed Files

Relatively few people understand the principles of updating WordPress; these are often not clear, especially to new users. Even experts are reluctant to update WordPress because they’re afraid  it may affect the existing design and functionality of their website. The root cause of this fear and reluctance to update WordPress is the lack of knowledge of the WordPress core and theme files operation.

WordPress core files are the files that are REQUIRED by WordPress to operate your website normally. They are the ones that are DOWNLOADED by you from http://wordPress.org/download/ . When you extract the zip file, and view the files in the folder, they are the CORE FILES:

WordPress core files will not dictate how your website will look using a web browser. This is because they are NOT called “THEMED FILES.” Theme files dictate the look and feel of your website. Theme files are also where webmasters like you can take full advantage of widgets and plug-ins to further customize the way your website looks, and even set up ones that affect the user experience of your website.

WordPress themed files are NOT included as part of the WordPress download package/core files. You are responsible for selecting your own theme as well as the plug-ins and widgets needed to operate your blog.

You can save your theme files in this path: /wp-content/themes and your plug-ins in this path: /wp-content/plugins

By default, WordPress has the “classic” and “default” themes included in the package, and also “akismet” and “hello dolly” in the plug-in directory. If you do not add a theme or plug-in to your blog, you can choose either of these two built-in themes and activate the basic plug-ins.

However, almost 99% of the time, WordPress users select their own theme and add their own plug-ins. So their theme files will now look like this:

Inside the red box above are the new theme files added. The website shown above uses the “arras-theme.1.3.5” theme, and in the plug-in directory, it adds  new plug-ins, “autosaveoff,” “disableautosave” and so forth in addition to the default files included.

What is the point of clearly illustrating the differences between WordPress core files and theme files? What relationship does this have to updating WordPress?

The answer is: “You should only be editing your theme files and plug-in files in order for you to easily update WordPress in the future.”

This is why you should know what and where your core and theme files are, so that when you start working on developing your own WordPress website, you will never edit the core files.

If you edit the core files, then all of your changes will be lost once you update WordPress, and you will edit those core files again (like those files that belong to the wp-includes directory). If you edit those cores files, it now seems very impractical to update WordPress. This is why a majority of WordPress websites nowadays are still not being updated, due to the fear of serious website malfunction, because their core files have been substantially edited.

One common question asked at this point is “If editing WordPress core files is a mistake, then how will I be able to obtain a certain functionality for my website that is not included in both core and theme files?”

The short answer is to install a plug-in that serves that functionality. This is why WordPress plug-ins exist; they perform certain functions without forcing you to edit WordPress core theme files. The down side is, what do you do when you want a difficult functionality that no plug-in offers yet? Then you can request help in this section: http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/

To prevent website functionality problems during a WordPress update, it is important that during the development stage of your website, you should ONLY  edit your WordPress theme files (see below) and add plug-ins to add some unique functionality that is required:

Now you know the important tips and techniques needed to update WordPress without problems. There are two ways you can update WordPress. The first one is time-consuming; it’s called “manual updating.” The other one is easy because it uses the “automatic upgrade” feature/functionality included in the WordPress dashboard (which may not available in all versions). Bear in mind the associated risk if you update WordPress, especially if you have edited the core files before.

Classic/Manual WordPress update (not recommended if you’re using a new version of WordPress):

Step 1: Back up all of your WordPress files, including your WordPress database. You can use FTP, and download all of the important files in your WordPress website. This includes the core files, theme files and the associated plug-ins. Backing up is very important; if updating causes serious problems you can revert to your backup files. Include .htaccess and robots.txt in the backup.

Step 2: If you use XAMPP, you can run your website in your local host with the WordPress and data files you have just backed up. This will verify that your backup files are working.

Step 3: Deactivate all plug-ins.

Step 4: Download the latest version of WordPress.

Step 5: Delete old WordPress files EXCEPT wp-config.php, wp-content folder, wp-images, wp-includes/languages, .htaccess, and robots.txt.

Details: http://codex.WordPress.org/Upgrading_WordPress_Extended

Step 6: Upload the new WordPress files to your FTP server.

Step 7. Enter this URL in your browser; replace “thisisyourdomain” with your own domain name: http://www.thisisyourdomain.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php .

Follow the instructions on the screen. For details, read this page.

Step 8: Update the permalinks (your old permalinks) in the admin panel.

Step 9: Reactivate the plug-ins if you do not need to update any of your installed plug-ins.

Step 10: Review everything that has been changed and confirm that your website runs normally, as it did before.

First check to see if there is an “upgrade” feature included with your existing WordPress installation. Go to Dashboard -> Tools -> Upgrade. If you can see this path, then you can upgrade automatically.

Step 1: Do the same back up procedure I described in the first step in the previous section (for manual updating).

Step 2: You can also test your backup using XAMPP (see details in the second step in the previous section).

Step 3: Deactivate your plug-ins.

Step 4: Go to the WordPress admin panel backup path: Dashboard -> Tools -> Upgrade. Look for the following message: “There is a new version of Word Press available for upgrade.” If you cannot see this message, there is no need to update WordPress.

Step 5: If you see the message above, click the “upgrade automatically” button.

Step 6: Enter FTP log-in details and proceed. If you see this error: “Could not open handle for fopen(),” you have hosting limitations (this is common in free hosting accounts) and you cannot upgrade automatically. Settle the problem with your hosting company before proceeding.

Step 7: If you do not encounter any problem, then the application will be able to upgrade automatically. Once you see the message “WordPress upgraded successfully,” your upgrade is complete. You can then reactivate your plug-ins, one at a time.

Step 8. Review your upgrade and make sure the site is performing normally, the same as it did before. If you edited the WordPress core files (especially those that are included in the WP-includes directory), then those changes will be gone and you need to make them again. This is why you should never edit those core files. Leaving them alone will make a WordPress update as easy as possible.

There are several instances when you administer WordPress blogs where you will need to perform a 301 redirect. It is one of the most important corrective actions you can take when moving content. No other methods are as friendly to search engines, but it must be done correctly. This article will explain how.

Other methods, such as doing a temporary redirect (302), using JavaScript or a meta refresh redirect, are not friendly to search engines and can result in improper crawling of website content. In most cases, your redirected content (at its new location) can never be found by search engine spiders because they will not follow any type of redirect unless it is given a clean 301 redirection status.

Other reasons why you should do a permanent 301 redirect are to maintain search engine rankings, such as in Google. If you have an old, ranking URL in Google and move to a new, permanent location, a 301 redirect can pass the search engine ranking score of the old ranking URL (not abruptly; it will take time) to the new URL. Hence the new URL will appear and start to rank in the search engine results, replacing the old URL.

If 301 redirection is not implemented, the old URL will still rank in Google. And no matter what you do, your new URL will never appear in search results unless you do a 301 redirect.

In addition, one of the most serious mistakes that any WordPress blogger can make is failing to act on 404 errors. Blogs do change from time to time; old post URLs get deleted; and there is a need to move content to its new, permanent location. This is why, if you do a massive deletion of WordPress post URLs, you might notice a significant drop in search engine traffic if you fail to 301 redirect the deleted URLs to their new, permanent location (assuming a new location exists).

This article aims to provide the webmaster with the complete theory and application of doing 301 redirection in WordPress without heavy reliance on plug-ins. With proper information at hand, he or she can do 301 redirects easily in .htaccess, or even do conditional 301 redirection using PHP. This will provide the webmaster with flexibility in handling 301 redirection problems that goes beyond any plug-in solutions.

I have used plug-ins before, and it was good — until the plug-ins failed to work because of recent WordPress updates, and the plug-in developer failed to write a new update. This is where the .htaccess solution is ideal for you, especially if you are in a hosting environment where .htaccess is allowed.

.htaccess can also be used to do a 301 redirect within and outside of a WordPress environment in your server. This is where most plug-ins or even a PHP code would have some difficulty in handling the redirection.

Let me bring to your attention an important note regarding the examples provided in this tutorial: do not forget to replace the domain name used in the tutorial examples with your own folder name, file name and domain name.

For example, say that http://www.php-developer.org/oldcontent/phptocustomizedwordpress.htm is your previous URL for a specific ranking content page in Google. And you plan to move this to your equivalent WordPress post to transfer the rankings and avoid duplicate content. The new/equivalent WordPress URL is: http://www.php-developer.org/using-php-to-control-wordpress-content-display/

First, you cannot do this with a PHP code because phptocustomizewordpress.htm is an HTML file, and you cannot run PHP scripts in an .htm file. Second, if you use plug-ins it might not work perfectly, since the file is outside of a WordPress directory.

To do this in .htaccess:

redirect 301 /oldcontent/phptocustomizedwordpress.htm http://www.php-developer.org/using-php-to-control-wordpress-content-display/

Insert that command just below the default WordPress htaccess lines:

# BEGIN WordPress

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

</IfModule>

# END WordPress

redirect 301 /oldcontent/phptocustomizedwordpress.htm http://www.php-developer.org/using-php-to-control-wordpress-content-display/

Here are some important points to keep in mind on the use of .htaccess to redirect documents or files:

1. Always make a backup of .htaccess before editing it — especially if you have a lot of instructions there, not only the default WordPress .htaccess commands.

2. Make a habit of double checking your code before uploading or saving it to your server. A single mistake can cause a 500 internal server error.

3. You can insert as many redirection statements as you need (one per line).

4. Make a habit of double checking the actual server header status returned by the redirect. Use this tool: http://gsitecrawler.com/tools/Server-Status.aspx, and make sure that the status is 301. For example,

One of the common problems in WordPress is changing folder names or deleting folders. Say for example you have an old WordPress blog in this directory: http://www.php-developer.org/oldcontent/ but one day, due to company policies, it is decided to delete the blog permanently. The only problem is that there are thousands of back links pointing to the blog.

One of the ways to save this precious earned link juice is to 301 redirect all of these to the home page. In that case, any links pointing either to http://www.php-developer.org/oldcontent/ or http://www.php-developer.org/oldcontent/phptocustomizedwordpress.htm will be transferred to the home page.

In .htaccess, this can be accomplished by:

redirectMatch 301 ^/oldcontent/ http://www.php-developer.org/

It will automatically do a server side 301 redirect to the home page.

.htaccess is often useful for merging two WordPress installations. For example, say one original installation at the root directory of your server is accessible at http://www.php-developer.org/, but you would like to install another WordPress which can be accessed at http://www.php-developer.org/anotherwordpress/.

This requires another complete installation, and of course needs to be blended with the original blog (adding a link in the navigation menu, for example).

This is commonly implemented when you want to have another blog using a different language. For example, the root directory is for the English language and you want to install another WordPress for the French version.

The procedure to combine two WordPress installations is as follows:

Step 1: Create a new folder at the root directory of your original WordPress installation. For example, in the screen shot below, the folder will be called “anotherwordpress.”

Step 2: Upload new WordPress core files inside “anotherwordpress” folder. You can get the latest WordPress core files.

Step 3: Install it in the way you installed your first WordPress installation. I suggest using another MySQL database if you can. If the second WordPress installation uses the same theme as the original, you will need to copy and paste your WordPress theme files to your new WordPress theme directory.

Step 4: After installation, you can access the wp-admin dashboard of your new WordPress installation at http://www.php-developer.org/anotherwordpress/wp-admin. Of course the front page of that new blog will be viewable in http://www.php-developer.org/anotherwordpress/

Step 5: Since the main blog is in your root domain, you will need to merge the two. In your new blog, edit the sidebar template to reflect the same sidebar as the original WordPress installation. Look and feel should be the same for a consistent view.

Step 6: Log in to your original WordPress installation. In the dashboard, go to “Pages” and click “Add New.”

In the title, assign a temporary name, anotherwordpress1; just leave the content text area blank and click “publish.” You can then see in your root WordPress installation sidebar navigation menu, a link with the anchor text “anotherwordpress1.”

Step 7: Now log back in to edit this page. Change the title from anotherwordpress1 to anotherwordpress, matching exactly the folder name of your new WordPress installation. You will notice that the anchor text of the link in the sidebar navigation menu (at your root WordPress blog) changes from “anotherwordpress1″ to “anotherwordpress.” The strategy is to integrate your new WordPress blog into the original WordPress dynamic sidebar template.

Step 8. The permalink URL of the newly-created page does not change despite the change in title. In the above example, it will be:

http://www.php-developer.org/anotherwordpress1/

We can now easily do a 301 redirect using .htaccess from http://www.php-developer.org/anotherwordpress1/ to http://www.php-developer.org/anotherwordpress/

To do this, we can use the redirection code suggested earlier:

redirect 301 /anotherwordpress1/ http://www.php-developer.org/anotherwordpress/

Add the code to your WordPress .htaccess at the root directory (the original WordPress installation). So this means that if someone clicks on this link, they will be 301 redirected to your separate/other WordPress installation.

Another important administrative function in WordPress is doing conditional 301 redirects. For example, if WordPress URL1 is requested from the server, 301 redirect this to WordPress URL 2. To accomplish this, we need to first, let PHP determine the requested URL. Second: we need to 301 redirect if the requested URL matches with the condition using PHP.

Code:

<?php

//PHP function to grabbed current requested URL or the one that //is shown in the browser address bar and assigned to pageurl variable

function curPageURL() {

$pageURL = ‘http’;

if ($_SERVER["HTTPS"] == “on”) {$pageURL .= “s”;}

$pageURL .= “://”;

if ($_SERVER["SERVER_PORT"] != “80″) {

$pageURL .= $_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"].”:”.$_SERVER["SERVER_PORT"].$_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"];

} else {

$pageURL .= $_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"].$_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"];

}

return $pageURL;

}

$pageurl=curPageURL();

//PHP conditional statement to test equality of current URLs

if ($pageurl==”http://www.php-developer.org/thisismypage/”)

{

//Permanent redirection if URL match with requested URL

header(“HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently”);

header(“Location: http://www.php-developer.org/”);

exit();

}

?>

Insert the above code at the topmost portion of your WordPress header.php (above this line <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN…)