Gary Eckstein

I have installed WordPress hundreds of times. Besides the very occasional minor non-WordPress issue, the installs have always worked fine. Until yesterday …

I had a domain name that forwarded to another but I decided I wanted to create a WordPress powered Site for the domain. I cancelled the forward on Godaddy Domain manager and set the DNS nameservers as the Godaddy recommended servers. I then installed WordPress at the required Godaddy shared hosting folder (this method has always worked fine in the past).

I noticed that when viewing the homepage or the dashboard of the new WordPress install (i.e. http://www.example.com and http://www.example.com/wp-admin) the styling was as if no CSS was evident (the layout, fonts, colours etc. didn’t look ‘right’). I changed the theme but that didn’t help, I reinstalled WordPress and that didn’t help, I changed the DNS nameservers and I spent hours on the Web trying to find a solution. Also the CSS/display problem wasn’t unique to a computer or Browser; the same problem was there with Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome and on multiple computers.

This is not the first time that this error has been experienced when installing WordPress and it is, as mentioned, not specific to specific computers or Internet Browsers (or Webhost i.e. not just Godaddy shared hosting). During my Web search for a solution I arrived at many forums where this problem is discussed with various potential solutions however none resolved the issue for me. I eventually discovered a solution after noticing a few forum responses recommending certain .htaccess hacks which may work. Although none of the solutions provided in the forums worked for my WordPress problem, I managed to find a solution through trying a few .htaccess hacks which, in desperation, I hoped may work.

The solution for this WordPress display problem is as follows in the two steps below:

1. With a text editor create a file named .htaccess in the root of your WordPress install (if an .htaccess file already exists then ignore this step and continue with step 2).

2. Save the following in the .htaccess file:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /

RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

</IfModule>

These .htaccess lines above basically send browsers and searchbots to index.php of your WordPress install. AskApache has a good explanation for those interested in further .htaccess information.

Good luck and please let me know if this resolves your WordPress CSS problem.

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Recently one of my Websites was hacked (not this Website!). The hackers had managed to populate the WordPress site posts (Blogs) with iframes that redirected visitors to a suspicious Website. It appears that a SQL script was run on every post to replace the contents of the posts with the redirecting iframe (WordPress and all plugins were fully up-to-date with the latest patches). Fortunately my AVG security software detected the unwanted iframe which was prevalent on both the hacked Website and the Feedburner RSS feed from that Website.

I have no idea how the hackers accessed the database however I have learnt that using shared hosting (the hacked site was hosted with GoDaddy) may increased the chance of being hacked; if one of the shared Sites is hacked then it may be more simple for the hackers to gain access to the co-shared Sites.

Recovering from a hacked WordPress Website is a time-consuming task and if recent (unhacked) database backups aren’t available then, well, the trouble in recovering is multiplied significantly. There are some good articles out there describing how to recover from a hacked WordPress Site but, more than anything, preventing being hacked is far simpler than recovery. Here are six absolutely essentially tasks related to your Site and Malware:

1. Create secure passwords (for WordPress, MySQL, FTP etc.) and change them occasionally.
2. Keep WordPress, Plugins and Themes well as all software on your PC/MAC updated to the latest releases and patches.
3. Backup your WordPress files and MySQL database regularly.
4. Check every one of your Websites at least daily for any suspicious data or redirection (an easy way of doing this is subscribing to the RSS feed from your Site)
5. If your Site has been hacked immediately take action to restore it.
6. Advise the Search Engines of Malware recovery if necessary.

I am certainly looking forward to using VaultPress which should further minimise the chance of being hacked.

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GoDaddy is a very widely used hosting service. WordPress is enormously powerful yet simple to use Blogging software (WordPress has really evolved into a far more capable Web Content Management System rather than purely Blogging platform). WordPress may be hosted at WordPress.com or downloaded and installed on your hosting account from WordPress.org (this article is purely concerned with self-hosted WordPress i.e. from WordPress.org). Many people use GoDaddy to host WordPress yet encounter problems when using the GoDaddy recommended method of installing WordPress (the GoDaddy recommendation requires GoDaddy to install WordPress for you however it is quicker and less error prone to install per the steps below).

Image by teddY-riseD via Flickr

Fortunately, WordPress is so simple to install that there really is no need to use the GoDaddy recommended install method. Here is how to install WordPress on your GoDaddy account (note: the install below is a customised version of the WordPress ‘famous 5-minute install‘):

1. Create a database for WordPress on your GoDaddy hosting account (instructions may be found at GoDaddy help)
2. Download and unzip the WordPress package to your local computer, if you haven’t already.
3. On the unzipped WordPress package, rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php.
4. Open wp-config.php in your favorite text editor and fill in your database details which you completed in step 1 (or follow the instructions near the end of the GoDaddy article titled ‘Setting up a MySQL or SQL Server Database for Your Hosting Account’ where it says ‘Once the database is created, you can click the Pencil icon next to the database to find more information’ if you don’t recall the details required about your MySQL database).
5. Place the WordPress files in the desired location on your GoDaddy hosted account (I use FileZilla to transfer files to and from GoDaddy however GoDaddy does provide an FTP client with your hosting account).
6. Run the WordPress installation script by accessing wp-admin/install.php in your favorite web browser.
   • If you installed WordPress in the root directory, you should visit: http://example.com/wp-admin/install.php
   • If you installed WordPress in its own subdirectory called blog, for example, you should visit: http://example.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php

WordPress should now be up and running on your self-hosted GoDaddy domain. Installing WordPress with your GoDaddy hosting account is as simple as 1, 2, 3.

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WordPress Wp-O-Matic not working with godaddy? Here is the solution…

GoDaddy is used by many people to host their websites. Among the many Tool offered with GoDaddy Linux hosting is a Cron Manager. Cron is very simplistically the Linux / Unix equivalent of Windows ‘Scheduled Tasks’. The GoDaddy version simplifies the usual command based Cron interface by providing a GUI where just a few options need to be filled. Because the GoDaddy Cron Manager is not command line based, many people find it difficult to get the Cron Manager to work. Below is a tutorial of how to get WordPress WP-o-Matic Cron to work with godaddy.com hosting:

Use Cron for WP-o-Matic

WP-o-Matic is a popular WordPress Plugin which creates posts from RSS feeds. The posts may be ‘Fetched’ by WP-o-Matic manually, by accessing a specific URL on your website (URL supplied in the Options tab of WP-o-Matic) or via Cron (Cron command supplied in the Options tab of WP-o-Matic). The Cron method is great for automating WP-o-Matic to fetch and create posts however there is a little trick that seems to have many GoDaddy users unable to automate the WP-o-Matic fetch.

In the first paragraph of this post it is described that the GoDaddy Cron Manager is GUI and not command line based. The Cron string supplied on the Options tab of WP-o-Matic is intended for Cron Command lines. So, to get GoDaddy to tell WP-o-Matic to fetch according to a specified schedule all we need to do is

1. Go to WP-o-Matic Options Tab in your WordPress install.
2. Ensure that in ‘Unix cron’ is checked (in WP-o-Matic Options in your WordPress install).
3. In the Cron command highlight all characters EXCULDING those before ‘/usr’ (i.e. in the Cron command field the value will look something like ‘*/20 * * * * /usr/bin/curl http://example.com/wp-content/plugins/WP-o-Matic/cron.php?code=ba360243’ however we only require ‘/usr/bin/curl http://example.com/wp-content/plugins/WP-o-Matic/cron.php?code=ba360243’ to be highlighted).
4. Copy why you have highlighted.
5. Paste into the ‘command’ field in GoDaddy Cron Manager.
6. Fill the other GoDaddy Cron Manager fields with your options and save.

(see the diagram below for an example of setting up a new ‘Cron Job’ to get WordPress WP-o-Matic to fetch posts at 6 P.M. daily.).

You will now receive an email from Cron Manager every time the Cron command is run.

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