Simple Code to Redirect 404 Errors in Your Blog – Improves SEO?
I’ve always kinda wondered about 404 errors. Whether they are important to keep up with, how they affect SEO on a blog and the best way to handle them. It’s one of those things that I always put off since they didn’t seem to be making much difference.
At least that’s what I thought, but I was wrong!!
So I’ve been doing some research and experimenting lately. And finally came up with a very simple solution to redirect 404 errors to any page of your wordpress blog.
I’m going to show you a little piece of code for a 301 redirect that is even simpler than installing a WP plugin, and works like a charm.
This is why I started to care about 404 errors
I was checking out my Google Webmaster tools the other day, and I saw the amount of crawl errors on my blog. Let’s just say it was enough to make me freak out, just a little. I had several links that were leading to 404 errors. And the worst part was, many of them were from months ago.
Also, I am currently going back and SEO optimizing my blogs to the fullest and consolidating my categories to make life easier for my visitors. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do, but was worried about having a bunch of dead links.
So I knew I needed to get on top of this, and figure out a solution that not even a non-techie (me) could handle by their self.
WordPress plugins?
There are several WP plugins that handle 404 errors and can redirect them. But I just wasn’t satisfied with any of them. Plus I like to figure things out on my own and at least experiment. Some of the plugins were too complicated for what I wanted, and others were messing up my theme.
I love plugins, don’t get me wrong. But you don’t want to go and install as many as you can. Too many WordPress plugins can slow down your site. And some of them, might not play nicely with each other, or with your theme. So I started experimenting with the coding, and found exactly what I wanted.
How do 404 errors hurt your blog?
First off, if you don’t have too many 404 errors, then you’ll probably be fine. But still, it’s worth taking caring of them when you see them.
Let me explain why.
When someone clicks on a link that no longer exists or maybe spelled incorrectly, they’ll be lead to your 404 error page. Almost all WordPress themes have them, and usually it’s a plain page that says
404 error – this page no longer exists
Unless someone changed it to something different.
1 – this causes not the best experience to the visitor and you could lose them forever. Now some 404 error pages might have other suggestions for them or other links to your site, and etc…. but there’s still something better for SEO purposes.
Keep reading…
2 – Google and other search engine spiders will crawl and find these dead links. This creates the crawl errors that you’ll see in your Webmaster Tools. Now I’ve heard that your blog won’t get penalized too badly, or any at all for the 404 errors. But I think differently.
Instead of the spiders crawling links that lead to a 404 error page, they could be spending more time crawling your other content. Plus 404 e r r o r pages aren’t filled with content, that’s never a good thing. Makes sense to me at least.
You could block 404′s in the Robots.txt, but then they won’t know they exist and this could possibly create a different kind of error. This is what I’ve heard in forums. Never tried it before on my own so don’t know for sure. I’d rather redirect them.
3 – You’re losing link juice, opportunities to make more money and even loyal readers. On your site, all links pointing to other pages in your blog that no longer work -either because the link is misspelled, or the page no longer exists, are going to the 404 error page. Same thing goes for other blogs/sites that linked to yours, but leading to your 404 error page. That link juice is going to a page that you don’t care about and is being wasted.
You’re losing money and loyal readers because instead of leading them to a page that you want them to see, they are being lead to a blank 404 error page. Which doesn’t really help anyone out.
Finally, the 301 Redirect Code
First off, for those who don’t know already, a 301 redirect means it’s permanent. And yes, it passes link juice.
Now you need to go into your WordPress dashboard under appearance, then editor. You should see your blogs 404.php. If you don’t have one, then you’ll need to make one by going to your cpanel in your hosting and upload it to your blog’s files with a ftp.
There’s actually 2 different codes
Make sure you save a copy of the original 404.php page, just in case the codes below don’t work with your blog!!
#1 — This code below will redirect all of your 404 errors to your homepage. Just completely replace your 404.php with the code below.
————————————————————————————————————————
<?php
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
header("Location: ".get_bloginfo('url'));
exit();
?>
————————————————————————————————————————-
#2 — This code will redirect your 404 error to any page that you enter in the blank url spot. Maybe a money page that you want to get ranked higher or whatever you choose.
————————————————————————————————————————-
<?php
header("Status: 301 Moved Permanently");
header("Location:http://url");
?>
————————————————————————————————————————-
There you have it, you now have some options to redirect 404 errors to your homepage for a wordpress blog, or any other page that you desire even without using a plugin. It was actually really quite simple to do. And now you’re probably thinking, why did I wait so long?
Have any input on this matter? Then please don’t hesitate to share by leaving a comment. And if you found this post helpful, then do me a favor and share it with others by using one of the social buttons. I’d appreciate it.
Premium List Magnet, List Building Software – HUGE 60% Discount
I just got a heads up about the launch of Premium List Magnet, a brand new list building software that comes in the form of an easy to use WordPress Plugin.
The official launch date will be on Monday, August 22, 2011.
The Premium List Magnet 60% Discount will be available only on Monday 22 August 2011 @ 10pm EST through Friday 2 September 2011 @ 10pm EST. Only pay $27. After that date, the price will go back to it’s original price of $67.
Real-Time Demo: List Building in 2 Minutes! Click Here
Checkout the Premium List Magnet video below to really see what this WP plugin can do for you.
No coupon code is necessary to get the discounted price of $27, but you will need to make your purchase by the dates specified above.
Make sure you sign-up and get on the early bird list, and you’ll be the first to know when Premium List Magnet is available so you don’t miss out on the discount.
The creators of Premium List Magnet are the same people who brought you Profits Theme, one of the easiest WordPress tools for creating multiple of sites quickly.
Profits Theme
Lately I’ve been hearing all the buzz going around about the new Profits Theme for WordPress. It allows anyone even if you don’t have any design or tech skills to create professional full blown profit sites without touching a single code. With this WordPress tool, you’ll be able to quickly create professional blogs, landing pages, squeeze pages, multi-level membership sites, sales pages, product launches and more.
Get the Profits Theme 72% Discount now and pay only $27! Once the 5 day sale is over on March 21, it goes back up to it’s normal price of $97.
Profits Theme in Blog Format
Here’s the Profit theme in regular blog format below. You can easily create a really professional and elegant blog using the Profits theme. It has a fully customizable sidebar, easily add an optin form and able to customize each of it’s pages using the drag-and-drop interface. Plus 5 different skins that come in 5 different colors are included!
click here to see live blog demo
What else can Profits Theme Create?
Just about any type of site and page can easily be created using Profits theme in a matter of minutes. Multi-level Membership sites, blogs, product launches, squeeze pages, sales, legal, thank you pages and much more can easily be designed by you. Not only are they easy to create, but they actually look really professional and can have many different functions.
I’ve used many of the good universal WP themes out there. The point and click and drag and drop. My favorites being Thesis, UBT, and Headway but none of them can compare to the Profits WP theme. It would take you a long time to create the variety of sites and pages that Profits Theme can build using the other premium themes.
Create professional multi-level membership sites, Squeeze pages, Landing pages, Product and Offer pages like the images below. Easily add or change things up if you want to without any coding.
CAGWYW (Click and Get What You Want) Technology
I’ve never seen this on the other premium universal WP themes. Literally pick and choose what you want added and build your site or page however you want it. There are special tools added in your WP editor that allow you to add different graphics and buttons just by clicking on them. A ton of different types of graphics, skins and headers are already included for you to use. This is on top of the drag-and-drop interface and point and click features.
If you want to create a serious multi-level membership site, then the Profits Theme has many helpful features. It works for one-time and recurring membership site payments and protects your content being sold via Paypal, CB and etc… You can easily drip feed your content on a set schedule, add expiration dates for your content and setup different membership levels.
Profits WP Theme Features:
- Customize & design without touching any coding quickly and easily
- create memberships sites, customized blogs and just about any other type of page
- Free graphics, WP editor tools, 22 niche headers, skins and much more included
- CAGWYW (click & get what you want) technology
- drag-and-drop interface
- point and click features
- membership site features
- easily create your own graphics, buttons, badges, and etc… in WP editor
- works for unlimited amount of domains
- lifetime Upgrades
- easily add pop-ups, auto-responders and etc.. to your pages
- have unique settings per individual pages and posts
Profits Theme Video
The Profits WP theme can help seasoned internet marketers save time and money from having to always outsource or spend hours on designing. And anyone who lacks design and tech skills (like myself) this tool is a real lifesaver. It allows us to compete with the Big Boys. That is the main reason why these type of WordPress themes attract me, but I’ve never seen one that made it this easy and was so versatile. You’ll really have to give it a try for yourself to really see what the Profits theme can do.
The discount is only good for a few more days, and then you’ll have to pay full price. Check around for yourself, you won’t find a deal like with Profits WP Theme. There is a 30 day guarantee and can be used on unlimited domains that you own. If you decide it’s not for you, then let support know and they’ll handle it for you. I hope my profits theme review has shed a little more light on what this powerful WordPress theme is all about.
How to Remove Page Links From WordPress Navigation Bar
I finally figured out how to remove page links from my WordPress blogs, and I even did it without using a Wp plugin. It only took a couple minutes and was really quite simple. If you’ve ever wanted a straightforward tutorial on how to remove a page link from the navigation bar, then this post should help you out.
For those of you who may not know already, I have zero coding and tech skills so I’ve never tried removing any of the page links from my nav bar before. But I just recently installed a Google Custom Search Engine on this blog and it required me to publish a blank page. Of course I didn’t want a link in the nav bar that went to a blank page so I had to figure out how to remove it.
Many WordPress themes are coded to automatically throw a link into the navigation bar as soon as you publish the page. However, sometimes you may want to create pages and not have the page link available or visible, like I did. This is how you can do it.
tip: You may want to save a copy of the original coding for your WP theme before you make any changes to it, just in case.
How to Remove Page Links from WordPress Navigation Bar
1. In your WordPress Dashboard, under appearance, click on editor.
2. Now look for the header, (header.php) and click on that. It should be on the right hand side.
3. You’re looking for a piece of coding that looks similar to the coding below. It should be almost exact and located near the bottom of the page.
4. Now you need to know what page or pages you want to exclude from showing up in the navigation bar and enter those into the coding. It’s not going to be the page title or what’s in the url. It should be a number. The easiest way to find the number for the page you want to remove is to go into edit page and you’ll see the number in the address bar: “?post=####” <<—– your page number.
5. This is the code you need to enter below: -the numbers will be replaced with your page numbers that you don’t want visible in the navigation.
6. Continuing from step 5, now enter that into the coding that you found in step 3, and hit save.
That’s it, you’re finished! Now you can create pages whenever you want to and remove the page links in the WordPress navigation anytime you want.
There are some WordPress plugins that you can install to do this too, “remove page link plugin wordpress“. It’s your choice, the plugin would probably make things much easier, especially if you plan on creating several pages in you blog that you want to remove the page link for. But it’s so simple to do it on your own that I didn’t even bother. The more plugins you have installed can decrease the speed and functionality of your WP theme so I only install the necessary plugins.
Any thoughts or suggestions? Feel free to leave a comment and please share this tutorial with others.
Create a Money Making Blog Easily with Ultimate Blogging Theme
Let me share with you the WordPress theme that took me from making NO Money Online to having my very first successful Money Making Blog. This is going to be an Honest Ultimate Blogging Theme Version 3.0 Review, because I actually own and use it. Just recently updated, now this theme is more powerful and user friendly than ever before.
UBT allows you to design and create the blog or site of your choice, without knowing any coding or possessing any technical skills. With it’s point and click functionality, incredible SEO rankings and maximum advertising features, the UBT V3.0 is one of the best WP themes out there. You’ll be able to create endless amount of blogs or websites for any niche, without touching any coding.
Why I Give Credit to the Ultimate Blogging Theme
If you’ve read my about me page, then you already know that I started my internet ventures a few years ago, and just recently started working full time online. Now, this blog www.mathewday.com is the very first one that I started and I installed the Ultimate Blogging theme shortly after I created it. I still have UBT installed on this blog by the way and in it’s original layout.
My very first sales that I ever made from blogging came from, you guessed it, this blog. UBT helped me get good search engine rankings right away with my blog even though I didn’t really know what I was doing at the time, and it has really good advertising placements. Most of my sales come from search engine traffic, and the location of your advertisements is key to a better CTR and sales. You could achieve these things with other WP themes or templates, but I didn’t know any coding or have any design skills so it was very easy for me to create a money making blog using the Ultimate blogging theme.
OK- so UBT has helped me make a little money online, but the biggest factor it contributed to was building my confidence and made me realize that I actually could do this internet marketing thing. You see, one of the main reasons why people give up online is they don’t make any sales and this makes them have no confidence or momentum to keep going forward. My early sales that I made from blogging, thanks to the Ultimate blogging theme, gave me the confidence almost right from the beginning. Or who knows, I might have given up a long time ago.
Your WP Theme is so Plain and Boring- Why would I want to use it?
I hear you, but I still have the Ultimate Blogging Theme in it’s original layout and haven’t changed it at all. Why? Because it’s what started my internet marketing career, I’ve had good results with it, and just like the old saying goes “when you find something that works, then don’t change it”. This is the only blog that I have UBT in this layout and colors. I guess it’s more of a sentimental thing. You know, just like many business owners keep their first dollar they ever made. Well, I already spent my first dollar I ever made online. Plus, I like the very simple and clean look it has. This blog may look a little boring but it’s very easy to navigate and it ranks really well in the serp’s.
Now- forget the old and in with the new! Create just about any type of look and layout with the updated Ultimate Blogging Theme 3.0.
Just watch the videos below to see what UBT is really all about.
Click here to watch full version of the ultimate blogging theme 3.0 video
Why I Purchased the Ultimate Blogging Theme
Have you heard of the famous kid blogger who started making near 6 figures from his blog at the age of 13? His name is Carlocab and he’s the one that created the UBT V3.0 for WordPress. I saw that he was using his own product and was a successful blogger at such a young age. That’s what got me interested in the Ultimate Blogging theme and purchased it for myself.
Awesome SEO Rankings
The Ultimate Blogging theme has a good framework for maximizing SEO rankings in the search engines. Not only that, it has built in SEO features that will help you rank really well. Carlocab’s blog is on the first page of the coveted keywords “make money online”. That search term alone has well over 100 million websites competing for it.
OK, he’s a computer wiz kid and it probably took him a good while and a lot of effort to reach first page. How about for an average Joe?
I started this blog www.mathewday.com to be a online journal to help others make money and also to have a place to document what I learned online. I never began it on the intent of being in the “make money online” niche. I don’t have very many posts and barely any valuable backlinks pointing to this site.
But check it out. If you do a Google search for any keywords related to “make money online”, “extra money online” and “make money on the internet”. You’ll see my blog in the top ten search result pages for almost all of them, and that’s even without putting much effort into my SEO rankings. Let me just say, I easily can outrank just about anyone’s site out there for even the highest competitive keywords, thanks to the Ultimate Blogging theme.
Point and Click Functionality
Don’t have any tech or design skills? That’s cool, neither do I and that’s definitely one of the reasons why I chose UBT theme. Changing the entire theme and creating whatever site you want is easy as point and click, literally. The image below shows just a few functions on how easy it really is to create your unique site. Just click on your layouts and color pickers are available to easily change colors.
Easy Money Maker!
Location and visibility are two very important aspects of making money from your advertisements, no matter what niche you’re in. UBT makes advertising on your site very easy and successful. Add Adsense ads, Amazon widgets, banners or whatever you want to make money from. It’s pretty much copy and paste in the location you choose and hit save. Just like the images below.
FREE Updates?
You get free up dates for life, and they’ve updated at least a couple times since I’ve owned it. They do stay current and try to keep one step ahead of their competitors by adding new features and improvements whenever needed. Like when I bought UBT, you could only change the color and the 3 header boxes. But that was about it, unless you knew coding. Now with the latest updated Ultimate blogging theme, version 3.0, you have total control over your site practically just by pointing and clicking.
Purchase Ultimate Blogging Theme V.3 here
The video is kinda long, but you have to let it play out before you can see the purchase options for UBT V.3.
Customer Service
It’s pretty good. I have no complaints and yeah, I’ve taken full advantage of their customer service before in the past. They are pretty friendly, helpful and respond back usually within a day. Let them know if you need any help once you get this theme, and you can give them suggestions for their next update.
The Bad and the Ugly
Honestly, there’s not much to complain about on the Ultimate Blogging theme. That’s why I still use it today in it’s original format. I really didn’t change anything on it except add a logo. However, drag and drop functions would be pretty nice so would separating every section up into leaves. Hopefully they’ll add that on the next update?
Maybe UBT isn’t for You
I also own several other premium wordpress themes. Don’t get me wrong, the ultimate blogging theme is one bad-ass WP theme, but they do have some competition. I would have to say my other favorite WP theme right now would have to be Headway. Here’s a Twitter Adder blog I created with it. Just in case you wanted to see an example.
My purchase of the Ultimate Blogging theme was probably my biggest investment that I made when I first started out, other than hosting. It’s definitely worth every penny. Before you consider purchasing a different WordPress theme just to save a few bucks, think about this. With UBT, you’ll be able to create unlimited amount of different websites or blogs that all look unique. It’s really the only theme that you need.
There you have it, an honest Ultimate blogging theme Version 3.0 reviews. I hope my post helps you decide whether or not UBT is the right choice for you. I advise you to do your own research and look at all the other options before you decide to purchase this theme. Let me know your thoughts or ask me any other questions about it by leaving a comment.
How to Transfer Blogger Blog to WordPress Easily
Some of the first blogs I ever created were on Blogger. This is a great place to create a blog, especially for beginners. I still like using them for certain type of sites, but not for my money makers. However, ever since I’ve had my own hosting, I wondered how to transfer my Blogger blogs to WordPress.org. I literally thought it would be to much trouble so I never even bothered before. It’s actually a really quick and simple process.
I’ll even show you how to transfer over from Blogger to WordPress, and keep your backlinks, pagerank and traffic. That’s if your Blogger blog is on it’s own domain name.
I make most of my sites now with WordPress.org. Why? It’s the best blogging platform to create highly professional sites or blogs quickly and easily. From their numerous plugins that allow you to add and change your site up without any coding. All the way to the endless choices of WP themes available. WordPress is just the way to go if you want full control over your blog and own all your content.
Just to be clear, WordPress.org is a self-hosted blogging platform. Meaning, you need to have hosting before you can install WordPress.org. I suggest you use Hostgator. They are leading provider for shared hosting and the best for WordPress blogs. Just about every tutorial I write is for Hostgator Hosting, since that’s what I use. But the steps below should be about the same even if you’re with a different hosting company.
How to Transfer from Blogger to WordPress:
1. Change the dns of your domain to your hosting
If you have your own domain name for your Blogger blog, then just follow all the steps below.
If you don’t have your Blogger blog on its own domain already, then skip these 2 steps. But you will lose pagerank, backlinks and traffic if you don’t put your Blogger blog on it’s own domain first while it’s still on Blogger. You probably want to put your Blogger blog on it’s own domain before you migrate to WordPress, give the search engines a few months to transfer everything over to your new domain, then follow the steps below. The regular Blogger domain looks like this, sitename.blogspot.com. And if you have your own domain name, then it would look like this, sitename.com.
If you purchased the domain name straight from the Blogger dashboard like the image above, then you domain registrar should be Enom. Whatever your domain registrar is log into your account like the image below and change the Name Servers of your hosting. You can usually find your namer servers for your hosting in the cpanel or in your email they sent you. Like for Hostgator, log into your cpanel and you’ll see a box on the bottom of the left sidebar with your 2 hostgator.namerservers.
2. Addon domain name
Now you need to go back into your hosting cpanel, click on the addon domains and add your domain name for your Blogger blog.
3. Install WordPress onto your domain
Install wordpress onto your domain name. Here’s a complete guide on how to install WordPress onto Hostgator.
4. Configure your permalinks
Now you need to configure your permalinks so you can keep your backlinks and your traffic. In your WP dashboard, under settings, click on permalinks and make your custom structure just like the image below.
5. Import Blogger blog to WordPress
Back in your WordPress dashboard, under tools, click on import and then select Blogger. Choose the blog you’re going to import and follow all the prompts to move your comments and posts over.
6. Correct the Permalink Structure
To make sure the permalinks (url’s) are exactly the same, since Blogger permalinks are a little different than WordPress, then you can install the blogger to wordpress redirection plugin.
Or, you can go to step 6 here, moving from blogger to wordpress and download their WP plugin instead.
7. Last steps
You are ready to work on the design and layout of your blog. You can install a new wordpress theme under appearance in your WP dashboard. And if you’re using Feedburner, make sure you update your primary feed so people from Blogger blog will be redirected properly.
Now it’s time to kick back, start writing, and enjoy WordPress to the fullest. There’s no better blogging platform out there, and you’ll probably wonder why you didn’t migrate your Blogger blogs to WordPress earlier. If you have any tips or suggestions about transferring over from Blogger to WordPress, then leave a comment.
StudioPress Themes 25% Discount Code – Final Sale Ever!
Have you been thinking about getting a new wordpress theme or even starting a new blog? StudioPress, creators of some of the most stunning and easy to use themes available, is having a sale. This would be the best time to get their highly sought after Genesis framework, grab it for a very low price today!
The StudioPress discount is good for any of their products, which is going on right now and Ends on Tuesday. You’ll get 25% off by entering the word “BLACK” as a coupon code at checkout.
What’s popular at StudioPress?
- The Genesis Framework provides the secure and search-engine-optimized foundation that takes WordPress to another level. It’s great for novice to advanced developers and is really affordable.
- The Prose Theme is their most popular theme. It comes with a visual editor, so it’s great for newbies or experienced to point and click the design they desire.
- The Pro Plus Package, which includes every theme they’ve created, plus any future themes and updates.
This is a special Black Friday promotion and StudioPress had announced that this will be their last and final sale ever!
Don’t miss out on this epic event and secure your StudioPress theme today.
I mostly have heard about StudioPress because of their Genesis framework. Many of the top bloggers have been talking about it and almost all of them now use it on their blogs. Do a little research and you’ll learn that StudioPress is a premium company that creates only the best products. I’ve been wanting to get the Genesis framework combined with the Prose theme for a good while now. I guess finally, my procrastination has paid off for once!
New Highlighter Plugin – Free Download – Improve Your Chances to Win Apple iPad
I had just received an email the other day from UBD about their new Highlighter Plugin for WP. It’s pretty cool and just might become the next big thing. It makes interacting on a blog much easier by allowing you to highlight text and images within the content, then being able to comment or share them instantly. What’s even better, right now the the Highlighter plugin is absolutely FREE to download (no catch) and you could win a FREE Apple iPad. More details below.
I’ve tried it out on a few blogs already and it seems to invite more reader engagement. All a reader has to do is simply highlight something of interest to them and comment on it or even share it. It’s really easy to use, they can turn it off if they want to, and comments on the highlighted parts are seen by anyone who wants to read them.
The Highlighter Plugin Video explains it best:
One of the features of the highlighter plugin is the inline commenting which allows people to leave a comment at the exact place in the content they are interested in, instead of having to scroll all the way down and leave a comment where most people will never see. Also, people can share just the parts that they would be interested in, instead of having to send someone the entire url or blog post.
Benefits of the Highlighter Plugin:
- Engaging your audience and building a dedicated community of readers
- inline commenting – more reader engagement – rather than having to scroll all the way down to leave a comment
- increases traffic – more people will be willing to share your content, easier to share then more people will do it
- able to highlight any image or text in your content, then share or comment easily
- it’s not a hindrance at all but your readers can turn it off if they want to
- you can engage your readers and get more feedback by leaving comments and asking questions throughout your content
- it makes your blog more social and you know that trend is only increasing
- don’t worry highlighter plugin fights spam with wp’s built in spam tool Akismet
- Increase emails, has built-in email collection tools that you can integrate with Aweber, GetResponse and Mailchimp
- It’s totally free to download now!
Enter the drawing to Win a 16GB Apple iPad – How to Increase your Chances to Win!
The creators of the HighLighter Plugin for WP said in there email that all you need to do to be entered in their drawing is to download and use the highlighter plugin. That’s worth 1 entry. But you can download and use highlighter on more than one blog and it will be worth 1 entry for each one, but it has to be installed on different url’s to count.
Write a Blog post and link back to this page, Win FREE iPad Contest and that’s worth 3 entries!
The Highlighter plugin is FREE for now at least, so you probably want to check it out. Maybe it’s not for you or your audience but you won’t know until you try it. Plus there’s a chance to win a Apple iPad so it’s not a bad deal at all. I hope you got something out of my Highlighter plugin review and please share your thoughts about the new highlighter for WordPress.
