Update … Any gurus out there?
October 17, 2008 by Lillie
My post Rules or Artistic License appears at The Blood-Red Pencil today. Do writers have to follow the rules or can they take artistic license? Check out the post for my take on the question.
Here at A Writer’s Words, An Editor’s Eye, I’m still tweaking. When I moved the blog, I ended up with more than 300 broken links. Some of them had probably been broken for awhile—they were external links in posts. However, I didn’t know they were broken until I added the Broken Link Checker plugin. All I had to do was tell Broken Link Checker to unlink, and the problem was solved—the text was saved but the link removed.
Other broken links were links to images in posts. The images seemed to be in the right place, and the links seemed to be right, but they just wouldn’t connect. So I uploaded most of the images again and deleted a few that I couldn’t readily find.
I’m still working on internal links in old posts. When I started the blog, I used the default WordPress permalink structure (date and post or page number). I later changed to date and title and had a plugin to redirect the permalinks; however, that plugin isn’t working here so I’m changing each link individually. I’m down to 42 broken links.
There are still a few glitches that I need to work out. I’ll appreciate any suggestions anyone can make.
- There seems to be a problem with the feed. When I used the FeedSmith plugin on the old theme, a loyal reader said she could no longer get my feed so I deactivated the plugin. I tried the FD Feedburner plugin when I moved the blog, and my Feedburner subscriber number jumped from fewer than 80 to nearly 150. However, it seemed that my feed was showing comments and not posts … so I’ve deactivated the plugin and am back down to 74 subscribers … but the feed seems to be working. If you are a subscriber, please let me know if the feed is working for you.
- Trackbacks are showing up in Recent Comments. All the repaired links are showing up as new trackbacks, so Recent Comments is full of old trackbacks instead of new comments. Does anyone know a way to exclude trackbacks?
- Gravatars disappeared from comments. I think this happened when I finally got Brian’s Threaded Comments working though I didn’t notice it immediately so it could have happened later.
- CommentLuv and Keyword Luv still aren’t working. I can’t figure out why … they just don’t work. Any ideas?
One thing can’t be fixed: I lost all my replies to a number of comments. I recently responded to new comments on a few old posts and was dismayed to find there were no comments from me to the dozen or more comments. It looks like the threaded comments disappeared so there may be other missing comments as well since some of my readers also replied in threaded comments. I hate to lose the conversation but am glad most of my readers comments are here.
Have you noticed any other glitches? Tell me about any problems you’re having here so I can resolve them—or at least try to. 
My goal is to have the blog in tip-top shape before my blog book tour (October 27th – November 14th). I still have a couple of open dates if you’re interested in hosting me.
Lillie, just wanted to send you hugs! Those tech issues can be frustrating. I have a few too which I got so tired of trying to fix, I just ignored.
I don’t care about the glitches, I am here for the awesome writing and wonderful community. 
Karen,
You are so sweet! Thanks for the hug—I feel better already.
Go to RentACoder.com and start a job. You can probably get someone to fix these glitches real cheap. Of course when you create the job be very specific what you want and do not turn over any money until each is fixed for certain.
Thanks for the suggestion. I’m trying to learn this stuff myself and have found that often one of my readers has had some experience with what I’m going through.
I hadn’t noticed any glitches (and I’m a newbie, not a guru) – but I did want to thank you for talking about the Broken Link Checker plug-in. Great tool – thanks!
Andy,
That Broken Link Checker is a nifty little tool. I’m glad you found it helpful.
What do you mean by your feedburner feed showing comments but not posts?
Myron,
I believe this is fixed. I apparently had something wrong so that subscriptions to the blog were really subscriptions to comments.
Well, Lillie. You’ve definitely choosen the right helper here, as the broken link checker plugin will help us spotting the broken links without even a hassle!
Meanwhile, I liked all of your changes here and hope you will keep it up
wilson,
Yes, the Broken Link Checker is great. It makes it easy to find broken links and easy to unlink if it’s a bad link.
I run searches on Google for answers to technical questions and find lots of content. Surely you have a web guru here that can help – sorry it’s not me. My forte is MS Access and databases.
Looks like the party was a lot of fun. Congratulations again!
Bonnie,
Thanks for the suggestion. I have searched Google for technical questions before and will again. I was just hoping someone here could make it easy for me.
Wow, the task you have at hand is definitely not easy. But yeah, I’d encourage you to keep going at it. I’m sure it’ll be worth it.
With those images, whereabouts are you hosting them?
Thanks, David. I’m getting there. The images are on my Web site. They show up in the wp-content/uploads directory, but the links didn’t work. I’ve uploaded them all again now so the image problem is resolved.
Hey, don’t know if you resolved your track back issue yet, but it is possible if you go in and edit your php files of your theme. There might also be a plug-in, but I couldn’t readily find one.
Usually before I begin messing around with my php files, I make a copy of them. You can either just copy the entire text from wordpress’s built in theme editor into notepad, or you can log into your server and copy it there. It should be located at wp-content/themes/YourThemeName. In either case, if you have a backup and it doesn’t work, you can just copy the old php code back in and it will work again.
Something along the lines this will probably work, just remove the spaces around the .com part…
problogdesign . com/how-to/separating-trackbacks-from-comments/
If you want to email me the code, I can probably do it for you too…
Brad,
Thank you! I’ll check this out. I do have copies of my theme files, and I don’t mind experimenting … and if something doesn’t work, reverting to the backup. If I run into a problem, I may e-mail you, but I think I can handle it. I appreciate your help.
Brad,
I e-mailed you to see if you can help me. I’m using Brian’s Threaded Comments, so my comments.php is different. I couldn’t find the code described in the instructions you gave. Probably someone more tech savvy than I can figure it out, but I got lost.
hmmm, i’m no expert but i just would like to say your blog looks fine to me.. i really enjoyed your posts, keep it up and i hope you resolve the little issues…
Thank you, Lars. I’m glad you like the blog. I’m gradually getting these issues resolved.
Lillie, just to say I’ve done the resubscribe to the feed again and this time it does seem to be working. Hurray!
Sorry I can’t help with any of the other tech glitches… I’m sure they’ll get fixed eventually…
Joanna,
Yay! Thanks for letting me know. I’ve got all the broken links fixed now, all the images are back, and the feed is working. Things are coming together.
Hi, Lillie!
I’m getting your feed OK, but did you realize that it’s only a partial feed?
Jeanne
Jeanne,
Thanks for letting me know. I have the WordPress setting to full feed, but I guess there’s something in the theme that overrides that. I also have a plugin that is supposed to ensure it’s a full feed … guess that’s not working either. I’ll keep plugging away at it because I hate partial feeds!
I know you do, Lillie. That’s why I thought it odd and figured I should let you know that I’m getting only a partial feed. I’d recommend subscribing to your own feed so you can check it periodically just to make sure everything is working properly. Hope you get it all worked out soon!
Jeanne,
Thanks. I do subscribe to my own feed—just haven’t figured out how to make the full feed plugin work.
I should have known you’d subscribe to your own feed, Lillie! It only makes sense (for tracking purposes)–and I’ve always found you to be the sensible type.
Thanks, Jeanne. I like to think I’m generally the sensible type … but it never hurts to ask because sometimes my sensible side goes missing.
Believe me, Lillie, I can relate!
Most of us probably have similar experiences, Jeanne.
I would hire a techie from rentaconder, you should be able to find somebody cheap enough and the small amount of money is worth all the head aches you would avoid.
Dan,
Good advice—only three reasons I’m not likely to take it:
1) I’m more stubborn than any mule you ever heard of, and I do not give up.
2) My top theme according to the Strengths Finder assessment is “learner,” and I always want to learn new things.
3) I create and maintain WordPress sites for clients so I need to be able to handle any problems that come up.
Most of the issues I’m dealing with are related to moving the blog from a subdirectory to the main directory and replacing the site I’ve had for more than 10 years. Those issues aren’t likely to be repeated with clients, who typically have never had a Web site before. However, I still want to solve the problems on my own and know how to solve them again if needed.
But thanks for the good advice!
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