The pretty permalinks on my wordpress installation stopped working. Most Google searches told me to change the AllowOverride None to AllowOverride All. I tried numerous files. Finally, it seems there were 2 occurrences of the same  string in the httpd.conf file.

You had to change the one inside this

<Directory "/opt/bitnami/apache2/htdocs">
    #
    # Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
    # or any combination of:
    #   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
    #
    # Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
    # doesn't give it to you.
    #
    # The Options directive is both complicated and important.  Please see
    # http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#options
    # for more information.
    #
    Options Indexes MultiViews +FollowSymLinks
    #
    # AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
    # It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
    #   Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
    #
    AllowOverride All

    #
    # Controls who can get stuff from this server.
    #
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all

</Directory>

The httpd.conf file is present inside the apache2/conf directory. Some articles say that it is apache2.conf. It depends, I guess.

I was recently hacked by this website “sweepstakesandcontestsinfo.com” which was adding a little javascript just before </body> tag that was leading the visitors to download a malware filled flash player. I got to know about this when this particular finnish site was discussing about this (Thank god, I check stats).

Anyways, I did a little searching around. Seems that every single PHP file of mine was appended with the cheesy base64_encode’ed code.

My crappy webhost doesn’t provide SSH Access.  I couldn’t use my favorite command line. So, had to write some PHP code. Though it’s not the most efficient script, does the job well.

Ok, Here’s how you get rid of it.
1) Extract and upload this to your root directory.

2) Open one of your PHP file, on the top you’ll have a code similar to <?php eval(base64_decode(‘shit’)); ?>, copy and paste it into the ‘replace.txt’ file.

3) Open yoursite.com/replace.php. It’ll take a few minutes. Scroll down, it would’ve replaced the malicious code.

And oh, you need to have File_SearchReplace PEAR package installed on your host for this script to work.

Also, Sucuri says that these website also do the same crap.

sokoloperkovuskeci.com
sweepstakesandcontestsnow.com
sweepstakesandcontestsinfo.com
sweepstakesandcontestsdo.com

You are staring at this screen with a 100 MB file to import. It’s not the “WordPress Importer” problem. So, it’s time to take a backdoor.

There are a couple of ways you can import that file.

1) You can increase the “upload_max_filesize” to a really large number. You can do it in the php.ini file. To edit that, you will most probably need administrator access.

or

2) You can split the file into different parts and import it one by one.

“HTTP protection – detecting violations of the HTTP protocol and a locally defined usage policy.”

-modsecurity.org

All you have to do is, ask the customer support representative to disable / Whitelist this rule. Hostgator support were happy to do this.

If you know how to do it manually (dedicated server) and want to share your experience, please comment. Would appreciate that.

We didn’t even have a backup to revert it to the previous state (That was the cardinal mistake). We can’t even reinstall wordpress because he already had a ton of posts already on wordpress. I did waste a lot of time to get the backup from the backup server he had, which conveniently gave up at the perfect time.

So, I had to come up with a feature on my plugin which could delete all Blogger Imported posts. Thought I would share it with you.

To use it, look up the custom field value of your Blogger Imported post.

That is the Value, you’d want to enter in this column:

It’s been a long time since I posted anything (Exams holding me back). Today I have something special for you. A plugin that’ll make Blogger to WordPress Migration kids play (or atleast, hope so).

Here is the updated Blogger to WordPress guide to go with the plugin.

WordPress Repository
Download

1) Find your category ID. Login to your WordPress Dashboard –> Posts menu (left sidebar) –> Categories and then click on the required category.

Now, look at your address bar. You’ll have tag_ID=somenumber. That is your Category ID.

Like this:

2) When you have your Tag ID, enter this on your address bar.

http://YOURBLOG.com/?feed=rss&cat=somenumber

Eg: http://suhastech.com/?feed=rss&cat=145

3) Now, you’ll be automatically redirected to your feed specific URL.

Extra notes:
1) You can change it to atom feed by replacing “rss” by “atom”.
2) If you want, you can exclude a particular category from a feed, just put a “-” before the category ID.
http://suhastech.com/?feed=rss&cat=-145
3) More info.

“Could not copy some file:”

“Installation Failed”

Now, you’re stuck with Maintenance mode! Don’t worry, its no big deal, you’ll have to upgrade it manually (takes no genius to figure that out ). Its pretty easy.

1) Download the new upgrade as a zip file (from wordpress.org).

2) Open the zip file, you’ll have the wordpress source files packaged in a folder called “wordpress”. Extract it somewhere. Repackage it without the “wordpress” folder in their path.

3) Upload this repackaged zip file to your wordpress directory (Filezilla, cPanel etc).

4) Extract / Inflate it there.

5) Goto http://example.com/wp-admin/update-core.php in your browser. (just wp-admin would do i guess)

You’ll get this screen.

6) Just press “Update WordPress Database” and you’re good to go. (This is why I love WordPress)

It is a preconceived notion that migrating from Blogger to WordPress would destroy your previously acquired pagerank, google juice, traffic, image (picasa) data. Well, its not, its not that hard as it seems. It is possible to do it without losing any of these..

This method will ensure complete Page Rank, Traffic, Image transfer. Everything will be retained. We will use 301 redirects to do that. So, you will not lose any of your traffic be it organic or referral, anything. Even your images on Picasa are taken care of.

I have written a plugin that will do everything. I believe that this might be the easiest guide you will follow. I strongly recommend you to do it yourself because it is not as hard as it seems but,  if doing this is not your thing, you can hire me. I’ll take care of everything. You don’t have to break a sweat.

A lot of work has gone into making the plugin and preparing this guide. If you want to thank me, please link to this article.

I am going to show you how to do it completely on cPanel. You can try similar steps if you want to do it on your local machine.

Disclaimer: This method works most of the time. It has gone through a number iterations to make it as easy as possible but there are still things that can go wrong, to name a few, php.ini configurations, mod_security rules, unix permissions, the blogger post import algorithm etc. I’m not responsible for any loss.

This method will work with both custom domains and .blogspot.com domain blogs.

Before you start

You’ll have to buy a good hosting package. I’d recommend hostgator (aff). After that, you will get an email with your account information. Here is a sample email.

Note down all that is specified. If you don’t have the temporary URL listed, ask the web hosting support. I’m sure, they’ll tell you.

Setup your Blog

1) Go to the cPanel (using the cPanel URL) –> Addon Domain (or even a subdomain would do) –> Add your domain name.

3) Install WordPress on your domain. Fantastico is my favourite

.

A. Preparing

Here, you import all the old posts. Setup redirects using a plugin.
A.1 Getting WordPress to Work on the Temporary URL:
Temporary URL is only necessary if you are using custom domain on Blogger and want to move it to wordpress. People on .blogspot.com URL need not do this (Step A 1)

1) In your cPanel, go to PhpMyAdmin. Click on your database (Fantastico will save it as “username_ wrdp1″ or something similar)

2) Click on wp_options. Change the siteurl to your temporary URL.

A.2 Importing:

2) Login to the WordPress Dashboard using the Temporary URL . In the tools menu, select Import.

3) Select Blogger (duh!)

4) Select “Grant Access”

5) Click on Import.

A.3 Redirecting:

Here, you’ll make sure you redirect all the traffic from your Blogspot Permalinks to your new WordPress Permalinks. We will make 301 redirects. All your traffic from organic (search engines) and inorganic (referral, direct) will still be retained. All your search engine rankings, Page ranks will be intact. And it’s super easy to do.

Basically, Your Blogger URL will be like:

http://www.suhastech.com/2010/01/wordpress-change-server-webhost-domain.html

Your new WordPress URL will be like:

http://suhastech.com/wordpress/complete-wordpress-guide-how-to-change-your-webhost-or-domain-and-still-retain-all-the-settings/

All of them will be redirected.

1) Install this plugin.

2) What do you expect, thats all.

The following steps are only for .blogspot.com domain users.

1) Go to WordPress Dashboard (wp-admin) -> Tools –> SEO Blogger to WordPress. Put in your WordPress URL and Generate the Template.

2) Copy all of the Generated text.

3) Go to your Blogger Dashboard -> Design -> Edit HTML -> Revert to Classic Template.

4) Paste all the Generated Template to the code area and click on save.

A.4 Tidying Up

Before your blog goes live. Make all the changes you want to do. Here’s a Check List that would help you:

1) Add a new theme.

2) Edit any posts if you must.

Changing the permalinks is a must for the plugin to work. When you change the structure, wordpress takes care of .htaccess.

3) Change your permalink structure. Settings –> Permalinks. I recommend /%category%/%postname%/

4) Install all the plugins you need. I recommend: All in one SEO pack, Akismet (Buckle up), Yet another related posts, Google Analyticator

A.5 Miscellaneous

You wouldn’t want to leave your subscribers behind. Make sure you redirect your feed.

Go to Blogger Dashboard –> Settings –> Site Feed. Set “Post feed redirect URL” to “yourblog.com/feed”

A.6 The Migration

You have your wordpress blog completely setup. Set your siteURL back to the original URL (As in A.1).

Now, you’ve to point your domain to the blog you have setup.

Go to your Domain Registrar (Godaddy / Namecheap) and update the nameservers provided by your hosting provider.

1) Login to your Domain Registration Control Panel.

2) Add the nameservers given by your hosting provider.

Nameservers will take about 3-4 hours (48 hours max) to propagate. After that you can pat yourself for a flawless migration. If it’s not, comments are welcome.

A.7 Download Images from Picasa Albums to your WordPress Installation

Now, that you’ve installed my plugin. Go to Settings –> SEO Blogger to WordPress.

Click on “Download”. After the process is completed, click on “Clear Temporary Settings”.

How the migration works:

This paragraph below is an email I wrote to one of my clients.

In a blog, images take up the most bandwidth. You might save a lot of bandwidth if you use this method.

Ever since I migrated from Blogger to WordPress, I have been posting pictures to Picasa. Here’s how:

1) Create a dummy blog on blogger.com (say thisisjustforthepictures.blogspot.com)

2) Configure it on Windows Live Writer. (Blogs –> Add blog account)

3) Write a blog post. Add some pictures (duh!)

4) Select “Post draft to blog”

4) Login to your Blogger Dashboard –> Edit Posts.

5) Select the “Edit HTML” tab. Copy everything up (Ctrl + A and Ctrl + C).

6) Login to your WordPress Dashboard. Create a New post (Posts –> Add New) . Select HTML tab, paste the copied text. (Ctrl + V). Publish!

Also, if you are using magazine style template that makes automatic thumbnails, you might want to hear this. By default, WordPress doesn’t make thumbnails of offsite images (which in this case is Picasa). So, you’ll need to implement this hack: WordPress: Automatic thumbnails of blogger or picasa hosted images

Afterthoughts:

Some of you might point out that, “What if Picasa goes down”. Hey, its from Google! It’s here to stay. If you are still worried, you can try cloud backup services like backupify.com

Right now, I think this is the best trick. If I get some time, I’ll try to tweak the WordPress’ upload script to incorporate Picasa API.