knowledgebase

We sometimes put a website into a sub directory to work on it i.e. carryout the updates and maintenance.

When working on a new website we can put the site into a www.website.com/folder/ so the site is not visible to visitors and will not get picked up by search engines.

Once the updates and new site are ready to go live follow these quick and easy steps.

1. Make sure you have all the back ups i.e. files and database.

You will find Jetpack in cPanel with all the backups you will need but check they are there before proceeding.

You will need to login to cPanel to carryout this task so you will need login details.

2. Remove all files and folders from the root directory.

Ensure the root directory is empty. Compress the files in there and download them if you want to keep them.

2. Login to WordPress and go to settings > General and change the url from the sub directory to root.

WordPress Address (URL) http://website.com/wp (no trailing slash)

Site Address (URL) http://website.com (no trailing slash)

4. Move files to root folder.

Go to File Manager and select all the files and folders in the sub directory and move them to the root. You can drag and drop.

5. Log back into WordPress.

Now log back into WordPress using the domain i.e. https://www.website.com/wp-admin/

6. Set Permalinks

Select permalinks to update the .htaccess file.

Settings > Permalinks click save changes. This action will update the .htaccess file.

7. Update urls

Update the urls throughout the site with a plugin i.e. Search and replace.

https://www.website.com/folder

https://www.website.com (no slash)

7. Go through all the links on the site to check for broken links.

The plugin may miss links, so go through the whole site and double check the links to images, videos, pages etc

You can also use  broken link checker plugin that may pick up broken links.

Manually update Revolution Slider links.

7. Set up a redirect

If you don’t want to lose your credit score then add a redirect from the old url to the new url.

You can add this code to the .htacccess file

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST) ^website.com/folder$ [or]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.website.com/folder$
RewriteRule (.*)$ http://www.website.com/$1 [R=301, L]

Summary

This is a simple way to move a website to live rather than downloading and re-uploading the whole thing, which takes time and can lead to issues. 

This is why we use the sub directory to create new websites and carryout maintenance.

If you need any help with this then please contact me.

The latest WHMCS has removed bank details from PDF invoices.

Bank details can be added to the Payment apps which appear on the online invoices, but disappear on the PDF download versions.

There is a way to manually add the details to the invoicepdf.tpl file but a temporary measure is to add the bank details to the notes sections.

Put bank details in notes sections

The bank details will display at the bottom of the invoice.

If you are using WHMCS then you will know that following the latest update you can no longer edit the invoice.

We hope the next update will rectify this but in the meantime below is a work around.

Steps in phpMyAdmin

1. Go to phymy admin
2. Find the database
3. Go to tblinvoices
4. Find the invoice you want to edit (You can use the filter at the top)
5. Locate the invoice by the id column and make a note of this.
6. Run the following sql

sql

UPDATE tblinvoices
SET status = ‘Draft’
WHERE id = (123, 278);

Replace 123 with the invoice ID.

Once the invoice is back into draft you can edit the details.

We await the next WHCMS update for this to be reverted back.

Contact me if you get stuck.

The quickest way to create a brand new WordPress website is by using Softaculous.

Softaculous is a web app that automatically creates a database and loads up the WordPress files for you so you are ready to begin.

All you have to do is to fill in a few details and let it run.

Login into cPanel

Go to the bottom of cPanel where you will find softaculous.

Select Install

Select https:// then create a new sub directory such as /dev/

Enter site name and site description

Admin Username and Password (this will be your WordPress login, so do not use Admin, use a longer unique Username and difficult password)

Add your email address that you want to use to login and receive emails

Go to advanced and change the Database name to something other than wp

Before you click install, make sure you add your email address so you get the details.

Click install.

There you will have created your first WordPress website.

Login to cPanel and go to the emails section.

1. Spam Filters: Select spam box feature, or make sure this is switched on.
2. Saves spam: This feature will save emails that are above the spam threshold set by the server. Some emails are flagged as spam but they could be legitimate customer emails which you do not want to lose.
3. Access spam folder: Click on your trash,junk folder to check if an email has been sent to junk

Ensure junk is deleted off the server regularly.