Wordpress Blog pages, links and posts not showing up!

Today I had to re-install my blog (online digital interactive journal) because I chose a hosting plan with a windows operating system that did not support a search engine friendly feature in my Wordpress application. I had it up & running fine yesterday, except for the category, archives and post pages. They were resolving with “The page cannot be displayed” error. I thought these issues were domain name related because I had built this site before pointing the domain. After further investigation, I found out this wasn’t the case. It actually had to do with a feature called “permalinks” and the creation of these links using a technique called “mod rewrite”. I have provided the definitions to these new words for you below.

Definition: Blog

An online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page; also called Weblog, Web log

Definition: Mod Rewrite

A module that provides a rule-based rewriting engine to rewrite requested URLs on the fly.

Okay, so now we know what those words mean, lets talk about why you are reading this. One, you find my site interesting and your compiled to read everything on it. Two, you did a search on your favorite search engine and found this page because you have the same issue as I did. If you’re here for the first reason, then I thank you. If not, I am sure it is because of my basic use of search engine optimization, and I do mean basic.

Definition: Permalink

A permalink is the permanent identifier to a specific weblog post or article. On Movable Type, a Permalink is usually a link to an entry’s unique web page. The default archiving set-up in Movable Type includes date-based archives and individual archives. By default the permalinks are set up to link to an entry’s individual archive page.

Definition: .htaccess

.htaccess (Hypertext Access) is the default name of Apache’s directory-level configuration file. It provides the ability to customize configuration directives defined in the main configuration file. The configuration directives need to be in .htaccess context and the user needs appropriate permissions.

I also did a Google search to find help on this topic and I did not find anything helpful. Then I finally realized my problem, since I have had issues like this in the past. I was having a problem with Mod Rewrite script in my .htaccess file. If you’re having a similar issue, you might want to consider looking into this.

There are 3 reasons that I know of for this issue.

1. your web site is on a windows plan and does not have an ISAPI rewrite filter, therefore do not have .htaccess abilities.
2. your .htaccess file is not writable and needs to be in order for your application to rewrite it automatically.
3. your .htaccess file is missing (note it may be hidden and you need to show hidden files in order to see it)
4. your .htaccess file is there but it is missing the mod_rewrite rule used to set up the permalinks.

Here are some solutions;

1. Move to a webhost that has Unix plans and therefore can support .htaccess.
2. Make your .htaccess file writable by changing the file permission via (chmod) and ftp. Note: Unix/Linux servers only
3. Make sure your .htaccess file is not hidden, ask your host to help, if it is not there, make one with notepad text editor.
4. Update your .htaccess file with a mod_rewrite rule

For me, the instructions did not show because I was on a windows server. You can solve this issue if you’re on a dedicated server by installing a IIS ISAPI Rewrite filter. But if your on a shared windows hosting plan like I was, then your going to have to go out and get a UNIX hosting plan that will let you had an .htaccess file.

I had to switch hosting plans, then I re-installed by WordPress blog, configured my permalinks and this is when the paragraph appeared to generate my .htaccess file. Then I created an .htaccess file, pasted the mod_rewrite rule code and then I uploaded it to the root of my blog.

I hope this helps.

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