Linking To Wrong (or Duplicate?) Post

Discussion in 'HTML & Website Design' started by Richard Rockwell, Sep 23, 2015.

  1. #1
    So, I have been having what I hope and believe is a minor problem after doing a little bit of restructuring of my new site. I'll give a little background, as I suspect the pre-existing structure may be effecting what's happening now. Also, thinking about it, maybe it has to do with permalinks?

    Initially, my new product review site/blog was set up with two subdomains for two separate categories of reviews I had. On advice, I got rid of the subdomains so different posts will now only be separated out by category. There is a tab menu across the top for navigation to the separate categories. After successfully setting up some affiliate links everything seemed fine and dandy. All posts on main page (which are currently posted on main page and "categories" pages) are linked and formatted properly. When I use the tab menu to go to the first category page ("books")(mysite.net/category/books) everything still looks good and linked/formatted properly. Next tab ("music")(mysite.net/category/music) same story. When I navigate to the actual posts, though (e.g. mysite.net/books/postname), things get all screwy. The post is still there but is not linked/formatted correctly (rather than "mysite" it displays "oldblogname" at the top). Also, from there (mysite.net/books/postname) trying to navigate back to category page ("books") gets me to mysite.net/books rather than mysite.net/category/books.

    I'm sure it's something relatively simple (at least, I'm hoping) but I just can't seem to figure it out. I've also redirected my blogger site to my wordpress site, so maybe that may have something to do with it.

    Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance, everybody.
     
    Richard Rockwell, Sep 23, 2015 IP
  2. COBOLdinosaur

    COBOLdinosaur Active Member

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    #2
    As I was reading through that I was certain that at some point the word Wordpress would show up. Without a link I can only imagine what kind of mess tries to pass for code, but without even looking I will predict it does not validate, has structural errors and is bloated by a bunch of jquery junk. I have never seen a WP site that did not have maintenance issues, and I have never seen one that I would not recommend re-writing with valid coding and layout structure.

    If you post a link we will look at it, but most professionals are just going tp puke and walk away if it is a typical WP abortion.
     
    COBOLdinosaur, Sep 24, 2015 IP
  3. Richard Rockwell

    Richard Rockwell Peon

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    #3
    Hahaha. I'm glad you knew WordPress was in there somewhere. I'm new to WordPress (& site creation, in general) so I'm willing to learn about anything I can do to improve the site. My main site is www.richardrockwell.net. I know, it's creative and catchy, huh? I'd be glad if someone would take a lot and point out some spots for improvement (hopefully the spot for improvement isn't the whole site. ha). Go and check it out, and I hope nobody gets sick to their stomach looking at my site.
     
    Richard Rockwell, Sep 24, 2015 IP
  4. COBOLdinosaur

    COBOLdinosaur Active Member

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    #4
    Not too bad. About 40 messages from the validator. A couple serious structural errors that generally indicate an attempt to put a block element inside a paragraph. A bunch of warnings about obsolete attribute, and a bunch of error on links and images. I see Yoast being used for SEO; ao we get a laugh out of it the site is seriously not optimized starting with the fact that the semantics have been trashed by using multiple h1 tags.

    As for design it is a C- at best. Way too muh jumping around on the load, and there is virtually nothing above the fold. It looks like a 20th century splash page. I already said the SEO was bad, and that is another indication of it. I doubt you can get that under an 80% bounce rate; if you do manage to get some traffic from the SEs. It looks like you have some decent content, and you need to show that above fold because what is presented initially now is going to get a high percentage of responses like. "Oh another one of those" followed by a click of he back button because the presentation has nothing unique in it and looks like 10 of thousands of other sites on initial entry.

    If you are still in the learning phase then I would urge you to slow down a little, and spend some time learning the basics, instead of using third party junk like wordpress. If you want something that is impressive, and is YOU, then it needs to be YOU who codes it. all you will learn from WP is how to slop out mediocre trash that obscures whatever good content you have and just becomes one of the millions of WP sites no one cares about.
     
    COBOLdinosaur, Sep 24, 2015 IP
  5. Richard Rockwell

    Richard Rockwell Peon

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    #5
    Any specific input on the wonky stuff happening with navigation? Something to do with the coding?

    Honestly, a lot of that flew over my head. I think I understand what you mean by "above the fold," though. As it is, when they first get to the page all the viewer sees is the huge title up top and the post title. That means the body of the post is "below the fold," right? I do get that part. I can work on that.

    As for structural errors/block element inside paragraph: I'm lost. Obsolete attribute: I'm lost, but guessing that has something to do with navigating somewhere it shouldn't/or doesn't exist anymore (maybe something to do with my "main" problem of going to the wrong version of the right post). I can get my head around errors on links and images, though… Probably those pictures that aren't showing up, duh me. I also don't know a thing about semantics or h1 tags.

    If you, or anyone else who read this, wouldn't mind breaking down any of those categories I wouldn't mind learning about them. Thanks.
     
    Richard Rockwell, Sep 24, 2015 IP
  6. Richard Rockwell

    Richard Rockwell Peon

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    #6
    After doing some research on H1 tags, I think I see what you mean about those. I think. My gut feeling/guess is that there should be very few H1 tags (1?) and then H2 tags to further categorize posts&pages? Or am I way off here?
     
    Richard Rockwell, Sep 24, 2015 IP
  7. billzo

    billzo Well-Known Member

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    #7
    Run the validator on your site:

    HTML Validator: http://validator.w3.org/
    (Less important CSS Validator: https://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/)

    Getting a site to validate is important. That validator will help you find errors in your HTML that should be fixed and give you "warnings" when certain things are not necessary but okay to leave in. Please keep in mind that around here you will find a lot of HTML purists and people who want information quick and dirty and are not into appearances. (The CSS may not validate on a lot of CSS code but you should understand why such as using vendor prefixes for pre-finalized CSS, etc.)

    Yes, there should only be one <h1> on a page.

    The OP could spend hundreds of hours learning stuff or he can start publishing content. For all its faults (and there are plenty), Wordpress is a quick way for someone to get up and running and publishing content instead of spending hundreds of hours learning and writing code. Yes it is bloated and produces inefficient HTML, but it is what it is. And it is better than nothing for a newbie or anyone who does not have the time to write code from scratch.
     
    billzo, Sep 24, 2015 IP
  8. Richard Rockwell

    Richard Rockwell Peon

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    #8
    Thanks for letting me know how to get to both of those validators, billzo. This late at night, the results just made me chuckle. I'll start chipping away at the stuff I can figure out how to do/fix at some point tomorrow.
     
    Richard Rockwell, Sep 24, 2015 IP
  9. Blogzandstuff

    Blogzandstuff Greenhorn

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    #9
    twentythirteen is quite an old theme, much better ones out there for free on wordpress.org. Some annoying popups, which most people find annoying nowadays and your social sharing buttons take up far too much screen real estate, a bit over powering
     
    Blogzandstuff, Sep 25, 2015 IP
  10. Richard Rockwell

    Richard Rockwell Peon

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    #10
    I assume you're talking about the e-mail popup on entrance to the site… and the one later in a different format. I definitely understand how they're seen as annoying. Just toying with those for now, but those are easy to adjust. Same with the sharing buttons size. Those can easily be dialed-down to a smaller size, relocated, rearranged, etc. pretty easily. Not that I'm taking your feedback for granted. Far from it. I truly appreciate it. I'll definitely look into newer, better themes as well. Thank you.
    My biggest concern right now is getting the internal linking structure to work properly. If you notice, everything looks fine upfront (i.e. all posts appear properly formatted within each category, as richardrockwell.net/category/books), but once you actually click on a post title you get lead to ".net/books/postname" rather than ".net/category/books/postname." It seems to me (as little as I know about it so far) that it may have something to do with previously having had each category as a subdomain. Could it be that each post title is still leading to the subdomain post rather than the post within the appropriate category? As you may notice, this is starting to bug the crap out of me. haha.
    Also, any input on how to work on those H1 tags? Do I have to get into (PHP?) coding within the theme(which I'm fine learning about) or is there another way to straighten them out? Considering the suggestion to get content above the fold I wandered upon a lot of information on coding and child themes, etc. but that may be for another time and place… and post. Any information about how to adjust the internal linking to get it right or H1 tags so I can get the html closer to validating would probably make my day! Thanks all.
     
    Richard Rockwell, Sep 25, 2015 IP
  11. Blogzandstuff

    Blogzandstuff Greenhorn

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    #11
    try your permalink settings, change to postname and save. that might help.
     
    Blogzandstuff, Sep 25, 2015 IP
  12. Blogzandstuff

    Blogzandstuff Greenhorn

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    #12
    you could reassign to categories using quick edit and restructure that way.
     
    Blogzandstuff, Sep 25, 2015 IP
  13. Richard Rockwell

    Richard Rockwell Peon

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    #13
    Changing permalinks from custom: category/postname to postname did the trick as far as navigating to proper links is concerned. Easy fix, but you nailed it. Thanks a ton!

    Day = made.
     
    Last edited: Sep 25, 2015
    Richard Rockwell, Sep 25, 2015 IP
  14. COBOLdinosaur

    COBOLdinosaur Active Member

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    #14
    Sorry I didn't get back to you. Yesterday was a little crazy. Looks like you have the main problem solved so just a couple of note.

    Above the fold is a term that originates in newspaper publishing. It refers to the headline and content that is visible and making the sale. as it relates to web pages it is basically what you initially display on page load. It is critical for two reasons. One it needs to grab the user so they decide they want to read the whole page. Second it impacts SEO because the SEs apply more weight to content and keywords that are above the fold.

    Now as to h tags. The H1 is the single most important tag in the content. Its purpose is to tell users and the search engines what the page is about. Having more than one H1 causes the SEs to treat the page as having no H1; which means the page is a page about nothing. The other h tags are hierarchical and used to title section, or components.

    Finally validation is a critical step in any maintenance. Browsers are designed to work around coding errors, but they do not all handle specific errors the same way so you can have a page that is working correctly suddenly stop working with a new release of a browser. In addiyion to that the SE crawlers may not be able to fully crawl a page if it has errors. They work from the source code and if they get confused or lost because of an error, they will simply move on and not index the page.

    What is the value of content that does not get traffic because oit was developed with crapware by someone lacking the technical skills to fix it. I am not suggesting that the OP needs a CS degree to proceed, but no one should expect success with a web site if they do not have the basic skills to work with the code to fix things. I do not agree with WP being an answer to anything, because it is nothing but liquid manure. However I will defend to the death your right to to give bad advice and lead novice developers down a dead end road.
     
    COBOLdinosaur, Sep 26, 2015 IP
  15. Blogzandstuff

    Blogzandstuff Greenhorn

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    #15
    good, glad it helped
     
    Blogzandstuff, Sep 26, 2015 IP
  16. Richard Rockwell

    Richard Rockwell Peon

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    #16
    So, I've experimented with a few different ways to get content above the fold (I knew that I knew what you were getting at.) My first thought was to change the size of the header image, which turned out to be more complicated than I thought it would be. Learned a bunch about child themes and, after much effort (I was creating a child theme in the wrong folder of the file manager! Oops.) I've got everything displayed on a child theme of twenty-fifteen. I'm starting to get an understanding of what you mean about WP, COBOLdinosaur, in that it seems like a bit of coding knowledge (which I'm new at, but eagerly learning & researching) seems to go a long way in controlling how my site operates. But, as it was said, WP is what it is and it's got my content up and out there so I'm sticking with it and learning about coding as I go.

    In regard to h1 tags and headers, am I right in thinking that my h1 tag should be my site name and h2 should be category name(s), h3 post name(s)? Or should h1 be page name, h2 category, h3 post name? Or something else entirely?

    On the technical side, am I now "free" to go and start altering php coding of child theme (e.g. header.php) without fear that I'm going to "break" everything or anything? I copied twentyfifteen/header.php straight into my twentyfifteen-child folder. Is that the legitimate/proper way to start moving structural elements from parent theme to child theme? Can I start working on validation errors that way?


    P.S.: What's with the "Bad value http://rover.ebay.com/roverimp/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?ff3=2&pub=5575139704&toolid=10001&campid=5337750246&customid=&item=191487596333&mpt=[CACHEBUSTER] for attribute src on element img: Illegal character in query: not a URL code point" error in HTML Validator? Are "[" & "]" the illegal characters?
     
    Last edited: Sep 26, 2015
    Richard Rockwell, Sep 26, 2015 IP
  17. Blogzandstuff

    Blogzandstuff Greenhorn

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    #17
    you can now start doing any code changes inside your child theme without breaking the site, if it goes wrong just remove the page and your site will be intact. Best way to do it is to download notepad++ and download a copy of the page you are working on, then drag into notepad++ and do it there, then save and upload. Notepad++ is free and will outline all the code line by line so it's easier to see
     
    Blogzandstuff, Sep 26, 2015 IP
  18. Richard Rockwell

    Richard Rockwell Peon

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    #18
    Bad form to edit code right in blue host file manager (code editor layout makes me feel like I might know what I'm doing. ha) or is it just easier & more convenient when it comes to editing longer code files?
     
    Richard Rockwell, Sep 26, 2015 IP
  19. Blogzandstuff

    Blogzandstuff Greenhorn

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    #19
    If you are editing only your child theme files then it doesn't really matter too much, as long as the original file is there. I prefer to do it in notepad++ as i can just make sure i haven't accidently deleted a piece of the code before i add it to the child theme. Longer code files are easier in notepad++ as you can use search and replace function, not sure if your bluehost live editor has that
     
    Blogzandstuff, Sep 26, 2015 IP
  20. COBOLdinosaur

    COBOLdinosaur Active Member

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    #20
    It is "best practice" to use a a text editor in "development" work space on your own computer. Editing in server space is a dangerous game that can jump up and bite you in the ass from a simple typo.

    As for the h1; it should not be the name of your site, or the name of the page. You have the title tag to give the page its name. The h1 defines the content, it says this page is about ..... Sort of like a headline. If it contains some of your keywords that are prominent in the content even better.

    Getting more above the fold means looking at what you have at the top of the page before the content. Does all of it need to be there? Does it add value to the page and the user experience? Is it just decoration that you put there because it is "cool" or trendy?
    Can it go somewhere else on the page? The bottom line is rule number one in web publishing: There is absolutely nothing on any web page that is ever more important than the content. If there is anything on the page that reduces the importance or prominence of the content; get rid of it.
     
    COBOLdinosaur, Sep 28, 2015 IP