Things You Need To Know To Pimp Your WordPress Blog On Yahoo! Web Hosting - Installation and Upgrade Issues

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In choosing a web host for your blog, the first consideration probably is “how much is this gonna cost me”? For low cost hosting by a familiar name, Yahoo! seemed the optimal choice. However, as your blogging sophistication increases, you’ll find certain limitations with Yahoo! Small Business Web hosting. This is the first part of a series in which we will examine some of the challenges this blog has faced and what we did so fix them. Today, we will discuss installation and upgrading.

Before discussing installation and upgrading I’m going to suggest that you familiarize yourself with some important concept and tools. Don’t be overwhelmed even though some of these things are subjects of certification courses, and therefor, pretty dense. However, if you google some of these terms or check out some of the more tech oriented blogs, you will learn enough to make your site look and perform like you intend it to.

1. The first thing you need to do is commit yourself to understanding the basics of HTML coding. This will help not only with pimping your blog on Yahoo! but also in modifying themes and plugins.
2. Next, check out some basic resources on MySQL. This is important as it helps you create databases, which we will discuss below.

Installation and Upgrading

Before you read further, understand that I’m just a regular guy who likes to blog. I have no formal training in any of the things I will discuss, but through trial and error, it has worked for me. That being said, if my blog blows up on you as you read…then DUCK! Even if it does, I’m confident that I have learned enough to fix what breaks with minimal damage.

Upon subscribing to Yahoo! Small Business Web Hosting, You’ll notice a link to create and manage blogs. You’ll also have the choice at this point to name your blog and to have it serve as your domain homepage. However, you will notice that once you do so, the blog management control panel will indicate that the blog is running on an older WordPress version, 2.2. The CP suggests that you will be able to upgrade WordPress, but it just ain’t so.

Another way to install WordPress is to access the your file manager in Yahoo! Small Business Web Hosting. Here your create a subfolder with your blog name. This will create a subdomain. At this point, you can place the latest version of WordPress in the subdomain folder. I did it by giving the WordPress folder I downloaded onto my desktop the same name as the subfolder, and using FileZilla (an FTP application), simply uploaded it onto my server.

This process is useful because if you try to create multiple blogs through the Yahoo! control panel, they will all be given names like yourdomain/blog1.

Now, before you install WordPress, you need to have a database specified for it. There are ways to run multiple blogs using the same database, but I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout that! (There are instruction for doing this when you create your wp-config.php file, but I chose not to do it that way). To create the database, you are going to have to do so using MySQL (told you to google it!)

As easy as this is, it took me hours to figure it out. In the file manager control panel, you will see a link that leads to your database utilities, and there you will see a link for installing a database administration tool, or MyPHPAdmin. Once installed, simply access the MyPHPAdmin through the URL yourdomain/myphpadmin. It is important to note that many users, myself included, got a blank frame when accessin myphpadmin while using firefox. However, it was fine when I used IE. Once in the administration tool you will just name the database the same as your subfolder.

Once done, you can find the link to the install.php in yourdomain/subfolder/wp-admin and you will be taken through the installation process, including the creation of the wp-config.php file.

Easy, Right?

Nope, not yet. As a Yahoo! Small Business Web Hosting subscriber, you will not be permitted to access certain files that are important in the administration of your blog, i.e. .htaccess. As a result, when you are pimping your blog, you may have permalink problems. I’ve discussed those issues in other posts which you can check out below, and in the next post I will give a quick summary and my resolution of the permalinks issue.

Technorati Tags: blogging tips,yahoo! small business web hosting,WordPress,installation,upgrade,wordpress 2.3.2,wordpress 2.3.3,permalinks,filezilla,subdomain,mysqyl,myphpadmin

Tags: "Wordpress 2.3.2", blogging tips, filezilla, installation, myphpadmin, mysqyl, permalinks, subdomain, upgrade, WordPress, wordpress 2.3.3, yahoo! small business web hosting