The AdSense-ready WordPress Blog (Part 2)
Today we continue our series on creating an AdSense-friendly blog using WordPress. Please read Part 1 before continuing.
WordPress 
Installation Made Easy
After you’ve decided on your blog name, gotten the domain and setup the hosting, it’s time to actually create your blog. WordPress is written in the programming language called PHP and requires a database as well, with MySQL being the preferred (and default) choice. Advanced users can install WordPress using the detailed WordPress installation instructions on the WordPress site.
Or, if you’re lazy like I am, you can simply use cPanel and Fantastico, assuming of course you chose a hosting service that supports both. Let me walk you through a typical deployment using those tools.
Create Your Blog Home
Before you run Fantastico, you have to decide where your blog is going to be located. Is it going to be at the root of your site (www.mydomain.com), a folder within your site (www.mydomain.com/blog) or a subdomain (blog.mydomain.com)?
If installing at the root or in a folder, there’s really nothing to do.
If installing in a subdomain, though, you’ll need to create the subdomain before proceeding any further. Login to the cPanel for your site and click on the Subdomains icon:
On the resulting page, enter in the name of your subdomain and press the Add button:
Now go back to the main cPanel screen. You’ll see a new folder with the same name as your subdomain (digital-cameras in this case) was created under your home folder (which usually has the name www or public_html). The contents of that folder are now accessible using two addresses: www.synclastic.com/digital-cameras and digital-cameras.synclastic.com. We only want the latter web address to be valid, so we need to put a .htaccess file in the digital-cameras folder to redirect all accesses to the subdomain. Here’s what the file looks like:
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^digital-cameras\.synclastic\.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://digital-cameras.synclastic.com/$1 [R=301,L]
This is almost identical to the code in Part 1 for redirecting the www form of a domain name to the non-www form. Paste the code above into a .htaccess file and change both instances of “digital-cameras” to your subdomain name and both instances of “synclastic” to your domain name. (You’ll also need to change the “com” to whatever top-level domain you’re using if it’s not .com.) Be sure to place this file in the subdomain’s root folder, not your main site’s root folder.
After installing the .htaccess file, test it. This URL:
Should redirect you to the proper URL:
The page address shown by your browser should change accordingly.
Installing WordPress With Fantastico
Now click on the Fantastico icon on the cPanel main screen:
Then click WordPress on the Fantastico main page:
Then click New Installation in the box on the right of the page:
Now the installation wizard opens. The first thing you must do is select the domain and the installation directory for WordPress. You have three choices:
- If you’re installing the blog at the root of your domain, select the domain in the “Install on domain” drop-down and leave the “Install in directory” box blank.
- If you’re installing the blog in a folder on the domain, select the domain in the drop-down and enter the name of the folder in the “Install in directory” box. The folder must not already exist.
- If you’re installing the blog on a subdomain, select the subdomain in the “Install on domain” drop-down and leave the “Install in directory” box blank.
For example, here’s what I did to create the blog on digital-cameras.synclastic.com:
Then set the userid and password you want to use for administrative access to the blog. This lets you gain access to the WordPress admin pages once the blog is up and running, so choose a good userid and password:
Now fill in the basic details about the blog. You can change these later if you have to:
You’re almost done. All you need now is to fill out some email account details. I wish Fantastico didn’t require this, though, because it’s only useful if you plan on posting to your blog via mail. You need a separate email account (don’t use your main email account!) for this. Either provide all the details needed (userid, password, POP3 server name, POP3 port number) or else supply a bogus userid and password:
Now click the Install WordPress button to actually install the blog. You’ll be asked to confirm some details and then press Finish Installation. A few seconds later your blog will be installed. You can even email the installation details to yourself, which is a good idea in case you forget what you did.
Testing the Blog
Now you should test the blog. Open a browser window and enter the URL of the blog. You should see a page that looks like this: [click the image to enlarge it in a new window]
Congratulations! You now have a blog!
Before proceeding any further, login to the administration console by going to the wp-admin page (you can also click the Login link near the bottom right-hand corner of the page) and entering in your administrative userid and password:
Now, before we do anyting else, click on Options:
And then Discussion:
Check the option An administrator must approve the comment:
Then save the setting by pressing the Update Options button at the bottom of the page.
What you’ve just done is turned on moderation for all comments and trackbacks, an important tool for controlling comment spam.
That’s the end of the WordPress installation. In the next part we’ll look at basic AdSense-friendly configuration options.
Originally from An AdSense Blog: Make Easy Money with Google on July 12, 2006, 11:04am
Related Posts