Look just to your right and you will see a new poll.  Each poll will be up for 7 days, which means a new poll every Monday morning so if you want to see the results, check back on Sunday evening or very early Monday morning.

Please vote and I will have comments on the outcome of each.  Let me know how you like polls by leaving a comment.

It looks like we are settling into our new home here at our new hosting company.  The last week has been spent making sure things are where they are supposed to be and that everything works.

The next step is to get the newsletter signup available.  That will be within a few days so stand by.  That’s the last piece of the puzzle before we start adding lots of new things for you.  Thank you for your patience.  I’ve heard from many of you who have been and continue to be patient with this move.

A funny thing happened on the way to the new hosting company. The site was transferred but the domain name was not pointed yet. This is the intermediate stage when you must check to make sure everything works. Only then can you point the domain name to the new host with any confidence.

So - the entire site was there and it displayed except for one thing. The posts didn’t display. Instead there was a cryptic message saying, ‘Oops - you are looking for something that isn’t here’. WHAT? The header, sidebar and footer were fine. I knew the database was there because the categories in the sidebar were there and they are contained in the database. Besides, I looked at the database and the post records were there.

It was time for a note to support. The message I got back was that the support person saw everything ‘fine’. I fired back an e-mail telling him that it was NOT fine - the posts were not displaying. In return he said that I had SEF URLs and I would have to turn them off in order to see the posts before the domain was pointed. Huh? What in the world are SEF URLs?

I puzzled over that for awhile until I suddenly knew what they are - Search Engine Friendly URLs. But how could I ‘turn them off’ if I didn’t know how I had turned them on in the first place? Then it struck me - it’s the Permalink Structure! It’s that very important option in WordPress that makes the post titles mean something.

As soon as that light turned on, I decided to take a chance and point the domain name to the new host. You are now reading this at the new hosting company and all is well.

So - if anyone talks about SEF URLs in reference to WordPress, you’ll know what that means. If Permalink Structure is Greek to you, we’ll talk about that shortly. Look in Options in the dashboard and you will see Permalink Structure. Yes - it’s important. It’s what makes your post titles search engine friendly.

No - not as far as you are concerned, but WordPressGuru is moving to a new hosting company this week.  During this time you might find the site available one minute and not available the next.  I apologize in advance for that inconvenience but we are running up against limits at the old company and the need to grow is great.  I’ll let you know as soon as the site is stable again and thank you for your patience.