Title: Confusion
Last modified: August 18, 2016

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# Confusion

 *  [jmhirst](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jmhirst/)
 * (@jmhirst)
 * [21 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/confusion/)
 * Hiya,
    Didn’t know if this was the right place to post, but it may be… 😉 I’ve
   just installed WordPress (hooray!) and I’m confused as to how certain things 
   work. Firstly, some blogs have a “.XML” as the feed, WordPress has a “.PHP” as
   it’s feed. What is the difference between them? Is there are advantages/disadvantages
   between them and can they co-exist in WordPress if one is suited to a job than
   the other. Which ‘may’ go to my next question… Suppose today I entered “Wibble
   Wobble 10/11/2004 12:11:54” it’s a pretty exact phrase, maybe unique in the world!
   Now, after some weeks have passed, if I did a search for the exact phrase, would
   a search engine find me, and if so, how does wordpress recall this information
   if the phrase is held in a MySQL database? I’m confused over how people’s blogs
   can be searchable for so many months, if not years. Apologies over the what may
   be easy questions, but I’m totally new to all this… 😉 TIA

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

 *  [Mark (podz)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/podz/)
 * (@podz)
 * [21 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/confusion/#post-108114)
 * Long answers needed here 🙂
    Second part: When Google crawls your site, it checks
   for every link it can find, and gathers it’s info. Because WP is dynamic in how
   it serves pages (that is they exist ‘virtually’ in a way) WP shows each page 
   to Google and it appears just as you saw it. Using ‘nicer urls’ (permalinks) 
   helps this process. Google thinks you have all these static pages, whereas we
   know they are served up as pages only when they are requested. Either way, Google
   knows all, and when someone looks for Wibble Wobble, and clicks on your link,
   WP gathers all the info it needs, sticks it together and shows a page. First 
   part: I don’t think there is a difference worth any noise. The .php file just
   again creates the feed when it is asked for. As for how an .xml file is made …
   hmm…. dunno 🙂
 *  [midori](https://wordpress.org/support/users/midori/)
 * (@midori)
 * [21 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/confusion/#post-108115)
 * >> WordPress has a “.PHP”
    Yes, a XML feed created by a php page 😛 That’s all.
   >>would a search engine find me, and if so, how does wordpress recall this information
   if the phrase is held in a MySQL database? When the searchbot comes, he asks 
   for the *pages* themselves, and the blog system feeds the pages with the mysql
   datas.. So it’s transparent for the bot.
 *  Thread Starter [jmhirst](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jmhirst/)
 * (@jmhirst)
 * [21 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/confusion/#post-108117)
 * Brilliant, cheers for the answers, that’s kinda all answered the confusion over
   Permalinks as I couldn’t get my head round them.
    OK, finally installation question(
   well for now I think!!) I’ve installed everything into a subdirectory on my main
   site. Are there any potential problems if I moved everything from the subdirectory
   into my main directory, and, is this a simple move or would I need to do a reinstall
   and/or change any settings. The reason why I want to do this is that I’d sooner
   have [http://www.jasonmhirst.co.uk](http://www.jasonmhirst.co.uk) to show the
   blog, rather than having [http://www.jasonmhirst.co.uk/blog/](http://www.jasonmhirst.co.uk/blog/)
   Thanks again, wasn’t expecting such a quick response..!!
 *  [midori](https://wordpress.org/support/users/midori/)
 * (@midori)
 * [21 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/confusion/#post-108118)
 * 2 information to change in the options via admin pannel / DB directly, where 
   you had to give the path.
 *  [iand](https://wordpress.org/support/users/iand/)
 * (@iand)
 * [21 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/confusion/#post-108119)
 * See [http://wordpress.org/docs/installation/different-address/](http://wordpress.org/docs/installation/different-address/)
   for moving to the root directory.
 *  Thread Starter [jmhirst](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jmhirst/)
 * (@jmhirst)
 * [21 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/confusion/#post-108120)
 * MANY thanks again, really appreciate it…
    Right, wish me luck I’m going in….

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

The topic ‘Confusion’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Installing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/installation/)
 * 6 replies
 * 4 participants
 * Last reply from: [jmhirst](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jmhirst/)
 * Last activity: [21 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/confusion/#post-108120)
 * Status: not resolved

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