Hi mikeleins,
No you shouldn’t need to create any folders.
Please ensure you have pretty permalinks enabled (eg yoursite.com/some-page-slug/ and not yoursite.com/?p=123), then hit save on the Settings->Permalinks page.
Cheers,
Josh
Hi Josh.
I already have the permalinks set to “post name”, but when I try to save, it says it can’t write to my .htaccess file. I saw in my main wordpress folder that I have no .htaccess file, so I made one and pasted in the mod rewrite info it told me to add to the file. Still can’t save on the permalinks page.
Hi mikeleins,
Sounds like your permissions for your WordPress installation are wrong.
Your .htaccess file needs to be writable by the web server. You should be able to set this using an FTP program like FileZilla, otherwise it might be something you could contact your web host about?
I’m guessing you may also have issues like not being able to update plugins?
Once the .htaccess issue is resolve and you no longer have that warning on the Settings->Permalinks page, it should all begin working after you hit save.
Cheers,
Josh
Hi Josh.
I got into my ht access file and changed the permissions, so I was able to fix the mod write rules. Now all of my pages and posts fail to load. I tried making a new page, editing current pages and trying again, and copying/pasting the URLs into the browser, all with no luck. Still no luck with the affiliate links either.
Mike
Hi Mike,
Try deleting the .htaccess file you had previously, if all is working properly WordPress will rewrite it.
So delete .htaccess, then goto Settings->Permalinks and hit save. Ensure you have chosen post name as the permalinks option.
Can I confirm you are on an apache server? Not IIS?
Cheers,
Josh
Hi Josh.
I deleted the file, hit save under permalinks and got the same old message to copy & paste the mod rewrite rules into the file. No new ht access file appeared on my server.
I have the website running on my Raspberry Pi, running Raspbian Linux and using Apache. Here is a link to the instructions I followed when setting up the site: https://www.raspberrypi.org/learning/web-server-wordpress/worksheet/
Mike
Hi Mike,
Sounds cool 🙂
Based on that guide, can you tell if apache is running as root user? It looks like your web server folders will all have root as the owner?
If not, you’ll need to do a chmod on the web server so that the user group apache is running under is allowed to write to those directories, usually something like chmod -R usrgrp:usrgrp .
…where usrgrp is the user group apache is running in.
You might have to check my syntax there 😉
Cheers,
Josh
Hi Josh.
Did some digging and found out how to turn on the root user in Linux, then found a guide to do chmod changes for apache. Now when I delete the ht access file and hit “save” in the permalinks section, it generates an ht access file for me automatically.
However, all my pages and affiliate links are broken like before.
Mike
Hi Mike,
Can you view the readme.html file in the WordPress directory in your browser when visiting the site? like example.com/readme.html
You might want to just double check with a private browsing window/incognito window to make sure that it’s not being cached in the browser…
Sounds like you have it all setup properly now.
If you switch back to default permalinks do the pages start working?
Cheers,
Josh
Hi Josh.
I can see the readme file, no problem. IS that a good thing?
When I switch back to default, all my pages work! Still no luck with the affiliate links.
Mike
Hi Mike,
Does your apache instance have mod_rewrite installed? If not, the RewriteEngine rules in your htaccess that WordPress generates will not work.
Cheers,
Josh
Hey Josh.
I dug around some more and found out I didn’t have mod rewrite enabled. I was able to change something in a default file to “Allowoverwrite all” or something, then restarted apache and now the pages and affiliate links work!
Thanks for all the help, I really appreciate it!
Mike
Hey Mike,
That’s excellent news! Glad the detective work paid off 🙂
Cheers,
Josh
Hi Josh.
Having one more problem. I can cloak a link, but when I type it into the address bar, it loads up the right page but just changes the address bar to the real address. Is this normal? I thought it would stay as “example.com/recommends/website” in the address bar.
Mike
Hi Mike,
Yes that is expected behaviour.
Our cloaking method is actually a 301/302 redirect which means you get fully redirected to the destination.
The reason we don’t support masking like you showed is because it’s against the Google Webmaster guidelines and also WordPress.org’s plugin terms.
In short the consensus is it’s a bad idea as it isn’t user friendly.
If your affiliate links are still showing with your affiliate ID in them, then this is something that will need to be rectified by the specific affiliate program.
Cheers,
Josh
