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March 18, 2010
Magento Ecommerce Install on a Godaddy Server.
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I recently went through a Magento install on a godaddy server. Definately go with the deluxe account (dedicated IP address). I installed the latest version 1.4* and this guide helped me the most: (below is a direct link to this blog) Rick
There are tons of people, just like me and you, who have had problems installing Magento on any server, let alone a Go Daddy one. Among the horrible errors I received, these were the most common:
- The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
- Base table or view already exists
- Column already exists, or Column already exists: magento_eav_attribute
After hours of trial and error, I’ve finally figured out how to get it done right. Unfortunately a lot of the blogs and forums I read along the way had it figured out at some point too–but between Go Daddy changes and updates from Magento every fix requires tweaking along the way. I think the key is to find a version that works for someone, and stick with that. Lucky for us Magento keeps archived copies of all their installs.
Here are 11 straight-forward steps to installing Magento 1.3.2.1.
- Sign up with a GoDaddy Linux account. I’ve read that any account will work, or that you have to at least have a Deluxe account. For this example I used the Deluxe account.
- Create a new MySQL database using the Go Daddy Hosting Control Center. Be sure to make a note of your server name, username (which is also your database name), and password.
- Download the latest release of Magento (1.3.2.3 worked great for me)
- Download the sample data that goes with that release (also on that same page)
- Add the custom php5.ini file (below) to your web root, or just create a new one and add these three lines:
- register_globals = on
allow_url_fopen = on
cgi.fix_pathinfo =1
- Here I copied the sample php.ini data into a newly created php5.ini file and added the 3 above lines to it.
- Copy both Magento zip files (the main application release and the sample data) you downloaded to your server root. It’s quicker to copy them there, then unarchive them using the Go Daddy File Manager. Unarchive both sets using the default path of “/”.
- If you want your customers to go directly to your store when they navigate to your site (i.e www.yoursite.com) you will want to decompress your zip files first and FTP them directly to your root directory.
- It may take a few minutes, but once everything is unarchived, you’ll want to copy any folders under “media” in the sample data to the main “/magento/media” folder.
- Take the SQL file in the sample data, and paste it (or import it) into the database you created in step 2. It’ll take a while, and it will create over 200 tables.
- In the “/magento” folder we’ll need to make a change to the .htaccess file
(or you can download the custom one below)
- Change “# Options -MultiViews” to “Options -MultiViews” (remove the “#”)
- Now we need to change the permissions on a few of the folders in the main /magento directory. I used an FTP manager to do this, leave a comment if you need help. Change “/var”, “/app/etc”, and “/media” to 777, and make it recursive so that it does all child folders as well.
- Definately change these permissions with your FTP program, doing this in Godaddy file manager didn't seem to take properly.
- Browse to your site, http://www.yoursite.com/magento,(if you FTP'd all files to your root, then just go to www.yoursite.com) and fill in the form. I chose my timezone and currency, and did not append the table names with anything. On the three checkboxes at the bottom, the only one I checked was the “rewrite” box. Click the button, and the installation will begin. It takes a few minutes, and you will probably get an error at some point in the install. Just ignore it by going back to your magento site (ie http://www.yoursite.com/magento). If you get to the point where you can create a Magento store username and password, you’re at the finish line.
Even after the install finished, the first time I went to the front side of my store, I received an error. I just refreshed the page and it went away. This happened to me on every install attempt. I think people get stuck because they immediately try to reinstall. Don’t. Just fight through it and refresh, or go back to the /magento directory and refresh your browser. I hope this tutorial saves you hours of headaches!
http://www.lifeblue.com/blogs/2009/09/08/installing-magento-on-a-go-daddy-server/
Best of Luck! Send me a note if you have any questions... Rick
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September 16, 2009
Website Maintenance
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| We are very proud to announce our new website maintenance and updating service! We offer very timely service at a very low cost! Click here for more details!
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May 8, 2009
3 New Website Design Packages
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| We are very pleased to announce three new website design packages. We created these design packages to offer a very competitive website solution for most business applications. Please take a look at our services page for more details.
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September 21, 2009
Website Analysis Tools!
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A good article that lists some very useful website analysis tools. Click here for the details.
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September 17, 2009
Website Maintenance Guideline
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| This is a great guideline to help determine what your website maintenance needs are. Click here to read this article.
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April 16, 2009
Whats New...
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I would like to welcome you to our Blog and Newsletter. Here you will find helpful tips and tricks for website design and development as well as search engine optimization.
In every addition, you will find some tidbit to making website development flow with minimal effort and produce expert results.
Keep checking our blog for the latest news www.4bizwebsites.com/Blog.php
Be sure to use our contact form if you have any specific questions.
Best Wishes,
Rick
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August 24, 2010
How to make the Googlebot love your website
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Here are great tips for your Google pagerank straight from VodaHost. Be sure to check out their hosting service! It's one of the best deals in hosting!
 How to make the googlebot love ya!
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The Googlebot is a very sophisticated computer program. It is a search engine spider that scours the Internet and inspects web sites in order to have them ranked according to Google’s standards. It’s “job” is to look at your web page, make a few notes and then report back to Google, who in turn give your page a ranking.
In this article I’m going to tell you a little about how to attract the Googlebot to your website and how to make sure it’s happy with what it finds. Think of it like this: The Googlebot needs love too.
1] Read Google's Webmaster Guidelines: Most of Google’s algorithms (search rules) are really secret; we can only guess what they are.Their guidelines are very simple and precise, however. Following their guidelines can’t “hurt” your site's ranking and Googlebot will “enjoy” its time with your website. Disregarding their guidelines can and probably will hurt you and your website in the long run.
2] Make the links in your site text links: Google says: "Make a site with a clear hierarchy (structure) and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link."
The native language of the Googlebot is text; this is not to say that you cannot make your site really pretty and fill it with lashings of Java Script and Flash but you MUST have regular text and standard text links. Usually you can achieve the desired effect by having extra navigation menus based on standard text links.
3] Give every page a a complete and meaningful title: This is also directly from Google's Webmaster Guidelines. Have a look at Rule #1.
The "title" tag is supported by every web creation tool out there, and goes in the header of a web page. Make sure your title is not just a list of keywords and that it is related to the actual content of the page. Google can and will check that, before deciding on your page's 'relevance' and fate...
4] DO NOT place important text inside images: Google says: "Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Googlebot doesn't recognize text contained in images."
It is very tempting to create images with text inside them, for the very simple reason that you are not limited to the very few font options that basic HTML allows. Also, different browsers tend to display things differently nowadays, so it is much easier to create a text image, which will be shown consistently and not worry about styles, operating systems, etc. Unfortunately, the Googlebot doesn’t like this one bit...
5] Use descriptive "ALT" tags: The "ALT" tag is used as a text alternative for images and image links and was designed so that text browsers do not just display a generic 'Image' for every picture link you might have. If all your links say 'Image', how would a potential visitor know what they are?
Make sure that the text description is meaningful and accurate. If the "ALT" tag only says "display", that is what Googlebot will see and index. If the tag says something like "example of a tradeshow display design", that is certainly more useful to the information-hungry Googlebot.
6] Use meaningful descriptions for links: Whether you use picture links or text links, please use meaningful text inside your tags so that Googlebot can associate that text with that link.
In other words, if you intend to put a link to a set of sample coffee mugs promos, say something like "link to samples of Y.O.U.R. branded coffee mugs", not just "coffee mugs", or even worse, "click here for pictures". Never use link text like "read more" or "go here" or "download it", "click here", "don't click here". Googlebot will not understand what you mean...
7] Use a "description" tag for every page: Include a
tag in your page header to summarize your site. Use a meaningful one or two sentence description and certainly do not keyword spam.
Even better, include descriptive text on the site's front page where users can actually read it. It is this text will appear as the description for your site in Google results.
You should place more important content higher in the page than less important content in a page. The Googlebot does categorize text on a page based on it's position, text at the bottom of a page is considered less relevant.
8] Use robots.txt: Google says: "Make use of the robots.txt file on your web server. This file tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be crawled."
This almost ancient and very standard mechanism for directing well-behaved robots like the Googlebot will allow you to specify places where the robot is not welcome, for whatever the reason. You might want to keep the robot away from your cgi-bin directory and other places you maybe don't want available to the entire Googling population of the world. Remember this is a guideline, not a barrier; robots that are not programmed to comply will ignore it. So, use the robots.txt to guide the noble Googlebot but not for any real security enhancing reason.
9] Make a sitemap: Google says: "Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages."
A site map is just a page on your website where you guide your users through the structure of your site. The most basic form of sitemap is a page that lists all of your pages, with a brief description and a link - ALL TEXT, of course; the Googlebot cannot read siemaps that are not in plain text. When you make the sitemap, follow all the rules above and don't forget that the purpose of the sitemap is to guide your human visitor.
10] Google Webmaster Tools: You should also check out Google Webmaster Tools 101, our article on Google Webmaster tools, a great way to find out why Google is or is not listing your website in its search results.
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VodaHost
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May 19, 2009
Ten Tips to reach the top of the search engines
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| Here is a great article from Jill Whalen, CEO of High Rankings. This one will help you get to the top of the search engines. Click here to read Ten Tips to the Top of the Search engines.
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May 14, 2009
Creating search engine optimized ad copy
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Here is a great Article about writing your page copy that will be optimized for great search engine rankings! Search Engine Optimization Article
Every so often we will publish another great article to really make your websites stand out! Best of Luck!
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April 12, 2009
Do you know your Google Pagerank?
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If you don't know your Google pagerank, then go here to check it out: www.free-pagerank-checker.com
While there, you can add a code snippet to your footer to diplay your pagerank. If your site is not ranking well or at all. Here are some resources to check out to make getting relevent back links alittle less troublesome.
Neurolinker free back links: www.neurolinker.com
Free Relevant links: www.freerelevantlinks.com
Both of these services offer a decent amount of relevant back links to your site. I would use one or the other but not both and continue to add your site to directories manually. The key is to not let google think your spamming them...
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April 11, 2009
Keyword Meta Tags
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In my opinion, keyword meta tags don't do much to help you with site ranking, especially in google. I leave the keywords blank. then I make sure that each page title and discription is unique and relevant to what the page is about. Acctually if google gets the impression that you are spamming them (i.e. duplicate keywords or the same keywords on duplicate pages) and they won't index your website.
What I found does work is to spend some time putting my site on as many online directories as I can. Google really loves relevent back links. 100 back links to your site and google will give you a pretty decent pagerank.
There are some great resources to help with this. Next post will explore some of these in detail.
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| Be sure to check out Go Daddy for the best pricing on domain name registrations. Easy to use and tons of other great services.
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