I noticed the latest WordPress upgrade was available on my server this weekend, it is really easy to get the latest version at Hostgator, my web host, with single click installation. So I installed version 2.3.1 of WordPress on all my sites and carried on blogging. But I started to run into some problems – every time I wrote a new blog post or saved a post I got an error message:

(WordPress database error: [Table 'xxxxxx_wrdp5.wp_post2cat' doesn't exist]
SELECT cat_ID AS ID, MAX(post_modified) AS last_mod FROM `wp_posts` p LEFT JOIN `wp_post2cat` pc ON p.ID = pc.post_id LEFT JOIN `wp_categories` c ON pc.category_id = c.cat_ID WHERE post_status = ‘publish’ GROUP BY cat_ID

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/xxxxxx/public_html/budget-travel/wp-includes/wp-db.php:160) in /home/xxxxxx/public_html/budget-travel/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 391)

My posts were still being saved but this error message meant that I had to click on the ‘back’ key to check, and this slowed me down when writing or editing blog posts. Up till now I had not had any trouble using or installing the updates of WordPress, so I decided to find out if anyone else was having the same problems. Sure enough I found a thread on the subject of WordPress 2.3.1 error messages at the WordPress.org forum. Apparently the problem can be caused by plugins that are incompatible with the latest WordPress upgrade.

I was using the following plugins on my WordPress Blogs to improve search engine optimisation and site visibility:

• Adsense Injection
• Akismet – this is auto installed on my dashboard
• AllinOneSEO Pack 1.3.9
• FeedBurner FeedSmith 2.2
• Google XML Sitemaps 3.0.2.1
• Text Link Ads 3.0.6
• Ultimate Tag Warrior 1.3

Finding out which plugin was causing the trouble was really a process of elimination. The contributors to the forum discussion were not all using the same plugins as me, so this is how I decided to check: I just deactivated each plugin in turn to narrow down the list. I found two of the plugins were incompatible at the time – Allinone SEO Pack Plugin and the Google XML Sitemaps GeneratorPlugin. I visited the download sites of the plugin developers, and soon found they had developed updates that I could download and install. Problem sorted: I am still having problems with the TextLink Ads plugin, though, but that is another blog post.

If you have decided to move your blog from Blogger to WordPress, congratulations – using WordPress blogging software for a blog hosted on your own domain is the top choice for anyone who is serious about making money from blogging. This does not mean a wordpress.com blog, please understand that there is a big difference. If you set up a blog at WordPress.com the situation is really very similar to Blogger – you get free use of a space on THEIR domains and they can shut you down if you break the rules. One of the main rules at WordPress.com is that you cannot publish sponsored blog posts, so a blogger who wants to make money from writing paid reviews on their blog needs to use WordPress blog publishing system on your web host control panel. The good news is that major web hosting companies include the latest version of WordPress in your hosting package at no extra cost.

If you have spent a lot of time and effort writing posts on your existing Blogger Blogspot blog, then you will probably want to take them with you and it is fairly simple to do this.

Go to your WordPress dashboard and click on to ‘manage’ – you will then see six different options, and one of these is ‘import’. Click on this and you will see the following information:

“If you have posts or comments in another system, WordPress can import those into this blog. To get started, choose a system to import from below:”

The first name on the list is ‘Blogger’. Click on this and you will see the following:

“Howdy! This importer allows you to import posts and comments from your Blogger account into your WordPress blog.

To use this importer, you must have a Google account, an upgraded (New, was Beta) blog, and it must be on blogspot or a custom domain”

Then you will be asked to authorise access to your blogger account and your WordPress blog publisher will bring all your existing blog posts across to your new domain.

Note: once you are happy with the published posts on your new blog it is a good idea to delete the existing posts from the old blog or you could be penalised for duplicate content. If you are no longer using the old Blogspot blog you can insert a redirect code to send visitors to your new domain. This is pretty easy to do, simply place the following code on your exisiting Blogger template -

“<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV=”refresh” content=”3;URL=http://www.yourdomain.com”>
<TITLE>This Blog has moved!</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<P>This Blog has moved! You will be re-directed to our new site in 3 Seconds</p>
<P>If your browser does not redirect you, click <A href=”http://www.yourdomain.com”>here</A> to go to the new Blog</P>
</BODY>
</HTML>”

I found a useful plugin for hosted WordPress Blogs today, developed by Lucia over at Big Bucks Blogger. The plugin enables you to hide any or all of your post categories, in-post, in the sidebar list or in the blog archives. This plugin is easy to install – just upload to the wp-content folder, ‘plugins’ on your web host control panel. Then log in to your WordPress blog to activate the plugin in one click of the mouse. Then under ‘options’ you can choose which categories your blog visitors will see. This plugin is also useful to prevent your sidebar becoming clogged up with hundreds of categories that do not help your visitors find the posts they want to read. Read more »