WordPress says let's go to the video (tutorial)

I love online video tutorials for tech-related tasks. Not for resolving those hair-pulling, silent-scream problems, but for the minor mysteries.

In addition to the obvious show-and-tell benefits -- you watch the cursor do its thing in the code or CMS environment -- you also get to fast-forward past the obvious stuff.

I'm always multitasking until the teacher gets to whatever is throwing me. Maybe just sort-of listening with the video screen buried under the usual sea of open windows.

WordPress.org (the self-hosted platform) has more than its share of mysteries, so stand by for good news: the how-to archive WordPress TV is now on the air.

So far, most of the topics seem geared to WP newbies and the citizens over on wordpress.com, but no doubt you'll find something interesting in the tutorial directories. There's one section for WordPress.org and another for the plug-and-play WordPress.com, although some topics apply to both formats. In some cases, there are videos on the same topic for each "flavor."

Here are some of the basic videos in the WordPress.org category :

• Adding a widget to your sidebar.


• Adding an About Me or other page.


• Publishing a post at a later time.

Here are a few of the more advanced topics:

• SEO and optimization for WordPress ( a lecture)
.

• The Gravatar plugin setup.


• Add a PayPal button.

Change www to non-www via redirect

If users can call up your blog using both www and non-www URLs, it's time to select a preferred domain and perform a 301 redirect.

You want all users to access your site the same way. Or at least Google does.

There are many variables at work here, so I suggest a search for redirect www and non-www and redirect non-www to www.

Confused? You might want to start with this squidoo page on 301 redirects.

You might also check the High Rankings forum for redirects or any number of other web forums, including Google's.

My knowledge of server-side is basic, so please read all you can about this issue, including Google's page on 301s. If your host is helpful with code, count your blessings and see if the support guys will check your work.

This code worked for me in changing www to non-www -- on a GoDaddy-hosted Apache/Linux set-up.

www to non-www

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^example.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

and for the reverse, non-www to www

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^example.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Don't forget to change "example.com" to your name.

I'm posting these because there are quite a few bad examples out there.

If you don't know what to do with these blocks, please don't try. Dig into the information linked above and learn all you can before acting. WordPress, in particular, has a complicated set of concerns about all this.

Good luck ... let's be careful out there.

Redirect update: Google and the other major search engines released a new "link" tag that is supposed to resolve issues of duplicate content on the same site. The links go on the duplicate pages and point to the canonical URL, meaning the one you want the search engines to serve up. Sounds like a good thing. Now if they can get Webmaster Tools to work ... )