Let's say you have a domain http://www.mysite.com, and let's say you started a WordPress blog in a subdirectory http://www.mysite.com/myblog/ and now that your blog is taking off, you are ready for the blog to become the initial starting page of your domain.
Here's how to move things around to make that happen.
Login to the WordPress Dashboard, click the Option tab
Leave "WordPress address (URL):" alone.
Change "Blog address (URL):" to the root domain name http://www.mysite.com/.
Click Update Options.
Open your FTP utility. From the Wordpress panel, download the core WordPress file index.php to your computer.
After downloading, open index.php in a text editor (not MS Word!). You are going to change the line that reads
require('./wp-blog-header.php');
Change that line to read
require('./blog/wp-blog-header.php');
(or whatever subdirectory name matches the "WordPress address (URL):" from the General Options panel.)
Save the index.php file. Open your FTP utility and upload the revised index.php to the root directory of your domain.
Done! Now when you type http://www.mysite.com you will land on your blog!
To login to your WordPress Dashboard, you'll continue to use http://www.mysite.com/myblog/wp-admin as before.
Very cool. Thanks for the post. I am working on it now.
J.
Cheryl:
Thank you for taking the time to issue this post, it is much appreciated.
Cheryl -- OK, I have a silly newbie question. I managed to install Wordpress on a site I have hosted with Go Daddy. I did it a couple of months ago and have not had time to play with the thing and get it formatted the way I want. Now I am ready to mess with it and I can't log in.
I may be trying the wrong password (I really need a way to keep track of all of them) so I tried to reset my password, but Wordpress does not recognize my user name and email address. I don't know what else to try. . .Do I have to uninstall and try again?!?!?
I know I am off topic, but you strike me as being the Wordpress guru and I thought you might be able to help :-)
Jay: I'm thinking the permalinks will work since the only file that got moved was index.php ... will have to run some tests....
Lori: Try this: At the sign in page type admin in the username box. Then click "Lost your password" I think system would email a password to whatever email address is in the system. This wouldn't work if you deleted the admin account. :-)
Darryl -- I'll leave that to the SEO experts around here. Brad Carroll http://activerain.com/realestatewebdesign or Bobby Carroll http://activerain.com/realestatemarketing could probably give you a better answer.
Cheryl - Thanks for the post. Clearly the Wordpress platform has more capabilites than I am able to use and your post helped me understand I can figure it out.
Regards, Julie Jalone