Thread: web help

I have created several pages of my website and wanted to see what it looked like online. I published and I can only see the index/home page. When I click on the links they go to a "can't find page, error 404." I can view all the pages in preview in browser but not online. what should I do????

1. Be sure you publish all the pages.
2. The links have to be accurate; no spelling errors, capital, spaces, etc.

You should post your main page link so we can see.

www.travelingtoddlers.com

Well, your links look OK to me. Let's work on one to see what's up. We'll take your travelingtoddlers.com/equipment.html. For some reason, that page does not exist, so we need to figure out why.

1. Open that page in BV. In the dropdown list of pages it should be "equipment.bvp." If it's anything else, then that's the problem.

2. If it's correct, try to publish it again. Be sure the publish window that opens up has your correct server IP, the phrase "public_html" only in the Folder field and "Publish all files" in the Files field. If the page successfuly publishes you should be good to go. If not, we need to look deeper.

Tom

Hi Tom,
I checked and all the pages have the correct name ie traveltoddlers.com/whatever.html and spelling as well each page name has the extension bvp. and I published again, still no pages found????

hmmm.

Well, just to be sure, none of your pages are named "traveltoddlers.com/whatever.html" are they? When you created your Equipment page, for example, you should have named it "equipment". BlueVoda will automatically save it as "equipment.bvp". Then, when you press the publish icon, it will publish it as "equipment.html". Each time you open the page in BV, the drop down list will show it as "equipment.bvp".

You probably have all that right, but I just want to be sure.

Now, if you go to Tools > FTP Manager you will see a list of all your pages (among other things). They should all have the .bvp extension.

Oops--hit "submit" before I wanted to! Hang on...

OK, so anyway...if you hit the "Connect" button in your FTP Manager, the right-hand pane will show all the files in your public_html folder. Somewhere in that list you should find your pages listed, for example, as "equipment.html" If those are not there, you are publishing incorrectly.

ok well i did that and the only pages listed are as follows
index.html
traveling toddlers about us. html
traveling toddlers blog.html
traveling toddlers product page...
above writen exactly as seen.

OK, there's the hang up. Index.html is correct, the others are all wrong. First, they should not have the "traveling toddlers" on any of them. Second, there MUST be NO spaces between words. Your pages and your links must be exactly the same. For example, one link on your home page refers to "about-us.html". The page with that exact name must show in the right hand pane of the FTP Manager or it's no go. Probably the best way to go about this is to first rename*, save and publish all your pages (except index), test all the links to be sure everything works, and then delete all the old wrongly named pages from both panes in FTP Manager.

*to exactly match the links on your site.

Here are your links:

about-us
equipment
terms-and-conditions
contact-us
blog
links

Those are what you should rename your pages to. But I confess I'm superstitious about hyphens. Try them and see if they work and if not, replace them with underscores instead. Frankly, I like one-word page names; fewer chances to go wrong.

Hope this helps,

Tom

I should say that your links that you've placed on your pages are:

about-us.html
equipment.html
terms-and-conditions.html
contact-us.html
blog.html
links.html

Your pages thus should be renamed, saved and published as:

about-us
equipment
terms-and-conditions
contact-us
blog
links

As said before, when you save a page, BlueVoda will automatically add the ".bvp" to the name and add ".html" when you publish.

If you are still having problems have a look at a step by step visual tutorial here:

Hi, may sound a daft question. But have you published all pages individually, & not just the index page. As sometimes users think the whole site will publish when publishing just one page, like some other programs do. Only an idea?.

Yeah, I had the same thought when I read his first post--thus my #1 answer. I bet he'll get things straightened around pretty soon.

Me not see that part of the post. lol

Tom,
Ok i fixed it so i can access the pages within the website, thanks.
The website comes up in pieces and not as one solid image. Do you know what causes that and how i can fix it.

Refresh your browser a few times to re-load each page view entirely (sound like you have a poor connection -- not on cable/hi-speed).

Most people browsing the web don't like pages that open in additional windows. In other words, when they click on any of your links, a new window should not open. Instead, the new page should simple replace the old. To do this, you'll have to modify your links. Open a page in BV and right-click on a link. Choose "Properties." This will open a tabbed window, the first tab shows the URL you typed in for the link. Highlight that and click "Edit." On the lower field that says "Target," make that field EMPTY--that is, the field should have no words in it. Click "OK" a couple of times and you are ready to fix the next links. Unhappily, you have to do this for ALL links on ALL pages!

Time consuming, eh?!

Tom,
There never was any writing inany of my links "tarket field" right from the start, so they are and always have been empty. Having writen that, my web site still opens in stages. When you click on travelingtoddlers.com how does it open/appear???
As well my sleep page will not open and I have checked and double checked all the variables and still nothing. It appears as "sleep" everywhere. ????????

Tom, I see what you mean about new pages poping up each time vs pages replacing pages but as i wrote before there is nothing written in the "target " field, what next??? I tried choosing the word "Blank" but that did not work.

1. On your index page, the HOME button link was improperly entered as www.travelingtoddlers.com/home.html >> change it to >> www.travelingtoddlers.com and nothing more.
This assumes that you have saved your index page as index and published it likewise. Not only will clicking on the "Home" button refresh the page when you are on the index page, if this link is properly entered on every page, it will return visitors to your index page as intended.

2. You need to properly space your navigation buttons horizontally, so they all "fit" within the margins of the index page. Once you do this, the steps below will make sense to you.

3. Once you have properly positioned your navigational buttons, open the Properties of each to verify that you are leaving the TARGET field empty, with nothing in it (manually delete anything, especially if it has _blank entered). *I believe this is where the confusion has been, the difference between the use of the word "blank": the Target field must be empty, as the use of _blank means for the action of the link to open a new browser window.

4. Your entire navigation scheme is incongruent page-to-page, indicating that you manually created them individually (notice there is not "Home" button on any interior page) rather than use the COPY icon to precisely PASTE into the exact position on each page. *Do not use the "Menu Command" or the "mouse-right-click" Copy+Paste method, but use the Copy icon in Blue Voda (looks like a clipboard, left of center on the top toolbar); the Paste icon is next to it on the right.
How? > a. 'highlight' the nav button by clicking on it once; b. click on the Copy icon; c. move to the next (destination) page tab -- must be previously 'opened' in Blue Voda; d. click on the Paste icon to perfectly place the button on each page in precisely the same position, with the same exact formatting; e. move to the next page and simply Paste using the same icon (no need to return to the original page to Copy again -- it is still on the BV clipboard).
Using the icons will duplicate items to subsequent pages, in the same format and in the exact same position.

5. If you correct your navigation scheme using the icons as discussed above, the buttons themselves will be formatted exactly the same, unlike your present layout: you can see on interior pages that the rollover settings are not set/not the same, as well as the forgotten Home button (which appears to not have been missed just to make them all "fit" on the page). It is important to have the Home/Main/Return button on all pages to complete the ability to fully navigate a website.

6. Have you yet installed a "Blog"? If you have done so via Fantastico, is it your intention that your "Blog" button first bring visitors to an actual web page (where I am assuming you wish to 'introduce' it with some written content), or do you really want them to go directly to your Blog? As it is now, your Button links them to a web page you have named "Blog" so you will need to think this out a bit because when you set up a forum/blog via Fantastico, you will be required to enter a "name" for it (because Fantastico will automatically create a directory to install it) and you cannot choose "Blog" again ....

7. Once you have properly positioned, configured (and verified), Copied + Pasted your buttons on every page (using the icons and not the commands), you will then SAVE each page using the exact same titles as they appear in the links you just set up. Then, you will PUBLISH each and every page over again, overwriting the previous pages and their errors.

This should once and for all "solve" your navigation problems and conceptual misunderstandings. There is no reason your links do not function like the many other thousands of us using the same tools, methods, and instructions. None!

You really need to become a disciple of the Tutorials ... all of them .... in the order they are presented. Had you studied them in the manner provided, you would not be in the position you are now, nor would your peers be so frustrated trying to offer core advice to no avail in thread after thread!