Thread: A php and a html index page

I recently modified my index page by adding a feedback section to it. This made it a php page. The problem is when someone trys to go to my site they end up at the html page which is out of date. I tried removing the feedback from my index page and publishing as a html page, but even though it publishes when I go to the index page I still get the old index page unless I specify .php what can I do to make sure people get to my latest index page?

I am no expert, but this is what I have done in a similar situation.
Open the FTP manager under Tools in Blue Voda.All the files from the BV folder on your C:drive will appear on the left. The right hand side will be blank. Click connect on the top left hand corner of the screen. All your uploaded files will then appear on the right hand of the screen. Look for the folder with your domain name on it. It should be right at the bottom of the list. Open it and locate the index.html file and delete > click disconnect and close FTP.
Publish your new index page with php extention.
There may be other ways?

Looking up on some notes, here is another way. This was posted on the Blue Voda Tips. Tricks and Shortcuts. "Stop Browser Caching" It explains all there.
In a nut shell
Right click on the page and open page HTML
Hit the "Between Head Tag" and insert this code.

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma"CONTENT="NO-CACHE">

Suggest you add this to all your page, as it will refresh your updates 99% of the time without a problem

I'm no expert either but when I want to put a form field on my index page, I leave the index extention as it is and just insert an inline frame and make the referance page a .php

If there is an index.html page residing on your server SE's will open that and not the php version by default.
You will have to remove the html version.

Ok I am having what I think is the same problem. With both my title/index page and my contact us page.

Is it a caching problem with my title page? If you search us coreparanormalnz.com our old original page comes up. However if you link into a page, for example - core crew and then return to the homepage using the link - the new updated page comes up. I have tried the suggestions in the thread thus far but nothing has helped.

Also - the original page that was published for the SE's has been deleted and another was built - so Im not sure how getting rid of the HTML page can help? They are not in php - but I think the contact us page should be as Im trying to link it to a form (but thats a separate issue).

your home links don't go to your index page. Make sure your links are to http://www.coreparanormalnz.com only, and be sure your index (home) page is named index only.

Thanks for those suggestions Tom but it hasnt changed anything. We really arent sure what is going on with our forum at the moment http://www.coreparanormalnz.com we cand seem to update the title page at all.

I should explain, our index page is our title page but its not called 'Index' as it was originally - but we renamed it title page. Does it make a difference that page is physically not called 'index'?

Also, currently when you go through search engines our old page comes up, with the date of meeting 17 Oct still on it. But if you go further into the site and use links to return to the front page you get the updated page with no date on it. The links between all the pages are the same and dont come up with any errors.

If someone could search our page through the search engine and tell us if they get the 17th october meeting date we would appreciate that. We have three computers here and they all bring up different results for the same links being clicked - so we are not sure where we actually are.

For example, one computer brings up the word 'home' for example and the link takes you to the latest title page. Another computer has the word 'core crew' where the 'home' link should be - and takes you to the old title page when clicked. Behind the scenes all the links say exactly the same thing - ie are linked to the same place. Why are our links jumping around like that?

All help appreciated :)

Let's make sure we're talking about the same things...

When you create and save a page, the name you give it is the name (I know this sounds stupid, but I want to make sure we're in cahoots). If you right click on the background of the page as you create it, you can (and should) give the page a title. The title has nothing to do with the name. It's the name that is the web address of the page and the word that you use when you create a link to that page. So for our discussion here, we are talking only of the name of each of your pages.

Here are some errors that are causing you fits:

Some of your pages (the names, remember) have capital letters. Not good.
Some of the names have spaces. Instant death.
Your main page MUST be named index when you publish it.
I'm guessing that you may also have two versions of some pages on the server: example.html and example.php for instance.

To fix:

1. Republish all pages with names that are compliant: no capitals or spaces.
2. Be sure your main page is published as index.
3. Super important: Go to your files on the server and delete all pages that are not compliant (the old versions you don't want.)
4. Now you must fix your links. Every link that is intended to take people back to your home (index) page must be http://www.coreparanormalnz.com only. The web knows that is referring to your index page, which is why the page MUST be published as index. Now, ALL other links must refer to the exact address of the pages they are intended to go to. An example would be http://www.coreparanormalnz.com/example.html.

If you do those things, everything will work. If there are further problems, post 'em here and we can walk you through the rest. Happy hunting!

PS--Once you have all your names and links correct, people searching google with a key word may be directed to an old cached page that no longer exists. That will right itself after time passes. However, it may mean they will get 404 Page Not Found messages. I personally don't worry about that too much on my sites, but to deal with it you can do a redirect; see the tutorial.

Thanks very much Tom - I will bite the bullet and do all the redirecting, renaming as soon as I can. Cheers