Moving wordpress from sub-domain to root directory

Wordpress has this neat feature where you can install your blog in one folder but let users view it in another. Since I’m stalling so much on my next million dollar idea, I’ve decided to make this blog the main attraction at Brilliances.com.

Step 1: Change the ‘blog address’ in the Wordpress Options screen to your root folder

Step 2: Copy index.php and .htaccess from your blog folder to your root folder

Step 3: Now that your index.php is in a different folder, there’s a line that needs to be updated so that it can find the real location of where you installed wordpress.

Change require(’./wp-blog-header.php’); to require(’./blog/wp-blog-header.php’); where ‘blog’ is your wordpress install folder

Step 4: Chances are that you’ve got permalinks turned on cos it’s good for your search engine rankings so this needs to be updated. Simply log in to your wordpress admin panel and hit the update button on the permalinks options screen. You’ll need to manually copy the updated .htaccess file again to the root folder.

Step 5: Now one final step that not many people do is to redirect all their old links to the new url. For example, I had my blog url under blog.brilliances.com so I need to redirect my old url http://blog.brilliances.com/2007/04/14/smart-guide-to-buying-a-home/ to http://www.brilliances.com/2007/04/14/smart-guide-to-buying-a-home/

There’s probably a few ways to do this but my preferred method is with apache’s mod rewrite component. In my .htaccess file under the /blog/ directory, I added a couple of lines to the start…


RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

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


RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]


And walaa.. That’s it! This blog is now officially at Brilliances.com and not Blog.Brilliances.com. Maybe the change of location will please the money gods.. :P The house is almost renovated and mum’s recovered from a 0% chance of survival and has been well enough to be discharged from hospital. Soon I will have 24/7 internet access to recommence my million dollar hunt.

Popularity: 3%

Related Posts