• Tried to add a new category
• Tried to edit a post
• Tried to comment from the blog post page

When I tried to do the above things I was shown a big fat error message which cried out,

WordPress database error: [Table 'wordpress.wp_post2cat' doesn't exist]
SELECT cat_ID AS ID, MAX(post_modified) AS last_mod FROM wp_posts p LEFT JOIN wp_post2cat pc ON p.ID = pc.post_id LEFT JOIN wp_categories c ON pc.category_id = c.cat_ID WHERE post_status = ‘publish’ GROUP BY cat_ID

I managed to resolve this error in some time but those few moments were somewhat shocking. If you are getting the same error, the solution is quite easy. At first the error looks as something has gone wrong with your database but believe me, your database is fine. The problem maker are the plugins. The main cause of the above error are the following plugins:

• Google Sitemaps Generator
• Posts by Author plugin
• Ultimate Tag Warrior
• Similar Posts

Just disable these plugins and you should see your error disappear. You can later put in the latest versions of the above plugins and activate them. The Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin should not be required in my opinion since WordPress 2.3 + has the feature of tagging a particular post.

Always remember, before upgrading a WordPress to a newer version make a double check on the compatibility of the plugins you have already installed. The guys at WordPress have made out jobs much more easier by putting an alphabetically sorted list of compatible plugins with WordPress 2.3.

So when you install a plugin for WordPress in future do the following:

• Download it from the official WordPress plugin repository
• Check the version of WordPress till which the plugin is compatible with
• Backup your blog through WordPress Export feature before trying out a plugin.

Sometimes if you have self coded the theme, the error might not disappear because you might have used some tables like “wp_post2cat” which has been discarded in the newer version. So if your error is still not resolved try using the default theme (Kubrick) and then work your way out.

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• Unleash the Power in Your Blog with Google Custom Search

For the Blog Owner

It is very easy to setup Google Custom Search either through the Adsense Program itself or by using Google Co-op which provides Customized external search engine which can be used either by an individual or by a collaboration. I personally like the second option than the Adsense customized search. Of course you can make money with both the counterparts.

For hosted WordPress users, the Google Custom Search can be easily incorporated into their blogs because it is much more easier. DoshDosh provides an excellent article to integrate Google Custom Search with Adsense into a WordPress Blog. You have to remember that this cannot be done on a free WordPress Blog since Javascript posting has been disabled there. For users of other blogs like Blogger, free WordPress, the users will have to use the custom search page which is published when you make a custom search engine.

For those who would would like to setup a Custom Search for Adsense from their Adsense Setup itself, they can refer to a tutorial written by Liew Cheon Fong.

The benefit of using Google Custom Search on blogs is that the blog owner comes to know if his site has been optimized for search or not when a search is carried out in the custom search engine. If the pages from the blog are not indexed then he/she can carry out some SEO techniques to get them indexed because the sole purpose of writing is to get the article spread to the masses.

Apart from that, Google monetizes the search queries and also the search results page. So it is some sort of support in the terms of value of information provided by the blog. This helps the blogger to get monetary advantage for free information given out. One more important benefit is that the more a query is searched for in Google the more chances are there of the page containing the query being indexed by the crawlers.

Benefits for the Readers

A reader might be any one who either is a dedicated reader of the blog or any one who stumbles over an article through a search engine. Now if the reader finds the article interesting in the blog then he/she might wish to find similar such articles in the blog. Of course the blog can be search by using various Google Search techniques but not all users are blessed with technical skills so instead the reader to bear the brunt of not knowing how to search the blog through Google he/she can take the benefit of the Google Custom Search provided by the site itself.

The Google custom search proves superior to a Blog’s default search engine in the following aesthetics:

1. Provides all the possibilities of results for a given query
2. Is very quick as compared to the local search engine
3. Pagination is typically done Google style which users are accustomed to.
4. Summary of what might be in the article is provided, adhering exactly to the search query. This is not possible in local search engines.
5. Categories, comments too are indexed and provided in the results as opposed to just articles provided by local search engines.

All these benefits will definitely culminate into a wonderful searching experience. You can see the benefits in action right here right now. Just put a query in the Google Custom Search box placed in the header region of TechTracer and see the wonders of Google with your own eyes.

What more benefits can Google Custom Search provide to a blogger and to a reader is something I would like to know from you.

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Search engine optimization (SEO) is a term commonly used for the techniques which ensure that your website becomes search engine friendly. This includes making you site adhere to certain rules which makes it easy for the search engine spiders to crawl effortlessly in your site pages and rank them or list them accordingly.

Why is SEO required?

SEO is must required for anyone who wants his/her website to reach to a large audience. For personal blogs, it does not matter much as the content in its sense is somewhat personal and does not cater to a large mass. But the web sites or blogs which cater to a reader’s needs should follow some SEO techniques without which the intention to get the idea across is left unintended. In other words, as you need expressions to make your thoughts move across to the people, you need SEO to make your online information accessible to the worldwide surfers. Thus, SEO is important.

Can you provide any example?

Techtracer is a blog on technology. It includes articles, views, reviews, tutorials, news, resources which cater to a technology. Whatever I write, I make it a point that it should be well served. This means that whenever a person needs help in a particular aspect then my blog should be easily found. For this, I have to adopt SEO. Since SEO concepts are implemented in this site this is easily searchable on search engines.

How to implement SEO?

SEO is a very vast topic and it ranges from designing strategies of your site layout to the words you put in the site. In this particular article I would explain how to make it simple for wordpress users to implement SEO in their wordpress blogs. I will explain you 5 tips by which your site will easily become search able. For the searching aspect I am targeting Google which forms a major part of the of the search queries.

1. Properly use that Title
2. Using Meta tags for targetted searches
3. Making a Sitemap for your blog
4. Using the robots.txt file
5. Highlighting the proper keywords.

These are the 5 basic tips that I would like to elaborate in the forth coming posts which will be very helpful if you are using WordPress. I am talking about WordPress because you don’t have to do much since there are plugins which can do the majority of the things for you. So you don’t have to be a technical expert in implementing these basic yet powerful SEO tips. Bookmark this page or subscribe to this blog to get updated automatically for the upcoming posts on SEO for wordpress.

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• About

Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate xxxxx bytes)

This means that the server is not allowing to process the size of the data than its maximum alloted size. Remember that there is nothing wrong with the WordPress installation. Its the matter of the amount of data that the server can process at one time.

Don’t be scared, you can get it resolved in a matter of seconds. There are two ways of resolving this error.

Method #1 : Without Restarting the Server

If the error mentioned appears during the importing, what you need to do is get access to the source code of the WordPress where you have done the installation.

Once you get the access you will need to modify two files . They are:

1. <installation_directory>/wp-admin/import.php
2. <installation_directory>/wp-admin/import/wordpress.php

Now copy this line of code:

ini_set('memory_limit','16M');

This line increases the server processing capacity by the included size i.e 16M. Paste the above line in the import.php file just after the line of code:

require_once ('admin-header.php');

Now in the second file i.e. wordpress.php paste the code after the line of code:

<?php

Note: If the error mentioned appears during the installation of a plugin then make a note of the path and the .php page which is given out in the error and paste the same line in the mentioned .php page.Remember, the code must be pasted within the php code block i.e in between <?php and php?> in the page since it is to be executed by the server.

Now once again access your WordPress URL and go to the manage > import menu and try importing. If your problem still remains, just keep increasing the size mentioned in the pasted code in multiples of 4 i.e. in place of “16M”, try “20M”, “24M” etc.

Method #2 : Which Requires a Server Restart

If you want to eliminate this error once and for all then you need to target your server to make the changes. But you should have the permissions to restart the server.

If you have this permission then go to the server installed path and search for the file php.ini file. In this file there will numerous things mentioned. But all you have to do is search for the term “memory_limit“. Change the value of this variable from 8M to either 16M, 24M, etc as required.

Save the file and restart your server. The error will be resolved once and for all. Good luck!

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This theme is not a fancy theme nor purposefully made to look attractive. It is entirely made using CSS and does not utilize images for the sake of loading the site faster. I also have made the theme SEO and adsense friendly. I am not sure if BlueWhirl would be realeased as a free theme in the near future. But for the time being I am requesting readers to please report any bugs if found. It will be helpful to make sure that it works properly before a stable release. All kinds of suggestions are gladly appreciated.

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Once you open an account with LinkedIn you have to fill in proper details about yourself since without the details nobody would be interested to be linked to you. Once you are done with it you have the option of going inviting your colleagues to join the network or just go  or just wait and watch until somebody eagerly invites you to join his network.

Such a network grows speedily if your profile is interesting so an advice would be to make it as interesting as possible. What else could be more satisfying when someone from the same fraternity makes you popular by recommending you to others through his LinkedIn network.

Not only this, but you have a lot of goodies such as meeting interesting people, searching jobs, making friends with the big wigs in the network, recommending your friends to others, getting updates of any changes in your friend’s profile and much more.It also gives you options to downloads vcard of a member’s contact details. Its very easy to use and the user  interface is lovable.

It is also an icing on the cake when your old long lost friends make an apperance somewhere in the same network as yours. Hey, you just got linked in!

You can promote your LinkedIn profile through your own custom link as I have done in my sidebar for my profile and get known in the web world. WordPress users will be more happy since there is a sleek LinkedIn script to decorate your blog’s sidebar.

So what are you waiting for. Get connected, get LinkedIn.

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