Security

Where To Put WordPress

This section covers installing WordPress files and folders into a sub-directory in your CGI server account. This is the recommended way to do the installation.

NOTE: If you are installing WordPress into the root directory (not a sub-directory) of you CGI server account, then do not do this step. Go on to the Configuration instead.

Rename the wordpress directory

Most malware bots look for commonly named wordpress directories (and also in the root directory of your CGI server account). This is why it's more secure to not install WordPress into the root directory of your CGI server. Putting WordPress into it's own sub-directory is safer but only if you avoid other common directory names that bots would look for (such as "main", "blog", "home" or "store", etc.) You might want to get creative with what to call your WordPress directory. If you will be linking to your WordPress site from your existing web site, you could reame the WordPress directory using a random mixture of upper and lower case letters and numbers (no symbols or spaces are allowed in directory names except underscore _).

How would your visitors find you?

Method 1: You Already Have A Web Site

You could put a link to your WordPress site in your existing web site. This is a good reason to use a mix of letters and numbers to rename your wordpress directory to. Your visitors then can go to your main web site and follow the link there (and can bookmark it themselves) rather than needing to remember the wordpress directory name.

Method 2: Your WordPress Site Will Be Your Web Site

If your WordPress installation will be your default web site and WordPress is not going to be installed in the root directory of your CGI server account, then you'll need to set everything up to redirect to your WordPress site. To do this, you will need to have a special index.html file in the root directory of your CGI Server account (and your Web Hosting account as well, if your domain doesn't point to your CGI Server account). Be sure to rename and download your old index.html file from each account before uploading the new one and save it in case you need it in the future.

NOTE: WordPress comes with an index.php file in the root directory. Do not edit, move or remove this file!

Create a separate index.html file in a plain text editor (not a Word Processor) and place it outside of your WordPress directory. Follow the instructions below according to how you have your domain set up.

Copy and paste the code into the new index.html file. Replace the highlighted areas to match your own web site. Note that you need to replace your_wordpress_site_dir with the name you renamed your wordpress directory to.

If your domain points to your CGI Server Account:

<html>
<head>
<title>

Your Site Name

</title>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=

http://yourdomain.com/your_wordpress_site_dir

">
</head>
<body>
If this page does not refresh, please click <a href="

http://yourdomain.com/your_wordpress_site_dir

">here</a> to go to the site.
</body>
</html>

If your domain does not point to your CGI Server Account:

If you did not request us to change your domain to point to your CGI server account, then your domain will use the index.html file that is in your default Web Hosting account.

Use the same code as above, but replace yourdomain.com with cgi.yourdomain.com (add a cgi. and then your domain name).