404 Errors

Grace and peace, Saints.

Some of you no doubt have found that, since sometime last week, you got a 404 “Page Not Found” error when you clicked on a page link, typed the page URL into your browser, or tried to load a bookmarked page from this website.  The reason for this is that I changed the permalink structure for how a page is archived and its URL displayed.  

For example, the permalink structure for this post is http://www.thestillman.com/stillmanfiles/2014/08/page-errors, where 2014 is the year and 08 is for the month of August.  This is the default WordPress setting, and is best used by newspapers or bloggers that publish multiple posts daily, as it makes it a lot easier to find a particular article.

For someone like me, however, who blogs sporadically, this type of structure is not the best way to go.  In my case, the best alternative would be to merely use the blog post title.  Using this structure, the permalink for this post would be http://www.thestillman.com/stillmanfiles/page-errors.  As you can see, it is a lot cleaner and a lot more intuitive.  

So, I changed the permalink structure, forgetting, however, that all links to blog pages as well as any bookmarked pages a reader would have would be looking for the year/month permalink structure, and, not finding it, return a 404 “Page Not Found” error.  And this is exactly what happened.  

I hadn’t noticed the results of my gaff until today, and I immediately fixed the problem by going back to the original year/month permalink format, as amateurish as it looks.  Using the default permalink structure, by the way, is one of the top seven mistakes that beginning bloggers make. (It is also probably one of the top five mistakes that more experienced bloggers stop making.)

I have been blogging for three and a half years, but have yet to learn the finer points of blogging, being more concerned, as I am, with content. Little by little, however, I am learning a thing or two, even if I am lacking somewhat on the applications side of the house.

This object lesson in humility was brought to you by your resident expert on the same, The Still Man.

Be encouraged and look up, for your redemption draweth nigh.