Since Wordpress 2.5, I could never get posts to publish articles at a scheduled timeframe. For whatever reason, all posts would just miss the schedule and not show up on the blog. For a few months, I had to manually change the time to get the posts to show up (or just write posts and immediately schedule them to go out).

I’m happy to say that after months of research and frustration, I finally found the solution to the Wordpress scheduled post problem!

Here’s a brief explanation of the issue I was having:

• When it came time to publish the scheduled posts in WP, the post wouldn’t publish and time would start counting backwards (for example, if it’s 2 minutes past the published time, it will say “2 minutes to post”
• Researching it seems to indicate that it was related to wp-cron.php

Solution to the Scheduled Post Issue

The way WP handles scheduling is that whenever a page is loaded (either from your blog or in your control panel), the file wp-cron.php is loaded.  So, in order to troubleshoot the scheduling issue, log in to your server’s temrinal (via SSH or others) and type

wget http://yourdomain.com/wp-cron.php

Obviously, you need to replace yourdomain.com with your own domain (in fact, you need to use the actual URL of where your wp-cron.php is located).  For example, if your blog is within a sub directory called “blog”, it will be at yourdomain.com/blog/wp-cron.php.

If everything is normal, you should see an “OK” message buried under a bunch of other junk.  If you get a 404 error or others, then that’s the first problem you should solve.

The most common problem for many server configuration is the 404 error, so here is a quick way to get this fixed.

1. Open your /etc/hosts file (this is a text file so use a text editor to open it)
2. Look within the file to see if your domain is pointing to a different IP than it should be (mine was pointing to 127.0.0.1)
3. Change the wrong IP in the etc/hosts file to your domain’s public IP address
4. type the wget code again to see if you get an OK.  If it does, you should be able to schedule your posts from now on!

If you get a write permission error, then you need to make sure wp-cron.php is writtable.

This solution only works if you have terminal access to your server.  If you are using a shared hosting where many of the steps isn’t possible, use this information to talk to your host about the scheduling problem.  They should be able to fix it for you based on this article!

Do you want an instant increase in traffic?  For some of you, it’s as easy as changing the web host!  Last week, I finally made the leap to a Media Temple from my previous shared hosting plan. The results were surprising to say the least.

I compared data from the Monday to Friday before the switch to the Monday to Friday after the switch and the results speaks for itself.  The reason why I used Monday to Friday is because I want:

1. to compare the same number of days
2. to chose business days as I get the bulk of the traffic on those days and the larger the sample, the more accurate stats tend to be

What the Numbers Tell You

Switching to a better hosting company absolutely increases traffic (or at least sets you up for it). Here’s why it works.

Visits and Pageviews Increased
After I changed to a new host, the responsiveness of my sites were much improved.  In fact, even my wife, whom know nothing about hosting and the like, told me that the sites seem to load much faster after I changed to Media Temple.  I was capturing the impatient visitors that would otherwise click somewhere else.  I knew before I switched that this was possible but I never knew that it would be to this extent.  As you can see, I gained 15.38% more visitors!  I’m so happy with changing that I’m kicking myself for not doing it earlier!!

Average Time on Site
The new visitors actually spend 5 less seconds after I switched.  In general, this may seem like it’s a bad thing but I actually think readers are spending less time on the site because they aren’t spending time waiting for pages to load!

Bounce Rate
Bounce rate measures visitors who leave the site without going to another page.  This is another important metric because visitors who visit more than one page are much more likely to become a reader/subscriber of the blog.  As you can see, when pages load quicker, less people tend to just get fed up and leave.

What the Numbers Don’t Tell You

Aside from the actual statistics, here’s why switching to a better host is great.

Branding
The importance of branding is undeniable as stated before. Do you want your readers to feel that your site is slow and sluggish or do you want them to see that your site is snappy and quick? Just ask yourself. Which site would you rather visit when you are browsing?

Reader Retention
I know that when I go to a site that’s slow, I get fed up easily when every action (click on a new page, comment etc) take 1-2 seconds to load. I can perhaps tolerate it a couple times if I am already familiar with that site, but I will just stop going there eventually if it’s a constant struggle to read the articles.

Time is Money
I found that after I changed hosting companies, writing an article and overall site maintenance take less time! This is perhaps one of the most crucial and least talked about benefit of having a quick loading blog. It might be half a second here and a few seconds there, but they definitely add up! Instead of waiting for that plugin to install or the post page to load, I’m being productive!

Dump Your Inexpensive Shared Hosting

I used to pay $6.95 per month for my shared hosting and I thought I was happy. Now I’m paying $50 per month and I’m much happier. I’m so satisfied that I believe changing my host to Media Temple is one of the top 30 best decisions I’ve made for my blog. If you are at least semi-serious about your blog, change to a better host!

This is the second time I’ve outgrown my hosting company and if you are seeing this post, you are coming through to the new hosting company.  It took a while to decide the direction I wanted to take after suffering from constant performance issues with my old shared hosting so I decided to move to Media Temple because of  the combination of a good upgrade path, reputation, affordability, testimonials from people I trust.

The move was relatively smooth (actually much better than I thought as I had all sorts of problem doing it the first time) and the site was up and running within a short period of time.  In any case, if you see anything out of the ordinary, remember to give me a shout through the contact page.