Have You a Great Way to House Your Blog and E-Learning Samples?

Apr 30, 2014

I'm in the process of making over my web approach and could use the advice of anyone who has found a set-up and host they like for both a blog (WordPress, if possible), and their e-learning examples.

My blog is currently hosted by wordpress.com and my e-learning samples are on my own hosted site. Love wordpress.com, but I'd rather self host so my blog/website is under the same domain as all of my e-learning samples. I hate the back-and forth the user experiences going between the blog and the samples.

I just installed wordpress.org and started running a parallel blog on my current host to test it, and it's both ridiculously buggy and slow as molasses - unlike all my other stuff on that site. Support can't seem to figure it out, and I find endless complaints online about self-hosted WordPress sites that are ALL slow as molasses at many different hosting companies.

Have you found a host and set-up that gives you a way to house your e-learning samples online AND gives you a great blog space that's fast and responsive? I'd really appreciate any advice you may have!

80 Replies
Jackie Van Nice

@Nancy: Yes! That's what I thought, too - but all it took was changing a WP setting and I was good to go. Simplest task I've had in days with this adventure. If my site had been set up differently, I'd guess the .htaccess file probably would have been a good bet, though.

Interestingly, now that I've got my Storyline samples up on the Linux server and I'm going through and testing them, behaviors I was attributing to browser wonkiness seem to have gone away. Good news there!

Nancy Woinoski

Jackie Van Nice said:

@Nancy: Would you be able to share any links to pages where you've used the WP plug-in that embeds Articulate content? I saw Brian Batt's video about how it works, but I'd love to see how you've actually used it.


Hi Jackie, here is one.  here is one from my blog

I think there is another one further down in which I inserted an Engage interaction.

Not, I just tried inserting a new one using the iframe option and was getting a 404 page not found error so don't know what that is all about.

Phil Mayor

Jackie Van Nice said:

@Nancy: Would you be able to share any links to pages where you've used the WP plug-in that embeds Articulate content? I saw Brian Batt's video about how it works, but I'd love to see how you've actually used it.


Hi Jackie, I have Brian Batts plugin running on my new site, it is great, I can PM you a link if that would help, should be changing over to the new site in the next couple of weeks

Jackie Van Nice

Articulate WP Plug-In:

@Nancy: Thank you for sharing the link! @Phil: Sure - I'd love to see a link if you'd like to send a PM when you're ready.

I'll give it a try. I'm especially curious about using it for the lightbox effect. Speaking of which, I just Googled "Articulate WP plug-in" and ran across a post from David about another WP plug-in you can use to display Articulate content in a lightbox: How to Load Your E-learning Courses in WordPress w/Lightbox Effect  Looks like that works well, too!

Wordfence Plug-In: I installed the Wordfence security plug-in @Vasily recommended and like it a lot. Efficient, loads of information, and runs lightly and smoothly.

Redirecting from Old WP Site Posts to New WP Site Posts: The main issue I'm left with after having migrated from WP.com to WP.org and using the WP.com redirect is that I can't make the permalinks match for the posts. I can control and adjust the permalinks for the pages so they match, but not the posts. So if someone clicks on a post link from, for example, a challenge entry I did - they end up on my new site with a search box they can use (which will have to be good enough for now), but they won't go to the exact post.

The problem is that on my WP.com original posts, the date is often included, so the permalink is something like "/2014/04/12/postname" and WP.org will only let me enter the last "postname"portion of it.

It just occurs to me that maybe there's a way to edit the actual PHP files in my new WP database to make the permalinks match? I haven't edited any PHP yet and don't know my way around. But if you have any ideas, please let me know! 

David Anderson

LightboxPlus works really well.

As with all WordPress plugins, you'll want to test them after each WordPress update. I just noticed that the lightbox wasn't working on my site and that I needed to make a small update to the link code.

One word of caution about lightboxing portfolios. If you're using Storyline or Studio to publish your portfolio examples, it's possible your published examples will be wider than your blog page. You can reduce the window size in the link settings, but your content may not look as crisp when reduced to smaller sizes.

It might make more sense to lightbox selected screenshots of your project and link out to the working, published project.

Jackie Van Nice

I'm questioning being able to make the self-hosted WP site work.

"Pretty" permalinks kept failing and had to change them to default, so no links to my work from any other online location (Twitter, LI, this site) will work, and even the 404 page fails. (Host support working on this.) Tried setting up 301 redirects for each individual link using a plug-in, which didn't work and which instantly added instability to the site. Other buggy instability led me to get rid of what few plug-ins I had, uninstalling and reinstalling themes; rinsing and repeating a few times.

Maybe it's the latest version of WP, or the themes and plug-ins that have tried to keep up with it, but I'm stumped as to why it seems so shaky. Right now I can't even successfully insert an image into a blogpost.

I know I'll get a workable site going - with or without WP - but it's a journey!

Jackie Van Nice

Well, I have a host company (Dotster) but post-install they wash their hands of WP. (Which I can understand - how can you support open-source software and how it interacts with countless plug-ins and themes?) I didn't think any hosting company would wade into all that.

Does siteground address WP functionality issues post-install? (And do you ever have any WP issues?)

Jackie Van Nice

Nancy Woinoski said:

Hi Jackie, why are you self-hosting? I think you should consider using a web host like siteground. It really does not cost much and they have wonderful support.


Ahhhh... Just checked them out and now I see what you're saying! Do you have space to house all of your Articulate samples online with them too?

Nancy Woinoski

Jackie Van Nice said:

Nancy Woinoski said:

Hi Jackie, why are you self-hosting? I think you should consider using a web host like siteground. It really does not cost much and they have wonderful support.


Ahhhh... Just checked them out and now I see what you're saying! Do you have space to house all of your Articulate samples online with them too?


Yes, so far and I am on the basic plan but may need to upgrade soon. I should add that I don't have all my examples uploaded to my site, I Have started to do things like Screener or YouTube for some things.

Jackie Van Nice

Thanks, Nick!

(I never thought about things like China's firewall, but that's interesting - and a clever workaround.)

I'm giving my host one last chance this morning. They're struggling. (To figure out how to redirect to a 404 page.) (Not good.) If , after that, my plug-in to set up 301 redirects for the individual URLs on my site still doesn't work, I'll have to bag it and head for Siteground or equivalent.

Thank you again for the scoop!

Jackie Van Nice

OMG. I think redirects are working. Just need to set up all my 301 redirects for individual pages. 

It took a support person who knew what a standard WP .htaccess file should look like to make it function properly. (After quite a few support people kept doing "workarounds" that made it worse.)

Definitely a testament for going to a host that knows and cares about WP.

Vasily Ingogly

If permalinks stop working (often because some plugin fiddled with your .htaccess file), the solution is usually to go to the permalinks setting page and save the settings. You don't have to change them, just save them. That usually fixes the problem.

Regarding plugins: be sure to keep everything up to date (wordpress as well as your plugins), and backup your site before updating. Check your file after updating to make sure everything's working OK. When a new major  version of WordPress comes out I usually wait for a couple of weeks to give plugin developers to update and test their plugins before updating.

I choose plugins that have been downloaded by a lot of people, have more positive than negative reviews, and are updated regularly by the authors (same with themes). Having too many plugins can slow down your site ... and plugins do sometimes conflict with each other. I regularly use 20 or more plugins on a site, but I carefully evaluate all plugins I use so I have a preferred set of them.

Regarding hosting, there are hosts like WPEngine that are specifically oriented toward WordPress sites but you'll pay more for their hosting (WPEngine is I think 26USD per month versus 4 to 8USD per month for SiteGround). Note that WPEngine and other WordPress specialist hosts (the ones I'm familiar with are page.ly and Synthesis) cover things like security, backups, and performance for you so you don't have to worry about them. That also means you don't have to worry about installing security, backup, or performance plugins. They're owned by Automattic, the company that owns WordPress.com.

Jackie Van Nice

Vasily Ingogly said:

If permalinks stop working (often because some plugin fiddled with your .htaccess file), the solution is usually to go to the permalinks setting page and save the settings. You don't have to change them, just save them. That usually fixes the problem.

 Regarding plugins: be sure to keep everything up to date (wordpress as well as your plugins), and backup your site before updating. Check your file after updating to make sure everything's working OK. When a new major  version of WordPress comes out I usually wait for a couple of weeks to give plugin developers to update and test their plugins before updating.

 I choose plugins that have been downloaded by a lot of people, have more positive than negative reviews, and are updated regularly by the authors (same with themes). Having too many plugins can slow down your site ... and plugins do sometimes conflict with each other. I regularly use 20 or more plugins on a site, but I carefully evaluate all plugins I use so I have a preferred set of them.

 Regarding hosting, there are hosts like WPEngine that are specifically oriented toward WordPress sites but you'll pay more for their hosting (WPEngine is I think 26USD per month versus 4 to 8USD per month for SiteGround). Note that WPEngine and other WordPress specialist hosts (the ones I'm familiar with are page.ly and Synthesis) cover things like security, backups, and performance for you so you don't have to worry about them. That also means you don't have to worry about installing security, backup, or performance plugins. They're owned by Automattic, the company that owns WordPress.com.


Thanks, Vasily! I really appreciate all of this.

Permalinks: Unfortunately, my Permalinks were perma-messed-up. I couldn't do anything to save or change them. They were changing on a dime and wouldn't hold. I would have one permalink name on a post - all nice and saved - then hit "publish" and it would become something completely different. WP forums said to do the usual routine of disabling plug-ins all the way down to doing a fresh WP install. Mine stabilized after getting rid of my theme, but permalinks still didn't work properly until I went back to the default permalink format.

On the bright side, I got to learn all about URL-by-URL 301 redirects! The plug-in that worked for me was the "Quick Page/Post Redirect Plug-In". After my host figured out their own redirect issues, it worked like a charm.  

Plug-Ins: Yes, I've been very careful in being sure they are compatible with my version of WP, that they've been used heavily, and that they have good ratings. I have plug-ins down to just a handful now, and I watch and test carefully if I add a new one.

WP Host Recommendations: These are great. Thank you again!

Jackie Van Nice

My host has only knocked out my primary htaccess file once after I got up and running, but now I've learned what kind of code it should have and how to fix it if/when they wipe it.

By the way, my new site is here: http://www.jackievannice.com. I'm pretty happy with it except for the formatting for images with captions (I want it to be clean and transparent - no background or border), but that will be another learning opportunity.

I also wanted to mention that as people are asking me about my site I'm referring them to this thread and strongly encouraging them to take heed of your collective advice - especially about choosing a WP host! Thank you so much for all of your help. It's been invaluable.   

Jackie Van Nice

Thanks, Ashley! Hope your LMS issue got resolved easily.

Tested out some of the CSS from that WP forum link, but it didn't seem to have any effect at all on the captioned image formatting. (Granted I was using "preview" rather than saving before viewing... maybe that was why?) 

If you have any ideas I'd love to try them!

Ashley Chiasson

Let's see here - I looked at your site elements, and in the stylesheet.css file, I found this:

My recommendation is to revise this:

/* .wp-caption */

.aligncenter,

div.aligncenter {display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;}

.wp-caption {border: 1px solid #ccc; background: #efefef; padding: 1%; text-align: center; max-width: 96%;}

.wp-caption img {border: 0;}

.wp-caption p.wp-caption-text {font-size: 0.85em; line-height: 1.2em; padding: 3px 0; margin: 0;}

To this:

/* .wp-caption */

.aligncenter,

div.aligncenter {display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;}

.wp-caption {border: 0; background: #ffffff; padding: 0; text-align: center; max-width: 96%;}

.wp-caption img {border: 0;}

.wp-caption p.wp-caption-text {font-size: 0.85em; line-height: 1.2em; padding: 0; margin: 0;}

Do you have access to edit that file in your theme? I hope the code showed up...:x

Jackie Van Nice

Sorry Ashley! I didn't realize you'd posted this or I would have tried earlier.

I think you did it!! I popped it into the CSS and it worked beautifully. I might play with it a little bit over time (as with the whole site!) but those awful-looking image frames are gone. Those were ugg-leee.

Thank you so much, you CSS guru, you!  I really really REALLY appreciate it!   :-D :-D

This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.