im having sidebar issues
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im having issues
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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i have 8 sidebar pics of awards. since i added one of them on the 13th my googleplus post and some reblogs display an award pic. i deleted it then ran another test and it did it again. a third time and same thing. i cleared history and deleted them all then started adding them back. the first five when i ran a test posted properly. then i one by one added and tested the larger pics and they show up in google. if i change the order the one closest to the top is the one that displays in google plus and my facebook displays a blank page. with reblogs some peoples post properly and many but not all of mine post properly. i was talking in live chat and the person was not getting what i meant. i have many times had no pics, then pics and multiple ones and urls and youtube links and all was fine until i got these larger award pics. i believe the theme is not big enough for these three pics as they are larger in pixels even though they display properly in the sidebar.
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The trouble shooting I have done was running a test and checking google plus and facebook right after. It is not on all of my posts, whether there is a pic or not and it does not effect all of my reblogs. Today I deleted the first pic. Did a test and another did the same so I deleted it. I decided to delete them all and clear history. Then I loaded them in a different order planning on leaving the two in question for the last two. One by one I tested the first 5 and all of the tests worked fine and posted correctly. Then I did the next one I had not tried and that one showed up in the middle of the post. So I added the other two and decided to change their order and leave it be as I wrote several emails and was waiting for help. I got to this site and actually had a live chat and the woman I talked to thought I was a newbie and she said oh you need a featured pic in your posts. I said since when and why? I said this started on the 13th when I got the initial pic. I sent a link to my google plus page. She saw what I meant and said to set a featured pic as my theme searches my sidebar for one. I said are there settings to change that? I mentioned that the three in questions were somewhat larger than the others. She sent a link to set a featured image. I said I am not new and write posts without photos all the time and I scrolled through google plus and saw it started on the 13th and all of the posts before were correct. So, I said again I think it is a size issue. I think she was rushing as they were shutting down live chat and sent me a link to set a featured image. I said I do not want to click it and lose the chat and she said I would not and I did. I have since tried to get back and it said chat and it was blank. Now I try and I think because of me writing this on a forum for help it brings me here. If I do not get an answer or if it does not give me an option for chat I will delete this so please answer as soon as possible as i have wasted all day and prior I have and still do have reblog buttons and I was told to change themes and I spent hours going to themes I saw others had that showed the reblog button. None worked so I settled on the one I liked most. I noticed that my blog hits on the theme on my site one number but if I go to customize and blog stats it says over 12000 yet my theme says 4500. I do not know if I change and there is no help and I either stay on a new theme or go back to the one I have if the blog stats will reset or not.
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since i wrote this topic i have received no help and it somehow disabled my ability to have a live chat because any emails sent will not be sufficient enough to fix the issue as everybody i have talked to at wordpress seems to have difficulty following what i say and a live chat would make it easier. if you respond can you send me a link to do a live chat?
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Search engines are not focused on sidebar content and ascribe next to no value to backlinks from blog awards memes. I hope you understand that blogger created memes like blog awards aren’t created or sponsored by WordPress.com and no value other than sentimental value. Most of use display blog awards we received in our beginner blogging times on a static page https://en.support.wordpress.com/pages/ and experienced bloggers who are focused on creating unique content and drawing backlinks from blogs with authority in their niche often do not choose to enter blog award memes and do not reblog posts.
To be honest though I read all the words above but I don’t know what you think you need help with or what your goal is. I humbly apologize for that.
Private support is available to those who have a paid upgrade on the blog they are having issues with and live chat is available to those with Business upgrades.
These are the support options https://en.support.wordpress.com/help-support-options/
There is no phone support but you can also email
support@wordpress.com
or
help@wordpress.comKnow that Staff respond to all support tickets in order of datestamps with the earliest being serviced first, as would be expected.
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reblogs some peoples post properly and many but not all of mine post properly
When you contact Staff provide the relevant URLs so they know exactly what you are referring to.
The trouble shooting I have done was running a test and checking google plus and facebook right after. It is not on all of my posts, whether there is a pic or not and it does not effect all of my reblogs. Today I deleted the first pic. Did a test and another did the same so I deleted it. I decided to delete them all and clear history. Then I loaded them in a different order planning on leaving the two in question for the last two.
Are you aware that every time you delete a post you create a 404 page not found error in search engines page results?
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2409439?hl=en -
re: featured images in the Dusk to Dawn theme
The featured image works best with images at least 588 wide but the Sidebar width is 222. https://theme.wordpress.com/themes/dusk-to-dawn/
https://theme.wordpress.com/themes/dusk-to-dawn/re: featured image display in social networks
We have no control over the images that Twitter, Facebook or any other social networks chooses to display or when they choose to flush their image caches.We really only send them the URL of the post, and they hunt through that for the excerpt and images to include. See http://en.support.wordpress.com/publicize/#images-in-publicize
Sometimes these help and sometimes they don’t
http://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug
Note the display hierarchy here -
Going over your response the first thing is the 404 errors I get on my word press site when I reblog someone else’s post. I scrolled through many posts. Obviously they don’t all fully display. Some that have pics in the post used to all show them on my site unless it was huge then I’d get the view original as always. Now I’m getting the word image, the name of the image or a broken image. These are not deleted posts. They are live on a followers page. The result I get varies. I click and get just the pic, the full post or the 404 error. If I check the original everything is there.
As far as what I want it is quite simple. I used to be able to post my posts with and without pics and do reblogs and I’d check google plus, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to make sure they posted properly. They did until October 13th. I hadn’t looked as I had been under the weather. On many of my posts and many reblogs on Google plus the award I received on the 13th was inserted into the post on many but not all of them. I then looked at Facebook and saw there was just a blank space. If I clicked on either platform the whole post displayed properly. So I was scratching my head. I deleted the one pic and did a test and now that pic displayed. I deleted that one and another displayed. So I deleted them all cleared history after logging out and started fresh. I started with pics I was going to put back in the sidebar one at a time after posting a post without any pics that posted properly. For all 5 pics the test was perfect. Thinking it may have been position issues now I took pics that were 3,4 and 5th and had them at 6,7 and 8. I tested and the 6th displayed in the post. I switched the order and among these three whichever was the highest did it again. I deleted them all and tested and it was perfect. I looked at the links and they don’t touch on the subject and I’ve written word press starting 3 days ago. I realized that these 3 pics were the largest but not huge. While the others were all around 200×300 these three were all 400×500. So I figured it was a sidebar size issue. I read up on that and learned of the pic was too big it wouldn’t display in my sidebar but they all do so I scratched my head again. This is not something that anyone has written anything on. While in chat the support person said it could be size but also said if it were it would not display in the sidebar. I sent a link to my Google plus page and she saw all the posts. I said now look at my test on my page as there’s a pic in it and it’s replaced with this award pic. She suggested that I absolutely had to have a featured pic in each post which is ridiculous and the link she sent was useless. I’ve been posting with no issue my posts or reblogs for months now and it’s clearly these three pics. Because I write this in the forum I can’t get to a live chat again. So I know I can delete the three pics or change themes. I’ll have to find one that supports the features that I like and that the sidebar is an option and is big enough to support those three award pics. I’ve gotten many compliments on my site design. Also in customize and blog hits I get a number of around 12000 and on my site it’s 4500. I was told the counter reset because I changed themes. I asked before if there’s a way to get my actual blog hits to display and if I change themes again will I start over even if I quickly see I don’t like what I switch to and return to my site and I’ve had people say both yes and no.
I don’t understand why my site picked a pic in my sidebar and inserted it into many of the posts of mine whether a pic is in it or not and the same for many others I reblog. I’m guessing it’s all theme related. I could pic a theme of somebody’s whose post isn’t affected but the ones I’ve seen that weren’t thus far don’t fully support my look I’m going for or something similar to mine that allows a larger sidebar pic without it just deciding to become part of the post on its own. There’s no setting that controls this. Like I said I know I could waste hours tinkering with changing themes again and may find something I like than if I do I have to run tests on any to see if the people’s replicates and if I lose my blog hits and that my sidebar looks the same. I’d rather not scrap the three award pics and I’ve spent hours troubleshooting the last two plus days.
Your response asked what I was trying to do when it was clear. I responded and hope if it was not clear the first time that it is now. The only thing I didn’t look over was the static page. As far as back links I’m not concerned about that. I have a completely different site for that. As far as saying many people don’t display awards or reblog. Most people I follow use their mobile and can’t reblog. Many others don’t click the post and therefore the reblog button doesn’t display. As far as awards I’d say half of my followers have them in their site somewhere. Others have navigation to awards and I have professional writers as followers and several have their awards either visible on their page or have navigation to an awards page. Like I’ve said I’ve received many compliments regarding the look and user friendly changes that I’ve made.
Besides making an award page that I guess would be a static page with a link for navigation, getting rid of the three in my sidebar that are an issue and changing themes and going through trial and error do I have another option?
Paul
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I saw the sidebar size issue which is what I thought was the culprit. However, I was told if they were too big they wouldn’t display. Not that they would randomly post to my publicize sites. Mind you this does not affect LinkedIn or Twitter. I looked over the featured image info and have never set one besides the about me one and don’t know why I’d have to for a post to publicize the way it looks on WordPress. I also quickly just tried to follow to where featured image is located and in admin and screen options I don’t see it. As I mentioned before I write a lot of posts without a pic so why if have to put one in seems odd. Plus reblogs are other people’s. Like I asked before I’ve looked over the info you sent and countless other info and saw the sidebar width. 7 of 8 of my pics are too wide and all but those three are fine. My about me is the largest pic I have and that doesn’t display on Google plus when I got rid of the others.
Paul
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When we need Staff help with issues Volunteers cannot resolve we type modlook into the sidebar tags on our forum threads like this one. How do I get a Moderator/Staff reply for my question? https://en.support.wordpress.com/getting-help-in-the-forums/#how-do-i-get-a-moderatorstaff-reply-for-my-question Then please subscribe to this thread so you are notified when they respond. To subscribe look in the sidebar of this thread, find the subscribe to topics link and click it.
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I thought to disconnect and reconnect publicize or see if there was a limit or way to change anything in Google or Facebook. I didn’t see anything that would help. It looks like I have to do one of the options I suggested unless there is another besides the three I said. I’m going to have to look over all themes I’d consider changing to in order to see if the sidebar pics would be too big. I went through maybe around 100 when I tried to change before and only liked a couple but didn’t get to look further into their options. If there was a sidebar and dimensions allowed. It looks like another long day unless I get lucky and find one similar with a larger sidebar and the other options I like about my current site.
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I added the mod look tag so hopefully they’ll be able to suggest some info. If I have to go over tons of themes I’ll go blind. Lol
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I had already added the modlook tag for you the last time I posted. :) Staff respond to all support threads tagged for their attention in order of datestamps with the earliest being serviced first, as would be expected, so you have to be patient while waiting.
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You misunderstood me again. I said I did what you said and put the mod look tag in. So of course I have to wait. I’m always waiting for them
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As timethief said, we don’t have much control over what images social networks use. Here’s some more information regarding how images are typically selected and displayed.
https://en.support.wordpress.com/publicize/#images-in-publicizeIf you’re concerned about how award images are used, your best bet is to display them on a static page as mentioned. Or be sure to use featured images for your posts.
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I read that and it doesn’t say anywhere that social media would go in and take a pic from my sidebar if it wants to. It was working fine until the 13th. I realized that was the same day I got the specific award. Getting rid of that one caused another to do the same in Google and Facebook. I got rid of all of the pics and put them back one by one. Running a test the first five displayed properly. Then each of the next three posted with each pic in Google and Facebook. I realized they were all larger pics. I looked up the size of sidebar pics and was told if they were too big they wouldn’t even be seen in the sidebar. Yet they are. I don’t want to add a new page for awards as there should be a work around. I write lots of posts with no pics and never had a problem before and setting a featured pic would defeat the purpose of I was writing a post with no pic. As far as reblogs it does it to some of them also. Not all just some. My options seem to be get rid of the three, ignore it and don’t worry about where it’s shared or change themes. I was hoping a tech could advise me of a couple of themes that would fit my needs based on the sidebar being larger and offer me the same options I have in my current theme instead of me spending hours doing research by changing and testing. As far as the featured image goes I saw the instructions and I went to the admin section as advised then screen options and there was no option to set a featured image. It would be bad enough to set them on mine especially ones without a pic but setting a featured pic on a reblog would be me altering the original persons post. I see lots of people that have lots of awards in their sidebars that are larger than mine. I haven’t gotten a response from anyone that said why a publicize site would grab a picture when there are no settings to do so and if I deleted them all it didn’t take my about me gravatar pic and didn’t take the first five I posted and ran tests on that weren’t taken either. When I was looking there were themes with no sidebar, those with no about set and I’ve learned about my current theme yet still don’t fully understand certain things. I can’t get a pull down calendar. I can’t get top navigation and when I toyed with setting a header image it messed up my title.
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I was hoping a tech could advise me of a couple of themes that would fit my needs based on the sidebar being larger and offer me the same options I have in my current theme instead of me spending hours doing research by changing and testing.
Reddle has a very wide sidebar. The sidebar maxes out at 284 when the layout is fixed.
https://wordpress.com/themes/reddle
https://reddledemo.wordpress.com/I am blogger with over 10 years of blogging experience. My advice above was between the lines so now I will give it to you straight up.
If you are in least concerned with developing a blog that has a significant page rank and and archives any authority in the niche it is in then you will ill place all the cutesy but lacking in value crappola like awards on static page, and in your sidebar. You will also be extremely cautious about how many reblogs you republish. You will make sure each every one of the very few post you choose to reblog are found in blogs that do have healthy page ranks and authority in same niche. Instead of mucking about with award memes and reblogging posts others have published, your primary focus will be on publishing unique original content posts that contain interesting and useful information and backlinks to other relevant posts in the same niche that cannot be found anywhere else on the internet.
However if you do not give a feather or a fig about blog authority, page page rank and high traffic from search engines and just want to play around with blogging, then none of that will matter to you and nothing I say here will assist you to become a truly successful blogger.
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Do you also note that my comments have paragraph spacing? That’s because huge blocks of uninterrupted text are hard to read and if blogger we dare to publish any posts in that format we are ensuring that many visitors will click in and out thereby creating a high bounce rate on our blogs.
re: changing themes
Themes are just “skins” on WordPress.COM hosted blogs. You can quickly and easily change themes on any WordPress.COM hosted blog to another one found here http://wordpress.com/themes/ and no data will be lost or negatively affected by the change. The only time you may have to do some work is if you are changing to a dramatically different theme and have done any CSS editing.Provided you are logged in as Admin under the same username account that registered the blog go to Dashboard > Appearance > Themes, Browse themes until you find one you like and click the “activate” or the “preview” link, or type in the name of the theme you want to use when it appears. https://en.support.wordpress.com/themes/#switch-themes
The theme customizer https://en.support.wordpress.com/customizer/ provides a preview function for exactly that purpose ie. so you can view what a theme will appear like prior to changing one.
Note that Staff will deal with technical issues you have after switching themes.
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I see errors above: Edited version below:
If you are in least concerned with developing a blog that has a significant page rank and and achieves any authority in the niche it is in then you will place all the cutesy but lacking in value crappola like awards on static page, and not in your sidebar. -
My blog has been well received. I have blogger’s with over ten years experience that said when I first started that it would take 6 plus months to get close to 100 followers. In 5 I have 160. So I’m ahead of the norm. I have a dozen years building ranking on an external website and that’s where it’s needed as that’s where I get work.
The blog was a way for me to escape and write various posts daily that gave me accountability to both my working out and giving exercise advice so I could later take the posts out and publish several books. That was my original intention. Honestly in the beginning that’s all I wrote about and I got noticed very little. I had maybe 20 followers until mid August and have added 140 in two months as I added things to write about. I grabbed a new type of follower and oddly enough they flocked to my training and exercise tips. When I received my first award I’d say late September I was surprised. At that time I had not developed my sidebar at all.
At times I write larger paragraphs and others they are shorter. I noticed other people’s development of their site, between top navigation, odd text side navigation, awards on the page at different places and in either sidebar menu or top navigation static award pages.
I looked at the options in my theme. I wanted a drop down calendar but that wasn’t available. I also wanted to make my site more user friendly and have a category directory and I was happy that was a drop down and I added a couple of other things as you may have noticed.
At the moment I’m honestly coming off of being pretty ill and I’m brain fried. I looked at the link about setting a featured pic. I went to admin and screen options and there was no option. Many things I’d read about weren’t available with my theme. I know to you changing theme is not a big deal and awards are a waste of time oddly enough I get daily congratulations from even seasoned blogger’s.
In the customized area with blog stats it has the amount of hits I have as appx 14000 and this recent theme has 4500. Basically it seemed I lost hits overall somehow.
I took a good amount of time picking a theme. As opposed to what you’re trying to explain regarding getting internet ranking, that may be an area you need your blog for but I’m actually not trying to drive my internet ranking up. Being on my outside site I do that. I have an area for seo settings, titles, keywords and similar things to help my ranking. I don’t see where WordPress has settings like this.
Where it seems simple to someone like yourself to make change easy I’d bet things I know for a fraction of that time and you were newer it would be difficult to you. I’ve looked at support, faqs and tutorials and most are dated and what I’ve needed help with are newer or not available fixes on my theme. I don’t write code, I do simple things. I was going to put top navigation menus and other things and either they were not an option or I merely couldn’t figure them out. Honestly, I have had vonage, computer and phone issues that no tech ever heard of and working with techs and them scratching their heads I’ve come up with solutions that the techs said before I found a fix deemed impossible after their simple instructions, much the same as you, I learned from it and fixed it. I’m not saying that’s what will happen here but between being sick and a lot of new information coming from many areas this added issue has pushed me past my tolerance.
The theme you suggested while bigger is still too small. Oddly enough of the 8 only one is small enough to fit in the sidebar but they all fit. Only 3 have a mind of their own and based on the location in the sidebar the highest one up displays. Nobody has given a reason as to why this would occur. If it simply was my sidebar is too small and they didn’t fit there at all that would make sense.
You being somewhat condescending was actually rude on your end. Like I suggested without actually saying I could rip you apart on a subject you had a few months of knowledge on and make you feel as stupid as you are trying to make me feel. Instead you and other people within wp asked for information about things months ago and they gave me cookie cutter options like you did. I explored them like I did with you and almost everything said or a link given simply did not work. If I come back and say I tried it and it didn’t work I’d get an answer like it works for me. I’d get similar answers from techs with my computer and they’d screen share and have to apologize after telling me to do things I either already tried and it didn’t work or I wasn’t fully sure how to accomplish it. I’d then have them go through the motions with me and have to say that normally works or I have to escalate this to a senior adviser.
Going back to the trivial awards I have people write comments not just on my posts but my layout including the awards. I’ve seen other people’s sites with interesting things on it that I’d like but they’re not options. I have followers with well over 1000 followers and a couple with a few thousand.
Being I’m writing you back having only briefly looked at one of the links that you’d suggest making changes at I am curious about a couple of things. Number one is a statement I can just delete the 3 awards and problem solved. Evidently even the theme you said isn’t big enough. Now if I want to write a rant let’s say and I use one of my pics I can’t seem to figure out how to set it as a featured pic and it seems that is a per post setting? What would the benefit be of having a featured picture? If I did want this site to get internet ranking how would I do that as there’s no seo settings, just my categories and tags. Is that all there is as far as gaining internet ranking or is there something I’m missing? As far as setting a static page I believe it’s add a page, name it and add it to navigation? I’ve seen on the site page where it says add page, that opens up as if it’s a new post but it has page settings with no parent or pick one and a default template or full width, there I see an option for a featured image and advanced settings. Is this the only way to add a page and is it the only way to add a featured image? I’d guess your suggestion to fix my issue is title this awards and simply put the awards within the normal writing area and being my current homepage setting is about I’d set the parent as about and that would automatically give me navigation on my sidebar under about? Or would I have to do something else to add navigation to that page? I’m asking as I don’t know. Obviously I can tinker with it and see. Plus like I said I’m not sure if in this theme there is another way to set a similar page as I know I’ve seen another within admin but I’m not sure if it does the same thing as I similarly don’t see how else I could add a featured image but if I took the approach I suggested I’m not sure if I would have to set a featured image if I was merely putting just pics in there and set whatever way I wanted to have them ordered. I’m fairly sure there’s another way to add a page and I’ve looked over tutorials with navigation where it would drop down and you could have many under and have to pull them slightly outward. That I saw in a tutorial with top navigation where there were 6 categories where to clean it up the author basically just pulled them under like I had to in the sidebar menu to get the order I’d like. I’m not assuming anything will be automatic as things I thought would be weren’t. Though I was happy the categories automatically put the categories broken up into their proper place.
Honestly going back to the beginning of this response this blog was only to have one focus and that was to link to and from my personal training website as an added back link and for the first couple of months I had very little in the way of views or likes while having appropriate categories and tags and for a while had my blog actually on my website. I started getting noticed within word press because I started writing on several subjects and now I can write anything and get word press traffic. It is possible that a good number of the newer followers I received have found me online through Internet ranking and happened to have a WordPress site. It’s not like I ask new followers how they found me.
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