Mac SEO Blog

Earlier in 2011, we made a post/video about publishing a website to FTP in iWeb SEO Tool. We have recently updated that video to clear up some confusion that some users were having. The updated video is listed below for your viewing pleasure.

Video Transcript

This tutorial is going to strictly cover publishing a website to FTP using iWeb SEO Tool. We will cover all of the main points involved with publishing, and then we will discuss the biggest issue users have when publishing their website. That issue is the directory path.

I also want to quickly mention that there is a video tutorial that shows you how to check to see if your site has been published correctly using iWeb SEO Tool. This video can be found on our website, or our YouTube account.

So the first thing you will need to do is press the publish button, and then make sure Publish to FTP is selected, and then press the next button.

In the FTP field, here is where you will put your server address. Sometimes the server address may look like the one I have here, but more often than not, it will just be your domain. So if my domain were publishingtoiweb.com then that is what I would put in this field.

Do not include http, www, or ftp in this field. Just put your domain.com or .net or whatever the extension may be.

Your username and password must be accurate otherwise logging in will not work, and you will not be able to publish.

Next, I want everyone to check to see if you have all of your FTP login details entered in correctly. To do so, press the Browse button. If you are able to see files and folders like we see here, then you have logged in correctly. If you get an error similar to this, then your FTP information is incorrect. You must get the correct FTP information before proceeding to the next step.

Now we’re going to discuss the Directory Path field. This is the area where most users experience the most difficulty. Chances are, if you are watching this video, you need to enter something in this field.

Firstly, If you use RAGE Web Hosting, you should type in /public_html. For everyone else, please refer to the following method;

The first thing I want you to try to do, is publish your site in from iWeb SEO Tool by typing a forward slash in the Directory Path field. If that still doesn’t publish your site, refer to the next step.

What you want to do is open up iWeb, and go to the publish page of the website you want to publish in iWeb SEO Tool. Take a look at the current FTP information you already have. In the directory/path field, there may or may not be some text. If there is some text, I want you to copy it. If there is no text in there, don’t worry, just bear with me for a moment.

Go back to iWeb SEO Tool, and in the directory path field, paste the text you just copied. Make sure there is a forward slash at the beginning of this text.

This next step applies to everyone, even the users who did not have anything typed into the Directory Path field. Go back to the Publish page, and now copy the text that is in the Site Name field. Then go back to iWeb SEO Tool and paste this text beside the text we pasted earlier. If you didn’t paste any text earlier, then this will be the first time you are pasting anything into the Directory Path field. If you have multiple words in your site name, you will need to add underscores to separate each word. Underscores are the default word separator that iWeb adds to your site name.

Your site should publish properly now.

I want to make a note that this method should work for 95-99% of users. Since there are so many variations when it comes to publishing, some users may not achieve success using this method. For example, if you host multiple domains on one hosting account, or if you use our method for shortening your iWeb URL, this method might not work for you.

If this method does not work for you, submit a support ticket at ragesw.com/support and we will be happy to assist you. Be sure to include your FTP login details which includes your server address, username, and password, to help speed up the process.