page id

Hi! I'm slightly new to web design and inherited a website where the designer/programmer has become MIA. We need to add a menu item to the menu list and I have the following in the templates (.php I believe):

<li><a href="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>?page_id=20" title="ARCHIVES">ARCHIVES</a>
<ul class="submenu" style="display: none;">
<?php wp_list_pages('sort_column=menu_order&title_li=&child_of=20'); ?>
</ul>
</li>

I added the same section of code above this and changed the #to 20 and changed the above code to have a page id of 22 now. I changed on all the templates. However I noticed in WordPress, it still shows the menu ARCHIVES with a permalink page id of 20. So somewhere I need to still change something to 22. Does anyone know what WordPress is reading the page id from when you are in the Edit Pages? Or where I missed changing the page id?

I apologize if this should've been in a different forum...was not sure where I should put my post as this is my first post.

TIA,
Melissa

I think you fixed this just as I was looking at it.

In any case, it seems to be functioning correctly now




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:) I wish... No, when you click on the menu 'REFLECTIONS' it is showing the Archives info and it says page id=20. When you click on 'ARCHIVES' it shows page id=7 ... like it looped around and started over on page id 7 which is the CLASS PAGES menu at the start.

Thanks!

I've tinkered with WordPress links. My life is much easier when I use Permalinks. In wp-admin, under Settings, there's a Permalinks option. I use Day and Name.

The side benefit of this is that Pages have a human readable link, like example.com/pagename/ (yes, there's a trailing slash). The interesting thing is that WordPress automatically adjusted my template output to use Page IDs instead of Page Permalinks (I had turned off Permalinks as an experiment).

I must be blind this morning since I don't know what the URL of your website is.

-Scott

Sorry - it's hillelementary.com. :)

That's odd. I could have sworn it was working when I viewed the site

Scott's advice is definitely worth looking into. The permalinks option in WP can make administration easier, especially when you have several categories with sub-pages to keep track of, as is the case with your website.

Also, check that any SEO plug-ins you have running aren't overriding your links in a detrimental fashion. If you use the permalink option you might not even require SEO plug-ins at all (I reckon Scott will know more about that, too).




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As I look through one of my WP databases, there's an ID column, and there's a GUID column. I'm not sure how your IDs got jumbled up, but WordPress processes page identifiers on the fly.

You will either have to browse through your database with phpMyAdmin, or just go with the Permalinks. Permalinks are much prettier and search engine friendly.

I'm not sure why you're interested in SEO, since your site has a very specific audience. Just typing in Hill Elementary brings up your site in the #1 slot in Google. Beyond the top 3, the schools are Something Hill Elementary. I don't think your school will fall far, if at all, without SEO. Here's a handy guide:
http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/

-Scott

Thanks for the tips! I didn't set the website up so I don't know why he chose SEO. I did see the options to do permalinks but I don't know enough about what effects changing it will have to the website once it's live. Or maybe it doesn't make any difference. Since I don't know much about this aspect, I'd be afraid of doing one thing and breaking other stuff. :(

Thanks!
Melissa