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Frequently Asked Questions

Please note: you can find a lot of answers at the CampusPress knowledgebase. CampusPress is the company that provides the hosting for Dartmouth WordPress.

1. How do I add users to my site?

Although you might think it is the Add New button under the Users menu item, you should instead use the Blog & User Creator a bit lower down on the menu. It looks like this:

Add User screenshot 1

Click on the plus sign in the middle, and you should see this:

Add User screenshot 2

If you are not sure if the user is new or existing, just leave the New User option selected, and press the blue Create Users button. If you get an error message, change the selection at the top to Existing User. Please note that you can add multiple users by pressing on the plus sign again.

2. Why did I get this Notice of Email Change? I didn't change my email!

In certain cases, this email is generated after the first time you login. It can happen if there is any difference in case between the email we used to add you to the system, and your official email address. For example, we may have used an ending with EDU, but officially you email ends in Edu. In such cases, WordPress considers that the email is "different" and sends out the email. We apologize for this inconvenience, and promise that it will only happen once.
Note: as of August 2018, this should no longer occur.

3. How can I make my posts display my name instead of my NetID?

Go to "Edit my profile" (found under "Howdy, [username]" in the upper right corner). On your profile page, supply your first name, last name, and the format you would like under "Display name publicly as."

4. How do I disable comments on my posts and pages?

The easiest way is to login to your site, and activate the plugin called "Completely Disable Comments"

screenshot showing Disable Comments plugin

Once this plugin is active, you will see a new Disable Comments menu item under Settings.

screenshot for Disable Comments setting

Select the top option or check off the desired area to disable, and click Save Changes.

5. Why doesn't my site turn up in search results (such as Google)?

The most important step is to make sure your site can be crawled. To do this, go to your site's Dashboard, and then go to: Settings > Privacy (in the left column). For Site Visibility, make sure you have the "Allow search engines to index this site" option set.

WordPress encourages site authors to structure their content in ways that it can more easily be found by search engines. If your page is long, a good practice is to break the text in your page into more bite-sized chunks with headings (use the "Heading 1", "Heading 2" etc. options in the dropdown menu in the page editor).

It's also a good idea to structure your site architecture in an intuitive fashion. Pages can be nested under a "parent" page in a hierarchical manner. This allows you to group like topics together. In addition to increasing the usability of the site, this might also help search engines crawl your site -- especially if you use a theme or set up your menus so that subsections each have their own navigation as well.

It is also good practice to only keep current, useful information on your site. Don't treat your website as an archive for old syllabi, outdated course descriptions and documents.

Also keep in mind that it does take a little while for Google to find and crawl your site, especially if the site isn't linked from other sites already. So, if you've followed the steps above and your site does not show up in search engine results immediately, be patient!

6. How do I install additional plugins?

You are not able to install plugins other than those provided. However, we do consider requests for additional plugins. If you would like to request an additional plugin, please email wordpress@dartmouth.edu. We review our plugin and theme offerings regularly. You can view the current list of the plugin offerings here.

7. How do I use Google Analytics on my site?

To set up Google Analytics on your site, go to Statistics + GTM on the left side of the administrative menu. Next go to Google Analytics then Account. Enter the Site Tracking Code provided by Google (something like UA-123456789-01), and save your changes.

If you want to see statistics from within your site, you can also login to your Google account, and get an access code that way.

8. I use an ad-blocker, and some of my content isn't showing up?

In order to improve performance, our website content is cached with a CDN (Content Delivery Network). Some ad-blockers may block such content because it is coming from a domain that is different from dartmouth.edu. If you notice this issue, you should edit the ad-blocker settings to whitelist the following:

*.*.wpmucdn.com/sites.dartmouth.edu/*
*.*.wpmucdn.com/journeys.dartmouth.edu/*

9. How do I embed a Prezi presentation?

You can find instructions in Prezi support. Basically, you will use some "iframe" code provided by Prezi, and then adjust your link so that it has "/embed" on the end.

10. How do I set up a placeholder menu item that doesn't do anything?
Menu screenshot

This type of menu item is sometimes used at the top of a drop-down menu. To add such an item to an existing menu, open the menu in Appearance / Menus. In the item types menu, select Custom Links as the item type. For the URL, use #. For the Link Text, enter what you want to see in the menu. Click Add To Menu, and then move the item to the desired location.

As the last step, don't forget to click the Save Menu button (found at the bottom right).

Please note that at this point, the new item will be clickable (like a link). If you don't want this, simply go back to the menu item, and erase the "#" from the URL box of the menu item. It will still work as a place holder just fine.

11. How do I embed a PDF or a Word document so that it displays on my web page?

First, you will need to activate the Embed Any Document plugin. To do this, go to Plugins on the administrative menu. Scroll down the list until you find the plugin, then click on the Activate button. You will find additional instructions on displaying a document on the CampusPress support site.

Please note that this feature will only work with sites that are public. If your site is private, or restricted to Dartmouth only, you will need to use good old links.

12. How can I collect payments on my website?

If you would like to collect payments, such as online registration, or donations, please contact Dartmouth Finance at this Merchant Services Policy link. They can help you with these online payment gateways: JPMorgan Chase, Authorize.Net, and PayPal. There is an application form to be completed.

13. How do I delete my site?

To delete your site, go to Tools / Delete Site.  You can find complete details in the CampusPress knowledgebase.

14. Can I design my own theme?

Yes, you can. Simply send an email to wordpress@Dartmouth.edu and request the Divi theme for your site. See more information about Divi in the next item.

15. What is Divi?

Divi is a page and theme design tool. You can use it to build sophisticated pages with your current theme, or you can use the Divi theme, and design your own theme from scratch. If you use the Divi theme, the Divi page builder will automatically be available. To request the builder tool or the theme, please send an email request to wordpress@Dartmouth.edu.

Refer to Elegant Theme’s Divi Builder Documentation to learn more about using the Divi Builder.

Dartmouth's Divi tool includes these extra features:

16. How do I prevent spammers when using Formidable Forms?

All forms created with Formidable Forms are provided automatically with Google ReCaptcha v3 anti-spammer protection. As a result, there is no need to add a v2 checkbox ReCaptcha field to your form. Of course, it is always important to review form submissions carefully, as ReCaptcha isn't perfect. Be especially careful with submitted attachments, as they could contain malware.

17. How do I set up email subscriptions to my site?

Subscriptions are already built in to your site. You can find this item at the bottom of the left menu after you log in, as shown in the image to the left.

To get started with this feature, go to the Settings option, and fill in the General Settings. Be sure to put a check mark in one of the "Post Types" boxes. In most cases, you will be checking off the "Posts" type.

More details about this basic subscription process can be found in the CampusPress knowledgebase.

If you want more control over the format of the email that is sent out, you may want to use MailChimp instead. This is a free email subscription service that can be integrated with your website. It is a bit more complicated to set up, but allows you full control over the design of the emails that your subscribers will receive. Here are detailed instructions for how to set this up.

18. How do I embed Panopto videos in my website?
  • Go to dartmouth.hosted.panopto.com.
  • Select the Dartmouth Single Sign-On.
  • Login with your Dartmouth NetID and password.
  • From the Panopto menu, select Create
panopto screenshot to create
  • Select “Upload Media” from the menu:
panopto screenshot to upload
  • After the file has been uploaded to Panopto, there will be a delay while it is being processed.
  • Make sure the video is public by clicking the Share button as shown:
panopto screenshot to share
  • Change the setting to Public (unlisted).
  • Change the settings so they are as shown, no checkmarks in “Enable Watch Panopto”, “Show Title” and “Show Logo” boxes.
panopto screenshot for settings
  • In your website, insert a Custom HTML block.
  • Paste the code, which will look something like this:
<iframe src="https://dartmouth.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Embed.aspx?id=4ddf49e9-4a90-4c5d-958c-af340099ef24&autoplay=false&offerviewer=false&showtitle=false&showbrand=false&captions=false&interactivity=all" height="405" width="720" style="border: 1px solid #464646;" allowfullscreen allow="autoplay"></iframe>
  • Save your changes.
  • On your page, you should now see a clickable preview of your video.
19. How do I have my site show up in Google search results?
  • Go to the Plugins item on the admin menu of the WordPress site.
  • Activate the Advanced Settings plugin.
  • Login to Google Search console. An easy way to do this is to go to https://google.dartmouth.edu. Click on the Google Drive icon. This logs you into Google with your Dartmouth account. Then go to the Search Console at https://search.google.com/search-console
  • Add your site to Google Search Console by selecting Add Property.
  • In the window that comes up as shown below, click on the right side under the title "URL Prefix".
    Google Search Console screenshot
  • Enter the site name, like https://sites.dartmouth.edu/mysite/
  • Click the Continue button.
  • Google will then provide a window to verify ownership:
    verify ownership screenshot
  • Select the HTML tag option.
  • Copy the provided "meta-name" code by clicking the Copy button under item 1.
  • Go to Settings then Advanced Settings on the WordPress site.
  • Scroll down near the bottom of the settings to the Additional Code section. Paste the "meta-name" code from above into the Header tag box:
    additional-code
  • Save the settings.
  • Now go back to Google Search Console and click on the Verify button:
    verify button screenshot
  • You should receive a confirmation from Google of site ownership.
  • Your site will now be indexed in a few days.
  • To make the process go even faster, it is recommended to submit the website "sitemap" by selecting Sitemaps on the left menu.
  • In the box where it says Add a sitemap, put in:
    wp-sitemap.xml
  • Click the Submit button
  • Your site will now be indexed more quickly by Google, and will show up in search results.
20. How do I display a 3D image on my WordPress site?
  • Please follow these instructions on the Exhibit.so website.
  • You can create a free exhibit on the site with an IIIF digital object file. It is then possible to generate iframe code containing a viewer of the image. That code can be pasted into a "Code" block on your WordPress page.

Example:

Code

<iframe src="https://www.exhibit.so/exhibits/H8eRALyZNl8STQKrNev9?embedded=true" style="width:100%; height:480px" allowfullscreen frameborder="0"></iframe>

Display