Installing PageMotor on SiteGround

1Put PageMotor on your site

1. In Site Tools, open Site → File Manager and go into public_html, your site's folder.
2. Click the File Upload icon in the toolbar and upload your PageMotor .zip. (SiteGround's File Manager has no upload size limit, so the zip goes up in one piece.)
3. Right-click the uploaded zip and choose the Extract option (the exact wording can vary), extracting into public_html.

2Tame SiteGround's cache

SiteGround runs a full-page cache (Dynamic Cache) on every site. It is on by default, there is no off switch in Site Tools, and its only built-in manners are for WordPress and Drupal. Anything else, PageMotor included, gets cached like an ordinary page for up to 12 hours: the install screen, the admin area, even the login. Skip this step and the install will feel haunted: pages that refuse to change, an admin screen that will not appear, a login that goes round in circles.

1. In File Manager, look inside public_html for a file called .htaccess. If it exists, right-click → Edit; if not, create it (New File).
2. Paste this at the very top and save:

# Temporary while installing PageMotor: stops SiteGround's
# full-page cache serving stale copies of your pages.
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
  Header set Cache-Control "private"
</IfModule>

3. Now flush the cache once: Site Tools → Speed → Caching → Dynamic Cache, then the Flush Cache action. SiteGround only applies .htaccess caching changes after a flush, so this part is not optional.

3Create your database

PageMotor keeps your content in a database. SiteGround does this differently from cPanel hosts: it chooses the names for you.

1. In Site Tools, open Site → MySQL. On the Databases tab, click Create Database. SiteGround generates the database name (something like dbabc123xyz); you do not get to choose it.
2. Switch to the Users tab and click Create User. The username and password are generated too, and the password is shown once, in a notice. Copy it somewhere safe now.
3. Still under Users, find your new user and choose Manage Access (or Add New Database): pick your new database, choose All Privileges, and confirm.

4Fill in config.php

This is the file that connects PageMotor to the database you just made.

1. In File Manager, find config-sample.php next to pagemotor.php.
2. Right-click it and choose Rename. Rename it to exactly config.php. This rename is the step that switches PageMotor on.
3. Right-click config.php and choose Edit.
4. Put the three generated values into DB_NAME, DB_USER and DB_PASSWORD. Leave the rest as they are, then Save.

Here is what the database section of your config.php should look like once filled in. Edit the existing lines to match, using the values Site Tools generated for you; you are changing three values, not pasting this block in:

// Database connection info:
define('DB_NAME', 'dbabc123xyz');          // the generated name from Site Tools
define('DB_USER', 'the-generated-username'); // from the Users tab
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'the-password-from-the-notice');
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');            // correct for SiteGround
define('DB_CHARSET', '');
define('DB_COLLATE', '');
define('DB_TABLE_PREFIX', 'pm_');
define('DB_FLAGS', '');
define('PM_HTML_CHARSET', '');

5Finish in your browser

1. Flush Dynamic Cache once more (Site Tools → Speed → Caching), so your first visit is answered by PageMotor and not by an old cached copy.
2. Visit your website. On this first visit PageMotor quietly sets up its content for you.
3. Go to yoursite.com/admin/ and create your admin user.
4. Straight after creating it: flush Dynamic Cache again, and clear your browser's cookies for the site, then log in. This one-two is what prevents the login loop described in the troubleshooting below.

6Give your visitors the cache back (optional)

The step 2 kill switch turns SiteGround's page cache off for everyone, which is a perfectly fine place to stop for a small site; it will still be quick. If you want visitors to get cached pages for speed, swap the kill switch for a scoped rule that keeps the cache away from the admin area only:

# Cache public pages, but never the PageMotor admin.
<If "%{THE_REQUEST} =~ m#/admin#">
  <IfModule mod_headers.c>
    Header set Cache-Control "private"
  </IfModule>
</If>

• Replace the step 2 block with this, save, and flush Dynamic Cache once more. (Every .htaccess caching change needs a flush before it takes effect.)
• Know the trade: with the cache back on, an edit to a public page can take up to 12 hours to show for visitors unless you flush after editing. If you edit the site often, the simple site-wide line from step 2 is the calmer choice.
• If anything starts acting stale or the login plays up again, go back to the step 2 version.