Question: I recently dragged a website I built with joomla out of a subdirectory and now the whole website just shows a 500 internal error, can't even log into the backend. I've already tried changing the log and tmp path variables in the configuration.php file with no luck. any help as to what could be causing this?

Answer: 
You haven't specified a Joomla! version but this is our current check list for migrating a Joomla! 2.5.x websites to a live location:

1. fix the `configuration.php` file settings for `tmp` & `log` directories.
2. Clean out the cache directories
3. check the permissions on:
	1. .htaccess
	2. `index.php` and `/administrator/index.php`
	3. make sure folders are `755` and files `644` or lower

*We do these steps on any move not just ones where we end up with a server error.*

If those steps don't rectify (usually do for 99% of 500 errors) check the Apache error log to see if there are any clues to the root cause of the problem.

If you find something in the log you're not clear on add it to your question so people can provide further help.
When you do a backup of the site while it's in the old place and unpack with the script in the new place, the userrights are good to go.