B.A. Fegles's Blog, page 23

How To’s & TutorialsBest tips and proven tools for fixing WordPress 404 Errors

If you’re managing a website, you know how dreadful 404 pages can be. If you’re running a site on WordPress, fixing 404 can be even more challenging.

Obviously, WordPress is trying to keep up with the setting, but there is a fairly big gap to be fulfilled. The first thing you need to know is how to prevent 404 from happening.

404 Error pages: Introduction

[image error]

Most people know what 404 errors are about, but here is a short explanation in case:

Let’s say you’re running a heavy-content WordPress website, with a considerable number of pages, categories, and tags, and you decide all of a sudden to delete some of them. The message that a user attempting to visit some of those pages would receive is: 404. The page is not found.

404 errors can also be caused by the code of your index.php or search.php files. Such errors in codes usually result in invalid addresses or no results to display at all. This mostly happens when you’re customizing these files, so you may check whether all pages are working before launching the website. Always have a backup copy of the previous file versions, in case the changes were not successful, and you have to do them all over again.

Another well-known reason for 404 pages is that the mod_rewrite has not been properly installed (or installed in general) on the server. The mod_rewrite file is a must for working with Pretty Permalinks, so we recommend you to check this if you’re noticing some unusual errors.

How does the 404 page affect your website?

[image error]

It’s simple: it does! Who likes to see an error page on the website he is visiting, or better yet, who’d come back later? It takes to be a really patient bird for that, and most of us aren’t. Furthermore, if there is at least one thing you could do for your own sake, that’s to stop visitors from hanging around and waiting.

The thing with 404 error pages is that they are connected, so if there is one, there will definitely be more of them. That will certainly affect the way how your website ranks on search engines, and it could even end up with a penalty for presenting invalid links. A single or two 404 pages are not a big deal, but if half of them are like that, you have a serious problem.

Therefore, fix them before it is too late. One by one, all of the visitors will become reluctant to visit the site, and you’ll face an incredible bounce rate that can be hardly fixed.

Fixing 404 WordPress posts

[image error]

There are two main options for correcting 404 mistakes in WordPress posts:

First option: Correct permalinks

Log in;
Take a look at the left-side navigation menu, and click on click ‘Settings’ > ‘Permalinks’. Consider the current setting, and in case you’re still using the custom structure, copy it, and save it somewhere;
Choose the ‘Default’ option;
Click on ‘Save Settings’;
Switch settings to their previous configuration (the one before you chose default), and restore the custom structure if there was such;
Save the new settings;

The procedure serves to reset the permalinks, and it solves 404 issues in many cases. In case this is not enough, you’d have to consider modifying your .htaccess file.

Second option: Modifying .htaccess files

Use the FTP to log in on the sever, and edit the .htaccess file which should be located at the same place as your /wp-content/ and /wp-includes/ folders. The shortcut in this case would be to make a temporary change, namely to make the file temporary writable with 666 permissions. After that, you should repeat the original solution, and change permissions back to the original 660. The next step is to add the following code to your .htaccess file:

# BEGIN WordPress

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

# END WordPress

Using plugins to fix 404 errors

There are multiple plugins that fix/remove 404 errors from websites, but only a few of them proved to be successful. Here come some of those plugins:

Redirecting all 404s to the homepage

There is a useful plugin that can Redirect all WordPress 404 pages to the website’s homepage, meaning that they won’t harm your performance anymore.

Forty Four

[image error]

Forty Four is one of them. Add a great Lightweight 404 Page besides the automatic 404 to 301 redirect for SEO. Moreover, with this plugin, you can check logs and assign your custom redirect for each 404 page links.

Easy 404 Redirect

[image error]

Easy 404 Redirect is an easy and free way to redirect every 404 page to a specific website. The transfer is seamless and automatic, which means you’re not risking losing visitors. You can even get creative, and suggest interesting things the visitor can see. Note that a reason for 404 can also be a wrong URL, so make sure the redirecting one is correct.

404 to 301

[image error]

If you really care about your website, you must take certain steps to avoid affecting your SEO with 404 errors. Yes, Page not found errors are common and even though we all hate them, including search engines, you should do something to fix them. By installing this plugin, you can relax as it will take care of the 404 errors.

Custom 404 Pro

[image error]

Allows you to replace the default 404 page with a custom page from the ‘Pages’ section in the ‘Admin Panel’. Or you can specify a complete URL to redirect on 404.

Dealing with Page not found errors is definitely not easy, but it’s a matter that you should take care of. By preventing and quickly fixing them, you can ensure that your online presence is not affected, and you don’t interrupt your visitor’s journey. Do you have a better tip about solving 404 errors? Please share it with us through a comment.

Did you knowWhat To Do When Your WordPress Site Gets De-Indexed From Google

In terms of web traffic, you’re absolutely dependent on how search engines rank you, whether you like it or not. Therefore, being de-indexed from Google is among the worst things that could happen to you. The purpose of this article is to explain how this may happen and how it can be fixed.

Obviously, you will look for an instant solution, but things don’t always happen this way. The best solution is to try and prevent it. Yet, if it already happened, it’s crucial to figure out why Google did it.

[image error]

Count that a proper remedy will take from one week to a month, and significantly more to take you back to the ranking you used to have before. A thing to have in mind is that there is a difference between being completely de-indexed, or having posts/pages disappearing from Google.

Further on, we are going to list the most common issues and situations that can lead to Google de-indexing. In case you recognize some of them as your issues, take immediate actions. Note that we’re starting with the easiest and moving to the most difficult problem to solve:

Mistakingly de-indexing it by yourself

WordPress has an option that can hide your website from all search engines, and in case it’s activated, you can go to the admin panel, scroll down, and click on ‘Settings’ to find the readings page.

It’s worth to check, because sometimes we accidently select the setting, and we don’t even know it’s active.

Therefore, go to the admin area, click on ‘Settings’, and then ‘Reading’, scroll to the bottom of the page and adjust engine visibility from invisible to visible.

There will be a small box next to the visibility option that should be unchecked, after which you need to save your settings, and, therefore, the problem will be fixed.

Running the website with expired domain names

You didn’t pay your domain name? No wonder the website is invisible! In such cases, the domain provider will make sure that your website disappears completely from search engines, so, please, keep payment in mind!

Here is what you can do about it: Access your website and see whether the name has expired. Even if that’s not the case, check it regularly, and plan your expiry date in advance. An even better idea is to login to the domain provider and to choose an ‘Auto Renew’ option or something similar. This option will automatically withdraw money for the renewal, and you won’t have to worry about it in future.

Running multiple websites from a single hosting account

Technically, there is nothing wrong with this approach, but nobody can guarantee you that all websites will be equally successful. In the worst case, Google can group them under the same category of domains, meaning that the first site you’ve hosted will be held responsible for the content of every additional site that you have.

This can be a problem in the future because if one website is targeted as improper, they all will be. Therefore, if you’ve decided to risk running multiple websites from a single hosting account, make sure that the content can only be accessed from one particular website. Don’t let a randomly chosen website access your content.

The hazard of duplicated content

[image error]

You may not know this, but black hat SEOs have a strategy for attracting traffic by creating several pages of the same content. The tactic sounds like a reasonable solution, but if you ask Google, it’s not. From their perspective, this is a spamming solution that can offend a user, which is why they drop it on the bottom of their rankings (or exclude it completely).

The truth is that duplicate content cannot be easily avoided (you’re always risking it by categorizing content, tagging, and archiving pages), so there is a big chance that Google may penalize you.

Instead of being angry about it, look on the bright side: What if someone was stealing your content and you needed protection? We bet you’d refer to Google.

The hazard of a server crash

Luckily, servers are nowadays reliable and secure, but you never know when your host’s server will crash and not be restored before Google’s next search. Even if this is not our fault, it can lead to a delisting of your domain, or even de-indexing altogether.

Here is the solution: Had you been de-indexed, refer to the web host and check what is happening. In case there was a crash, you’ll know it’s not your fault, and you can ask for compensation. You should be re-indexed soon, fairly likely to obtain the ranking you used to have. Might take time, but it will certainly happen.

Choosing keywords that have nothing to do with your content

Keywords are somehow losing their power in the search marketing game, which doesn’t mean that their misuse won’t harm your online presence. Failing to use them properly will almost certainly lead to Google penalties, which is why we still recommend smart SEO.

To start with, avoid keywords that are not related to your content, and most of all: don’t repeat them! A category you should certainly avoid are trademarks, brand names, and competitor’s keywords because this will not only rank you lower but can also get you banned or exposed to a lawsuit.

Linking your website to bad websites

OK, this is tricky, because you never know, but there is a way to check this in advance. Each site has its Google Page rank score (0 to 10), which means that if your website is associated to one with a 0-1 ranking, Google can perceive it as low content as well.

The same tactic can be used to attract attention by linking your website to a good one, and letting Goggle perceive that the quality is awesome. The reason why Google is doing it is that it wants to provide content that is genuinely helpful, so be careful who you’re ‘hanging out’ with.

Displaying broken links

[image error]

We all tend to forget the links we’ve included in our older posts, which is actually a destructive habit to have. What you should do instead, is to check those links once in a while, and see whether they’re still leading to an active page. Sites go down all the time, and you don’t want Google to punish you for something that is not even your fault.

Here is what you can do about it: Instead of checking link by link, use Google’s Webmaster tool or a free link-checker. All of the links displayed on your website will be there, and you can click on them to see whether they’re still working. Obviously, don’t do it just once! Do it as often as you can, at least once per month!

Having slow and unresolved pages

[image error]

Speed impacts matter to Google, so if your website is very slow (or even unresolved for a certain period), this could lead to a serious degrading of your position on result lists. Therefore, make sure you have a good hosting company that will keep you ‘live’, and if something goes done despite your efforts, get back on your feet as soon as you can!

Google knows best

[image error]

True story, even in this situation Google knows best! There are certain rules and guidelines prescribed by Google’s Webmaster, and to keep things under control, and you should follow those.

Your website is your responsibility, and will depend on your efforts to make it as good as you can, but once it goes live, the website falls fully under Google’s control. Instead of hiding and pulling through, submit the site for reconsideration from the very beginning. If Google doesn’t accept it, there is something you must change. Better safe than sorry!

How To’s & TutorialsHow to stop hurting your website performance while using plugins

One of the most important reasons why WordPress is the preferred CMS of our time is that it’s super-extendable.

While most people think there is a miracle behind the WordPress story, its success is almost entirely based on the simple concept of themes and plugins. Having thousands of plugins is useful for enhancing functionality, but at the same time, it carries the burden of knowing how to use them.

[image error]

Power brings a lot of responsibility, so you need to question your decision of using more than one theme or thousands of plugins during your WordPress installation.

You may think the opposite, but they are likely to decrease performance when not used correctly. Check out our small tutorial and find out how you can use your favorite plugin without having to sacrifice its performance.

Let’s get the full picture of how plugins affect websites:

Performance issues

[image error]

In general, the most common problem plugins can cause to a website is to degrade its performance. It can be front-end or back-end plugins, but damage can still happen.

For instance, front-end plugins can add an additional jQuery/Javascript code or their custom CSS codes that will decrease the speed, while the back-end ones are more effective in the database, adding queries and calls over and over again.

Security issues

[image error]

Many plugins are vulnerable or have specific security issues that can transfer to the website and compromise its security. In certain occasions, sensitive plugins create security loopholes or inject malicious codes, which is why we recommend downloading them from reputed authors, or directly from the WordPress Plugins Repository.

Complex operations

The performance will definitely be affected one way or another by plugins packed with large datasets, and in charge of complex operations. Such plugins should overly be done off the server, rather than your own WordPress hosting environment.

Remote requests

Any request to an external, 3rd party API or any request your site needs to make to an external party, in general, can affect performance.

Compatibility issues

A plugin will not always be compatible with the theme you’re using unless the theme is a standard one that complies with WordPress software in general. What you should look for are compatible plugins, and you should check them before installation or activation.

Reliability issues

Certain plugins can damage the reliability of your website because they will place their own codes on your pages and make them load slower. Consequently, performance will be affected too.

Therefore, letting go of unnecessary plugins, and choosing ones that are reputable and reviewed, is the best shortcut to the success of your WordPress website.

Myths

Is there such thing as too many plugins? It’s quite a common refrain written in posts, or discussed on meetings within WordPress’s ecosystem, and the main purpose is to prevent you from installing too many plugins and slowing your website down.

The truth is that installing too many plugins is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s still connected to development and ought to be treated with precaution.

Counting the plugins won’t be enough to understand how many resources they’re using. Some plugins use more than a single resource, but not all of them. Sometimes, you have to install thousands of plugins for a website to fail, but sometimes it will only take one.

It depends on the following factors:

Purpose: The price of plugins is the best indicator of the quality of their performance, and it depends on their purpose. Short-code plugins, for instance, use fewer system resources than SEO plugins, and that’s why their price is different;
Codebase: Improperly coded plugins can cause the site to crash, or at least to display content in an unexpected way. You need to code them correctly, and to control their performance from the very beginning;
Environment: Having free system resources is not as good as you think it is. Obviously, it will do a good job in traffic spikes, but a Tesla Model S will not restrict speed to 10km/h. Giving a plugin a bit of your resources to function is not a bad thing, and you should continue doing it on powerful servers the same way you did on the shared ones.

Use P3 to optimize WordPress performance

[image error]

P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler) is a plugin itself, a very handy and free one. Its role is to capture information for every plugin you’ve installed and to measure its impact on separate pages on overall loading time, meaning that it will report any irregularity there might be.

Using the plugin shouldn’t be a problem, assuming that all you want is to have a summary of how the plugin’s resource is being used. Once you’ve installed the plugin, go to the ‘Tools Menu’ and the ‘P3 Plugin Profiler’, and choose the ‘Auto Scan’ option. Following the command, P3 will randomly visit a couple of your pages, and it will monitor the performance of all plugins you’ve installed.

In most of the cases, it may identify certain plugins that use a lot of your resources but are not so useful. These plugins are worthy to be uninstalled or substituted with more efficient ones. Yet, sometimes, P3 may identify your core plugins, like your framework or WooCommerce, as being the ones that overuse your resources, but this is pretty obvious and shouldn’t raise any concerns. If you have an impressive sports car, you won’t change its V12 engine, right?

After you’ve understood the result, use the data, and compare each plugin’s impact on loading time in general. Another good idea is to change the test log & IP for the 100 most recent visits if you know how to use advanced settings.

Choose a better server

[image error]

At the end of the day, it’s a matter of priority. We see many users annoyed by the fact that Google Chrome is hogging their RAM, which is senseless. If nothing else, more RAM doesn’t make a computer work faster, while that extra gigabyte Chrome is going to use will improve its performance.

The same counts for servers. With multiple system resources, there are more things to do. Why would you maintain a powerful server if you don’t need one? Achieving speed on shared servers doesn’t make sense for websites with many plugins.

Possible plugin issues and how to solve them

Don’t miss a single solution that can increase the speed of your website. If you don’t need so many plugins, don’t use them! Remember they are increasing loading time, and no user likes to wait;
Test the performance of your installed plugins regularly. Check their impact on your website, and fix them if there is a need to do so. We recommend P3 for this purpose;
Having two or more plugins for the same purpose is not a good idea. Before you install a plugin, check whether there is one that performs the same actions (you can easily discover that by going through their features);
Go through the plugins from time to time, and check whether there are such you could uninstall because you’re not using them. Don’t occupy space for nothing;
Update your WordPress version and the plugins regularly, because this is the best way to prevent hacker attempts against your website. The older the version is, the more vulnerabilities it will have, and this is very likely to crack functionality when least expected.

Final thoughts

You still get to use all those awesome plugins you want, but you have to choose them wisely. There is absolutely no need to panic, and to calculate whether an SEO plugin, for instance, can be missed even if you need it. If you want to share your personal experience with WordPress plugin management, please feel free to leave a comment below.

How To’s & TutorialsHow to quickly deal with a hacked WordPress website

Yes, that’s possible. You may wake up one day, and your site just won’t be there. Everything that’s left after will be a text message or an email telling you that the proverbial windy day has arrived, and you have no control of your mongrel out there. What could you possibly do?

The first logical reactions are anger and panic, and that’s good because it shows that you’re up for reaction, and you’re ready to attack the hacker back. Obviously, try to stay on the safe side and don’t let yourself get to the point of a mental breakdown: it’s still up to you to stand up on your feet and to fix the damage.

How does it happen?

[image error]

WordPress is a relatively resistant platform, in fact, more resistant than most of the platforms out there, but that doesn’t make it absolutely safe.

The first thing you should do to stay safe of hacks is to keep your WordPress version updated and to avoid installing plugins which can have harmful effects and make the site more susceptible to attacks.

There many things that may cause WordPress’s proneness to hack attacks: themes, plugins, extensions, etc. Here are the most common types of attacks:

Backdoor attacks: Hackers love weakly-coded plugins and themes, as well as outdated WordPress versions because those give them a shortcut to your website. Backdoor attacks count as the most serious ones since the first thing hackers will attack is the administration area, where they can cause severe damage, or even inject a malicious code. If you’re being attacked through backdoors, it means that you’re dealing with a smart hacker who can find a way to re-access your website even after the exploited plugin has been removed;
Redirect attacks: During a redirect attack, hackers are trying to reroute traffic from your website to another one that is malicious. We can only wonder what type of website it may be, but it will be more likely installing viruses on visitor’s systems or stealing their personal info. Obviously, redirect and backdoor attacks are interconnected, since hacker attack backdoors first to scan the software for vulnerabilities, and then to complete the redirect.
Script injections: Hackers use the code vulnerabilities to allow forms to withdraw personal information for login forms, and send it to their database. Once they’ve achieved this, they try to install software on visitors’ machines and use spoofing to pretend that they are running a legitimate application. The most recognizable feature is an apparently ‘friendly’ pop up that informs you that the device is infected and you have to scan it.

Consult the hosting company

One of the benefits you get from paying to a reliable hosting provider is that you get help when your system is infected. Most of the time, there will be an experienced team to take over the situation, or at least to provide guidance that can improve hosting services. Therefore, contact the host and follow its instructions.

It’s not rare for the hack to attack more than your website, especially when working on a shared hosting. This is also a great opportunity to consult the host and to ask about the attack, mostly because you need to know how the hack originated.

If you’re lucky enough, you can even find a host that will completely handle the situation.

Take the site down right away

[image error]

You can do this by renaming your index.php file in the root directory, not by simply putting an index.html page, but by halting traffic entirely on whatever blog page. While replacing your index.php page, upload a simple file saying that the site is offline due to maintenance issues and it will be on shortly.

The reason why you have to do this is that most hacks are automatic, instead of manual, and they’re being performed with malicious codes attaching themselves to writable installation files. That basically makes it possible even for a random visitor to re-infect files that you’ve already considered repairing.

Copy the site that has been hacked, and access the log files

You must do this, don’t even think of skipping it. The hacked website must be backed up, and all log files must be accessed for you to estimate the malicious codes and to find out how hackers made it to your database.

Backing up your website should be easy, either with a specific tool or SSH access and the following commands:

mysqldump -uUSER -pPASSWORD DB_NAME > your-site-folder/DB_NAME.sql
tarzcvf backup.tar.gz your-site-folder

Restore the site from a point prior to the hacking

Unless the site hasn’t been backed up, you can go and restore it from a point where it wasn’t. If you can do it, you’re safe, and there is nothing to worry about.

If it’s a blog that changes content day-to-day, restoring can mean losing posts, comments, and feedback, and you have to evaluate whether is more worth to you to restore the old version, or to try and find another way to deal with the problem.

In the worst case, namely, not having backed up the site (or being hacked quite a while before you’ve noticed), you can preserve content by removing a hack manually.

Get rid of the malicious code

[image error]

An alternative way to clean and save the site is to locate all affected files/database tables and to remove the malicious code manually. It could be either simple or very complex, depending on the nature of the hack.

Both cases require experience and Bash/Perl efficiency, so that you can test the files and replace the strings, and remove the malicious codes from all files at once. In case this is not your cup of tea, ask for professional help.

The most comfortable option is to ask the host to do it, especially if you’re using paid hosting. If this option is not on the table, browse for security companies that provide this type of services, namely detecting and cleaning malware.

Still, if the service is automated, don’t rely on it too much. There is no software that can detect evolved infections as good as the human eye, so don’t expect it to remove the malicious code completely. Therefore, even after the cleaning is done, review the files manually, and check whether everything is fine.

Screen archived logs and attack records

Even once your website is completely clean, you’re not done. You have to inspect the reason why this happened and to discover the tactics of your attackers in order to keep the site safe in future.

This information is usually kept on the access log files, including FTP, SSH, control panel, and the file manager. There are a variety of ways to perform a hack, so your system is more vulnerable than you thought. Worst of all, there is no possible way for you to know the structure of their access, but you should at least try.

Update your antivirus software regularly

Using the latest version of your antivirus software is essential for your security because it contains the most recent virus-definition files.

Keep the site secure in every possible way

[image error]

Unfortunately, most of us understand the importance of keeping a website safe after it has been attacked. Ever since we try to make the impossible to protect our website from all prospective compromises.

The reason why you have that website is that it contributes to your business, and that makes it quite important to protect and maintain. Your website security should be your number one concern.

If you can’t afford the time to deal with WordPress every day, consider some type of protection like Sucuri – the plugin monitors hacks and viruses and helps to fix installs.

There are many other programs you could use, so don’t worry if you have no time or no technical skills to take care of your website’s security.

Usually, people start to think about website security only after an incident or an attack already occurred, but in most cases, the consequences of such events are irreversible. This is why keeping your WordPress website safe is an essential step. If you have some personal protection tips, feel free to share them with us through a comment.

Did you knowCommon WordPress mistakes that you should avoid

The best way to learn about a software program is to start using it, which explains why we all make mistakes, either simple or complex ones.

In WordPress, the worst mistakes are those that you aren’t aware of. And, unfortunately, we repeat them for such a long time that they’ve turned into security problems and slow-down habits.

This article aims to deliver you the most common mistakes and the suggested ways of avoiding them. The key purpose is to make WordPress sites work faster and to be more organized and secure.

Keeping the default username ‘admin’

Once WordPress is installed, it automatically creates a default ‘admin’ username and awards it with governance privileges. The word ‘default’ says it all: hackers have no troubles predicting those names, and in most cases they cause severe damages by accessing your WordPress ‘admin’ account and taking full control over your website.

You have the opportunity to change this name during installation, so please make use of it since you already know that keeping this default setting doesn’t make sense. If you’ve already launched your website, don’t worry, check our article about the best security features to implement in WordPress and you will find out how to change your ‘admin’ user settings. Choose a combination of small/large letters, numbers, and special characters both in the username and the password. Your admin credentials should be very specific and difficult to be guessed.

Leaving ‘admin’ privileges for post authors

[image error]

WordPress is a great Content Management System, but it’s very important to keep in mind that post authors shouldn’t be granted with ‘admin’ rights. Letting the administrator post the content on your website is one of the most predictable and risky things you could do, since you’re already giving one more hint to an unwanted visitor.

What you should do instead, is let the admin user do exclusively backend work, and create an additional account that will work as an author. Through this, you will protect your website from unauthorized access by using the compromised author username and password. Authors can still text the admin to receive his/her approval before the posts go live.

Forgetting about WP backup

[image error]

We’ve all regretted at least once that we didn’t create any backups. This is a very common mistake and probably the most crucial one. Backups rescue us in critical situations and the best thing about them is that they can be created automatically within your WordPress installation.

Improper use of tags and categories

You can say “Goodbye” to the attention your content is supposed to attract if it ends up in the black hole of ‘Uncategorized’ posts. All posts will be originally placed in this category because of the template’s structure, so be sure to avoid this default setting.

Themes and widgets depend on categorization to make your post really relevant to a certain group. In addition, WordPress is using categorization to save and archive content, and to set posts apart from Pages.

Another important thing you shouldn’t miss are Tags, which organize contents into groups and topics. Tags are compulsory because they are a separate recognition category, and they have nothing to do with categories.

A well-known myth that is going around for some time is that categories can only be added to the main navigation menu, and that doesn’t make sense. You can see it for yourself: click on ‘Appearance’/‘Menus’/‘Screen’ options, and then on Posts and Tags. If you own a content heavy site, tag posts with popular tags, limit the number of categories, and join tags together.

Forgetting to update

[image error]

WordPress is improving all the time, and you must follow its development. When a plugin or a theme gets outdated, it starts displaying bugs and needs security changes, or even a full replacement with a new one that is compatible with your recent WordPress version. You need to pay attention to this and set it as your number one priority.

By updating your WordPress version, you’re actually updating its bug-fixing and security capacity, which will leave aside a lot of concerns and keep your work compatible with the newest requirements. Also, check your plugins to see whether they’re compatible with the new WP version.

Update as often as you can, and test updates to see whether they’re actually helpful for the new WP version you’re using. There are web hosts that will do this for you (check hosting control panel and look for this option), but you may also do it yourself.

Once again, we would like to call for attention towards plugins and themes, because they won’t be updated by default. This is the code you should add to your wp-config.php file to update them:

add_filter( 'auto_update_plugin', '__return_true' );

If you want themes to update automatically, then add this code:

add_filter( 'auto_update_theme', '__return_true' );

Heaping the site with unnecessary plugins

[image error]

In case you installed a plugin but you don’t need or use it, simply uninstall or deactivate it. It occupies your space for absolutely no reason!

You may be tempted by their unique additions, but we honestly recommend you to embrace simplicity and to use only certain plugins that actually contribute to the success of your website.

There are thousands of widgets out there, described in a breathtaking manner to trap your attention, but you don’t really need all them. The single thing that they certainly do is slowing down your website, and nobody wants to see that happening.

Forgetting to set up permalinks

Most of the times, WordPress users use the default URL structure: /?p=123. This is a very harmful strategy for your SEO since you’re not helping users locate your content. Therefore, update the permalink structure during installation. In order to do it, click on Settings » Permalinks and update their structure.

Not using a caching plugin

[image error]

Those of you who aren’t caching, or have no idea what caching is about, are increasing your sites’ loading time, and that’s no good. For the sake of clarity, WordPress works as a dynamic CMS driven by its database, which means that all the information you’re giving users comes from that database, and is used to populate the website via HTML markups.

If you’re doing caching right, you’ll save the finalized HTML markup and serve it to visitors without asking them to go to the database each and every time.

Check our article about boosting the site’s performance to find out how to implement caching within your WordPress.

Being SEO reluctant

[image error]

Your blog/website’s success depends on the daily traffic driven to it by the search engines. If a good search engine doesn’t rank you high among millions of sites out there, your site will most likely be neglected.

In order to rank better, you must do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with some of the thousands amazing SEO plugins that require neither much time nor effort. Working without them would be a disastrous mistake.

Failing to replace salts and keys

Salts and keys are located in the wp-config.php file, and their purpose is to do the of authentication of users and machines. Before they appeared, hackers had no trouble stealing cookies during an online session, and pretending to be a user. With the new passphrases, that’s almost impossible.

Do you think that generating salts is difficult? Would be, if you were doing it yourself! Luckily for you, WordPress has a webpage for the purpose! Go to https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/, and copy the content into your own wp-config.php file.

Downloading themes from unreliable sources

You may go to our favorite engine, type in ‘free WordPress themes’ and admire the never-ending load of amazing solutions. You can celebrate about saving time, efforts, and money if you will use free WordPress themes instead of Premium WordPress themes, but is it worthy?

The themes you’ve chosen might be free of price, but at the same time, they may be packed with malicious codes and unbeneficial links.

That’s why you need to pay attention to the quality of your theme, instead of going for the first one that attracts your attention. If you choose an improper theme, you can forget about your online success. A much smarter choice is a reputable company and a professional premium theme that functions better and it’s more secure.

Avoid these mistakes and you will build a solid ground for your successful online presence. It’s essential to make all the necessary steps to prevent your website from future failures. If you want to share your personal experience about dealing with common WordPress mistakes, please feel free to leave a comment to this article.

How To’s & TutorialsHow To Move Your WordPress Site Manually

If it’s the first time you do this, it will be difficult. It will require you to move more copies than you may have thought. But it won’t be about copying only. Once you will understand what must be moved and how it should be done, the process will become a routine which consists only of a few simple steps.

This article is actually a guide that will explain to you how to move a WordPress site from one location to another. There are several cases when you need to do this:

In order to upload a local development version of your website to a live server;
In order to change your hosting providers or services.

First, make a copy of your old website

The first thing you should do is to copy all of your old files and databases. You can do it by using a backup plugin, an FTP client, and phpMyAdmin for the database. This article will explain to you how to properly use phpMyAdmin for the database backup.

Backup your files

[image error]

Actually, the first thing to be done prior to any moving is to backup the site. This is a good practice against any type of damage, but you should have in mind that it requires moving your entire WordPress installation.

It doesn’t have to be performed manually since the market is heaped with plugin solutions that can do backups for you. But even if you could completely rely on them, we advise you to do some manual work instead. An FTP program, like FileZilla, is a great solution. So we recommend you to contact the host, ask him to copy your directory’s files and create a special folder on your local device.

The backup will also cover hidden files, such as .htaccess. The backup of the hidden files is something you can’t do yourself (unless you’re able to open the file), and you should consult your host for this purpose. However, without creating backups for them, you won’t be fully protected.

Once you will upload your backup to the new site, you won’t be obliged to use the same theme or plugin files, but you can still choose to do it by using administration screens. A simpler solution is to upload the old copy as the result will be absolutely the same.

Unyson Backup option

[image error]

Besides the above-mentioned methods, our Unyson framework, the backbone of our latest themes, allows you to perform your site’s backup within its setting options. In order to create a backup with Unyson, you should:

Install the Unyson plugin on your local/old WordPress site;
Go to Unyson page download and activate the Backup & Demo Content extension;
In ‘Tools’>’Backup’ create a Full backup and download the backup .zip file;
Install Unyson and Backup & Demo Content plugin on your new site like in first 2 steps;
Connect via FTP to your host and in /wp-content/uploads/fw-backup upload the downloaded backup .zip file. In case the fw-backup folder doesn’t exist, create it;
In ‘Tools’>’Backup’ you’ll find the available backup, which is the uploaded one. Select it and restore it.

Use phpMyAdmin to backup the database

[image error]

Prior to a full transfer of your WordPress blog, backup the database phpMyAdmin. Log in into the file, and follow these steps:

First of all, you need to know your database name. In case you don’t know it, you can find the database name in the wp-config.php file from your WordPress installation folder. You can find it at line 23:

define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘mysite_db’);
Find the database that contains the WordPress blog, and click on it;
Choose ‘Export’ from the upper navigation menu;
Click on ‘Quick’ option (it’s listed below the Export Method area);
Format the section as SQL;
Click on ‘Go’;
Once done, a prompt will appear to save the file. Save it, and you will download the wordpress.sql file to your desktop.

Enabling the new site

The next step is to choose a new location for WordPress, by following the regular procedure for performing this.

Adding files

[image error]

In order to keep the installation safe, it’s recommended to move all WordPress files from your local/old server to the new one. So typically what you need to do is to copy the entire WordPress installation folder of your local/old server into the target installation folder.

Delete the old database

Before importing the database from the old to the new site, you have to drop (meaning to delete) the database from its original location, and recreate it in the new site. Make sure you have exported it before doing this.

Click on the database tables and select them. Choose the ‘Select all’ from the dropdown and then click on ‘Drop’, and ‘Yes’. It’s done!

Recreate the database on your new server

[image error]

In order to migrate from one host/server to another, create the appropriate environment for your WordPress installation. You have to create a new database where all the SQL data can be imported.

This is how you do it: login into the new host using the credentials you’ve been supplied with and connect to your cPanel program. In order to show you how to create the new database, we will explain how it must be made by using MySQL Databases application. If you don’t have this application running, contact your support team and ask them which is their method/tool for creating databases.

To create the new MySQL database, you should:

Go to Control Panel, and open MySQL Database;
Create the new database, and name it accordingly to your blog;
Think of new username and password for it;
Assign a new user for the database, and grant him access privileges (‘All Privileges’ in this case).

Update the wp-config.php details

In the Adding Files step, you uploaded the entire WordPress folder from the local/old server to the new one. Most of the time, when you create a database on a server, the server configuration prefixes the database name for security purposes, but you also have to create a specific username and give a password to it. This means that often, the database name and user from the local/old server is not the same as the one from the new server, so you need to update the wp-config.php of the new WordPress with your new database details that you’ve just created. The database details can be found at lines 23-29 from your wp-config.php file:



/** The name of the database for WordPress */

define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘mysite_db’);

/** MySQL database username */

define(‘DB_USER’, ‘root’);

/** MySQL database password */

define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘password’);



You need to replace the mysite_db, root, password with the database name, user, and password of new database you’ve just created.

Change links

In case, you move the site from your local machine to the production server or you migrate your site from one domain to another, e.g. www.old-sitename.com to www.new-sitename.com, then you have to replace all old links from your database with the new ones. Hopefully, there are some great solutions that will do this for you.

There is a good service from Interconnectit that finds and replaces the database links from your WordPress database:

Download the .zip file and unzip it;
Find the folder named Search-Replace-DB-master;
In your WordPress installation folder from your production server (where the wp-admin, wp-content folders are placed) create a new folder and name it ‘replace’;
Upload all content from Search-Replace-DB-master in ‘replace’ folder;
Open the browser and access your site suffixed with ‘replace’ word: http://mysite.com/replace/.

You should get a similar screen like this:

[image error]

You’ll notice that the system already detected your database name user and password since it checked the wp-config.php file from your WordPress installation folder, so make sure you have the right details in the wp-config.php;
In the replace file, set the current site link. If you move from the local machine, usually the link is localhost/mysite/. In case you migrate from an old domain, you need to insert just the domain name mysite.com/. In the with field insert your new domain name mynewdomain.com/.

Important: you don’t need to set the http:// prefix;
Press the Dry run button to find how many entries that need to be replaced were found. After the system found them, you can press the Live run to actually update the database;
After this process will end, press the Delete me button. Also, while using FileZilla make sure that the replace folder was deleted. If not, delete it from FileZilla.

Important: The replace folder should be deleted immediately after you’ll do the replace process because keeping it in the WordPress installation folder you will insecure your site’s database: if someone will find it by accessing http://mysite.com/replace, he can destroy/modify your database.

Finalizing

Clear the cache of your browser. This will help you stay on the safe side, and avoid whatever problem that may arise by caching content from the old to the new website.

Log in into the new website using your admin credentials. The login credentials should remain the same as before unless you opted for remote installation, and you changed them to avoid overriding them by the database import.

Finally, check whether all plugins/widgets are performing well, and tweak a bit if necessary.

Setting permalinks

Once the backup is completed, the first thing to do is to change the permalinks. In order to do it, you should use the ‘Permalink’ screen view and the ‘Settings’ menu. Choose a preferred setting and save it.

Final thoughts

As it’s probably clear by now, moving WordPress sites can be done without professional help, assuming that all of these steps are followed as they should. Everything you have to do is to take care of the steps. Yet, don’t deprive yourself of the chance of returning to the original version, in case if a serious mistake occurs, by hesitating until the last moment. If you have some personal tips on moving WordPress websites, please share them with us through a comment.

Did you knowWordPress UX basics that everyone should know

The main purpose of each website is to attract visitors and constantly engage them. This is why making a pleasant user experience is one of the top priorities of a web designer.

User experience is, in fact, the forefront of every WordPress effort you should undertake to make visitors feel welcomed and encouraged to check your offerings. So make sure to keep in mind the following things when you will create your website’s design.

Make the navigation menus intuitive

[image error]

Menus should be placed intuitively so that users won’t have any trouble finding and using them.

The best choice for you and your users are the drop-down menus and secondary bars which disappear as soon as you move your cursor away. Event though it may seem annoying to you, it’s exactly what users expect when interacting with your website. This is the first essential step towards a professional website, and it will help you significantly decrease bounce rates.

Fix unwieldy menus

In order to achieve this:

You have to reduce the distance between links by choosing vertical navigation instead of the horizontal one, or by replacing menus so that they’d have fewer secondary options;
Give users an error margin with mouse pointer when they leave a navigational element or fail to react.

Keep your design clean and simple

[image error]

Your website’s design should have simple formatting, like neat typography, sub-headings, bullets, accompanied by a smart choice of colors and snappy paragraphs that will show that you care about its aesthetics, but still don’t forget to deliver usability.

The most common mistake in web design is focusing on beauty rather than on functionality. This mistake has harmful consequence because it delivers the complete opposite of your user expectations: your website will be beautiful but inefficient. Therefore, if you’re designing sites put yourself in your users’ shoes and check whether the website’s interface is confusing you or not.

What users want when visiting your website is to find something that is worth of investing their time. They want benefits, so they won’t be interested in garish decorations and entertainment that gives nothing in return.

Clear Calls-To-Action

[image error]

Regardless of whether you’re inviting people to buy something or to sign up for a newsletter, you have to provide them with a clear and visible call-to-action.

Otherwise, you may end up without any conversions. While this is more a design issue, it counts as a functionality, too. A visible newsletter will be worth nothing if you don’t make it simple to sign-up.

Visitors enjoy completing just a few steps, so they will simply love your website if you will make that possible. For instance, you can ask for nothing more than their email address.

If implementing CTAs on the site is compulsory, you can opt for simple plugin solutions. Keep in mind to embed plugins within content, or maybe feature them as a triggered on-scroll box. Hello Bar and standard WordPress Calls to Action are perfect for this purpose.

Go mobile

[image error]

Let’s face it: running mobile websites is more than necessary these days. It’s almost mandatory. Search engines give ranking priority to websites that are optimized to deliver their content to any device types. You have to stay in the game if you want your website to be seen and enjoyed.

Use responsive themes and make users happy while using your website on the go. The last thing you want is to request additional efforts for scrolling your website from the phone, so make it as navigable as it would be on their desktops.

Place icons in expected locations

Running a modern website will require serious work on social integration, or even making it your core efforts of improving user experience.

From a user’s perspective, this means that you must place icons where he/she expects to see them, for instance, in the header space or the sidebar. Whatever you do, spare users from having to scroll up and down in order to find them, by keeping them above the fold.

The same counts for social icons. Let them stand where users can see them (the top or the bottom of the post), and that will be enough for people to share your content.

An option is to let buttons overlay your content in an interesting way, for instance by introducing floating bars with messages such as ‘Share’ or ‘Add this’. The most common place is the left side of the screen, so the users will probably expect them to appear as they will scroll the screen.

Make your website load faster

[image error]

The maximal time you’re allowed to let users waiting until the site loads is three seconds. If you’re dealing with more time, that’s a big issue.

As a user yourself, you should know that waiting is annoying people. This frustration can end up looking for a better website. Overall, loading speed plays the most important and successful role of your online presence.

There are many ways to increase the speed of your website, like:

Leverage browser caching and enable Gzip compression. Both compression and caching are important, because it will significantly reduce your loading time;
Opt for CDNs. CDNs are Content Delivery Networks that can make a dramatic change to your loading time through making content more accessible to a larger audience at once;
Edit images. If you absolutely need images, choose smaller and simpler ones. Programs like Tiny PNG can help you resize them to the smallest possible scale, without affecting their visual quality;
Use excerpts. Excerpts are a great substitute for your homepage full posts, because their content loads way faster;
Don’t install plugins that you don’t need. Plugins are good because they add functionality, but they are extremely ‘heavy’ for your loading times. Therefore, select them properly, and choose only those without which your website cannot function. And then just delete the rest of them.

Put your contact information in a visible place

[image error]

We’re discussing a mistake that even large and established companies do quite often: placing their contact information in an unreachable place, or writing it in such a small way that it can’t be found even with a magnifying glass.

Isn’t your first and foremost purpose to make users contact you? Even if they don’t, the mere presence of clearly displayed contact information is a credibility factor and user will know that they’re dealing with a serious provider.

Well-displayed contact information makes your presence transparent, meaning that clients won’t have to scroll up and down, or click on specific links and menus to contact you. Making them wander on tenths of pages is not the best thing you can do, so gather information and attach it to the main navigation menu.

Rein in the sidebar

[image error]

Are you familiar with the eternal scrolling syndrome? We wish you weren’t! Having a long index/homepage doesn’t mean that you have to make an equally long sidebar and stuff it with useless information.

Not every social media API should be included, the same as your categories, most recent feature pots, and the tag cloud! The sidebar was meant to expose most essential information, and that’s what users would like to see. Don’t make their lives complicated, and they will reward you with attention!

As you could easily see UX is based on creating a friendly website, with intuitive menus and elements, that can be quickly accessed and navigated from any device type. If you will build your website based on these essential steps, your visitors will easily enjoy your content, products and services. Yet, if you have other awesome tips you would like to share with us, please leave a comment in the section below.

In Shape UpdateYour Suggestions for In Shape 2.0

Hey guys,

We’re currently working on our popular In Shape WordPress theme.

In order to optimize it and deliver you the latest features, we’ve decided to update this top theme on our Unyson framework. Just like our theme Philanthropy, it will include the Drag & Drop Page Builder, Woo Commerce Ready, Page Load Animations, Contact Form Builder and Backup Module, and will be BuddyPress Ready and bbPress Ready.

Yet, we wanted to know your opinion over the what workout management plugin/functional we should include in the new version of the theme. We are thinking about WPGYM, but we are free to any suggestions. We would love to hear from you a detailed description of what specific features or options should it have. Please let us know what plugin you would prefer through a comment below.

Preparation listThings to do before launching your first WordPress site

Are you getting ready to launch your first WordPress website? It may seem easy to you now when hundreds of websites go live each day. Yet, there are still certain things that you need consider before making your website online.

In fact, your website’s success mainly depends on your efforts towards it, so you have to prepare things in advance. This is why we created this to-do list to help you make your ‘WordPress landing’ safer.

Choose a reliable hosting service

[image error]

Picking the right host for your website is an absolutely necessary decision in order to create the foundation for launching a good website. It doesn’t have to be the most expensive one, but you have to make sure that it provides excellent services and support. You should take into account what particular services you need or expect from your hosting provider.

A good host will liberate you from server-related concerns and will let you focus solely on business matters. The best choice is a managed hosting, which usually have offerings that won’t charge you too much if you are a private blog-holder, but includes everything to cover your needs.

Backup your site

[image error]

Well, this action can be called a ‘to be or not to be’ matter. Since Internet is not the safest environment, even when you think that things are under control, you might risk losing your precious database.

Most of the time, having a good host is a solid guarantee for backups. Though, you still have to control how the backup is performed. Besides, most backup plans have intervals, and start charging fees after a certain period of time, so it’s better to do it yourself.

We recommend you to automatically schedule backups and use a cloud storage service (Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3 etc).

Secure the admin access

[image error]

Here comes another critical aspect: securing admin access. If the admin area on your website is poorly protected, you could become a victim even of the least techie hackers.

WordPress to CMSs is what Windows is to OSs, it basically means that your website can be targeted by cyber criminals. Therefore, an unsecured admin access is an open door for hackers, almost like a cordial invitation to come and take over control.

If you want to protect your admin account, first you must think of an appropriate combination of password and username. Good passwords should have at least ten symbols involving not just letters and numbers, but also special characters.

The username should never be the same as the password, and if you’re posting content, you should never choose the default ‘admin’ user. Bear in mind that this is the first thing a hacker attack will begin with!

Modify your permalinks

Most people are not aware of the harmful effect of ‘dirty’ permalinks, and how bad it looks when they appear on their websites. For example, standard permalinks look like ‘http://www.example.com/?p=11’, which basically means nothing to a visitor.

Your visitor should be able to easily recognize them. You may consult a WordPress designer/developer to help you with changing your permalinks. Or you can do it by yourself: simply go to ‘Settings’>’Permalinks’ and edit the structure keeping in mind the name of your post. Your edited link should look like ‘http://www.example.com/sample-post/’, and will be easily understood and recognized by your visitors. And I think it’s needless to say that this is a precious SEO strategy!

Find 404 Error pages and get rid of them

[image error]

404 Error pages are not that likely to appear on new websites, but you never know. Having them appearing on a brand new page creates an awful impression, so make sure that all pages are working properly, without loading delays or link mistakes.

A good tool for preventing 404 pages from happening, or, at least, helps you locate and fix them is Google Webmaster Tool.

Test everything

Your marvelous forms will be unworthy if they’re not properly functioning. Therefore, before you launch your website and start celebrating, test them all and make sure they’re all fine. Especially, pay attention to calls-to-action, contact forms, and forms that gather valuable information from your clients.

Remember, checking forms won’t be easy! You may test them yourself, by doing what is expected to be done, or by asking a group of impartial users to evaluate your prototype and give you honest feedback. If you want users to successfully subscribe to a newsletter, try out if they’re going to receive it by first sending it to yourself. Upon receipt, you will also understand whether the newsletter arrives in the proper mailbox, or ends up in the spam section instead.

For owners of multi-used and multi-authored WordPress sites, we also recommend performing additional checks on log in procedures, registration forms, credentials, and roles. For instance, log in as a user, and find out what should be removed or changed.

Update your copyright information

It may sound like common sense, but certain web owners usually forget about it. It’s an essential step if you’re using a purchased theme: you need to remove/replace all parent company data and references with your own information. Check out the date as well!

Think about having a favicon

[image error]

Favicons are unique brand symbols that appear on every page of your website. It helps you increase your brand awareness. Sounds like a small, unnecessary detail, but it’s definitely something you should consider if you intend to use a purchased theme. How will it look like if you’ll neglect it? Will you leave the default favicon that has nothing to do with your brand to appear all across the website? Sounds quite unprofessional, doesn’t it?

Still, we’re not saying that you should pay excessive attention to your favicon, but, at least, do some modest markup and formatting. There are many plug-ins, like Jetpack or Site Icon, that will help you with this. However, remember that they won’t generate the .ico favicon files which you need for the IE under 11 support.

Launching an e-commerce website

[image error]

E-commerce websites are more complicated than blogs because they require extensive research and feedback in order to satisfy costumers’ needs. It’s absolutely necessary to adopt the user role and try to predict their browsing, carting, and shopping behavior. In fact, we recommend you to do a trial transaction in order to check whether there is something less smooth than what you expected.

If you sell digital goods, make sure to deliver them promptly. If you work with physical goods, establish excellent communication with deliverers and test the completing process of your orders (the checkout in particular).

Another thing that is very important to check is the call-to-action: Does it function properly? Is it placed in the right place? Is the content overlaying it? You must do some testing before choosing the right option.

Being mobile-friendly

[image error]

Today users are relying more and more on mobile technology to accomplish almost every online activity.

Have in mind that your website will be used on phone and tablets, so replicate the desktop experience there: let users log in flawlessly, give them a functional shopping cart, and most of all, readable information. Before you launch your website, use Mobile Test to check your theme’s responsiveness.

Test sliders, videos, and images

You want to make your website entertaining and interactive, and that’s the right approach. You need images and videos to attract people’s attention, but make sure that those files are not affecting your loading time and website performance at the same time.

Check their size and display, and test whether they’re working in accordance with your requirements. Sliders are also important to check because you need them to function flawlessly.

CDN/Caching

[image error]

Loading times are a big concern for every website, so you may want to deal with them in advance. The faster your pages are loaded, the more visitors you’ll get and you will rank higher on search engines.

You can achieve this by adding a specific code or a caching plug-in, that will increase your website’s speed without having to build them with PHP over and over again. The most popular cache plug-ins are WP Super Cache and WP Fastest Cache.

If you’ll make to sure have all these things done before launching your website, you will be fully prepared to go online. Having a strong foundation for your website is the essence of its performance. Yet, if you have some personal tips on website pre-launch preparation, please share them with us through a comment.

Did you knowThe Most Common WordPress Misconceptions

The most recent surveys revealed that WordPress is the strongest, most preferred worldwide CMS that powers almost 22% of internet websites. However, it doesn’t mean that everybody is familiar with how it functions.

In fact, people who have little WordPress knowledge spread some of the most popular myths and misconceptions, based on stuff they heard or misunderstood instead of checking the platform and answering their misunderstandings. This article addresses particularly these misconceptions in order to motivate reluctant people to feel confident when joining the amazing WordPress society.

Misconception: WordPress doesn’t go further than blogging

[image error]

The truth is that blogging was the original idea behind WordPress back in 2003. However, since then, WordPress evolved amazingly and became a rich and comprehensive content management system (CMS). The best confirmation of its quality is that almost ¼ of the world’s ten million successful websites are built on it.

The key reason behind this development is its extensibility. Even older versions of WordPress (far before the powerful CMS advancements 2.9 and 3.0) were good enough to maintain complex directories, online stores, or make complex websites. Users choose WordPress because they know it’s a secure and powerful platform, that allows you to make your perfect website dreams come true.

Misconception: WordPress is not a safe platform

[image error]

The reason why people think like this is that WordPress undergoes frequent hacker attacks. But which successful platform doesn’t? The statistical comparison didn’t reveal any big differences between WordPress and similar CMSs, but rather showed that WordPress is a responsible platform with 10% share among users which requires time to understand its vulnerability.

For the sake of truth, WordPress counts as the most flexible platform, meaning that very often security will depend on extra steps you have to do for yourself. WordPress covers most malware and DDOS attack, but there are also other common cyber web attacks from which you need to protect yourself.

Finally, security can be enhanced with few very simple practices, such as using strong passwords, or changing them more often than usual.

Just to remind you: there are awesome websites out there that are not using WordPress, but were still victims of severe hack attacks. Therefore, the fact that WordPress was/wasn’t attacked cannot be considered as a result of its security policy.

Misconception: There is no support for WordPress

[image error]

People are confusing the fact that WordPress works like and open source platform and doesn’t have an official support team, with the concept that it doesn’t offer support at all. There are numerous excellent ways to keep going when you get stuck, like Codex, support forums, such GitHub, and other user societies with topics related to WordPress.

After all, we are discussing a friendly and welcoming community (most of all a really big one), that will give answers to your questions in just a few minutes. By this, we invite all experienced WP users to contribute and to share their knowledge within the community.

Misconception: WordPress doesn’t suit the needs of large businesses

This opinion is a logical consequence of the abovementioned myth that WordPress is made for blogging. Knowing what WordPress represents today and all those amazing development tools and APIs that it can offer, we’d say that WordPress is completely grown to be included in large web projects, and suit even the needs of big companies.

In fact, find a WP VIP list and check how many outstanding companies rely on WordPress every day. We’d mention universities as a relevant example, by highlighting the fact that WordPress is an amazing education platform which provides complex functionality for managing integrated content in a very organized way.

Misconception: All WordPress websites are built on templates

Are you sure you’re not confusing templates for themes? Websites are built on themes, but not on templates. In order to make this clearer, we will define a theme as a set of building plans, that includes the basics, but still gives you the opportunity to do your own things.

Basically, you can customize your own website with nothing but the theme, but the result may not be beautiful or outstanding. A custom-created theme, on the other hand, can include everything you’ve aspired for during your online presence, but keep in mind that making something unique could cost more than you expected.

Misconception: WordPress is not a good e-commerce environment

[image error]

We believe this is a result of years and years of full Drupal commitment, and the fact that users were not ready to switch e-commerce platforms to improve their websites.

The one that doesn’t risk doesn’t win, right? And this is certainly something that WordPress users know very well: they’ve discovered that the platform has all the necessary plugins, features, and customization options to launch their business in the e-commerce world. Therefore, think of the plugins you need, and feel free to join this awesome community!

Misconception: WordPress is not responsive

[image error]

So many people out there think that WP doesn’t support advanced web functionality, but that’s simply not true. To start with, responsiveness will depend on your theme, and if you make it responsive that’s what you’ll get. This is why our latest premium WordPress theme The Core is both responsive and retina ready.

Misconception: You don’t get high quality when you don’t pay

A reasonable thought, but not this time. WordPress is not a game of chance because it has a great team backing it up. It was developed hand-by-hand with the users’ community, trying to figure out their particular business needs by working with it.

WP’s code is open source, accessible to everybody who wants to scrutinize or examine its quality. As many of you probably know, we’re discussing a roc-solid code that adheres to most professional programming practices, made to look amazing and function even better.

Their idea was to make publishing easy and affordable, and they made it. Their main source of income is companies that are using their CMS services.

Misconception: WordPress plugins are unreliable

[image error]

There is no 100% reliable plugin. You always need to keep your eyes open whenever you let somebody code inside your system.

Plugins are different, and some of them come with more bugs, flat outs, and outdated codes. With due diligence, however, plugins will work just fine, so choose the ones that are regularly supported and well-rated.

In the WP Plugin Repository look for version-suitable plugins that were downloaded multiple times, with a good ratio, comments, and recent updates. With your own knowledge or professional help, read the code and see whether there is something broken. Finally, go on Google and look for relevant reviews.

Misconception: WordPress can’t handle high-traffic websites

[image error]

If you are a skeptical developer trying to find the needle in the haystack, you may fail to acknowledge how powerful WordPress is, and how many popular websites it’s hosting today. Moreover, WP itself ranks as the 9th most visited website of our time, and this fact says confirms its capability to support high-traffic volumes.

With this being said, always double check the rumors you hear about WordPress. This popular content management system is the backbone of almost ¼ of websites, including big figures like Forbes, General Motors, and even eBay. So if these large companies trust WordPress, you may certainly do the same.