Tag Archives: wordpress

Open Invitation To Contribute to the WordPress Block Pattern Directory – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] The upcoming block pattern directory is launching alongside WordPress 5.8 in July. The goal is to make several high-quality designs available for users right off the bat. However, the official submission process will not open until the directory launches. In this chicken-and-egg scenario, the Design team is asking for early contributors to submit their pattern candidates via GitHub. “The project needs a collection of high-quality, diverse, community-designed patterns to populate it with during development,” wrote Kjell Reigstad in the announcement post. “These patterns will set the tone for quality in the repository and will make the directory useful for folks upon its launch.” Alongside Reigstad, Beatriz Fialho and Mel Choyce-Dwan have already added several block patterns. They are available through the Gutenberg plugin now. Several of the current block patterns. The trio has also submitted the majority of the 18 current potential patterns. While they have produced solid work thus far, the directory needs a more diverse set of designs from the community to launch with a bang. Creating a pattern requires no coding skills. It is possible directly via the block editor. Just design, copy, and submit. The team already has a GitHub template in place for submitting patterns. Be sure to use CC0 (public domain) images if they are a part of your creation. Copying a pattern from the WordPress editor. I have somewhere between 40 and 50 patterns lying around. You could say that I have been doing a bit of dabbling in the art of block-pattern design in my free time. Many of these patterns rely on custom block styles, so they are not suitable for the directory. However, I have several that are general enough for submission. As always, I try to pay it forward when possible. Therefore, I cleaned a couple of patterns today using the Twenty Twenty-One theme and submitted them for inclusion. The first was a three-column section of “about me” or “connect with me” boxes. This has been one of my favorites to play around with. About me boxes. It is not on par with my original design, but I like how it turned out. If you have read any of my past posts on blocks and patterns, I will sound like a broken record. However, I must say it for those who did not hear the message the first 100 times. The main limiting factor for block patterns is the lack of spacing options on almost all blocks. Blocks like Group and Column have padding controls, which are a nice feature. However, vertical margin options are must-haves for the directory to be as successful with its goals as it intends to be. A prime example is in my first pattern. My original mockup closes the gap between the heading and subheading. In my submission, I tightened the space by setting the line height, but I needed an option for zeroing out the vertical margin. If you compare it to the original idea built with some features not yet available, you can see how much improved the overall layout’s spacing is. Original about me boxes with tighter margin control. I ran into the same issue with my second pattern, Team Social Cards, between the Image and Separator blocks. The gap there has more to do with Twenty Twenty-One’s inconsistent spacing. I may revisit the giraffe photo, but it is growing on me. It is fun. Plus, end-users are meant to actually replace it. I will probably submit one or two more during this early phase, and I will definitely contribute more once the pattern directory is officially open. For now, I want to see our talented design community giving a little something back to the WordPress project. This is such an easy way to contribute that has no coding requirement — just a little time. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Review Signal Publishes 2021 Hosting Performance Benchmarks on New WordPress-Powered Site – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] Kevin Ohashi has published his 2021 WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks report. The annual report is broken down into six different hosting tiers, from the most economical <$25/month, to the $500+ enterprise level. This is the second year the stats include WooCommerce-specific hosts as a separate category. After eight years of measuring peak performance and consistency for WordPress hosts, Review Signal has relaunched benchmarks on wphostingbenchmarks.com, a WordPress-powered site. Review Signal started using sentiment analysis to capture consumer reviews of hosting companies on Twitter in 2011 and launched in 2012. Ohashi added a WordPress blog but said it never really integrated well with the code and design of the rest of the site. He launched the benchmarks in 2013, publishing the first handful of tests via a simple blog post. “In 2020 it was dozens of companies, 6 full price tiers of competition, and a separate WooCommerce group as well,” Ohashi said. “It really has become its own product, and creating a dedicated site for them at WPHostingBenchmarks.com is recognition of that fact. It also opened the door for a rebranding effort and a much better presentation of the results.” Results on the new site are much easier to understand at a glance with honorable mentions and top tier companies denoted by a half star and full star. Visitors can click through to get more specific information about each host’s performance on the tests. Top tier performers in the <$25 tier included 20i, CynderHost, EasyWP by Namecheap, Eco Web Hosting, Green Geeks, Lightning Base, RAIDBOXES, and WPX, with a handful of honorable mentions. In the Enterprise tier (shown above), RAIDBOXES, Scaleforce powered by Jelastic, Seravo, Servebolt, Servebolt Accelerated, and WordPress VIP capture the top tier spots. Now that the new site is database driven, Ohashi can publish faster and reduce the amount of work it takes going forward. “It also lets me auto generate pages from the data – for example company profile pages,” he said. “I attempted to write a blog post in the past about companies that did well, but it was never really a success. Now, I can display all their historical results, pull up analysis, compare them all by year, etc. So I am happier, companies are (hopefully) happier, and most of all – consumers get better insight into the results.” WooCommerce Benchmarks Expanding WooCommerce benchmarks have expanded since their first time to be included separately last year. Five out of the 11 companies tested scored top tier results, including Lightning Base, Pressable, Servebolt, SiteGround, and WordPress.com. Servebolt scored 99.999% Uptime and the fastest Load Storm average response time, along with the fastest wp-login, Buyer and Customer profiles and second fastest Home profile. Pressable reprised its top tier status with perfect uptime and the second fastest Average Response Time on WebPageTest. WordPress.com posted perfect uptime, the second fastest K6 average response time, and a solid Load Storm test. On the WebPageTest results WordPress.com took 10/12 of the fastest response times and posted the fastest WP Bench scores Ohashi has ever recorded and the second fastest PHP Bench. In 2021, SiteGround slipped to honorable mention status in every other tier where it was tested, with the exception of WooCommerce. Lightning Base maintained its top tier status with a 99.99% uptime rating, very good flat Load Storm and K6 results, and no problems with the tests. “For WooCommerce I had seven companies participate last year and this year had 11 companies, which is a 57% increase,” Ohashi said. “The traditional WordPress benchmarks grew from ~29 companies last year to 35-37 depending on if you differentiate Automattic brands (VIP, WP.com, Pressable) which is at least a 20% growth in participation.” Ohashi said he is pleased with the mix of new entrants and companies that have participated for years, but the pandemic has slowed Review Signal’s business. “It’s been a bit slow revenue wise,” he said. “I don’t sell any products and don’t think I’ve found any advantage during the pandemic to make what I do stand out relative to what’s happening to the world. That is another motivating reason for creating WPHostingBenchmarks.com, I wanted to take that extra time I have and make the biggest change for Review Signal in years.” Review Signal’s benchmarks are one of the most thorough and transparent evaluations of hosting products in the industry. This is because Ohashi doesn’t accept any hosting sponsorship. Each company pays a small, publicly documented, fee for participation to cover the costs of the tests. These fees are standardized based on the pricing tier of the product entered into the testing. Consumers in the market for a new hosting company will find WPHostingBenchmarks a solid resource for comparing how companies perform at different pricing tiers. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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How to Create Funnels with WordPress (Step by Step Guide)

[ad_1] One of the hardest aspects of running an online business is turning your visitors into paying customers. There are so many factors involved that you’d be forgiven for missing a step or two. Yet, if you were to create funnels with WordPress, there’s a greater chance of winning customers. When it comes to creating sales funnels, for us, WordPress beats the competition. It’s scalable, flexible, and fits your budget regardless of whether you’re a startup or an enterprise. In this post, we’ll show you how to create funnels with WordPress. We’ll outline all of the tools you need, and walk you through the entire process. A Quick Primer on ClickFunnels Before we get into the article proper, it’s worth talking about ClickFunnels for a few minutes. This is a leading solution for creating repeatable and effective sales funnels. Thousands of users generate traffic, customers, and income using the tool. On paper, it has a lot of exciting and innovative features and functionality. For example: There’s much more in the “Heck Yes!” column for choosing ClickFunnels. Even so, it doesn’t capture 100 percent of the user base. Why You’d Want to Find a ClickFunnels Alternative Given the great things ClickFunnels offers, it’s not the only solution on the market. In fact, whenever we’ve mentioned ClickFunnels at WPKube, it’s always alongside the competition. Here are a few reasons why: Pricing. There’s no getting around that ClickFunnels is expensive. The lowest tier is $97 per month, and this isn’t as full-featured as the $297 per month plan. ClickFunnels’ ecosystem. While a closed-source all-in-one hosted platform is great to get started with, you’re locked into ClickFunnels forever. In other words, there’s no way to take your business away from ClickFunnels’ system. The functionality. ClickFunnels is a ‘jack-of-all-trades’. As such, while some functionality is best-in-class, others need some work. Its look and design. Much like WordPress sites used to have certain ‘tell-tale’ elements, so a ClickFunnels site screams its name too. To touch on this last point a little more, if you take a look at any of the templates or default setups for ClickFunnels sites, they all have a dated look that has become associated with sales funnels as a whole: So, ClickFunnels has a ‘spammy’ default design, although we admit it’s a successful one. Regardless, there will be a unique combination of reason why you’d want to create funnels with WordPress – so let’s chat about this next. Why You Should Create Funnels With WordPress It shouldn’t come as a shock that we think WordPress is number one when it comes to building any type of website. We’ve covered our reasons in detail across the blog in the past, although let’s summarize the key aspects for you: The WordPress core software is free. Not only does it cost zero dollars to download and use, it’s also open-source. This means you control almost every aspect of your site, without lock in. It can stick with you for your business’ entire journey. WordPress works great as a blogging platform. It’s also a full-featured Content Management System (CMS) that works for enterprise-level sites with millions of hits per month. WordPress is extendable through thousands of themes and plugins. In fact, many are free. There’s also a rich premium market for both themes and plugins that we’ll touch on throughout the article. The WordPress community is strong, diverse, and knowledgeable. There are support channels with easy access, and a rich developer network to ensure WordPress is always evolving and improving. The above is just the tip of the iceberg. Even so, not everyone will jump to create funnels with WordPress, without surveying the competition. We’ll focus on this next. 2 Alternative Solutions to Create Funnels With WordPress Competition is a healthy thing among any products or services. Sales funnels are no exception. We’ve covered landing page plugins in the past, and in many cases they could compete with more ‘traditional’ funnel builders. Despite this, there are two tools we’d suggest are closer competitors to WordPress, and the first is one we’ve already mentioned. 1. ClickFunnels We won’t go over the same details again, as we’ve already talked about ClickFunnels both in this article and others. In any case, it’s worth summing up the appeal of ClickFunnels in general: It’s an all-in-one funnel builder platform. The community is geared towards helping you succeed. You’re given a proven system to create, utilize, and prosper from sales funnels. What’s more, it’s a breeze to get up and running with. Once the sign-up process is out of the way, you’ll carry out the following steps: Navigate to your dashboard and click the Build a Funnel button. From the dialog screen that pops up, choose a funnel type to work with. Use the Launch Checklist in the Funnel Builder to create your sales funnel. The final step here involves designing squeeze and sales pages, order forms, confirmations, and Thank You pages. It’s all laid out well, and you’ll have your funnels ready and waiting for visitors within no time. 2. Systeme Another solution we’ve featured on the blog in the past is Systeme. This positions itself as a direct ClickFunnels competitor, and has much of the same functionality: A drag-and-drop funnel builder, that also doubles as a site-building tool. Email and content marketing functionality. Built-in tools for selling subscriptions and courses. Robust contact management. In our review, we argued that Systeme reaches a different user than ClickFunnels. The latter is focused on the core concept, while Systeme wants to be the center of your entire business. As such, the getting started steps are more diverse than ClickFunnels: Click the Create button to build a new funnel. Choose an end goal for your funnel, such as capturing emails, or running a webinar. Build an order form and Thank You page using templates. Customize each page to your requirements. Use the built-in page builder to design your funnel further. We think that both solutions have a good approach to creating funnels. Our

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How WordPress Made Space For Me As A Kid Who Grew Up With MS – Come WordPress Mi Ha Accolta Quando Ero Una Bambina Crescendo Con La Sclerosi Multipla

[ad_1] Questo saggio è disponibile anche in italiano. I was first introduced to WordPress when I was 13 years old. My parents had the idea to give me my very own WordPress website. I was able to use, play, test, and try whatever I wanted with it. My First Encounter With WordPress While the technical aspects of my new WordPress website intrigued me, I was more interested in the space it made for me to write. All throughout my childhood I had struggled with chronic pain, fatigue, and other unexplained symptoms. Having a private world I could call my own, I was able to write my story. And there is something truly amazing about having a place to tell your story. When doctors, nurses, specialists, and the best hospitals I could go to struggled to find answers for me and my parents, I felt like my life and world were out of control. But logging onto my little website and typing away on the computer keys gave me a sense of control. I couldn’t always do things that other kids had the energy to do. But I could get lost in writing for hours. I couldn’t control my life story, but I could write about it. It felt like writing letters to my future self, “Look at what you went through, look how strong you were.” And even now, when I go on, I feel like I’m writing letters to my past self, “Look at you, look how you made it.” WordPress In The Real World I swear I thought that when I grew up, that I’d be healthy. I thought that “unhealthiness” was a part of being a kid. Something as terrible as having a bedtime, or having to eat carrots. And like most kids, I couldn’t wait to be a grown up so that I could stay up as late as I wanted, never eat carrots again, and— be healthy. But growing up didn’t change that. In fact, my condition grew slowly worse as years went by. I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, a decade later at 18 years old. I realized that I couldn’t handle a 9-5 work schedule, I couldn’t drive to a job on some days (shout-out to my mom for driving me) and I knew deep down that I would need to find another way to work. I began writing music and book reviews online. I wrote blog posts. They were getting published and I was getting paid too. WordPress felt familiar, typing on the computer keys felt comfortable, and sharing my words with the world felt surreal. I think I believed WordPress was mine somehow. I was learning that WordPress is something that belongs to everyone in some way. And I loved it. My WordPress Job at Valet The thing I love about WordPress is that it’s not just for developers or bloggers or SEO experts. I began to meet more people in the community and was delighted to find people like me, who didn’t know the technical stuff, but were a part of WordPress. There were social media managers, there were designers, there was a place for everyone. And the community felt as important as the rest of everything that makes WordPress what it is. It felt like it was about people and relationships as well as codes and databases. I was hired at Valet in 2020 thanks to my relationships with people, in this case, my very own dad. I like being a part of a WordPress company, and I love that I contribute to a team that helps people with their websites. I understand the importance of having a space that’s yours. Whether it’s a business or personal site, having a website gives you the power of telling your own story. I didn’t have to work 9-5 jobs, or have my mom drive me to work, I didn’t have to worry about days when I needed to just stay in sweats. I have a 100% remote job which I can do despite the plot twists in my story, thanks to WordPress and the people in it. Welcomed Into The WordPress Community Kimberly Lipari was the first person to repeatedly tell me that I was really indeed a part of the WordPress community. It felt unreal. I wasn’t a dev, I don’t know how to code, and yet I got to be a part of it all? I felt like I was a fake. But she continues to remind me that I’m real, I get to be here, I get to stay, I have a place. When Michelle Frechette told me I could contribute to Big Orange Heart, I was honored. I was typing my words, pieces of my story, and sharing them with a community of people. And when Topher contacted me to write my WordPress Story for HeroPress I could only say yes. I could go on and on, this community is not perfect, but everyone here is constantly working to be better and do better. My WordPress Story I’m proud and grateful to be sharing my story today. I hope that maybe it can be a letter to anyone out there thinking, “I won’t make it.” I hope that it will remind anyone reading this that WordPress is a space for everyone. Healthy or not, developer or not, blogger or not— WordPress belongs to you too. I hope most of all that my story can somehow remind you that your story is important. Sono stata introdotta a WordPress per la prima volta quando avevo 13 anni. I miei genitori hanno avuto l’idea di darmi un sito WordPress personale, tutto mio. Cosi potevo usarlo, provare e riprovare, o fare quello che volevo. Nessuno di noi sapeva l’importanza che WordPress avrebbe nel mio futuro. Il mio primo incontro con WordPress Mentre gli aspetti tecnici del mio nuovo sito Web WordPress mi hanno incuriosita, ero più interessata nel fatto che ha creato uno spazio per scrivere. Per tutta la mia

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Spice Up Your Food or Recipe Blog With the Nutmeg WordPress Theme – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] Last week, Dumitru Brînzan announced Nutmeg Plus. It is the latest commercial theme offering through his ILOVEWP brand. Earlier today, the free version of Nutmeg landed in the WordPress theme directory. The theme is built for food and recipe bloggers and is another solid example of building on the block system. As is typical of his style, Nutmeg rests on a foundation of clean lines and readable typography. It pulls elements from some of Brînzan’s previous work, such as the featured pages section of Photozoom and the two-column intro from Endurance. Reusing code is one of the cornerstones of smart development. The theme never gets too flashy, nor is it a bold step forward in design. However, it has a timeless layout that is hard to go wrong with. Where it shines is in its use of block patterns and styles. Recipe post built with Nutmeg. Sometimes, theme authors surprise me with, in hindsight, simple solutions. Nutmeg’s List block styles had me asking, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Last month, I challenged theme authors to build out patterns that are often created as custom blocks. In the post, I showcased an example of how themers could provide pricing columns for their users. The Nutmeg theme is a perfect example of that same concept, only applied to recipes. The unique aspect is that Brînzan did not make it complex. With a few simple styles for the List block, he had all the makings of the typical “recipe card” seen on many food blogs. Is it as advanced as a fully-featured recipe card plugin? No. But, that should not be the goal. If users need more advanced recipe-related features and functionality, that is where plugins make sense. The theme even recommends a few like WP Recipe Maker, Recipe Card Blocks, and Delicious Recipes for those who need more. However, for bloggers who are just starting, undecided on recipe plugins, or simply do not want another dependency, the theme has built-in solutions for them. It is tough to discount the value in that. Adding instructions and ingredients. With a starting point of the Recipe Info, Ingredients List, or Ingredients + Instructions patterns, users can quickly pop these sections into their content. Or, they can go the alternate route of starting with the List block and selecting one of four custom styles. Theme authors should be able to build unique and complex combinations of blocks with custom styles. Users should be able to just make it look like the demo. Block Patterns Will Change Everything It was March 2020. The Gutenberg development team had just pushed block patterns into the plugin, but the feature would not land in core WordPress for months. I do not want to call myself a prophet. It was plain enough for anyone to see: block patterns would eventually change how end-users interact with the editor and build their sites. Patterns were the answer to elaborate homepage setups. Instead of jumping back and forth between non-standard theme options, hoping for the best from a theming community that never learned to entirely leverage the customizer, users could simply click buttons and insert layout sections where they wanted. Recreating Nutmeg’s homepage demo was easy. By just picking a few patterns and adding some custom images, I was up and running in minutes. No tutorial necessary. No half-hour session of figuring out a theme’s custom options setup. Select the custom homepage template. Add the Cover with Overlay pattern and upload an image. Drop in the Opening Message pattern and customize. Insert the Featured Pages pattern and add images. Homepage built from patterns. Simple setup processes like this are the exact thing that theme authors have been repeatedly asking about for the better part of a decade. Except for a powerful Query solution, which is arriving in a limited form in WordPress 5.8 (the Post Featured Image block is the weak point), the tools are mostly in place. The feature set is only growing with each release. One of my favorite solutions in the theme is the use of the Cover block’s inner container. The plugin has several styles for moving this inside box around and creating a featured section. Customizing the Cover block with styles. One improvement I might suggest is to provide “width” styles for the inner container here. Core already provides an alignment matrix option. Styles for 25%, 50%, and 75% width (100% being the default) would offer more variety when coupled with the existing alignments. The only things that felt out of place with the theme were its alignment block styles for Heading and Paragraph blocks. WordPress already provides alignment options for these blocks. I am not sure if there is a use case that I am unaware of for the styles, but they were definitely confusing. The theme is worth a test run for any food or recipe bloggers who need a dash of Nutmeg to spice up their site. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Ujwal Thapa, Co-Founder of the WordPress Nepal Community, Passes Away – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] “Here is my resume of professional Failures,” began his LinkedIn profile. On a site where most are apt to share success, Ujwal Thapa started with nearly a two-decade history of dreams that did not quite work out. Or, maybe they did in some ways. Much of Nepal is reeling from his death today. In the past week, he had been battling multiple health complications from Covid-19. The 44-year-old activist was the founder of the Bibeksheel Nepali political party, originally a peaceful movement that fought against political corruption and social injustice. However, many Nepali WordPress users will remember him as a co-founder of their community. The WordPress Nepal Facebook group has now grown to nearly 8,000 members. Photos shared by Ganga Kafle. In a 2015 interview with Nepal Buzz, he noted his proudest WordPress-related achievement as building this community. “That is not just creating tens and hundreds, but thousands of jobs in Nepal, and has the potential to create tens of thousands more, which basically means we are contributing to the nation by creating opportunities where there are none.” Later in the interview, he said he was a provoker, and he continued to live the remainder of his life in that belief. “I believe that the easiest way to bring change is to align all the positive people in the same direction,” he said. “So my job is to provoke and bring together people with similar interests, and align them in a similar direction, creating the change that they would never believe could come.” Thapa founded Digital Max Solutions in 2002, amidst the Nepalese Civil War. At one point, the company had as many as 35 employees. Over 30 eventually moved on to start their own IT businesses. He also created the Entrepreneurs for Nepal Facebook group, which now has over 100,000 members. From May 2013 to October 2019, he served as the Chairperson of the BibekSheel Nepali party. Many in Nepal’s WordPress community owe him a debt of gratitude for having the vision of building off the core platform. WordPress.org Themes Team representative Ganga Kafle credits at least part of his career and deep involvement with WordPress to Thapa, helping him land an initial internship with Web Experts Nepal. “Ujwal Thapa is the person who introduced WordPress to me in 2012 in a meetup,” he said. “After that, I was in close relation with him. In 2014, after my graduation, I went to Ujwal and asked him about the internship, and he took me to that office and talked with the boss and finalized for the internship. That’s how I jumped in WordPress, and now I am one of the leads of Themes Team.” “Once he said to me, ‘WordPress is giving so much things for free, why you hesitate to put Proudly Powered by WordPress?’” Kafle shared of the mentor, referencing the typical credit line in many WordPress site footers. “He was in love with WordPress.” You can view Thapa’s WordCamp presentations as a speaker and panel moderator via WordPress.tv. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Chrome Canary Adds Flag for Disabling FLoC Testing – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] Google’s controversial Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) experiment now has a feature flag within Chrome Canary (the nightly build of Chrome for developers) that allows users to opt out. In January 2020, Google announced its plans to discontinue support for third-party cookies in Chrome within two years. The first bits and pieces of the company’s Privacy Sandbox initiative started landing in Chrome in December 2020 with an initial flag to disable it. FLoC, Google’s proposed replacement for third-party cookies, began testing as a developer origin trial in Chrome at the end of March 2021. In Canary, users can navigate to chrome://flags/#privacy-sandbox-settings-2 to find the Privacy Sandbox Settings 2 flag. Relaunch Canary to save the changes. This will unlock the box that allows users to either reset their FLoC group or opt out of FLoC entirely. The new setting is available under chrome://settings/privacySandbox: If the setting remains enabled, which is the default, Chrome will group users into cohorts based on recent browsing activity and then advertisers select ads for the entire group. Browsing activity for the individual is “kept private on your device,” but Chrome certainly has access that information by way of mediating the cohorts. Google notes that the trial is currently only active in some regions. Users can also opt out of Privacy Sandbox trials on the same page. Current trials include the following: Advertisers and publishers can use FLoC Advertisers and publishers can study the effectiveness of ads in a way that does not track you across sites Google has not specified how users would opt out of FLoC if the experiment is successful and moves forward. Organizations and site owners who are currently on the fence about it may go either way depending on how easy it is for Chrome users to opt out themselves. “Instead of comparing FLoC to its predecessor, third party cookies, I feel it’s actually more like the Facebook Pixel – mostly in the sense that it’s controlled by a single surveillance capital company,” WordPress core contributor Roy Tanck commented on the trac ticket for the discussion. “FLoC may not be quite as nefarious, but I feel it should be something website owners consciously opt into. “WordPress has always advocated for a free and open web, and FLoC appears to actively harm that goal. I think WordPress should take a stand against this, and do it now.” A few others have chimed in on the ticket recently as other open source projects have started blocking FLoC by default. Plugin developer David McCan’s comment referenced analytics data published in early May suggesting that US users choose to opt out of tracking 96 percent of the time following the changes in iOS 14.5. “There is no doubt that coming down on the side of user privacy vs user tracking is the right thing to do,” McCan said. “Which headline would we rather see? ‘By default millions of WordPress websites are allowing users to be tracked’ or ‘WordPress takes steps to block user tracking making millions of websites around the world safe to visit?’ “We already have a policy that opt-in by default tracking’ is not allowed in plugins hosted by WordPress. This is because we recognize the responsibility and benefit of protecting user privacy.” During a live marketing event Google hosted at the end of last week, Jerry Dischler, vice president and general manager of Ads, addressed the recent privacy concerns surrounding FLoC. “We’ll be using these [Privacy Sandbox] APIs for our own ads and measurement products just like everyone else, and we will not build any backdoors for ourselves,” Dischler said. Dischler also reaffirmed Google’s commitment to moving away from third-party cookies. “Third-party cookies and other proposed identifiers that some in the industry are advocating for do not meet the rising expectations consumers have when it comes to privacy,” he said. “They will not stand up to rapidly evolving regulatory restrictions; they simply cannot be relied on in the long term.” Google bears the burden of reassuring advertisers that effective advertising is still possible as the company moves beyond tracking cookies. It is aiming to future-proof advertisers’ measurement of campaign performance with what it claims are “privacy-safe solutions.” The company is pushing hard for advertisers to adopt these new techniques, promising more actionable first-party conversion data. Although consumer expectations have changed, FLoC may not be the answer to the need for a privacy-preserving advertising model. So far it looks like Google will have an uphill battle to gain more broad support from browsers, advertisers, and consumers. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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InMotion Hosting Review 2021: Is This a Good Host for WordPress?

[ad_1] At first glance, InMotion Hosting has everything you’d expect from one of the leading web hosting companies on the market. There are entry-level plans, there are WordPress-specific plans (more on those later), and there are also highly scalable setups that can grow with you over time. In this InMotion Hosting review, we look at how good those hosting solutions really are and whether you should use them for your next WordPress website. Here’s what we’re going to cover: What is InMotion Hosting and what type of hosting it offers? InMotion Hosting is a US-based hosting company that started as a small project back in 2001. This means that it’s been in the hosting business for a whole 20 years. What’s even more impressive is that it’s an entirely employee-owned company. This is a breath of fresh air compared to the corpo-structured hosting giants that we’re all used to. The company is headquartered in Virginia Beach, VA, offers US-based customer service, a really generous 90-day money-back guarantee, and secure data centers in the US. What’s also worth pointing out is that the company is making moves to commit to an eco-friendly and sustainable operations model. They’re the first-ever green data center in Los Angeles, reducing their overall carbon output by more than 2,000 tons per year. Let’s look at the different types of web hosting that InMotion Hosting offers: Shared hosting This is InMotion Hosting’s entry-level offering for web hosting. It’s a good choice for users who need a reliable hosting platform for a small website (or a handful of websites). To make the setup easier, InMotion Hosting gives you access to one-click installers for over 400 web applications and website engines (such as WordPress, Joomla). There’s also unmetered bandwidth and enough SSD disk space for a standard website. Those of us who enjoy getting stuff for free – which we all do(!) – will be happy to know that InMotion Hosting throws in a free SSL, free email address, and even a free domain name (on the second-to-cheapest plan). 👉 Go to InMotion Hosting’s shared hosting plans. WordPress hosting WordPress hosting has been getting more and more popular, so no wonder InMotion Hosting has an offering like that in their portfolio as well. Structure-wise, it’s a similar setup to their entry-level hosting, but it’s more optimized to run WordPress, plus it also offers a couple of WordPress-specific features and helpers. For starters, it is what’s called a “managed hosting” setup, which means that some of the everyday hosting maintenance tasks are handled by the InMotion Hosting platform itself. The server hardware/software stack has been put together to better cater to the WordPress platform. It runs on NGINX, PHP8, has WP-CLI, Imagemagick, and a free CDN included. The server is configured with regular security scans for malware and other potential issues. InMotion Hosting will also handle automatic security patches for you, plus you can set all updates to happen automatically. More on WordPress hosting later in this InMotion Hosting review. 👉 Go to InMotion Hosting’s WordPress hosting plans. Advanced hosting InMotion Hosting offers a couple of hosting setups that can be called “advanced hosting” – even though InMotion Hosting doesn’t use this label themselves. These are all hosting plans that are above the entry level and are commonly used by more seasoned users. Such users know what the specific server requirements of their project are and how to then set that server up. This is: VPS hosting. InMotion Hosting offers both managed VPS hosting and unmanaged cloud VPS. The former runs on Linux, it’s powered by UltraStack, and lets you launch and scale your project easily. The latter works as a cluster of self-managed cloud servers. Dedicated server hosting. Here, again, InMotion Hosting has both managed dedicated servers in the catalog as well as unmanaged setups (called “bare metal,” which does sound cool, I give them that). As you’d expect, the managed setups handle a lot of the everyday server work for you. The bare metal setups are exactly what it says on the tin – you get the bare metal server computer. But wait, there’s more! InMotion Hosting also offers specialized WordPress setups: WordPress VPS hosting and managed dedicated WordPress hosting. Most new websites won’t need this level of power, but it’s nice to see that InMotion Hosting is ready for any scale of website. Which one is right for you? As you can see, InMotion Hosting offers a lot when it comes to their hosting portfolio. There’s something here for everybody and every scale of web project. But how to choose which one you need? It’s quite simple actually: If your project calls for an advanced hosting setup, then you probably already know that it’s the case. If you consider yourself a casual WordPress user, get one of their WordPress hosting plans. If you want to launch a new website that won’t be running on WordPress, get one of their shared hosting plans. 🌱 Okay, that’s all fine, but are those hosting setups any good? Let’s find out next: Features and pricing ⚠️ For the purpose of this InMotion Hosting review, we’re looking into the WordPress hosting plans offered by InMotion. Chances are that if you’re planning to launch a new website, you’ll run it on WordPress. First things first, here’s the current snapshot of the pricing page: A couple of things that we need to point out right out the gate: The per-month prices you’re looking at are on a three-year contract. Meaning, you’ll get them if you buy your hosting setup for three years upfront. As you can see in the screenshot above, InMotion Hosting also has two-year and one-year contracts as well as month-to-month plans. Here’s a breakdown of the prices based on contract length: One more thing that’s not immediately apparent with any web host is the renewal prices. Long story short, the prices you see above are InMotion Hosting’s “welcome offer.” This means that you get that price when you first sign

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WordCamp Europe 2021 Online Schedule Announced – WordPress Tavern

[ad_1] Mark your calendars for the next major WordPress event coming up at the beginning of next week. WordCamp Europe is just five days away and will run from June 7-9. In July 2020, organizers announced that in-person events would not resume until 2022. At that time, attendees were deeply disappointed but resigned to the necessity of online events due to the pandemic. One of the advantages of scheduling a virtual event so far in advance is that organizers have been able to eliminate a great deal of uncertainty for attendees and their travel arrangements as well as have more time to create a better online experience. This is one of the few times in WordCamp Europe history where all attendees will be joining virtually, on equal footing from wherever they are in the world. WCEU 2021 organizers have announced the speaker lineup and schedule for the upcoming three days of 30-minute sessions, 10-minute lightning talks, workshops, discussion panels, and interviews. Two tracks will run simultaneously. The schedule includes some big-picture topics like full-site editing and the future of WordPress themes, as well as more technical topics such as how to quickly build custom blocks, setting up a WooCommerce data hub, headless WordPress, and accessing APIs using OAuth on the Federated Web. At the close of day 3, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg will join the event for a virtual chat. Business owners, project managers, designers, and other professionals will all find topics related to their work and interests. The schedule has a built-in favoriting tool so attendees can mark the sessions they plan to attend and then print or email to themselves for a personalized schedule. Every hour or so there will be 10-minute breaks so attendees will have time to talk with others and socialize. WCEU organizers are planning to host virtual networking rooms where attendees can meet sponsors and take part in product demos. Registration is free and attendees will receive online goodiebags. Tickets are still available but organizers expect it to be another “sell out” year. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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10 Top Free and Premium CDNs for WordPress

[ad_1] Speed is a practical necessity for all websites. While there are lots of ways you can do this, and Content Delivery Network (CDN) is ideal for getting your site to load fast regardless of where the end user is located. Though, as this list of free and premium CDNs will show, there’s overwhelming choice. Though, you don’t have to bog yourself down with decision paralysis. There are a few top solutions to suit a variety of needs. What’s more, because WordPress is popular, integrating a CDN is a piece of cake. This means you can concentrate on what a solution will offer, rather than how you’ll implement it. As such, this article will look at some of the popular free and premium CDNs for WordPress. Before this, let’s fill in the blanks when it comes to how a CDN can help you. What a Content Delivery Network (CDN) Is In a nutshell, a CDN is a network of servers across the globe. The goal is to take your site, distribute it across those servers, and call on it when a local user accesses your site. For example, if you’re a site owner in the US, you’re often going to use a server located in the country. Users close in a relative sense to that server won’t see any issues. Though, for an end user in Australia, the time it takes to get your site from one server to the other will cause lag. In fact, this is a big aspect in testing your site speed with tools such as Pingdom or GTmetrix: A CDN chooses the most relevant server (read: the closest) for the end user, and serves that. It’s the same site for all practical purposes, but offers a dramatic difference to your visitors. As such, they’re vital for a high-performing website that runs fast almost anywhere on the planet. The Perks of Both Free and Premium CDNs for Your Site and Its Users The general benefit of using free or premium CDNs is speed. Though, if you drill down further, there are specific reasons why a fast site is better than a slow one: In short, search engines prefer fast sites. Google considers speed to be an important factor, and uses it in part to determine a site’s PageRank calculation. A site that loads quickly improves the user’s experience, which is crucial for optimizing conversion rates. After all, even a two-second loading time can hammer your bounce rate. There’s also a bandwidth saving for your host too. Because a CDN uses its own servers, your host won’t be responsible for allocating resources. As such, you can better use your host’s resources, and farm out others to your CDN. 10 Top Free and Premium CDNs for WordPress Over the next few sections, we’ll discuss ten of the best free and premium CDNs on the market. We’ll talk about the general features of each solution, along with their pros and cons. Of course, we’ll also tell you the cost of each one. Here’s a summary of our inclusions: StackPath. An enterprise-level solution that comes with similar-sized pricing. Amazon CloudFront. It integrates with AWS, so will be suitable if you use that service. CDN77. This is the only CDN that can work from space! It’s another service that best suits huge networks. Cloudflare. The perennial choice of users with low budgets, Cloudflare is great regardless of whether you’re on the free or premium tier. CDN.net. The pricing is better than other large CDNs, but offers less in the way of features and functionality. jsDelivr. This servers your JavaScript dependencies from a network of servers. Site Accelerator. Automattic’s own solution is an image and file CDN that’s ideal if you’re a Jetpack user. KeyCDN. Good pricing and solid features means KeyCDN is a top-tier solution for all users. Swarmify. A video CDN that works great alongside other full-featured CDNs. BelugaCDN. This budget CDN is an outlier pic if you’re looking for a long-term and cheap CDN. While you might have heard of some solutions here, others could be new. As such, we encourage you to jump around the post and check out whatever CDNs appeal to you. Let’s begin! 1. StackPath First on our list of free and premium CDNs is a solution you may not know in its current guise. StackPath is a rebranded and enhanced MaxCDN – a product we’ve covered on the blog before. Regardless of its name, it’s an industry-standard CDN, trusted by millions of users. StackPath offers high-performance and better security, along with a bunch of other features and specifications: A direct connection to the StackPath network – great for high-traffic applications. The ability to serve Secure Sockets Layers (SSL) certificates from StackPath’s servers, rather than from your ‘origins’. You’re able to set custom rules for your setup, to make sure StackPath works for your needs. StackPath also offers in-depth support across a variety of channels. In the past, we’ve shown how MaxCDN and WordPress integrates, and it will be a similar case for StackPath too. Though, it’s worth noting that we couldn’t find any pricing on StackPath’s website. This often indicates that you’ll need a substantial budget to afford its service. As such, this could be a deal-breaker for you. Try StackPath 2. Amazon CloudFront Amazon (of course) are an integral part of online shopping for millions of users. What’s more, there are various ‘wings’ of the brand, and you can find services such as audiobooks, and cloud computing too. Amazon’s CloudFront is their take on a CDN that’s worth investigating. CloudFront is one part of the whole Amazon Web Services (AWS) offering. As such, your AWS resource allocation includes millions of ‘function invocations’ for the platform. As you’d expect, you’re in good hands with CloudFront. Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Slack, and more all use the CDN to deliver content across the globe. This is down to a robust, enterprise-level set of features and functionality: There’s deep integration with the whole AWS network of

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