MainWP Blog - Sebastian Moran

Over time, users on a site can easily mount up on your child site. As part of a regular cleanup, you can delete inactive users on your child sites, using a couple of plugin options. The first plugin that can be used is the Inactive User Deleter. After the plugin has been installed and activated, it will add a new admin menu item under users in wp-admin; Users > Inactive users You can use different flags (e.g., if a user Continue reading the post...

Making sure that you check new content that is being added on your site is something that you would automatically check that everything has been set on it. For example, does the new post have a catchy title, is SEO set for the post, does the post have a featured image on it. There is a new plugin that will help be able to check content before it is published on a site. After you have installed and activated the Continue reading the post...

“Greater self-esteem produces greater success, and greater success produces more high self-esteem, so it keeps on spiraling up.” -Jack Canfield As human beings, we have a primal need for positive self-esteem; to feel good about ourselves. As people, we are strongly motivated to maintain a sense of consistency among the different belief systems and self-perceptions that make us who we are. Problems arise when there are differences between our individual aspirations, versus our actual behaviors.  When an actual experience falls Continue reading the post...

If you build and maintain sites for customers, site security is a top priority. WordPress moved to a two-week schedule for minor releases after WordPress 5.0 was released. Each WordPress minor release will include security fixes. These same security changes are backported to older versions of WordPress (e.g., in the case of the 4.9.X branch, the security release would be 4.9.10). You need to set a minimum version of WordPress that you will support on client sites, no later than Continue reading the post...

Plugins and themes can heavily use shortcodes on your child sites. Shortcodes are not a problem, but when you have previously used a plugin for forms, then deactivated and deleted the plugin, but the shortcode is still being used on the site but the plugin is not, it becomes a problem. There is an easy way to find which shortcodes are being used on your site, by installing and activating the Shortcodes Finder plugin. After you have installed and activated Continue reading the post...

To reduce the number of spam user account registrations on your child site, it is helpful to verify the validity of emails for those user accounts. There is a new service and WordPress plugin, which will help reduce those spam account registrations. The plugin is called EVA Email Validation. The plugin requires that you sign up for an account at the EVA site. With the plugin installed and activated, it will add a new admin menu for: Settings > EVA Continue reading the post...

Easy access of the menu items on the MainWP Dashboard site would normally be from wp-admin, via the MainWP Dashboard menu. But there are other options if you wanted to be able to have quick access from the admin toolbar. To access MainWP Dashboard menu items on your dashboard site, you will need to install the Toolbar Extras, and the Toolbar Extras for MainWP on your dashboard site. Once those two plugins have been installed, there will be a new Continue reading the post...

In version 5.2 of WordPress, the site health check was added. It allows users to gain information about possible issues, and how to create a debug set of information. In a number of cases, you may want to remove the site health check page from being accessible on a child site, to ensure clients do not have to deal with being misled about issues. It is possible to remove the Site Health check page in wp-admin from showing on a Continue reading the post...

Site images can take up the bulk of the site size of a child site. Additionally, uncompressed images in your site’s media library will cause performance issues on the front-end of the site. One of the solid plugin and services for image optimization is ShortPixel. ShortPixel has a free plan which includes 100 images per month, a number of well-priced monthly plans, and one-time plans which you can pick from. After you have signed up for ShortPixel, you will need Continue reading the post...

W3 Total Cache is a plugin which is used for page caching, minification and Redis integration, but it does come at a price. The codebase is old, and if not configured correctly, it can cause issues on the site it is being used on. Using a different plugin or plugins for page caching, minification, and Redis object caching is possible, but means you need to remove all traces of the W3 Total Cache plugin. W3 Total Cache plugin on deactivation Continue reading the post...