MainWP Blog - Tips & Tricks

If you end up displaying emails on a site they have a high chance of being hit by spam bots, email harvesting, and other robots. But there are a couple of easy to use plugin options to protect email addresses being displayed on your sites. The first email is called Email Address Encoder. Once the plugin has been installed and activated on the site it will add new sub-menu item in wp-admin under; Settings > Email Encoder By default, emails Continue reading the post...

Chances are, you’ll find yourself in a situation where you need to backup a complex menu you’ve created on a child site. WordPress, by default, will not allow you to export menus from; Tools > Export You can use the WPS Menu Exporter plugin to export navigation menu items to an XML file. Install and activate the plugin on the child sites that you need to backup the menus you have created. When you go to wp-admin on the specific Continue reading the post...

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...

MainWP Child 4.0.3, released on October 1st, 2019, introduced one handy filter mainwp_child_branding_init_options that can be used to hide custom branding for a specific user on child sites. Let’s see the usage example: add_filter( 'mainwp_child_branding_init_options', 'mycustom_mainwp_child_branding_init_options' ); function mycustom_mainwp_child_branding_init_options( $option ) {        $current_user_id = get_current_user_id();        if ( $current_user_id == '1' && is_array( $option ) && isset( $option[ 'cancelled_branding' ] ) ) {        $option[ 'cancelled_branding' ] = true;    }        return $option; } In this example, all custom MainWP Branding Extension options 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...

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...