MainWP Blog - Tips & Tricks

A well-known plugin for logging all emails sent from a site is Email Log. The plugin creates a custom database table for storing the log entries of email set in the database table called; wp_email_log If the email log plugin is used on a site which has a decent amount of activity, where a normal to high number of emails are being sent, then the site database can easily be bloated. Also, when the plugin is deactivated and deleted, the Continue reading the post...

WP Optimize was originally a plugin that could easily optimize your child site database and site images. In the most recent 3.0.0 release, WP Optimize now includes support for page caching. To access the site caching feature in WP Optimize, make sure you have updated the most current version. From the admin menu, go to; WP Optimize > Cache Which will show tabs for the following; Page cache Preload In preload, you can set how often the site will have Continue reading the post...

It can be a pain to find out when the last time any of the installed plugins on your child site were last updated, but you may find yourself needing to. You would normally need to go to the plugin’s page on WordPress.org, then check the last updated section to see when the last time the plugin was updated on WordPress.org. Another way to search your installed plugins is to click on the developer tab of the plugin page on Continue reading the post...

WooCommerce is a well-used e-commerce plugin for WordPress. You may find yourself in the position of needing to easily add additional fields to the registration form on My Account on one of your child sites. Luckily, there is an easy way to add additional fields using Advanced Custom Fields. First, you will need to install and activate the ACF plugin on your child site. Next, you will need to create a group of the fields you want to display on Continue reading the post...

If you need a lightweight option for tracking content changes made directly into a site’s database, one plugin which can help is Better Detection. Better Detection is best used In the case where a site might have been hacked, or content for malware was inserted into a site. Once the plugin has been installed and activated, it will add a submenu in wp-admin on; Better Detection Settings The plugin will add two tabs for errors and options. The errors will Continue reading the post...

WordPress (by default) will load a number of assets on the front-end of your Child Site, which will slow it down by adding a number of requests for features you may not be using. Some of the requests that WordPress core adds on load include emojis, embeds, dashicons, jQuery migrate, XML-RPC, pingbacks, generator tag, short link, Windows live writer manifest tag, and the RSD generator. There is an easy-to-use plugin called Better Speed, which will allow you to disable those Continue reading the post...

Yoast SEO is a well-known, easy-to-use plugin for SEO. Yoast SEO has a number of code snippets that can be saved to limit or disable specific functions. MainWP has an amazing extension for code snippets, which easily allows you to apply code snippets to your child sites. We have taken the time to save out a number of handy code snippets for Yoast SEO into the code snippets GitHub repo. A common bug in Yoast SEO is when you update Continue reading the post...

Gravity Forms is a solid, easy-to-use form plugin which has a number of add-ons and free plugins. Gravity Forms has a number of filters, actions, and hooks which allow you to modify most parts, using code snippets. MainWP has an easy-to-use extension for code snippets, so you can save a code snippet to any connected child site. The first of the useful code snippets for Gravity Forms is to change the default save and continue function in Gravity Forms, from Continue reading the post...

Security plugins on your child site can help find security issues and help block specific users, but one thing to be aware of is security plugins which end up causing serious performance issues. One such security plugin is Cerber Security, which has been known to cause performance issues on sites. Ceber Security plugin will end up making a number of request to plugin files, as well as causing high CPU usage, due to the amount of PHP resources that it Continue reading the post...

WooCommerce is a solid, easy-to-use plugin for adding e-commerce to an existing WordPress site. Since WooCommerce is running in WordPress, it means there are many plugin options out there. One useful plugin is WooCommerce Customer History. The plugin will track how customers browse the site, which would allow you to see the products customers are browsing. But when used on a site, the plugin will add a slow admin-ajax.php POST request on every page, which will add a delay of Continue reading the post...