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Recent Posts
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Categories
Tag Archives: bloat
Why Is Google Indexing New Blog Posts So Much Slower in 2026?
“Ask David!” question: "Google used to index my new blog posts faster, what happened?"
If you logged into your Google Search Console this week and saw your brand-new posts sitting in that annoying "Discovered - currently not indexed" status, don't panic. Most likely your website isn't broken, you haven't been blacklisted, and you didn't accidentally flip a "hide from Google" switch.
What you are feeling is a very real, intentional shift in how Google handles the web.
Here is exactly
... Continue readingWooCommerce Subscriptions Cost: Avoid the $279 Add-On Trap
If you are building an online shop with WordPress, the initial pitch sounds incredible: the core software is open-source, and WooCommerce is "completely" free.
But there is a catch that catches almost every small business owner off guard.
The exact moment you try to move away from simple, one-time checkouts and add a recurring revenue stream - like a monthly subscription box, a premium membership, or a repeat service plan - you hit a major financial wall.
Suddenly,
... Continue reading
Posted in Compare Website Builders, E-commerce
Tagged bloat, core web vitals, e-commerce, hacked, open-source, pagespeed insights, performance, plugin vulnerabilities, plugins, stability, subscriptions, third-party plugins, vulnerabilities, woocommerce, WooCommerce subscriptions, WordPress
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The Dogfooding Test: What Happens When Web Platforms Don’t Use Their Own Tools?
Choosing a web development platform usually comes down to reviewing a checklist of features, viewing templates, and reading marketing copy. However, there is a far more reliable metric for evaluating the true capability, speed, and structural integrity of any software platform.
You simply have to look at what the creators of the software use to run their own business.
In
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Posted in Compare Website Builders
Tagged authority, bloat, bugs, conversion rates, core web vitals, credibility, css, database bottlenecks, database glitches, divi, dogfooding, elegant themes, elementor, fast load times, fast website, headless frameworks, html, javascript, latency issues, low maintenance, maintenance, page speeds, scalability, source code, static html, third-party plugins, ux, view page source, Wix, WordPress, WordPress page builders
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The Right Way vs. The Wrong Way to Do Programmatic SEO (pSEO)
If you’ve been tracking digital marketing trends lately, you’ve likely run across the phrase Programmatic SEO (pSEO). The pitch is incredibly seductive: instead of writing blog posts one by one, you connect a database to a page template, press a button, and instantly deploy thousands of pages targeting long-tail search terms.
Traffic multiplies overnight, you dominate the search engine results pages (SERPs), and you win.
Except, that’s exactly how you get your entire domain penalized and deindexed.
... Continue reading
Posted in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Tagged algorithm changes, authority, automated page generation, bloat, core web vitals, database, duplicate content, google algorithm, google algorithm penalties, Google Search Console, google search engine ranking, indexing, long-tail keywords, organic traffic, plugins, programmatic seo, pseo, scalable, scaled content abuse, search engine results pages, seo, serps, spam, thin content, third-party plugins, trust, trustworthy, url structure, visibility, webflow, WordPress
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Is Your Google Search Console “Average Position” Lying to You?
You log into Google Search Console (GSC) and see massive numbers under your daily impressions. Your site is popping up in thousands of search results! Then, you check your sitewide Average Position metric. It hovers somewhere between 10 and 15. On really good days, you might even celebrate hitting the coveted single digits - positions 7–9.
But then you look at your actual traffic, and the click count is surprisingly low.
With AI Overviews and Featured Snippets now eating up
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Posted in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Website Traffic
Tagged ai overviews, average position, bloat, clean code, click-through rate, clicks, ctr, fast loading times, fast website, featured snippets, Google Search Console, gsc, html, impressions, long-tail keywords, plugins, ranking position, search engine ranking, seo, third-party plugins
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Your Website is Your Silent Salesperson: Is “Basic” Costing You Money?
Should I upgrade my website?
Every dollar matters when you’re building a small business. Early on, it’s natural to look for the fastest and cheapest way to get online, which is why so many businesses start with “basic” website templates.
At first glance, these platforms seem practical. They’re quick, affordable, and require little technical knowledge. But over time, a more important question emerges:
What is your current website actually costing you in lost trust, missed leads, and reduced conversions?
Because
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Posted in Ask David!, Business, Website Design
Tagged bloat, bounce rate, conversion optimization, conversions, convert leads, core web vitals, crawlability, custom websites, design trends, digital marketing, fast load times, fast website, first impressions, indexing, mobile friendly, online business, plugins, responsive, roi, scalability, seo, slow website, small business, templates, trustworthy, up-to-date, ux design, visibility, web development, website builder, website design, website performance, website ROI
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The $12,000 AI Employee: Productivity Boost or the Next Plugin Bloat?
Some companies are now spending over $1,000 per month per developer on AI tools.
That’s not a typo.
What started as a $20/month productivity boost - something like a single assistant helping write code or debug faster - has quietly evolved into a full-stack expense category. Multiple models. Multiple tools. Agent frameworks. Token-based billing. Usage caps.
Individually, each cost seems small.
Together, they’re starting to look a lot like something we’ve seen before.
