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Recent Posts
- Could AI Make Humans Extinct Within the Next Decade?
- Is Weebly Getting Out of the Website-Builder Business?
- Are You “Leaking SEO” by Linking to Other Websites?
- Wix Harmony Is Now in Google Gemini. So Why Are Users Still Complaining?
- When AI Sounds Confident but Gets It Wrong: The Mount Shasta Rescue
- When AI Agents Start Working Together, Who Is Really in Control?
- WPForms and Rank Math: Did These WordPress Plugins Create a Backdoor With Admin Access?
- AI Can Text Your Friends for You. Wait, Who Am I Talking To?
- Bill Gates Is Betting on AI to Help Healthcare – While Warning About What AI Could Do to Jobs
- Wix Says AI Website Owners Should Care About Portability. There’s Just One Problem.
- WordPress 7.1 Broke WP Rocket: The Fatal Error and the Plugin Problem
- WordPress vs. UltimateWB for an Artist Website: Which Should You Choose?
- Thinking About Switching From WordPress? What Should You Consider Before You Move?
- The Airtable Acquisition Raises a Bigger Question: Do You Really Own the Software Your Business Runs On?
- How to Use Google Search Console’s New Generative AI Data to Improve Your SEO
- How to Update the Same Website Content on Multiple Pages at Once
- Discovered vs. Crawled Not Indexed in Google Search Console: What’s the Difference and How to Fix Each
- The Small Business Guide to Auditing Google Ads and Website Costs
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Tag Archives: php
Wix Harmony Is Now in Google Gemini. So Why Are Users Still Complaining?
Imagine you’re already chatting with Gemini or ChatGPT about your website.
Maybe you’re asking it what your homepage should look like. Maybe you’re asking it to come up with content for your business. Or maybe you simply tell it, “I need a website for my landscaping business.”
Now imagine the AI says, essentially, Sure. Let’s build it.
On August 24, 2026, Wix announced that people can connect Wix to Google Gemini and use @Wix to create a website with Wix
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Posted in AI, Compare Website Builders, Technology in the News
Tagged ai, AI website builder, bloat, customizable, gemini, Google Gemini, php, Wix, wix alternative, wix editor, Wix Gemini integration, Wix Harmony, Wix Harmony complaints, Wix Harmony problems, Wix Harmony review, wix limitations, wix studio, Wix website builder
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WPForms and Rank Math: Did These WordPress Plugins Create a Backdoor With Admin Access?
There is a new kind of WordPress security issue that deserves a lot more attention.
It isn’t simply a case of a hacker discovering a vulnerability in a plugin.
It is a plugin itself introducing a mechanism that can give an outside service or AI system the ability to act on your WordPress site.
And two major WordPress plugins have recently put this issue in the spotlight: Rank Math and WPForms.
The situations are not identical, and it would
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Posted in AI, Compare Website Builders, Technology in the News, Website Security
Tagged administrative token, ai, ai agent, ai assistant, ai chat assistant, ai features, Awesome Motive, backdoor, claude, cursor, forum analytics, MCP, metadata, onboarding wizard, php, plugins, rank math, rank math support agent, schema, Search Engine Journal, security vulnerabilities, seo, seo plugin, setup checklist, Sybre Waaijer, third-party plugins, vulnerabilities, WAP, website security, WordPress, wordpress alternative, wordpress plugins, wordpress security, wp forms, wp forms lite
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Looking for a Website Builder Without AI? Which One Should You Choose?
If you have spent any time recently searching for a way to build a website, you have probably noticed a pattern: almost every major platform is pushing “AI website generators” or “AI website builders.”
They promise you can type in a single prompt and have a complete, published website in thirty seconds. But as hundreds of creators, developers, and small business owners on Reddit and web design forums are pointing out, the reality is rarely that simple.
If you are
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Posted in AI, Compare Website Builders
Tagged ai costs, AI website builder, all-in-one website builder, backend, backlinks, bloat, brand consistency, brand identity, branding, clean code, colors, control, css, customizable, customization, easy website builder, fast website, flexibility, fonts, high-quality content, html, no ai, ownership, performance, php, Prompt-Based Web Design, saas, server access, subscription fees, third-party plugins, typography, user experience, website builder without ai
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How to Fix the WordPress “Critical Error” on the Widgets Page After a PHP Upgrade
Upgrading your server to PHP 8+ is essential for site performance and security, but it can occasionally trigger unexpected backend crashes. A common issue after a PHP upgrade is navigating to Appearance > Widgets (/wp-admin/widgets.php) only to be greeted by the dreaded message:
"There has been a critical error on this website. Please check your site admin email inbox for instructions."
If your post editor works fine but your widget manager suddenly throws a critical error, the culprit is almost
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Posted in WordPress Customization
Tagged array_merge, backend crash, cpanel, critical error, database, fatal exception, file manager, ftp, mysql, php, php 8, php error message, php upgrade, phpmyadmin, sidebars_widgets, site performance, sql query, strict typing, TypeError, website security, wordpress debug mode, WP_DEBUG, wp_options, wp-config.php
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The Latest WordPress Core Exploit (wp2shell) and Why Forced Updates Break Websites
One of the biggest promises of WordPress is automatic security updates. When a critical vulnerability is discovered, millions of sites can be patched automatically without site owners having to lift a finger.
But when those background updates unexpectedly break active websites, that convenience quickly becomes a liability.
That is exactly what unfolded following the recently disclosed wp2shell vulnerability chain.
While issuing rapid patches was the right decision from a security standpoint, the automated push inevitably triggered unexpected compatibility crashes, fatal
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Posted in Compare Website Builders, Website Security
Tagged Allowed memory size exhausted, automatic security updates, broken wordpress website, cache, cdn, fatal errors, forced updates, max_execution_time, memory_limit, mysql, php, plugin, sql, sql injection, third-party plugins, WordPress, wordpress bugs, wordpress core, wordpress core exploit, wordpress core vulnerability, wordpress hacked, WordPress REST API, wordpress vulnerabilities, wp2shell
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How to Safely Merge Categories in WordPress Using PHP (Free Script)
As a WordPress site grows, category structures can easily become bloated, redundant, or outdated. Reorganizing your taxonomy manually through the WordPress admin dashboard works fine for a handful of posts, but if you need to merge hundreds - or thousands - of articles from one category into another, doing it manually is a slow, tedious chore.
While plugins exist for taxonomy management, adding extra
... Continue readingHow to Stop High Server Load from Distributed Botnets, Scrapers, and Database Queue Locks
When a server load spikes to 30, 50, or 100+, most sysadmins panic and start haphazardly restarting services or blocking random IP addresses. However, modern attacks are rarely as simple as a single bad IP.
Today’s botnets use distributed Layer 7 (HTTP) floods, rotating through hundreds of unique IPs with only 1 connection each, exploiting web server application queues, fake WordPress scanners, background AJAX polling scripts, and WordPress admin-ajax.php endpoints that lock up MySQL.
This comprehensive guide covers how to diagnose,
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Posted in Coding, Server Admin & Security
Tagged .htaccess, 127.0.0.1, 403 Forbidden errors, 404 errors, ajax, ajax polling, ajax requests, apache, apache rate limiting, automated system tasks, bingbot, botnets, cache, caching, cpu, cpu load, cron jobs, csf, csf whitelist, CT_BLOCK_TIME, CT_LIMIT, CT_PORTS, database polling, database queue locks, ddos attacks, distributed attack, Googlebot, high server load, http, ip address, Jeypack, layer 7, linux, load averages, mibew messenger, mod_evasive, mysql, operator refresh time, php, processes, RAM, scrapers, script, server attack, server load, server load spike, subnet attack, sysadmin commands, whitelist, whm, xmlrpc.php
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What is the Biggest Drawback of Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, and WordPress?
We recently received an excellent question from a reader who is trying to cut through the marketing noise to choose the right website platform:
“Ask David!” question: "I am researching which website builder I should use and found UltimateWB. Can you tell me what you think is the biggest drawback of Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, and WordPress?"
If you only read the homepages of the major website builders, everything looks flawless. They all promise fast, beautiful, and easy-to-build sites.
But as
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Posted in Ask David!, Compare Website Builders
Tagged absolute positioning, absolute positioning vs responsive design, bloat, css, fast website, high maintenance, html, learning curve, open-source, php, plugin, redesign website, responsive, saas, security risks, slow website, squarespace, third-party plugins, webflow, Wix, WordPress
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Over 1.6 Million WordPress Sites Hit: The OptinMonster and ShapedPlugin Supply Chain Attacks
For years, the gold-standard advice for WordPress website security has been simple: If you want to keep your site safe, stick to major, highly reputable brand names. A massive company has the infrastructure, team, and budget to audit their code and protect your perimeter.
But recent events have exposed a massive flaw in that logic.
When hackers shift from attacking individual sites to targeting the software creators themselves, relying on a big brand's reputation no longer guarantees safety. In fact,
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Posted in Compare Website Builders, Technology in the News, Website Security
Tagged 2FA, Awesome Motive, backdoor, cdn, database, Easy Digital Downloads, javascript, MalCare, malware, optinmonster, php, Product Slider, PushEngage, Real Testimonials Pro, shapedplugin, Smart Post Show Pro, supply chain attacks, TOTP, updraftplus, vulnerability, woocommerce, wordfence, Wordfence Login Security, WordPress, WP 2FA
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The Developer’s Paradox: When No-Code Takes Longer Than Code
When searching for a development platform that wouldn't restrict their workflow, one developer reached out via our “Ask David!” support form with a familiar frustration:
"I tried Webflow for a client project. I'm a developer, and I found myself constantly fighting the interface instead of building the site. I just want to make sure that UltimateWB
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Posted in Ask David!, Compare Website Builders
Tagged bloat, cms, css, css gradients, database, div, gradients, html, javascript, linear-gradient, mysql, no-code, no-code website builder, php, plugins, third-party plugins, webflow
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