-
Recent Posts
- 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
- Do Professional Writers Still Need SEO in the Age of AI?
- Search Engine First vs. People First Content: Why Generic FAQ Dumps Harm Your SEO
- Looking for a Website Builder Without AI? Which One Should You Choose?
- Keyword Cannibalization: How to Find and Fix the Pages Stealing Your Own Google Traffic
- Why Great Content Gets Stuck on Page 8 (And How to Fix It)
- Why MySQL FULLTEXT Search Returns 0 Results (And How to Fix It)
- The Reality of Domain Speculation on New TLD Launches: Is It Still Worth It?
- The Hidden Domain Name Lock-In: Which Registrars Restrict Nameservers?
- Paying $10,000 a Month for SEO? Here’s How to Tell If You’re Getting Your Money’s Worth
- Introducing New WordPress Magazine Layouts in UltimateWB 9 (With Early Access)
- How to Fix the WordPress “Critical Error” on the Widgets Page After a PHP Upgrade
- The Hidden Risk of SaaS Website Builders: Lessons from the Recent Wix Outage
Categories
Tag Archives: WordPress
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
Leave a comment
The WordPress Events Calendar Pro Price Hike – and the Alternative
If you manage a WordPress site, you’ve likely seen the headlines - or worse, the new invoice. The Events Calendar Pro (TEC Pro), long considered the "standard" WordPress plugin for event management, has completed its transition into the Liquid Web / StellarWP corporate machine.
For many admins, the result is a massive price hike that changes the math of running a WordPress site. What was once a community-focused tool is now a
... Continue reading
Posted in Compare Website Builders
Tagged acquisitions, bait-and-switch, bait-and-switch pricing, Events Calendar, Events Calendar Pro, liquid web, m&a, mergers, ownership, paywall, saas, stellarwp, tec, tec pro, the events calendar, the events calendar pro, third-party plugins, WordPress, wordpress vs ultimatewb
Leave a comment
Lost Your Work in Squarespace, Wix, or WordPress? Here’s Why It Happens (and How to Prevent It)
The Hidden Risk Most Website Builders Don’t Talk About
Is there anything more frustrating than seeing an “Unresponsive Page” error after hours of work?
You refresh… and everything is gone.
For users of Squarespace, Wix, and WordPress, this isn’t rare - it’s a well-documented, real-world problem.
And it almost always happens at the worst time:
- deep into a long editing session
- working on a complex page
- right when you’re in a productive flow
The issue isn’t just bugs.
👉
... Continue reading
Posted in Compare Website Builders
Tagged autosave, CMS comparison, control, Gutenberg, Gutenberg issues, lost website edits, lost work, page history, performance, reliability, session timeouts, squarespace, Squarespace autosave, tinymce, web development, website builder comparison, website builder crashes, website editing, website performance, website reliability, Wix, Wix session timeout, WordPress, WordPress errors
Leave a comment
WordPress Kirki Customizer Takeover: The Automatic Bait-and-Switch Plugin Trend
The WordPress community is currently witnessing a troubling and "despicable" trend: the acquisition and subsequent "bloating" of popular, lightweight plugins. This isn't just a manual update issue - it is a systemic problem where sites are being fundamentally changed through automatic updates without the owner’s consent.
The recent crisis involving the Kirki Customizer framework and the historical "bait-and-switch" of WP User Avatar serve as a reminder in why the WordPress "plugin stack" model is a risky gamble for
... Continue reading
Posted in Compare Website Builders, Technology in the News, Website Security
Tagged auto-update, bloat, BuddyX, Droip, fatal errors, feature creep, Kirki Customizer, plugins, ProfilePress, Reign, security issues, security liability, slow website, Themeum, third-party plugins, website security, WordPress, WP User Avatar, XStore
Leave a comment
How to Create a Forum with a Membership Paywall: 2026 Platform Comparison
If you have spent any time browsing Reddit for website advice lately, you’ve likely seen the same question over and over: “I need a structured forum with a paywall, but I’m tired of the technical headaches.”
The common suggestions - Wix, WordPress, and standalone scripts - fail to meet the actual needs of a niche community builder in 2026. Here is the definitive breakdown of why these legacy platforms fall short, and what the true alternative is.
What a Community
Posted in Apps Comparison, Ask David!, Compare Website Builders
Tagged BuddyBoss, captcha, circle, discord, exploit, forum, memberpress, mighty networks, organic traffic, paywall, phpbb, plugin compatibility, plugins, saas, search engine optimization, security issues, seo, slack, spam, subscriptions, third party plugins, vbulletin, vps, vulnerability, Wix, wix forum, Wix Groups vs Forums, WordPress, wordpress security, xenforo
Leave a comment
How to Fix: WordPress Error Class ‘C_NextGen_Settings’ Not Found
If your WordPress site is currently down with the fatal error: Class 'C_NextGen_Settings' not found, as the saying goes, you are not alone.
Just a white screen, staring at you - not so much the "White Screen of Death" (WSoD) - you get a clue on what is causing it by the error message displayed:
Error thrown
Class 'C_NextGen_Settings' not found
On every single page. You cannot even login to your WordPress admin panel.
The formatting of the error
... Continue readingThe WordPress Backdoor Scandal: Why 30+ “Trusted” Plugins Just Turned Malicious
This recent security breach in the WordPress ecosystem is a massive wake-up call for website owners. A portfolio of over 30 plugins was sold to a new owner who immediately weaponized them with backdoors.
If you use UltimateWB, you are in a much safer position than the average WordPress user - and here is why.
The Attack: What Happened?
A portfolio of 30+ plugins (formerly under "WP Online Support," now "Essential Plugin") was sold on Flippa for a six-figure
... Continue readingHow to Automatically Share Your WordPress Blog Posts to Instagram
Sharing your blog posts on Instagram is a great way to increase reach and engagement - but manually posting every article can be time-consuming. With this custom WordPress plugin, you can automatically share posts to Instagram manually with a button, or automatically with daily posts. Plus, it works even if your posts don’t have images!
In this tutorial, we’ll guide you through setting up the plugin, configuring settings, and making sure every post has a valid image.
Step
... Continue reading
Posted in Social Media, WordPress Customization
Tagged auto post to Instagram, automatic blog sharing, custom wordpress plugin, daily Instagram posts, engagement, font, generate Instagram image, Instagram automation, plugin code, reach, social media integration, ttf, WordPress, WordPress Instagram plugin, wordpress plugin, WordPress plugin development, WordPress tips, WordPress tutorial
Leave a comment
Do you really own your WordPress website?
Popular Plugins Are Subscription-Based and SaaS - How to Get the Same Features Built-In
When you first install WordPress, it feels free, flexible, and entirely under your control.
And at the core, it is.
The Full Short Answer: Yes, you own the core open-source WordPress code and your database content. However, if your business relies on premium subscription plugins, SaaS integrations, or proprietary themes to function, your ownership is functionally compromised. If you stop paying annual licensing fees, your site
... Continue reading
Posted in Ask David!, Compare Website Builders
Tagged bloat, performance, plugin dependencies, plugins, saas, saas plugins, scripts, self-hosted websites, third-party plugins, website maintenance costs, website ownership, WooCommerce subscriptions, WordPress, wordpress plugins, WordPress scalability, WordPress updates
Leave a comment
The Bluesky Blackout: Why Your Digital Presence Needs a Home Base
If you’ve been on Bluesky lately, you’ve spent more time looking at blank screens than actual content. On April 16, 2026, yet another major outage - this time triggered by a massive DDoS attack - left thousands of users staring at empty feeds.
It’s easy to dismiss this as just another tech glitch. But if your online presence lives entirely on a third-party platform, a "failed to load" message is more than a nuisance. It is a blackout. It is
... Continue reading