Our Smush image compression and optimization plugin has been named Torque’s 2017 Plugin Madness champion! Smush took on WordFence in the final championship round of the annual competition, knocking out the security plugin after winning 69% of the votes. Torque Managing Editor Marie Dodson had a chat with our CEO James Farmer about the competition and […]
Headway Themes Appears to be Dying a Slow Death
It’s been seven months since Grant and Clay Griffiths, founders of Headway Themes, apologized to customers for failing to communicate on a regular basis and provide adequate customer support. In the apology, the founders admit that the company was experiencing financial difficulties and noted that competition in the WordPress drag-and-drop page-builder space was tough. The duo vowed to communicate more, …
10 Reasons Why Your Domains and WordPress Should Be Kept Separate
There are several popular providers that offer both domains and hosting for WordPress. For over a decade, the standard advice has suggested you should forgo convenience and keep your domains and hosting separate. It makes sense to house your site in the same place where you got your domain, especially since many providers offer seamless […]
WordPress Plugin Directory Restores Tabbed Interface
photo credit: Jeffrey Betts Last month the WordPress Plugin Directory relaunched with a new design and improvements to the search algorithm. The new design replaced the plugin pages’ previous tabbed interface with a wall of text, truncated by numerous “read more” links. The outpouring of negative community feedback on the new design overshadowed many of the helpful improvements. Removal of …
10 Top Tools for Setting Up a Testing/Staging Environment for WordPress
In recent posts, I’ve written about creating a staging site on cheap hosting and shown you how to keep that staging site synced with your live site. But what if you want to investigate all the possible approaches to creating a suitable testing and/or staging environment? Creating a duplicate site on your cheap hosting account is […]
BuddyPress 2016 Survey Results Show 54% of Respondents are on PHP 7.0+
The results of the BuddyPress 2016 survey have been published. This year the survey received feedback from 302 respondents in 61 different countries, a 43% increase in responses from 2015. The top five countries represented in the survey include the United States (27.15%), India (7.62%), United Kingdom (6.95%), Germany (6.29%), and Canada (3.64%). English remains the most popular language for …
Improve Your WordPress Site’s Credibility with These 10 Trust Marks
When I think about some of my favorite experiences with companies, there’s one common thread that ties them all together: trust. Without trust, I don’t know that I could ever relax enough to allow an online company to provide me with a product or service. Maybe that’s just me, though I think a lot of […]
Open Collective is a New, Transparent Way to Fund Open Source Projects
Open Collective is a new service that aims to make it easy for individuals, groups, and organizations to raise money in a transparent way. Although many projects have communities ready to offer financial support, the paperwork, taxes, and accounting involved in collecting money under the proper legal entity can be a nearly insurmountable hurdle. “So far, the Internet has been …
Creating an SSL Deployment Strategy for Your WordPress Website
Since January 2017, Google has stepped up its enforcement of “HTTPS everywhere” by identifying websites that don’t have an SSL certificate as unsafe. To make matters worse, the search giant has also changed its algorithm to give a slightly higher page rank to websites that have an SSL certificate installed. If you haven’t yet made the transfer on […]
Automattic to Host a Free, Remote Conference on Design and Exclusion on April 21
Automattic is hosting a free, remote conference called Design and Exclusion on April 21. The event will bring together design and technology experts who will discuss solutions for the ways that digital products and services exclude people. Lead organizer Ashleigh Axios, Design Exponent at Automattic, said inspiration for the event came from the exclusion that is everywhere in the industry. …




