Why every website needs a 50,000 mile checkup

Oil Change by Flickr user Nenad Stojkovic

Hey, if WordPress is so great why do so many web developers offer maintenance plans? Is WordPress really that insecure? Fragile? Hackable? No! A well-built WordPress site on a good hosting plan is surprisingly secure. So… why should you still get a good WordPress maintenance plan? Here’s how I explain things to my clients: WordPress…

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Are ThemeForest and other paid themes really that bad?

In a private Facebook group about WordPress speed someone asked an excellent question: I have a question about paid templates for WordPress, e.g. Themeforest.Is it true that cool looking templates, with e.g. animated buttons or an interesting mouse cursor, are definitely slower and less optimized than the simpler, more standard-looking ones? It’s true that there…

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How cheap is “cheap” hosting vs a “cheap” VPN?

We’ve updated this post with new hosting information In a private Facebook group for WordPress hosting someone who’s trying to save as much money as possible asked a specific question about two hosting plans. They’d initially bought a plan from commodity provider HostGator but had been advised to switch a more premium SiteGround account. It…

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Good reasons not to rely (completely) on backup from (even really great) hosting plans

So another participant in a private Facebook group for WordPress users echoed something I’d said about the importance of making your own backups. Similar to David Innes I use [a commercial backup plugin] for Scheduled backups ([cloud-based storage firm] is my choice, but there are many others)…And a lot of people when backups have been discussed…

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About WordPress and image compression

A contributor to a WordPress Facebook had a question about image compression:  I have [an image-optimization] plugin installed to compress my images and I noticed while doing a bulk compression that there are multiples of the same image (in different sizes) that it compressed. I did not do this manually. It seems that something created…

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