PIE Press News - June
Welcome to the first edition of our PIE Press, our WordPress & WooCommerce Newsletter!
Each month, we will bring you the most important updates, tips, and insights from the world of WordPress and WooCommerce.
Whether you're a seasoned developer, a business owner, or just getting started, our newsletter will keep you informed about the latest trends, plugin updates, security tips, and best practices to help you get the most out of your WordPress and WooCommerce experience.
Let's dive in!...
WordPress turns 21!
WordPress turned 21 on Monday,?27th May, and we?completely forgot!
The platform that revolutionised web development and continues to shape the internet one website at a time is the Big 21.
From its foundation in 2003, WordPress has come a long way.
Starting as a user-friendly blogging tool, it has become the world's most popular content management system. This open-source platform now powers 43.4% of all websites, and it's not stopping there!
WordPress's success isn't just in numbers; it's in the innovation and inclusivity it's brought to the web development community. With over 60,000 free plugins and 12,000 free themes, WordPress has made website creation accessible and personalised like never before.
As WordPress turns 21 and prepares for the release of version 6.6, we're excited about more innovation, improved user experience, and a faster WordPress.Updates are coming to WordPress with version 6.6 on?July 16, 2024.
This new version promises to elevate your WordPress experience with enhanced features and improvements.
Notable changes include:
- Section styles
- Overrides in synced patterns
- An evolved Data Views feature
- Enhancements to the Font Library and Interactivity API.
The design tools also upgrade with grid layout support, more powerful style variations, and more. In addition, specific blocks and attributes of patterns will be synced, providing consistency in design across different content pieces.
As we look ahead, what new features are you excited to see in the upcoming WordPress updates?
WordPress 6.5 now supports the last mod element within sitemap files.
For those who aren't aware, lastmod is a crucial element you can add to your sitemap file to represent the last time that URL was updated. This is significant not only for your audience but also for search engines.
Bing and Google have encouraged this implementation as it improves their crawling efficiency and reduces server load.
So, if you're a WordPress user, this is fantastic news! Since version 6.5, this field is auto-populated for you.
But what if you're not on WordPress?
You can still benefit! Reach out to your developers and explore how to include accurate lastmod dates in your sitemap files.
The integration of lastmod signal within sitemaps is a game-changer, optimising crawling activities, and ensuring content freshness in search engines.
Are you using WordPress 6.5 yet? If not, what's holding you back?
WordPress Studio is now open to Microsoft Windows users
Wondering how to create or test WordPress sites without having to switch on a live website?
Look no further! WordPress has just released its new Windows desktop app named 'Studio'. Previously available only for Apple Mac users, WordPress Studio is now open to Microsoft Windows users who account for over 25% of WordPress developers.
This free and open-source local WordPress development environment allows users to work on their websites from the comfort of their desktops.
The app offers multiple benefits such as superfast WordPress installation, dependency-free building, one-click admin, and the ability to create and share a demo site.
An exciting feature of WordPress Studio is its offering of interactive snapshots of your local sites which you can share with clients or colleagues for feedback.
This allows you to improve the website iteratively based on their comments.
And the best part? You can host five demo sites for free for 7 days after the last update to the demo site.
Is WordPress Studio the solution that developers (and non-developers wanting to learn WordPress) have been waiting for?
Solve your site navigation problem and improve your website's ranking...
A new plugin is here to solve your site navigation problem and potentially improve your website's ranking.
Joost de Valk, the genius behind the highly successful Yoast SEO plugin, has developed yet another solution, this time targeting site architecture.
Site architecture, which is a critical SEO factor, plays an influential role in enhancing the user experience, improving navigation, and aiding Google in identifying your most essential pages for ranking.
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A common way to facilitate this is through 'Tags', which provide contextually relevant links to your audience.
However, over time, many tags turn redundant or link to outdated contents, resulting in thin content pages. This issue inspired Joast to develop a new WordPress plugin titled "The Fewer Tags WordPress Plugin" to remedy this issue.
This plugin automatically removes tags that aren't linking to enough pages, thus normalising internal linking.
The free version of this plugin can auto-remove all tag pages that contain less than ten posts, and this limit can be further lowered to five posts for more stringent content management.
So, if your website is burdened by overlapping and outdated tags, it may be time to download the Fewer Tags Plugin.
What are your thoughts about using this new plugin to solve site navigation issues?
The WordPress Playground
A new tool for WordPress enthusiasts: The WordPress Playground...
An innovative platform to push your creative boundaries, learn, test, and build effortlessly.
WordPress has always been on a mission to empower its users with tools that make website building a breeze.
The recent introduction of the Playground, one of their newest tools.
Playground is a browser-based tool that lets you test, learn, and build on WordPress without the need for any setup.
Want to try out a new theme or plugin?
Build an entire site and host it?
Test your plugin with different WordPress and PHP versions?
Playground provides a conducive environment to do all these and more.
An additional plugin, Playground by WordPress Contributors, allows you to clone your site for in-browser testing.
The best part?
Any changes you make in this Playground version do not affect your actual website.
In an interview, Adam Zieliński, the WordPress Playground Architect, said about the tool “WordPress in a single click.”
No setup steps, no webhost accounts, and no technical jargon.
As the digital landscape evolves, so do the tools we use.
The WordPress Playground is more than a tool; it's a learning playground that encourages exploration, sparks creativity, and fosters innovation.
Are you a WordPress user?
How do you see the WordPress Playground enhancing your website-building experience?
Severe security risk for millions of WordPress sites
Fastly has unveiled a severe security risk for millions of WordPress sites worldwide.
Commonly-used WordPress plugins, including WP Meta SEO, WP Statistics and LiteSpeed Cache, have been found vulnerable to unauthenticated stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks.
These malicious scripts can give unauthorised access to sensitive data, potentially enabling new admin accounts, PHP backdoors, and tracking scripts on your website.
What does this mean for you?
If your website uses these plugins, you could be at risk of data theft, malware distribution, and website defacement.
Fastly has reported that attackers have already begun exploiting these vulnerabilities, injecting harmful scripts and backdoors into websites.
The most effective way to protect your website from such attacks is to ensure your WordPress core, plugins, and themes are updated regularly.
Implementing a Web Application Firewall (WAF), using strong passwords and multi-factor authentication (MFA), and prioritising input validation and sanitisation are also crucial security measures.
Stay vigilant, update your plugins, and strengthen your security.
That's it for this month!
Should you have any questions or queries about any of the stories or WordPress and WooCommerce related issues or want to chat through a forthcoming project, do get in touch below.
All the best
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