Sep 19 2025
Internal WordPress Conflict Spills Out Into The Open via @sejournal, @martinibuster

An internal dispute within the WordPress core contributor team spilled into the open, causing major confusion among people outside the organization. The friction began with a post from more than a week ago and culminated in a remarkable outburst, exposing latent tensions within the core contributor community.

Mary Hubbard Announcement Triggers Conflict

The incident seemingly began with a September 15 announcement by Mary Hubbard, the Executive Director of WordPress. She announced a new Core Program Team that is meant to improve how Core contributor groups coordinate with each other and improve collaboration between Core contributor teams. But this was just the trigger for the conflict, which was actually part of a longer-term friction.

Hubbard explained the role of the new team:

“The goal of this team is to strengthen coordination across Core, improve efficiency, and make contribution easier. It will focus on documenting practices, surfacing roadmaps, and supporting new teams with clear processes.

The Core Program Team will not set product direction. Each Core team remains autonomous. The Program Team’s role is to listen, connect, and reduce friction so contributors can collaborate more smoothly.”

That announcement was met with the following response by a member of the documentation team (Jenni McKinnon), which was eventually removed:

“For the public record: This Core Program Team announcement was published during an active legal and procedural review that directly affects the structural governance of this project.

I am not only subject to this review—I am one of the appointed officials overseeing it under my legal duty as a recognized lead within SSRO (Strategic Social Resilience Operations). This is a formal governance, safety, and accountability protocol—bound by national and international law—not internal opinion.

Effective immediately:
• This post and the program it outlines are to be paused in full.
• No action is to be taken under the name of this Core Program Team until the review concludes and clearance is formally issued.
• Mary Hubbard holds no valid authority in this matter. Any influence, instruction, or decision traced to her is procedurally invalid and is now part of a legal evidentiary record.
• Direction, oversight, and all official governance relating to this matter is held by SSRO, myself, and verified leadership under secured protocol.

This directive exists to protect the integrity of WordPress contributors, prevent governance sabotage, and ensure future decisions are legally and ethically sound.

Further updates will be provided only through secured channels or when review concludes. Thank you for respecting this freeze and honoring the laws and values that underpin open source.”

The post was followed by astonishment and questions in various Slack and Facebook WordPress groups. The roots of the friction begin with events from a week ago centered on documentation team participation.

Documentation Team Participation

A September 10 post by documentation team member Estela Rueda informed the Core contributor community that the WordPress 6.9 release squad is experimenting with a smaller team that excludes documentation leads, with only a temporary “Docs Liaison” in place. Her post explained why this exclusion is a problem, detailed the importance of documentation in the release cycle, and urged that a formal documentation lead role be reinstated in future releases.

Estela Rueda wrote (in the September 10 post):

“The release team does not include representation from the documentation team. Why is this a problem? Because often documentation gets overlooked in release planning and project-wide coordination: Documentation is not a “nice-to-have,” it is a survival requirement. It’s not something we might do if someone has time; it’s something we must do — or the whole thing breaks down at scale. Removing the role from the release squad, we are not just sending the message that documentation is not important, we are showing new contributors that working on docs will never get them to the top of the credits page, therefore showing that we don’t even appreciate contributing to the Docs.”

Jenni McKinnon, who is a member of the docs team, responded with her opinions:

“This approach isn’t in line with genuine open-source values — it’s exclusionary and risks reinforcing harmful, cult-like behaviors.

By removing the Docs Team from the release squad under the guise of “reducing overhead,” this message sends a stark signal: documentation is not essential. That’s not just unfair — it actively erodes the foundations of transparency, contributor morale, and equitable participation.”

She added further comments, culminating in the post below that accused WordPress Executive Director Mary Hubbard of being behind a shift toward “top-down” control:

“While this post may appear collaborative on the surface, it’s important to state for the record — under Chatham House Rule, and in protection of those who have been directly impacted — that this proposal was pushed forward by Mary Hubbard, despite every Docs Team lead, and multiple long-time contributors, expressing concerns about the ethics, sustainability, and power dynamics involved.

Framing this as ‘streamlining’ or ‘experimenting’ is misleading. What’s happening is a shift toward top-down control and exclusion, and it has already resulted in real harm, including abusive behavior behind the scenes.”

Screenshot Of September 10 Comment

Documentation Team Member Asked To Step Away

Today’s issue appears to have been triggered by a post from earlier today announcing that Jenni McKinnon was asked to “step away.”

Milana Cap wrote a post today titled, “The stepping away of a team member” that explained why McKinnon was asked to step away:

“The Documentation team’s leadership has asked Jenni McKinnon to step away from the team.

Recent changes in the structure of the WordPress release squad started a discussion about the role of the Documentation team in documenting the release. While the team was working with the Core team, the release squad, and Mary Hubbard to find a solution for this and future releases, Jenni posted comments that were out of alignment with the team, including calls for broad changes across the project and requests to remove certain members from leadership roles.

This ran counter to the Documentation team’s intentions. Docs leadership reached out privately in an effort to de-escalate the situation and asked Jenni to stop posting such comments, but this behaviour did not stop. As a result, the team has decided to ask her to step away for a period of time to reassess her involvement. We will work with her to explore rejoining the team in the future, if it aligns with the best outcomes for both her and the team.”

And that post may have been what precipitated today’s blow-up in the comments section of Mary Hubbard’s post.

Zooming Out: The Big Picture

What happened today is an isolated incident. But some in the WordPress community have confided their opinion that the WordPress core technical debt has grown larger and expressed concern that the big picture is being ignored. Separately, in comments on her September 10 post (Docs team participation in WordPress releases), Estela Rueda alluded to the issue of burnout among WordPress contributors:

“…the number of contributors increases in waves depending on the releases or any special projects we may have going. The ones that stay longer, we often feel burned out and have to take breaks.”

Taken together, to an outsider, today’s friction contributes to the appearance of cracks starting to show in the WordPress project.

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Sep 15 2025
WP Engine Vs. Automattic: Rulings Preserve WP Engine’s Lawsuit via @sejournal, @martinibuster

The judge overseeing the legal battle between WP Engine versus Automattic and Matt Mullenweg issued a ruling that fully dismissed two of WP Engine’s claims, allowed several to proceed, and gave WP Engine the chance to amend others.

Nine Claims Allowed To Proceed – One Partially Survives

Counts 1 & 2

  • Count 1: Intentional Interference with Contractual Relations
  • Count 2: Intentional Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage

Those two counts survived the motion to dismiss. That means WP Engine can try to prove that Automattic/Mullenweg interfered with its contracts and business opportunities. This shows that the judge didn’t throw out WP Engine’s entire “you’re sabotaging our business” approach. If WP Engine wins on these counts they could be eligible to receive damages.

In total, the judge’s order allowed nine claims to proceed and one to partially survive.

These are the remaining claims that survived and are allowed to proceed:

  • CFAA Unauthorized Access (Count 19):
    Tied to allegations that Automattic and Mullenweg covertly replaced WP Engine’s ACF plugin with their own SCF plugin on customer sites without authorization.
  • Unfair Competition (Count 5)
    Connected to claims that Automattic’s conduct, including unauthorized plugin replacement and trademark issues, amounted to unlawful and unfair business practices under California law.
  • Defamation (Count 9) & Trade Libel (Count 10)
    Statements on WordPress.org alleging WP Engine offered a “cheap knock-off” of WordPress and that WP Engine delivered a “bastardized simulacra of WordPress’s GPL code.”
  • Slander (Count 11):
    Based on public remarks Mullenweg made at WordCamp US and in a livestreamed interview where Mullenweg described WP Engine as “parasitic” and damaging to the open-source community.
  • Lanham Act (Count 17: Unfair Competition) & Lanham Act (Count 18: False Advertising)
    Automattic and Mullenweg filed a motion to partially dismiss these counts but the motion was not granted, so these two counts move forward.

This is the claim that partially survived:

Promissory Estoppel (Count 6)
This is based on specific promises, such as free plugin hosting on wordpress.org, which the court found definite enough to proceed, while broader statements like “everyone is welcome” were too vague to support the claim.

Two Claims Dismissed With Leave To Amend

The judge dismissed two of the claims with “leave to amend,” which means the court found an issue with how WP Engine pleaded their claims. The claims were not legally sufficient, but the judge gave WP Engine the option to update its complaint to fix the problems. If WP Engine amends successfully, those claims can return to the case.

The two claims dismissed with leave to amend are:

1. Antitrust claims of monopolization, attempted monopolization, and illegal tying (Sherman Act & Cartwright Act).

On the antitrust claims, the Court found WP Engine failed to define a relevant market, stating:

“…consumers entering the WordPress ecosystem by electing a WordPress web content management system would know they were locked-in to WordPress aftermarkets. Mullenweg’s purported deception and extortionate acts did not change that fundamental operating principle of the WordPress marketplace.”

2. CFAA extortion claim (Count 3): WP Engine alleged Automattic threatened to block wordpress.org access and demanded licensing fees.

Regarding the extortion claims, WP Engine alleged that Automattic and Mullenweg violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) by threatening to block WP Engine’s access to wordpress.org and demanding licensing fees.

The Court dismissed this claim with leave to amend, finding the allegations did not sufficiently establish “extortion” under CFAA standards. The judge noted that merely threatening to block access, even coupled with demands for licensing, did not meet the statutory requirements as pled. However, WP Engine has been given time to amend the complaint (“with leave to amend”).

Two Claims Fully Dismissed

Two of WP Engine’s claims were fully dismissed:

  • Count 4: Attempted Extortion (California Penal Code)
  • Count 16: Trademark Misuse

Count 4
Count 4 was dismissed because the California Penal Code allows government prosecutors to bring criminal charges for attempted extortion, but it does not give private parties like WP Engine the right to sue under that statute. The dismissal was not about whether Automattic’s conduct could be considered extortion but about whether WP Engine had the legal authority to use that law in a civil case.

Count 16
The court dismissed Count 16 because trademark misuse is only recognized as a defense, not as a lawsuit that can be filed on its own. WP Engine may still raise trademark misuse later if Automattic tries to enforce trademarks against it.

The exact wording is:

“With no authority from WPEngine that authorizes pleading declaratory judgment of trademark misuse as a standalone cause of action rather than an affirmative defense, the Court GRANTS Defendants’ motion to dismiss Count 16, without prejudice to WPEngine asserting it as an affirmative defense if appropriate later in this litigation.”

Post By Matt Mullenweg About The Ruling

Automattic CEO and WordPress co-founder posted an upbeat blog post about the court ruling that offered a simplified summary of the court order, which is fine, but simplification can leave out details. He’s right that the decision narrows the case and that the attempted extortion claim is out for good.

He wrote:

“…the court dismissed several of WP Engine and Silver Lake’s most serious claims — antitrust, monopolization, and extortion have been knocked out!”

The attempted extortion under California Penal Code (Count 4) was indeed “knocked out.” But the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) extortion claim (Count 3) was dismissed with leave to amend, meaning WP Engine has the opportunity to try again.

The antitrust and monopolization claims (Counts 12–15) were also dismissed but with leave to amend, meaning they too are not permanently gone.

His post is technically correct.

But the simplification leaves out what the judge allowed to move forward:

Automattic’s motion to dismiss Count 1 (intentional interference with contractual relations) and Count 2 (intentional interference with prospective economic relations) were denied, and both will move forward, potentially making WP Engine eligible to receive damages if they win on these counts.

Then there are the others that are moving forward:

  • CFAA (Count 19): This is significant. It alleges Automattic covertly swapped WP Engine’s widely-used ACF plugin with its own SCF plugin on customer sites without consent. The court found these allegations plausible enough to move forward
  • Unfair Competition (Count 5): Connected to claims that Automattic’s conduct, including unauthorized plugin replacement and trademark issues, amounted to unlawful and unfair business practices under California law. (The court specifically pointed to the surviving CFAA and Lanham Act claims as the legal basis for letting this proceed.)
  • Defamation (Count 9) & Trade Libel (Count 10): Based on statements on WordPress.org alleging WP Engine offered a “cheap knock-off” of WordPress and that WP Engine delivered a “bastardized simulacra of WordPress’s GPL code.”
  • Slander (Count 11): Grounded in public remarks Mullenweg made at WordCamp US and in a livestreamed interview where he described WP Engine as “parasitic” and damaging to the open-source community.
  • Lanham Act (Count 17: Unfair Competition) & Lanham Act (Count 18: False Advertising): Defendants sought partial dismissal, but the court declined. Both counts remain live and move forward.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Kaspars Grinvalds

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Sep 12 2025
3 Different Ways To Do Bulk Updates On WordPress

One of the strengths of WordPress is its extensibility. You can run everything from e-shops and booking systems to massive WordPress multisites from one instance of WordPress.

Another is that it’s a database and robust PHP-based programming language, which means that running a bunch of updates on a site is remarkably straightforward.

In this post, I’m going to present three different ways to bulk update WordPress.

A quick word of caution before starting to look at this: Things like misaligned fields or plugin conflicts could result in unintended results, so if you’re doing any large-scale updates, be sure to back up beforehand.

Also, for the content updates, it’s worth running a small test. Ten or so posts as a tester is a good way to start, before running it through the entire site.

1. How To Bulk Update Content On A WordPress Website

Simple Changes To Existing Content

If you want to make simple changes to existing content, such as bulk change the author, status, or taxonomies on a number of pieces of content, one thing you can do is use WordPress’ pre-existing bulk editing component.

From the edit posts/pages page, you can tick individual posts and pages and select “Edit.”

From there, you can set all posts’ categories, tags, statuses, and other information quickly and easily. Once done, click the “Update” button.

The WordPress bulk category and tag editorScreenshot from WordPress, August 2025

Please note: This will replace all categories, but tags will be added. This is probably the most common way of editing content, which you probably already know about!

Importing And Exporting Content

Let’s say you want to bulk add WordPress content on a WordPress website.

The most common version is that you want to import a set of blog posts, or indeed, you have a list of products within a spreadsheet that you want to import into a system like WooCommerce; it depends on where you’re importing from.

If you’re combining a WordPress export and importing it into another blog, the best way is to use the default WordPress Importer plugin.

If you’re moving content between WordPress sites, use the default WordPress Importer. It reads WXR (.xml) export files and can optionally download and import file attachments.

If you are using WooCommerce, then the best course of action would be to use the default WooCommerce product importer.

It’s pretty robust and can take a standard CSV, XML file, or spreadsheet and import it. You can map these fields to WooCommerce fields, which is a bit more work.

A screenshot of the WooCommerce Importer, the mapping fields page.Screenshot from WordPress, August 2025

For WooCommerce products, use the built-in Product CSV Importer/Exporter and map your columns to product fields.

Should you be importing content from a non-standard source (like a CSV or a feed), a great plugin to use is WP All Import.

For non-standard sources (CSV, XML, Excel, Google Sheets), WP All Import can map fields to any post type and even run custom PHP during import. Add-ons cover ACF, Yoast, and WooCommerce.

It’s a freemium plugin, with the premium version allowing integrations with ACF, Yoast & WooCommerce. To talk through the power of WP All Import is a blog post in itself. However, I can share a common usage.

Say you wish to update all blog posts with new standardised title tags, you can use the companion plugin WP All Export to export all post data.

Then, within Excel or Google Sheets, you can change individual values, and then use WP All Import to import the blog posts back in.

2. How To Handle Bulk Plugin Updates On A WordPress Website

Of course, behind the scenes – and one of the most common tasks with WordPress blogs – is making sure that plugins are all up to date.

Keeping plugins up to date is a crucial task in keeping your site secure and running smoothly. Thankfully, if you only have one site, it’s very easy to do a bulk update.

Log in to your WordPress site as an administrator, and under Dashboard, there’s a heading entitled “Updates.” Click it to take you to the updates screen.

The WordPress plugin updates with 18 plugins that need updating.Screenshot from WordPress, August 2025

Scroll down a bit, and you should have a list of plugins towards the bottom that need an update. Similarly to the bulk editing, there will be a checkbox next to each element.

Select all checkboxes for the plugins you wish to update (and – in all reality – you’d want to make sure you select all plugins).

Click “Update Plugins,” and then all plugins will be brought up to date!

Your site is unlikely to break even with a large number of backups. However, in the extremely unlikely event the site breaks after updating a bunch of plugins, there are ways to recover, which you can read in the article “How Do You Resolve A Plugin Conflict.” Go to the log files and deactivate the plugin via FTP.

Alternatively, here are a few other techniques to do bulk updates successfully:

  • Update in small batches (e.g. split by functionality, or by letter). Update, reload key pages, then move on.
  • Back up and test on staging before production.
  • If you use a maintenance dashboard like ManageWP, run Safe Updates (it creates a restore point, runs the updates, visually compares pages, and rolls back if something looks wrong).
  • WordPress Command Line Interface (WP-CLI) lets you preview or update plugins individually:
    • Preview: wp plugin update yoast-seo --dry-run
    • Update one: wp plugin update yoast-seo
    • Update all (use with care): wp plugin update --all

3. How To Handle Bulk Plugin Updates On Multiple WordPress Websites

That’s all fine for one WordPress site. However, if you are managing multiple WordPress sites, then it can be a bit time-consuming to handle plugin updates on multiple WordPress sites.

Thankfully, I covered this in a previous article, “How to manage multiple websites on WordPress.”

In that article, I shared a number of WordPress maintenance dashboard services that exist, which will allow you to log in and update multiple WordPress sites from one singular location.

Here are some of the most popular:

Although each of these platforms has premium offerings that vary with cost and features, they also offer plugin and theme updates for free.

I use ManageWP, so once you connect your site to ManageWP, you should see a dashboard with the number of plugin updates you need to do spread over a number of sites. Simply click “Update All” to update all plugins on all installations. Alternatively you can tick the checkboxes and “Update” to select individual plugins to install.

The ManageWP DashboardScreenshot from WordPress, August 2025.

You can also filter by sites and severity of updates within ManageWP. There is a premium option to do a “safe” update, which will allow you to run an update, check the site, and roll back if anything breaks.

There’s a good selection of ways to carry out bulk updates within WordPress. There are also command-like tools like WP CLI (mentioned above) to build scripts to run on sites. However, that is worth an article in itself.

To bulk update all plugins in WP CLI, you can use this command:

wp plugin update --all

This will update all plugins on an individual site and you can expand that to a script to run on multiple sites.

WP CLI is so powerful and really should be used for agencies to manage multiple websites quickly and easily.

Wrapping Up: Bulk Updates For A Smooth-Running WordPress Site

WordPress makes it straightforward to handle bulk updates, whether you’re tweaking content, importing products, or keeping plugins in check.

Across the built-in tools and available plugins, there’s a solution for just about every scenario. The key is to test changes in small batches and always keep a backup handy.

With a little prep, you can save hours of manual work and keep your site (or sites) running smoothly and efficiently.

More Resources:

Featured Image: GaudiLab/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Aug 29 2025
TablePress WordPress Plugin Vulnerability Affects 700,000+ Sites via @sejournal, @martinibuster

A vulnerability in the TablePress WordPress plugin enables attackers to inject malicious scripts that run when someone visits a compromised page. It affects all versions up to and including version 3.2.

TablePress WordPress plugin

The TablePress plugin is used on more than 700,000 websites. It enables users to create and manage tables with interactive features like sorting, pagination, and search.

What Caused The Vulnerability

The problem came from missing input sanitization and output escaping in how the plugin handled the shortcode_debug parameter. These are basic security steps that protect sites from harmful input and unsafe output.

The Wordfence advisory explains:

“The TablePress plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the ‘shortcode_debug’ parameter in all versions up to, and including, 3.2 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping.”

Input Sanitization

Input sanitization filters what users type into forms or fields. It blocks harmful input, like malicious scripts. TablePress didn’t fully apply this security step.

Output Escaping

Output escaping is similar, but it works in the opposite direction, filtering what gets output onto the website. Output escaping prevents the website from publishing characters that can be interpreted by browsers as code.

That’s exactly what can happen with TablePress because it has insufficient input sanitization , which enables an attacker to upload a script , and insufficient escaping to prevent the website from injecting malicious scripts into the live website. That’s what enables the stored cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.

Because both protections were missing, someone with Contributor-level access or higher could upload a script that gets stored and runs whenever the page is visited. The fact that a Contributor-level authorization is necessary mitigates the potential for an attack to a certain extent.

Plugin users are recommended to update the plugin to version 3.2.1 or higher.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Nithid

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Aug 29 2025
WordPress Ocean Extra Vulnerability Affects Up To 600,000 Sites via @sejournal, @martinibuster

An advisory was issued for the Ocean Extra WordPress plugin that is susceptible to stored cross-site scripting, which enables attackers to upload malicious scripts that execute on the site when a user visits the affected website.

Ocean Extra WordPress Plugin

The vulnerability affects only the Ocean Extra plugin by oceanwp, a plugin that extends the popular OceanWP WordPress theme. The plugin adds extra features to the OceanWP theme, such as the ability to easily host fonts locally, additional widgets, and expanded navigation menu options.

According to the Wordfence advisory, the vulnerability is due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping.

Input Sanitization

Input sanitization is the term used to describe the process of filtering what’s input into WordPress, like in a form or any field where a user can input something. The goal is to filter out unexpected kinds of input, like malicious scripts**,** for example. This is something that the plugin is said to be missing (insufficient).

Output Escaping

Output escaping is kind of like input sanitization but in the other direction, a security process that makes sure that whatever is being output from WordPress is safe. It checks that the output doesn’t have characters that can be interpreted by a browser as code and subsequently executed, such as what is found in a stored cross-site scripting (XSS) exploit. This is the other thing that the Ocean Extra plugin was missing.

Together, the insufficient input sanitization and insufficient output escaping enable attackers to upload a malicious script and have it output on the WordPress site.

Users Urged To Update Plugin

The vulnerability only affects authenticated users with contributor-level privileges or higher, to a certain extent mitigating the threat level of this specific exploit. This vulnerability affects versions up to and including version 2.4.9. Users are advised to update their plugin to the latest version, currently 2.5.0.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Nithid

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seo enhancements
Aug 29 2025
How much does it cost to build a website?

Table of contents

Thinking about building a website? Whether you are a small business owner, a freelancer, or launching a side project, one of the first questions you will want answered is: how much does it cost to build a website? This is not just about curiosity, understanding your website costs early on can help you budget effectively and avoid any unpleasant surprises.

The truth is that the answer is rarely simple. Ask ten business owners about their website building costs and you will probably get ten completely different answers. That is because website costs can range from almost nothing to tens of thousands of euros. The variation comes down to what you need your website to do. A small brochure site with a few pages can be built on a modest budget, whereas an ecommerce store with thousands of products and secure payment facilities will always cost more. The good news is that once you understand where the costs lie, you can make better decisions. And while Yoast SEO will not directly reduce your build costs, it will help you avoid expensive SEO mistakes, improve site performance, and keep your long-term marketing budget under control.

What are you actually paying for when building a website?

Design and user experience: This sets the tone for how visitors feel about your site. Good design is more than colors and fonts, it is about navigation, site structure, and encouraging visitors to stay and explore. Read more about user experience. 

Development: Turns your designs into a working website. A simple build will cost less, but advanced features or integrations push the price up. 

Domain and hosting: These two are essential and unavoidable. Your domain name generally costs between €10 and €50 per year and hosting keeps your site live. Shared hosting is cheapest, but dedicated hosting provides better performance and enhanced security. As a recommendation, Bluehost is a great choice for both domain registration and hosting. On top of that, it also works extremely well with WordPress. 

Read more: Yoast SEO. 

Content: A blank page isn’t going to keep visitors on your site for very long, so you’re going to need to have something to show them. You can of course do your own content, but professional content creators can be useful in getting more conversions. 

Read more: writing great website copy.

SEO: This ensures your site gets found. You can do it yourself, but Yoast SEO helps simplify the process and can reduce costs by guiding you on how to optimize pages as you write. 

Read more: how to use the Yoast SEO plugin.

Here’s a chart to explain the above in a quick-check guide: 

Area  Description 
Design  Custom visuals, layout, user interface (UI), mobile responsiveness 
User experience (UX)   Navigation logic, site structure, call-to-action placement 
Development   Code, content management system (CMS), plug-ins or features 
Domain and hosting   Your website’s address and where it lives online 
Content and SEO   Written pages, blog posts, metadata, and optimizations 
Ongoing maintenance  Plugin updates, security, backups, fixes 

Upfront costs:

Of course, none of this comes for free, unless there are some things you can do yourself like copywriting or photography. This will still cost you in terms of time though, so it may be worth considering hiring a professional if there are other areas of your business that you would rather focus on. With that in mind, let’s take a quick look at some upfront costs that you will only have to pay for once at the very start.

Type of cost Low estimate High estimate
Domain name €10/year €50/year
Design & UX €0 (DIY template) €10,000+
Development (CMS setup, features, integrations) €0 (DIY) €40,000+
Initial content (copywriting, images, product setup) €200 €5,000+

Ongoing and variable costs:

Obviously, once your website is up and running, that’s not the end of the story. You are presumably here for the long-term and that means there are going to be recurring costs. These cover things like hosting, so your site can stay live, maintenance, to keep everything secure and updated, and you’ll need to continually post new content to engage with your site’s visitors.

Ongoing costs (billed monthly or yearly):

Type of cost Low estimate High estimate
Hosting €50/year €300+/year
Maintenance & security (updates, backups, SSL, fixes) €100/month €500+/month
Ongoing content & SEO €200/year €5,000+/year

Variable costs:

Most people spend their time focusing on the look and feel of their site and while that is important, it’s not the only thing to consider. It’s understandable that things like legal technicalities and CDNs are not front-of-mind when you’re excited about growing your business but it is necessary. That means you’ll need to complete these, often overlooked, tasks to make sure that you remain on track for growth and stay compliant.

Type of cost Low estimate High estimate
Marketing & ads €100/month €10,000+/month
Accessibility & legal compliance €200 €5,000+
Scaling & performance upgrades (plugins, CDN, extra development work) €100 €10,000+

Website building options 

There are three main ways to build a site, and your choice here will have an impact on the final cost.  

1. DIY builders (like Wix or Squarespace)  

These platforms, as well as some others, will let you build a site from scratch without the need for any technical skills. They’re affordable, quick to set up and ideal for portfolio sites, hobby sites, or small businesses. If you are using these site builders for business, you might find them limiting when you need to scale or want more advanced SEO.   

2. WordPress + Yoast  

For most successful small and medium sized businesses, WordPress is an excellent solution as it’s flexible, scalable, and widely supported. What’s more, when you pair it with Yoast SEO for WooCommerce you can start publishing optimized content from day one, making your online store more visible instantly. This makes it more affordable in the long run as there’s no need for an agency, and you can add features as you grow rather than having to rebuild every time.  

3. Custom-built website via an agency 

For complex businesses like advanced ecommerce or security services, a custom-built site is their best option. It’s the most expensive option but gives you complete control, giving you everything you want without having to compromise on anything. However, you may find that tailored code and features will cost a lot more.     

Watch out for these hidden costs 

One common misconception is that the costs end when your site goes live. That’s just not true, in fact, some of the most expensive problems show up after launch. These can include:  

Non-converting content: You can have the most beautiful website in the world but if it’s not pulling in paying customers, there’s a problem. Try investing in professional copywriting and SEO-friendly content that will ensure visitors take action.   

Dropped traffic: Starting off with bad SEO can really hamper your traffic. Without help, it’s easy to make errors that could take months to fix. This is very much a case of prevention is better than cure.  

Technical debt: Sites built on outdated technology or poorly coded templates may work at first but become costly to maintain or upgrade after a while.   

Accessibility cost: It’s important that you make sure your site caters to all, especially those who may have visual or audio impairments. 

Legal costs: There are certain legal requirements to take care of. These aren’t just there to protect the customer; they protect you too. So, don’t forget that you’ll need things like a cookie consent tool and a term of service policy. 

How Yoast saves you money (over time) 

Yoast isn’t about saving you money on upfront costs; what it does is prevent expensive mistakes. It will save you money over time though as you’ll benefit from reduced costs of ongoing SEO and content marketing. 

To get more specific though, Yoast’s real-time SEO guidance helps you write better, optimized content without needing to hire a writer. In addition, the Readability analysis and Internal linking suggestions are two features that help to reduce bounce rates by making your content perform better, which literally translates into more conversions. On top of this, adding structured data manually is time consuming and costly. Yoast automates much of this, giving you rich search results without developer costs. And if that’s not enough to whet your appetite, there are free and premium options.  

Feature  How it saves you money  
Real-time SEO guidance   Write better content, faster, without hiring an SEO expert  
Readability analysis  Engaged readers means more conversions 
Schema & structured data   Get results without coding knowledge 
Internal linking suggestions   Boost traffic to key pages without external help 

Budgeting tips for small business owners 

By spending smart, you can get big results for less. Here are a few things to keep in mind: 

  1. Start with clarity, not complexity: 
    Fancy animations might look nice, but if they confuse your visitors, they’re not worth the price. 
  1. Spend more on content than code: 
    Great content = better SEO = better ROI.   
  1. Invest in tools that scale with you: 
    WordPress and Yoast both grow with your business. 
  1. Plan for the long game: 
    Don’t treat launch as the finish line. Content updates and SEO tweaks are ongoing.

Read more: How to optimize your crawl budget

Ecommerce vs. general website: does it change the cost? 

Yes, dramatically. Ecommerce sites need: 

  • Payment gateways. 
  • Product listings. 
  • Inventory management. 
  • Legal disclaimers. 
  • Stronger performance and security. 

Expect to pay more, sometimes a lot more, for development, plugins, and maintenance. But again, tools like Yoast SEO help make your product pages more visible and your content more persuasive.   

Platforms like WooCommerce give you a practical and flexible way to run your online store without having to reinvent the wheel. But the real key to success is visibility, after all, if people can’t find you, they can’t buy from you. And this is what Yoast SEO for WooCommerce does best.  

Read more: See how Yoast helps ecommerce sites

Final thoughts 

Ultimately, what matters about your site most is what it does for your business. With WordPress and Yoast, you can create a professional site that looks great, enhances your online visibility, and grows with your business, without breaking the bank. One of the best things you can do to really set the wheels in motion now though is to go to this guide WordPress for beginners training course and learn how to put yourself and your company first.

Good SEO isn’t a luxury; it’s a smart investment, so start today. Good luck!

Avatar of Brendan Reid
Brendan Reid

Brendan is a seasoned writer with a particular interest in SMEs. What he really enjoys is being able to provide real, actionable steps that can be taken today to start making business better for everyone.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Aug 29 2025
From Plugins To Performance: What CMOs Need To Ask About Their WordPress Stack via @sejournal, @alexmoss

WordPress is still the most popular open-source content management system (CMS) – by far – powering 43.5 % of all websites on the web, and still in my opinion the most adaptable CMS to work with.

However, WordPress isn’t just a plug-and-play CMS. If you’re in the marketing team or the CMO, you may find yourself inheriting and using a WordPress site that will most likely have a less-than-ideal stack setup.

Don’t accept that this is just the setup you have. If your tech stack isn’t aligned correctly, it could directly hinder some of your own goals.

While it may seem that you should delegate all technical decisions to the development/IT team, these decisions may overrule wider business goals.

As such, it may be time to audit your installation and setup in order to break free of these stack limitations.

If you’re a CMO, this post will cover the different considerations when thinking of the optimal WordPress tech stack that also aligns with your own goals.

What A Tech Stack Includes

From a top-level, the WordPress tech stack involves the following:

  • Server infrastructure.
  • Hosting infrastructure.
  • Performance & caching.
  • Security.
  • Dev tools.
  • WordPress layer.
  • Monitoring and analytics.
  • Backup and recovery.

This can be seen in more detail in this diagram:

WordPress Tech Stack, containing all considerations.Image created by author, August 2025

There’s a lot to consider. With that, let’s delve into what you, as a CMO, should be asking yourself and others to ensure this stack is at its best.

The Invisible Cost Of Cheap Hosting

Shared hosting might seem cost-effective, but in my experience, it’s often the most expensive choice in the long term.

When your site shares resources with hundreds of others, performance becomes unpredictable. This can affect many things, from general speed and performance, but also how search engines and large language models (LLMs) crawl/discover your site, as well as how a human may experience the site itself.

Dedicated servers or managed WordPress hosting may be a larger investment, but in turn reduces technical overheads while providing the infrastructure needed for growth and scale.

For the level up from this, WordPress-based Cloud hosting is the most robust solution, but would require more technical expertise to manage.

What CMOs Should Ask:

  • Are we on shared hosting or dedicated infrastructure? If the former, why?
  • Are all server resources, such as PHP, up to date?
  • What happens to site performance during traffic spikes?
  • Who is responsible for server-level maintenance, optimizations, and security?
  • For potential traffic spikes, are there solutions and safeguards in place, such as load balancers?
  • Can we grow and scale with our current solution?

Performance: The Business Metric Disguised As A Tech Metric

Developers and technical SEOs alike will obsess over PageSpeed/Lighthouse scores, but things such as Core Web Vitals aren’t just technical benchmarks but also conversion metrics in disguise.

A one-second delay in mobile load times can impact mobile conversions by up to 20%. If Largest Content Paint (LCP) exceeds 2.5 seconds, then your next sale is at high risk before there’s a chance to convert them.

Performance optimization in WordPress isn’t straightforward when looking forensically. Many “solutions” can create new problems. Even well-intentioned optimizations and fixes over the longer term can cause conflicts or other knock-on effects. Over time, this becomes a “Frankenstein” site of many elements patched together in an attempt to keep it ‘alive’ that becomes expensive to unravel and can cause the site to be a “write-off”. This practice is more common than you think.

What CMOs Should Ask:

  • How does our site perform on PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, and YSlow? What can be improved? How do we perform against competitors?
  • Is caching properly set up? Are we considering all levels (server, object, page, CDN, etc.)?
  • Do we have all minification tools set up correctly?
  • Is our database architecture the best it can be? How can this be improved?
  • What and how often is our database cleaned? Does this include revisions?
  • How are our images performing? Have they been optimized? Are we using more modern formats such as WebP?
  • Who owns the performance metric?

This isn’t about chasing perfect scores; it’s about ensuring your technical foundation supports rather than potentially sabotaging your marketing objectives.

Deciding On A Theme Should Be Long-Term

There are thousands of WordPress themes out there.

In a perfect scenario, the theme itself would be custom-built, incorporating WordPress’ own Gutenberg block editor, as it’s part of the core. As well as this, full site editing functionality makes this process even easier.

If your budget can’t stretch to custom-built theme development, it’s then extremely important to choose the right theme.

Ensure that you research the theme properly, making an informed choice that is performance-led to complement the stack, not convenience-led for editors.

But remember, your choice of theme is more long-term than installing a plugin you find you don’t need a month/year later. Because of this, themes should have a more considered and informed approach.

Bonus Consideration: Page Builders

Generally, the people who end up using WordPress on a day-to-day basis are not the same people who developed it or set it up.

Because of this, there can sometimes be clashes when it comes to what someone in your marketing team wants versus what should be implemented with technical best practice.

Page builders such as Elementor and Divi do offer a lot more freedom and flexibility for page creation and design, but come with the downside of potential code bloat and resource allocation.

Ensure that your decisions are not influenced too much by this request, because that is what it is, a request.

What CMOs Should Ask:

  • How does our current theme/builder choice impact site performance?
  • Is our current theme built for purpose? Is it a theme that caters to the masses, or is it developed specifically for me or my niche?
  • Are we locked into a specific page builder? What does the builder offer that Gutenberg and FSE don’t? What are the migration implications?
  • Are our choices forming a good balance between design flexibility with technical performance?
  • Do we have the development resources to support our chosen approach?
  • Are there conflicts between the page builder and other resources/assets?

Plugin-ception

“There’s a plugin for that.”

This is a phrase we’ve all heard or said before – myself included. There will be a plugin for that, yes – but it shouldn’t be the answer every time you want to extend functionality.

While I do have a select number of “core” plugins that I confidently choose to use on any site, this does not mean that I would choose to install a plugin because it solved one problem that may not be enough to substantiate installing if it warrants the technical debt the plugin will add.

Estimates suggest, the average WordPress site runs 20-30 plugins, with many serving overlapping functions or creating conflicts.

Bonus: Some Plugins Require Attention Post-Installation

There are some plugins that have a simple “plug and play” approach. But whenever I install anything, I always delve further into its setup, configuration, and how this can impact the performance of a site.

One thing to know is that, in general, you should not approach any plugin with an “install and ignore” mindset.

Check the settings. Go through the first-time configuration (FTC). Audit the configuration.

Furthermore, plugins not only provide valuable under-the-hood optimizations and enhancements, but also present an opportunity for the site to evolve alongside your business and marketing activities.

Actively using these plugins means your stack continues to benefit from the latest features, innovations, and improvements.

What CMOs Should Ask:

  • How many plugins are currently active on our site?
  • When was our last plugin audit?
  • What plugins are we dependent on for our core business functions?
  • Have all plugins been configured correctly?
  • Are the plugins that require ongoing work being used?
  • Are there conflicts with other plugins?
  • Are there any incumbent plugins stopping the development of the site as a whole?
  • (More aggressive) What will happen to the wider business goals if [Plugin X] is no longer used?

The more plugins that are installed, the higher the risk of incompatibility, conflicts, and security vulnerabilities.

Security: Be Proactive, Not Reactive

One would think that security is always the top priority to ensure the safe operation of any website. Incorrect.

Breaches can devastate not just the site, but in turn, your brand reputation, while also incurring large immediate costs and most likely some loss of earnings in the future as a result.

While on the more extreme end of the scale, earlier this year, some hackers breached a number of large UK retailers, including Marks and Spencer, causing £300 million in lost profits, with no real measurement on how this has affected them since.

It doesn’t take long or cost much (in some cases, the solutions are free) to add some layers of security to your stack.

Whether it’s adding rules within Cloudflare or installing Sucuri or Wordfence, don’t just leave your site unprotected while you “sit tight and assess” – take proactive steps to secure your stack.

What CMOs Should Ask:

  • What security measures do we currently have for the site?
  • Are any and all vulnerabilities monitored?
  • Is everything up to date? This includes not just WordPress core, themes, and plugins, but also on a server level, such as PHP.

Maintenance: Forgotten Until Required

WordPress maintenance often gets treated as a technical afterthought, but I consider this to be a critical marketing function.

Outdated plugins not only create conflicts that have knock-on effects on both the frontend and backend of the site but also expose you to security vulnerabilities that I just covered above.

The choice between manual and automatic updates reflects deeper strategic priorities.

Manual updates provide more control but require dedicated resources and staging environments for testing prior to deployment. Automatic updates may reduce maintenance overhead, but there is always a risk of conflicts during critical business periods.

What CMOs Should Ask:

  • Who is responsible for WordPress core, plugin, and theme updates? Do they have all the required access in case of disaster scenarios?
  • Who is responsible for legal, compliance, and privacy on the site?
  • Is everything up to date? If not, is there a reason for this?
  • Do we have staging environments for testing changes before anything is deployed to a production environment?
  • What’s our rollback plan if an update breaks critical functionality?
  • How do we balance security needs with stability requirements?

“Frankenstein” Sites Only Get You So Far For So Long…

If you have a theme that is now years old, perhaps five or more, it’s likely that over time the theme (unless extremely well maintained) will eventually cause issues and conflicts, more so when you want to grow and scale.

Optimizing the site over time is obviously suggested, but after a prolonged amount of time, this becomes more challenging and less possible without conflicts arising.

What CMOs Should Ask:

  • When was the last time a theme was chosen?
  • When was it last audited? Is the theme still fit for purpose today?
  • Is a theme update causing conflicts with other resources and plugins?
  • Are there legacy plugins or other functionality that prevent essential updates to WordPress or PHP, forcing the site to remain on outdated versions (therefore limiting access to new features, improved security, or better performance)?
  • Are ad hoc maintenance costs and “patchwork” over two to three years costing more than a potential rebuild (i.e., Is it a “write-off”)?

Key Takeaways

Below is a high-priority checklist that you can act on now:

Priority Action Item Stakeholder(s)
Critical Audit the current hosting environment and audit invisible costs. CMO, Tech Lead, Finance
Critical Review plugin presence and usage: configuration, conflicts, necessity. Tech, SEO, Product, Marketing
Critical Implement and verify up-to-date security layers (e.g., Sucuri, WAF). CTO, IT
High Define clear responsibilities for updates, rollbacks, and compliance. Product, Legal, Marketing
High Schedule routine theme and plugin audits. Dev/Project Manager
High Set up or review staging/testing environments for changes. Tech Lead/DevOps
Medium Plan for a long-term theme or potential rebuild if “Frankenstein.” CMO, CTO
Medium Calculate ongoing maintenance costs vs possible site overhaul. Finance, CMO, CTO

Your WordPress stack should never be considered “set and forget.”

Don’t wait for something to break, because when something does, it will most likely cause more loss than any proactive investment to ensure there isn’t one.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Ashan Randika/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Aug 29 2025
Why WooCommerce Slows Down (& How to Fix It With the Right Server Stack)

This post was sponsored by Cloudways. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

Wondering why your rankings may be declining?

Just discovered your WooCommerce site has slow load times?

A slow WooCommerce site doesn’t just cost you conversions. It affects search visibility, backend performance, and customer trust.

Whether you’re a developer running your own stack or an agency managing dozens of client stores, understanding how WooCommerce performance scales under load is now considered table stakes.

Today, many WordPress sites are far more dynamic, meaning many things are happening at the same time:

  • Stores run real-time sales.
  • LMS platforms track user progress.
  • Membership sites deliver highly personalized content.

Every action a user takes, from logging in, updating a cart, or initiating checkout, relies on live data from the server. These requests cannot be cached.

Tools like Varnish or CDNs can help with public pages such as the homepage or product listings. But once someone logs in to their account or interacts with their session, caching no longer helps. Each request must be processed in real time.

This article breaks down why that happens and what kind of server setup is helping stores stay fast, stable, and ready to grow.

Why Do WooCommerce Stores Slow Down?

WooCommerce often performs well on the surface. But as traffic grows and users start interacting with the site, speed issues begin to show. These are the most common reasons why stores slow down under pressure:

1. PHP: It Struggles With High User Activity

WooCommerce depends on PHP to process dynamic actions such as cart updates, coupon logic, and checkout steps. Traditional stacks using Apache for PHP handling are slower and less efficient.

Modern environments use PHP-FPM, which improves execution speed and handles more users at once without delays.

2. A Full Database: It Becomes A Bottleneck

Order creation, cart activity, and user actions generate a high number of database writes. During busy times like flash sales, new merchandise arrivals, or course launches, the database struggles to keep up.

Platforms that support optimized query execution and better indexing handle these spikes more smoothly.

3. Caching Issues: Object Caching Is Missing Or Poorly Configured

Without proper object caching, WooCommerce queries the database repeatedly for the same information. That includes product data, imagery, cart contents, and user sessions.

Solutions that include built-in Redis support help move this data to memory, reducing server load and improving site speed.

4. Concurrency Limits Affect Performance During Spikes

Most hosting stacks today, including Apache-based ones, perform well for a wide range of WordPress and WooCommerce sites. They handle typical traffic reliably and have powered many successful stores.

As traffic increases and more users log in and interact with the site at the same time, the load on the server begins to grow. Architecture starts to play a bigger role at that point.

Stacks built on NGINX with event-driven processing can manage higher concurrency more efficiently, especially during unanticipated traffic spikes.

Rather than replacing what already works, this approach extends the performance ceiling for stores that are becoming more dynamic and need consistent responsiveness under heavier load.

5. Your WordPress Admin Slows Down During Sales Seasons

During busy periods like seasonal sales campaigns or new stock availability, stores can often slow down for the team managing the site, too. The WordPress dashboard takes longer to load, which means publishing products, managing orders, or editing pages also becomes slower.

This slowdown happens because both shoppers and staff are using the site’s resources at the same time, and the server has to handle all those requests at once.

Modern stacks reduce this friction by balancing frontend and backend resources more effectively.

How To Architect A Scalable WordPress Setup For Dynamic Workloads?

WooCommerce stores today are built for more than stable traffic. Customers are logging in, updating their carts, taking actions to manage their subscription profile, and as a result, are interacting with your backend in real time.

The traditional WordPress setup, which is primarily designed for static content, cannot handle that kind of demand.

Here’s how a typical setup compares to one built for performance and scale:

Component Basic Setup         Scalable Setup
Web Server Apache NGINX
PHP Handler mod_php or CGI PHP-FPM
Object Caching None or database transients Redis with Object Cache Pro
Scheduled Tasks WP-Cron System cron job
Caching CDN or full-page caching only Layered caching, including object cache
.htaccess Handling Built-in with Apache Manual rewrite rules in NGINX config
Concurrency Handling Limited Event-based, memory-efficient server

How To Manually Setup A Performance-Ready & Scalable WooCommerce Stack

Don’t have bandwidth? Try the easy way.

If you’re setting up your own server or tuning an existing one, are the most important components to get right:

1) Use NGINX For Static File Performance

NGINX is often used as a high-performance web server for handling static files and managing concurrent requests efficiently. It is well suited for stores expecting high traffic or looking to fine-tune their infrastructure for speed.

Unlike Apache, NGINX does not use .htaccess files. Rewrite rules, such as permalinks, redirects, and trailing slashes, need to be added manually to the server block. For WordPress, these rules are well-documented and only need to be set once during setup.

This approach gives more control at the server level and can be helpful for teams building out their own environment or optimizing for scale.

2) Enable PHP-FPM For Faster Request Handling

PHP-FPM separates PHP processing from the web server. It gives you more control over memory and CPU usage. Tune values like pm.max_children and pm.max_requests based on your server size to prevent overload during high activity.

3) Install Redis With Object Cache Pro

Redis allows WooCommerce to store frequently used data in memory. This includes cart contents, user sessions, and product metadata.

Pair this with Object Cache Pro to compress cache objects, reduce database load, and improve site responsiveness under load.

4) Replace WP-Cron With A System-Level Cron Job

By default, WordPress checks for scheduled tasks whenever someone visits your site. That includes sending emails, clearing inventory, and syncing data. If you have steady traffic, it works. If not, things get delayed.

You can avoid that by turning off WP-Cron. Just add define(‘DISABLE_WP_CRON’, true); to your wp-config.php file. Then, set up a real cron job at the server level to run wp-cron.php every minute. This keeps those tasks running on time without depending on visitors.

5) Add Rewrite Rules Manually For NGINX

NGINX doesn’t use .htaccess. That means you’ll need to define URL rules directly in the server block.

This includes things like permalinks, redirects, and static file handling. It’s a one-time setup, and most of the rules you need are already available from trusted WordPress documentation. Once you add them, everything works just like it would on Apache.

A Few Tradeoffs To Keep In Mind

This kind of setup brings a real speed boost. But there are some technical changes to keep in mind.

  • NGINX won’t read .htaccess. All rewrites and redirects need to be added manually.
  • WordPress Multisite may need extra tweaks, especially if you’re using subdirectory mode.
  • Security settings like IP bans or rate limits should be handled at the server level, not through plugins.

Most developers won’t find these issues difficult to work with. But if you’re using a modern platform, much of it is already taken care of.

You don’t need overly complex infrastructure to make WooCommerce fast; just a stack that aligns with how modern, dynamic stores operate today.

Next, we’ll look at how that kind of stack performs under traffic, with benchmarks that show what actually changes when the server is built for dynamic sites.

What Happens When You Switch To An Optimized Stack?

Not all performance challenges come from code or plugins. As stores grow and user interactions increase, the type of workload becomes more important, especially when handling live sessions from logged-in users.

To better understand how different environments respond to this kind of activity, Koddr.io ran an independent benchmark comparing two common production setups:

  • A hybrid stack using Apache and NGINX.
  • A stack built on NGINX with PHP-FPM, Redis, and object caching.

Both setups were fully optimized and included tuned components like PHP-FPM and Redis. The purpose of the benchmark was to observe how each performs under specific, real-world conditions.

The tests focused on uncached activity from WooCommerce and LearnDash, where logged-in users trigger dynamic server responses.

In these scenarios, the optimized stack showed higher throughput and consistency during peak loads. This highlights the value of having infrastructure tailored for dynamic, high-concurrency traffic, depending on the use case.

WooCommerce Runs Faster Under Load

One test simulated 80 users checking out at the same time. The difference was clear:

Scenario Hybrid Stack Optimized Stack Gain
WooCommerce Checkout 3,035 actions 4,809 actions +58%
Screenshot from Koddr.io, August 2025

LMS Platforms Benefit Even More

For LearnDash course browsing—a write-heavy and uncached task, the optimized stack completed 85% more requests:

Scenario Hybrid Stack Optimized Stack Gain
LearnDash Course List View 13,459 actions 25,031 actions +85%

This shows how optimized stacks handle personalized or dynamic content more efficiently. These types of requests can’t be cached, so the server’s raw efficiency becomes critical.

Screenshot from Koddr.io, August 2025

Backend Speed Improves, Too

The optimized stack wasn’t just faster for customers. It also made the WordPress admin area more responsive:

  • WordPress login times improved by up to 31%.
  • Publish actions ran 20% faster, even with high traffic.

This means your team can concurrently manage products, update pages, and respond to sales in real time, without delays or timeouts.

It Handles More Without Relying On Caching

When Koddr turned off Varnish, the hybrid stack experienced a 71% drop in performance. This shows how effectively it handles cached traffic. The optimized stack dropped just 7%, which highlights its ability to maintain speed even during uncached, logged-in sessions.

Both setups have their strengths, but for stores with real-time user activity, reducing reliance on caching can make a measurable difference.

Stack Type With Caching Without Caching Drop
Hybrid Stack 654,000 actions 184,000 actions -7%
Optimized Stack 619,000 actions 572,000 actions -7%
Screenshot from Koddr.io, August 2025

Why This Matters?

Static pages are easy to optimize. But WooCommerce stores deal with real-time traffic. Cart updates, login sessions, and checkouts all require live processing. Caching cannot help once a user has signed in.

The Koddr.io results show how an optimized server stack:

  • Reduces CPU spikes during traffic surges.
  • Keeps the backend responsive for your team.
  • Delivers more stable speed for logged-in users.
  • Helps scale without complex performance workarounds.

These are the kinds of changes that power newer stacks purpose-built for dynamic workloads like Cloudways Lightning, built for real WooCommerce workloads.

Core Web Vitals Aren’t Just About The Frontend

You can optimize every image. Minify every line of code. Switch to a faster theme. But your Core Web Vitals score will still suffer if the server can’t respond quickly.

That’s what happens when logged-in users interact with WooCommerce or LMS sites.

When a customer hits “Add to Cart,” caching is out of the picture. The server has to process the request live. That’s where TTFB (Time to First Byte) becomes a real problem.

Slow server response means Google waits longer to start rendering the page. And that delay directly affects your Largest Contentful Paint and Interaction to Next Paint metrics.

Frontend tuning gets you part of the way. But if the backend is slow, your scores won’t improve. Especially for logged-in experiences.

Real optimization starts at the server.

How Agencies Are Skipping The Manual Work

Every developer has a checklist for WooCommerce performance. Use NGINX. Set up Redis. Replace WP-Cron. Add a WAF. Test under load. Keep tuning.

But not every team has the bandwidth to maintain all of it.

That’s why more agencies are using pre-optimized stacks that include these upgrades by default. Cloudways Lightning, a managed stack based on NGINX + PHP-FPM, designed for dynamic workloads is a good example of that.

It’s not just about speed. It’s also about backend stability during high traffic. Admin logins stay fast. Product updates don’t hang. Orders keep flowing.

Joe Lackner, founder of Celsius LLC, shared what changed for them:

“Moving our WordPress workloads to the new Cloudways stack has been a game-changer. The console admin experience is snappier, page load times have improved by +20%, and once again Cloudways has proven to be way ahead of the game in terms of reliability and cost-to-performance value at this price point.”

This is what agencies are looking for. A way to scale without getting dragged into infrastructure management every time traffic picks up.

Final Takeaway

WooCommerce performance is no longer just about homepage load speed.

Your site handles real-time activity from both customers and your team. Once a user logs in or reaches checkout, caching no longer applies. Each action hits the server directly.

If the infrastructure isn’t optimized, site speed drops, sales suffer, and backend work slows down.

The foundations matter. A stack that’s built for high concurrency and uncached traffic keeps things fast across the board. That includes cart updates, admin changes, and product publishing.

For teams who don’t want to manage server tuning manually, options like Cloudways Lightning deliver a faster, simpler path to performance at scale.

Use promo code “SUMMER305” and get 30% off for 5 months + 15 free migrations. Signup Now!

⚡ Power Up My WooCommerce Store

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Cloudways. Used with permission.

In-Post Images: Images by Cloudways. Used with permission.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Aug 28 2025
Yoast SEO free vs Premium: why upgrading is worth it

Do you want to take your site’s SEO to the next level? Yoast SEO Premium can help you out! But there is also a free version of Yoast SEO. So, what exactly is the difference between the free version of Yoast SEO and Yoast SEO Premium? How do these two compare? And is Yoast SEO Premium worth it? Let’s uncover the ten reasons why you should buy Yoast SEO Premium today!

Table of contents

Yoast SEO free vs premium: what is the difference?

Do you want to compare the main differences between Yoast SEO Free and Premium? This table will give you quick insights:

Yoast SEO Premium

Includes Local SEO, Video SEO, and News SEO plugins

Yoast SEO Premium provides everything you need to improve your website’s visibility, whether you’re a business owner, publisher, agency, or content creator.

(Beta) Get AI-powered suggestions to optimize your content

Get optimization suggestions and apply changes instantly with Yoast’s AI features, saving you time and ensuring your content is search engine-friendly. This feature is currently in beta.

(Beta) Get high-quality titles and meta descriptions with Yoast AI

Yoast’s AI helps you craft optimized SEO titles and meta descriptions for search and social, boosting your CTR while saving you time.

Optimize for up to five keyword synonyms by adding variants

Include up to four keyword synonyms for a broader reach, and receive a complete SEO analysis for each one.

Automatic redirects: so no more dead links or 404 errors

Effortlessly redirect old or renamed pages to maintain satisfaction for both your visitors and Google.

Get real-time suggestions for internal links

As you write, you’ll receive suggestions for internal links to other pages, which Google favors and can boost your ranking.

Preview your page on Facebook and Twitter/X

You have complete control over your page’s social media appearance, ensuring it entices users to click.

24/7 support

Our helpful and expert support team is ready to assist you with any questions via email or live chat.

Safeguard your content from being used to train AI bots

Easily protect your intellectual property and data privacy by blocking AI bots from scraping your content with a simple toggle.

Includes 1 free seat to the Yoast SEO Google Docs add-on

Create and optimize your SEO content in Google Docs with Yoast’s guidance, ideal for teamwork with internal and external partners. Enjoy 1 free seat, valued at $5/month.

Yoast SEO Free

Find other ways to optimize your website for SEO

No comprehensive SEO solution. You’d need to find other ways to optimize your website, especially if you have a local business, a news website, or if you have a lot of videos.

No AI

You have to manually optimize all your content yourself.

No AI

You have to manually write and optimize all your SEO titles and meta descriptions yourself.

Only 1 keyword per page

Optimize for one keyword per post or page.

No redirect manager

Forgetting to set up a redirect results in visitors hitting a 404 page, which displeases both them and Google.

You need to guess which links would work best

Identify which pages to link to for improved rankings, for both new and existing pages on your site.

No preview of your page on social media

Without a preview of social snippets, you’re left guessing and hoping for the best.

No support

No support
You can help yourself with our extensive knowledge database.

Manually edit robots.txt file

Manually edit your robots.txt file to block AI bots, at the risk of making mistakes.

No free access to the Yoast SEO Google Docs add-on

Transferring draft content from Google Docs to your website for SEO optimization slows your workflow and makes collaboration with internal and external teams more time-consuming.

Yoast SEO Premium vs Yoast SEO Free

Includes Local SEO, Video SEO, and News SEO plugins

Yoast SEO Premium provides everything you need to improve your website’s visibility, whether you’re a business owner, publisher, agency, or content creator.

Find other ways to optimize your website for SEO

No comprehensive SEO solution. You’d need to find other ways to optimize your website, especially if you have a local business, a news website, or if you have a lot of videos.

(Beta) Get AI-powered suggestions to optimize your content

Get optimization suggestions and apply changes instantly with Yoast’s AI features, saving you time and ensuring your content is search engine-friendly. This feature is currently in beta.

No AI

You have to manually optimize all your content yourself.

(Beta) Get high-quality titles and meta descriptions with Yoast AI

Yoast’s AI helps you craft optimized SEO titles and meta descriptions for search and social, boosting your CTR while saving you time.

No AI

You have to manually write and optimize all your SEO titles and meta descriptions yourself.

Optimize for up to five keyword synonyms by adding variants

Include up to four keyword synonyms for a broader reach, and receive a complete SEO analysis for each one.

Only 1 keyword per page

Optimize for one keyword per post or page.

Automatic redirects: so no more dead links or 404 errors

Effortlessly redirect old or renamed pages to maintain satisfaction for both your visitors and Google.

No redirect manager

Forgetting to set up a redirect results in visitors hitting a 404 page, which displeases both them and Google.

Get real-time suggestions for internal links

As you write, you’ll receive suggestions for internal links to other pages, which Google favors and can boost your ranking.

You need to guess which links would work best

Identify which pages to link to for improved rankings, for both new and existing pages on your site.

Preview your page on Facebook and Twitter/X

You have complete control over your page’s social media appearance, ensuring it entices users to click.

No preview of your page on social media

Without a preview of social snippets, you’re left guessing and hoping for the best.

24/7 support

Our helpful and expert support team is ready to assist you with any questions via email or live chat.

No support

No support
You can help yourself with our extensive knowledge database.

Safeguard your content from being used to train AI bots

Easily protect your intellectual property and data privacy by blocking AI bots from scraping your content with a simple toggle.

Manually edit robots.txt file

Manually edit your robots.txt file to block AI bots, at the risk of making mistakes.

Includes 1 free seat to the Yoast SEO Google Docs add-on

Create and optimize your SEO content in Google Docs with Yoast’s guidance, ideal for teamwork with internal and external partners. Enjoy 1 free seat, valued at $5/month.

No free access to the Yoast SEO Google Docs add-on

Transferring draft content from Google Docs to your website for SEO optimization slows your workflow and makes collaboration with internal and external teams more time-consuming.

What are the benefits of Yoast SEO Premium?

For over fifteen years, Yoast SEO has provided small businesses, bloggers, marketers, and online and offline stores with almost everything they need to compete in the search results. Over the years, we made the plugin better and better — following feedback from users, through thorough research and insights from insiders at the search engines. Today, Yoast SEO is run by a team of passionate SEO experts and built by very talented developers.

While the free version of Yoast SEO gives you a lot of tools to help you do well in the search results, Yoast SEO Premium makes many tasks much easier. It saves precious time that you can invest in other ways. Yoast SEO Premium also gives you additional tools, like, for instance, Local SEO, AI features, internal linking suggestions, and the redirect manager. You can use all of these tools to build an impressive site structure. All of this helps make your site a great fit for users and search engines alike. As such, Yoast SEO Premium is a wise investment.

Buy Yoast SEO Premium now!

Unlock powerful features and much more for your WordPress site with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin!

1: Yoast SEO Premium comes with amazing AI features

Yoast SEO Premium now offers AI-powered features that streamline your SEO tasks. With Yoast AI Generate, you can create engaging titles and meta descriptions effortlessly. Choose from multiple options or generate more until you find the perfect fit. Meanwhile, Yoast AI Optimize provides smart suggestions to enhance your existing content, ensuring SEO best practices are met with just a click. These tools integrate smoothly into your workflow, saving you time and effort while keeping your content search-engine friendly. Available for WordPress and Shopify, these features help you maintain control over your content’s final look and feel.

2: Yoast SEO Premium comes with all add-ons

Yoast SEO Premium now includes various separate add-ons, such as News, Video, and Local SEO, in one convenient package. This comprehensive suite enhances your optimization capabilities without needing additional purchases. However, the WooCommerce SEO add-on is not included and is available separately. Enjoy a streamlined experience to boost your site’s performance across different content types and media.

3: Yoast SEO Premium is a time-saver

One of the most important things you need to remember about SEO is that it is never done. There’s always more to do, better content to write, or fixes to make. Luckily, there’s a WordPress SEO plugin that’s glad to be of assistance. As you might know, Yoast SEO is not a set-it-and-forget-it kind of tool. You need to work with it, whether it’s improving your content or building your site structure. In the free version, you still need to do much of the work yourself. Yoast SEO Premium comes with a number of AI tools that can save you lots of time.

4: Use Yoast SEO in Google Docs

The Yoast SEO Google Docs add-on allows you to draft and optimize your SEO content directly within Google Docs. This tool is ideal for seamless collaboration with both internal teams and external partners. You can work on content, refine it, and ensure it aligns with SEO best practices, all without leaving your document. This efficiency streamlines your workflow and enhances team cooperation. Plus, Yoast SEO Premium includes one user seat for this add-on, typically valued at $5 per seat.

You can enjoy the same Yoast SEO analyses in Google Docs

5: Makes doing site maintenance easier

If working on your site is turning into a day job, you might need some help! Premium makes site maintenance easier. For one, Premium comes with a stale cornerstone content finder that reminds you to update your most important content.

Another tool that helps you work on your pages is the redirect manager. Whenever you make changes to pages or URLs, this tool makes sure to add a redirect for you. All you have to do is say where the new URL needs to lead. With the redirect manager, you can also fix your 404 errors in no time. No developer necessary. It’s so helpful that 58% of Premium users praise the redirect manager as the best feature in Yoast SEO Premium!

Building a solid site structure is one of the quickest routes to success. Making your content easily accessible to users and search engines helps them both make sense of your site. Yoast SEO Premium comes with a number of tools that help you build relevant links that can build a solid foundation for your site structure. Our plugin comes with internal linking blocks, an orphaned content finder and a targeted internal linking suggestion tool.

With the internal linking suggestions, relevant content will automatically be suggested while you’re writing your new content. There’s no need to remember that all those posts are pages!

But don’t just take our word for it, here’s what Andrew Evans from Intellifluence says about the internal linking tool:

“While the free Yoast SEO plugin offers many great features, the Premium version takes things to the next level. The internal linking suggestions feature ensures our blog is organized in a cohesive manner. It also ensures that link equity passes to other posts. This feature alone saves a tremendous amount of time as the plugin suggests links as we write. As the site grows, this feature only becomes more valuable! If you’ve ever tried to develop an interlinking strategy for an established blog, you’ll know exactly what I mean…“

Andrew Evans

7: An advanced language analysis that makes writing more natural

Yoast SEO is famous for its SEO and readability analyses — a.k.a. the colored traffic lights. The feedback these analyses give you helps you produce a great piece of content that adheres to a range of SEO best practices. This works splendidly, but Premium makes this process a lot more natural and flexible.

Premium has a very smart feature called word forms support. This innovative language analysis looks not only at the exact match of the focus keyphrase you enter but also at all the grammatical forms of that word. If you use, for instance, “decoration”, we will find word forms like “decorated” and “decorates” in your text as well, just like Google does. The words don’t even have to be in the same order when your focus keyphrase consists of more than one word.

8: Use synonyms and related keyphrases in your text to make it richer

Search engines get smarter every day, and context is key in SEO. They use the context in which a keyword appears to determine what a text is about. Synonyms and related terms, therefore, are more important than ever. In the free version of Yoast SEO, you can only add a single focus keyphrase. The plugin uses this to help you optimize your post. Yoast SEO Premium has more tricks up its sleeve, making it a much smarter solution. What is that?

Well, you can add a number of synonyms and related keyphrases to your post. By using these, you can make your content come alive. The Premium analysis makes sure that you use these synonyms and related keyphrases correctly in your post. Awesome, right? You can even use the Semrush integration to gather data and trends about your related keyphrases. Premium users can add the related keyphrases Semrush uncovers for you to their post with a single mouse click.

9: Boost AI visibility while maintaining control

Yoast SEO introduces AI-focused features such as llms.txt and AI bot blockers to protect your site’s content and maintain data privacy. The llms.txt file helps AI tools understand your site’s structure and important content. Meanwhile, the AI bot blocker feature lets you safeguard your intellectual property with a simple toggle, preventing AI bots from scraping your content for training purposes. This ensures that your valuable information remains secure and under your control.

10: 24/7 access to our world-class support team

What if you run into issues with the plugin? It would be good if you could contact a real person to help you figure out what the problem is. Luckily, if you sign up for Yoast SEO Premium, you get just that: Premium support. Our helpful support staff is available around the clock to get you up and running in no time.

An incredible bonus: free access to Yoast SEO Academy

Every Yoast SEO Premium subscription comes with complimentary access to Yoast SEO Academy. This is a big deal. We don’t just provide you with the number one WordPress SEO plugin to help you do well in search engines — we also supply many hours of instructional material. We offer several of our courses free of charge to get you started with the basics. But when you sign up for Yoast SEO Premium, you get access to all our SEO courses! Learn about Yoast SEO, SEO copywriting, keyword research, structured data, ecommerce SEO, and many other topics related to SEO!

Invest in Yoast SEO Premium: it pays off!

You see, there are many good reasons to get a Yoast SEO Premium subscription today. A Premium subscription can save you lots of time and gives you access to incredible tools that make working on your site easier and more fun. Plus, you’ll get unrestricted access to Yoast SEO Academy for hundreds of hours of SEO training. And, of course, you get to contact our support team if you should ever run into a problem.

How much does Yoast SEO Premium cost?

You can buy Yoast SEO Premium for $118.80 excluding VAT per year, or €118.80/£118.80 per year, depending on where you are in the world. For this, you not only get Yoast SEO Premium, all the additional plugins like Local SEO and Video SEO, and its awesome tools, but you also get a year of support, updates, and access to all our Yoast SEO Academy courses. Check out all of our products here.

Get Yoast SEO Premium now!

Convinced? Make sure to grab your copy!

Buy Yoast SEO Premium now!

Unlock powerful features and much more for your WordPress site with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin!

Avatar of Edwin Toonen


Edwin Toonen

Edwin is an experienced strategic content specialist. Before joining Yoast, he worked for a top-tier web design magazine, where he developed a keen understanding of how to create great content.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Aug 28 2025
WordPress Trademark Applications Rejected By USPTO via @sejournal, @martinibuster

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has rejected the WordPress Foundation’s applications for trademarks on the phrases “Managed WordPress” and “Hosted WordPress.” But WordPress isn’t walking away just yet.

The Trademark Office published the following notice for the “Hosted WordPress” trademark application:

“A final Office action refusing registration has been sent (issued) because the applicant neither satisfied nor overcame all requirements and/or refusals previously raised….

SUMMARY OF ISSUES MADE FINAL that applicant must address:

• Disclaimer Requirement

• Identification of Goods and Services

• Applicant Domicile Requirement

DISCLAIMER REQUIREMENT Applicant must disclaim the wording ‘MANAGED’ because it is merely descriptive of an ingredient, quality, characteristic, function, feature, purpose, or use of applicant’s goods and services….

Applicant may respond by submitting a disclaimer in the following format: No claim is made to the exclusive right to use ‘MANAGED’ apart from the mark as shown.”

Screenshot of Document Close-Up

The USPTO also found that the WordPress Foundation’s description of goods and services is too vague and overly broad, especially regarding the phrase “website development software,” and asks them to clarify whether it is downloadable (Class 9) or offered as online services (Class 42). The USPTO suggested acceptable wording that they can adopt, as long as it accurately reflects what they provide.

The Trademark Office also issued the following response for the trademark application for Managed WordPress:

“DISCLAIMER REQUIREMENT
Applicant must disclaim the wording ‘MANAGED’ because it is merely descriptive of an ingredient, quality, characteristic, function, feature, purpose, or use of applicant’s goods and services…. Applicant may respond by submitting a disclaimer in the following format:

No claim is made to the exclusive right to use ‘MANAGED’ apart from the mark as shown.”

The Process Is Not Over

The WordPress Foundation is continuing its efforts to obtain trademarks for both “Managed WordPress” and “Hosted WordPress.” It has filed a Request for Reconsideration after Final Action for each trademark application, which asks the USPTO to reconsider its refusals based on amendments, arguments, or evidence. These requests are a final procedural step before an appeal, although they are not themselves appeals.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments