Tips Tuesday – AI Plugins Testing, Social Traffic Decline, Gmail and SMTP

Hello Happy Site Owner!

Tips this week include:

• Tips Tuesday Plus in now LIVE!
• AI plugin testing site is ready
• Where I sourced AI plugins to test – TT+ bonus
• Popular plugins I’ll be testing first – TT+ bonus
• Kadence Amplify Summit on Oct 20 has great tips beyond the theme
• Which AI bots to block or not
• Universal Analytics is still closing
• Google broad core update is rolling out
• Social media referral traffic is way down
• What to do about declining social traffic – TT+ bonus
• No more free Gmail accounts on SMTP
• Why some hosts don’t want to offer email services anymore
• The SMTP plugin me and my clients use – TT+ bonus
• Google requires verification for free Gmail bulk sends
• Where to get real email service and setup help

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Tips Tuesday Plus is Live

Thank you so very much to everyone who subscribed to Tips Tuesday Plus!!

I know that some of you had no idea what I was talking about with all of the AI stuff last week when I launched the subscription.

But you signed up anyway because you trust me when I say it’s important for us. And you want to support this extra deep testing and reporting.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Did You Get 2 Tips Tuesday Emails?

Keep in mind that folks who are subscribed to BlogAid News get and email notification with a link to read Tips Tuesday on BlogAid.

They also get special discounts and important announcements when something’s happening.

So, stay on that email list.

Tips Tuesday Plus subscribers are on a different email list. 

And they got the full post emailed directly to them. And it has more info than the public post.

So, if you got 2 emails that have similar Subject lines, that’s why. And you’ll want to read the one that starts with Tips Tuesday Plus.

You’ll also find the full Tips Tuesday Plus emails as posts in your BlogAid Learning Center member area.

Other Emails From BlogAid

If you are in any other memberships or courses there, they have their own email lists too.

Just look at the header if you ever have a question about which list it comes from. Each one says what its for, like DIY SEO, Webmaster, Hub, and more.

WP AI Testing

Test Site Ready

My testing environment and special tools have been created so I can start methodically going through the WP plugins and themes that we need to know about.

It’s a little different from my speed test setup.

And I have to do a lot of database table comparisons this time too.

I’m looking into ways I can get AI to help speed up that comparison process.

Test Site Setup

TT+ subscribers got a bonus email last week with more info on that setup and the tools I’m using. 

Keep in mind that I also train webmasters and several devs follow me too. So, they need that info so they can replicate the tests.

AI Plugins List Sorted

There are 3 master lists for plugins and themes that use AI in them.

And there are at least 50 posts that have a top 10 type list of the best AI plugins to use.

I spent a lot of time last week going through all of those lists.

There are close to 1,000 plugins that have either incorporated AI or AI is the main purpose for them.

I culled out about 10 plugins that I know most of us use as my first round choices for testing.

And I have a much longer list of plugins that will be in my second round of tests.

I also have a Maybe list, where I placed theme builders that are now using AI, like Elementor and Divi. I may not waste my time on testing those, as I advise not to use them. 

I want to spend my theme testing time on the ones that we will use, like Kadence. Astra has one now too.

TT+ subscribers got links to where I found resources for WP plugins that have AI.

My Plugins Testing List

TT+ subscribers got links to the lists as well as my first and second round plugin testing list.

Kadence Amplify Summit

The folks at Kadence have put together a fine list of speakers for their Amplify event on Oct 20.

You’ll definitely want to have look at the sessions, as they apply to far more than Kadence sites.

I didn’t see anything called a registration link. But there is an optin at the bottom of the speakers list to get notified. 

SEO Tips

Which AI Bots to Block or Not

I met live last week with the DIY SEO course members to go over the 3 different types of AI bots that can crawl or access your content.

We covered which ones to consider blocking, and which ones to consider allowing access to your content, and the reason why for both, plus the caveats for both.

And we covered how to close an open loop hole that many AI bots are using to run end around the most popular bot blocks too.

I also updated the robots.txt tutorial in the Webmaster Training course with the code to use for each bot, but not the deeper explanation, as they are webmasters and will want to research more to see what is most applicable for their client’s site and content type.

And I’ll be making these new blocks available to my site audit client Hub members as well.

Traffic Tips

Universal Analytics Still Closing

I’ve been hearing bunches of folks complain that their Universal Analytics stopped on Oct 1 and they are asking what they should do now.

So it seems that the UA shutoff just began on July 1 and still hasn’t hit every account around the world  yet.

Let this be a lesson to us about how long it takes for these global companies to roll something through.

And thank you to all of my peeps for jumping into the GA4 courses right away and having this changeover far behind you already, and before my pop up course for it closed.

I believe the last 6-month subscription for it will run out around Feb 2024, and then I’ll be shutting it down.

Google Broad Core Update Rolling Out

As if the Helpful Content Update didn’t destroy enough sites, Google just rolled out a broad core update last week.

I don’t know what the target was. I don’t see that any of the pro SEO folks I follow have figured out the target either.

But they are saying that some sites that got popped in the Helpful Content Update have been restored to full ranking. 

Personally, I think that recovery may just be coincidental to this latest update. There’s just no way to be sure anymore.

Check the Source, Not the Site

So, if your traffic swings wildly, be sure to look at your traffic sources for the answer.

If you typically get a ton of SEO traffic, check your Search Console for any technical SEO issues.

If you don’t have any, and your ranking still dropped, it just may be that your site got caught in one of these updates, and that there is nothing wrong with your site.

Even pro SEOs, who stay on top of their site’s analytics daily have elected to see Google as a circus and to not make any changes to their sites. They wait to see if it recovers, and it usually does.

So, be careful of knee-jerk, or panic-induced changes, especially when they are not based on hard evidence.

Marketing Tips

Social Media Referral Traffic Way Down

Facebook and Instagram have steadily decreased the reach of posts from pages over the last year.

And that’s especially true for any posts that link out to a site.

They want you to put whatever info you have for folks right there in the app.

And they don’t want you to put a link to elsewhere in your comments either.

Plus,  they want all of the engagement to be right there on the app too.

What To Do About Declining Social Traffic

TT+ subscribers got more info on what I suggest you do about this problem and an example link to the solution.

Email Tips

No More Free Gmail Accounts on SMTP

I don’t know how Google even keeps up with all of the lawsuits against them.

But at least a dozen of them involve free Gmail accounts in one way or another.

Keep in mind that the Terms of Service an Privacy statements for free Gmail and for paid Workspace accounts are VERY different.

With free Gmail accounts, you have no:

• Verification
• Privacy
• Security

And because of that, free Gmail is favored by spammers who send out bulk emails.

Every email hosting service is fed up with this practice, as their IPs are getting blacklisted because of it.

And now SMTP services are making hard for folks to connect a free Gmail account to them.

More on that in a moment.

Why Some Hosts Don’t Want to Offer Email Services Anymore

Some of the hosts where folks have their websites offer additional services to make them a one-stop-shop.

One of those is email services so you can send/receive with your domain-related email, like info@mysite.com.

You need some way to send emails from the site so you can get notifications for when you have a comment or if something is up with your backup and such.

But, such email services are a security and resource issue for the host – mainly due to the spammers I mentioned previously who send bulk email through them.

If the host gets their server IP blacklisted because of those spammy bulk emails, it affects every site on that server.

Hosts can’t afford that.

So, more hosts are starting to drop that service.

In fact, it’s something that insisted on with Iridium Hosting before we moved there, and that was a non-issue, as they never offered it due to the same reasons I mentioned.

SMTP for Email

SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.

Think of it as a free, 3rd party service for sending emails from your site.

It has nothing to do with the hosting, so the IP of the server your site is on can’t get blacklisted.

Me and my clients use and SMTP plugin to connect the admin email we use to this service.

The SMTP Plugin Me and My Clients Use

TT+ subscribers got more info on which plugin I like best, and why.

Google Requires Verification for Free Gmail Bulk Sends

Okay, so now that you have a better idea of how email is sent through the host, or via an SMTP plugin, let’s get back to the news you need to know.

As mentioned, free Gmail accounts are a spammer’s delight because they don’t require any verification.

Well, that’s changing.

If you want to send bulk emails using it, you will now have to get that verification so they can track you.

And because of this, many SMTP plugins will allow you to connect your free Gmail to it, but then it will disconnect within a few weeks.

And when you try to verify it again, you get a warning message that it is not secure.

You even have to check a box to acknowledge that you fully understand that.

And even if you do get it connected again, don’t count on it staying that way.

Get a Real Email Service Instead

It’s better to use a real email service and use a domain-related email instead of using a free Gmail account for all of your site communications and for your email list service, like Mailchimp and such too.

The paid Google Workspace email service is a good one to use.

Zoho has both a free and paid version too.

And when you get these services, you will also need to add more DNS records to your host and Cloudflare.

I’ve only ever seen 1 client in the entire 15+ year history of BlogAid get all of the records, and get all of them right.

Most tutorials only show you half of them.

There are SPF and DKIM records too.

And you have those for your email list service that need to be added as well.

Get Full Email Setup Help

ProSiteHelp.com is my go-to for email setup for myself and all of my clients. My webmasters use them for that too.