Tips Tuesday – Drops in Traffic, Agentic Commerce, Gutenberg Blocks Compared 

Tips this week include:

• WP and WP Engine lawsuit update
• Gutenberg block plugins performance compared
• Organic Search metrics borked
• Change to Cloudflare Rule for AI Bots
• Drop in YouTube views
• Drop in Pinterest traffic
• Agentic Commerce will take over
• What is MCP?
• eComm and video
• I hit a bit YouTube milestone
• An update on my YouTube projects

WordPress Tips

WP and WP Engine Lawsuit Update

The original complaint filed by WPE has been amended.

It now includes what the judge said was unclear or not proved in the September 2025 ruling.

So, this means that the “2 victories” that Matt Mullenweg claimed to have won a few weeks ago are not true anymore.

I also think that Matt is going to be personally on the hook for more liability than he ever imagined too.

Plugin Tips

Gutenberg Block Plugins Performance Compared

David McCan did an outstanding job of testing all major Gutenberg Block plugins to see how they performed for resource usage such as memory and database, plus page size.

I suggest you watch the video to see his clean testing methodology, including the plugin he used to reset his site between each test.

You can more easily see all of the comparison tables on his post, but I think the ones that will be of most interest to us are the block plugins from GeneratePress, Spectra, and Kadence. He tested both the free and paid versions of each.

So, how did they do?

GeneratePress had the lightest load on the site. But keep in mind that both its theme and block plugin have the least functionality and styling options – by far. So that accounts for how lightly they run, as far as resources. 

Spectra, made by Astra, was the next lightest of the three.

Kadence was the heaviest for performance out of all the block plugins tested. But, it also has more functionality and more styling options. However, I do hope they see this test and work on lightening the load of the plugins where possible.

The other performance thing about Kadence is that it really didn’t add much to overall page weight, and it doesn’t impact speed much either. 

Given all of Kadence’s functionality and super stable coding, it’s still the one that I’ll be using and recommending.

Traffic Tips

Organic Search Metrics Borked

Search Engine Roundtable is reporting that GA4 is currently showing a surge in organic search traffic, but GSC is showing no such spike.

So, don’t get too excited if you see a big jump in organic search traffic, as something could be borked in the reporting of either of these metric sites. It may take a while to sort out which is right and/or if this is a reflection of bot traffic and not real human organic search.

Change to Cloudflare Rule for AI Bots

Cloudflare is making changes weekly, if not daily, to vend off bad bots for us. And AI has made it so much easier for bad actors to find new attack vectors.

Plus, we have such a radical increase in AI Search Crawlers and now AI Agents hitting our sites that we have to be mindful of ensuring only legit bots and humans are the source of our higher traffic.

That’s because all of those hits chew up our limited hosting resources and we most certainly don’t want to pay more for hosting just to accommodate bad bot hits!!!

So, back in July, I radically increased the number of bots I’m calling out by name in the rule we use to block bad bots.

But then last week, all of our legit AI bot crawlers went to zero. And no AI chatbot platform could see our site links either. They were getting a 403 Forbidden error.

I’m still not sure what Cloudflare changed that blocked bots that were not called out in that rule. But, I made a change to back off some of the Agentic AIs in that rule and it fixed the issue.

So, I sent a new rule to my site audit Hub clients and they were able to update it themselves, including those whose AI Crawlers were not being blocked yet.

The whole thing sounds sketchy to me. But, I’m just glad to have caught it so quickly. And I’ll keep a close eye on it, as do my clients.

And God help all site owners who don’t have anyone watching out for them this way!! 

Drop in YouTube Views

If you’re seeing a drop in your YouTube views since August, you’re not alone.

And there was no change on the YouTube side.

Search Engine Journal reports that the drop may be due to an update for EasyPrivacy, which has an ad blocker.

The EasyPrivacy list is used by other ad blocker services too.

One of the reasons folks think this may be the cause is due to seeing a bigger drop on desktop than on mobile, as extensions are more common on desktop.

Drop in Pinterest Views

A few of my clients are reporting significant drops in Pinterest views.

If you’re not already in Amy’s Levee Road Studio Pinterest courses, at the very least, get her free one and get on her email list. She let’s us know what’s up with Pinterest that is affecting our traffic.

Monetization Tips

Agentic Commerce Will Take Over

Last week I reported that ChatGPT is becoming a shopping mall.

It has introduced Agentic Commerce that is currently connected to Etsy and Shopify and uses Stripe as the payment processor.

And now Woocommerce is developing a way to get in on Agentic Commerce Protocol via their own WooCommerce MCP and the Abilities API.

Y’all, this is just the beginning of a whole new eCommerce era online and I expect to be reporting that more eComm vendors are developing their own MCPs to tap into Agentic Commerce as we go into next year.

What is MCP?

MCP stands for Model Context Protocol, which is an open standard for AI agents to access tools, data sources, and APIs.

This is the main protocol for all the new autonomous AI Agents being built that are being promoted as Personal AI Assistants.

And MCPs are at the heart of Agentic Commerce too.

Video Tips

eComm and Video

The TikTok Shop has propelled some folks into 6-figure incomes. I don’t know how or if that will change when the sale of TikTok to U.S. investors happens.

Meta is playing catchup in this area and doesn’t really have anything that most creators can participate in to get direct sales.

What I’m keeping close watch on are YouTube and Amazon. Video is one of the best ways to make affiliate sales for many creators, especially those who do product reviews or comparison posts.

And I’m seriously wondering if Google will jump into Agentic Commerce. They should, as they already have the leading Search Engine for products now. That’s followed closely by Amazon.

If Google does adapt Agentic Commerce for Search, I suspect that YouTube adoption will come soon afterward, especially since TikTok Shop is doing so well.

YouTube Milestone

I hit the 1 million views mark on YouTube with my Heartwood Art channel!!!!

I’m looking forward to getting to the next million mark quicker now that I’m posting more often!!!

My YouTube Project Updates

I’m sharing my video journey in hopes that it inspires and encourages you.

Halloween Videos

My Halloween videos have been picking up steam on YouTube since the end of September.

While the Shorts are getting high view numbers, that does not tell the whole story. They are being shown widely, but not necessarily to the right audience as most folks are swiping away in less than 10 seconds.

This is why you have to go beyond vanity metrics to see what’s actually working for you. 

And this is what contributed to my decision to not take the extra time to make Shorts for the new Xmas craft videos.

Christmas Videos

Last week, I finished editing all of the videos, but I got hung up for a couple of days trying to create my own music for them. I no longer have the rich orchestral voices to do what was in my head. So I went a whole other direction and made it into a bluegrass arrangement of Deck the Halls. And that fits more with my overalls anyway!

All of the videos and posts are scheduled starting Nov 1. For the most part, I’m posting weekly, but there will be a few daily ones too. And they will run through mid December, as I skipped posting during the Thanksgiving weekend.

This week I’m putting together my posting spreadsheet for Pinterest.

I’m telling you what!! Learning how to do that spreadsheet in Amy’s Levee Road Studio Pinterest courses makes scheduling and posting a super fast process!!!!! I’ll have that done and off my plate this week.

Digging In and Getting Faster

I’ve been using Photoshop a LOT more this year and it made creating my Pinterest and other social images SO fast!!!!!!!!

That program used to intimidate the beegeebees out of me and I felt so overwhelmed. But I made a point to dig in and learn each new thing as I needed it. And now I can do most everything I need quickly.

The same is true with making videos. I’ve been doing them long enough now that I can storyboard in my head and I have a streamlined process for shooting and editing.

Like everything else, you just commit to learning it, and doing it over and over makes you better at it.

New YouTube Channel in the Works

Now that the Xmas vids are finished, I dove into checking out the latest update on the complex software I use to make cinematic worlds for videos.

I’m thrilled that all of the new functions are advanced features and do not impact the beginner-level things I’m teaching.

So, this weekend, I went back through all of the scripts that I wrote over a month ago to ensure nothing had changed with them, and to practice making the world that I’ll be featuring in the tutorials. 

Making this one scene is split across 10 videos. And that gives me a LOT of good SEO titles on YouTube and a playlist on this version too.

The only issue is that I can’t make it exactly the same every time, so I do have to practice a bit.

And, I have to finish recording the whole series before I can make the intro videos that will be at the beginning of each one, as I need the final scene to show folks during the intro.

So, guess what I’ll be doing all this week?!? Yep, making videos!!

I’ll keep you posted on progress and when the new channel launches. I’m aiming for the end of this month as there is a LOT to creating a new channel beyond just doing the videos.