Tips Tuesday – GoDaddy Breach, SiteGround Migrations, Gutenberg Trials

Hello Happy Site Owners and Webmasters!

Tips this week include:

• New Site Audit Client Flash Challenges and why we’re doing them
• A GoDaddy data breach that may affect you, and an update on that report
• How to restore a plugin update to the previous version
• Mixed reactions to the Try Gutenberg invitation in WP 4.9.8
• My Gutenberg tutorial schedule
• What’s up with SiteGround no longer offering free cPanel migrations
• Results on that massive Google Algorithm update at the first of the month
• The settings I’m checking in Yoast SEO for category archive pages
• Recipe plugin tests almost finished

Listen to the Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Join me Live to Discuss Tips Tuesday

I hope you’ll join me live tonight at 9pm ET / 6pm PT for the party and an interactive Tips Tuesday recap and breaking news discussion on the BlogAid Facebook Page. You can also catch the quick recap later that evening on the BlogAid YouTube Channel.

BlogAid Happenings

Get Your Site Service Now

Last week I mentioned that I’m caught up on my wait list for site service requests, and boy did y’all ever respond to that!!!

Fortunately, most of the requests could be done quickly, as many were from previous site audit clients. Those checkups go fast, as I can usually update all the security and such as I do the audit.

And, previous site audit clients get priority on my wait list too.

So, if you’ve been thinking about a site audit or checkup, or getting a real and full HTTPS conversion or any other site service now would be a good time.

New Site Audit Client Flash Challenges

Last week I emailed all of my site audit clients with a reminder invite to our private Facebook group and the email list for that.

While I don’t understand it, I do respect that some site audit clients don’t want to hear from me unless there is a dire emergency with sites in general that they need to respond to.

So, I invited the folks who do want to participate in a more active resource, like our private FB group, onto another email list.

On Friday, I sent that list the first of the new Flash Challenges we are doing to ensure our sites are up to par with all of the major changes coming. And we do follow up discussion in our group.

That has really been helpful to everyone!

This first challenge focused on our plugins, and took folks all of about 5 minutes to do.

That’s the way I want all of them to be – quick and easy.

The next one will be on our backups. It was already planned for this week, but boy is it ever timely.

GoDaddy Data Breach Puts the Internet and Your Site at Risk

You may recall that I’ve been warning for the past two weeks that major internet security issues were at hand. Well, thanks to what looked like a slip up at GoDaddy, hackers now have even more fuel for that fire.

In fact, they may have the kind of server configuration data that makes them drool, and the kind that helps them tailor a massive attack – so massive it could bring the internet to its knees.

A GoDaddy spokesperson reached out to me the day the post went live to clear up a few of the facts. And I updated my post accordingly.

Go read my post on what happened, as well as ways you can protect yourself in the event of a DDoS attack.

How to Restore Plugins to a Previous Version with WP Rollback

Last week I mentioned that I was on fire to make a priority of creating new, quick tutorial videos for the plugins I recommend and methods I tell folks a lot.

Well, here’s the first one on that list.

I’m going to shoot for one or two a month, at least.

So, look for these to start showing up on my new Helpful Posts page too.

That’s all the news from around here. Let’s dive into this week’s tips.

WordPress Tips

Mixed reaction to Try Gutenberg

WP Tavern has a pretty balanced article on the initial reaction to Gutenberg. As with most anything, folks that hate something are the most likely to post publicly about it.

And as expected, it’s a mixed reaction of love/hate.

There was a number in that article that scared the crap out of me. Actually, it was the conclusion they drew from it that was scary.

They said the Classic Editor plugin download increased over 700% to 60,000.

They took this as a good sign of how many folks are proactively maintaining their sites.

There are millions of WP sites. 60k is a drop in the bucket.

I believe we are going to hear bloody murder screams from the rest of those millions of site owners who are not paying attention when 5.0 comes out and the Gutenberg text editor is turned on by default for anyone who has not proactively taken measures to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Gutenberg Release Delayed

Last week I noticed that my WordPress beta test site had been updated to WordPress 4.9.9.

So, that means we will have at least one more release prior to 5.0, which will roll Gutenberg into the core.

I’ll have more details for you about what’s in the 4.9.9 release as they finalize it.

And, I’m waiting for the 5.0 beta release to test 10 different ways to turn off Gutenberg, so I can be sure which one works best. I’m not positive they will react the same with the Gutenberg plugin we have now, as when it rolls into the core. So, those tests have been postponed for a bit.

But rest assured that I will have details for you and we will not allow the Gute text editor to be turned on by default.

And as far as I can tell, the 5.0 release has been delayed until September.

In the meantime, you can read the two Gutenberg posts I’ve already released, that tell you more about what this whole thing is, not just the text editor we are seeing now, as well as a tour of that editor.

READ:

• What is Gutenberg and When Should You Adopt Using It?
• Gutenberg Text Editor Tour

My Gutenberg Tutorial Schedule

This week I hope to dive back into Gutenberg and start on a new tutorial series.

I don’t have any clients that I think it will be a good fit for yet, including those starting new sites, as I know they are going to want to do things that Gutenberg can’t do yet.

So, first on my agenda is to test what Gute can’t do, as I’ve already seen some things that definitely knock it out as a possibility for me to use right now.

I want to be sure to present those in the new series right up front, so folks can see if Gute is even a good fit for their needs before they make the switch, or dig further into tutorials.

Hosting Tips

SiteGround No Longer Offers Free Migration Except Through Wizard

You may remember a couple of Tips Tuesdays ago that I mentioned SiteGround was launching a new migration wizard so that you could move your site from another host yourself.

You may also remember that I said this was a bad idea, as it does not include the files below your WP install, like .htaccess and robots.txt, that are both critically important to your site security and HTTPS setup.

Well, I discovered there is more to the story when I was helping a client move off Hostgator this weekend.

SiteGround launched that wizard as the only free way to migrate to them.

They no longer offer a free cPanel migration service as of Sunday.

A manual migration is all they offer, and it costs $30.

I tried the wizard for one of my clients moving off Hostgator and it failed. They said due to restrictions at the origin host.

I’ve got a post in the works with more details and will have that for you later this week.

SEO Tips

Massive Google Algorithm Update Results

The massive algo update Google did on August 1st seems to have primarily targeted health related sites. It’s well worth reading this post from Search Engine Land to see how the big sites faired and if you have a similar site.
Also notice that Google went after sites that collect info. I’m thinking this part is HTTPS related too.

And here’s a way longer post on the update that focuses on EAT and thin content.

E-A-T stands for “Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness and it is a BIG deal for SEO.

One quotation that stood out to me in this post is about how the algo update heavily hit a site where there were too many ads on what was otherwise thin content.

“There were many Amazon affiliate links weaved into the content as well. It seems like the site was focusing more on monetization than the user. And that’s always a dangerous situation.”

For those of you who run ads, I’ll say it again – less ads means more money.

Less ads makes your site faster and gives a better user experience. Both of those things will translate into more visitors actually seeing your ads and clicking them – meaning that you make more money.

And I have testimonials from my clients to back up that statement. When they reduced their ads, they doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled their income.

Yoast Category Settings

Hey, did you know the Yoast SEO plugin has the same on-page module available for category archive pages as for regular pages?

I’m looking into that and will have some great recommendations for my DIY SEO folks after I finish my tests.

I want to see what Google picks up from that metadata, and how it shows up on the archive pages too.

That sort of thing takes a while to test, as far as seeing the changes in SERPs, but definitely worth looking into.

Plugin Tips

Recipe Plugin Tests Nearly Complete

Marilyn and I have been turned upside down, sideways, and every which way but loose trying to get through what should have been simple schema tests for a few recipe plugins.

Now we’ll have a mix of both paid and free plugins for you.

And if we can ever get a straight answer from support on one of the paid plugins, we’ll finish up the tests.

We both hope that will be later this week.

And it will likely take us until next week to finish our posts on it.

We plan to publish them on the same day, me with the schema test results, and her with a comparison of features and ease of use and look of layout.

So, we’ll have more for you on that soon.

Wrap Up

That’s a wrap for this week’s Tips Tuesday.

Show some love!!

Share this post with all your blogger buddies to support all the free info and help you get on BlogAid

Get the BlogAid Tips Tuesday Podcast on iTunes or Stitcher

Subscribe to all BlogAid Posts via email so you never miss anything!

Be sure to visit BlogAid.net for more tips and resources and I’ll see you online.