Tips Tuesday – WordPress 6.8.2, Bot Scraper Threat, YouTube Monetization Change
Tips this week include:
- WordPress 6.8.2 releases today
- WordPress 6.9 due in December
- Social Pilot has been acquired – and why we care
- Plugin conglomerates rule
- Site security is not just about hacking anymore
- Bad bot security at Cloudflare
- Bad bot security at the Host
- Sites overwhelmed by new bad bot hits
- What we thing the new bad bots are after
- Why I’m glad to be at Iridium Hosting
- Hosts that are ripping folks off
- Designers need security too
- The AI browser wars are coming
- My favorite AIs
- Will AI browsers be better?
- Why to look beyond the shiny new stuff
- YouTube monetization policy changes that are good for us
- Backlash on AI voice ban
- How video will still rule – with examples
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WordPress Tips
WordPress 6.8.2 Updates Today
Earlier this year, Matt Mullenweg said that there would only be one major update to WordPress in 2025 and that the team would primarily focus on bug fixes for minor releases.
I was concerned about getting big code changes or such rolled into a minor release that would auto update on us – like the hoohaa we went through when he wanted to reserve 5.0 for the release of Gutenberg. For over a year with 4.9 we had major changes rolled out in minor releases that broke things during those auto updates.
But, it looks like the 6.8.2 release is all bug fixes. There are 20 fixes to Core and 15 for the Block Editor.
And some of these things have been sitting in the ticket system for years.
I’m glad to see that Matt is holding to his word about shoring up this software that so many of us depend on.
WP 6.8.2 is rolling out today and it should be an auto update for you.
WordPress 6.9 Due in December
But, Matt didn’t hold to his word about there only being one major release this year.
The call for volunteers to help get WP 6.9 ready for an early December release has been posted.
The timing is not by accident. That will be just prior to WordCamp US where Matt will give his usual State of the Word address.
Social Pilot Acquired
Did you know that a company called group.one (not a typo, that’s their name) owns several SEO related companies like RankMath, GTMetrix, and WP Rocket?
And that likely explains why all of them had price increases along with changes in the past year or so that were not well received.
Well, now they have acquired Social Pilot, which helps site owners publish and analyze metrics on social media.
Plugin Conglomerates Rule
Folks, this is the way most WP plugins, themes, and related services are going. They are being scooped up by a handful of umbrella companies.
In some ways that’s a good thing, as they have the infrastructure support and funding they need.
But, it can also lead to their demise, like we’ve seen since WPEngine acquired Genesis. They got it, but they stopped putting real resources into its continued development. Keep in mind that WPEngine is owned by a private equity firm called Silver Lake.
Security Tips
Site Security is Not Just About Hacking Anymore
Y’all, the bad bot hits are getting out of hand.
What qualifies as a “bad” bot now is not just the ones trying to hack your site. There are just as many “scraper” bots now as hacker bots.
Bad Bot Security at Cloudflare
Every day there is a new attack vector from hackers and scrapers.
That’s the main reason why I would not be able to sleep without my sites being on Cloudflare. When all 30+ settings are properly configured, they can block the overwhelming majority of bad bots before they hit our hosting, much less our sites.
Bad Bot Security at the Host
But, Cloudflare can only protect our sites from bots that hit on our domain name.
For bots that hit on the host server IP address, it is critically important to have proper security at the hosting itself.
That includes files I configure below the public_html folder, which everything that comes to your site has to hit prior to opening WordPress, including bots and humans.
And it also includes the security that the host provides. In fact, that is the bulk of server-side security.
Site Overwhelmed by New Bad Bot Hits
Well, one of my clients was experiencing blocked access to one of her sites. The server had put itself into self-preservation mode due to a huge bot hit.
I immediately contacted Dustin Hyle, who is the owner and senior system admin at Iridium Hosting. He personally takes care of all of my clients.
We compared notes of what I was seeing for the bot hits at Cloudflare and what he was seeing of bot hits in the host server logs.
An excessive number of bot hits on the IP drove the hosting resources through the roof.
This was not a DDoS attack where they were trying to break in.
It was from a bunch of user agent bots, like the kind that Google and AIs use to crawl our sites. But, they had no name.
And he could tell that they were bad bots because of what they were indiscriminately hitting on, most of which caused 403 type errors.
While the hit doesn’t allow WP to be opened, which would cause even more resource usage, the error does act as a returned request and that chews up a wee bit of resources each time.
Y’all, I see those types of hits on our site in every single audit I do. And it just lets me know that the security we have at the hosting is working.
But, when the bots are hitting at 500,000 in a single wave, that small resource drain suddenly turns into a huge resource drain.
And the host’s security red lights go off and it curtails traffic to the site to protect both the site and the host server because it thinks it is under attack.
That’s why the client could not not log into her site, and why Cloudflare was delivering a cached version of it for as long as it could.
Dustin fixed that issue quickly with a new security feature and site functions are back to normal.
What We Think The New Bad Bots Are After
All legit bots identify themselves by name, including the major AI crawler/search bots.
We think these new Unknown, no-name bots are scrapers trying to gather site info to sell to the less than legit AI platforms or to AI-enhanced SEO services.
Keep in mind that crawling the web costs millions of dollars.
Agencies are willing to pay for scrapers who can filter the crawls to the top 100-1000 authoritative sites in a niche who will do the scraping for them.
Or, they are looking for new things to exploit on sites, hence the high-volume of 403 errors caused by looking for things that either don’t exist or are protected.
FYI, even the legit AI bots are wasting millions trying to crawl things that will yield nothing useful to them. NOBODY touches Google for fully optimizing their crawl budget and only peeking into places that will yield useful info. It’s going to take years for the legit AI crawlers to figure that out.
Why I’m Glad To Be At Iridium Hosting
Dustin and I discussed the additional security measures he installed to block the new no-name bots’ IP addresses during these rapid fire hits. And we are sure that they will not block any desirable bots, including the legit AI bots. And we’ll be monitoring the situation for the rest of the month.
I can tell you for a fact that I would not want to be at any host besides Iridium these days!!!!!
Most hosts have relaxed their server-side security to cut down on tech support tickets for things like JSON update failed issues when site owners are trying to save a new blog post. (See how to properly fix that here.)
Dustin and I frequently share findings and fixes for the ever-changing bot challenges on sites.
Doing so protects our client’s sites and the host servers.
You may recall my recent reports about the new hotlink protection that took 3 months of monitoring and tweaking, as well as the legit AI bot crawls that I’m still monitoring.
Hosts That Are Ripping Folks Off
I can’t imagine how many site owners are being told by their junk hosts right now to buy bigger packages because of all this.
And not a single one of those hosts are even looking into the cause of the problem, much less offering fixes.
The bigger hosting package just gives more room for the rats to run. So the “fix” is temporary, at best.
I saved one client $2400 in hosting by taking 30 minutes to properly secure her site.
If you’re not one of my clients – how much are you overpaying for hosting or site help that is not actually protecting you?
Designers Need Security Too
I’ve also seen sites getting bad bot hits from their site being accessed while on a designer’s dev site environment.
Some designers set up a copy of the client’s site on their own host servers that don’t have proper security.
And 99.99999999% of those designers haven’t a clue about how many bad bots are hitting that server and scraping all kinds of content and info from the client sites set up there.
Once those bots have that info, they use against your live site that is on your own hosting.
This is just one of many reasons why I recommend Michelle Phillips of Codefetti and Marcy Diaz of Amethyst Website Design for theme builds and revamps. Both of them have been in my Webmaster Training for over a decade. And I 100% guarantee that their dev environment is secured against bad bot hits, as are the client sites on their dev servers.
Get Real Help
If you’re ready to move to 5-star hosting that is actually fast and secure, contact me for help with your migration.
You have 1 shot at doing this in a way that knocks out all of the bad bots currently hitting your site, and getting your email and such properly secured too.
Plus, you can combine an audit with your migration and save $$$ on both services.
Trust me, these services are a WHALE of a lot cheaper than going up in your current hosting package, which just gives more room for the rats to run!!!!
AI Tips
The AI Browser Wars Are Coming
Perplexity just announced that they are releasing their own browser. And OpenAI is not far behind. IT Pro has a nice article about it.
The threat to Google is real.
The Chrome browser still has 80% market share. And Google collects data from its users. While some of that data helps them improve Google Search, their real revenue from that data comes from targeted ad placements in Search and on sites that run Google Ads.
Ads make up the majority revenue for Google. The AI browsers don’t have that constraint.
The same threat holds for Microsoft, which has the same revenue model as Google with their Edge browser and Bing Search.
That said, OpenAI has been leaning toward adding shopping/products, of some sort, to their search offerings. If they do, the ads will follow and they’ll be in the same monetary boat at Google.
My Fave AIs
I like Perplexity when I need to do research on evergreen topics. But I don’t find it helpful for current news or tech, as those things change far faster than any AI platform can crawl.
Google. Plus, Perplexity is THE best at citing its sources so I can dive deeper into topics.
Grok is really good for how-to tutorials and news, as it is tied to X and offers current info.
And I find Claude far more creative than ChatGPT, or any other AI, for help with ideas for titles or spinning copy.
I rarely use ChatGPT, but that’s because I don’t use all the things it can integrate with and I just don’t care for the interface.
I have NotebookLM on my to-do list to learn, as I think it could be the most helpful. But, being made by Google, it is also one of the least intuitive.
Will AI Browsers Be Better?
Google is desperately trying to get Chrome and Workspace users to incorporate Gemini, which is their AI platform.
And Microsoft is desperately trying to get Edge users to try Bing’s AI tools.
But both of these companies have botched their AI launches and have so many confusing ways to get to the AI tools that folks just said never mind.
ChatGPT has always been stupid simple to use. Their interface still looks like something from the 1990s.
Perplexity doesn’t look as dated, but they kept it stupid simple to use too.
But, new browsers mean new interfaces.
Comet, which is the new browser from Perplexity, is only available to top-tier users. So, we don’t know what features and functions it has. OpenAI has been tight-lipped about what features and functions their browser will have when it releases in a few weeks.
We’ll have to wait and see if they are just changing the look of the interface or offering new features too.
(FYI, there may be a few Perplexity users sharing what’s in Comet by the time this weekly newsletter is posted, so check it out, if you’re curious.)
Look Beyond Shiny New Stuff
While a better AI interface will be welcomed, that’s not what I’ll be checking out first.
One of the reasons I started using the Brave browser was that it prioritizes security and privacy.
And the reason I don’t make more use of most of the AIs is because I don’t want my data held or crawled by them.
Actually, that’s one of the reasons I wanted to use NotebookLM, but Google has crossed the privacy/training line with Gemini, so I don’t know if I can trust them with my data on any of their AI-powered interfaces now.
So, when you see influencers going ga-ga over the shiny new thing, keep in mind that there is no AI, except for the LLMs you can download yourself and keep private, that are not using every single input from you as a way to collect data – and not all for your benefit either.
That’s true of every social platform you use too.
The difference is, you know it will be public on a social platform. These AIs give the illusion of a private conversation.
Just be careful what you share with it.
Video Tips
YouTube Monetization Policy Change
The list includes:
- AI voices
- Reused content – clips of existing, the exception being “reaction” videos
- Low effort
- Purely AI generated
Folks can still upload these types of videos, they just can’t monetize them.
YT didn’t say the channel would be banned, as we previously thought.
I’m thinking some faceless video channels will wrongfully get caught in this net.
And does anyone find it ironic that Google is the same company that just released one of the best AI video generators with VEO3?
How This Impacts My YouTube Plans
I’m getting close to launching a new channel that I had planned to make faceless, but I’m thinking I need to show a cameo of me at the beginning, at least. These will be tutorials on the software I use to create the videos for the new music channel I had planned to launch this year.
But, I will be holding off on that music channel for a bit. My relaxing videos are not AI generated, but they could be misconstrued as such.
Backlash on AI Voice Ban
I feel so sorry for the really good channels that are using AI voices for storytelling and new music and such.
I know there is a legal issue with using the voices of real people, and I can see why they need to put a stop to that.
But de-monetizing all AI voices is going to put a real hurt on true creators who are making AI movies or series shows, and new AI music producers and such. So, maybe there will be an outcry to get that reversed.
Video Will Still Rule
I’m already hearing some futurists say that we are quickly moving into an age of “no internet, no clicks.”
Someday, folks won’t search for info. They will simply ask, with their voice, and get the answer.
Yeah, and then they’ll have to ask 15 more clarifying questions to get the info they’re actually seeking – that’s the reality I see coming.
It’s the same way we filter search results now, including AI queries.
Recipe Example
You can get AI to show you an apple pie recipe right now.
What you can’t get it to do is show you how to make it.
This is why video will still rule.
In fact, there are already video creators making big bucks doing quick videos of how to make something.
People eat with their eyes.
Video is perfect for that.
Craft Example
It’s hard to show someone how to make or do a thing using only still shots.
Video absolutely rules for how-to instruction.
Easy Wins the Day
Showing someone how easy a thing is will win every time.
Video rules when it comes to encouraging folks that something is easy to do.
You’re doing it right in front of them – in just minutes.
