Solved: WordPress Website Is Loading Very Slow – What to do?

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If you ever had any issues with WordPress running very slow and people calling you to tell you they cant see your website, you may not be the only one. WordPress is a such a great frame work but its code complexity does not cooperate well with some servers.

We had a client come to us last week and asked us to analyze their WordPress based website as it was acting very slow. Our initial approach was to dig in and see the back-end first before making any changes. We did find some unnecessary plugins that were taking a tall on the load time but was not very significant however that always helps. After other tweaking and code optimization we decided to move their content, images, javascript, CSS files to content deliver network (CDN) for faster loading. And that did it, the site load decreased by 3.9 seconds. We also did some MySQL database optimization which had so many unused tables that were inserted by previous plugins even though they were un-installed the tables were still there. This happens quite a bit especially for sites that have had WordPress since the early days and the framework wasnt as advanced as it is today. If you need any help with speeding up your WordPress site please drop us a line and we will be happy to help you. 

Did your WordPress website get hacked ?

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WordPress is an extremely popular open source content management system which is for blogging but also as a core business website. WordPress is a great CMS and has tons of features and plugins but being open source it also means that anyone can download it and view the source code including hackers. Most people install WordPress through their hosting company which may be offered as a “one-click-install” using Fantastico or Simple Scripts which makes it very easy. However, what most of people dont know is that that WordPress is such a targeted platform by hackers who know all the security vulnerabilities and can explore them. Most people are not tech savy when it comes to dealing with WordPress as it was installed from a third party website so they get stuck and end up with only headaches.

Most common hacking problems:

  • Weak Passwords
  • Outdated WP version
  • Being on a shared hosting
  • Incorrect File Permissions
  • Untested or Buggy Plugin-ins
  • MySQL Injections
  • FTP hacking

And the list goes on and on as hackers always find loopholes to dig in. The funny thing is that these hackers do it for the fun of the game not to really do any harm but its embarrassing to a business when a customer goes to the homepage to find a hackers message.

So what to do if your WordPress is hacked ?

First, this to do is change all of your passwords including server and FTP not only your WordPress. Second, take your site down and put a simple html “under maintaince” page so people dont see the hacked message. Third, go to your backups(assuming you have backups) and restore everything back to normal starting with WP files as well as database files. If this fails then you have to ask for professional programmer or WordPress expert to fix the issue.

Installing WordPress is one thing but keeping it safe its a whole different animal and appropriate security patches need to be added for future prevention. Hope this helps and if you need any help with WordPress let us know!

WordPress Shared Hosting is a Big NO

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As we have mentioned before WordPress is not well optimized for majority hosts so therefore many WordPress sites run into very similar issues. WordPress uses up a lot of memory due to its coding structure but also the plugins management. Having a decent server is crucial to improving WordPress’s performance. When looking to either get a new server or move on to another its great to keep a few things in mind as the server could make it or break it.

Stay away from shared servers
Keep in mind that going for a shared hosting is not a great idea unless your resources are very limited. In a shared hosting environment you are sharing your resources with many other sites. For example: IP address, RAM, Bandwidth etc. What this does is limit your sites ability to perform as it should as the other websites’s scripts maybe running hight and using up a good percentage of that memory. This is where WordPress runs into issues as its being limited use the memory it needs. We’ve seen large WordPress sites take up as much as 256MB.

Also, if you are sharing IP address across 100 other sites the chances are high that one of this domains is spamming search engines and they may block that IP that you are sharing.

Conclusion, from experience we’ve seen WordPress websites perform a lot better when hosted to a private server with a dedicated IP. However, owning a virtual private server comes with its difficulties as you will most likely need some technical knowledge to set it up and maintain it.

WordPress SEO Features

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WordPress is one of the greatest open source (FREE) content management system out there not only for its easy to use functionality but also for added SEO features. WordPress is well known for the practical use of plugins and management. WordPress gives anyone the ability to turn the blog into a very powerful and dynamic site from eCommerce to company intranets.
Feature 1
Many plug-ins offer the user to enter custom Title, Description, Keyword tags for all the posts and pages which makes easier to optimize it for search engines.
Feature 2
Custom ULRs – great control over the URL structure so you can enter desired keywords.
Feature 3
Xml-Rpc Ping Tool – Great for communication with other sites
Feature 3
Link structure – WordPress’s links are so well laid out that it makes interlinking automated. For example sidebar widget links like: recent posts, categories, cloud tags are perfect to link your posts throughout the site.

SOLVED: Error loading stylesheet: An unknown error has occurred (805303f4)

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Ever get this type of error after installing Google XML Sitemaps plugin. There is a very easy fix to this issues. Simply, login to your FTP account or file manager and just change the sitemap filename from sitemap.xml to example.xml or site-map.xml and Rebuild it. A very small bug can cause this problem.

Error loading stylesheet: An unknown error has occurred (805303f4)
http://www.domain.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/sitemap.xsl

SOLVED: Error loading stylesheet: An unknown error has occurred (805303f4)

Or second option:

Loon in your wordpress plugin plugin folder for the file below and edit sitemap-core.php:
Full path : /wp-content/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/sitemap-core.php 

Find the following code :
function GetPluginUrl() {
//Try to use WP API if possible, introduced in WP 2.6
if (function_exists(‘plugins_url’)) return trailingslashit(plugins_url(basename(dirname(__FILE__))));
//Try to find manually… can’t work if wp-content was renamed or is redirected
$path = dirname(__FILE__);
$path = str_replace(“\”,”/”,$path);
$path = trailingslashit(get_bloginfo(‘wpurl’)) . trailingslashit(substr($path,strpos($path,”wp-content/”)));
return $path;
}

And REPLACE it with this:
function GetPluginUrl() {
//if (function_exists(‘plugins_url’)) return trailingslashit(plugins_url(basename(dirname(__FILE__))));
$path = dirname(__FILE__);
$path = str_replace(“\”,”/”,$path);
//$path = trailingslashit(get_bloginfo(‘wpurl’)) . trailingslashit(substr($path,strpos($path,”wp-content/”)));
$path = trailingslashit(substr($path,strpos($path,”wp-content/”)));
return $path;
}


This should do the trick.

WordPress Developer & WordPress Ideas

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Always looking for a developer for contract work or just a few hours worth of work ? This is what people usually tell me before they hire me for long term or short term web development projects. Especially with wordpress projects it happens a lot since numerous companies have started adding blogs to their current site and are looking to for a wordpress developer to either design a theme or just get them going. What makes wordpress great is the backend admin are where clients have the ability to add new posts, create new pages and lot more other things. It is a great blogging software for non-techy people who like to share their thoughts with the world and add value to their main website.

I like wordpress a lot as it is very flexible and there are plenty of plugins to add to meet the needs of any business. The demand for wordpress development has increased in the past few years and I keep getting new challenges everyday. The best part of my job is when I see a client say “wow I really like what you have done” that makes my day as all the hard work is appreciated.

My latest wordpress development project have consisted on new industry related themes such as real estate, law firms, restaurants all around the Boston area. 

WordPress Themes & Design Process

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Having worked on many wordpress blogs from scratch I have started seeing a huge spike in demand for wordpress lately which I think its mainly due to the high popularity it has gotten in the past few years. I love designing wordpress themes as every time brings a new challenge given that every business has different and unique requests. Many people in Boston have started blogging and sharing their thoughts with the world through wordpress and I feel the design they choose for their wordpress blog reflects not only their sense of style but also their personality. I have seen real estate brokers, lawyers, dentists, opticians blog about their experience in their field. Many businesses in Boston area blog everyday. Thats right, some of them actually write blogs on hourly basis. Every small business owner has become a great editor in their business industry only by writing blog posts related to the industry their business falls in. However, I have noticed that some blogs despite having interesting articles do not get attract visitors or keep them for too long on their site. Why? Well first of all the design can the biggest problem as people dont like to read from a blog that bothers their eyes or simply dont like so they leave. Design is the key to keep visitors coming back. People these days tend to be very impatient and move on to the next blog very quickly so dont let that be you.
 
WordPress and other blogging  platforms have changed the way people think about the web and the benifits it brings.

Let me know if you are looking to design or develop a wordpress blog and I can help you get started quickly.

Contact me or email me at don@tripleroi.com

Wordpress Themes & Design Process

WordPress Design Boston Developer

Wordpres Theme Developer & Designer Boston

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Wordpres Development & Design Services

Wordpres blogging is getting very popular. With the popularity of Wordpres and social media online personal look is becoming an everyday pastime for people. With your own custom designed WordPress blog you can create its visual design and functionality to suit your needs!.

Depending on your requirements I will create a custom designed WordPress blog for anyone who is using WordPress. WordPress blogging tools are easy, custom editable and come with thousands of easy to use plugins such as image galleries, videos etc that you can download and install yourself. I work with you to create a unique WordPress blog design that allows you to access the great features of WordPress easily.

You can easily get a wordpress blog integrated into your existing websites design, custom WordPress themed to mirror like they were always a part of the websites design. By adding a blog into your website you can increase the number of visitors to your website through search engines and referrals, as well as increasing brand awareness to your brand.

Email me if you have any question at don@tripleroi.com