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– ‘good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you happen to be hiding out there on the globe today! Coming to you LIVE from …’
Welcome to Episode 644 – Mastering WordPress: A-Z of Plugins That Power Up Your Website!
We’ve got a couple of great in-depth plugins to cover for you, some recent news in both the WordPress World and the Tech World in general, and some awesome WordPress Tips!
Hoping everyone out there is getting some sunshine now – I do believe we may have made it past the false spring and might actually be headed into the real spring time! I know all the animals are feeling the spring fever – our chickens are getting a chance to wander around the backyard now and have basically buried themselves in our empty garden beds!
A few reminders before we start the show today….
Reminders:
Show starts at 12:30pm Pacific Time every other week on Monday! Join in for the pre-stream entertainment at about 12:15ish! You’ll find the show notes on the home page of wppluginsatoz.com within 24(ish) hours after every show!
This is a value for value show dear listeners, help us get some loven by hitting some like buttons, sharing an episode or two, or lovingly forcing your family members to listen to us by cranking our show way up! After all, you can’t go wrong helping out the longest running WordPress Podcast!
If you stick around until the end, you will have a chance to hear some good Questions – sometimes meant for the greenies, sometimes meant for the very experienced – and sometimes the questions are just completely random. Stick around and have a listen, might help! Or at least entertain!
...When you see this in the notes, it means we didn’t read this on the show. The only way to find this information out is to read our Show Notes!
…You can send any questions/suggestions or notes saying ‘hi’ over to me at amber@wppro.ca, or hit up our site wpppluginsatoz.com/contact – Be creative with the title so that the spammer eater doesn’t eat your note though!
Let’s start the show with this weeks Featured Artist:
Artist:
Our Artist today is Firefly! https://firefly.adobe.com/?media=featured
We would love some new art from our Producers out there! If you are so inclined, you can send it into us at https://wppluginsatoz.com/artwork/. If you need some inspiration, you can always go to our site wppluginsatoz.com and check out our Art Vaults – you will find the link for it on the left hand side.
…We can NEVER have too much art!
Breaking News in the WordPress World at large!!
If you have anything you think should be added please send it into me at amber@wppro.ca!
News this week:
WordPress Vulnerability Report
(https://solidwp.com/blog/wordpress-vulnerability-report-february-26-2025/) – In this report there are 335 vulnerabilities. All of them are plugins this week.
158 with patches
177 with no patches
WordPress Vulnerability Report from PatchStack
(https://patchstack.com/database/) – These guys always have the latest information on what is going on regarding the latest in vulnerabilities. At the time of writing this, most recent issue was 48 minutes ago, and is a plugin called Simple Download Counter, with an authenticated arbitrary file read vulnerability.
WordPress 6.8 will use bcrypt for password hashing
(https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/02/17/wordpress-6-8-will-use-bcrypt-for-password-hashing/)– In WordPress 6.8 the underlying algorithm will be changed from phpass portable hashing, to bcrypt. This is meant to harden the password security in WordPress by significantly increasing the computational cost of cracking a password hash. No action will be required by site owners, passwords and security keys saved in phpass portable hashing will continue to work after the update to 6.8. No need for anyone to change password and logged in users will remain logged in, this is just an important thing to be aware of for the developers out there.
Google Ads stop running for some advertisers
(https://searchengineland.com/google-ads-stop-running-for-some-advertisers-452864) – if you were one of those whose ads stopped running on March 1st, your ads should be running again as of today! Unfortunately nobody is really clear on what happened to cause this, although there are theories floating around, a popular one is from Navah Hopkins who posted in her LinkedIn:
“Looks like eCPC got disapproved – my other theory is that it’s tied to Google Business Profile (brands connecting their GBP for local ads). Anyone with a GBP connected to their Google Ads NOT experiencing the outage?”
If you have not checked your Google Ads Account, we recommend you do and look to see if your Ads are still running or if they have been dropped. Make sure they are running properly, and if you have clients you are in charge of the ads for be sure to double check all of your clients ads are running as they are supposed to be.
Automattic hit with class action over WP Engine dispute, accused of anti-competitive tactics
(https://www.therepository.email/automattic-hit-with-class-action-over-wp-engine-dispute-accused-of-anti-competitive-tactics) – This is a furthering of the drama that has been unfolding for a while now, although it is a little different this time as it is not WP Engine themselves and is instead a fella named Ryan Keller who runs an Ohio-based cybersecurity business called SecureSight. This is important because this is from a person who runs his own business who was affected by the drama unfolding. I am sure many people have been experiencing the same issues on and off since this all started, and this step will have a ripple affect I think, although I am not certain what will be within those ripples.
Something for us to keep an eye on and see what the outcomes are down the road.
Using WordPress as a Data-Entry Site to Power a Central API
(wordpress.com/blog/2024/12/17/using-wordpress-as-a-data-entry-site-to-power-a-central-api) – This is an interesting article that may be found useful. This article dives into how you can leverage WordPress to leverage a central API for projects like phone apps, browser extensions, or the frontends of other WordPress sites. This is a very interesting article and I appreciate how Antonius Hegyes does not only use technical jargon that is hard to follow, but regular words and explanations and images and videos to help. Worth a check if you are interested in this side of WordPress capability!
(comic) AI won’t take everyone’s job
(https://workchronicles.substack.com/p/comic-ai-wont-take-everyones-job) – Enjoy the random comic!
Also, if you find you are desiring more chuckles you can always go visit https://wpshout.com/comics/! Those comics are pretty awesome.
Rogue’s Corner News and Extras
New unique plugins Available from WPProAtoz.com
WordPress Items
Some great Gravity forms addons that are free
https://www.gravitykit.com/free-gravity-forms-add-ons-download/
Beware of fake plugins on your site
https://blog.sucuri.net/2025/02/fake-wordpress-plugin-impacts-seo-by-injecting-casino-spam.html
Current state of WordPress Market Share
https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/wordpress/wordpress-market-share-statistics
Coding Tips
How to organize your Github
https://blog.gitbutler.com/how-git-core-devs-configure-git/
Using Cursor
https://deliciousbrains.com/creating-a-wordpress-plugin-with-cursor/
Some SEO info:
Why Structured Data, Not Tokenization, is the Future of LLMs
https://www.schemaapp.com/schema-markup/why-structured-data-not-tokenization-is-the-future-of-llms/
A good article on search
https://www.mariehaynes.com/how-google-determines-relevancy-helpfulness/
Google E-E-A-T: What Is It & How To Demonstrate It For SEO
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-e-e-a-t-how-to-demonstrate-first-hand-experience/474446/
The Evolution of Search from Google
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-apac/consumer-insights/consumer-trends/evolution-search/
Tip of the day
If your a WordPress user you might want to sign up for WPPressor
https://thewp.world/presser/john-overall/
And another community and follow us for an interview with the Creator Ryan on March 24 at 12pm
https://influencewp.com
Some Extras – check out the N3W$ 4 Y0U coming out on Weds for more, or you can check out our Facebook or Twitter!
The shift to semantic SEO: What vectors mean for your strategy
(https://searchengineland.com/the-shift-to-semantic-seo-what-vectors-mean-for-your-strategy-452766)
How many hours can you code? (thecodist.com/how-many-hours-can-you-code/)
SEO shortcuts gone wrong: How one site tanked – and what you can learn
(https://searchengineland.com/seo-shortcuts-gone-wrong-452831)
The modern era of low-flying satellites may begin this week
(https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/how-low-can-you-go-firm-near-launch-of-atmosphere-skimming-satellite/)
A small microbial ecosystem has formed on the International Space Station
(https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/03/the-space-station-is-nearly-as-microbe-free-as-an-isolation-ward/)
Navigating new frontiers: The Paris AI Action Summit 2025
(https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/trends/paris-ai-action-summit)
WTF happened in 1971?
(https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/)
Reddit for SMBs: A hidden SEO and egagement goldmine
(https://searchengineland.com/reddit-smbs-seo-engagement-goldmine-452850)
Dragon Rating Time With John!
John’s Plugin
Support Access Manager
https://github.com/derekashauer/support-access-manager
The Lowdown:
This one is for all the plugin devs out there who want to offer easy support.
Support Access Manager is a lightweight PHP class for WordPress that allows temporary admin accounts to be created with expiration and access limits. It can be easily dropped into any project or installed via Composer.
Create temporary admin accounts
Set expiration times (e.g., auto-delete after 24 hours)
Limit number of logins per account
Secure login URLs for support access
Cron-based cleanup of expired accounts
Rating 5 Dragons
Secondary Plugin for the show this week (’cause it was just too cool to not bring immediately!):
Coupon URLs – Apply a Coupon from a Custom Link – for WooCommerce
https://github.com/Neblabs/coupon-urls
https://wordpress.org/plugins/coupon-urls-for-woocommerce/
The Lowdown
A 100% free plugin. Free forever. No “pro” version. Premium quality. Made for WooCommerce.
Compatible with WooCommerce 9.4.* (latest)
Coupon URLs is a WooCommerce extension that allows you to apply a WooCommerce coupon by clicking a custom link on your site. You have full control over the URL. You can create any URL you want from your own domain, there are no limits or restrictions:
Examples:
https://example.com/?code=FALL50
https://example.com/code/FALL50
Rating: 5 Dragons
WordPress Tips
We would love to hear some tid bit tips from some of our producers out there – what did you figure out by breaking something? Or what did you need to learn in order to help someone? You can send these tid bits into me at amber@wppro.ca
My tip to you today…
When you are working on a Sandbox site, don’t be afraid to try all new things. Try that new code, that new plugin, try it all! However, if you find that any of it is ‘iffy’, or it has done something unexpected…
DELETE THAT!! Delete it and forget it!
And if you find as I have in the past that you can’t actually delete that, reinstall. Just dump the whole thing into the void of garbage on the internets, write over it, completely reinstall your site.
You don’t want that at all. And if you are unable to delete a plugin, that is really not good!
But this is why we have these sandboxes! We do this to our sandboxes so that when we inevitably mess up or activate something we perhaps should not have activated after all, we can just delete and reinstall.
By doing this on the sandbox, your actual sites are safe!
So please, go break things and activate things that you wish you hadn’t so that you can learn from them!
Dragon Rating Time With Amber!
Amber’s Plugin
AI Power: Complete AI Pack
https://wordpress.org/plugins/gpt3-ai-content-generator/
The Lowdown:
Browsing the AI plugins, I came across this one. It seems to have a decent number of installs and is well liked in general, so I figured I’d give it a go! I don’t generally go in for the Swiss Army Knife style plugins due to speed issues, although this one seemed worth trying.
First thing that happens after downloading and activating is that it offers you to opt into ‘never missing an update’. I don’t like auto anything, so I skipped that. Afterwards you are taken to the dashboard for the plugin. Looking in your left-hand menu area you will see ‘AI Power’, and then the various options beneath that.
On the general dashboard, you get to choose which module settings you want: Chatbot, Content Writer, AutoGPT, AI Forms, Image Generator, Training, User Credits, and/or Audio Converter. Checkmark any or all that apply to your needs.
Before moving on, you will need to enter in an API key. The best option appears to be the OpenAI option as it has the most versatility and will have the best ability to fulfill the various options available. You will see a drop down option for which engine: OpenAI, OpenRouter, Google, or Microsoft.
My recommendation is to use OpenAI. If you already have an account great! If you don’t it will cost $5 at https://platform.openai.com for credits and a key. This $5 will stretch a ton for you! Your account will unlock all of OpenAI’s goodies, and you will get the API key you need for trying out this plugin. Pushing paid options isn’t my norm, but I foresee this account being a much needed tool for many people down the road.
Now we have our API key entered into the appropriate area (whether it was free or part of the $5 package through OpenAI)- there is no save button. This really threw me off honestly, I spent a good little while trying to figure out how to save this information – when I noticed a little blurb appear at the top citing ‘auto save completed’ – or something akin to that letting me know that everything had been saved automatically. It always feels so wrong to leave a dashboard section without pressing save…
Next on our General dashboard we have ‘Chatbot’ settings. You will see: Miscellaneous, Text to Speech, Internet Browsing, Security, and Images.
Misc is where you set whether past conversations can be loaded, whether tokens can be purchased, and set a typewriter effect and its speed. Text to Speech and Internet Browsing is where you add in more API keys. In Security you can add bad words, and naughty IP addresses to be blocked. In Images you choose User Uploads Filesystem, Processing Method, and the Quality – you can also set it so that it auto deletes the images once finished.
And the last area in our general dashboard is the Tools. These tools are: Content Writer, SEO Optimization, WooCommerce, Image Settings, and Additional Tools. They appear fairly straight forward, and you will see a little green circle with ‘Pro’ on the options you can’t use.
Moving onto the next option down in the left-hand side menu area… and we crashed and burned. This is my delicate sandbox, so it turns out that this plugin does not play well with others! Trying to refresh this landed me with the time out page. No errors, but unable to get back in. I tried heading over to my secondary sandbox, my tough nut to crack that is better for the bully plugins – and I was not able to get in. Both of these are on the same server, and checking I was not blocked. I was not able to get into the Cpanel either, just everything timing out. Trying FTP I was able to get in – so I deleted the plugin from the delicate sandbox – it took nearly 10 minutes to fully delete through FTP.
I was not able to get into the backend of either sandbox, though I was able to get into the Cpanel after that deletion. I had to run a debug in order to get back into the front end of the site again, the code I ran was:
define(‘WP_DEBUG’, true);
define(‘WP_DEBUG_LOG’, true);
define(‘WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY’, false);
This was quite the experience for me, I have never had a plugin do that to me before – I think it just used up too many resources for what I have available to me, so I don’t recommend this for shared hosting or if you have a lower tier plan with companies like Bluehost or HostGator. For myself, the best part about trying to get this plugin to work was signing up with OpenAI. The plugin ate up way too many resources, choking the pipeline.
I’ve never seen a plugin do this before. I believe it’s because of their Swiss Army Knife approach – too many AI tricks at once. Focusing on one AI aspect would help keep the pipeline clear, and those with fewer resources available would then be able to utilize their plugin.
I’m sad I wasn’t able to actually try anything out, it looks like it could be a fantastic plugin! Unfortunately it just requires more resources than I am able to offer it.
Rating: 1 Dragon
**UPDATE**
During the show I stated that the code above (the debug code) was something that helped to fix my site – I have now learned it didn’t fix anything, just logged issues. I just happened to enter that code at the perfect time when the server recovered. What this code actually does is records issues in live time as they are happening.
Once you put this code into your config file, you will find the file debug.log in your wp-content folder.
Donations from across the galaxy!
Producership Credits are a thing that do actually exist – we offer them up to those who donate through Time, Talent or Treasure. You can use these credits to boost up your resume, add to your LinkedIn file, so on and so forth!
Even if you are not interested in receiving a Producership Credit, check out how you can use us as your own stepping ladder in the world of the internets – get yourself an interview, get us to make your announcement for you, let the world know you have something to say or a company worth checking out!
Have a look through our site wppluginsatoz.com. Check out the Time, Talent and Treasure pages.
Affiliates on the Milky Way!
Welcome to our Affiliates Section – we are picky so you know these guys are worth at least checking out!
Termageddon
(https://app.termageddon.com/?fp_ref=wppro) – Use Termageddon to help comply with privacy laws such as the CPRA, GDPR, UK DPA, CalOPPA, PIPEDA, and more. They will also help you comply with consumer protection laws, provide eCommerce disclosures, and limit your liability. Click on our link here!
Rank Math
(https://rankmath.com/?ref=wpproatoz) – Rank Math is a fantastic company to work with on your sites SEO. The Free version will give you everything you need to get started and get your SEO up to a place where you will get noticed! The Premium version is like getting VIP Treatment when it comes to the tools available.
The documentation they have available is in easy to read, every day language so that it does not require a degree to understand how to use the tools!
Customer Service has been great in my experience whether you are using the free version, or you are using the pro version.
These guys are great to work with no matter your experience levels, I highly recommend going and checking them out – click on our link here!
Miscellaneous Announcements from all:
Have an announcement like a meetup, or to announce you’ll be on stage at a WordCamp? Let us know and we will add it here and help get your news out to the world!
WordCamp, Madrid, Spain – March 7-8
Women WordPress Day 2025, Mumbai India – March 8
Women WordPress Day 2025, Ajmer, India – March 8
Women WordPress Day 2025, Ahmedabad, India – March 8
Women WordPress Day 2025, Surat, India – March 8
To see the entire list you can follow the link here in the show notes, then click on ‘More WordCamps’ right below the list of the next 5. https://central.wordcamp.org/
If you are interested in finding a WordPress Meetup somewhere around the world you can go check out the places here: https://www.meetup.com/pro/wordpress/
Keep checking back every week to find out what else is going on!
How to reach us:
Feel like sending us something through the snail mail system? You can do that thanks to our brick and mortar address that we provide for you!
You can also reach us the more common way of the internets – have both of our internets available down below for ya!
WP Plugins A to Z
C/O John Overall
20-754 E Fairview Rd.
Victoria, BC V9A 5T9
Canada
John:
My website:http://www.johnoverall.com/
WordPress Emergency Support:http://wppro.ca/wpemergency
email:john@wppro.ca
Amber:
email: amber@wppro.ca
Today’s Plugins we covered were:
John’s Plugin:
Support Access Manager by Derek Ashauer
- Create temporary admin accounts
- Cron-based cleanup of expired accounts
- Set expiration times (e.g. auto-delete after 24 hours)
and
Coupon URLs – Apply a Coupon from a Custom Link – for WooCommerce
A 100% free plugin. Free forever. No “pro” version. Premium quality. Made for WooCommerce. Coupon URLs is a WooCommerce extension that allows you to apply a WooCommerce coupon.
Rating: 5 Dragons
Amber’s Plugin:
AI Power: Complete AI Pack by senols
- Multiple AI providers
- Token Management
- Required too many resources for me to really test
Rating: 1 Dragon
Q & A Time with Amber – Catch this info on our YouTube Channel
If you have questions you would like to have asked on the show, send them in to me atAmber@WPPro.ca – we may never stump my dad, but we can get some good conversation out of him at least!
- What are 3 things you should always do before hitting ‘update’ on your site for WordPress Versions?
- How do you decide which plugins are worth keeping when your site starts slowing down?
Questions asked after closing credits:
- How often should a person check their permalinks to make sure they are still working and SEO-friendly – and what’s the easiest way to do that do you think?
- What’s one WordPress feature you think could save people hours of time if they just knew it was there and how to use it?