It’s Episode 473 with plugins for AutoBlogging, SEO for the Insane, Custom URL Shortener, Session Limitations, Google Photos, GuestBooks and ClassicPress Options. It’s all coming up on WordPress Plugins A-Z!
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WP Pocket URLs, CWO Photo, Limit Login Session, Gwolle Guestbook, RSS Aggregator by Feedzy – Powerful WP Autoblogging and News Aggregator, Squirrly SEO 2020 (Smart Strategy) and ClassicPress options in Episode 473
With great appreciation for the No Agenda Show for their inspiration of ideas and the occasional stolen sound clip.
This is a value for value show and I look forward to everyone providing some value back.
Start by Subscribing to the newsletter for additional information and get out there and rope them all in, Spread the word about WP Plugins A to Z and catch it live every Thursday at noon PDT on my YouTube Channel.
Producer Credits:
Executive producer:
Show Art:
Angel Lemus — http://www.koadigital.com
All the show notes can be found at: WPPluginsAtoZ.com
Johns Rant:
This is #32 of 52 episodes for 2020. Its Episode 473 and we are preparing for our AI overlords to take over so now is the time to find yourself an Oasis like the one at The Rogues Tavern someplace where you can check out from the world and unplug. We are now 32 weeks into 2020 and 21 weeks of the Rona, the new programming is closer to completion and the news is finding it harder to keep the populations scared, but have no fear, WP Plugins A to Z is here to lift your soul. There is a new narrative about to roll out and the opportunities have never been better in the world. all you need to do is grab them while they are in front of you. Be sure to stock some stuff away for the rough times though.
Things you can do to help your soul:
Minimize your M5M news exposure,
Work on your own little part of the world to make it a better place to be.
Inspire others around you to do the same.
Don’t worry about things you cannot control.
Stop accepting and doing things that are not be your best interest.
Work in your best interest while at the same time respecting and helping others, the rewards will follow.
We have some news from the world of WordPress for you today as well as some great plugins.
Let’s get to the fun we have today.
WordPress News and Info
Before we jump into the news, ……
Due to life and with a lot on my plate, the show will be skipping August 20th. We are taking a week off for some personal time. If any of you producers would like to submit a short prerecorded review or even do a best of, I would be happy to have it play while we are away..
News this week:
Is WP Notify the Silver Bullet WordPress Needs to End Admin Notification Spam?
https://wptavern.com/is-wp-notify-the-silver-bullet-wordpress-needs-to-end-admin-notification-spam
Astra Theme Suspended and Reinstated, Themes Team Works Toward Delisting Strategy for Guideline Violations
https://wptavern.com/astra-theme-suspended-and-reinstated-themes-team-works-toward-delisting-strategy-for-guideline-violations
New in WordPress 5.5
https://blogaid.net/new-in-wordpress-5-5/
WordPress 5.5: Top 20 New Features & Improvements
https://ithemes.com/wordpress-5-5-top-20-new-features/
WordPress 5.5 is here! 5 things you need to know
https://yoast.com/wordpress-5-5/
WordPress 5.5 Breaks Plugins and Themes
https://www.naijatechnews.com/review-wordpress-5-5-breaks-plugin/
If you updated to WP 5.5, please DON‘T SAVE any projects in Slider Revolution or Essential Grid until updating to versions 6.2.18 and 3.0.0 respectively.
https://www.themepunch.com/faq/wordpress-5-5-important-update-information/
Trivia:
The hall of shame via Automattic:
transparency.automattic.com/tag/hall-of-shame/
Matt’s Famous Quotes
https://www.idrlabs.com/quotes/matt-mullenweg.php
Donor – Support
Show Producers
This Show will not work without you, the producers, as it is a Value for Value model, meaning if your’e getting any value out of it then give some value back and help the show out.
I’d like to acknowledge all the producers who have supported the show in the various ways over the last week.
This weeks show Art Work comes from:
Angel Lemus — http://www.koadigital.com
This week’s Executive Producer/’s are:
A big thank you to all the Producers who came in under $50 and to those who have set up weekly subscriptions they will remain anonymous and I thank you very much.
All these small subscriptions really help the show out.
A big thank you to those who have hired me because of the Podcast, thank you that is as good as donating to the show.
You can Support the Show by:
Donating money to help the show Donations of $50 and over are credited with an Executive Producer Credit in the Show Notes, and their note is read out on the show.
Submitting art work at the WP Plugins Art generator,
Submit articles news and information
Submit plugin suggestions for reviews
You can also create a monthly donation at Patreon
Or something I may not have thought of.
ClassicPress Options
ClassicPress is a fast growing fork of WordPress that is starting to come into its own. ClassicPress is focused on Business Websites, runs fast and is looking pretty good. There are a few plugins specifically for ClassicPress and all plugins for WordPress 4.9.9 work well on it. I do believe it has a future.
One thing I am looking forward to in the ClassicPress World is the expansion of the number of ClassicPress specific plugins and their own repository. Currently there are not a lot of ClassicPress specific plugins but I do know it is going to grow and I’ll have to expand this segment then. Who knows, it could take over the whole show.
This week for ClassicPress I have:
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Just a note for my ClassicPress listeners please send me info to help keep the ClassicPress section full.
Random Links to ClassicPress supporters
ClassicPress Resources:
For some up to date news on ClassicPress check out the ClassisPress Club news.
https://classicpress.club/
An alternate forum for the non-techies.
“Must Have” Plugins List
https://forums.classicpress.net/t/must-have-plugins-list/1163
To find a listing of ClassicPress specific plugins check out this link https://forums.classicpress.net/t/plugins-built-specifically-for-classicpress/1011?u=codepotent there is currently 37 42 49 50 52 55 57 plugins here and growing. I look forward to the day they have their own repository. I can still recall WP when it had a small repository.
CodePotent’s plugin directory
https://codepotent.com/classicpress/plugins/
WordPress plugins
Are you looking for some great newly released plugins check this link
https://wordpress.org/plugins/browse/new/
John’s plugin
WP Pocket URLs
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-pocket-urls/
The Lowdown:
This looks like a simplified version of Prettylinks pro and nice quick way to setup your affiliate links or any link for that matter and use your URL to shorten them down to something useful.
Lots of useful options here.
Rating 4 Dragons
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Amber’s Plugin
Squirrly SEO 2020 (Smart Strategy)
https://wordpress.org/plugins/squirrly-seo/
The Lowdown:
This is an SEO Tools plugin that is open sourced, AI based, SEO enhancer with the goal of getting you into the top 10 listings of Google. This is the Freemium Version, though it is really close to what you get in the paid SEO version from what I could tell.
This plugin is designed with people like me in mind – those who are completely overwhelmed by the all the jargon at first glance.
From what I understand, this really only works 100% with Google, but I’m sure it will help with other search engines too.
Description
So, I decided to check this out specifically because the name. Between the dog on UP and No Agenda’s squirrel clip, anything with the word catches my attention these days.
I downloaded and activated, and immediately it took me to a set up page. I entered my email, and it took me to this page where it gave me goals.
Goal 1: – add focus page. use it to reach first positions – which means get yourself into the top 10 rankings on search engines.
It had a ‘show me how’ button with the goal, so I clicked it and I actually understood what it told me on the next page.
Turns out a ‘focus page’ is essentially a home page. It asks you what you want to make your focus by bringing up all the pages and posts in your site, and you just choose one and it does the rest.
Really, this is actually easy. And free! I think I will be using this plugin in my pet project I’m working on.
So, I had 5 tasks to complete for my sandbox page to make it more findable on Google.
I completed a few of them, and found each one super easy.
When I didn’t understand what it meant, like ‘connect Google analytics data to Squirrly’, I just clicked on the ‘show me how’ button, and it not only explained what it was wanting me to do, but also what IT was doing, how and why I needed to do it, and how it will help my site.
There is also a research page, which is really cool. It tells you different things you can do and why you should do them.
Again, I like this plugin a lot. And to think, it was honestly the name that caught me initially.
Only one draw back – I couldn’t really get a read on what exactly the difference between the Freemium Squirrly and the paid for SEO Squirrly is… but from what I can tell, they offer more than a lot of other SEO plugins in the free version.
They even send you a lovely welcome email. Soon as I completed just 3 of the daily goals, I was offered free coaching classes. You bet I accepted those!
This is honestly a really cool plugin from what I have seen so far. I’ll try and check in within the next couple a months and let you know how it is long term.
Who knows, maybe I will be singing a different tune in 3 months.
Rating 5 Dragons
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John’s plugin
CWO Photo
https://wordpress.org/plugins/cwo-photo/
The Lowdown:
If you are a Google Photos user then this could be a useful plugin for you. It allows you to connect to your Google account and then pull in your photos into your website and display them in a gallery grid or a slider with the use of short codes.
With premium version you get more options and control.
Rating 4 Dragons.
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Amber’s plugin
RSS Aggregator by Feedzy – Powerful WP Autoblogging and News Aggregator
https://wordpress.org/plugins/feedzy-rss-feeds/
The Lowdown:
This mouthful of a plugin is all about RSS feeds. Helps you to grab up the RSS of blogs, content, news, everything under the sun it seems, and it chucks it up on your site for you automatically.
This claims to help your SEO ratings, offers you an unlimited number of RSS feeds to choose from, and publishes it all within minutes of grabbing it.
Description
I plugged it in and it auto brought me to it’s support page… Guess they aren’t shy in trying to upsell you – means they are good salesman I guess.
The settings are few, but make sense, and it’s easy to add the feeds, easy to get going.
Even I understand what they mean when they say “Add URL’s here”.
They do offer a warning that if there are a lot of feeds mashed together, they may not work quite as expected. Which makes me think of the saying ‘too many cooks spoils the soup’. Again, makes sense.
It seems to work alright; I put in one of my favourite sites, mysteriouspackage.com, and I think it works just fine… I couldn’t preview it though.. Not sure if I am simply missing something, or if they just don’t allow it…
(FYI, Squirrly popped up and asked if I wanted to optimize the article, or a keyword in the article. Kinda neat, and the AI was pretty helpful in guiding me on how too. Cool!)
I feel like I followed everything properly, and like I did it right… but not sure how to check and see if it’s working before you allow the thing to go live… the site I practice plugins on isn’t really a truly working site. Just in case I break it again… Rather not have the added stress of losing business while I try and fix what I broke…
So, although it seems like a pretty nifty little plugin, I don’t like the way you absolutely have to check to see if it works by looking at your site that’s live. What if you’re trying to set it up on a site that doesn’t go live until next month?
That’s a bit irritating…
Rating 3 Dragons
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John’s plugin
Limit Login Session
https://wordpress.org/plugins/limit-login-sessions/
The Lowdown:
This is a great idea for a plugin. I have seen similar plugins like this one and they are useful when your running a membership site or a course website and you do not want people sharing the account with multiple others. You set the number of sessions allowed at any one time and that is all.
The biggest problem here is that there is no quick way for people to simply log off all sessions, as it is well known many people will log in from multiple devices and not log out.
Rating 3 Dragons
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Amber’s Plugin
Gwolle Guestbook
https://wordpress.org/plugins/gwolle-gb/
The Lowdown:
Last one I got for ya, is a guestbook. A beautiful, virtual guest book that is really just what the name says it is.
It shows up as a widget for you when you are making your pages.
Their saying is: “Don’t use your ‘comment’ section the wrong way. Install Gwolle Guestbook and have a real guestbook!”
Description
So, plugged it in, and I went into it’s settings. It has a lot of protection against spammers, which is bloody brilliant I think.
They prefill certain things for you, like how the creator has the right to go over every comment and decide whether or not publish it; very professional like, but they DO give you the option to change it up a wee bit. I had fun tweaking those.
You can set it up to get notifications via email, set up your users to have particular functions, and there is even a debugger!
Also, something I have never seen before, there is an ‘uninstall’ option in the settings page. It warns you that by uninstalling, you will lose every entry ever made and that it can never be undone – that you should make a back up first. I always just figured the only way to uninstall a plugin was to simply go to plugins and delete it. That’s a neat function I’ve never seen before – seems kinda thoughtful, and rather polite of them really.
They also offer a block list, and a custom anti-spam question if you so desire.
This lovely, free guest book seems pretty awesome!
I know I personally love to sign guest books when I go to any sort of function, just a random little funny or something, but I don’t think I have ever seen a virtual guest book. This is a pretty nice little plugin, I definitely recommend it for anyone who would like to use a guest book instead of just a comment’s section.
One of the best bits about this plugin that I found, is that it’s free. From what I can tell, no upgrade, you just get what you get.
Rating 5 Dragons
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This show is brought to you by:
John Overall.com WordPress & Web Services
Finding quality WordPress Hosting and support can be a challenge, well you can drop that stress by contacting JohnOverall.com web services. I can help you eliminate your WordPress stress. Solving your WordPress Emergency issues or doing the more day to day items such as finding that perfect plugin, helping you move to a new hosting provider or even providing Quality WordPress hosting.
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Enter The Contest to Win!!:
Contests Powered by Simple Giveaways who kindly provides us with the premium version for our contests.
We are giving away a subscription for ShoutWorks, listen to the interview with Christian Petroske to learn more about ShoutWorks and the plugin.
Enter for your chance to win a Free-For-Life Shoutworks Standard Account.
Shoutworks is the one-click way to engage and grow your audience by getting your WordPress site talking on over 200 million Amazon Alexa voice devices and 4+ billion Alexa-ready devices worldwide. The user-friendly Shoutworks WordPress plugin allows anyone to create a voice app, or “skill”, for Alexa from their WordPress site in less than 5 minutes.
Visit http://WPPluginsAtoZ.com/contests for more info.
After you enter the contest remember to share on social media and you get more chances to win.
For all developers who would like to support the show. You can donate a premium license to be used in a future contest please go to WPPluginsAtoZ.com/PluginContest
Closing out this Episode the Plugins We covered were:
John’s Plugins: WP Pocket URLs – 4, CWO Photo – 4, Limit Login Session – 3
Amber’s Plugins: Gwolle Guestbook – 5, RSS Aggregator by Feedzy – Powerful WP Autoblogging and News Aggregator – 3, Squirrly SEO 2020 (Smart Strategy) – 5
Trivia:
Matt’s Famous Quotes
https://www.idrlabs.com/quotes/matt-mullenweg.php
Reminders / Commercial / Promotions:
Remember to make Amber feel welcome by sending some good feels back.
Well it looks like the meetup in August will not happen as too much is on my plate at the moment keep tabs on this at https://wppluginsatoz.com/meetup .
There is a new Interview is out with Christian from Shoutworks.com
Would you like to be on an interview show? Simply connect at https://wppluginsatoz.com/interview
Follow my Journey at TheRoguesTavern.com check out my adventures into the wild searching for gold, hiking, camping, out on the gun range and more.
If you have suggestions on plugins you would like to have reviewed please submit them on the website at https://wppluginsatoz.com/submit-plugin-review/
For all developers who would like to support the show. You can donate a premium license to be used in a future contest, please go to WPPluginsAtoZ.com/PluginContest
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John can be contacted at:Website: https://www.johnoverall.com/
WordPress Emergency Support: https://wppro.ca/wpemergency
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Amber can be contacted at:
- email: amber@wppro.ca