New WordPress malware: What to do about WP-Base-SEO

A new piece of WordPress malware has been discovered disguised as an SEO plug-in called WP-Base-SEO. The malware...

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plug-in has the ability to create backdoors on infected WordPress accounts. How does this new WordPress malware work, and are there any ways for users to identify fake or malicious plug-ins?

It's never been easy to evaluate potentially malicious software, and the stakes continue to get higher. App stores adding minimal security checks have made it somewhat easier, but you're stuck in the walled garden of the app store vendor. While this can protect end users, it doesn't help when what you need isn't in the app store.

There is a WordPress app store that offers thousands of plug-ins for websites using WordPress, but it has minimal criteria for hosting plug-ins.

Jessica Ortega, web security research analyst at SiteLock LLC, a website security company based in Scottsdale, Ariz., wrote about a malicious SEO plug-in for WordPress. Ortega noted that the code looks legitimate based on the header comment in the code.

However, as SiteLock researchers analyzed the code, they identified potentially suspicious functionality that could create a backdoor on the infected WordPress install. One of the simple obfuscation steps the WordPress malware authors used in the plug-in was to use the code $myfunc = 'bas' . 'e64_' . 'dec' . 'ode'; to hide the usage of the PHP base64_decode function, which decodes data that was encoded using the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions base64 binary-to-text encoding scheme.

Something like this should seem out of place in a potentially legitimate plug-in, which could alert your Spidey sense that something is wrong. However, it is very difficult for nontechnical people to evaluate code at this level, so relying on app store security checks and user feedback may be the best some users can be expected to do.

Malicious programs masquerading as legitimate software, such as this WordPress malware, is not uncommon. Enterprises should encourage their app stores to incorporate security into the entire ecosystem and to add additional checks of the application and the developer to improve trust in the store. While there may be increased costs, enterprises may be willing to pay for the time savings from not needing to spend as much time evaluating software.

Enterprises may even want to collaborate within their industry peers or Information Sharing and Analysis Centers to share this information. The SiteLock Research Team also mentioned using a service or application to check website security, which is good advice.

Source: New WordPress malware: What to do about WP-Base-SEO

Hacker Hides Backdoor Inside Fake #WordPress Security Plugin

Hacker Hides Backdoor Inside Fake WordPress Security Plugin A cyber-criminal has hidden the code for a PHP backdoor inside the source code of a WordPress plugin masquerading as a security tool named "X-WP-SPAM-SHIELD-PRO." The attacker was obviously trying to leverage on the reputation of a legitimate and highly ... read morePopular WordPress Plugin Comes with a Backdoor, Steals Site Admin Credentials Security researchers have unmasked the wicked actions of a WordPress plugin that was installing a backdoor through which it was altering ... In the case they analyzed, Sucuri saw that the hacker attempted to log in manually on one of the infected sites ... read moreThis New App Sets You Up On Blind Dates—No Swiping or Messaging Required Ever wanted to go on a date with a stranger without messaging them first? Me neither, but First, a new dating app launched today, wants to make that happen. Unlike Tinder and Bumble, there's no swiping involved. Instead, people connect First to their ... read more

Equifax's Chief Information Officer and Head of Security Are 'Retiring' Two Equifax executives—Chief Information Officer David Webb and Chief Security Officer Susan Mauldin—are "retiring ... company provide a detailed timeline of events related to the hack. Of particular interest to the Senate are the strangely ... read moreHas Your WordPress Site Been Hacked? Here's What To Do About It The easiest way to do this is to use a plugin, such as iThemes Security. If you can't get into your WordPress site, use an admin tool like phpMyAdmin to change your password. Before attempting to remove the hack ... hackers hide their backdoor so ... read moreHow Can Hackers Hijack My PC? [MakeUseOf Explains] or nagging you to pay for some fake anti-virus. Hijacking however is potentially far more devastating, giving the hacker backdoor remote access to your entire PC. This is the holy grail for how hackers hack, so it's important to understand how it can ... read moreWikiLeaks reveals CIA's global covert hacking program targeting Apple iPhone, Google Android, Microsoft Windows and even Samsung TVs The first full part of the series, "Year Zero", comprises 8,761 documents and files from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA's Center ... the CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses ... read moreIntel Vets Challenge 'Russia Hack' Evidence Neither affected the Memo's main conclusion; i.e., that the July 5, 2016 intrusion into DNC emails that was blamed on Russia could not have been a hack – by Russia or ... Technical Director at the National Security Agency, and other senior NSA ... read moreGiant virus discovery sparks debate over tree of life The discovery split researchers into two camps. One group thinks viruses started out as self-sufficient organisms that became trapped inside other cells, eventually becoming parasitic and jettisoning genes they no longer needed. Another group views viruses ... read moreMike Adams, Monsanto, Nazis, and a Very Disturbing Article Here's the title of his piece: Biotech genocide, Monsanto collaborators and the Nazi legacy of 'science' as justification for murder Here's how it starts: (NaturalNews) Monsanto is widely recognized as the most hated and most evil corporation on ... read more

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Source: Hacker Hides Backdoor Inside Fake #WordPress Security Plugin

Farm-to-table guide: How to blog on WordPress

In recent years, owners of bars, cafés, bakeries and restaurants have realized that they need websites. In fact, most food service businesses now have a site, even if they're only using it to display information like hours, days of operation, menu, physical address, contact phone numbers and photos. In this farm-to-table guide, I'll show you how to blog on WordPress to bring in more patrons and diners.

Of course, the basics are important to customers, but if the highlight of your restaurant's site is your hours of operation, you're leaving a lot of meat on the bone (pun intended).

Your website should be a hub of activity — coupons, reviews, recipes — not just a resource for ordering takeout.

If you're looking for new ways to market your restaurant, cafe or bar, you should consider adding a blog to your website. Blogging is a proven way to get people to your site (and then in your door). Let me show you how.

How to blog on WordPress in 5 steps

People search online for everything from "best burgers near me" to "how to grill salmon." Once they've found you, it's just a short hop to "Get Directions."

Decide how to add WordPress.

Set up your blog.

Add features via plugins.

Create appealing content.

Promote your blog posts.

First, let me give you a little background on what makes WordPress the ideal blogging tool for the food service industry.

Why WordPress?

We're going to focus on how to build and grow your blog using WordPress, so it's important to first understand what WordPress is and why you need it. WordPress is one of the most powerful blog platforms on the web.

With WordPress, you can easily upload a website theme, add pages, write blog posts, modify images and utilize plugins to create a beautiful and engaging experience for readers of your blog.

Good photos are key to any hospitality blogger. The reader needs to taste that drink.Photo: andrew welch on Unsplash

WordPress is one of the most user-friendly blog platforms you'll find. In fact, you can add a WordPress blog to your site in just 7 steps. Many hosting providers even have one-click install options for WordPress that will save you jumping through a lot of the technical hoops. One of the easiest is GoDaddy's Managed WordPress. It's an affordable and carefree way to install WordPress in just a few clicks. No fuss, no muss.

Any restaurant owner who uses WordPress as their blog builder is in very good company.

Simply put, WordPress is one of the best ways to easily add a blog to your current website or to create a site from scratch, complete with a blog. Sites like TechCrunch, Disney, Bloomberg and Momofuku, run by restaurateur and chef David Chang, were all created using WordPress.

So now that you know how popular it is, all you need to do is decide how to apply WordPress to your restaurant game plan.

1. Decide how to add WordPress

You have a few options for adding a blog to your restaurant's website. There's no right or wrong process, but you will need to pick one of the options below before you set up your blog.

Option A: Buy a new domain name and install WordPress on it

If you have an established website on a non-WordPress platform that you absolutely love and cannot fathom changing, then this option might be for you. If you go this route, you'll need to pick a domain name for your blog.

When picking your domain, remember to keep your brand in mind. Unless it matches your brand image, avoid using misspellings or a witty play on words that would make it difficult for people to easily find your blog online.

Better yet, use the Quick Start Wizard that comes with GoDaddy Managed WordPress to start a site in no time. It's pretty intuitive.

Option B: Transfer your current website to a WordPress theme with a blog

Another way to add a WordPress blog is to simply convert your entire website to WordPress and find a theme that has a blogging component included. Themes are basically pre-built templates that make it easier to get started building. You just pick a theme you like, then write your own text and swap out the pictures (if you like). There are thousands of them, some free, others for a fee.

A theme like this one allows you to get your website and blog up and running quickly.

There are thousands of free WordPress themes created for small businesses and restaurants specifically. If you want something more custom, you can find companies that create unique WordPress themes to precisely match your needs.

By finding a WordPress theme that has a blog already added, you can reduce the time and resources that go into having separate sites, logins and domains for your brand.

Option C: Add a WordPress blog to your existing website

A hybrid solution to the two options above is to create a subdomain or subfolder on your website and perform a fresh WordPress install on that subdirectory. This route would require you to create a new directory (on a subdomain such as  blog.YourDomain.com or YourDomain.com/blog) so your blog would be a completely separate website even though it has the same top-level-domain as your main website.

In other words, you can keep your current domain name for both the website and your blog. This guide gives more details on how to add and manage subdomains on GoDaddy.

From a marketing standpoint, this option is the best.

By adding a blog to your current website and domain name, you won't be introducing a second domain name to confuse patrons. With this option, all your customers ever see is your primary domain name. If they're already visiting your website, this web address will be familiar to them.

Pro tip: If you've already built your business website on WordPress, it's even easier. All you have to do is add a new page and designate it as a posts page. Read this article for a more in-depth look at the steps, and then start blogging!

2. Set up your blog

Once you've decided how to add a WordPress blog to your website, the next step is to set it up. Many hosting providers, including GoDaddy, have one-click installs for WordPress. Alternatively, you can download WordPress and install it manually to your directory.

After you've installed WordPress, you'll then need to decide on a theme. Each theme comes packed with several files that collectively work to produce an blog that's appealing to you and your customers. Most themes have customization options that let you modify certain elements.

For instance, a theme might have a management panel that lets you modify theme colors, fonts or other elements of your site without any HTML or CSS coding skills. For details, check out this terrific post on modifying themes.

Spend some time setting up WordPress — this will save time later.Photo: Rhett Noonan on Unsplash Modify your basic settings

After you've settled on a theme and have it set up, there are a few quick settings adjustments to make to get your WordPress blog rolling.

Make sure your blog is visible to search engines

When you first install WordPress and begin setting up your blog, you don't want search engines to find your site because it's still a work in progress and not ready for public viewing. However, when you finish your blog and you're ready for visitors, you want to do everything in your power to help search engines (and therefore readers) find your site.

WordPress has a nifty feature called indexing and no-indexing, which lets you easily hide or show your site to search engines.

To access this feature, navigate to WordPress Backend > Settings > Reading > Search Engine Visibility. When you're ready to show your blog to the world, make sure the box entitled "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" is unchecked to have your site crawled by search engines.

Optimize your permalinks

Another very simple way to increase your site's visibility is to optimize your URLs or permalinks. A permalink is another word for the static URL that directs people to a specific web page. For instance, a permalink to GoDaddy's Blog would be "www.godaddy.com/garage/" and anyone who clicks on that link would be taken directly to the GoDaddy Blog.

When you do a fresh install of WordPress, the default permalink is "www.website.com/?p=123" which is neither user-friendly nor search engine-friendly. Rather, you should adjust the permalink structure to be the post name or "www.website.com/sample-post/" (separating words with dashes as shown). This is much better for both human readers and for search engines.

Customize your permalinks by navigating to WordPress Backend > Settings > Permalinks and selecting "Post name" as your format.

Update your Site Title and Tagline

When you install WordPress, there is some general filler content that WordPress adds to the site. One of these fillers is the tagline for your site, which generically becomes, "Just another WordPress site" upon installation. Your site title and tagline aren't just fluff — they actually play a part in how your pages rank in search engines so this is important.

Create a site title and tagline that are relevant to your brand, industry and highly-searched keywords. To modify your site title and tagline, navigate to WordPress Backend > Settings > General. 

3. Add features via plugins

Plugins are one of the reasons WordPress is so popular. Plugins are small files that you can add to your WordPress directory to perform a particular function or process, like updating your menu or accepting reservations online. There are more than 45,000 free plugins for WordPress, and more are added every day.

There are plugins to fulfill almost every possible function that you could want. For instance, there's a  plugin that adds a Yelp widget to your blog. Then there's the one that enables you to add your restaurant menu to your blog (might as well, right?). There's even a plugin to collect emails from readers to grow your email marketing list. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. For more top plugins for the food service industry, look here.

Simply put, if you want to add a feature or create an action for your user, there is likely a plugin that's already been built to achieve your goal. If you can't find a plugin for your need, then you can easily find WordPress developers to build your plugin from scratch.

4. Create appealing content

By this point, you should be ready to start adding photos, videos and text to your blog. Below are a few quick tips to help you become comfortable with creating blog posts in WordPress.

Learn your way around WordPress

Before you ever start writing a blog post, get comfortable with how to use WordPress to create and publish a blog post. First, navigate to the blog-writing section in your dashboard by going WordPress Backend > Post > Add New.

When you're on this page, you'll notice a number of important sections:

Title area is where you'll write your blog post's title.

Content area is the largest area, where you add words, photos and other elements using an easy text editor.

Publish settings is where you save your post as a draft, publish it now or on future date, or delete it.

Format varies depending on your theme; most bloggers choose "standard" for their format.

Categories help readers find posts on particular topics. Create categories for regular blog topics.

Tags appear under categories and are less-frequent topics than categories.

A featured image can be set in the box below the tags. Choose one that fits the dimensions of your theme.

Discussion — allow comments or trackbacks (notifications when someone links to your blog post) here.

Author is where you give credit to the writer for each post.

What if I can't find one of these sections? On the image above, you can see a tab at the top right called "Screen Options." This is where you can modify which sections are visible to you on that page. Make sure whatever section you want to control is checked, and then it will be editable. Create great blog posts

This might seem obvious, but the best way to run a successful restaurant blog is to create content that people love and want to read and share. This concept isn't unique to restaurants — it's how any blog succeeds.

Before you start writing, take time to think about what your diners care about. For instance, if you run a vegan restaurant, your target reader probably cares about sustainability and nutrition. Thus, you should create blog posts that talk about those topics, sharing vegan recipes and other relevant information that resonates with your customers.

Great photos that will have readers salivating is key. Get tips on nailing it here.

All of your posts should serve the bigger purpose of communicating your unique identity. If you run a fun, wit-inspired restaurant, then your blog articles should reflect that. Your blog is an opportunity for you to drive home your brand's message, so think about content that engages your target audience, but also reinforces what your brand stands for.

One strategy for coming up with great blog ideas is to look at what others in your industry are doing. Let's use that vegan restaurant again. This post from Running On Real Food lists 20 different vegan-based blogs to follow. Check them out to find content ideas and topics that seem to do well with vegan readers.

5. Promote your blog posts

Get people to read your blog posts and they'll soon be in buying your food.Photo: Brittany McNitt on Unsplash

Creating blog articles is crucial, but another step that's often forgotten is making an effort to bring people to them. You can write the most amazing blog article, but if nobody sees it then you're not going to be pleased with the results (because there won't be any).

Here are some channels to consider using to promote your posts:

There are mixed feelings about how often you should promote content, but generally speaking, you should promote your post until it's no longer relevant, you're tired of promoting it, or your audience is tired of hearing about it.

For more tips on getting your blog noticed — including search engine optimization, collaborating with industry experts, and getting quoted by journalists — read this.

How to blog on WordPress explained

Cafes, bakeries, bars and restaurants need to have websites to survive in today's highly competitive market. To help your establishment stand out from others — and get found by all those hangry people Googling "pizza/Thai/cocktails near me" — you should consider adding a blog to your website.

WordPress is arguably the most powerful platform to build a blog and is certainly one of the most popular options. I hope the guide above has showed you how to blog on WordPress. Make it one person's job to post to the blog every week — then watch as reservations, foot traffic and (who knows?) media coverage increases.

Download our free checklist for 5 ways to increase foot traffic to your restaurant.

Image by Constance Chen on Unsplash

Source: Farm-to-table guide: How to blog on WordPress

How to Simply #Design Your Own #Website With #WordPress - Quickly

How to Simply Design Your Own Website With WordPress - Quickly Designing your own WordPress website might feel like an arduous task if you don't know where to begin. Thankfully, simple website design options do exist. In this article, we'll help walk you through choosing a simple to use, premium WordPress theme and ... read moreHow to Choose the Best Website Builder in 2017 (Compared) WordPress.org (also known as self hosted WordPress) is the world's most popular website ... simply drag and drop elements to your page and build your own layouts from scratch. All BoldGrid themes are ready for WooCommerce. This allows you to easily ... read moreBest Responsive Conference & Event WordPress Themes Launching your own conference website on WordPress is the easiest way to go. You have so many great themes to pick from and there's a design for practically every ... Looking for a simple one-page theme? Then look no further cause Eventr has everything ... read more

10+ Best WordPress Coupon Themes This is a collection of the best WordPress themes for building a deals and coupon codes website. If you want to build your own user driven coupon ... The premium theme has a simple and user friendly design and includes the functionality you need to build ... read moreThe Design to WordPress Services You Need to Use in 2017 They can, for example, re-slice and upgrade the code of an existing website to improve its performance, and bring it up to current coding standards. They'll also be more than glad to customize a WordPress plugin for you, or design ... simple website of ... read moreHow to Track Your Local SEO & SEM: A Guide The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding ... to assemble a simple, yet flexible and robust tracking setup. Analytics is super easy to set up. Create (or sign into) a Google account, add your Account and Property (website), and install ... read moreHow to Create a Content Upgrade That Will Automate Your List Building You'll find the website pages with the most traffic. You can also find this info directly from your WordPress ... If I were to create a content upgrade for that post, it would: be easy to implement deliver on the promise of being fast help you gain ... read moreCompare Online Car Insurance Quotes in a Simple and Fast Way A car insurance quote can help clients shop for online coverage in a fast and advantageous way. An auto insurance quote is an efficient tool for comparing prices. Drivers can get quotes online from top providers on a single website: http ... read more18 Creative Ways to Make More Money with WordPress in Q4 This is because most business owners are savvy enough to understand that a website needs ... how to Halloween-ify your WordPress site and just thought the concept was so brilliant. It's not a total design overhaul; you're simply adding temporary ... read moreNeed a Design to WordPress Service? Here are the Best Options You can hand your design over to a professional design to WordPress ... simple website. They also specialize in performing the development work for one-page websites and e-mail template designs. Unlike most development agencies, Goodie lets you pick your ... read more

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WordPress.com Adds Google Photos Integration, Available Now for Jetpack-Enabled Sites

WordPress.com now supports seamless integration between Google Photos and the WordPress media library. Users can connect their Google accounts to have access to their photos when inserting an image.

Google Photos has gained popularity due to its automatic tagless organization and free, unlimited backup for photos and videos up to 16MP and 1080p HD. In May 2017, the service reported 500 million monthly users backing up more than 1.2 billion photos and videos per day.

When inserting pictures on WordPress.com, users can also take advantage of Google's smart image searching capabilities. The service is fairly good at recognizing what is in your images and where they were taken, even if you haven't specifically categorized them or added descriptions.

The new Google Photos integration is also available for Jetpack-enabled sites when posting via the WordPress.com interface. (It is not available in wp-admin of self-hosted sites.) Unfortunately, this experience is still rather buggy. After adding photos, WordPress.com didn't seem to be able to save drafts and it was also unable to display the most recent photos from the past week.

Users should also note that when you authenticate with Google Photos, it will open access to the photos from every single site that you have connected to that particular WordPress.com account. This access is, however, is limited to the specific user who connected. Multiple users on a site will each need to authenticate separately and can connect their own Google accounts. The users do not have access to each other's photos. It's also easy to revoke access at wordpress.com/sharing.

The new Google Photos feature has been very well received by WordPress.com users, as it saves them the trouble of downloading images from the service and then uploading to their media libraries. It's not quite as convenient for Jetpack-enabled sites, because it adds additional steps to the publishing process.

"Excellent feature, but will it be available directly from self-hosted sites without using WordPress.com?" one user asked. "This cuts out so many steps in our publishing workflow, but then adds several more if we then need to login to WordPress.com to do this. Our admin setup is complex, so switching to editing here isn't an option. I have multiple contributors who write directly and this would be a game changer if they could directly upload their images from their account."

A WordPress.com representative confirmed that there are currently no plans to support a standalone version in Jetpack. They are, however, looking at supporting other services, such as Flickr, in the future.

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Source: WordPress.com Adds Google Photos Integration, Available Now for Jetpack-Enabled Sites

#WordPress.com Adds #Google Photos Integration, Available Now for Jetpack-Enabled Sites

WordPress.com Adds Google Photos Integration, Available Now for Jetpack-Enabled Sites WordPress.com now supports seamless integration between Google Photos and the WordPress media library. Users can connect their Google accounts to have access to their photos when inserting an image. Google Photos has gained popularity due to its automatic ... read more25 Best WordPress Themes for Financial Sites After purchasing a hosting account, you are now ... available in multiple color schemes, page templates, shortcodes, portfolio, Google Maps, and beautiful BuddyPress templates. Beyond is a creative WordPress theme for accounting, agencies, and financial sites. read moreWhat Platform is Right for My Online Store? This is an advantage for users as Google is now showing warning messages to sites which do not have an https ... owners already have their websites set up through WordPress, so taking the leap to add an online store can be easily achieved just by ... read more

How to Find WordPress Performance Bottlenecks with New Relic On our platform, our users can add their own New Relic license so they can enjoy the same powerful visibility. If your hosting provider doesn't offer New Relic integration ... speed up your WordPress site, such as optimizing your images or moving ... read moreHow to sell stuff online: A comprehensive guide for eCommerce success Then just add photos and ... email marketing integration to help with cart abandonment and newsletters, a business Facebook page and more. Ready to see it in action? Check out this video: Building an eCommerce site with WordPress and WooCommerce If you ... read moreWhat are the 6 Basic Features of a Great eCommerce Website? For eCommerce, you can choose dedicated platforms like Magento or Shopify or use a more general content management system like WordPress ... The entire site should be consistent regarding the tone, fonts, colors, and images used. Be very careful with ... read moreThe First Web Apps: 5 Apps That Shaped the Internet as We Know It It was all a bit of a trick—but the same trick Google Maps uses today. Instead of downloading the full map, it divided the map up into small images and stitched ... had built their early sites and pushed HTML's limits. Now was time for the masses. read moreBlogger vs. WordPress.com: A Complete Comparison It was acquired by Google ... header images but no additional CSS (that's a premium feature) or the ability to change your site's favicon. The real difference here is minimal, after all if you really want to change your WordPress.com site's look ... read moreThe Ultimate RSS Toolbox - 120+ RSS Resources The site has optional Google Reader integration ... all RSS feeds on a Wordpress blog to the Feedburner feed. Fedafi RSS plugin - a plugin for Wordpress that creates a full text valid RSS 2.0 feed from your Wordpress blog and adds a style sheet, tracks ... read more

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Source: #WordPress.com Adds #Google Photos Integration, Available Now for Jetpack-Enabled Sites

Envato Hosted Managed WordPress Hosting Review

Today I'm going to review a very particular service which is offered by a giant in the WordPress business. I'm talking about Envato. The service is called Envato Hosted and it's a relatively new WordPress Managed Service and in the case of Envato, It's fully managed in all the sense of the word.

What is Envato Hosted?

Envato Hosted is a curious service for several reasons. At first sight it seems like the worst idea you could come up with. Having all sort of hosting services out there, Envato service seems extremely simplified to the point of being almost a pain to use for experienced users, but don't let that fool you. Behind this mask of extreme simplicity hides a very powerful service with one big bonus… actual people helping you out all the time.

But before we get started with Hosted here's a quick summary of what is and isn't included:

Included with Envato Hosted: Your $16 per month month (per installation) includes 1 premium WordPress theme for free (we of course recommend the popular and powerful Total WordPress theme, but there are tons of designs to choose from), free site migration, managed updates & support, 100k visits, 5GB disk space, 100GB bandwidth, daily backups, security and great customer support

What's Not Included: With Hosted there is no email platform, no multisite support, and you will have to purchase your domain name/SSL separately

Signup with Hosted

If you want to see a full walk-through of the signup process, checkout our guide on the Envato blog. But it's pretty straightforward. Just find a theme you love on Themeforest and see if it comes with Hosted. Click the button to signup.

In this post we're going to assume you can handle that portion on your own and get into reviewing the quality of Envato Hosted.

Getting Started with Envato Hosted

The dashboard is so simplified it's almost problematic because the first thing you notice is a basic UI, this coupled with the fact that they won't allow you to tweak anything besides your domain may give you all the wrong ideas about the service.

Envato Hosted will let you use your own domains but aside from that you won't be able to upload your own database, you won't have any mail service whatsoever except configuring Google Apps and you'll be unable to handle files for a lack of a file explorer. It's like Godaddy WordPress service but even more basic.

The DNS settings allows you to handle all the related tasks in case you host the domain on Envato. As I stated before, one good thing about this service is that they will let you use your own domain and will help you configure it properly. The service does have an SFTP access and Backup settings too.

Domain registration is pretty straightforward and will let you do all the first steps with ease. The Envato Hosted service seems primarily geared towards new users and specially those that plan on buying themes and plugins from Envato, so the process is optimized for registering a new domain and having your new WordPress installation setup in no time.

You can check the stats on this easy to access stats page which will give you the exact numbers allowed by your plan. With a Disk Quota of up to 5GB per $16 plan. This is not cheap so take into consideration that the service is indeed pretty expensive.

But I Want to Migrate My Current Website

Sure enough if you already have a site, Envato Hosted will make your life easy as the migration is absolutely free on this service, you just need to request the migration with information about your current WordPress login.

Once you input all the information you'll be taken to the support page and you'll have to wait sometime between 1 hour and up to 10 depending on the site complexity. Just take into consideration that the service is not automatic and will need human interaction on their part so this may not be the best alternative for those that know how to do a migration and want to do it themselves because that's just not possible here.

The same problem will arise with emails, in case you handle the domain with Envato, there is no mail service whatsoever. They will allow you to configure MX entries for Google Apps services but it is extremely limited in it's scope. Users relying on custom emails for their sites will have better luck elsewhere.

Once Migration is done…

Once your site is ready to rock, you'll be able to point your domain to the CNAME related to the service. It's important to remember that Envato does not have a proper way of showing up the temporary domain that you'll have to use for a CNAME in case you want to use your custom domain and you have to find out what it is by trying to login to WP-Admin. The routing subdomain can then be pointed as a CNAME to your original subdomain. They use routing subdomains as a way to dynamically balance their service so, be aware not to use IPs when assigning your domain.

Once your site is finished migrating you'll be greeted with a Welcome Message and a short survey. A little intrusive for my taste but easily avoidable in which Envato will ask what kind of site, type and business kind you have. Once this is done your site is ready to rumble.

Tech Support: The Heart of the Service

Having to install or migrate your site and put it up online takes no action on your part whatsoever because the vast majority of stuff is handled through tech support. The service is completely and fully managed, they take care of performance, databases, security and everything about WordPress so you won't have to edit a single file nor work on the database or assign users and permissions to it. Although this is wonderful news to non-techie crowd, people like myself may feel frustrated by this. Take into consideration that you'll loose your ability to handle issues and server-side features yourself. This service is truly managed.

Tech support is the heart of this service. As the UI is extremely limited and there is nothing you could do most of the time, the service will need to have an extremely good tech support if it wants to succeed and they seems to be doing so as I have zero complains about this interactions. Not only did they answered all my questions, they are extremely transparent about the service limitations and this is not something that you'll see on other services. They also respond in kind. If they see you're a techie person, they will explain in detail why they have such limitations in place.

No matter how good a UI panel is or how cool the new automatic install really is. If tech support service is not good, the service can become quite useless, specially when you need it the most. This does not seems to be the case with Envato Hosted.

Performance

Nevertheless, if performance is no good either, tech support alone won't be able to balance the service. This is also a good point about Envato as it's performance is quite good.

The First Time to Byte is outstanding and the site loads pretty fast overall.

As you can see, the webserver only took 70ms to respond with a total FTTB of 216ms which is extremely good overall.

Loading the website from Sweden does give you a very good result too.

Loading it from Australia on the other hand is not a good idea and the service does seem to benefit users from North America and Europe the most.

As I've examined the header you can clearly see they are using nginx as their backend with a Cache Structure that does dynamic routing in case something fails. This is good because your site will stay online no matter what. Having a routing structure that dynamically allocates your site to a different network without you having to worry about it is something to consider when getting this kind of service.

What I Liked

Envato Hosted service is completely novice friendly, plus you get a free theme (like Total) when you signup. You don't have to do anything to have your site up as almost everything is handled through a tech support ticket. Likewise, tech support is extremely friendly and willing to help in each step of the way. I can feel the love the tech staff has for the service and they will do whatever they can to help you. This means that even if you need something special, they'll be there to assist you. If you're one of those guys/girls that love a good tech support and don't want to deal with anything technical yourself, Envato Hosted is perfect.

What I Didn't Like

The poor UI implementation and complete lack of options makes this service feel even worse than GoDaddy Managed WordPress for advanced developers and techie people. The high price is another point in question as all the routing/dynamic structure and extra tech support is not cheap. Having to pay $16 for such a small storage space is no good for big websites either as growing in size will cost you a lot.

Wrapping Up

If you're techie guy/girl or an advanced developer you won't like Envato Hosted service as it will render your expertise useless by not being able to do anything yourself, plus you'll be needing to wait for each change as tech support need to assist you in every step. But Envato Hosted is a service that is still in development and they are willing to add new features. They accept all the criticism for things that needed to be improved and have an extremely friendly attitude towards customers so you actually feel special hosting with them.

Having such a good tech support is almost paramount to sell their service. I can easily see a new developer having a new website with them and not wanting to deal with plugins/themes installations whatsoever, in that scenario, Envato Hosted is an ideal service. You'll feel at home knowing that actual human beings are making sure your site runs like it should be.

Source: Envato Hosted Managed WordPress Hosting Review

10+ Best #WordPress #Coupon Themes

10+ Best WordPress Coupon Themes This is a collection of the best WordPress themes for building a deals and coupon codes website. If you want to build your own user driven coupon and deals website like RetailMeNot or SlickDeals these custom-built turnkey theme solutions allow you to make ... read more20 Best Commercial WordPress Theme Shops We are often asked by our users about which are the best commercial ... different WordPress themes for business websites, blogs, magazines, and more. They specialize in themes that act as full-fledged platform to cater niche sites like coupons website ... read more10 Must-Have WordPress eCommerce Plugins WordPress isn't only the most widely-used and popular content management system in the world, it's also one of the best ways to start setting up ... there are tons of themes to choose from, and various tools that you can use to create a fully ... read more

Performance Test: The Best Selling WordPress Themes on ThemeForest Performance is one of the most important aspects of any website, but it's something people rarely seem to take into account when buying WordPress themes. In this roundup we'll take the ten best selling themes on Themeforest, in order of appearance ... read moreHow To Build The WordPress Site That Your Business Deserves Get access to courses, hosting, plug-ins, themes, and more. Whether you run an organic mustache wax shop or breed Flemish Giant rabbits as a side hustle, picking WordPress ... Best Jewish Delis In Los Angeles The 11 Best Biscuits In Los Angeles The 10 ... read moreWordPress 4.8.2 is out, update your website now WordPress has a pretty slick security operation but the army of 3rd party plugins and themes are both the software's best feature and its soft underbelly ... 4.7.6, 4.6.7, 4.5.10, 4.4.11, 4.3.12, 4.2.16, 4.1.19, 4.0.19, 3.9.20, 3.8.22 and 3.7.22. read more10 Best Fastest Loading WP Themes Keeping all that in mind, in this article we have compiled a comprehensive list of only the 10 Best Premium WordPress Themes for speed, at least one of them, we are positive you will find good enough to power your website and also help it achieve its full ... read more10 Fantastic WordPress Themes for Building Creative Portfolios Showcasing your design or work with WordPress is easy enough. But to do it well, you need to present your projects in a clear and attractive manner. While some designers go for all-out glitz, the best portfolios ... with the theme. Get 10 Free Adobe ... read moreHow to Put WordPress in Maintenance Mode or Add a Coming Soon Page There needs to be a message to customers, and ideally, a way to get email addresses from customers or maybe even give away some coupons for ... Use Your Theme's Under-Construction Page It's possible your WordPress theme includes a built-in under ... read moreNeed a Design to WordPress Service? Here are the Best Options Since you're in the web design business, you'll probably make more money sticking to what you do best. This is better than putting ... The PSDgator team can also create any kind of WordPress theme for you, re-design old WordPress themes, or make ... read more

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Source: 10+ Best #WordPress #Coupon Themes

Stored Cross-Site Scripting Vulnerability in WordPress 4.8.1

Security Risk: Medium

Exploitation Level: Medium / Requires from none to some privilege

DREAD Score: 7.0/10

Vulnerability: Stored XSS

Patched Version: 4.8.2

During regular research audits for our Sucuri Firewall (WAF), we discovered a source-based stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability affecting WordPress 4.8.1.

Are You at Risk?

The vulnerability requires an account on the victim's site with the Contributor role – or any account in a WordPress installation with bbPress plugin, as long as it has posting capabilities (if anonymous posting is allowed then no account is needed). All WordPress installations are at risk when these conditions are met.

Besides making it possible to hijack the victim's user account (among other things), if an administrator user is exploited, the entire WordPress installation and underlying server could be fully compromised.

The XSS vector can make a call to an external script that performs a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attack. By acting in the behalf of an administrator user, an attacker can send authenticated requests to edit the website's current PHP code, leading to Remote Command Execution (RCE) and complete takeover.

Technical Details

The vulnerability occurs in the WordPress editor, responsible for the creating and editing all of the WordPress posts, pages, and topics (in bbPress).

A bypass in the native sanitizing functions of the CMS makes it possible to achieve XSS in the following way:

By using a certain feature of the editor, along with a specially crafted XSS payload in a post or topic, once it is submitted for a review (to be done by a user with a higher role), the payload gets stored (sanitized) in database.

However, when an administrator or another user with approval permissions opens the post and clicks Save, or Preview – or waits long enough to trigger the WordPress auto-save feature – the rogue HTML plus JavaScript gets decoded and executed in the victim's browser.

As a limited proof of concept (PoC), we can insert a XSS payload directly in Text tab of editor:

When clicking on the Preview button it is immediately executed:

It shows it's possible to get JavaScript execution if the sanitizing routine is bypassed in the editor.

Conclusion

Update your WordPress installation as soon as possible. If you have automatic updates enabled on your WordPress site, you should already be using the latest version and are now protected from this vulnerability.

This is a serious vulnerability that can be misused in different ways to compromise a vulnerable site.

If you believe your WordPress site is hacked, you can follow our free DIY cleanup guide.

Source: Stored Cross-Site Scripting Vulnerability in WordPress 4.8.1

4 #WordPress #SEO Enhancements You Wish You Had – Part 1

4 WordPress SEO Enhancements You Wish You Had – Part 1 WordPress is the most popular content management system out there and powers more than a quarter of the world's websites. Huge brands are hosted on it, like TechCrunch and BBC America. You likely have a WordPress site, too. The fact that it's open ... read more5 Things You Need To Know About SEO But Were Afraid To Ask I wish I had this years ago. Here's how he broke it down: 1. You don ... Most SEO companies spend their time on this backlinks part. Companies like Bradford Crabtree charge upwards of $300 per backlink. If that's not in your budget, you can do things ... read moreWill Windows Phone 8.1 see a new version of Office? In Word, you ... Phone 8.1. Will we hear anything about Microsoft Office for Windows Phone? Will it be practically the same version of Office we've had on Windows Phone for 4 years now? What other features in Microsoft Office do you wish you had ... read more

Blogger vs. WordPress.com: A Complete Comparison Not long ago I wrote a two-part series about the main differences between a self-hosted blog Setting Up A Blog Part 1: The DIY ... Both WordPress.com and Blogger are workable free solutions, but which is the right one for you? This detailed breakdown ... read moreGoldstein Investigation: How Going Green Might Have You Seeing Red In The End Best Places To Pick Up Food For Tailgating In L.A.Whether you're heading to a Ram's ... LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Dan Mason of Bellflower had solar panels installed on his roof. "I just think solar is a good idea," he said. He and his wife Kerry ... read more7 Reasons You Should Not Use Social Media For Business Every story has a happy ending, and someone gets something you wish you had in the end ... I'm going to tell you NOT to use social media for your business. Not what you were expecting? Neither is social media. Reason #1: Your audience isn't there. read moreThe Beginner's Guide to Tricking Out Your WordPress Blog WP SuperCache (Optimization): The first time a highly-trafficked site like Digg links to your blog, you'll wish you had ... SEO Pack and Google XML Sitemaps. Once you've installed the theme you want by downloading the .zip file and putting it in your ... read moreNever an excuse for shooting unarmed suspects, former police chief says If you had a heart, you had to be touched ... debated focus on actions to take after a tragic death — not the deep-rooted causes that must be part of real reform. Yes, the heat is now on Ferguson police. The real challenge, however, is to all U.S ... read more

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Source: 4 #WordPress #SEO Enhancements You Wish You Had – Part 1

Messed Up WordPress Address & Site Address = NO ACCESS!

Hi there,

Sorry to hear you're having difficulties with your site.

If http://merrickimagery.com is the site you need help with, that is a self-hosted WordPress(.org) site.

The documentation for that fixing problem can be found at:

https://codex.wordpress.org/Changing_The_Site_URL

If you're unable to follow the steps in the guide, please try contacting your hosting company for support.

The forum you've posted this thread in only provides support for sites hosted here at WordPress.com; your site appears to be hosted with Bluehost.

There are two different versions of WordPress - .com and .org. Each has their own separate forums and documentation. To learn about the differences between them, please see this guide.

Good luck!

Source: Messed Up WordPress Address & Site Address = NO ACCESS!

Scott Bolinger Shares Unique Perspective of #WordPress From Outside the Bubble

Scott Bolinger Shares Unique Perspective of WordPress From Outside the Bubble Scott Bolinger, a product developer focused on the WordPress space who has created several products, including AppPresser and Holler Box, recently attended Content and Commerce Summit 2017. This conference focuses on what's working in eCommerce, digital ... read moreWhoops, Spotify's Web Player No Longer Works on Apple's Safari Browser Safari comprises a surprising share of all browsers at 25.4 percent, per ZDNet, but that includes a large number of mobile users who always have the option of just using the app. read moreBuilding the All-Time Depth Chart for Every NBA Franchise And for added perspective, Julius Erving accumulated 51.8 win shares during his time with the ABA's New York ... thrive in traditional box score categories. His skill set is unique, forcing opponents to constantly devote extra bodies to keeping him off ... read more

Has the NYT Gone Collectively Mad? In this case, it allows reporter Scott Shane to introduce his thesis by citing some Internet accounts that apparently used fake identities, but he ties none of them to the Russian government. Acting like he has minimal familiarity with the Internet – yes ... read moreHow to Keep Your Social Media Creeping Private Okay, hot stuff, then let me ask you this: You ever search anything weird on Instagram? Got any visits to an ex's Twitter profile that you might not want to share with the next friend or loved one who grabs your phone? "I've gotta show you this ... read moreWho are you? The 2013 edition It's that time of the year again, when I sit back and let you talk about yourselves. Every year, I ask readers to identify themselves, say something about their background, and tell me a bit about why they were reading this blog. I spend the whole year ... read moreAvoidable Contact: Return Of The Mack. Yes, that's right: it's now easily possible to blow seventy thousand dollars or more on a two-liter, four-cylinder BMW sedan. The image you see above is not an attempt to make the most expensive 528i possible; it's simply a car with most of the ... read moreTo Pro-Lifers Who Believe Adoption is Always the Answer A couple of posts back, Unfundamentalist Christian Aliza Worthington (who is so unfundamentally Christian that she is, in fact, Jewish), recently published here An Open Letter to Pro-Lifers, in which she shared the basis for her conviction that if she ... read moreWhy Calorie Counts Are Wrong: Cooked Food Provides a Lot More Energy When I was studying the feeding behavior of wild chimpanzees in the early 1970s, I tried surviving on chimpanzee foods for a day at a time. I learned that nothing that chimpanzees ate (at Gombe, in Tanzania, at least) was so poisonous that it would make ... read moreThe M List 2013: Future Fantastic Once your collection's in the cloud, you can trade, sell and buy music in this unique online music ... s clients get "innovative, outside-the-box solutions to their toughest problems," says Luedke. To boot, they share downtown offices with the ... read more

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Source: Scott Bolinger Shares Unique Perspective of #WordPress From Outside the Bubble

Delete Old WordPress Site

Hi there.

It sounds like you would need to recover your account information so you can login to delete your site.

If you lost your password, you can reset it here.

Once you are able to login, you can delete your site permanently. To do this, ensure that you have removed any upgrades such as:

Premium or Business Plan

Custom Domain

Domain Mapping

Premium Theme

Any other upgrade

Once you have removed your upgrades, go to My Site(s) ->Settings

At the bottom of the Settings page, select Delete your site permanently.

More detailed instructions about site deletion can be found on this support page.

I hope that helps. Cheers!

Source: Delete Old WordPress Site

Narya #WordPress #Food #Blog Theme

Narya WordPress Food Blog Theme Narya is our latest and greatest exclusive WordPress Food Blog Theme with a modern and trendy web design. For everyone out there passionate and enthusiastic about food, preparing meals and coming up with unique recipes, we have you sorted. read more25 Solutions That Heavily Help Designers And Developers Colorlib.com Activello is one of the most flexible, fast, easy to customize and secure WordPress free theme. It can easily suit any project for food, travel, adventures, photography, personal, fitness, corporate or any other awesome blog. The theme is ... read moreThe 32 Best Google Docs Add-ons in 2017 Just select the code in your document, then open the Code Blocks sidebar, select the language and theme ... If so, the WordPress.com for Google Docs add-on is the best way to publish your document to your blog. Just format your document with standard ... read more

Fresh Showcase Containing The Best Web Tools And Services Activello is a great free WordPress theme that is very flexible and can easily be customized for food, travel, adventures, photography, personal, fitness, corporate or any other awesome blog. The theme is optimized to work with WooCommerce, W3 Total Cache ... read moreSocial Media APIs That You Can Use Upon authentication, you will get direct access to the Pins, profiles, follows, and blogs. With the right object ID ... seamlessly even if they're not written in the same language. WordPress.org collates and hosts all installable WordPress versions ... read moreTips for Comparing Autoresponders Some offer a range of themes, such as sports or food and drink. Email templates offer different ... AWeber and Constant Content integrate with many ecommerce sites. WordPress is the most popular blogging software in the world. Certain services like AWeber ... read moreSmorgasbord Weekly Round Up – Ancestry DNA Results, Ultimate Bucket List and Black Cats Time for a new theme to the Author ... promotion for you blog and books at the same time. https://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/2017/09/04/cooking-from-scratch-2017-guest-post-invitation-to-those-who-love-to-cook-fresh-food/ https ... read more8 WordPress Support & Help Desk Themes and Plugins Reviewed Recently, I've been on a journey to get my help desk back onto WordPress… and ... blend into your existing theme without requiring it's own site. However, unless you are providing support inside an existing blog network, this plugin really is not ... read moreLiterature Guide for Eden Ross Lipson and Mordicai Gerstein's Applesauce Season Themes of food, farming, pomology, cultural identity, family history, and responsibility all arise within the book's pages – beautifully illustrated by western MA local Mordicai Gerstein! read moreWordpress blogs defaced in hack attacks A security flaw in the WordPress blogging software has let hackers attack and deface tens of thousands of sites. One estimate suggests more than 1.5 million pages on blogs have been defaced. The security firm that found the vulnerability said some hackers ... read more

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Source: Narya #WordPress #Food #Blog Theme

Is There Something Wrong with Your WordPress Site’s Conversion Rate?

Have you finally finished creating your site after so many cups of coffee? Or maybe you did it in just one sitting?

Weeks after you launch, you'll see that there are hundreds of visitors coming your way according to your analytics provider. But the bad news is, according to the same source, your guests leave just when they're about to see your greatest content. Of course, a guest lost is revenue lost as well.

Usually, a conversion is achieved based on certain things a user does; purchase, newsletter signups, or a click on your call-to-action buttons.

The truth is, however beautiful and functional your website is, there are reasons why people don't convert or turn into avid readers. In this post, you'll identify some of these reasons and how you'll be able to counter this problem.

1. Slow to Load

Page loading time is obviously one of the reasons why your bounce rate is high. You can use GTMetrix to test if your site is above the recommended standards. Factors that affect your site could be the plugins and widgets you add and the media that you upload.

If you set this problem aside, the results would be revenue and sales down the drain.

But as always, problems have their solutions. So to increase the speed of your site, follow this gem of a source created by iThemes.

2. Substandard Content

You've probably read a LOT of sites that say "content is king" and yes, they are correct. Without your content, your website is nothing. So it's just worth noting that you have to put a lot of effort into building a well-researched and high-quality one on your site.

But why is content that necessary?

Content Value is Measurable

Having been mentioned that content is king, it also means that it is the source of most results you'll get on your site. It drives traffic; it gets you leads, it brings you sales, and so much more. These conversions that you'll be getting are a product of the value of the content you've given your visitors. And because these metrics are measurable, it's easy to test, track, and tweak.

Content Makes Your Brand an Authority

A quality content on an individual subject that you mostly write about makes you an authority on that particular topic.

Recommended for You

Webcast, September 27th: How to Double Your Email List

Content Inspires Trust

Your credibility matters. People don't read articles they don't trust the source of. As you build your website to become an authority in a certain niche, people will come and read more from you.

Content Improves SEO

Gone are the days when keywords are the ones that matter most even with a poorly written content. With the recent updates, a genuinely good content are the ones that are being picked up by search engines to use as their basis for rankings. And above that, it can also build links that are also a huge factor in SEO.

3. Ineffective Landing Pages

As the name suggests, a landing page is where people land on your site. Meaning, this is mostly the first thing they see from you. So with this single page, make sure you'll quickly capture their attention. Some of the ways to do this are to create a clear CTA button, write a compelling headline, and always use high-quality visuals and typography.

4. Lack of Engagement

When someone visits your site, don't expect them to stick around. Page views are vanity metrics that aren't of that much value. Hence, engagement is what you need to aim for.

Engagement fosters relationship which ultimately builds trust. People who follow a site expects to be recognized. Let's say they ask you a question, what would you do? You deliver high-quality responses, that's what.

Conclusion

As mentioned, the value of your conversion depends on what your goals are. Sometimes a click is the most important conversion ever, and sometimes it's an email signup.

Ultimately, you will have to spend time knowing how come those 100 people who visited your site don't see the value of what you are offering. Did you target the wrong people to come to your site? Or did you show them a poorly made landing page?

Small things matter and these small things need to be modified to maximize your website's capabilities. We are sure that the answers rely on the tests you will be doing on your website moving forward.

Author: Christopher Jan Benitez

Christopher Jan Benitez is a professional content marketer and writer. He has helped small businesses achieve their goals by implementing a robust content strategy that emphasizes their unique selling points and promoting created content using effective online channels and methods, in particular, social media marketing and search engine optimization… View full profile ›

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Source: Is There Something Wrong with Your WordPress Site's Conversion Rate?