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Google Starts Serious Security Talks With the CMS Community

Last week, Chicago was the coldest place on earth! This was all over the news. The temperatures dropped to -30 degrees Celsius (-22 Fahrenheit) with a  wind chill of -50. I consider myself lucky to have been there to witness this rare polar vortex. However, I was in Chicago for a different event, one that didn’t make the news but was just as exciting — the Google CMS Security Summit.

Close to thirty top security experts from Google, different CMS platforms, and hosting companies came together to discuss how to make the internet a safer place for everyone. I consider myself even luckier to have been a part of this discussion as a representative of SiteGround.

For two days, we talked with the representatives of WordPress, Drupal, Joomla!, PrestaShop, TYPO3, Squarespace, Symfony, Sucuri, Wordfence, and more. It was inspiring to see how organizations that are competitors when it comes to attracting the end user to their platforms, can actually be unified for the higher aim of making the internet safer.

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How We Updated 700K+ Sites to WordPress 5 and What We Learned in the Process

Over the last week, we gradually rolled out WordPress 5 through our auto-update system. We took a different approach for this update as this version introduced one of the biggest changes in WordPress so far: the new block-based editor also known as Gutenberg.

Updating hundreds of thousands of active WordPress installations, especially when such an anticipated and, at the same time, feared change is happening, can be a serious challenge. Today, we’re happy to report that less than two weeks after its release, most of our WordPress clients are already using the latest WordPress 5 version. The process has been quite smooth and we wanted to share our insights and encourage more people to make the move to a great block-based editing experience.

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Your Most Common Gutenberg Questions Answered

Your Most Common Gutenberg Questions Answered

A few months ago we introduced our WordPress Community Ambassadors. We announced that we would support these very deserving individuals to travel and speak at WordCamps, so they can continue to share their expertise and lift up other WordPress users. Now, we want them to have their place on our blog with the same purpose in mind – educate and help our readers understand better the ins-and-outs of WordPress.

The first post that we will share with you is by Joe Casabona on Gutenberg – the hottest topic in the community for the past 10-12 months. Joe is a fantastic trainer, whose talent is to make complex things easy to understand for anyone. In the past year he has worked tirelessly to produce training material for Gutenberg, the new block editor included with WordPress 5.0. This is his first article for the SiteGround blog, enjoy!

WordPress 5.0 was recently released. The most notable new feature in 5.0 is the new editor, based on blocks and also known as Gutenberg. While it’s sure to really improve the content-creation experience, there are a lot of questions surrounding the update and what it means for current websites. Here are the answers to some of the most common inquiries both the SiteGround team and I have received from WordPress users so far.

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Our Roll-Out Plan for WordPress 5.0

WordPress 5.0 Update Plan

The most anticipated version of WordPress, version 5.0, is now officially released. It will substantially change the way people edit their website content by introducing the new block editor (also known as Gutenberg). To make the transition to the new editor as smooth as possible, we have temporarily stopped the automatic WordPress updates. After its restart, we will automatically install the Classic Editor plugin along with the new WordPress core update. This will give you the opportunity to take full advantage of all the great options in the new block editor while being able to easily switch to the old way of editing your posts if you need to.

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The New Version of Our SiteGround Optimizer Plugin Is a Game Changer for Your WordPress Performance

SiteGround Optimizer 5.0

Early versions of our SiteGround Optimizer plugin had one single purpose: to connect WordPress with the reverse proxy caching system set up on our servers. Over the years, we have added multiple features like PHP and HTTPS management options that allow even more control over SiteGround’s server environment right from the WordPress backend.

With the new release, not only have we greatly enhanced the existing functionalities, but we’ve also included some of the most popular application-based performance optimizations. Now, our plugin is an all-inclusive performance solution for WordPress sites hosted on our platform.

Our SiteGround Optimizer has always been an invaluable tool in boosting site performance and now we’ve pushed its capabilities even further. Internal speed tests of the new version show an additional 20-30% performance improvement even for well-optimized sites. And when you use the plugin on a site that runs on an old PHP version and/or has poorly-optimized content, the benefit can easily go up to 500%!

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SiteGround Gets Inspiration from the Dribbble Community

At SiteGround, we take pride in calling web hosting our “craft.” For us, a craftsperson is someone who puts heart and soul in their work, aims for delivering high-quality service, and pays attention to detail in all aspects of the process. But we were curious: is that how other people see it as well? How do we visually communicate the idea of craftsmanship in the highly technological context of the web hosting industry?

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TLS 1.3 and OCSP Stapling -Two Ways to Make HTTPS Sites Faster

For the last few years, the trend of moving towards encrypted browsing through HTTPS has been one of the most important developments on the Internet. With the free SSL certificates by Let’s Encrypt and Google openly promoting HTTPS protocol over the more widespread, but unsecure HTTP one, more and more sites have started to use SSL certificates.

We, at SiteGround, are very excited to announce that two recent developments in this area – TLS 1.3 and OCSP Stapling, which will make HTTPS sites faster, are already available on all our servers. Read below to learn how people using SSL will benefit from these innovations.

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Starting WordPress Sites on SiteGround Just Got Easier

You can build just about anything using WordPress. With thousands of themes and plugins, anyone can access the features and functionalities they need to achieve their goals. But for a person just starting out, all the options can be overwhelming. Rather than be a source of inspiration, the choices can become a blocker to launching that brand new site.

To solve this problem, we’ve developed a WordPress Starter plugin that takes the confusion out of building a new WordPress site. Our plugin walks you through a curated number of themes and the most common site features so you can choose exactly what you need and launch your website more quickly.

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Get Ready for Gutenberg, the New WordPress Editor

Some noteworthy changes are coming for all WordPress users, including our customers. In the next months, WordPress will release a new publishing experience that will change the way you create posts and pages. Gutenberg is the code name for this new editor and with it, website owners can expect a new set of tools for content creation.

To help you prepare, we’ve outlined some of the changes to expect with Gutenberg and how you can test it before the official release. Our goal is to make this change as smooth as possible for all SiteGround customers.

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