Articles

 Locked out of wp-admin: how to get back in

There are several routes back in depending on what is wrong. All of them need cPanel access, so...

 Moving a WordPress site to a new domain

WordPress stores its own address in the database in many places, so a domain change is more than...

 Moving an existing WordPress site to us

A move goes wrong in predictable ways. Doing it in this order avoids all of them. 1. Set the...

 Object caching for WordPress, and how to switch it on

WordPress rebuilds every page from the database each time somebody asks for it. The same queries...

 Permalinks, .htaccess and 404 errors on every page but the home page

A very recognisable fault: the home page loads perfectly and every other page returns 404. The...

 Securing a WordPress site: what actually matters

WordPress sites are attacked constantly and automatically. Most compromises come down to a small...

 Spam comments on a WordPress site: how to stop them

Any WordPress site that accepts comments will attract spam. Automated bots find the comment form...

 Staging: testing changes before they go live

A staging site is a copy of your live site where you can break things safely. If your site earns...

 The white screen of death: how to diagnose it

A completely blank page means PHP stopped part-way through and had nothing to show. The page...

 Understanding the wp-config.php settings we use

wp-config.php holds WordPress's core configuration. If we set your site up, some of these...

 Updating WordPress, plugins and themes without breaking the site

Most broken WordPress sites we see were working perfectly until an update ran. The updates are...

 Why WP-Cron is disabled on our servers, and what replaces it

WordPress has its own scheduling system, WP-Cron, which runs scheduled tasks – publishing...

 Why your WordPress site is slow, and where to look first

Work through these in order. The first two account for most cases and cost nothing to check. 1....

 WordPress Speed Acceleration explained

WordPress Speed Acceleration is an add-on for your hosting account that adds an object cache to a...

 WordPress cannot send email reliably: use SMTP, not PHP mail()

WordPress sends mail through PHP's built-in mail() function unless you tell it otherwise. That...

 WordPress database maintenance: revisions, transients and autoloaded options

A WordPress database grows quietly and is rarely looked at. Three things account for most of the...

 Your uploads folder is huge: images and disk usage

On most WordPress sites the uploads folder is the largest thing on the account, and it grows in...