The purpose of this release is to test the features and report bugs to the WordPress core team. It’s highly recommended that you do not test this beta version on your running site.

There are two ways for you to check and test this beta version: use the beta testing plugin or download the zip file from WordPress official page.

Beta 3 – Highlights

The WordPress team is continuously working around the clock to make WordPress 5.4 stable, powerful, and a full-site editor with blocks.

People from around the WordPress community tested the previous beta versions and reported the bugs to the core team. Around 17 bugs have been fixed and a total of 24 tickets have been closed throughout the week.

Key Highlights:

1. Gutenberg Fixes
2. Site Health Check Dashboard

WordPress 5.4 is still in the development process and it will be released on 31st March 2020. If you want to keep up with all the news regarding this major WordPress release, subscribe to our newsletter, and we’ll make sure you don’t skip any updates!

The post WordPress 5.4 Beta 3 Is Out! appeared first on WPblog.

There are two ways for you to test the beta version: download the zip file from WordPress official page, or use the beta testing plugin.

It’s highly recommended, though, that you give WordPress 5.4 beta 1 a spin on a testing site, and not your live site to avoid any inconvenience.

What’s New in WordPress 5.4?

While version 5.4 will bring many new fixes and enhancements, I’d like to highlight the most important ones like new block editor feature enhancements and improvements and developer-focused changes.

Block Editor Improvements

The developers from around the world are contributing continuously to improve and make Gutenberg, the block editor, better and a full-site editor for WordPress users.

From Gutenberg 6.6 to 7.5, all 10 previous Gutenberg plugin releases will be merged in this core update. For the first time, you will see a welcome guide model that contains four different slides with a short description.

There are two new blocks (social link and button), for adding social media icons to any page and button linking to other pages. Now you have more color options for buttons, background, and column blocks, etc. You can now easily set image sizes in the gallery block, drag and drop a featured image, and change the title attribute for the image block.

This means numerous new exciting features are waiting for core editor users, and it’s also a good opportunity for classical editor users to test these features.

The block editor team has improved site performance and achieved a 14% loading time reduction compared to WordPress 5.3. There’s a new widget on the dashboard for site health checks that notify the users about the issues that could affect the site’s performance or security.

For Developers

There is a list of developer-focused changes in version 5.4 that will help developers use WordPress in a better way.

Calendar Widget
To improve accessibility and design, WordPress 5.4 moves the navigation links outside of the <table> element and the previous and next month links have been moved to <nav> element.

Function apply_shortcode()
To distinguish the function difference between action and filter, a new apply_shortcode() is introduced as an alias for do_shortcode().

Other changes
Support has been added for Tiktok and in WordPress 5.4 you can easily embed Tiktok videos.

You can check their official release page where you will find the full documentation of enhancements, bug fixes, and more information.

The post WordPress 5.4 Beta 1: A Look at the Features & Updates appeared first on WPblog.

Keep in mind, though, that it’s not an error.

WordPress simply creates a temporary “.maintenance file” in the website’s root directory while updating your site. Once updated, WordPress automatically deletes the .maintenance file from the root directory and stops displaying this message on your site.

The problem is when the message keeps displaying after a successful update. Due to slow hosting server response or low memory issues, the update process will timeout and interrupt the process. When this happens, WordPress doesn’t take your site out of maintenance mode and continues to display this maintenance mode notification. In this case, you need to manually fix and remove the message.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how you can easily fix “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute” on WordPress. I will also show you how you can avoid this maintenance error and how you can create your own maintenance mode display for your WordPress site.

Let’s get started!

How to Fix WordPress “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.”?

The easiest way to fix this error is to delete the .maintenance file from your site. You can easily remove it manually from your website’s root directory.

If you aren’t familiar with the root directory process, I would suggest that you first create a backup of your WordPress site then go for this process.

Step 1: Install FTP Client FileZilla

First, you need to install an FTP client to access your site’s files and folders. There are many best free and paid FTP client software but I’ll be using FileZilla to demonstrate this process Since FileZilla’s free version provides enough features for my need, I’m going to skip on purchasing the premium version.

Step 2: Delete “.Maintenance File” via FileZilla

After installing, open FileZilla, fill the required fields and click on the quick connect to access your live server directories. Then, find your application folder and find the .maintenance file there.

If you can’t find the .maintenance file in your WordPress root directory, make sure you’ve checked your FTP client to show hidden files.

In Filezilla, you can view your hidden files by going to Server from the top menu bar and clicking on Force showing hidden files.

Then, simply delete the .maintenance file from your folder as shown in the image below.

Once deleted, just refresh your website and you’ll be out of WordPress maintenance mode.

Now you know how to fix WordPress “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.” error (or notification) from your site. Just make sure you follow the instructions carefully since you’re working on a live server.

Create Your Own WordPress Maintenance Mode Error

You can change the display and text message for this error by creating your own maintenance mode error on your WordPress site. You can do so by adding the following code to the Function.php file and edit the wp_die to set up your own message:

Create Your Own WordPress Maintenance Mode:

function wp_maintenance_mode(){
if(!current_user_can('edit_themes') || !is_user_logged_in()){
wp_die('<h1 style="color:blue">WPblog is under Maintenance</h1> <br/>This is for Tutorial.');
}}
add_action('get_header', 'wp_maintenance_mode');

In the image below, you can see how it appears on my WordPress website.

Now, you can easily customize the displayed message when the site goes in maintenance mode.

How to Avoid Maintenance Error

There are basically two factors that cause “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute” error in WordPress:

1. Slow server response time
2. Low memory issue

Here’s a secret recipe that can easily reduce server response time in WordPress.

Also, you can use a good WordPress hosting plan or update themes and plugins one by one instead of updating them in bulk action. This will help you avoid this “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute” WordPress error.

So now you know that “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute” is not an error but it becomes an error if we have low memory issues and slow server response time. Also, we can manually set or create our own maintenance mode when needed.

Here’s a list of some of the most common WordPress maintenance services.

The post How to Fix “Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance. Check Back in a Minute” appeared first on WPblog.

Most WordPress sites suffer from high page-load times and owners usually don’t know what measures to take and what to avoid. One of the factors that affect your site’s speed and load time is HTTP requests and, in this article, I will guide you on how you can reduce the number of HTTP requests on your WordPress site.

Here on WPblog, we’ve written extensively on how to speed up your WordPress website & website performance:

1. 28 Ways To Speed Up WordPress Websites in 2020
2. How to Configure MaxCDN to Speed Up Your WordPress Website?
3. Top 5 Factors That Affect Website Loading Speed
4. 20 Fastest Loading WordPress Themes for Accelerated Page Speed in 2020

Also, there are numerous ways to check how fast your WordPress site is, so make you take all the other measures to speed your website apart from this guide.

Now let’s get back to the elephant in the room: how to reduce the number of HTTP requests in WordPress!

Before we break the code, you need to know what HTTP is and how to view these HTTP requests.

Let’s find out.

What is HTTP?

HTTP, or “HyperText Transfer Protocol,” is a client-server protocol that allows fetching resources like an HTML document. HTTP is basically the foundation of data exchange on the World Wide Web, without which you won’t be able to view files and other documents on any website. Any communication between client and server is done by HTTP Request and HTTP Response.

When you visit any site, the client browser sends the HTTP request to the server to fetch the text content, image files, CSS, Javascript, and videos, etc. So to say, all the contents of the website are fetched via HTTP!

We’ve discussed at length the importance of HTTP 2 and why it matters for a WordPress site if you want to get more in-depth knowledge of HTTP!

How You Can View HTTP Requests?

You can view HTTP requests of a website using the developer tool in your browser. In Google Chrome, for example, pressing CTRL + SHIFT + I open the developer tool or you can right-click your mouse on any page and click on Inspect to open the developer tool.

Next, click on Network and refresh your page; the following screen will appear on the developer’s tool.

Now, you can inspect your site elements and you can check the number of HTTP requests on your site.

Awesome! Now you know how to check the number of HTTP requests on your site. Now let’s get started with how you can reduce HTTP requests on your WordPress to make it faster.

How to Make Fewer HTTP Requests in WordPress

To force WordPress to make fewer HTTP requests, you just need to follow the techniques outlined below:

1. Create CSS Image Sprite

   An Image Sprite is a collection of images put into a single image. Since multiple images take time to load and generate more requests, a single image, in contrast, saves time and bandwidth.

   Here in this example that I tested on w3schools.com, you have three different icons for Home, Next & Back. But they’re combined in a single image and use parts of the image for my preview.

   

    

   You can see in the image below that I used a single image URL three times for three different IDs (home, next, back) and in each, it previews a different image icon. Why? By adding its position in “px”  in the style sheet, we can preview any specific position of the image which helps reduce the number of HTTP requests on your WordPress site and the page loads faster.

   

2. Delete Unnecessary Images

   We all have images in our media files that we don’t need. Deleting all unused and unnecessary images from the media library helps reduce requests as well.

3. Reduce File Size

   You can also improve your site server’s speed and the number of requests by reducing your images’ size. Always optimize your wordpress site image sizes before uploading them on your WordPress site as it helps boost the site’s speed..

4. Optimizing External Images

   One of the main factors that affect the number of HTTP requests and site speed is external images. These can be images that users add in the comments sections or their profile pictures. Gravatar images are a good example of external images that increase the number of HTTP requests and can slow down a page load time. To avoid this, you can use a plugin for the comment section, like Disqus, that helps you deal with unnecessary HTTP requests.

5. Delete Unnecessary Files

   Deleting unnecessary images isn’t enough to reduce HTTP requests in WordPress. Sometimes plugins or data files that aren’t being used to generate HTTP requests because they’re running in the background. Simply uninstall or delete those plugins or data files to make fewer HTTP requests on your WordPress site

6. Do Lazy Loading

   You can also make fewer HTTP requests via a WordPress plugin like Lazy Loading, which is a method for loading only the images that are in view on the screen. The rest of the images load only when the user scrolls down and brings the rest of the page in view. Here’s a guide to setup lazy loading on your WordPress site.

7. Use Caching Plugin

   A caching plugin is one of the most sure-shot ways to reduce the number of HTTP requests. On the client-side, a web browser builds and keeps a cache of all data files from your WordPress site. Once it is saved, your website automatically loads the page without having to send HTTP requests to your site. Here are the best caching WordPress plugins for fast loading speed.

8. Ignore Irrelevant Assets

   Just like lazy loading, ignoring irrelevant assets means we load only those files, plugins or other assets (.CSS and .JS files) that the visitor is viewing. There are numerous plugins that scan your page and detect all the loaded assets. Asset Cleanup plugin is a great choice for this process and the plugin delays request for other plugins, files or other data assets that are not being used on the viewable page for the visitor.

9. Combine CSS Files

   There are usually multiple CSS files in WordPress because developers find it easy to work in separate files. As a result, though, it generates a large number of HTTP requests. But a simple solution to overcome this is to merge all the CSS files into a single CSS file. Once you merge all the files, your site will generate a single HTTP request for the CSS file.

10. Limited usage of Images

    Images add visual appeal to a website. However, using too many images can add an unnecessary load on your website. To avoid this, you need simply limit the number of images you use for a single blog post. Using 11 to 15 images is a good number to keep a balance between visual appeal and not overloading your website.

Hopefully, the above-mentioned techniques will drastically reduce the number of HTTP requests on your WordPress site. In this article, we’ve discussed what HTTP is, how to check the number of HTTP requests and 10 ways to reduce HTTP requests in your WordPress site.

If you want to go further, here are some tried and tested ways through which you can boost your site’s speed.

Let me know if you have any queries on any other topic, and I’ll get back to you with a detailed answer in the comments below!

The post How to Reduce HTTP Requests in Your WordPress Site appeared first on WPblog.

WooCommerce 3.9 was in the development stage since November right after its previous release i.e., WooCommerce 3.8. It’s a minor release with 600 commits by 18 contributors, and it’s also backward compatible with the earlier releases. However, run a compatibility test before updating it to the newer version.

Let’s check what’s new features WooCommerce offers in this release.

What’s new in WooCommerce 3.9?

WooCommerce Blocks

WooCommerce 3.9 is compatible with WooCommerce block 2.5.11, and now you can easily select and display your products on posts or pages in a new and flexible fashion.

There are many new improvements, such as brand new product blocks with filtering and pagination features introduced to help customers find products.

For more details, click here.

Integration with MaxMind Geolocation

WooCommerce was first integrated with the MaxMind Geolocation database in February 2015 with WooCommerce 2.3. In short, WooCommerce uses the MaxMind GeoLite2 database for customer’s country identification.

Now, due to the end-user license agreement (EULA), MaxMind needs all user’s approval to download the GeoLite2 database, and that’s why for using this feature in WooCommerce, you need a MaxMind license key.

WooCommerce 3.9 Requirements

Now, there’s a minimal WordPress and PHP requirement for WooCommerce 3.9, and for starting with this version, you need to use WordPress 5.0 and PHP 7.0 or later versions.

Stores and eCommerce sites using older versions than PHP 7.0 and WordPress 5.0 will not be able to update to WooCommerce 3.9.

Enhancements

There are numerous enhancements and fixes in this release like:

• WooCommerce 3.9 introduces a Payment Gateway API to support pay buttons.
• A new show button is added for the password fields.

So, WooCommerce 3.9 offers various new features, new APIs, enhancements, and many more. Still, there’s a minimal version requirement to start with WooCommerce, like the requirement of WordPress 5.0 and PHP 7.0 (or later versions).

Don’t forget to create a backup or test it on a staging site before updating to WooCommerce 3.9!

The post What’s New in WooCommerce 3.9 appeared first on WPblog.

It’s common for WordPress users to think that cPanel is the only panel that provides a good GUI for web-based control for WordPress. Despite the fact that we’ve numerous cPanel alternatives that provide more powerful features and extensive functions, we tend to jump to cPanel without actually ever exploring other options.

Initially, cPanel’s affordability attracted many users, especially newbies, who had just started their WordPress career. But now, things have changed as cPanel’s pricing is not the same. The increase in pricing has forced users to look for cPanel alternatives which ultimately lead hosting providers to launch their own platforms as people are looking to switch from cPanel. A recent example is SiteGround who has released its own managed WordPress hosting where it offers a platform to manage your WordPress website.

In this article, I’ll take you through the best cPanel alternatives that will help you make the right decision so that you can switch to the platform that best suits your needs. Some of these platforms are similar in functions and some are better than the other, but before we start looking at cPanel alternatives, we need to develop a thorough understanding of cPanel and why exactly do you need its alternatives.

What is cPanel?

cPanel is a popular web hosting control dashboard that allows users to manage their websites from a web-based interface. Through GUI and a set of tools, you can control your Linux server and simplify the hosting management process. It also makes website hosting simple and easy for non-techies.

cPanel uses the tier structure controlling which offers different levels of access from admin to end-users that is used to control various aspects of the server. It also offers a WordPress hosting plan with a set of features that includes the ability to manage databases, domain names, backups and mail accounts.

No doubt, the cPanel dashboard provides ease for its users to manage their hosting with no technical skills, so what is the reason that forces its users to look for its alternatives? Let’s take a look at them!

Reasons to Look for cPanel Alternatives?

There are numerous reasons to look for cPanel alternatives but I would like to highlight some of the main ones which I think are the factors which people would not like to compromise on:

1. Pricing
2. Performance
3. Security
4. Limitation

1.  Pricing

Pricing is one of the main reasons why people look for cPanel alternatives because, in the past, cPanel had cheaper plans which attracted a lot of users, especially beginner developers with a limited budget. Now, users are looking for cheaper solutions and there is no surprise that there are a number of them available.

2. Performance

cPanel uses Apache web server which is compatible with any platform and application but it consumes a lot of RAM which results in increased load time as compared to NGINX web server. cPanel also doesn’t officially support the NGINX web server which is a drawback for the performance.

Also, cPanel is integrated with many features and services that are not actually needed by users that ultimately result in performance issues.

3.  Security vulnerabilities

cPanel is the most widely used control panel for web server and also one of the most popular targets for hackers. As we know, cPanel plays a middle role between a server and a user, which means hackers can easily exploit and get access to all of the server’s data. This is why you have to update your cPanel to the latest version if you don’t then security vulnerabilities increases.

Also, cPanel is more prone to hacks because it provides full access to the Linux system.

 4. Limitation

cPanel is designed for small scale business which has low site traffic but when your business starts to grow along with your traffic, cPanel fails to provide the required value. Mostly, a large website suffers from this limitation because it is very important for a web host to grow at the same pace as your business. Slow website speed, increasing downtimes, 502 errors are some of the common issues reported by cPanel users with larger websites.

The solution? NGINX! Larger websites run faster and smoother on NGINX as it consumes less RAM as compared to Apache.

Best cPanel Alternatives

There are several cPanel alternatives that provide more or less similar features but I’ve picked the 6 best cPanel alternatives for you:

1. SPanel
2. Webmin
3. Plesk
4. Ajenti
5. ISP config
6. st cPanel Alternative – Managed WordPress Hosting

1. SPanel

SPanel is an “all-in-one” cloud platform you can use to manage your server, e-mails, WordPress installs and take care of backups, security, and more. It’s developed by the ScalaHosting R&D team and it comes for free with any of their managed VPS services. It has a very similar interface to cPanel and for those that are not in the mood to learn new functionality, SPanel is a perfect choice. On top of that, it features free integrations that cPanel lacks such as Nginx, OpenLiteSpeed, and it has an administration module similar to the cPanel’s WHM.

It also has its own advanced cybersecurity system called SShield, which is like Imunify but free. For WordPress lovers, there is an integrated 1-click manager called.

The migration from cPanel is really easy as SPanel is fully compatible with it, and you can transfer an unlimited number of websites for free.

 2. Webmin

Webmin is one of the best cPanel alternatives out there which offers a feature rich interface that helps users manage their web servers with ease. It simplifies the process of managing a Linux system with modules that lets you monitor bandwidth, manage users, set up cron jobs, and much more.

Webmin comes with a modern, easy to use web interface that is also suitable for beginners who are just starting to get the hang of managing their websites.

You can easily create, edit, and delete accounts on your system. Also, you can manage databases, tables, and other fields. It also offers other rich features such as Linux Firewall, Disk Quotas, Software Packages and many more.

3. Plesk

Plesk is not only a close competitor of cPanel, but it is also the second most popular hosting panel in the current market. Plesk is a great cPanel alternative that offers the most user friendly interface. It is popular in the industry for having a flawless user experience and many developers switch to Plesk for that particular reason only.

Plesk is the only web based control panel that offers support for Windows. Along with that, it also supports the Linux Debian environment which is a complete contrast from cPanel as cPanel only supports a few Linux distribution.

What’s interesting is that Plesk is owned by the same company that owns cPanel. This has always sparked a lot of speculations about the future of both projects.

4. Ajenti

Ajenti is a free cPanel alternative that is ideal for smaller projects. If you are a developer that often runs personal projects, then Ajenti is the perfect platform for you. It is completely open source and supports a number of Linux distributions.

It is a lightweight platform that has proven to be a great cPanel alternative. It comes with firewall protection which adds an added layer of security for your server. Monitoring and analytics make it a great solution for data enthusiasts.

5. ISPconfig

ISPconfig is a free cPanel alternative and has been one of the most popular cPanel alternatives around. It offers a similar set of features with just a little twist. ISPConfig enables you to manage multiple servers from a single panel. It’s an open source, and free to use cPanel alternatives.

It offers support for Debian, Ubuntu, and CentOS which makes it desirable for a variety of users.

6. Best cPanel Alternative – Managed WordPress Hosting

Lastly, Managed WordPress hosting is the best alternative to cPanel powered hosting where you can easily manage your WordPress site. It not only saves your time but it also saves you from the hassle of managing your server related tasks and responsibilities. The best part is that you don’t need any technical skills or expertise to manage your application through a managed WordPress hosting as it offers one-click deployment of both WordPress and your server.

A managed WordPress hosting provides you an advanced level of:

• Security
• Automatic Backups
• Hassle Free Hosting
• Technical Expertise
• Scalability of Business
• Flexibility
• User Experience

Let’s discuss some of the reasons why managed WordPress hosting is the best cPanel alternative and see how it can benefit you as a business owner.

1. Managed WordPress hosting provides a great web environment specifically for WordPress users, which provides better performance, scalability, and uptime.
2. Managed WordPress hosting provides a better support service as support engineers and experts only deal with WordPress related issues on a daily basis which improves their problem solving skills, resulting in high quality answers.
3. Managed WordPress hosting provides a better user experience for managing your site via powerful custom dashboards. This provides a nice change from your typical cPanel and is usually cleaner, faster, and more intuitive to use.
4. Managed WordPress hosting provides automatic backups for your WordPress sites with no additional charges. In case you lose your WordPress site data, you can easily recover that through a few clicks which is the essence of managed WordPress hosting. In cPanel powered hosting, however, this service is included in higher plans.
5. Managed WordPress hosting provides a more secure environment as compared to other cPanel based hosting providers and provides additional precautions such as enforcing a strong WordPress admin passwords, banning certain plugins that are known to have issues, and they most likely have the expertise to provide assistance if your site is hacked.

Let’s have a look at Best cPanel Alternative – Managed WordPress Hosting providers:

1. Cloudways
2. WP engine
3. Kinsta

1. Cloudways

Cloudways is a popular managed WordPress hosting platform. It has a very unique value proposition for developers, bloggers, agencies and eCommerce stores where it offers a state of the art platform that lets you manage your server and your application. It is a managed cloud hosting platform through which you can easily deploy cloud servers in over 40+ global locations with optimized WordPress instances. Cloudways offers very powerful features such as 24/7 support,  Free automatic backups (application and server level), HTTPS redirects, free SSL certificates, Server monitoring and many more.

2. WP engine

WPengine is known in the industry for its immaculate support and lightning fast servers. They are one of the pioneers in the managed WordPress hosting industry and have since been at the top. Wp engine provides great security, flexible solution, and many other powerful features in order to make your hosting experience great.

3. Kinsta

Kinsta is one of the new hosting solutions in the block but they have quickly covered a lot of ground and are now competing closely with WP Engine and Cloudways. Their prime motto is to provide high performance for high-traffic and demanding sites with great features like automatic backups, 24/7 support, monitoring, and many other advanced features.

Also, on WPblog:

•  Cloudways vs WP Engine: Rivals Go Head to Head
• Head to head hosting comparison, Kinsta against Fly Wheel

Final Words:

So, we have seen this there are numerous cPanel alternatives but we’ve addressed 6 best free and paid cPanel alternatives that provide less or more similar features and the managed WordPress hosting is the popular cPanel alternative that takes away all the difficulties and hassles of server management.

The post Most Popular Free and Paid cPanel Alternatives in 2020 appeared first on WPblog.

WordPress users, especially those who want to publish their WordPress site on a live server, have a common question “How to make a WordPress site live?”. Lucky for you, the answer to that question is simple: Use any of the two WordPress migration methods that we have covered in this article.

So your WordPress website is ready and now you want to move it from your localhost to live site/hosting, right. Building and testing your websites on your localhost is a good practice and even if something goes wrong, it doesn’t affect your live website.

So in this tutorial, I will go through the step-by-step configuration and will show you how to upload and transfer your WordPress site from a localhost to a hosting/live site in two simple methods:

• Migrate WordPress Site from localhost to live server using a plugin
• Manually migrating WordPress Site from localhost to live server

The first method is simple and I’d suggest it for both tech-savvy and non-tech-savvy users because it’s independent of your hosting providers. However, if you’re a Cloudways user, you’ll find that the manual method is an easy way to migrate your WordPress site as well.

Prerequisites:
To move your WordPress site from localhost to another server, you need to make sure that:

• • You have a local server setup on your computer. (If you don’t, see our guide on how to install WordPress on localhost using XAMPP)
  • You have a good web hosting plan that supports WordPress. (Here’s our list of the best WordPress hosting companies you can choose from)
  • If want to update the PHP version on XAMPP. ( How to change PHP version on XAMPP)

While there are many great options, our recommended WordPress hosting is Cloudways, and we have partnered with them to bring our readers an exclusive 3 Months Off coupon code.

Note: I am using the Cloudways hosting platform for demonstrating the migration process for this tutorial.

Let’s get started!

Method 1: Migrate WordPress Site from Localhost to Live Server Using a Plugin

Here are all the steps I’ll take during this process to make navigation easier for you:

Step 1: Install and setup the Duplicator plugin on your Localhost WordPress
Step 2: Creating a package
Step 3: Transfer the Installer.php and Archive(zip) file via an FTP Client like FileZilla
Step 4: Run the Installer setup on the live server
Step 5: Transferring and Testing the live WordPress site

While I’m using the Duplicator plugin, here are some other migration plugins you can use for the process:

• Duplicator (Freemium)
• All-in-One WP Migration (Free)
• BackupBuddy (Premium)
• UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin (UpdraftPlus Migrator) (Freemium)
• WP Migrate DB (Premium)
• Migrate Guru (Premium)
• VaultPress (Premium)

Step 1: Install and Setup Duplicator Plugin on Your Localhost WordPress

First, you need to install and activate the Duplicator plugin on your localhost WordPress site (i.e., on XAMPP). For that, go to ADD NEW plugin and type Duplicator in search and click on Install Now, and Activate it.

Step 2: Creating a Package

You will see the Duplicator menu on the left panel in the WordPress Dashboard. Click on Duplicator > Packages > Create New

Once the package is created, simply click on the Next Button.

Now click on the Build button.

It will take a few seconds to build the package. The package creates a zip file of all the site’s plugins, themes, content, database, and WordPress files

You can now download the two files by clicking on One-Click Download as shown in the image above.

Step 3: Transfer the Installer.php and Archive(zip) File to your Cloudways Live Server Via an FTP Client FileZilla

First, launch a new application on Cloudways.

After launching the application, you need to download an FTP client like FileZilla. You can download it from FileZilla-Project.org.

To connect FileZilla, you need to provide it the master credentials of your Server (Host IP, User, Password, and Port).

For FileZilla:
Host = Public IP of Cloudways
Username = Username of Cloudways
Password = The password of Cloudways
Port = 22

Note: For smooth running, please select port 22.

You can find all these details in your Master Credentials under Server Management in the Cloudways platform as shown in the image below.

After you’ve input the master credentials in the respective fields, click on Quickconnect.

Next, go to the Applications folder, select your DB Name folder (database name that’s in your Application access details), select the public_html folder and delete the WP-CONFIG.PHP file through FileZilla FTP, and upload the Installer and Archive files from your desktop to this folder.

Note: Before you upload the archive files, make sure that you delete the wp-config.php file from your application (located in the public_html folder).

Step 4: Run the Installer Setup On the Live Server

Now that you’ve completed the uploading process in the steps above, you need to run your site URL.

Next, you will see the WordPress installing setup:

Just remove the “wp-admin/setup-config.php” from http://YourSiteName.com/wp-admin/setup-config.php URL and replace it with “Installer.php” http://YourSiteName.com/installer.php.

Replace it with “Installer.php” http://YourSiteName.com/installer.php.

When you enter the YourSiteName/installer.php URL, the following setup configuration will appear on your screen:

Just click on the Next button!

Note: The Duplicator plugin works best with empty databases. Hence, before moving forward, you need to remove all previous data. For this, go to Application Management and click on Launch Database Manager.

Now, you need to check on Tables to select all the tables in the database and click the Drop button to remove the selected tables as shown in the image below.

Now moving back to the Duplicator deployment Setup, you can continue with the configuration of duplicator by putting MySQL Access Credentials in the 2nd step.

Host = Localhost
Database = “Name of your DB”
User = “Username of your DB”
Password = “Password of your DB”

Now just click on NEXT to install the setup.

Step 5: Transferring and Testing the Live WordPress Site

Now you need to test it on a live site so just click on Admin Login, and the wp-login page will pop-up.

Next, you need to provide the Localhost WordPress Site admin credentials, i.e., the XAMPP credentials (not Cloudways access credentials).

To stay on the safe side, deactivate all plugins when you migrate the WordPress site from a localhost to the Live server. To reactivate the deactivated plugins, navigate to Plugins > Installed Plugin, select Bulk Actions and click on the Activate button as shown in the image below.

As you can see, it’s not difficult to move a WordPress site from a localhost to a live server. Now you also know that the Duplicator plugin is a powerful tool and makes it easier to migrate your WordPress site to a live server.

Method 2: Manually Migrate WordPress Site from localhost to Live server

In this method, I’m going to show you how you can move your WordPress site manually from the localhost to live site/hosting.

While it’s already linked above, here’s how to launch a new application on a new server on Cloudways.

Step 1: Export Localhost WordPress Database

First, you need to export your Database file you created on XAMPP for WordPress.
Select your localhost WordPress DB and click on Export > Quick Export Method > Go, and you’ll see a “.SQL” file in your download folder.

Step 2: Delete Database Tables From your Hosting DB

The next step in the process is to launch your Database Manager by clicking on the Launch Database Manager button.

Next, you need to delete all the tables by checking Tables and clicking on the Drop button.

Step 3: Import Localhost WordPress Database on Live Site:

Now, the next in the process is to import that “.SQL” database file to your hosting DB. For this, you need to click on Import > Choose Files, then select .SQL file from your folder and click on the Open button, and click on Execute.

Step 4: Change the Site URL, Home, and Blog name:

Next, you need to change your Site URL, Home, and Blog name for live server.
Next, look for wp_options table in your database.

Note: If you had changed your prefix at installation then it might be _options.

Now, click on wp_options or <prefix>_options, and click on Select Data.

Here you just need to change 3 names:

Site URL = “your Site URL”
Home = “Your Site URL”
Blog name = “Your Site URL without HTTPS://”

This is “your Site URL” that you need to copy.

Click on edit for each highlighted option names mentioned above and insert the above-mentioned values in the option_value field. Your local install URL will probably look something like http://localhost/test.
Then, just click on Save and you’re done.

Congratulations! You have successfully migrated the WordPress site from localhost to a live site.

Conclusion

I hope the article helped you understand “How to make WordPress site live” and also how to publish your WordPress site on a cloud server.
Now that you know both processes of taking your WordPress website from Localhost to a live server, I’m sure you think it’s an easy process. For the first step, it’s the Duplicator plugin that makes this WordPress migration so simple. Secondly, it’s the Cloudways’ intuitive platform which makes the manual WordPress migration easy as well. So now your website is ready, do you have a cool domain name to go with it? If not, here’s an article on how to choose a perfect domain name for your site.

After you have your domain name and website up and running, you’re all set to make a mark online!

The post Migrate WordPress from Localhost to Live Server – A Step-by-Step Guide appeared first on WPblog.

Of course, you want to go over everything that has changed in the new version, and we’re about to take you through all the major changes and everything you need to know about WordPress 5.3.

Let’s go over each change in the new WordPress release so you can stay on top of your online game.

WordPress 5.3 Kirk & Block Editor (Gutenberg)

Gutenberg, the now ubiquitous block editor that was introduced as the new editor with WordPress 5.0 has been receiving regular enhancements and has seen 13 releases through its standalone plugin. Now, all 13 releases of the block editor have been merged with WordPress 5.3.

Support for large image uploads

There are over 150 new features and improvements which include support for high-resolution pictures and large images that you may want to upload. This, of course, means better-looking images on your website.

Improved performance

With the merger, the block editor is reported to have improved performance and comparative benchmarks prove so. If you publish small posts, you might notice a significant change, but for huge posts, you’ll feel the difference in performance.

Accessibility improvements

The admin interface now also includes the integration of block editor styles. This is a move towards improving accessibility and they address many accessibility issues like the consistency between editor and the admin interface, color contrast on buttons and form fields, and Motion, which makes interaction with blocks feel natural and swift.

Navigation mode

Another good improvement that the block editor brings is the Navigation mode which lets you move from one block to another without using Tab or using the arrow keys. You can now go to the Edit Mode from Navigation Mode by hitting the Esc or Enter key.
In case you’ve refused to port over to Gutenberg and were bent upon sticking with the classic editor, you’ll see major changes in the way you can create content on your WordPress because the Block Editor has seen serious enhancements and updates over time, and all of them are available in WordPress 5.3 now.

A Brand New Theme: Twenty Twenty

Of course, WordPress 5.3 ships with Twenty Twenty, the latest theme to grace the CMS. The theme is minimalistic and was designed with flexibility at its core. For any beginner, it’s a good start to WordPress without getting into the complexities that some premium themes may bring.

You can use columns, media blocks, and groups to showcase your blog, content, and products or services in case you want to create an online store. If you have dynamic content on your site, you can choose from wide or full alignment or centered column content for better engaging outlook.

While developing the theme, there was a lot of focus on clarity and readability as well and includes Inter, a typeface designed by Rasmus Andersson, that comes in a Variable Font version and delivers shorter load times.

WordPress 5.3 Changes For the Masses

So there are changes to the new WordPress version for the general user, and there are changes to make a developer’s life easy. Let’s see what the masses get.

Automatic Image Rotation

Ever uploaded an image and then fussed about rotating it till it’s in the right direction? In WordPress 5.3, images will auto-rotate to the correct orientation. It’s a feature nine years in the making but has finally made it to a public release.

Admin Email Verification

Periodic confirmations of your admin email address when you log in as an administrator will ensure you don’t get locked out of your website in case you have changed your email address.

Improved Site Health Checks

Facing issues in WordPress isn’t anything new. However, 5.3 brings improvements that will help identify issues easily. The recommendations area is now expanded and highlights what needs troubleshooting from the Health Check screen.

WordPress 5.3 Changes for Developers

Now let’s take a peek at the changes the new update brings for developers and people who like to get into the core of their websites.

PHP 7.4 Compatibility

WordPress 5.3 brings full support for PHP 7.4. There are multiple changes in this release that remove old functionalities to make sure that there is full compatibility with the latest PHP version.

Date/Time Component Fixes

It is now easier for developers to work with dates and timezones more reliably. For a unified timezone retrieval and PHP compatibility, the two functions have received a number of new API functions. There are also many bug fixes that help developers work in peace!

Shout-Out to the Contributors

The release of WordPress 5.3 was led by Matt Mullenweg, Francesca Marano, and David Baumwald and was supported by a release squad that made the new version with all its enhancements possible for the general users.

• Editor Tech: Riad Benguella
• Editor Design: Mark Uraine
• Core Tech: Andrew Ozz
• Docs Coordinator: Justin Ahinon
• Marketing/Release Comms: Mike Reid
• Media/Uploader: Mike Schroder
• Accessibility: JB Audras
• Default Theme Wrangler: Ian Belanger
• Default Theme Designer: Anders Norén

If you want to learn more about previous WordPress releases and how it all culminated in version 5.3, you can check all of those at WordPress.org!

The post WordPress 5.3 “Kirk”: PHP 7.4 Support, Refined Block Editor & Security Enhancements appeared first on WPblog.

Google Site Kit provides enough features for Google services like Search Console, Analytics, AdSense, PageSpeed Insights, Tag manager, and Optimize. In short, you won’t need any other plugin like Monster Insights and Exact Metrics, etc., to view website insights.

And oh, it’s a free plugin. You can install Google Site Kit WordPress plugin from plugin directory and it’s easy to set up and use. There’s no code editing involved, so you can get started asap!

With easy to understand metrics, it gives you great insights directly on your dashboard with the capability to set roles and permissions as well.

For more updates and news, follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group!

The post Google Site Kit: Site Metrics on Your WordPress Dashboard appeared first on WPblog.

Okay, so before you say ‘Big deal, there are already so many WordPress groups on Facebook,” hear us out!

It took us a lot of brain-time to finally decide that we’re going to do this because if we do create another WordPress group, we need to provide serious value to WordPress users, right?

And that’s exactly what this group will do for ALL WordPress users, not a specific demographic.

WordPress Group For ALL!

So “WP Help Zone” is the WordPress space to be in whether you’re a beginner, expert or a legend in the CMS’s history.

We’re here to help people learn WordPress and if you think you can do it better than us, you’re welcome to bring your expertise along! Together, we can help everyone from tech-savvy users to non-tech savvy users improve their WordPress skills by sharing tips, tutorials, solutions, and answers.

Our expert WordPress users will help you learn and get better in all aspects of running a website including how to increase traffic, what plugins & themes you should use, how to secure your website, and giving your website speed bosts, etc.

This is all just the tip of the iceberg because we have a lot planned for our group members!

Of course, we have some set rules and regulations to keep spammy people out so you have a filtered, completely authentic experience on our group.

You can find the Group rules here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2644753938879596/about/

So let’s be part of an awesome WordPress community and let’s make things better for learners and curious people out there!

The post WordPressers, We’ve Launched our Facebook Group! appeared first on WPblog.