Joost de Valk, co-founder of the Yoast SEO plugin has called for Breaking the Status Quo of the WordPress world. This comes in the wake of Matt Mullenweg’s announcement of a holiday break for WordPress.org and the ongoing Automattic-WP Engine legal dispute.

de Valk said, “We, the WordPress community, need to decide if we’re ok being led by a single person who controls everything, and might do things we disagree with, or if we want something else. For a project whose tagline is “Democratizing publishing”, we’ve been very low on exactly that: democracy.”

Referring to Mullenweg as a BDFL (Benevolent Dictator For Life), de Valk argued that Matt is “no longer Benevolent, and because of that, speaking up in public is a risk.” 

de Valk acknowledged that due to Yoast’s contributions to WordPresss, he “did get some say in where WordPress went, though never officially, and never when it went in directions that Matt disagreed with. Over time, that influence became less as Matt tightened his grip on the project. I think that tightening was in part a cramp. Wanting to control more what people were working on, because the project wasn’t progressing fast enough in the direction he wanted it to go in.”

I think it’s time to let go of the cult and change project leadership. I’ve said it before: we need a “board”. We can’t wait with doing that for the years it will take for Automattic and WP Engine to fight out this lawsuit.

– Joost de Valk

He said, “I’m still, to this day, very thankful for what Matt has created. I would love to work with him to fix all this. But it’s clear now, that we can no longer have him be our sole leader, although I’d love it if we could get him to be among the leaders.”

He put forward 5 steps that must be taken fast: 

• A WordPress foundation-like entity consisting of a board with people from diverse backgrounds leads the project.
• WordPress.org and key community assets are transferred to the foundation.
• The WordPress trademark is made public domain or managed for free use.
• Companies and individuals can sponsor the foundation, receiving perks like listings on a hosting page.
• Small teams are formed for Architecture, Product, Events, etc., with proper governance.

He also suggested “Federated and Independent Repositories” to decentralize the official WordPress repository. He said, “Matt might not agree to my first five points above. However, we can still work on the Federated and Independent Repositories without his permission because, frankly, we don’t need it.”

He revealed that he’s already in talks with other community figures like Karim Marucchi, CEO of Crowd Favorite. He is also willing to take up the mantle of the movement if needed. 

He said, “I’m here, and willing to lead through this transition. I do have the time, the energy and the money needed to fund myself doing it. I’ve worked in this industry and this community for close to 20 years and it’s very dear to me. Thanks in large part to the WordPress project, I have the privileged position to be able to drop and/or delegate some of the stuff I’m working on and start working on this.”

Karim Marucchi’s Vision For a New WordPress Business Roadmap

Karim Marucchi of Crowd Favorite backed Joost de Valk. He said, “the current situation has jeopardized the very fabric of this ecosystem.”

We need to prevent a single entity from doing to WordPress what befell other open-source projects that shrank or died while protecting one party’s market position.

– Karim Marucchi

He proposed five essential critical paths to concentrate on:

• Securing the supply chain & start modernization 
• Convening, defining & creating the Commons 
• Defining the roadmap as “the” Open-Web’s Operating System.
• Open Source as a hub for innovation
• Focusing on leading data ownership, privacy, and accessibility

de Valk and Marucchi will get together with other community leaders in January 2025 to decide the way forward. 

Response From Matt

Matt commented under de Valk’s blog post: “I think this is a great idea for you to lead and do under a name other than WordPress. There’s really no way to accomplish everything you want without starting with a fresh slate from a trademark, branding, and people point of view.”

Response From the Community 

Joost de Valk found support from other community leaders too. 

Brian Gardner of WP Engine supported de Valk, tweeting, “Cosign. (My personal op and b/c I WordPress.)”

WP Engine also came out in support. 

Michele Butcher-Jones of Can’t Speak Geek also shared her thoughts:

Katie Keith of Barn2Plugins shared, “Wow, I never expected someone as high profile as  @jdevalk to speak out so openly against the current leadership of WordPress. However, I completely agree with his analysis of the situation and his proposed solutions.”

WordPress Core Committer Tonya Mork said, “I’ve been mostly quiet, other than publicly pausing my WordPress Core contributions. That ends today. I stand with  @jdevalk and @karimmarucchi for the “hold this community together” effort. Publicly sharing my support.”

Taco Verdo of Emilia Capital had this to say:

Daniel Schutzsmith, Jon Brown, Karissa Skirmont, Blake Whittle, Duane Storey, Vova Feldman and Takis Bouyouris also came out in support of de Valk.  

Andrei Lupu was, however, against the development. He said, “Let me nuke my WP career with an honest question: why would we follow a board of people who sold their products when they peaked? No one is perfect and I’m not sure if switching from one person’s vision to multiple people fighting for influence of a “board” is a good thing.”

@ViaEth also supports Matt. “All of this started after WPE couldn’t continue to leech off the #WordPress branding. All of these blog posts and whining just proves @photomatt right. Companies want to suck WP dry if this was purely about altruistic reason they would just fork the codebase and fuck off.”

Jesse Nickles, an SEO enthusiast, also does not believe in de Valk. He said, “Despite my desire to want to give you another chance as a “thought leader” or whatever else, 2 things are seared into my memory… first, the fact that Yoast SEO was always, and still is, one of the most dishonest and tricky plugins in WordPress history.”

Morten Rand-Hendriksen published After WordPress. According to him, there are two paths forward for the WordPress community:

• Mullenweg releases his iron grip on the project, brings in proper governance, creates a more equitable ecosystem economy, and steps into a role of visionary leader instead of micromanager. 
• The community organizes, takes every lesson learned over the past 20+ years, combines with a vision for what the world will need going into the next 10 years, and builds a new platform to stand on.

Every social media platform has an About section. However, this tends to be very limited in terms of what you can include in it, making it hard to make a memorable first impression and truly tell people what you’re all about. For example, these sections often limit you to a single link in your profile and don’t allow different content formats, just text. 

That’s why link-in-bio tools have become essential for anyone sharing content online. These tools let you pack multiple destinations into one simple URL, making it easier to guide followers to your content, products, or services.

This is important for everyone – from an influencer promoting sponsored content to a business owner showcasing products. But with so many tools on the market, it can be hard to choose the right one – some offer basic link collections, while others provide advanced features like analytics and customization options.

This guide examines popular link-in-bio tools, from dedicated solutions like Linktree to comprehensive profile systems like Gravatar. You’ll learn about essential features, pricing comparisons, and practical tips to help you select the tool that fits your needs.

What is a link-in-bio tool?

A link-in-bio tool creates a single webpage that houses all your important links. Think of it as a mini-website that fits inside your social media profile’s single link limitation. Instead of choosing between linking to your website, the latest video, or a new product, you can share everything at once.

These tools typically let you include the following:

• Social media profiles
• Website links
• Product pages
• Blog posts
• Contact information
• Latest announcements
• Promotional content

As you can see, this is a great alternative to X’s (Twitter) one-link or Instagram’s five-link limit. However, beyond solving the one-link problem, these tools make your profile look more professional. 

Rather than cramming multiple URLs into your bio text, you present a clean, organized hub for your content. This makes it easier for followers to find what they’re looking for, whether that’s your latest YouTube video or your online store.

Features to consider in a link-in-bio tool

While the features you require will depend on your specific use case, there are some universal good-to-haves that every good link-in-bio tool should provide. 

• Flexible presentation options. Look for platforms that provide various layouts and themes to match your style. For example, a photographer might want a grid layout to showcase their portfolio, while a musician might prefer a list format with embedded music players.
• Design flexibility beyond basic themes. The best tools let you control colors, fonts, and layouts to match your brand identity. Some even allow custom CSS for complete design control. This means you can make your bio page look like a natural extension of your website or social media presence.
• Link management features. While basic tools might limit you to 5-10 links, more advanced options offer unlimited links with organizing capabilities. You might want to group your podcast episodes separately from your shop links, or temporarily feature a special promotion without deleting your regular links.
• Additional content features. Beyond simple URLs, look for tools that support text descriptions, image galleries, video embeds, or newsletter signups. A makeup artist could embed tutorial videos directly in their bio page, while a writer could feature book excerpts alongside purchase links.
• Useful integrations with other platforms. This might include connecting your eCommerce store to display products, embedding your Spotify playlist, or linking your email marketing service to capture leads. These integrations save time by automatically updating your bio page when you post new content.
• Privacy and user control features. Some tools let you password-protect certain links, manage multiple profiles from one account, or control who can edit your page. This becomes especially important when working with teams or managing different brands.
• In-depth analytics. Good tools show you which links get the most clicks, when people visit your page, and where they’re coming from. This data helps you optimize your page – for instance, you might discover that placing your newsletter signup at the top doubles your conversion rate.

Comparing the top link in bio tools

Each link-in-bio tool offers unique advantages. Here’s a detailed look at seven popular options to help you make an informed choice.

Gravatar

At its core, Gravatar is a universal profile system that doubles as a link-in-bio tool with a unique “Set once, seen everywhere” approach to online profiles. When you create a Gravatar profile, thousands of websites can automatically display your profile picture and information – but only with your consent. 

For example, when you comment on a WordPress blog or contribute to a GitHub project, these platforms can pull in your verified profile data. This automatic syncing saves time and ensures consistency across your online presence.

The platform functions as both a link-in-bio tool and a comprehensive profile system. You can add:

• Essential links to social media and websites.

• Verified account connections.

• About Me section.

• Payment details.

• Contact information.

• Images and videos.

Customization options give you full control over your profile’s appearance. Drag and drop elements to perfect their placement, choose background colors that match your brand, and add custom headers and footers to make the page yours. The layout builder makes it simple to create a professional-looking profile without needing design skills.

Think of Gravatar as a digital business card that evolves with your online presence. Beyond basic contact details, it showcases your portfolio, connects your social profiles, and highlights your professional achievements – all in one place that updates everywhere automatically.

Privacy remains in your control. Create multiple profiles for different aspects of your life – perhaps one for professional connections and another for creative projects. Choose exactly what information appears on which websites and manage all your online identities from a single dashboard.

Unlike most competitors, Gravatar offers free custom domain support (when acquired through WordPress.com). This means your bio page can live at “yourname.link” instead of a platform-specific URL. And the entire service costs nothing for individual users, making it an accessible option for anyone building their online presence.

Linktree

Linktree popularized the link-in-bio concept with its straightforward approach. The platform shines with its user-friendly interface and extensive template collection. You can set up a basic page in minutes, choosing from various button styles and color schemes.

With their free plan, you get unlimited links, QR codes, and a Shop tab to sell products like merch and affiliates. If you decide to go for one of their paid plans, however, you get:

• Advanced design options like custom animations
• Deeper analytics, such as performance for specific links.
• Link scheduling, SEO settings, Google Analytics, and other marketing tools. 
• Collecting email addresses and phone numbers. 
• Priority support and tailored onboarding with the highest tier. 

Linktree also integrates well with platforms like Mailchimp and Shopify, making it suitable for email marketing and ecommerce.

Later Link in Bio

Later’s tool takes a unique approach by turning your Instagram feed into clickable content. Each post becomes a link destination, making it perfect for visual content creators who frequently reference past Instagram posts. 

There is a free plan, but it’s very hard to find what’s actually included in it. The paid tiers start from $25/month up to $80 for individuals and $200 per month for agencies. 

Features include: 

• 30 and 150 posts per social profile for the first two paid tiers and unlimited for the rest. 
• Easy integration with Later’s social media scheduling tools for planning posts and corresponding bio links in advance. 
• Analytics with up to 1 year of data.
• Credits for AI features. 
• Brand collab tools for creators. 

Hopp by Wix

Built on Wix’s website platform, Hopp offers extensive customization options. Users benefit from Wix’s drag-and-drop interface and design flexibility, making it possible to create highly personalized landing pages.

Besides that, you also get: 

• URL shortening to match the brand name. 
• A mobile landing page that you can track. 
• Smart promotions that show a pre-roll when a user clicks on a specific URL. 

The platform particularly suits small businesses thanks to its built-in ecommerce capabilities. You can sell products directly through your bio page, complete with inventory management and secure payment processing.

Sprout Social

Aimed at businesses and agencies, Sprout Social’s link-in-bio feature comes as part of its comprehensive social media management suite. The tool emphasizes professional features like:

• Grid-like design of the links that mirrors an Instagram feed.
• Advanced analytics – group, profile, and post-level reporting. 
• Automated link rotation and link scheduling.
• Engagement and customer care services include social inbox, comment moderation, and case management. 

While it’s one of the pricier options with no free plan, the integrated approach makes sense for teams already using Sprout Social’s other features. The tiers start from $199/per seat per month up to $399. 

Stan

Stan focuses on monetization, functioning as both a link-in-bio tool and an ecommerce platform. It’s built specifically for creators who want to:

• Sell digital products, services, courses, and webinars. 
• Offer paid subscriptions.
• Host exclusive content.
• Manage fan relationships.

The platform includes features for managing customer relationships and tracking sales metrics, though its specialized nature means it might be overkill for users just seeking basic link sharing.

Maximizing impact: Best practices for link in bio optimization

Creating a link in bio page marks just the beginning – optimizing it is what drives real results. Here’s how to make your page more effective.

• Start with a clean, organized design that matches your brand. If you’re a photographer with a minimalist black-and-white Instagram feed, your bio page should reflect that same aesthetic. This visual consistency helps visitors instantly recognize and trust your page.
• Place your most important content at the top – that new product launch or latest video needs prime placement. And remember to remove outdated links promptly. Nothing frustrates visitors more than clicking a “new release” link from three months ago.
• Write clear, action-focused text for each link. Instead of “My YouTube,” try “Watch my latest photography tutorials.” Rather than “Shop,” use “Browse handmade ceramics.” These specific descriptions tell visitors exactly what to expect, increasing the likelihood they’ll click.
• Test your page on different devices – mobile, desktop, and tablet. Are buttons easy to tap? Is text readable without zooming? Does the page load quickly? Most of your visitors will browse on phones, so mobile-first design matters.
• Track your analytics to understand what works. If your Spotify playlist gets more clicks than your online store, maybe your audience prefers content over products. Use these insights to adjust your strategy. Try different link placements, descriptions, or visual elements to see what resonates.
• Think of your bio page as telling your brand’s story. Rather than throwing random links together, create sections that guide visitors through your work. A fitness coach might group links into categories like “Workout Plans,” “Nutrition Tips,” and “Success Stories.” This structured approach helps visitors find exactly what interests them.
• Remember to refresh your page regularly. Add seasonal content, highlight new projects, and remove outdated material. A dynamic page gives followers reasons to return and explore what’s new.

Create the ultimate link-in-bio with Gravatar

Link in bio tools solve common problems, but Gravatar takes a different approach. Rather than just collecting links, it acts as a complete online identity manager. Your Gravatar profile syncs across various integrated platforms, ensuring your online presence stays consistent without extra work.

What makes Gravatar unique? Privacy controls let you decide exactly what information appears where. You can manage multiple identities from one account. And unlike most link in bio tools, Gravatar offers custom domain support at no cost when using a WordPress.com domain.

Plus, there’s no catch – it’s completely free for individual users. Getting started takes minutes: sign up with your email, add your essential information, and customize your profile. Your unified online presence awaits.

Create your Gravatar profile for free so that your social media followers can truly make a connection with you.

Ever visited a website that seems to know exactly what you’re looking for? That’s website personalization in action. It’s the art of tailoring a site’s content, layout, and overall experience to each user based on their preferences, behaviors, and demographics.

Website personalization can be done in different ways. You might encounter:

• Content personalization that serves up articles or products you’re likely to enjoy.
• User interface customization that adjusts the layout based on your browsing habits.
• Product recommendations that feel like they’re reading your mind.
• Marketing messages that speak directly to your interests.

Think about how Netflix suggests shows you might like or how Amazon recommends products based on your browsing history. 

Similarly, news websites often customize their content feeds to match your reading preferences, while eCommerce sites may greet you with personalized homepages depending on your location and cookie history.

In this article, we’ll dive into key techniques for implementing personalization on your website. We’ll also explore how Gravatar can play a very important role in this process, helping you create a more engaging and tailored experience for your users.

Ready to transform your website into a personalized hub that keeps visitors coming back for more? Let’s get started!

Benefits of website personalization

Successful online content always caters to the needs and preferences of its visitors, and website personalization is a powerful strategy for improving your site’s performance and user satisfaction. 

Here’s how it can help you:

1. Improved user experience: When your website speaks directly to each user’s needs and preferences, it creates a more enjoyable and relevant browsing experience. It’s like having a store that rearranges itself for each customer – pretty cool, right?
2. Increased engagement: Tailored content is a magnet for user attention. When visitors find what they’re looking for quickly and easily, they’re more likely to stick around, explore more pages, and return for future visits.
3. Higher conversion rates: Personalized recommendations and targeted Calls-To-Action (CTAs) are conversion powerhouses. By showing users exactly what they’re interested in, you’re essentially laying out a red carpet to the “Buy Now” button.
4. Enhanced customer loyalty: When users feel understood and valued, they’re more likely to form an emotional connection with your brand. This can turn casual browsers into loyal customers who not only keep coming back but also recommend your site to others.
5. Better data utilization: Personalization allows you to put all that user data you’ve been collecting to good use. Instead of letting insights gather dust, you’re turning them into actionable strategies that drive real business growth.
6. Competitive advantage: When constantly fighting with competitors (not in real life, hopefully), adding a personalized experience can be your secret weapon. It sets your website apart and gives users a compelling reason to choose you over the generic alternatives.

Challenges of website personalization

While website personalization offers numerous benefits, it’s not without its hurdles. Let’s take a look at some of the common challenges you might face:

Collecting data

• Data collection methods: Gathering user data can be tricky. You might use behavior tracking, surveys, or third-party sources. However, as people become more conscious about their data, the best strategy is to collect this information directly from your users – it’s the most trustworthy way. 
• Data quality and accuracy: Your personalization is only as good as your data. Poor quality or inaccurate data can lead to off-target personalization, which might frustrate users instead of delighting them.
• Integration challenges: Integrating data from multiple sources into a unified system can be like solving a complex puzzle. Tools like Gravatar can help simplify this process by providing a centralized profile management system.

Adherence to data regulations

• Privacy laws and regulations: Navigating the maze of data privacy laws like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) can be daunting. If you don’t comply, you risk legal issues and losing the trust of your users. 
• Consent management: Getting user consent for data collection and personalization efforts is crucial. It’s a balancing act between being transparent and not overwhelming users with consent requests.
• Data security: With great data comes great responsibility. Securing user information is paramount to prevent breaches and misuse. Gravatar, for instance, prioritizes data security and gives users control over their personal information.

Other challenges

• Technical complexity: Implementing personalization can be technically demanding. Setting up algorithms, managing large datasets, and ensuring real-time data processing are not small tasks.
• Resource constraints: Personalization efforts can be time-consuming and potentially expensive. You might need to invest in new tools or expertise. Using existing solutions like Gravatar can help streamline processes and reduce the burden on your resources.
• Over-personalization: There’s a fine line between helpful personalization and feeling like you’re being watched. Finding the right balance is key to ensuring personalization feels natural and beneficial, not creepy or intrusive.

Requirements of a personalization engine

To effectively personalize your website, you’ll need a reliable personalization engine. Here are the key components you should look for:

Unified dataset

A unified dataset is like the brain of your personalization efforts. It’s a centralized repository that brings together data from various sources, giving you a comprehensive view of your users.

Benefits:

• Provides a holistic understanding of user behavior and preferences.
• Enables detailed audience segmentation for targeted engagement.
• Simplifies the process of combining data from different channels.

Data sources: Your unified dataset might include information from CRM systems, eCommerce platforms, social media, mobile apps, and even in-store data.

Open architecture

An open architecture is all about flexibility. It’s a system design that plays well with others, allowing easy integration with various third-party tools and technologies.

Benefits:

• Connects with your existing marketing tech stack (CRM, CMS, analytics tools, etc.).
• Allows for easy addition of new features and tools without disrupting existing systems.
• Reduces the need for extensive custom development work.

Decision logic

Decision logic is the smart part of your personalization engine. It’s the set of rules and algorithms that determine what personalized content to serve up based on user data.

Benefits:

• Automates the personalization process, reducing manual effort.
• Enables real-time personalization, delivering tailored content on the fly.
• Uses machine learning to continuously improve personalization strategies based on user interactions.

Decision logic can power personalized product recommendations, dynamic content delivery, targeted email campaigns, and much more!

Types of data used for personalization

Effective website personalization relies on various types of data. Let’s explore the key categories:

Contextual data

Contextual data is all about the user’s current situation and environment, including their device, operating system, browser, screen resolution, and traffic source (direct, paid, referral, search, social media).

This information helps tailor the user experience based on their current context and specific situation.

Some examples include: 

• Displaying a mobile-optimized version of a website for smartphone users. 
• A food app showing restaurant recommendations depending on the user’s location. 
• Customizing content based on the user’s referral source (e.g., different landing pages for social media vs. search engine traffic). 

Behavioral data

Behavioral data captures how users interact with your website, for example where they click, what they add to their cart and purchase, and what pages they visit. This data provides you with insights into user preferences and interests, allowing for highly accurate personalization.

Some examples include:

• Recommending products based on previous purchases or browsing history.
• Personalizing content based on frequently visited pages or clicked links.
• Sending notifications and emails about items in their cart. 

CRM data

CRM data is information you’ve collected directly from users, mostly through surveys, registration forms, and other intentional interactions. This is one of the best data types because it’s highly accurate for personalization as it’s directly provided by the user, reflecting their stated preferences and needs.

Some examples include:

• Customizing email marketing campaigns based on user-provided preferences.
• Personalizing website content for registered users based on their profile information.

Zero-party data

Zero-party data is information voluntarily shared by users through surveys, polls, and other interactive tools, including personal details and preferences. It’s considered highly reliable as it’s willingly shared by the user, offering deep insights into their preferences.

Some examples include:

• Creating personalized content and offers based on user-provided preferences and feedback. 
• Enhancing user profiles with detailed information gathered from interactive tools.

Exploring key techniques for website personalization

1. Segmenting your site according to personas

Create distinct experiences for different user groups:

• Define key personas like “Budget-conscious shoppers,” “Luxury buyers,” or “Tech enthusiasts” based on demographics, behavior, and preferences. You can create your personas with a tool like the Hubspot persona creator. 

• Use tools like Google Analytics to gather data on user segments. Look at metrics like pages visited, time on site, and conversion rates for each segment.
• Develop content variations for each persona. For example, show “Budget-conscious shoppers” value-focused messaging and discounts while presenting “Luxury buyers” with premium product recommendations.

Example: If you’re a sports apparel website, you can show runners products like performance shoes and workout gear. But for people who are more into streetwear, make it all about the latest fashion-forward sneakers and urban apparel.

2. Utilizing geolocation strategies

Tailor content based on a user’s location:

• Use IP detection to identify user location and deliver location-specific content, like showing local store information, events, or news based on the user’s city or region.

• Adjust language, currency, and shipping options based on user location. A visitor from Germany should see prices in Euros and German language content.

For example, Booking.com automatically shows the version of the site relevant to the user’s country and suggests destinations based on previous searches.

This is the homepage for US visitors: 

And this is what’s on the page for Spanish visitors: 

3. Optimizing content based on devices used

Adapt your site to different devices:

• Ensure your website is mobile-friendly and adapts to different screen sizes using responsive design frameworks like Bootstrap or Foundation.
• Deliver different content formats based on device type. Prioritize concise text and vertical videos for mobile users while offering longer-form articles on desktop.
• Optimize loading times and performance, especially for mobile users. Compress images, minify code, and use browser caching.

Spotify‘s mobile app is a master class in device optimization. It’s streamlined for on-the-go listening, with big buttons and simplified navigation. Switch to the desktop, and suddenly you’ve got a full-featured music command center.

4. Personalizing landing pages

Create customized entry points:

• Use visitor data to customize landing page elements in real time. Personalize headlines, images, and CTAs based on user segments.
• Conduct A/B tests with tools like Optimizely or AB Tasty to determine the most effective personalized elements.

For example, show a landing page with enterprise-focused messaging and case studies to visitors from large companies while highlighting ease of use for small business visitors. 

HubSpot is the king of personalized landing pages. Visit as a marketer, and you’ll see content about lead generation and email campaigns. But if you’re in sales, it’s all about CRM and pipeline management.

5. Personalizing recommendations

Suggest relevant content or products:

• Use user behavior data and machine learning to provide personalized product or content recommendations.
• Amazon is the pioneer in personalized recommendations, suggesting products based on a user’s browsing and purchase history.

• News sites like The New York Times recommend articles based on a reader’s interests and previously read stories.

6. Targeted CTAs

Create calls-to-action that have an impact:

• Design CTAs that cater to specific user segments and behaviors. 
• Use dynamic content to adjust CTAs based on user interactions.
• Optimize CTA placement for maximum visibility. 
• Use behavioral triggers to display CTAs at the right moment.

For instance, show a “Schedule a Demo” CTA to enterprise visitors who have viewed multiple product pages while offering a “Try for Free” CTA to small business visitors. 

7. Personalized checkout pages

Streamline the purchase process:

• Use user data to pre-fill forms and reduce checkout friction. 
• Offer personalized payment options and shipping methods.
• Provide personalized product recommendations during checkout based on the items in the user’s cart.

For example, every time a customer adds a product to their cart on Fenty Beauty’s website, a popup of the checkout shows up with some recommended products. 

8. Customizing loyalty programs

Reward users in meaningful ways:

• Offer rewards based on user preferences and behavior. If you know a customer loves eco-friendly products, offer points bonuses on green items.
• Send personalized emails and notifications to loyalty program members. 
• Use segmentation to deliver relevant loyalty program updates.
• ​​Use gamification to keep things fun. Progress bars, badges, and tiered rewards can turn shopping into an engaging experience.

Sephora’s Beauty Insider program offers different rewards and perks based on a member’s tier and purchase history.

Gravatar: A key player in website personalization

Gravatar is a powerful tool for web developers who want to improve their website personalization strategies. 

With Gravatar’s user profile integration, you can import essential user data, including names, display names, avatars, locations, and verified accounts. This access to user profile information means that new visitors don’t have to fill out endless forms just to use your website, improving their experience from the get-go.

Gravatar’s ongoing development, particularly the inclusion of user interests, opens up new avenues for developers to implement more sophisticated personalization techniques. This feature enables the creation of tailored content recommendations and product suggestions based on user preferences, potentially increasing engagement and conversion rates.

The platform’s straightforward integration process, whether for WordPress sites or custom-built platforms, allows developers to quickly implement personalization features. The comprehensive Gravatar API documentation will give you all the necessary resources to incorporate these features effectively.

Finally, Gravatar’s commitment to user privacy aligns with current data protection standards, allowing developers to employ personalization strategies that respect user preferences and comply with privacy regulations.

Ready to take your website personalization to the next level? Head over to Gravatar and start exploring. Your users (and your conversion rates) will love you for it!

For the first time, Matt Mullenweg has announced a holiday break for WordPress.org services. In his blog post, he said, “In order to give myself and the many tired volunteers around WordPress.org a break for the holidays, we’re going to be pausing a few of the free services currently offered.”

The paused services include new account registrations on WordPress.org, plugin reviews, and new submissions to the plugin, theme, and photo directories.

During this time, WP Engine will retain full access to WordPress.org. Matt explained, “As you may have heard, I’m legally compelled to provide free labor and services to WP Engine thanks to the success of their expensive lawyers, so in order to avoid bothering the court I will say that none of the above applies to WP Engine, so if they need to bypass any of the above please just have your high-priced attorneys talk to my high-priced attorneys and we’ll arrange access, or just reach out directly to me on Slack and I’ll fix things for you.”

Matt has not provided a specific date for resuming these services, stating, “I hope to find the time, energy, and money to reopen all of this sometime in the new year. Right now much of the time I would spend making WordPress better is being taken up defending against WP Engine’s legal attacks. Their attacks are against Automattic, but also me individually as the owner of WordPress.org, which means if they win I can be personally liable for millions of dollars of damages.”

He concluded the blog post by saying, “If you would like to fund legal attacks against me, I would encourage you to sign up for WP Engine services, they have great plans and pricing starting at $50/mo and scaling all the way up to $2,000/mo. If not, you can use literally any other web host in the world that isn’t suing me and is offering promotions and discounts for switching away from WP Engine.”

The official WordPress Twitter account echoed the announcement: “In order to give tired volunteers around WordPress.org a break for the holidays, we’re going to be pausing a few of the free services currently offered…And to be super clear for the court so we’re not held in contempt, none of this applies to @wpengine.”

Some have applauded the much-needed break for volunteers, while others expressed concern over the indefinite suspension of services. 

WordPress User Registration Reopened to Support WordCamps 

Since a WordPress.org account is mandatory to buy WordCamp tickets, the temporary suspension of new user registrations had raised concerns, as it restricted new users from buying tickets for upcoming WordCamps, including major events like WordCamp Europe, Asia, Pune, Kolhapur, and Ahmedabad, where tickets are already on sale.

Jeff Chandler commented on the issue, saying, “If the requirement is not removed, at the very least, for WordCamp sites with events coming up and they suffer because of it, that’s going to be such a huge blow to current and future event organizers and to the community itself.”

Joost de Valk of Emilia Capital raised the issue in WordPress GitHub and Dion Hulse reenabled the registration if the referrer is WordCamp. “Login: Enable user account creations when the referer is WordCamp. This allows for WordCamps tickets to continue to be bought. Per Matt.”, reads the Trac message. 

Dion Hulse then enabled user registrations for upcoming ‘nextgen events’.

Discussions are continuing in Reddit too.

Lena (Eleni) Stergatou has been awarded the first-ever WordCamp Europe Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship. This prestigious scholarship, previously exclusive to WordCamp US, was recently extended to include WordCamp Asia and Europe following the latest meeting of the WordPress Foundation Board.

The scholarship honors Kim Parsell, a beloved member of the WordPress community and regarded as one of the first “women of WordPress.” Affectionately referred to as #wpmom, Kim was a passionate WordPress contributor and advocate for women in technology.

In their announcement, the WordPress Foundation stated, “Lena’s dedication to WordPress translations, core, plugins, and more truly embodies the values that Kim held dear.”

Hailing from Greece, Lena is a devoted WordPress and BuddyPress enthusiast. She has been working as a “Code wrangler”, “Happiness Engineer” and translator (in Greek) with WordPress multisite since 2008 and since 2010 with BuddyPress. She currently develops web services for the Greek educational community at the Computer Technology Institute (CTI Diophantus).

Her WordPress profile reads, “I’m familiar with WordPress core and ways to extend it, have an eye for problems on large-scale multisite installation, have fixed numerous outdated themes and edited plugins in order to make them work as they should in multisite WordPress.

I‘m used to answer questions about WordPress usage, write manuals and FAQs (in Greek language). I love to debug, fix broken things, extend functionalities and share them with others.

This love led me to participate in the WordPress and BuddyPress community, by contributing with new plugins, “resurrect” broken plugins, bug fixes and contribute to Greek translations as Locale manager in WordPress Greek team.”

Lena is an active contributor to the WordPress Community, Core, and Polyglots teams.

The scholarship covers travel to the host city, hotel accommodation for the event duration, and a WordCamp ticket. It does not include airport transfers, meals, or other incidental expenses.

WordCamp Europe 2025 will be held from June 5–7 in Basel, Switzerland.

In 2015, the WordPress Foundation established an annual memorial scholarship to honor the memory of Kim Parsell, a beloved and influential contributor to the WordPress community. This scholarship ensures that Kim’s core values continue to inspire and enrich the WordPress community.

Until 2024, this scholarship was awarded each year to a female WordPress contributor who has never attended WordCamp US and would require financial assistance to do so. More information on the scholarship, including past recipients, is available here.

Following the latest WordPress Foundation Board meeting, the Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship has been extended to WordCamp Asia and WordCamp Europe, in addition to WordCamp US. This expansion honors Kim’s legacy and her dedication to inclusivity and diversity within the WordPress community, making it possible for more community members to attend these inspiring events.

We’re happy to announce that this year’s scholarship recipient for WCEU is Eleni Stergatou! Lena’s dedication to WordPress translations, core, plugins, and more truly embodies the values that Kim held dear.

Meet Lena Stergatou: Advocate for Accessible and Inclusive WordPress Development

Lena’s close-up picture while smiling at the camera.

I’m Lena Stergatou, known in the WordPress community as lenasterg, and I’ve always enjoyed working with WordPress and BuddyPress. I discovered WordPress back in 2008 while searching for a platform that could support multiple sites within a single installation. That’s when I came across WordPress MU (now known as WordPress Multisite). I immediately loved how flexible and easy it was to extend and customize WordPress to meet specific needs, especially for Multisite environments.

I enjoy contributing to the WordPress community by developing new plugins, reviving broken ones, and submitting bug fixes. As a General Translation Editor for the Greek WordPress team, I help make WordPress and its plugins accessible to Greek-speaking users. I believe it’s incredibly important for WordPress, its plugins, and themes to be translated into multiple languages. Translations improve accessibility and foster inclusion by helping more people use the platform comfortably. This realization came from my own experience with my children when they were young, and with my parents, who don’t speak English. Simple prompts like “next” or “read more” were confusing for them, making it clear how crucial it is to provide tools in people’s native languages. This is why I dedicate time to translating — to ensure that everyone, regardless of their language skills, can fully enjoy and benefit from WordPress.

I try to live by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s principle: “To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived — that is to have succeeded.” So whenever I detect a bug in open-source code, I do my best to fix it, add new features, and share my work with the community.

I live in Patras, Greece, with my husband, my teenage daughter, and my teenage son. Professionally, I hold a Master’s in Electrical and Computer Engineering and have worked as an ICT trainer and author. With over 20 years of experience as a web developer, I am currently working with the Computer Technology Institute (CTI Diophantus), where I develop web services for the Greek educational community.

Get in touch with Lena on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lenasterg/ 

In order to give myself and the many tired volunteers around WordPress.org a break for the holidays, we’re going to be pausing a few of the free services currently offered:

• New account registrations on WordPress.org (clarifying so press doesn’t confuse this: people can still make their own WordPress installs and accounts)
• New plugin directory submissions
• New plugin reviews
• New theme directory submissions
• New photo directory submissions

We’re going to leave things like localization and the forums open because these don’t require much moderation.

As you may have heard, I’m legally compelled to provide free labor and services to WP Engine thanks to the success of their expensive lawyers, so in order to avoid bothering the court I will say that none of the above applies to WP Engine, so if they need to bypass any of the above please just have your high-priced attorneys talk to my high-priced attorneys and we’ll arrange access, or just reach out directly to me on Slack and I’ll fix things for you.

I hope to find the time, energy, and money to reopen all of this sometime in the new year. Right now much of the time I would spend making WordPress better is being taken up defending against WP Engine’s legal attacks. Their attacks are against Automattic, but also me individually as the owner of WordPress.org, which means if they win I can be personally liable for millions of dollars of damages.

If you would like to fund legal attacks against me, I would encourage you to sign up for WP Engine services, they have great plans and pricing starting at $50/mo and scaling all the way up to $2,000/mo. If not, you can use literally any other web host in the world that isn’t suing me and is offering promotions and discounts for switching away from WP Engine.

Support Inclusion in Tech (SiNC) has announced the expansion of its grant program to now include applicants from North and South America. SiNC was proposed by Winstina Hughes in 2022 to mitigate the financial stress of underrepresented groups seeking to participate in WordPress events and was first tried in WordCamp US 2022. 

Originally launched in June 2024 to honor Pride Month, the Grant program offers four grants of $240 USD each, to individuals across Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, and South America.

“We believe that a truly inclusive WordPress community requires a global perspective,” said Winstina Hughes, founder of Support Inclusion in Tech. “By expanding our grant program, we are taking a significant step towards ensuring that everyone, regardless of their geographic location, has the opportunity to contribute and thrive within the WordPress ecosystem.”

Eligible applicants include those who have contributed to the WordPress community through local meetups, WordCamps, or code contributions. Starting January 2025, applicants can choose to be included in a public directory, with grant selections to follow in March 2025 via a random name picker.

The WP Community Collective has announced that it has incorporated as a California membership nonprofit for mutual benefit. Sé Reed, President & CEO of WPCC, shared, “A lot is said about (and to) the #WordPress community. But for the most part, the community has been spoken for and not had a voice of its own. That’s why we founded @thewpcc.” 

The organization is also finalizing its designation as a 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization, a federal classification that defines it as an association with a common business interest. This will provide WPCC with greater flexibility in projects and funding. 

WPCC is also planning to create a charitable nonprofit subsidiary. This subsidiary will focus on supporting important projects like the Accessibility Fellowship and efforts to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) in the WordPress community. 

Membership in WPCC is now open to individuals with a minimum contribution of $5. Members should adhere to the organization’s Code of Conduct and Conflict of Interest policy. In addition, WPCC plans to introduce membership tiers for businesses and organizations, along with scholarship memberships, in early 2025. They also launched a dedicated Slack instance for its members. 

Earlier this year, the WPCC faced a challenge when its fiscal host, the Open Collective Foundation (OCF), dissolved unexpectedly. As a result, the WPCC had to move its funds to a temporary host. Unfortunately, those funds cannot be used for the new nonprofit structure, but the organization remains focused on moving forward. They are working on new initiatives and building partnerships to expand opportunities for contributors around the world.

The WPCC is committed to being transparent with its finances. You can support the organization by making a contribution here.

When Inc Magazine reached out to have David H. Freedman (website powered by WordPress) write a feature piece I was excited because though Inc wasn’t a magazine I have read much since I was a teenager, David seemed like a legit journalist who usually writes for better publications like The Atlantic. I opened up to David with a number of vulnerable stories, and allowed the photo shoot in my home in Houston.

Whether it was him or his editors, unfortunately the piece has turned out pretty biased and negative, even to the point of cherry-picking negative photos from the photo shoot they did in my home. It also has a number of basic errors which make me question the fact-checking and editorial integrity of Inc in the first place. Let’s go through it.

Although they have dozens of photos of me smiling, it starts with one where I look pretty morose. At least I got some Sonny Rollins and Audrey Hepburn in the background.

The article starts with a conversation David had with me while we were both in the bathroom, away from his recorder, where he remarked that the bathroom was really nice. I talked about visiting Google in 2004 when I first came to San Francisco and thinking they had cheap toilet paper, and how given that Automattic’s offices are barely used there’s no reason not to spend a few extra bucks on nice soap and toilet paper to give a better experience to employees and visitors. (For those curious, we use Aesop soap and Who Gives A Crap toilet paper, a brand that donates 50% of profits to charity.) I chose these brands because it’s what I use in my home, and I want people in our offices to have the same quality. David spins it thusly:

I ask him who at Automattic, the estimated $710-million company of which Mullenweg is CEO, is responsible for toilet paper and soap quality control?

“Me,” he says, beaming. 

Of course, Mullenweg’s control of Automattic extends well beyond the bathroom walls.

Now you know how the rest of the piece is going to go! Factual errors mixed with bias. First, no credible business publication would put Automattic’s valuation at $710 million, our last Series E primary round was at $7.5 billion. That was 2021 and we’d probably trade closer to $5B now with current multiples, but still the article is an order-of-magnitude off.

David asked if there was a person responsible for choosing toiletries: of course not! We have better things to work on. The entire thing took probably 30 seconds of my time, from going to the bathroom in our New York office to sending a Slack message, and I haven’t thought about it since until David commented about our bathrooms being nice, while we were both in the bathroom and I was washing my hands. Okay, back to the article.

And it all began when Mullenweg got very annoyed, very publicly, at a $400 million company called WP Engine. 

Once again, Inc is unable to distinguish between revenue and valuation.

On September 25, more than 1.5 million websites around the world suddenly lost the ability to make some routine software updates.

First, WP Engine doesn’t host 1.5 million WordPress sites. This was easily checked on our website WordPressEngineTracker.com, which as best we can tell from crawling the web, looking at domain registrations and public data from BuiltWith and W3Techs, they probably had ~745k sites on September 25th, so the second number in the piece is off by 2x. Second, those sites could still do software updates using WP Engine’s tools or by uploading new versions, it was just the connectivity between WP Engine’s datacenters and WordPress.org’s that was impacted for a few days.

WP Engine had royally pissed off Matt Mullenweg for not contributing enough to the open-source community, in his opinion. Mullenweg claims he had been in negotiations with WP Engine for months to get them to cough up their fair share one way or another, but finally decided the company had dragged its feet for too long, leading him to break off talks and go public with his ire.

No, the negotiations, and what they were doing wrong, was abuse of the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks. I also think it’s lame how little they’re involved in the software their entire business is built on and their ability to serve customers was dependent on free server resources and bandwidth from WordPress.org, but our negotiations were about trademark use.

Mullenweg controls the WordPress Foundation, the non-profit that oversees WordPress’s open-source software, the website that serves as the gateway to WordPress resources, and the WordPress trademark.

False, false, false. First, I do not control the WordPress Foundation. I am one of three board members, so by definition am not in control. The other two board members could remove me at any time. Second, the Foundation does not oversee the core software, or the WordPress.org website! This is super clear in WPE’s legal filings, in the about pages of the respective websites, by talking to anyone who understands this. Really shoddy journalism.

The nearly 1,700 employees—a number that reflects the more than 150 who have left in the past few months—are scattered officeless across 90 countries.

As you can see on our about page, Automattic has 1,750 employees, not “nearly 1,700.”

In person, Mullenweg comes off as surprisingly chill when we meet on October 22, given all the angry online noise and employee turmoil surrounding the WP Engine beef for the past three weeks. He is a young-looking, animated 40 with a near-constant grin, and his neat beard and shawl-collar cardigan sweater contribute to his laid-back air.

I’m quoting this just to show they would occasionally say something nice before twisting the knife or going back into inaccuracies. A “near-constant grin” they couldn’t capture in photos.

Two days later, a comment popped up under the post from a U.K. coder named Mike Little: Would he like some help? 

Three obsessive days later, Mullenweg released the results and followed a friend’s advice to name it WordPress— only after checking to make sure the domain names WordPress.com and WordPress.org were available. This domain ownership would prove critical.

It’s true that Mike Little commented a few days after my blog post in January 2003, but WordPress’ first release wasn’t until May 27^th, 2003. Not “three obsessive days later.” This fact could have been easily verified by digging deep into obscure sources like the Wikipedia entry for WordPress.

Though there are different versions of open-source licenses, the general idea is that anyone can freely download and use the software, and anyone can modify it as they see fit, and then release it as their own version. But the original developer of the fork retains the trademark rights. And when it comes to WordPress, the rights belong to Mullenweg. 

I’m not sure where to start… The WordPress trademark doesn’t belong to Mullenweg, it belongs to the WordPress Foundation. David has clearly not been able to figure things out at this point. But again, this is easily checked by looking at the WordPress trademark on the USPTO site.

A 2020 study commissioned by WP Engine calculated the value of all business driven by WordPress to be $600 billion, and growing rapidly. No one gets a bigger piece of that pie than Automattic.

Okay, now after saying Automattic is worth $710M and WP Engine is worth $400M, you’re now breathlessly quoting WPE’s PR slop claiming the WP ecosystem is $600B (it’s not, probably closer to $10-15B/yr) and then immediately pivot into saying that Automattic gets the biggest piece of that pie, something clearly not true based on our revenue versus everyone else in the ecosystem.

Mullenweg had another complaint: WP Engine was violating Automattic’s trademark rights over the WordPress name, based on the fact that WP Engine freely used the abbreviation “WP,” and that “WordPress” appeared throughout their website.

I’m quoting this just to point out how bad the quality control is at Inc Magazine: the link for “another complaint” doesn’t work, it has the code <a href="http://@photomatt">another complaint</a>. They can’t even make sure all the links work in their published articles! I presume this was trying to refer to a tweet of mine, but no one reading the article will be able to know what it was. I would like to know, because our trademark complaint had nothing to do with “WP”, it was about the use of “WordPress” and “WooCommerce.”

Inc Magazine already runs on WordPress, though they use a needlessly complex and expensive custom front-end instead of just serving the site natively. Maybe in their next re-architecture they can take the money they save by getting rid of their lame headless implementation and put it towards fact-checkers and better editors.

Whenever Mullenweg is accused of being too controlling, he often points out he turned over control of WordPress software to a non-profit called the WordPress Foundation. He created the Foundation in 2010, and did indeed assign it all WordPress rights.

I have never said that, and it’s not even factually accurate or possible for me to assign all WordPress rights.

But few people who have looked at the Foundation take its independence seriously. Mullenweg is chairman of its three-person board. Little is known about the other two members, and their names don’t appear anywhere on the Foundation’s website.

The names of the other directors do appear on the Foundation website, for example in this October 17 blog post that says “WordPress Foundation Directors: Mark Ghosh, Matt Mullenweg, and Chele Chiavacci Farley.”

Now the article includes a picture of me at the computer, and out of the hundreds they have with my eyes open, they for some reason chose this one where my eyes were closed.

Like most theme vendors in the early years of that small sub-industry, it sold its themes under a proprietary—that is, non-open-source—license. But in 2008, Mullenweg cleaned house of all theme vendors who refused to switch to an open-source license. Only Thesis held out.

In response, Mullenweg offered to pay Thesis users to switch. He also reportedly paid $100,000 to acquire the domain name “Thesis.com” from a third party and had the name direct to an Automattic blog about theme design.

Themes in WordPress are linked and integrated in a way that the GPL license applies to the PHP code, so if you publish and distribute a WordPress theme the PHP needs to be GPL. There has only been one person to dispute this, Chris Pearson from Thesis, no lawyer or the thousands of successful themes since then have tried to violate the GPL license. Chris is a clown, and the only source for saying that 100k was paid for the Thesis.com domain, I will say now that the domain was bought for a small fraction of that. Again, no fact checking or citing sources.

Thesis eventually gave in. But many in the WordPress community were put off by what they saw as Mullenweg’s vindictive, bullying behavior, and some eventually even left WordPress for other publishing platforms because of it. 

It’s funny to talk about the last big controversy in WordPress world being in 2010, I think it actually speaks to our stability. Since 2010, when “some eventually even left WordPress”, the platform has grown market share from under 10% to 43%. I think in a few years we’ll look back at WP Engine as inconsequential as Thesis, and Heather Brunner as credible as Chris Pearson.

Some are leaving WordPress entirely. Cernak of Northstar Digital Design has already decided to abandon WordPress (and WP Engine) for a much smaller, rival website-development platform called WebFlow. “I can’t depend on WordPress if Matt is going to make changes based on whatever he happens to want at the time,” he says.

Wow, they found one person leaving WordPress for Webflow. Is that cherry-picked, or a trend? Again, you can go to third parties like W3Techs to see the relative market share, and see that we’ve gained share since September and Webflow has been flat. Northstar Digital Design “is a creative agency specializing in digital marketing, blockchain technology, web development & design” with 5 followers on X/Twitter. Their website lists no clients or portfolio. It’s unclear how many sites they are responsible for. But this Cernak character is quoted like he’s some authority or representative of a trend. Maybe he’s more credible on blockchain technology.

When I ask Mullenweg if he is feeling traumatized by the pervasive criticism, he tells me about the time he was playing in a Little League game when his teammates saw, through his thin white pants, that his underwear had cartoon characters on them. “They started laughing. That was traumatic for me. But now it’s a funny story,” he recalls. “Tragedy plus time equals comedy.” 

Whether or not anything about the current crisis ever seems funny to him, he insists it will all end up as a beneficial experience. “The best things come out of adversity and clashes,” he says. “We’re going to come out of it way stronger.”

This is a true story, I was very open and vulnerable with the journalist.

In a prepared statement emailed to Inc., a WP Engine spokesperson said that “we are encouraged by and supportive of the ideas we see being shared by leaders within WordPress and adjacent open-source platforms to reimagine how key elements of the WordPress ecosystem are governed and funded….” It is a clear plug for pushing Mullenweg out of his BDFLship.

Oh finally, WP Engine talks to the press after months of avoiding interviews and conferences. This is a great statement given WP Engine can barely fund and govern itself, much less the broader WordPress ecosystem, and I doubt the broader WordPress hosting ecosystem would prefer Silver Lake and WP Engine holding the reins of WordPress.

There’s more slop in the article but I’m not going to go through everything. I know a lot of entrepreneurs follow me and I don’t want your takeaway to be “don’t talk to journalists” or “don’t engage with mainstream media.” When Inc reached out I thought back to when I was a teenager reading Inc and Fast Company, and how those magazines were inspiring to me, I didn’t think as much about their decline in editorial quality and relevance. I read David’s other pieces and thought he had some great insight, but this is a good example of where a decent journalist can’t overcome a crappy editor and quality control. I probably wouldn’t be excited to work with Inc Magazine again while Mike Hofman is in charge as editor-in-chief, he’s clearly overseeing a declining brand. But I will continue to engage with other media, and blog, and tweet, and tell my story directly.

If you’d like to see how much editorial bias can shape a story, I will say that Inc just published a great profile, with flattering photos, of my good friend Stacy Brown-Philpot. When an editor wants to make you look good, they can! If they decide they want to drag you, they can too. Everything in my interactions with David and Inc made it seem this would be a positive piece, so be careful. I’ll also contrast it with the excellent cover article University of Houston published a few days ago.

We’ll see if Inc Magazine has any journalistic integrity by their updates to the article.

The controversial mandatory pineapple pizza checkbox on WordPress.org’s login form has been made optional. This decision follows a Twitter poll conducted by WordPress.org, in which 81.2% of respondents voted against making the checkbox mandatory. Additionally, 58.3% of respondents declared that pineapple on pizza is not delicious.

The checkbox initially replaced one from October, which required users to confirm, “I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise,” before accessing their accounts. This earlier requirement was removed following a court ruling.

Former WordPress Plugin Review Team representative Mika Epstein advocated for the change by opening a Trac ticket to make the “Pineapple is Delicious” checkbox optional. The proposal quickly gained traction, with Matt Mullenweg expressing his support, stating, “I’m supportive of this change.”

Earlier, Matt had expressed his willingness to meet with people to discuss specific proposals and changes, responding to calls for reforms in the governance of the open-source project. The Repository had published an open letter written by a group of WordPress professionals urging Matt to work with the community instead of continuing to act unilaterally.

In response to the change, Jeff Chandler tweeted, “The stupid Pineapple checkbox when logging into WordPress.org is now optional.” CEO of ClikIT Blake Whittle remarked, “Not of any community doing. Only because Matt is supportive of the change on his personal website.” Accessibility Expert Alex Stine added, “Matt said yes, change goes live.”

One Reddit user humorously quipped, “The Pineapple is dead! Long live the Pineapple!”

Earlier, Patricia BT had suggested an alternative in the Make WordPress #community-team Slack channel. She said, “Could the .org login box be changed to something a bit more serious? Maybe something like “I adhere to the Community Code of Conduct” so everyone is following the code. I understand the pizza joke and I am relieved that the legal implications of the previous one are gone (see my concerns about legal implications on my blog), but the WordPress community must look a bit more serious and not have newcomers scratching their heads… We are the community and people (meetup attendees, end-users, customers, etc) ask us (who are more involved here) about what is happening and they need trust.”

Dion Hulse of Automattic also chimed in. He said, “Rather than having a checkbox that must be checked every time without thought, it’s probably better to figure out if the policies are in a format that can be linked to / agreed to, and enable that functionality.”

The talented Felix Arntz has given an incredible Christmas gift to the WordPress community with his fast, light, and accessible Snow Fall plugin, which is live on this site and you can install on yours. I hope everyone is having a happy holidays! Search for “snow fall” in your plugin dashboard and install his version, make your site cozy for the holidays.

The latest release of Gutenberg, version 19.9, brings a suite of powerful features, tools, and improvements for WordPress users. From enhancing classic themes with the Style Book to introducing the new Query Total block, here’s everything you need to know about this update.

Style Book Comes to Classic Themes

One of the standout features in Gutenberg 19.9 is the introduction of the Style Book for classic themes. Classic themes that support editor styles (via add_theme_support( 'editor-styles' )) or include a theme.json file now have access to the Style Book under the Appearance > Design > Styles section in the WordPress admin panel.

For classic themes supporting the Style Book, site patterns have been relocated to Appearance > Design > Patterns, consolidating design-related features previously found under Appearance > Patterns.

New Query Total Block

The new Query Total block is designed to enhance the user experience. When used within a Query Loop block, it displays either the total number of results returned by a query or the current range in a set of paginated results.

This feature is particularly useful for improving navigation and providing context to site visitors, making it easier for them to understand the scope of content on your site.

More Highlights and Enhancements

Gutenberg 19.9 also comes with several developer-centric improvements, updates and bug fixes.

• phpMyAdmin in wp-env: Developers can now launch phpMyAdmin in wp-env. This connects automatically to the running MySQL database service, allowing you to inspect and manage your WordPress database during development.
• Resolution Controls for Featured Images: The Cover block now offers resolution controls for featured image backgrounds.
• Inline Reset Button for Colors: An inline reset button has been added to all color controls, enabling users to reset colors for blocks and global styles with a single click.
• Query Block Design Options: Query block patterns have moved from a modal interface to a dropdown menu under the block toolbar’s “Change design” option.
• Set Homepage in Site Editor: Users can now set their homepage directly within the Site Editor. Under the Pages section, select the desired page, open the action menu, and choose “Set as homepage.”

Bug Fixes

Several bug fixes have been addressed in this release:

• Fixed site editor crashes when adding a front-page template and clicking more options.
• Resolved visual alignment regressions in the navigation menu items within the Site Editor.
• Addressed a critical error in the Style Book when blocks were not registered.
• Corrected the List View not updating when switching editor modes.

Gutenberg 19.9 is the last release of 2024.

WP Gives A Hand, a charitable initiative within the WordPress community, uniting businesses to donate a portion of their revenue to support various nonprofit organizations, has turned five. The businesses choose whichever charity they would like to donate to.

Over the past five years, 29 companies have collectively raised more than $52,000, benefiting 19 different charitable organizations.

In 2023, 16 participants contributed $11,200 to nine diverse charities, supporting causes ranging from climate change mitigation to poverty alleviation.

For the 2024 campaign, participating companies will donate a percentage of their sales between December 23 and 29 to charity. So far, nine companies have joined the movement.

This year’s donations will support World Bicycle Relief, SOS Children’s Villages Latvia, ENPA Mira, Associazione Rinascendo, Sonrisas Canarias, and Fundación Favaloro among other charities.

To get involved, visit wpgivesahand.com.

On the podcast today we have Andrew Palmer.

Andrew’s journey with WordPress started almost two decades ago after transitioning from Joomla. He went on to make significant strides in the community, co-founding Elegant Marketplace and investing in ventures like Atarim and Bertha AI.

In this episode, we talk about the intricacies of working within the WordPress ecosystem, comparing the free and commercial sides. Andrew shares his thoughts on the challenges of financially compensating event contributors and the importance of non-financial contributions, such as time. He discusses the absence of a structured regulatory body in the web development industry, and how he thinks this can impact trust and credibility.

We discuss the lack of industry-wide accreditation in web development and the controversial nature of establishing such systems within the ever-evolving WordPress environment.

We hear about his personal and business achievements, such as guiding clients to grow their recurring income, sharing successes in SEO, and the positive experiences of community events like Meetups and WordCamps.

As we explore his thoughts on contribution expectations and financial struggles of freelancers, Andrew also touches on the changing nature of the industry with the rise of AI solutions and the long-term utility of WordPress.

Andrew’s reflections on his long career, his plans to pivot towards personal interests, and his intention to remain partially involved in the community, lead to a fun conversation which all seems to boil down to perseverance in a rapidly changing industry.

If you’ve ever thought about the complexities and commercial dynamics of the WordPress ecosystem, this episode is for you.

Useful links

Elegant Marketplace

Bertha AI

Milestones – The story of WordPress

Contact Form 7

Gravity Forms

WS Form

Ninja Forms

Divi

Bricks

ZipWP

Kadence WP

GoDaddy Airo

Termageddon

WPLDN

Watchful

PublishPress

InMotion hosting

GoHighLevel

WP Certify

Beaver Builder

WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg delivered his annual State of the Word (SOTW) address today from Tokyo Node Hall in Tokyo, Japan. This marks the second time the event was held outside North America, following last year’s address in Madrid, Spain.

This year’s event spanned three hours, with a special emphasis on Japanese culture. Matt explained, “We’ve gotten so much inspiration over the years from Japanese culture, we wanted to make this event really “of the space,” so we’re doing a few extra things this year. My presentation will include Mary Hubbard and Matías Ventura, but also part of it will be in Japanese and presented by Junko Fukui Nukaga. We’ll have a piano performance by Aiko Takei. After the presentation and Q&A we’ll do a panel in Japanese with Mieko Kawakami, Craig Mod, Hajime Ogushi, and Genki Taniguchi.”

Matt enumerated the WordPress contributions of the Japanese community, mainly Translation, and Wapuu. Japan was the country that made him realize that WordPress was more than a blogging tool, and Kansei engineering fascinates him. 

A Japanese WordPress site was set up in December 2003, just six months after WordPress was launched.  The version originally called “WordPress ME” (WordPress Multilingual Edition) was maintained by a user called Otsukare. Wapuu, the official mascot character of WordPress, was designed by Kazuko Kaneuchi in 2011 and is GPL licensed.

Matt then shared some statistics:

• WordPress now powers 43.6% of the internet and, according to W3Techs, has a 62.3% CMS market share.
• WordPress powers 58.5% of all the websites in Japan and has an 83% market share, which is 31x Shopify, which is only at 2.7%.
• WordPress has surpassed 500M core downloads. 
• English is the most used language (50.8%), followed by Spanish (6.87), German (5.99) and Japanese (5.82%)
• 1,700 new themes were uploaded in the last 12 months, an increase over the 1,400 new themes last year. Of those new themes, over 1,000 of them are block themes.
• WordPress is expected to hit 2.35 billion downloads of plugins this year, which is a 20% year-over-year growth.
• Plugin ecosystem is thriving, with the review queue reduced to zero. After launching the Plugin Check tool, 41% fewer issues were reported per approved plugin and enabled the team to approve 138% more plugins each week.

Gutenberg 

The event also highlighted the progression of Gutenberg, which is entering its third phase focused on collaboration.  Matias Ventura, Gutenberg’s lead architect, discussed upcoming features that will enable users to collaborate directly within the editor, including leaving comments and receiving notifications, similar to Google Docs. 

WordPress is for everyone. So we need to really put our minds together into working out how can it be the best writing tool, the best design tool, the best developer experience. It takes time, it takes effort from the whole community but I think it’s very rewarding.

– Matias Ventura

The team is also working on a ‘Zoom out’ feature. He then talked about Styles, the theme JSON structure, block bindings, query block, the ongoing efforts to address the lack of responsive tools in the editor, and the new Registered Blog Template API, which has simplified the process of registering and managing custom templates.

“We have a lot to go through,” Ventura said, “and we want to approach this one through sort of four lenses, and that is Write, Design, Build, and Develop.”

WordPress Playground

WordPress Playground was another exciting feature discussed. This tool allows WordPress to run instantly on any device without hosting, enabling users to experiment without installations. New updates include support for multiple instances within a single window, the integration of Blueprints (JSON files for setting up your WordPress Playground instance), and a Playground block that embeds WordPress instances within WordPress itself. Mullenweg emphasized that these innovations aim to make WordPress more accessible and powerful while preserving its open-source ethos.

We don’t want to just make things that work. We want to make them beautiful.

– Matt Mullenweg

WordPress & WP Engine

WordPress Executive Director Mary Hubbard said she hopes to resolve the WP Engine issue equitably. She said, “So like Matt, I believe that when you choose WordPress, you should get WordPress. And that should never be anything that somebody is confused about. And that’s something that I personally believe is worth fighting for and driving my driving force and motivation of taking on this role because we’ve come too far as an open source platform and we should not stand by as it’s being exploited or watered down for the short-term gains of a few at the expense of the long-term needs of the many because WordPress belongs to all of us, us and to our community and that’s what I’m most passionate about.”

She also talked about Learn WordPress which now features structured learning pathways, and Openverse which has expanded to include 884 million images and 4.2 million audio files, nearly 4 million page views this month alone and over 21 million API requests.

WordPress does belong to us all and what we’re doing is taking care of it for the next generation and the next generation is critical to WordPress’s ongoing growth as a platform and making it accessible and frictionless as possible has never been more important.

– Mary Hubbard

Grassroots programs are flourishing and she mentioned two programmes – WP Campus Connect from India and National ICT Innovation Hub from Uganda.

Local Japanese Community

WordPress Community Program Supporter and Team Rep Junko Fukui Nukaga shared the updates on Japan and WordPress. Japanese is now the fourth most used language in the world by WordPress. In October 2024, the Japanese WordPress community celebrated DigitalCube’s IPO on the Tokyo PRO Market. Other notable Japanese businesses include Contact Form 7, HAMWORKS, SAKURA Internter, KOMOJU and Xserver.

Japan is also home to 26 active meetup groups and 11265 community members who hosted 189 local meetups this year. Japan’s contribution to the Core are growing. 

Matt then mentioned the contributions of Aki Hamano, a Core Committer (made 774 contributions to WordPress core with 338 props for 6.7),and Akira Tachibana, an active Docs Team member. 13 Japanese contributors supported 5.4% of WordPress 6.6 development.

Data Liberation

Matt had announced Data Liberation at last year’s State of the Word to be the gold standard of liberation and interoperability. The idea is not just to make WordPress more powerful but to ensure that it’s truly free. It’s the freedom to move content anywhere, to collaborate without barriers or constraints. WordPress Playground plays a critical role in this vision.

“Some people might see 2024 as a year of distractions or attacks from bad actors in the community. But it was really a year of growth and focus where we were able to accelerate so many things that we’re doing. It was also an amazing year of growth in a lot of areas.”, he said.

Q&A Session

The event also had a short Q&A session where Mullenweg fielded questions about the future of blogging, whether the performance plugin of WordPress will be integrated into core, AI-generated content, digital identity, and democratising publishing. 

Matt also congratulated developer Aki Hamano. He then talked about Automattic’s missions – to democratize publishing, democratize commerce (with WooCommerce), and democratize messaging (through Beeper). These three things will keep him busy for life, and he revealed that he’ll work on WordPress for the rest of his life, which he considers to be an honour and privilege. 

Panel Discussions

The event had two panel discussions moderated by Mary Hubbard. The first panel featuring Mieko Kawakami, Craig Mod and Matt explored ‘Publishing in the Open’ while the second panel of Hajime Ogushi, Genki Taniguchi, and Matt discussed ‘The Future of WordPress in Japan and Beyond’. 

The event was live-streamed and is available on WordPress YouTube channel.

On a memorable evening in Tokyo, State of the Word 2024 brought together WordPress enthusiasts from around the world—hundreds in person and millions more online. This event marked the first time State of the Word was hosted in Asia, reflecting the platform’s growing global reach. The setting couldn’t have been more fitting: a city where tradition and technology coexist in seamless harmony. Tokyo, much like WordPress itself, reflects a powerful blend of legacy and innovation, craftsmanship and technology, and moments of vast scale balanced by serene stillness.

During the event, the concept of kansei engineering emerged as a central theme. This Japanese design philosophy seeks to create experiences that go beyond function and aesthetics, focusing on how something feels. As highlighted during the keynote, this principle has quietly influenced WordPress’s development, shaping its design and user experience in ways that resonate on an instinctive level.

The evening also celebrated Japan’s deep-rooted connection to WordPress. Nearly 21 years ago, Japan became the first country to localize WordPress, long before a formal translation framework existed. It all started with a single forum post from a user named Otsukare, launching a translation project that helped WordPress become a truly global platform. Seeing how far the Japanese WordPress community has come—both in market share and cultural influence—was a powerful reminder of what shared purpose can achieve.

Wapuu, WordPress’s beloved mascot, was also born in Japan. What began as a simple idea for a fun and friendly representation of WordPress evolved into a global phenomenon. Thanks to Kazuko Kaneuchi’s generous open-source contribution, Wapuu has been reimagined by WordPress communities worldwide, each version infused with local character. This uniquely Japanese creation has helped make WordPress more welcoming, approachable, and fun wherever it appears.

WordPress Growth in 2024

WordPress cofounder Matt Mullenweg highlighted significant achievements that underscored WordPress’s growth, resilience, and expanding global presence in 2024. He shared that WordPress now powers 43.6% of all websites globally. In Japan, WordPress’s influence is even more pronounced, powering 58.5% of all websites. This remarkable statistic reinforces the platform’s enduring role as a cornerstone of the open web and accentuates Japan’s deep-rooted commitment to the WordPress ecosystem and its developers’ significant contributions.

WordPress sites using languages other than English are expected to surpass English-language sites by 2025. German recently overtook Japanese as the third-most-used language, though Japanese remained close behind. Meanwhile, emerging languages like Farsi experienced rapid adoption, reflecting the platform’s expanding multilingual ecosystem. In Southeast Asia, languages such as Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Thai saw substantial year-over-year growth, signaling broader adoption across diverse regions.

Core downloads surged to nearly half a billion annually, with the notable releases of WordPress 6.5, 6.6, and 6.7.

WordPress’s design and development ecosystem flourished as well. Over 1,700 new themes were uploaded in 2024, bringing more than 1,000 block themes to the official repository and reflecting increased interest in modern, flexible site design.

The plugin ecosystem also saw record-breaking activity this year. Plugin downloads surged toward 2.35 billion, representing a 20% year-over-year increase. Plugin updates exceeded 3 billion and are on track to surpass 3.5 billion by year’s end. Notably, the Plugin Review Team made transformative improvements, drastically reducing the average review wait time. Their efficiency gains were complemented by the launch of the Plugin Check tool, which reduced submission issues by 41% while enabling the team to approve 138% more plugins each week.

These accomplishments showcase WordPress’s resilience, adaptability, and ever-expanding influence. As the platform continues to evolve, its global community remains at the heart of its success, driving innovation and ensuring that WordPress thrives as the leading tool for building the open web.

Advancing the Platform

WordPress lead architect, Matías Ventura, highlighted WordPress’s evolution through the lenses of writing, design, building, and development, demoing various pieces of new and forthcoming enhancements.

Writing

The writing experience in WordPress saw notable advancements this year, with an improved distraction-free mode that helps users to focus on content creation without interface distractions. Now you can directly select the image itself to drag and drop it where you want, even enabling on-the-fly gallery creation when you drop images next to each other.

Additionally, the introduction of block-level comments in the editor, currently an experimental feature, promises to reshape collaborative workflows by enabling teams to leave notes directly on blocks.

These enhancements all work together to make writing, composing, and editing in WordPress feel more fluid, personal, and pleasant than ever.

Design

Along with new default theme Twenty Twenty-Five, more than 1,000 block themes offer tailored starting points for different site types, including portfolios, blogs, and business sites. Designers can also utilize the improved Style Book for a comprehensive view of their site’s appearance, ensuring a smooth design process.

Design work isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s also about creating the right environment and guardrails. It’s important that users can interact with their site, add content, replace media, and choose sections without needing to know the layout details. We’re implementing better default experiences to help you focus exclusively on the content or on the design, depending on your needs at the moment. 

This all works seamlessly with the zoom-out view, where users can compose content using patterns without having to set up every individual block. Having a bird’s-eye view of your site can really help you gain a different perspective.

These design capabilities scale with you as your WordPress projects grow. WordPress’s approach to design is systematic: blocks combine to form patterns, patterns form templates, and templates help separate content from presentation.

Building

WordPress’s content management capabilities allow working at scale and across teams. Central to this is the introduction of Block Bindings, which merge the flexibility of blocks with the structured power of meta fields. This feature allows block attributes to be directly linked to data sources like post meta, reducing the need for custom blocks while creating deeper, more dynamic content relationships. The familiar block interface remains intact, making complex data management feel seamless. This connects naturally with our broader work on Data Views for post types and meta fields. 

These updates reinforce WordPress’s role as a powerful content management system by connecting its core primitives—blocks, post types, taxonomies, and meta fields—more intuitively. 

Development

Lastly, Matías showcased a range of groundbreaking tools that empower WordPress developers and streamline their workflows. One of the highlights was the new Templates API, which has simplified the process of registering and managing custom templates. Future updates to the API will allow users to register and activate templates seamlessly, enabling dynamic site customizations such as scheduling different homepage templates for special events or swapping category archives during campaigns. This flexible approach offers developers greater creative control in a standardized way. 

The session also explored the Interactivity API, designed to deliver fast, seamless website experiences by enabling server-rendered interactivity within WordPress. Unlike JavaScript-heavy frameworks, this technology keeps everything within WordPress’s existing ecosystem, bridging the gap between developers and content creators. Attendees saw live demos showcasing instant search, pagination, and commenting—all without page reloads—while maintaining a perfect performance score of 100 on Lighthouse. In addition, it was announced that responsive controls will receive significant attention, with new features being explored, like block visibility by breakpoint and adding min/max controls to the columns block.

The WordPress Playground also emerged as a game-changer, allowing users to spin up WordPress sites directly in their browsers, experiment with Blueprints, and manage projects offline. With improved GitHub integration and expanded documentation, WordPress developers now have a more accessible and powerful toolkit than ever before.

An AI Future

Returning to the stage, Matt noted that Gutenberg’s evolution is paving the way for AI-powered site building while keeping creative control in users’ hands. A recent speed building challenge on WordPress’s YouTube channel showcased this potential, with Nick Diego using AI-assisted tools and Ryan Welcher building manually. While the AI-assisted approach won, the key takeaway was that AI isn’t here to replace developers but to enhance creativity and efficiency.

Community Impact and Global Reach

When WordPress Executive Director Mary Hubbard took the stage, she emphasized WordPress’s commitment to its open-source mission and the power of its global community. Mary shared her passion for defending WordPress’s principles, reaffirming that when users choose WordPress, they should receive the authentic, community-driven experience that the platform stands for. This commitment to clarity, trust, and open-source integrity is central to ensuring WordPress’s long-term sustainability and success.

In 2024, WordPress’s global influence surged through expanded educational programs, developer contributions, and grassroots initiatives. The platform’s social media following grew to 2.3 million, while major events like WordCamps and live-streamed gatherings attracted millions of attendees and viewers, connecting people worldwide.

Learn WordPress introduced Structured Learning Pathways, offering tailored tracks for beginners and developers, fostering a growing network of creators eager to learn and contribute. Grassroots programs flourished, with WP Campus Connect bringing WordPress education to Indian colleges and innovation competitions in Uganda empowering young creators. In Latin America, the Community Reactivation Project reignited meetups across nine cities, fostering a network of over 150 active members and setting the stage for three new WordCamps in 2025.

WordPress’s efforts also advanced through Openverse, which expanded its free content library to 884 million images and 4.2 million audio files, serving millions of creators worldwide and supporting WordPress’s broader mission of democratizing publishing.

Whether through educational platforms, developer-driven innovation, or community-led projects, WordPress’s ecosystem continues to nurture shared learning, creativity, and collaboration, ensuring its growth and relevance for future generations.

Japanese Community Highlights

Junko Fukui Nukaga—Community Team rep, program manager, and WordCamp organizer—noted that WordPress’s prominence in Japan contributes to an economy now estimated to exceed 100 billion yen.

In October of 2024, the Japanese WordPress community celebrated DigitalCube’s IPO on the Tokyo PRO Market, marking a milestone for the local WordPress ecosystem. Major contributors like Takayuki Miyoshi’s Contact Form 7 plugin surpassed 10 million active users, while companies like Sakura Internet and XServer built specialized WordPress infrastructure.

Community events in Japan have also flourished, with 189 local meetups held throughout the year, fueled by dedicated volunteers and organizers. Translation Night gatherings have ensured WordPress remains accessible to Japanese users, reflecting a thriving collaborative spirit.

Matt gave special recognition to Japan’s standout contributor, Aki Hamano, a Core Committer whose exceptional efforts elevated WordPress development over the past year. Hamano-san made an impressive 774 contributions to WordPress core, earning 162 props for WordPress 6.5, rising to 274 props for 6.6 as the second-highest contributor, and securing the top spot with 338 props for 6.7.Other notable Japanese contributors included Akira Tachibana, an active Docs Team member, and Nukaga, recognized for her exceptional community organizing efforts. Additionally, 13 Japanese contributors supported 5.4% of WordPress 6.6 development, showcasing the country’s growing influence in the WordPress ecosystem.

Data Liberation

Reflecting on the progress since the initiative’s launch last year, the focus remained on ensuring that WordPress not only becomes more powerful but also embodies freedom in its deepest sense—the freedom to move content anywhere, collaborate without limits, and create without constraints. This vision extends beyond individual sites to a broader web where content flows seamlessly across platforms, enabling unrestricted creativity and innovation.

One compelling example demonstrated how easily ePub files could be imported into a WordPress site, integrating seamlessly with existing designs. This represents the initiative’s broader goal: making content migration and integration effortless. WordPress Playground plays a critical role in this vision by enabling easy site migration through a simple browser extension. With Playground as a staging area, migrating and adapting sites becomes intuitive and accessible.

Q&A

The floor was opened to questions in both Japanese and English.

Questions from the audience, including Tokyo Vice author Jake Adelstein, covered the future of blogging, WordPress performance, the impact of AI search, and what democratizing publishing means today. Matt shared his excitement for more open platforms such as Mastodon and Bluesky, as well as his recommendations for optimizing your site for both humans and AI. A common thread throughout was that a personal website is an important part of your digital identity, and WordPress allows you to express yourself in fun and unique ways.

Panels

After attendees enjoyed a special performance by the pianist, Takai-san, industry leaders, creators, and innovators took the stage for panel discussions about the present and future of WordPress, moderated by Mary Hubbard.

Publishing in the Open

Featuring:

• Mieko Kawakami, Japanese Author and Poet 
• Craig Mod, Author of Things Become Other Things 
• Matt Mullenweg, WordPress Cofounder and Automattic CEO

This first panel explored the transformative power of open-source publishing. Panelists shared insights into how open publishing has influenced their creative journeys, expanded audience engagement, and shaped storytelling across cultural boundaries.

Publishing in the open has defined what I’ve done. All the best connections I’ve made in live have been the result of publishing in the open. – Craig Mod

Publishing in the open, like WordPress, is about building community, mutual connections, and putting power back into the hands of creators.

The Future of WordPress in Japan and Beyond

Featuring:

• Hajime Ogushi, mgn CEO
• Genki Taniguchi, SAKURA internet Inc. Senior Director
• Matt Mullenweg, WordPress Cofounder and Automattic CEO

The second discussion highlighted WordPress’s remarkable growth in Japan and its broader global impact. The discussion covered the drivers behind Japan’s adoption of WordPress, its thriving ecosystem of WordPress-based businesses, and emerging trends in web development.

Compared to other CMSs the WordPress Japanese is much easier to use. – Hajime Ogushi

The group discussed plugins such as Contact Form 7, the affordability of hosting WordPress, and local meetups and events

Closing

Thank you to all the guests who joined us on stage, those who ventured to Tokyo, and everyone who tuned in from around the world. Today’s event showcased how a free and infinitely flexible platform, an active global community, open innovation, and a commitment to a fully democratized web make us better at being who we are.

From Tokyo, Arigatou Gozaimashita!

For those interested in exploring past State of the Word keynotes, WordPress has curated a comprehensive YouTube playlist featuring keynotes from previous years. Watch them all here: State of the Word YouTube Playlist. Be sure to mark your calendars for major WordPress events in 2025: WordCamp Asia (Manila, Philippines), WordCamp Europe (Basel, Switzerland), and WordCamp US (Portland, Oregon, USA).

Does pineapple belong on pizza?

The answer may vary from person to person. But WordPress users were in for a surprise when they tried to login to the WordPress.org website.

A new mandatory checkbox require users to confirm that “Pineapple is delicious on pizza” before accessing their accounts. 

Following the dispute with WP Engine, WordPress.org had introduced a mandatory check box in October that allowed users to access their accounts only after confirming “I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise.” It was later removed following the court instructions. 

Reactions From the Community

Francesca Marano of Patchstack tweeted, “Seeing the level of immaturity and unprofessional behaviour in the WP industry is disheartening. Pizza checkbox? Not fun. A website calling Matt the worst person in tech, also not fun.”

Gergely Orosz of The Pragmatic Engineer has opened a poll on X and more than 1500 people have voted. 

He also tweeted, “This checkbox is a good example how the public feud of two billion-dollar companies (Automattic that raised $985M in VC funding and WP Engine that raised $250M in private equity funding) keep impacting WordPress developers – even if its in cryptic forms like this.”

Web and eCommerce specialist Nick Weisser joked. “Pineapple is delicious on #pizza? So now you have to break Italian law to access @WordPress.org.”

Maarten Belmans, founder of Studio Wombat, shared his concerns, “My only worry is WP has already caused trust issues with enterprise (hijacking a plugin is no small issue, so  I heard). Adding another checkbox, even as a light joke, might show enterprise WP just isn’t the serious platform they need it to be? Idk!”

Bozz Media was critical, and tweeted, “Gross. It’s sad that the unprofessional and unbecoming behavior from WP leadership continues, tarnishing the entire reputation of the platform.”

Brett Atkin, Founder and Digital Strategist at Pixel Jocks, tweeted, “Thought it was a joke until I started seeing multiple posts about it. Sad, embarrassing and unprofessional, especially given the circumstances and recent court rulings. Feels like he is mocking the court, the judge and the entire community.” He is not alone as several users initially thought it to be a joke or a meme.

WPTavern founder Jeff Chandler also shared his thoughts, “That checkbox didn’t exist during WCUS so technically, it’s not restored back to the status quo. It’s stupid.”

Simon Harper of SRH Design tweeted, “This should not have been added and I’m not sure what’s worse, the checkbox and text alignment or the attempt at humour.” The alignment issue was later fixed. 

The pineapple debate has sparked conversations on Reddit too.

If you need a little push to start writing this winter, in the comfort of your familiar editor, here it is! You can now use the Block Editor to create electronic books and other documents—all completely offline. What a full circle moment for Gutenberg!

The Block Editor contains so many features I miss when writing in other editors. It produces clean, semantic markup. You can paste in content from anywhere and the editor will clean it up for you, or paste a link onto selected text to auto-link. The List View and Outline panels allow you to easily navigate and inspect the content. And we’re constantly iterating on the Block Editor: more features and improvements are on the way, such as refined drag and drop interactions coming in early 2025.

All this inspired me to wrap our editor in an app that can read and write local files—just as other document editors do. It turns out that EPUB is the best file format to store the content, because EPUB is an open standard for e-books that is essentially a ZIP file containing HTML and media—HTML like your WordPress posts!

And just like that, the WordPress Block Editor can also be used to write books! The cool thing about EPUB files is that any e-book app, such as Kindle and Apple Books, can open it. So even if someone doesn’t have this editor, they can still easily read the content, which makes the files it produces portable.

The editor allows you to create a cover, so you can easily distinguish between the books or documents you write. It will also treat each heading as a chapter so you can easily navigate content when opened in an e-book reader.

The term “book” should be taken broadly. While the file that the Block Editor produces is primarily used for e-books, you can create any document with it. It’s possible to export your document to a DOCX file in case you need it, though the more complex blocks are not supported yet.

It is still very much a nascent project. There’s many features left to be added, such as revisions and the ability to open any externally created EPUB files, or even DOCX files, so keep an eye out for these in the coming weeks and months! If you’re interested in this editor, it’s all open source, and I welcome any kind of help.

For now, the demo editor is installable as a Progressive Web App (PWA) in Chrome. While it’s totally usable without installation, it does give you some nice benefits such as allowing you to open the EPUB files directly from your OS. In the future we might wrap it in proper native apps. Your feedback is welcome on GitHub!

It’s a dream come true being here in Tokyo for State of the Word 2024. We’re going to be in an amazing venue that looks over the city. Most of WordPress and Automattic’s senior leadership is here, and we’ll also have several hundred folks from the local community and press.

(Update: If you’d like a fantastic recap of how the event went, check out this post on .org.)

We’ve gotten so much inspiration over the years from Japanese culture, we wanted to make this event really “of the space” so we’re doing a few extra things this year. My presentation will include Mary Hubbard and Matías Ventura, but also part of it will be in Japanese and presented by Junko Fukui Nukaga. We’ll have piano performances by Aiko Takei. After the presentation and Q&A we’ll do a panel in Japanese with Mieko Kawakami (one of the top novelists in Japan, on par with Haruki Murakami), Craig Mod, Hajime Ogushi, and Genki Taniguchi.

For those who can attend in person, we’ll have a reception afterward with some unique gifts including posters from a local Kanji artist and nice sweater to keep everyone warm this winter.

If you’d like to livestream at home, you can do so on Youtube here:

My father attended University of Houston, and it’s where I went to college to study political science, I started WordPress when there, and then dropped out after two years to move to San Francisco. It was fun seeing UH Magazine feature an article about my journey from a University of Houston student to co-founding WordPress and leading Automattic. I was surprised they put me on the cover of the physical edition! I wish my Dad were still around to see it.

The piece explores my commitment to open-source, my vision for democratizing online publishing, and the values of creativity and adaptability that have shaped my path. It’s an honor to reflect on these experiences with my alma mater.

WordPress.com is now offering new annual plans at 25% off as part of their year-end promotion. The offer includes a free domain for the first year.

This exclusive deal ends on December 31st, 2024.

To claim the offer, use the coupon code DREAM25 at checkout.

Please note this offer is only for new annual plan purchases and does not apply to renewals or upgrades for existing paid plans.

After removing the mandatory WordPress.org login checkbox and the WP Engine Tracker CSV file, Automattic has reinstated WP Engine’s WordPress.org repository access and control over the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin repository. This follows a court ruling that required Automattic to restore these rights within 72 hours.

In October, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg announced the forking of the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin into the new plugin Secure Custom Fields. He took over the plugin citing security issues and invoked point 18 of the plugin directory guidelines. 

In a tweet, Advanced Custom Fields confirmed: “53 minutes ago, we initiated publishing the genuine ACF on .org and are now awaiting .org to complete the review process to make it available.”

They later added: “We’re pleased to share that our team has had account access restored on WordPress dot org along with control of the ACF plugin repo. This means all ACF users can rest assured that the ACF team you trust is once again maintaining the plugin. There’s no action required if you have installed ACF directly from the ACF website or you are an ACF PRO user.”

The Repository now lists WP Engine as the author of the plugin instead of WordPress.org. 

While many in the community are relieved to see ACF restored, some have expressed concerns about the negative reviews ACF received following the controversial takeover and the future of the SCF Pro version. Secure Custom Fields plugin still has WordPress.org as the author in the Repository.

WP Engine’s Brian Gardner tweeted, “Welcome home, ACF.” while entrepreneur Duane Storey commented: “This should never have been done in the first place. Let’s not forget, this was returned due to a court order, not a change of heart. I still consider the dot org repositories to no longer be trustworthy. I seriously think people with plugins there should be migrating away.”

Matt Mullenweg responded on this with, “I’m disgusted and sickened by being legally forced to provide free labor and services to @wpengine, a dangerous precedent that should chill every open source maintainer. While I disagree with the court’s decision, I’ve fully complied with its order. You can see most changes on the site. They have access to ACF slug but haven’t changed it… must not have been the emergency they claimed.”

As usual, the community remains divided with some supporting his stance while others opposed it. 

Hi, 🎄🎁🎆

I wish you a contemplative, peaceful and restful Holiday Season and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year! 2025!

This newsletter and I will take a break, and we will be back on January 11, 2025. Be well,

Yours, 💕
Birgit

PS: Voting in The WP Awards has been extended to December 20. If you haven’t yet, please consider voting for Gutenberg Times in the Blog category. Also, vote for the Gutenberg Changelog in the Podcast category. And for your favorite WordPress products at the same time.

Developing Gutenberg and WordPress

Catch up on what’s coming next for Core, Gutenberg, and WordPress Playground in the last edition of What’s New for Developers? for 2024. Ryan Welcher summarized developer-related changes in WordPress for December 2024. Key updates include style book improvements in the Site Editor, new filters for block editor rendering mode, and enhancements to WordPress Playground. The post highlights updates to core blocks, bug fixes, and new features like setting featured images directly from Image blocks. It also mentions the release of WordPress 6.7, planning for version 6.8, and resources like Developer Hours sessions, YouTube content, and new tutorials on the Developer Blog.

The WordPress Meta and Design teams have been incredibly busy. They updated the Make WordPress Sites with all the team’s sites, the Rosetta sites, and the Photo Directory. This visual refresh is part of the continued effort to build a consistent design language across WordPress.org.

Read more about the effort and the before and after views in Make WordPress gets a refresh by Nick Diego. “The Make section of WordPress.org is vast, covering 32 contributor teams and 114 local teams, each with its own blog, handbooks, and component pages.” he wrote. After many years, the sites are now converted to a block first layout. It’s a newfound pleasure to publish on the Make Blogs again! The handbooks follow the developer documentation sites and it’s reading pleasure.

In The Photos Directory gets a refresh and is now powered by blocks, Nick Diego also shares details on the revamp for the popular picture site. Besides the reorganized homepage that now shows many more photos at first glance, I am quite intrigued by the new search filter by format: landscape, portrait or square.

📣 Don’t miss it! The annual State of the Word is Matt Mullenweg’s keynote presentation of the year. It will take place on December 16, 2024, in Tokyo, Japan. The livestream will start at 9 am UTC on WordPress YouTube channel.

WordPress developer Riad Benguella recently sparked a lively community discussion on improving the Gutenberg block editor, on Bluesky. Developers provided several suggestions, many linked to existing GitHub issues. They focused on practical enhancements like border radius presets, link CSS classes, and table block improvements. The conversation highlighted the community’s wish for more granular design controls and better pattern organization. Some suggestions led to immediate action with pull requests in progress. Others need further exploration due to technical complexities or the need to balance functionality with user-friendliness. Martin Dubovic posted a recap of the conversation with links and opinions. What’s Next for Gutenberg? A Community Chat With WordPress Developer Riad Benguella.

Gutenberg 19.9 RC1 is ready for testing. It includes a style book for classic themes. There are improvements to the experimental feature of inline commenting. Additionally, there is a new block for post counts and other updates to existing blocks. The changelog should be your guide until the final release on December 18, 2024. It will be the last release of 2024. The next Gutenberg Changelog episode will be recorded on January 10th, and we will cover not only 19.9 but also Gutenberg 20.0 – the 200th release of the project.

🎙️ Latest episode: Gutenberg Changelog #112 Gutenberg 19.8, Create Block Theme Plugin with Sarah Norris

Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners

Explore the insights of WooCommerce in 2025. It’s about building a platform for the future. This is presented by Beau Lebens, the Head of Engineering at WooCommerce. In 2025, the organization will concentrate on three significant objectives. They will enhance performance. They will improve the online shopping experience. They will deploy essential tools that meet the actual needs of merchants. The strategy streamlines operations for merchants. It integrates an increased number of features directly into the core platform. This integration reduces complications linked with extensions. The overarching goal is to develop a robust, flexible platform that effectively addresses the requirements of contemporary online merchants.

In Remkus de Vries newsletter, Within WordPress, I learned about ​Dynamic Template Parts​  by Matt Watson. It allows you to replace headers, footers, and other template parts dynamically based on the content you’re editing.

Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks

Brian Coords new Webmaster podcast latest episode is: Building a Block Theme for 1 Million Users. In this conversation, Jessica Lyschik shares her journey as a WordPress developer and core contributor. She discusses her experiences in the WordPress community. She also talks about the evolution of WordPress themes and the unique features of the Greyd Suite. She emphasizes the importance of full site editing, the challenges of the block editor, and the future of Gutenberg. The discussion also touches on the impact of social media on blogging and concludes with where to find Jessica online.

 “Keeping up with Gutenberg – Index 2024” 
A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly. The previous years are also available: 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023

In his latest video, Elliot Richmond walks you through how he created a sticky nav bar with Block Variations, CSS, and JavaScript. “This WordPress block theme technique will enhance your visitors’ browsing experience by adding a creative sliding navigation bar that appears as they scroll down the page.” Richmond wrote.

In his latest newsletter, Remkus de Vries alert me to a little script by Luc Princen that turns Block patterns into loadable template files, so they can then easily be added to Git. This could save you from having to go through a lot of database hassle. The script is available in a Gist.

Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.

In his blog post, Snippet: How to lock WordPress blocks and prevent unlocking, Nick Diego explains the Block Locking API. He also discusses how to use it. It also details how to prevent unlocking blocks as well as disabling the Code Editor.

Did you miss the Man vs Machine Speed Build Challenge? The recording is available on YouTube: AI Takes On HUMAN in WordPress Speed Build Showdown. “In this thrilling face-off, two WordPress powerhouses go head-to-head in an epic coding battle with a twist. Nick Diego and Ryan Welcher, both seasoned WordPress developers, are pitted against each other in a race against time. But there’s a catch – one developer has the advantage of AI assistance, while the other relies solely on traditional coding methods.” Jamie Marsland wrote. After watching the show, I wasn’t the only one wh checked out the Cursor AI and played around with it.

This week in Playground

If you missed last week’s Hallway Hangout, Adam Zieliński has the recording. He also has a summary and the transcript for you: Recap of Hallway Hangout: Playground for Agencies and Product Demos. As an agency, you can use WordPress Playground to streamline your workflows. You can test your products and share interactive demos. You can show and do so much more. In this recent Hallway Hangout sparked by Tammie Lister, attendees from various agencies and product teams shared their experiences. They also expressed curiosity about applying WordPress Playground in their work.

Uros Tasic, co-lead organizer of WordCamp Europe, talked about Code, Test, Repeat: Accelerating Development with WordPress Playground at WordCamp Larissa last month. The recording is now available on WordPress TV. Tasic discussed how Playground can enhance your development cycle, enabling quicker iterations without the need for complex setups.

📣 Upcoming Developer Hours: Everything you need to know about WordPress Playground will take place on December 17th at 16:00 UTC.  “Beyond spinning up WordPress sites, Playground offers powerful capabilities, from testing plugins and themes to running demos and even supporting app development. No matter how you engage with WordPress, Playground has something valuable to offer.” reads the description.

Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg’s master branch?
Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review.

Now also available via WordPress Playground. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? Email me with your experience

Questions? Suggestions? Ideas?
Don’t hesitate to send them via email or
send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph.

For questions to be answered on the Gutenberg Changelog,
send them to [email protected]

Featured Image: Abstract architecture by Chris Clarke found on the WordPress Photo directory wordPress.org/photos

Don’t want to miss the next Weekend Edition?

After the court issued a preliminary injunction in favor of WP Engine, Automattic has begun complying with the orders. The mandatory login checkbox in WordPress.org website has been removed, and the WP Engine Tracker website has been updated, including removing the controversial domains.csv files.

The mandatory login check box in WordPress.org, introduced in October this year after WP Engine filed a lawsuit against Automattic and Matt Mullenweg, required users to confirm: “I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise,” before accessing their accounts.

This checkbox has now been removed. 

Last month, Automattic launched the “WP Engine Tracker” to monitor websites leaving WP Engine. The site provided a downloadable CSV file listing sites hosted on WP Engine, labeled as “sites ready for a new home.” Following the court’s decision, the link to the CSV file returned a 404 error and was later removed entirely.

The links promoting migration offers from other hosting providers have also been taken down from the site.

Secure Custom Fields plugin (https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/), which is the fork of the ACF plugin, however, is still available in the Repository. 

Meanwhile, Nick Gernert, WordPress VIP CEO, shared this: “As ever, Automattic continues to do what’s best for WordPress, the open source community, and everyone who depends on it… We stand committed to preserving open source and the collaborative spirit that it embodies—it’s what drives innovation and helps businesses like yours thrive. What’s most important to know is that Automattic’s focus is on keeping WordPress strong and forward-thinking.”

The CEOs of Barn2Plugins, Patchstack, and LayerWP have announced plans to expand their businesses beyond WordPress. While none of them are leaving the WordPress ecosystem, they are branching out into new territories to diversify their offerings and drive growth.

Barn2Plugins: Entering the Shopify Ecosystem

Katie Keith, CEO of Barn2Plugins, revealed on Twitter that the company will begin selling Shopify apps in 2025. “In 2025, @Barn2Plugins will diversify into selling Shopify apps as well as continuing to focus on our WordPress and WooCommerce plugins. Shopify is an excellent fit for Barn2, and feels like the right move to secure our future.”, Katie tweeted.

Katie believes expanding into Shopify will accelerate growth beyond what relying solely on WordPress could achieve. However, she admitted that understanding the Shopify ecosystem and identifying the factors behind a successful app presents a significant challenge.

The company plans to develop its Shopify apps from scratch. Katie noted that her experience with WooCommerce has been invaluable in identifying gaps in the Shopify market that might otherwise be overlooked.

She regularly shares her Shopify journey in Twitter.

Patchstack: Expanding to Laravel

Oliver Sild, CEO of Patchstack, shared on Twitter that his company has extended its vulnerability intelligence services to Drupal and Joomla and is next exploring the Laravel framework.

Oliver shared with WP Tavern, “Even though we are expanding to other CMSs and even to frameworks such as Laravel, WordPress continues to get most of our attention. It’s simply so because WordPress is so much bigger than all the others combined.”

Patchstack, already the largest vulnerability intelligence provider in the WordPress ecosystem, always had plans to expand into the broader open-source community.

Oliver added, “Even though we’ve just expanded to Drupal and Joomla – we still have a lot to do and many exciting things to publish next year. Those who have followed what we do at Patchstack know that we’ve been also working with Google for the past year – so stay tuned because there’s something cool we can show you very soon.”

LayerWP: WP Deals Evolves

Ben Townsend of LayerWP is also venturing out with his WP Deals project. He announced, “WP Deals is evolving.”

“WP Deals is now about more than just WordPress. I’m opening the doors to SaaS tools, hosting, digital resources, and other must-have web products. The mission stays the same: curate the best deals, deliver them straight to your inbox, and save you money.” Ben shared.

Subscribers will continue to get curated deals while businesses can feature their deals on WP Deals. 

WPExperts has acquired the Advanced File Manager plugin from Modal Web. WPExperts (formerly WooExperts) is a leading WordPress development company with an extensive portfolio of WordPress and WooCommerce plugins.

The Advanced File Manager plugin has over 100,000 active installations on the WordPress Plugin Repository with a 4.8-star rating.

CEO of WPExperts, Saad Iqbal, emphasized the strategic nature of the acquisition, stating: “Unlike other acquisitions, this one is different. Advanced File Manager is more of a developer-oriented tool that we have used extensively in multiple scenarios, and we absolutely love it. I saw an opportunity to enhance the user interface and user experience, as well as improve its documentation.” 

He also shared his vision for the future of Advanced File Manager: “We plan to implement several enhancements in both the free and pro versions. These include features such as an activity log, a secure code editor to prevent critical errors, user role-based access, and group-based access. All these improvements will make the plugin more powerful and user-friendly. I am genuinely excited about the future of Advanced File Manager now that it is part of our WPExperts family.”

Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Building your own forum gives you something the usual social media channels can’t match: A dedicated space where your community can gather, share knowledge, and help each other grow. Forums build lasting connections between members who share similar interests, challenges, and goals.

Running your own forum offers distinct advantages over relying on social networks or existing community platforms:

• Members generate valuable content that helps with market research and product development.
• Premium spaces can be monetized through exclusive access.
• Direct feedback loops between your team and power users improve products faster.
• Searchable discussion archives reduce support costs.
• Community-driven innovation creates competitive advantages.
• Experienced members naturally help newcomers, building stronger bonds.
• You maintain complete control over your platform.

And here’s a fascinating detail many people miss: Forums drive significant search traffic. Research from Detailed.com shows that discussion threads frequently appear in top search results, as people actively seek authentic opinions and recommendations from real users.

This guide provides practical steps for building a forum that encourages meaningful discussions and keeps members coming back. A huge part of success lies in choosing the right platform. While there are many options available, WordPress offers particularly strong benefits for creating an integrated forum website. Let’s explore why WordPress makes sense as a foundation, and how to build an engaging community space that serves your specific goals.

Choosing the right platform for your forum

Forums work best when they’re integrated with your broader business strategy rather than existing in isolation. This integration matters more than many realize – forums can complement and enhance core business functions in powerful ways:

• Supporting online course students with collaborative learning spaces.
• Creating fan communities that drive product innovation.
• Providing enhanced customer support through peer assistance.
• Building brand advocacy programs that amplify marketing.
• Hosting member discussions that generate valuable insights.

While launching “just a forum” might work for passion projects or interest-based communities, most organizations need deeper integration with their existing services and goals. Building a forum should connect directly with your broader business objectives, whether that’s reducing support costs, gathering product feedback, or strengthening customer relationships.

For example, many people are tempted by free platforms like Flarum or Reddit because they let you set up standalone forums quickly. However, the issue here is that they create disconnects between your community and your main business presence. This separation causes real problems:

• Members must switch between different websites to access your products, contact information, or support resources.
• User experiences become inconsistent as third-party platforms control the interface.
• Adding custom features or integrations gets complicated or impossible.
• Your valuable community discussions live on someone else’s domain.

A better approach? Think beyond just “building a forum” and focus on creating an integrated website with forum functionality. This makes it easier to:

• Keep members engaged with your core business offerings.
• Maintain consistent branding across all touchpoints.
• Add new features as your community grows.
• Retain full control over the member experience.
• Scale smoothly as opportunities emerge.

WordPress excels at this integrated approach. As a flexible content management system, WordPress lets you build any type of website while adding powerful forum capabilities through plugins. This prevents “platform sprawl” – the headache of managing multiple disconnected systems for different purposes.

Open Studio is a great example of that. They previously ran their communities, course hosting, and payments on separate platforms. Working with WooCommerce agency Saucal, they consolidated everything into a single WordPress-based system. While that’s a large-scale example, the same principles apply to smaller communities – start with an integrated foundation that can grow with your needs.

How to create an online forum with WordPress

Building a WordPress-based forum involves several key components. Let’s break down each essential piece of the setup process.

Set up reliable WordPress hosting

Forums need hosting that can handle multiple users interacting simultaneously without slowdowns. Look for WordPress-specific hosts like Pressable that optimize their systems for fast loading times even with many concurrent visitors, including handling sudden traffic spikes, without upgrading your plan. You can also benefit from built-in caching to reduce server load, the option to automate regular backups of forum content, and strong security protections. 

We recommend evaluating your choices based on the following criteria: 

• Server response times in your target regions. 
• Maximum concurrent user limits. 
• Database performance specifications. 
• Backup frequency and retention. 
• Support response times for technical issues. 
• Bandwidth allowances for file attachments. 
• SSL certificate inclusion for secure connections. 
• Server-side caching capabilities. 

Select a forum-friendly WordPress theme

Your theme forms the visual foundation of your forum and is one of the more important aspects of great user experience. Thankfully, there are a lot of themes to choose from, such as Disputo or Pocco. 

While your choice will depend on your specific needs, there are some universal qualities that every good forum theme must have. These include: 

• Clean typography for easy reading of long discussions.
• Responsive designs that work well on phones and tablets.
• Fast loading speeds to keep members engaged.
• Simple navigation between forum sections.
• Compatibility with forum plugins.

If you’re adding a forum to an existing site, ensure the theme matches your current branding while supporting forum functionality.

Installing bbPress as your forum engine

bbPress provides the core forum features for WordPress. This free plugin adds discussion capabilities with minimal overhead:

1. Install bbPress from the WordPress plugin directory.

2. Create your initial forum categories.

3. And create your first forum! 

4. Set up the forum user settings, which come with some anti-spam features, as well. 

5. Customize the main forum features like auto-embedding links, reply thread levels, subscriptions, and more. 

6. Configure user roles. You can do this when you create a new user or from the dashboard. 

7. Add any extension plugins for extra features.

Managing user profiles and identity

Strong user profiles build trust and encourage participation, but they can be tricky to manage. In order for your forum to be successful, the users participating in it need to have trustworthy profiles that can be showcased in important places, especially if it’s going to be a discussion area for a specialized topic. 

Thankfully, the easy integration with Gravatar makes the process a lot easier. Our REST API gives you more control and the option for custom profile data retrieval and display, advanced privacy setting management, personalized user experiences based on profile data, and flexible presentation options for member information. 

This lets you:

• Speed up registration processes and customer onboarding. 
• Enable consistent identities across platforms. 
• Provide verified email-based profiles. 

More about that a bit later! 

Secure your forum community

Forums naturally attract spam and unwanted content, which can both get in the way of building a strong and reliable community. To prevent these, you need a good WordPress security plugin, and Jetpack is one of the more solid options. 

It will help you set up a reliable login system with two-factor authentication for the users and forum owners, making sure only the verified registered users are logging in and keeping the conversations free of spam. 

Besides that, its useful features help you block suspicious login attempts, prevent spam account creation, monitor for malicious activity, and protect member privacy – all essential security measures. 

Setting up content access controls

Different forums need different levels of privacy, and you need to figure out what type of forum you and your audience will benefit from the most. Common options include public forums, private member-only sections, support forums, and hidden areas for moderators and admins. 

Of course, you don’t have to choose one or the other. You might have a public forum that helps every user or lets them discuss relevant topics and maintain a premium area for paying subscribers. 

Membership plugins like Paid Membership Subscriptions can help monetize exclusive content while maintaining easy access to public discussions. It integrates well with WooCommerce and bbPress, which allows you to create special members-only products and sales. 

Your forum checklist: Core elements of a forum

Every successful forum needs essential components properly configured and optimized. Here’s a comprehensive breakdown of what your forum needs to function effectively.

Beyond these basic elements, we recommend adding some extra features such as: 

• Community pages: Show automated welcome messages for new members, dynamic FAQ sections pulled from common questions, member directories highlighting active contributors, and an achievement system recognizing participation. You can then use that system to award members with a moderation function if you want to. 
• Forum threads: Threads are the bread and butter of forums, so they have to be fully functional and engaging. To help people stay in the loop, give them the option to receive email notifications when someone replies and add solved/featured status options. However, ideally, users should be able to subscribe to every thread even if they haven’t participated. Finally, include different formatting tools for improved readability and test your forum with screen readers for better accessibility.
• Activity widgets: These aren’t necessary, but they really help maintain engagement by showing trending discussions, recent member achievements, upcoming community events, and popular topic statistics.

Focus on customizing these elements to match your specific community needs while keeping functionality intuitive. Members should find the interface familiar enough to participate comfortably while discovering features that make their experience better than on other platforms.

Streamlining user profiles with Gravatar integration

Adding Gravatar to your forum removes common friction points in the registration process. Members can start participating right away using their existing Gravatar profiles, which sync automatically between different platforms they use. This universal profile system is particularly powerful – with over 200 million users already on Gravatar, many of your potential members might already have profiles ready to use.

Profile management becomes straightforward since Gravatar handles the following:

• Avatar images that update everywhere at once.
• Basic profile information like names and bios.
• Privacy settings that follow user preferences.
• Cross-platform profile synchronization.
• Verified email-based identities.
• Professional profile photos and metadata.

For developers, implementation is straightforward through the Gravatar API. This lets you:

• Pull user profile data securely.
• Respect privacy settings automatically.
• Update information in real-time.
• Customize the display of profile details.
• Create personalized user experiences.
• Add custom profile fields.
• Generate user analytics.
• Enable social features.

These features create a smoother experience for both forum administrators and members, encouraging more active participation. New members appreciate skipping lengthy profile setup processes, while administrators benefit from pre-verified user identities and reduced fake account creation. 

The system also scales automatically – as your community grows, Gravatar’s infrastructure handles the increased profile management load without requiring additional setup or maintenance from your team.

And if you want to present this data in an attractive way, we recommend complementing the API with the Gravatar Enhanced plugin, which allows you to create and display profile blocks. This gives you a simple way to create a list of all your users on one page (though you’d need to do this manually) or use profile blocks to sign off on community posts. 

Keep in mind that it doesn’t replace the Gravatar REST API in scope but can be used to complement it and give additional UX functionality to your forum. 

How Gravatar simplifies user verification and community growth

Gravatar’s email-based system provides built-in verification that helps maintain forum quality. New members can jump into discussions faster since their profiles are already set up, removing barriers to participation.

The platform enhances engagement through several mechanisms:

• Members maintain consistent identities across all forum sections.
• One-click profile setup reduces registration abandonment.
• Verified email addresses build trust between members.
• Simple profile management encourages long-term participation.

These tools help create richer member profiles that spark more meaningful interactions. Members can focus on participating in discussions rather than managing multiple profiles or dealing with complicated setup processes.

Best practices for managing and moderating your forum

Automate routine tasks to save time

Running a forum means dealing with spam, trolls, and occasional disruptions. Setting up automated tools early saves countless hours of manual work. Start with spam filters that catch unwanted promotional content through keyword detection and behavior patterns. Then, you can add trust-level systems that automatically grant privileges to members who consistently participate positively.

For new members, implement a post-approval queue until they demonstrate genuine engagement. This extra step prevents drive-by spam while allowing moderators to welcome newcomers properly. Rate-limiting features prevent rapid-fire posting and help maintain discussion quality.

Build a structure for your moderation team

Effective moderation needs clear systems and processes. Here’s what we recommend: 

• Give moderators specific roles with carefully defined permissions, and keep detailed logs of all moderation actions. 
• Set up private channels where moderators can discuss issues and get help with difficult situations. 
• Document common scenarios and expected responses to help moderators stay consistent.

Create positive engagement incentives

Members who feel recognized contribute more often. Design systems that reward helpful participation through reputation scores and achievement badges. Quality scoring helps highlight valuable content, while member levels show experience and trust. Simple “thank you” mechanisms encourage members to help others.

Plan for challenging situations

Even well-run forums face occasional problems. Prepare by setting up content filtering for sensitive topics and IP restrictions for repeat rule breakers. Create clear procedures for emergency situations and establish fair appeal processes for moderation decisions. Document major incidents to help prevent similar issues.

Remember that automated systems work best alongside human judgment. Good moderators explain rules patiently, provide context for decisions, and help new members understand community norms. This balanced approach creates a welcoming environment where members feel safe contributing while keeping the moderation workload manageable.

Start building your professional forum community today

Building your own forum puts you in control of your community’s future. Third-party platforms might offer quick setup, but they limit your ability to grow and adapt as your community evolves. With WordPress, you can create a fully integrated platform that connects your forum with your existing website and services.

The process is straightforward: Start with reliable WordPress hosting, add bbPress for core forum functionality, and integrate Gravatar to streamline user profiles. This combination gives you everything needed to launch a professional forum:

• Complete control over your platform.
• Flexibility to add custom features.
• Simple user registration and profiles.
• Strong security and spam protection.
• Options for premium content areas.

Gravatar integration proves particularly valuable for accelerating community growth. Members can join discussions immediately using existing profiles while you benefit from verified user identities and simplified onboarding.

Ready to get started? Check out the Gravatar documentation for detailed integration guides. Your future community members are waiting – give them a great place to connect.

Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of the Northern California District Court has granted WP Engine’s motion for a preliminary injunction against Automattic and Matt Mullenweg. The ruling follows a November 26, 2024, hearing where the judge expressed an inclination to approve WP Engine’s request for injunction. Both parties were directed to collaborate on a stipulated order, but having failed to reach an agreement, they submitted competing proposals on December 2, 2024.

The Court directed Automattic and Matt Mullenweg to immediately stop:

1. Blocking or interfering with WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org.
2. Disrupting WP Engine’s control over its plugins hosted on WordPress.org.
3. Interfering with WP Engine-related WordPress installations via unauthorized auto-migration or updates.

Also within 72 hours, Automattic and Matt must:

• Remove WP Engine customer data from the “domains.csv” file on the WP Engine Tracker website.
• Restore WP Engine’s WordPress.org access, including employee login credentials, to the state of September 20, 2024.
• Remove the mandatory checkbox on the WordPress.org login page.
• Reinstate WP Engine’s access to the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin.

In granting the injunction, the Court evaluated the four Winter elements.

Success on the Merits: The Court found that WPEngine is likely to succeed on the merits of its intentional interference with contractual relations claim and Automattic’s arguments do not compel a different conclusion.

Irreparable Harm: The court determined that WP Engine’s evidence of harm, including the loss of a $40,000 client contract, was persuasive. Defendants countered with four arguments but “None is persuasive.” The court accepted that WPEngine will suffer irreparable harm without preliminary injunctive relief.

Balance of Equities: Banning WP Engine from accessing WordPress.org, taking over ACF plugin, and the additional burdens imposed on WPEngine’s customers demonstrates that WPEngine has a significant interest in obtaining preliminary injunctive relief and Automattic’s arguments in opposition do not establish that they will suffer any damage that overrides WPEngine’s interest in obtaining relief. Thus the balance of hardships tips in favor of WP Engine.

Public Interest: The court said the public consequences of withholding injunctive relief are significant as Mullenweg himself acknowledges that more than 40% of all websites run on WordPress. Those who depend on WordPress’s stability should not be forced to endure the uncertainty, financial losses, and increased operational costs arising from the ongoing dispute between the parties. Thus, “the final Winter element – the public interest – weighs in favor of granting preliminary injunctive relief.”

The Court accepted WP Engine’s claims of irreparable harm, citing losses of existing and potential customers, damage to customer relationships, market share erosion, harm to goodwill and reputation, and broader negative impacts on the WordPress community. 

WP Engine told the court that the company experienced a 14% increase in the average number of daily cancellation requests between September 26 and 30, and an increase of 17% in cancellation requests between October 1 and October 14, as compared to September 1 through September 25. The Court concluded that WP Engine would suffer irreparable harm without injunctive relief. 

The Court also declined to require WPEngine to post a bond as “the Court finds that any harm to Defendants resulting from the issuance of preliminary injunctive relief is unlikely, as it merely requires them to revert to business as usual as of September 20, 2024.”

Automattic responded to the ruling on Twitter, “Today’s ruling is a preliminary order designed to maintain the status quo. It was made without the benefit of discovery, our motion to dismiss, or the counterclaims we will be filing against WP Engine shortly. We look forward to prevailing at trial as we continue to protect the open source ecosystem during full-fact discovery and a full review of the merits.”

WP Engine also tweeted, “We are grateful that the court has granted our motion for a preliminary injunction that restores access to and functionality of wordpressdotorg for WP Engine, its customers and its users. This ruling provides much-needed stability for the WordPress ecosystem. We deeply appreciate our customers for their continued trust and support. We remain committed to serving them and their sites with the performance, availability and integrity they deserve while collaborating to ensure a vigorous, thriving and stable WordPress community.”

The ruling does not mention anything about the “Secure Custom Fields” (https://wordpress.org/plugins/secure-custom-fields/) plugin that WordPress.org released with ACF Pro features. 

The preliminary injunction is effective immediately and will remain in place until a final judgment is issued after the trial.

Openverse.org, the vibrant platform for openly licensed media, has introduced a sleek and modern Dark Mode feature. This new site theme is designed to enhance users’ comfort and style as they explore the extensive library of creative resources. Whether for late-night browsing or simply a preference for darker aesthetics, Dark Mode makes engaging with Openverse easier on the eyes and more personalized than ever.

By reducing screen brightness in low-light settings, Dark Mode offers a more relaxed viewing experience, helping to minimize eye strain. It also caters to users with light sensitivity, creating a more inclusive browsing environment. This thoughtful addition underscores Openverse’s commitment to delivering tools that are as functional as they are visually appealing.

The release of Dark Mode is part of Openverse’s broader effort to innovate and adapt to the needs of its growing community. From the thoughtful interface design to the careful attention to accessibility, every detail was crafted to reflect Openverse’s mission of empowering creativity. By embracing modern frontend implementations like Dark Mode without compromising usability or accessibility, Openverse continues to grow while honoring the brand’s essence. In addition, this update lays the groundwork for future developments aimed at providing even more customization options and improved user experiences.

“Dark Mode marks an exciting step forward for Openverse. We designed and implemented a new user interface that keeps the brand’s essence while providing the same search experience. We’re thrilled to see how this feature fits within users’ preferences and enhances the creative journey.”  – Francisco Vera. Designer

Ready to explore Openverse in a whole new light? Head to Openverse.org today and look for the Dark Mode toggle in the site footer.

On the podcast today we have Corey Maass.

Corey has been building for the web since 1996, with a focus on WordPress since 2011. He started his first SaaS app in 2004 and has launched dozens since. For over ten years, he’s combined his love for entrepreneurship and WordPress by building, launching, and selling numerous WordPress plugins and SaaS apps built on WordPress. Currently, he’s focused on the OMGIMG WordPress plugin.

In this episode, Corey talks about the role of social media and your website’s presence on social platforms. He talks about how optimised web sharing images are important in today’s digital landscape. He explains how shareable web pages on platforms like X and Facebook drive online traffic more than direct visits, and emphasises the power of third-party endorsements in adding credibility and authenticity.

He discusses the need for efficient, user-friendly, solutions built for this task, right inside of WordPress. A timesaver for anyone tasked with updating content in multiple places.

Corey also talks about the latest technological advancements, including WebAssembly, and how modern image formats like WebP and AVIF can offer higher-quality images with smaller file sizes.

We get into the challenges and future improvements due to come in the WordPress Media Library, the significance of dedicated tools for image creation, and how Corey’s OMGIMG plugin leverages in-browser capabilities to simplify image handling without relying on server-side processes.

Towards the end, Corey shares his insights on how custom social images can enhance engagement and conversions, and the importance of optimised images in improving online content presentation.

If you’re a WordPress user looking to streamline your workflow and boost your social media game, this episode is for you.

Useful links

Kanban for WordPress

Linktree

About.me

Carrd

OMGIMG plugin

Pascal Birchler’s X thread about image manipulation in the browser

Canva

WordPress YouTube channel

RelayThat

Gelform website

Corey’s on X

They say the money is in the list. And it is. Having an active email list gives you a reliable source of revenue you can tap into regularly. But that means you need to be consistently attracting new email leads. Once you have them, you can nurture them, convert them into customers, motivate repeat purchases, ask for reviews, and do all the other marketing activities email makes possible with existing customers.

So how do you get more email leads? 

What is an email lead?

An email lead refers to anyone who has subscribed to your email list but hasn’t yet made a purchase. This is distinct from paying customers who have provided their email address and subscribed (given permission) to receive email marketing from your company. 

Email leads are on your email subscriber list and have also given permission to receive marketing from you, but haven’t yet made a purchase.

Why are email leads crucial for marketing and sales?

Email marketing remains one of the most profitable forms of marketing from an ROI perspective. That’s because it’s a direct line of communication to people who have asked you to send marketing to them. 

And, it’s relatively low-cost compared to almost every other marketing channel. 

When people click and make purchases in response to emails they’ve received, a larger portion of that revenue is profit.

Email is also the easiest way to stay in touch with customers and prospects. You don’t have to hope they see your display ad, or are watching TV when your ad shows up, or happen to see your social media post while they’re busy scrolling by. Emails go straight to them. 

For all these reasons, email also offers a great way to nurture and follow up with leads and customers. You can send a series of emails for one campaign. You can send thank you emails, follow-up emails, survey emails, review request emails, abandoned cart emails, welcome emails, and automated emails of many sorts. 

No other marketing channel allows for so much direct communication at so little cost — and with trackable data.

17 ways to enhance your email lead generation

With such a valuable marketing channel, here’s a checklist you can use to level up your email lead generation. 

1. Understand your audience at a deep level

Lead generation begins with knowing what your target audience wants. The idea is to offer them something that will make them say “Yes!” when asked to join your email list. They join because they want the thing you’re offering. 

As long as the thing you’re offering appeals to your target audience, a portion of them will respond to this offer and fill out your opt-in form. 

2. Create a sense of urgency or scarcity

With lead generation, this could mean a deadline for when a particularly appealing offer gets taken away. Maybe you just wrote a book related to your industry, and are giving away the first 100 copies to whoever joins your list. Maybe you’re giving away extra large discounts for people who join your list in the next ten days. 

Deadlines and scarcity like that work well to grow your list fast, in surges. 

But you can also use urgency that doesn’t require constantly coming up with new offers. How might this look? Urgency can also result when people feel left out. For example:

“Join the community and see the juicy secrets we share every week in our newsletter!”

That is the language of urgency, but it’s not tied to a deadline or a finite amount of something.

3. Make your lead magnet irresistible

The above example also serves to demonstrate the idea of an irresistible lead magnet. The more the lead magnet aligns with things your audience cares about, the more irresistible it will be. 

This is why the tried and true methods like free guides, eBooks, white papers, and special reports still work wonders. As long as the content in those digital marketing documents relates to topics, desires, and needs your audience shares, they will want it badly enough to join your email list if that’s what it takes to get it. 

But the more perks you can throw in, the harder it will be for people to resist joining. You can also offer a combination. For example, a business could give a free report, a 20% off coupon for first‑time buyers, and access to a private Facebook page for everyone who joins their email list.

4. Build a form that minimizes friction

Attracting and converting email leads requires more than just a great offer. It also requires an opt‑in form that works. The less cumbersome your forms, the more people will do the work required to get through them. This means, among other things:

• Keep your number of form fields to a minimum
• Use clearly‑labeled fields
• Consider multistep forms if you need to collect more information
• Minimize clutter
• Don’t bury your forms on your website in places that are easy to overlook

5. Avoid CAPTCHA at all costs

Another common source of friction arises from a very common but extremely annoying feature of many website opt-in forms. Many website owners have been duped into thinking they need to use a CAPTCHA in order to prevent spammers and bots from clogging up their inboxes by filling out their forms over and over. 

Are bots and spammers a problem? Yes, very much so. 

But CAPTCHA is about the worst way to solve that problem. Why? Because website users hate them. Picture this:

You have a great lead magnet. Your form is easy to use. Your offer has connected with a new lead. And they’ve gone through the work to fill out the form. And now, right before they can click the button to complete it… they have to count the motorcycles in a bunch of blurry pictures. 

Sounds like fun? It’s not. These little puzzles do nothing but annoy people. More importantly, they also reduce your conversion rate. People give up and abandon forms if they get tired of dealing with CAPTCHA puzzles.

A far superior and seamless solution is to use Akismet. Akismet has prevented hundreds of billions of spambots from filling out opt-in forms and other types of online forms. In the near future, we’ll surpass one trillion. 

Akismet uses AI data and other software tools to identify and block spammers from filling out your forms, but the human users of your website are not impacted by it at all. They don’t even know it’s busy protecting your site in the background. They just fill out the form, unimpeded, and go on with their day. 

And you get another new email lead. 

6. Build credibility with social proof

Right below the CTA button, it’s a smart idea to insert a short testimonial lauding the benefits of subscribing to your emails or being a customer. You can even use a screenshot from a third-party review site to bolster the credibility. 

7. Give a clear preview of the next steps

A short piece of text somewhere in the form can tell new leads what will happen after they click the button. This takes away another mild objection that keeps some people from following through with their desires to obtain the benefits of being on your email list. Examples of this sort of text might read this way:

• Once you join, your coupon will be there in seconds
• Join today and gain access to the private group
• After you sign up, the report will be waiting in your inbox

You can insert this sentence right above or below the CTA button, or at the very bottom of the form. And it doesn’t need to be a large font. But this sort of language will reassure some leads by clarifying exactly what happens next.

8. Offer a one‑time discount for new leads

You saw an example of this earlier. While you don’t want to be discounting all the time, offering a discount to new leads is a terrific strategy for turning a lead into a customer. The sooner you can convince them to buy, the sooner they will start developing a sense of belonging and loyalty. It’s that first purchase that always takes the most commitment. Once done, you can more quickly motivate a second purchase.

So a one‑time discount to new customers is a great marketing strategy for converting new leads into customers. That discount could come in several forms:

• A percent off or dollars off discount
• Buy one, get one free
• A free gift
• A free gift with purchase
• Discounted setup fees
• Get the first month free

9. Host a live event that requires an email to register

For some businesses, it might not be a product that attracts new email leads. Sometimes, a webinar, live online conference, or other event will be more enticing. They want to hear from an expert, a celebrity, a special guest, or the founder of the company talk about a particular topic that matters to them.

If all they have to do to see the presentation is provide their email address, that’s a small price to pay, and your target audience will happily do so. 

10. Design a dedicated lead generation landing page

For almost all these examples, you’ll do better with a dedicated landing page in addition to a typical opt-in form. Forms can be placed in your website’s footer, sidebar, homepage, and within your content. 

But you should also have a separate webpage that goes into more detail about the benefits of joining your email list. Whatever incentive you’re offering in exchange for joining, this page gives you room to expand on the benefits and advantages it offers. 

A page like this also gives you something to link to if you’re trying to generate leads from other sites like social media pages. You might run an ad or create a post featuring your lead magnet, but it’s far more effective to link that ad to a special landing page than just your homepage. 

This will focus the attention of potential leads and keep them thinking only about the benefits of joining your list, and reducing distractions from the other content on your other pages. 

You can link to this landing page from all sorts of places, including:

• Social media pages and ads
• PPC ads
• Display ads
• Partner websites
• Print marketing
• Marketing collateral at live events and booths
• Other pages and posts on your website

For the print marketing and live event situations, this is why you want to keep the URL for this landing page very simple. You want it to be easy to read, not too many characters, and easy to remember. For example, suppose you’re presenting to a live audience and your landing page URL is on one of your slides. The shorter it is, the easier it will be for people to respond.

11. Implement prominent and persuasive CTAs

Both the main headline of your opt-in form and the text on your CTA button need to be persuasive and actionable. Don’t use generic language like “Join our list!,” “Sign up,” or the worst one of all — “Submit!” 

Instead, customize the CTA language to fit what you’re offering. Examples for good button CTA language include:

• Grab your report today
• Claim your free coupon
• Reserve your spot
• Yes! Sign me up!

You should also use actionable language in your headlines — both for the form and the dedicated landing page. 

12. Use an interactive quiz to capture emails

Sometimes, just having opt-in forms isn’t enough. And, how do you collect information about each lead that will help you follow up more effectively? 

With regular forms, you have to either lengthen the form, which can depress response rates, or you have to try to segment your list afterward with follow-up marketing and data collection. 

But online quizzes offer another great approach. With these, you can collect information and segment your leads from the start, and in a way they will enjoy. A good online quiz is fun to fill out, and there are some great quiz companies out there that make this easy. 

The best thing is, when they’ve finished filling out their quiz, they provide their email address at the end to see the results. And some quiz platforms will even personalize their results and give them an assessment of some sort. There’s a lot you can do with these. But they are a great way to attract email leads and grow your list.

13. Create a talking head video to pitch your offer

Another advantage of having a landing page is that you can include a video. The owner of the company or some other key figure can make a quick 1-2 minute video promoting the benefits of subscribing to your email list. For people who respond to video, this is a great way to capture their attention and make sure they know all the reasons to join. 

14. Use timed popups to strategically nudge users

Popups got a bad name when they first came out because they were intrusive, annoying, and sometimes kept coming up even after the user closed them. 

But when used well, popups can be very effective. It’s not uncommon for websites to collect the majority of their email leads using popups forms. A good strategy is, instead of having it popup right when the visitor reaches your site, add a time delay so it pops up after about a minute.

This way, it’s only being seen by people who have already engaged with your content to some degree. For those people, by the time they see the popup, they might have seen enough to respond to the lead generation offer more favorably. 

For example, offering a 20%-off discount to a new visitor the second they arrive might just annoy them. They’re not even sure they want to buy anything yet. But after a few minutes on your site, they might have found what they’re looking for, and that coupon will give them yet another reason to make the purchase and join your email list at the same time. 

15. Test exit popups and overlays

Another type of popup is the exit popup. Here, when a visitor moves to close your page or leave the site, the exit pop appears and makes an offer. It’s a last ditch attempt to let them consider one more time if they want to engage with your business.

These work well because, even if the person didn’t feel ready to take any actions today, they might have a favorable impression of your company. The exit pop lets them join your email list and gives them an easy way to remain in your circle.

16. Optimize your thank‑you page

The last part of lead generation happens after a person has completed your opt-in form. What then? If you have promised them some type of lead magnet, be sure to deliver it as fast as possible. But there’s more you can do with this moment. 

When a person joins a new email list, they are feeling good, perhaps a little excited, and also a little unsure if this was a good decision. Do they want this company in their life? 

You want to capitalize on this moment by confirming they have made a great decision, and solidifying their positive feelings about what happens next. 

Creating a great thank-you page is the first thing to do. 

A good thank‑you page does several things:

• Communicates excitement about what they just did
• Reinforces the decision by restating key benefits they’ll soon realize
• Reminds them what happens next and what’s coming their way
• Gives them something to do right now

What should they do?

It might be a blog post or other page of your site to visit. It could be a link to follow your social media page. It could be to watch a video. 

Or you could simply link to your online store, especially if you’re using a first-time coupon discount as your lead magnet. 

Find something for them to do, so they can stay engaged with your site a little longer. 

17. Build an email series to nurture new leads

After the thank‑you page, your other primary follow‑up task for new leads is to create an email welcome series. Your new leads know you will email them. But they have no idea what you will say, or if they’ll regret joining your list.

Create an email series to have the same effect as the thank-you page, but spread out over several days. With how busy and distracted everyone is, breaking into someone’s life in a positive way takes time and effort. A welcome series enables you to show up in their life several times, and will increase the chances they’ll remember you. 

A good series should be at least three emails, but you can also use five, seven, or even more.

In your series, you can accomplish a number of things, including:

• Reinforcing their decision to join (again)
• Delivering the content they asked for, if any
• Telling the story of your company
• Introducing the founder, owner, or other key personnel
• Telling them what they can look forward to and how exciting it is
• Sharing reviews and testimonials 
• Introducing them to your community if you have one
• Making an offer to convert them into a paying customer

You don’t have to do all of that, but it certainly won’t hurt anything if you do. A good pace is to separate each of these emails by a day or two. And you can tell them up front how many emails they’ll be getting over the next few days so they won’t feel overwhelmed.

Reminder: Eliminating friction is key to getting the most from your hard work. Use Akismet to reduce spam without annoying users. It’s a proven way to improve conversion rates. 

The lifecycle of an email lead

To make sure you’re clear about all of this, let’s walk through the basic steps of lead generation and show you how each of the tactics we already discussed fits into the overall process.

Acquisition

Acquisition happens when someone sees your offer to join your list, and then responds favorably. This could mean they saw an online ad or social media post. It could mean they visited your website and saw your opt‑in form. They may have found your dedicated landing page.

During this stage, the potential lead may know little to nothing about your company. You have to introduce yourself and give them enough value to make them want to stay engaged, and your email list offers the path for doing so. 

Nurturing

Once they’ve joined your email list, the next job is to nurture and deepen their relationship with your company. As you saw, this begins with the thank‑you page and the email welcome series. Beyond that, you can continue sending emails and other marketing content.

This could include social media, SMS, print marketing, and other channels.

Nurturing means making the lead feel valued, helped, supported, or encouraged by the content you’re sending to them. The feelings you’re trying to produce depend on your industry and what your target audience wants.

Conversion

Conversion happens when they make their first purchase. Again, this is the reason to offer the first-time discount. For some leads, they will convert right away when they use this coupon. The job of the welcome series is to encourage them to use it soon. 

But even if you don’t have a first-time discount, somewhere in the welcome series, it’s a good idea to make an offer and give them a chance to buy. Once the welcome series concludes, they’ll be receiving whatever marketing you’re sending other people in their segment, so it will be a little less personalized, most likely. 

If you can get that first purchase before the welcome series concludes, that’s the best possible outcome.

And by the way, we didn’t mention this before, but you can also go for a conversion right on the thank‑you page. They just joined your email list. They’re feeling good. With the right offer, you can convert some of them right from that page. Give it a try!

Retention

After conversion, your goal is to motivate repeat purchases. Retention looks similar to nurturing, except now you can offer additional products, new deals and specials, and other ways to buy from your website. 

After a customer makes a second purchase, they will now see your business as part of their lives, rather than a one-time thing. A second purchase greatly increases the potential for an ongoing relationship. 

Common challenges in email lead generation

Is it easy to attract email leads? The honest response from anyone not trying to sell you something is, nothing in marketing is “easy.” You will have to work at this. Getting attention is hard and takes ongoing effort. Connecting with your target audience takes time and effort, too. 

Here are a few other common email lead generation challenges:

Low conversion rates

The more steps in the chain, the harder it is to convert new leads. Imagine this funnel: You have a Facebook post, which links to your opt-in landing page. On that page is the opt-in form, which is followed by a thank you page and an email welcome series. 

If you’re measuring conversions as purchases, that’s at least five steps people have to walk through before buying anything. 

So, if 5% of people who see your Facebook post click on it, you’ve already lost 95% of potential leads, and they haven’t even read your landing page yet. Then, they have to follow through and fill out the form. From there, if you make a sales offer on the thank-you page, you might win your first conversion. Otherwise, it’s after your welcome series begins arriving. 

But the good news is, once you have these sorts of funnels up, they can just keep running. You can keep promoting that social media post over and over, and it may see a mostly new audience each time. With boosted posts and paid ads, you’ll spend a bit more, but you’ll also get more visibility. And if the content and message connects with enough people in your target audience, you can gain a lot of new email leads at a consistent pace. 

Work on improving each component of each page to improve conversions. That includes the offer, the copy, the CTA button, the imagery, the landing page headline, the form text, and all the other elements. 

High bounce rates

A bounce happens when someone reaches your website and then leaves without doing anything. A high bounce rate means your landing page isn’t connecting with your potential leads. So if that’s your situation, now you know what to work on. 

Focus on the headline, the copy, the imagery, and the opt-in form. 

Dealing with spam

Opt‑in form spam is very annoying here because you keep thinking you’ve got a new lead, but really it’s just a bot or a scammer. It can demotivate a business owner from continuing to pursue leads.

This is why Akismet is so valuable. You’ll eliminate the psychological burden of dealing with all the spammers filling out your forms. And, your conversion rates will increase because your users won’t have a CAPTCHA or similar impediment making it harder to complete your form and join your email list.

Frequently asked questions

Why are email leads important for my business?

Without new input, output will decline. Businesses need a steady flow of new leads who will then convert into new customers because their existing customers will eventually go elsewhere. Businesses survive, grow, and thrive by consistently attracting new leads. It’s their lifeblood.

What is the difference between cold, warm, and hot leads?

Cold leads refer to leads who have become unresponsive. They’re still in your database and on your email list, but they don’t engage. Warm leads engage and respond to some degree, but haven’t followed through or responded to any of your offers. Hot leads are ones who have explicitly told you, either by word or action, that they are ready and interested in buying. 

Can I buy email leads and are they effective?

Buying email leads has become increasingly less wise, and it is not recommended at all with current email technology and anti-spam laws. Sending marketing emails to people who have not opted in to your email list can get you in trouble if they complain to the authorities. 

Plus, since they didn’t opt in, if they mark you as spam it will hurt your sender reputation. That means your emails even to your happy subscribers may not get delivered to the inbox, but to the spam folder. 

How do I measure the success of my email lead generation efforts?

You can measure each step of the process that features a call to action. How many people see your marketing promoting your lead magnet offer or email list subscription, and how many of those click on it? How many see your email opt-in form and how many click on it? How many view your thank-you page and how many of those respond to whatever it offers? How many receive your email welcome series, and how many convert based on what they receive? 

Each step can have its own conversion rate, which you can use to improve and optimize the whole process.

How can I re‑engage inactive email leads?

The first thing to do is send them a reactivation email campaign. This tells the recipients that they haven’t responded to any emails for a while, and if they want to remain on your list, they need to respond to this one. Reactivation emails often include a special offer to motivate your inactive leads to re-engage. It can be a single email or a short campaign. 

You can also try to engage with them on other marketing channels, as they may simply be more active on those as opposed to email. 

Should I use CAPTCHA to protect my forms from spam?

No. CAPTCHA has been shown, in numerous studies, to depress conversion rates for opt‑in forms. It is a needless barrier that makes it harder to complete the form. There are better ways to prevent opt‑in form spam, with Akismet being the most effective and seamless because website visitors don’t even know it’s there.

What is Akismet, and how can it improve my lead generation strategy?

Akismet is an anti-spam software service that prevents bots and spammers from filling out and submitting online forms. Akismet uses AI technology that analyzes behavior of the user, and detects when a bot or spammer is trying to engage with your form. It improves lead generation by removing one of the obstacles to completing and submitting an opt-in form. 

What types of companies generally use Akismet?

Over 100 million websites are currently using Akismet to prevent opt‑in spam. That’s a lot — and it says something about how effective and widespread this solution is. Akismet also has an enterprise‑level service used by some of the biggest brands in the world, including Microsoft, Bluehost, and ConvertKit.

Where can I learn more about Akismet?

You can learn about Akismet and its primary features on our website.

Ever wondered why some WordPress comments display professional profile pictures while others show generic gray icons? The secret lies in Gravatar – a powerful yet surprisingly simple tool that’s transforming how people connect across the web.

What is Gravatar, Anyway?

Gravatar, short for Globally Recognized Avatar, has evolved far beyond its origins as a simple avatar service. Today, it’s a comprehensive profile service that connects your email address to your digital identity, making it available wherever you interact online.

Think of it as your digital business card that automatically follows you around the web. When you comment on a blog, join a new platform, or contribute to a project, Gravatar ensures your professional image is consistently represented. Major platforms like WordPress.org, Slack, GitHub, Mailchimp, and even OpenAI rely on Gravatar to enhance their user experience.

Why Gravatar Makes a Difference

Gravatar eliminates common frustrations in online interaction. Instead of repeatedly uploading profile pictures and filling out information across different sites, users enjoy:

• Automatic profile synchronization across WordPress sites
• Consistent digital representation in comment sections
• Professional presence across multiple platforms
• Complete control over their shared information through granular privacy settings
• The ability to maintain separate professional and personal identities through different email addresses

For Site Owners and Developers

Implementing Gravatar brings substantial benefits to your WordPress site:

• Streamlined user registration processes with auto-filled profile information
• Reduced server load since Gravatar hosts all profile images
• Enhanced compliance with data protection regulations
• Access to powerful developer tools through the REST API and SDK
• Built-in verification features to combat spam accounts
• The ability to create personalized user experiences based on imported profile data

The real power shows up in community building. When users see their familiar profile picture and information automatically appear, they’re more likely to engage. This familiarity builds trust and encourages more interaction.

And for sites targeting specific industries or niches, Gravatar helps create professional communities where members can easily recognize each other across different WordPress platforms.

How to use Gravatar with WordPress.com

Getting started with Gravatar on WordPress.com is straightforward since every WordPress.com account automatically includes Gravatar integration. Here’s everything you need to know about using it effectively.

Your WordPress.com account creates a Gravatar profile automatically when you sign up. To manage your avatar:

1. Sign in to your WordPress.com dashboard
2. Navigate to My Profile.
3. Upload or modify your picture.

However, the settings you can adjust here are very limited and for a full list of things you can add, you need to edit your Gravatar profile directly. 

Advanced Features

Beyond basic avatars, WordPress.com includes several Gravatar-powered features to enhance your site.

Gravatar Widget

The Gravatar Widget adds a quick About Me section to your blog’s sidebar or footer. Add it by:

1. Going to Appearance > Customize > Widgets.

2. Selecting Gravatar Widget.
3. Customizing the size, alignment, and text.
4. Adding social media links if desired.

For more detailed profiles, the Gravatar Profile Widget displays your complete bio, gravatar link, contact information, links, and recent activities. 

Need to add a Gravatar somewhere specific? Use the shortcode:

[gravatar email="[email protected]" size="96"]

This works in posts, pages, and text widgets – perfect for team member profiles or guest author introductions.

Hovercards

And do you want to show more information when someone hovers over a profile picture, you can enable Gravatar Hovercards to display mini-biographies, social media links, recent posts, and custom information.

How to use Gravatar with WordPress.org

Setting up Gravatar on a self-hosted WordPress site takes just a few extra steps but offers all the same benefits. Here’s how to get everything configured properly.

Basic Setup:

1. Log into your WordPress dashboard and go to Settings > Discussion. 

2. Scroll to Avatars and check Show Avatars.

3. Choose your preferred rating level (G, PG, R, X)

4. Select a default avatar style.

5. Save changes

After this setup, Gravatar automatically displays user avatars in comments, author bios, and other profile areas across your site.

Gravatar Enhanced Plugin 

The Gravatar Enhanced plugin is 100% free and takes functionality even further. 

• The Privacy Shield feature helps ensure Gravatar doesn’t log the avatars that you serve on your site, perfect for community sites where privacy matters. 

• The Profile Block makes it simple to add beautiful author bios to posts – just insert the block, and it automatically pulls the author’s Gravatar profile data. 

• Email notifications gently remind users to set up their Gravatar profiles, helping create a more engaging community. 

• Site owners particularly appreciate the Quick Editor, which lets them update avatars directly from the WordPress dashboard.

Gravatar API 

The Gravatar REST API is how WordPress.org users import their profile data, allowing website owners to build more intuitive and user-friendly sign-up processes, customize customer onboarding, and create a sense of community on the site. 

And for custom solutions, the Gravatar API opens up exciting possibilities. Pull in comprehensive user data to create dynamic author pages that showcase a writer’s latest posts, social media activity, and professional background. Build team pages that automatically update when members change their profiles. Or create custom comment systems that show different profile information based on user roles. 

Building a Stronger Community

The true power of Gravatar lies in its ability to transform anonymous usernames into recognizable community members. Consider these strategies:

• Add welcoming setup instructions near comment sections
• Include Gravatar guidance in welcome emails
• Create helpful documentation for new users
• Encourage profile completion through gentle reminders

Privacy and Control

Gravatar stands out for its commitment to user privacy:

• Users maintain complete control over shared information
• Multiple identity management through different email addresses
• Granular privacy settings for different contexts
• Easy profile updates that propagate across all connected platforms

Taking Action

Ready to enhance your WordPress site with Gravatar? Start with these steps:

1. Review your current avatar settings
2. Update your own Gravatar profile
3. Consider adding enhanced features through plugins
4. Create clear documentation for your users
5. Monitor community engagement improvements

Remember, building an engaged community requires more than just tools – but having the right tools makes it easier. Gravatar removes common friction points in user interactions, allowing your community to focus on what truly matters: creating meaningful connections and conversations.

Want to learn more about implementing Gravatar in your WordPress site? Check out our comprehensive Gravatar Enhanced plugin documentation. Let’s go!

Automattic has announced that it has acquired WPAI, a company specializing in AI-powered tools for WordPress. Founded two years ago, WPAI has developed innovative products like CodeWP (an AI IDE for WordPress developers), AgentWP (an AI agent for WordPress), and WP.Chat (a ChatGPT alternative for WordPress). No financial details of the deal have been disclosed.

WPAI’s founding members James LePage, Greg Hunt, and Ovidiu “Ovi” Iulian Galatan will join Automattic. “Our entire WPAI team is making the move to Automattic, and we’ll be integrating our products, data, and tools into both new and existing offerings. We couldn’t be more excited about what’s ahead.”, James LePage shared on Twitter.

Automattic’s announcement post revealed that the founding members will “lead the exploration of applied AI as an interaction paradigm for WordPress. They’ll be working on testing, building, and integrating innovative AI solutions into the core ecosystem to redefine how users and developers work with WordPress.”

As part of the transition, CodeWP and AgentWP will be sunset in their current forms, the core technology powering these platforms will be reimagined and integrated into new offerings under the Automattic umbrella. 

“We expect that all products will be completely sunset by January 9th, but it is up to Automattic on the exact timeline now.”, shared James LePage in the WPAI facebook group. “As we wind down our current products, monthly subscriptions will end without renewal, and annual subscribers will receive prorated refunds in the coming weeks.”, he continued.

While many are optimistic about the acquisition, some customers have expressed concerns. Some are worried that it’s disastrous for the current customers and they are not happy with CodeWP and AgentWP being sunset. But James Lepage has assured that “This move allows us to gather more resources and build a much more robust solution. We were punching way above our weight class. The agent will be back!” 

Matt Mullenweg shared in his personal blog, “Very excited to share that we’ve acquired WPAI and the team is joining Automattic. They have some very cool products including CodeWP, AgentWP, and WP.chat.”

The acquisition comes on the heels of Automattic’s recent purchase of Harper, a grammar-checking tool tailored for developers. Harper’s founder, Elijah Potter, also joined Automattic as a Code Wrangler.

Awesome Motive’s WP Forms plugin has patched a Missing Authorization to Payment Refund and Subscription Cancellation vulnerability. This issue allowed authenticated attackers with Subscriber-level access or higher to refund Stripe payments and cancel subscriptions without proper authorization.

Wordfence reports that “The WPForms plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to unauthorized modification of data due to a missing capability check on the ‘wpforms_is_admin_page’ function in versions starting from 1.8.4 up to, and including, 1.9.2.1. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to refund payments and cancel subscriptions.”

Researchers have classified the vulnerability (CVE-2024-11205) as “High,” with a CVSS score of 8.5. The vulnerability researcher István Márton’s post has more technical details about the plugin’s vulnerability.

Researcher Villu Orav, who initially discovered and reported the vulnerability via the Wordfence Bug Bounty Program, earned recognition as Wordfence’s first recipient of the WordPress Superhero badge. Orav also received a $2,376 bounty for his discovery.

WPForms is a widely used plugin with over 6 million active installations, making this patch particularly critical. Users are strongly advised to update to the patched version, 1.9.2.2, to safeguard against potential revenue loss and ensure site security.

This week, DrupalCon Singapore is bringing together an incredible community of Drupal platform creators, developers, and supporters. 

Last year, I had the chance to share the stage with Dries Buytaert, the founder of Drupal, and the conversation stuck with me. It highlighted the profound impact we can have when communities like ours come together to push the boundaries of Open Source and shape the future of the web.

At Automattic, we believe that Open Source is more than a license—it’s a philosophy that drives innovation and makes publishing accessible to all, and we want to support fellow open source communities. Our team is at DrupalCon to share some of the tools we’ve built, including Akismet (check out the Drupal extension here), The Atavist Magazine, Beeper, Day One, Longreads, and Pocket Casts. These products, much like the web itself, thrive on connection and collaboration. (Basically all our non-WP stuff.)

I’ve loved hearing about how people are engaging with our booth—whether exploring our tools, grabbing a local snack, or taking a moment to recharge. For those of you at the event, I encourage you to swing by the Automattic booth, meet our team, and share your thoughts. Together, we can continue to create an open web that’s full of possibilities.

Very excited to share that we’ve acquired WPAI and the team is joining Automattic. They have some very cool products including CodeWP, AgentWP, and WP.chat.

Jessica Lyschik, a WordPress Developer at GREYD, has won the highly anticipated WordPress Speed Build Challenge, defeating WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg. Jessica announced that she would donate her $5,000 prize money to Girls Who Code.

The showdown was set following Jessica’s public challenge to Matt during WordCamp Europe. The challenge hosted by Jamie Marsland, required both participants to replicate the Bob Dylan website within 30 minutes using any tools or techniques of their choice. Jessica utilized the GREYD theme and plugin, while Matt opted for the Twenty Twenty-Five theme and AI.

Jessica, the Co-Lead for the Twenty Twenty-Four Default Theme, prioritized accessibility during the live event impressing the audience and prompting Patricia BT to comment, “Jessica is so good at accessibility, I think the whole Greyd team is btw (and shoutout to Anne-Mieke as well).” 

While Jamie confirmed that using AI was not against the rules, the audience was divided about Matt’s use of it. Some appreciated using AI to speed up development, while others felt that “as the founder of Blocks, he should at least do it the core way.”

The audience was amused to see Matt getting stuck and grow frustrated with alignment, padding, and borders. He accepted that he would have never found some options in a million years.

Audience reactions included, “It’s good that WP leadership tries hands-on to use the Block Editor, that’s the only way of experiencing where we can improve. Thanks Matt for being here and maybe noting the issues.”, “Love that Matt is learning WordPress Live.”, “​​Wonder if he’ll now believe all the criticism of Gutenberg”, “Haha… Matt is saying that something is annoying about blocks?”, and “like watching a baby calf learn to walk.”

But some defended Matt’s efforts: “He actually did alright imo. esp for one not building sites on the reg. Doesn’t mean there’s not improvements to be had by any means though.”

Jessica was finally declared winner for a “more polished finish.” Before this event, she had competed against Rich Tabor and Francesco Grasso, while Matt was participating in the challenge for the very first time. Her next challenge will be against Nick Diego at the WordPress Speed Build Challenge during WordCamp Asia.

You can watch the full challenge on YouTube.

The WordPress Core team is gathering consensus around integrating the WP Consent API into Core. The WP Consent API feature plugin was originally introduced in early 2020 to standardize the communication of accepted consent categories between plugins.

Automattician Brian Alexander has placed two options before the community: add this feature to Core or make it canonical. In case of adding it to the Core, the existing API must be updated to meet the current Core merge expectations and the Core could introduce a default cookie “popup” or block that could be activated similar to the built-in Privacy Policy feature.

Since the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) came into effect in March 2024, the WP Consent API plugin has seen a sharp rise in adoption, surpassing 100,000 active installations.

Back in December 2020, the feature was removed from the active features list during a cleanup and marked as “Closed.” However, discussions in the #core-privacy channel in the months that followed overlooked this status change, causing confusion when efforts were made to transfer the plugin to the WordPress GitHub org.

Rogier Lankhorst, the original developer, explained, “The most important aspect of the WP Consent API is its ability to bypass legal discussions entirely and delegate all such matters to CMPs. The WP Consent API should really be JUST an API, and not have any opinion about legal matters. While consent per service is not yet possible, one of the items on the WP Consent API roadmap is an extension that would enable this functionality. The current basic structure is easily extensible to accommodate this feature.”

He also shared, “Extending the consent API to a cmp will most likely result in a project that will never finish, as it will result in endless discussions on legal details. The idea behind this proposal is that we sidestep these discussions and leave them with the vendors/services and cmp’s.”

WordPress users can share their feedback on the proposal in the comments section of the announcement. Most comments so far favor integrating the feature into Core.