Nexcess Blog

When I first used WordPress, several years ago, I bought a premium theme from a well-known marketplace. I decided on that particular theme because I liked the way its demo site looked. Most theme developers and marketplaces provide a demonstration site so that potential buyers can take a theme for a spin before they buy […]

This July, Andrey “Rarst” Savchenko, published a controversial article entitled WordPress crusade against technical responsibility, in which he makes the claim that WordPress, in its efforts to democratize publishing, has created a dangerous situation where people with minimal technical knowledge pose a security risk to themselves and others. Obviously, we disagree with the basic premise […]

WordPress shortcodes, which are part of WordPress Core and many plugins, can be a source of confusion for new WordPress users. Shortcodes look like this: Let’s take a look at the problems shortcodes solve and how they’re used. The average WordPress page is a mixture of text and images entered into the content management system’s […]

As Jeff Chandler points out on WP Tavern, the next major WordPress release won’t blow anyone’s socks off. It adds useful features that improve the lives of WordPress users and developers in small ways. I, for one, am pleased with in-line link checking — it’ll save me several minutes of manual checking every time I […]

I spend most of my working day writing blog posts, press releases, and other content — much of which is eventually published on a WordPress blog (like this one). I’ve experimented with any number of text editors — Byword, IA Writer, Editorial, 1Writer, Drafts, and even Vim and Emacs — but none has stuck like […]

WordPress is a phenomenon. It’s by far the most used content management system on the web, with many millions of sites taking advantage of the WordPress application and the ecosystem that has grown around it over more than decade. The sheer size and diversity of the WordPress world opens up opportunities for experienced WordPress users […]

The ability to include starter content has long been on the wish list of theme developers, and it looks like that wish will come true with the upcoming release of WordPress 4.7. A new commit to the development branch of WordPress enables theme developers to include starter content that’s visible in the theme customizer and […]

Over the years, we’ve written about several plugins that help publishers manage content creation and publishing workflows for teams of writers and editors, including the excellent CoSchedule and Editorial Calendar. WordPress is great at managing content, but for publishing workflows with many different pieces of content flowing from ideation to creation and publication via multiple […]

Matt Mullenweg was the original developer of WordPress, and, although WordPress has grown way beyond anything a single developer can control, Mullenweg is a lead developer at the WordPress Foundation and CEO of Automattic, the company behind the Jetpack plugin collection and WordPress.com. His words carry a lot of weight in the WordPress community. It’s […]

It’s no secret that that advertising on the web doesn’t generate the returns it used to. The online advertising industry is growing, which is good for Google and Facebook, but the revenue per ad is shrinking, which is bad for publishers. Over the last year, the use of ad-blockers on mobile and desktop has increased, […]