Amazon Lightsail offers cheap WordPress hosting in the cloud
Webmasters can host WordPress sites for as cheap as $3.50/mo using the Amazon Lightsail cloud platform. While Lightsail is marketed as easy-to-use, it’s still significantly more complicated to set up and maintain than using a managed hosting provider.
Google Ads is forcing agencies to use its recommendations or risk losing their Google Partners badge
Google Ads is changing the requirements for its Google Partners badge program by the end of June 2020. One change, in particular, requires partners to adopt a high percentage of recommendations that are made by Google’s machine learning or risk losing their badge. Agencies are claiming Google’s optimizations are ignoring their expertise and don’t make sense for their clients’ campaigns.
Google adds notification permission data to Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX)
Google is now storing the decisions visitors make when they get prompted by a site to receive notifications. The dataset is available in the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) and is being made accessible to sites via Google's BigQuery tool. The goal is to educate publishers and suppress notifications for sites that have a high Block rate.
WordPress local development tool ‘Local’ now works with WP Engine
Eight months after WP Engine acquired Flywheel, they are launching a new version of Flywheel's local WordPress development tool, Local, with full support for WP Engine. The latest version of Local seamlessly integrates DevKit, making it possible to develop sites locally and to push changes live to WP Engine with the click of a button.
Open-source URL shortener ‘YOURLS’ gets updated with Bitly-like random keyword plugin
The popular open-source URL shortener, YOURLS, was updated to version 1.7.6. The update adds a Bitly-like URL randomizer to the core set of plugins and fixes various bugs. Users that rely on the software are also encouraged to sponsor its development via Open Collective.
Campaign Monitor urges users to update API keys now for security
Campaign Monitor recently strengthened the security of its API and is sending email messages to customers urging them to update their API keys now. They plan to start deprecating the old API keys soon.
ICANN allows Verisign to start increasing .com prices indefinitely
ICANN announced that Verisign can start increasing .com wholesale domain pricing 7% every year for four years, with a two-year break, indefinitely. Verisign will increase its revenue by at least 70% over ten years (an additional $800m) in exchange for giving ICANN $20m.
Modern Tribe launches major upgrade of its WordPress event calendar plugin
The best calendar plugin for WordPress, The Events Calendar, released a new version that was rebuilt from the ground up. The new plugin, version 5, includes a completely redesigned calendar view and experience.
Developer offers a glimpse of what a ‘Solid’ decentralized social network presence might look like
The standards-based initiative to decentralize social media data known as Solid has been difficult for most people to visualize. Angelo Veltens, a developer and IT consultant, recently shared an example of what a person’s identity could look like using Solid.
WP Engine will no longer support .htaccess with release of PHP 7.4
The popular WordPress hosting platform, WP Engine, is removing the ability to use .htaccess files when sites upgrade to PHP 7.4. They claim the deprecation results in a performance increase of up to 10%, and they are providing .htaccess alternatives.
