WordPress News, WordPress Plugins, WordPress Themes

Slow WordPress Site? Our Free Site Speed Tool Can Help

| WordPress News, WordPress Plugins, WordPress Themes

When you’re browsing the web, how quickly do you navigate elsewhere if a website isn’t instantly loading? We all know from experience that every second counts. If your website takes too long to load, visitors won’t hesitate to move on—sometimes straight to your competitors. 

Faster load times not only improve user satisfaction but also boost your search engine rankings and ultimately drive more conversions. 

That’s why you’re going to love using our new Site Speed Tool. It can quickly identify areas impacting your site’s Core Web Vitals (CWV), like load times, interactivity, and visual stability and provides actionable insights and recommendations, making it easier to optimize your site’s performance and deliver a smoother, faster user experience.

Use the free Site Speed Tool
a screenshot of the WordPress.com Speed Test landing page with a heading that says 'Optimize your WordPress site 
for lightning-fast performance' with a white URL field

The need for speed 

The numbers speak for themselves:

  • Nearly 70% of consumers admit that page speed impacts their willingness to buy from an online retailer.
  • Almost half of consumers say they’ll try to refresh a page at least once when it takes 3 seconds to load. But 22% say they’ll close the tab, and 14% say they’ll visit a competitor’s site.
  • 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less.
  • If a website takes more than three seconds to load, 40% of the people will leave that site.

Website performance plays a critical role in the success of any online business. Slow websites will cost you not only visitors but also potential revenue. Investing in performance optimization could be the difference between closing a sale and losing out to a competitor.

A faster website gives you a competitive edge by capturing traffic from slower sites. Visitors are more likely to stay, explore, and convert into customers when your site loads quickly. Speed isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s a key driver of business growth. 

Optimize your WordPress site for lightning-fast performance

Is your WordPress site as fast as it could be? Test the speed of your WordPress site with free our Site Speed Tool and get detailed performance metrics and tailored recommendations with just a few clicks. Simply enter any public WordPress URL, and we’ll run real-time tests on your site to assess its performance.

Our tool evaluates key areas, such as:

  • Loading speed: How fast your site loads for users.
  • Core Web Vitals: Metrics that focus on user experience, including loading, interactivity, and visual stability.
  • Historical performance: Tracking your site’s performance over time to spot trends and areas for improvement.

Once analyzed, you’ll receive an easy-to-understand performance score and WordPress-specific, AI-enhanced recommendations to boost your website’s speed and overall performance.

You can access our developer documentation for more specifics about the report.

If you already have a site on WordPress.com with a Business or Commerce plan, you can also easily access the speed test directly in your dashboard. Test your performance across all of your sites to better understand correlations between site changes and performance.

a screenshot of the Performance tab and speed test report in the WordPress.com Hosting Overview dashboard

Get weekly performance change alerts

Want to stay ahead of performance issues? Sign up for weekly performance change alerts, which provide a comprehensive overview of your website’s metrics over the last handful of weeks. These reports will highlight trends, performance fluctuations, and areas where further optimization is needed—keeping you informed and in control of your website’s health.

a screenshot of the email opt-in section on the WordPress.com Speed Test page with a heading that says 'Get notified about changes to your site’s performance—it’s free!'

Test your site today

Your website’s performance can make or break your success online. With our easy-to-use performance measurement tool, you can take the guesswork out of optimizing your site.

Test your URL now for free and get personalized recommendations to ensure your site performs at its best, or head to the Performance tab in your site’s Hosting Overview menu to get automatic performance data about your WordPress.com sites.

Don’t leave your website’s success to chance—start optimizing today.

Use the free Site Speed Tool

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Slow WordPress Site? Our Free Site Speed Tool Can Help Read Post »

6.7, Development, Releases

WordPress 6.7 Release Candidate 3

| 6.7, Development, Releases

The third release candidate (RC3) for WordPress 6.7 is ready for download and testing!

This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended that you evaluate RC3 on a test server and site.

Reaching this phase of the release cycle is an important milestone. While release candidates are considered ready for release, testing remains crucial to ensure that everything in WordPress 6.7 is the best it can be.

You can test WordPress 6.7 RC3 in four ways:

PluginInstall and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).
Direct DownloadDownload the RC3 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.
Command LineUse the following WP-CLI command:
wp core update --version=6.7-RC3
WordPress PlaygroundUse the 6.7 RC3 WordPress Playground instance (available within 35 minutes after the release is ready) to test the software directly in your browser without the need for a separate site or setup.
You can test the RC3 version in four ways.

The current target for the WordPress 6.7 release is November 12, 2024. Get an overview of the 6.7 release cycle, and check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.7-related posts in the coming weeks for further details.

What’s in WordPress 6.7 RC3?

Get a recap of WordPress 6.7’s highlighted features in the Beta 1 announcement. For more technical information related to issues addressed since RC2, you can browse the following links:

How you can contribute

WordPress is open source software made possible by a passionate community of people collaborating on and contributing to its development. The resources below outline various ways you can help the world’s most popular open source web platform, regardless of your technical expertise.

Get involved in testing

Testing for issues is critical to ensuring WordPress is performant and stable. It’s also a meaningful way for anyone to contribute. This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 6.7. For those new to testing, follow this general testing guide for more details on getting set up.

If you encounter an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums or directly to WordPress Trac if you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs.

Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

Search for vulnerabilities

From now until the final release of WordPress 6.7 (scheduled for November 12, 2024), the monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities is doubled. Please follow responsible disclosure practices as detailed in the project’s security practices and policies outlined on the HackerOne page and in the security white paper.

Update your theme or plugin

For plugin and theme authors, your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for all users. 

Thanks for continuing to test your themes and plugins with the WordPress 6.7 beta releases. With RC3, you’ll want to conclude your testing and update the “Tested up to” version in your plugin’s readme file to 6.7.

If you find compatibility issues, please post detailed information to the support forum.

Help translate WordPress

Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Русский? 日本? हिन्दी? বাংলা? You can help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages.

Release the haiku

RC3 arrives,
Final polish, last bugs fall,
Six point seven calls.

Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: @peterwilsoncc, @joedolson, @sabernhardt.

WordPress 6.7 Release Candidate 3 Read Post »

6.7, Development, Releases

WordPress 6.7 Release Candidate 2

| 6.7, Development, Releases

The second release candidate (RC2) for WordPress 6.7 is ready for download and testing!

This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended that you evaluate RC2 on a test server and site.

Reaching this phase of the release cycle is an important milestone. While release candidates are considered ready for release, testing remains crucial to ensure that everything in WordPress 6.7 is the best it can be.

You can test WordPress 6.7 RC2 in four ways:

PluginInstall and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).
Direct DownloadDownload the RC2 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.
Command LineUse the following WP-CLI command:
wp core update --version=6.7-RC2
WordPress PlaygroundUse the 6.7 RC2 WordPress Playground instance (available within 35 minutes after the release is ready) to test the software directly in your browser without the need for a separate site or setup.
You can test the RC2 version in four ways.

The current target for the WordPress 6.7 release is November 12, 2024. Get an overview of the 6.7 release cycle, and check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.7-related posts in the coming weeks for further details.

What’s in WordPress 6.7 RC2?

Get a recap of WordPress 6.7’s highlighted features in the Beta 1 announcement. For more technical information related to issues addressed since RC1, you can browse the following links:

How you can contribute

WordPress is open source software made possible by a passionate community of people collaborating on and contributing to its development. The resources below outline various ways you can help the world’s most popular open source web platform, regardless of your technical expertise.

Get involved in testing

Testing for issues is critical to ensuring WordPress is performant and stable. It’s also a meaningful way for anyone to contribute. This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 6.7. For those new to testing, follow this general testing guide for more details on getting set up.

If you encounter an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums or directly to WordPress Trac if you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs.

Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

Search for vulnerabilities

From now until the final release of WordPress 6.7 (scheduled for November 12, 2024), the monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities is doubled. Please follow responsible disclosure practices as detailed in the project’s security practices and policies outlined on the HackerOne page and in the security white paper.

Update your theme or plugin

For plugin and theme authors, your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for all users. 

Thanks for continuing to test your themes and plugins with the WordPress 6.7 beta releases. With RC2, you’ll want to conclude your testing and update the “Tested up to” version in your plugin’s readme file to 6.7.

If you find compatibility issues, please post detailed information to the support forum.

Help translate WordPress

Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Русский? 日本? हिन्दी? বাংলা? You can help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages.

Release the haiku

Six point seven’s dawn,
RC2 sweeps bugs away,
Sites stand firm and strong.

Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: @jorbin.

WordPress 6.7 Release Candidate 2 Read Post »

block editor, Community, General, Gutenberg, Themes, Updates

WordPress Community Creates 1,000 Block Themes in 1,000 Days

| block editor, Community, General, Gutenberg, Themes, Updates

In nearly 1,000 days, the WordPress community has created 1,000 Block themes—coming together to use the full potential of the Site Editor and unleash new creative possibilities for everyone.

First introduced in WordPress 5.9, Block themes have steadily evolved, improving flexibility and functionality for themers, users, and agencies alike. Now, design tools allow customizing almost every detail. With style variations, users can change the overall look of their site in a few clicks. You can even use curation options to customize the editing process itself. But we’re not done! We can’t wait to keep pushing Block themes even further. Thank you to every early adopter who, by embracing early features with passion, helped shape the Block themes we love today with feedback and testing.

If you haven’t yet explored Block themes, check out some of the resources below to get inspired:

Let’s celebrate and share our contributions! Please comment on the Theme Team’s post dedicated to highlighting this milestone to share your favorite Block theme and thank those who have contributed along the way. 

Thank you to @kristastevens for editorial help, @beafialho for the featured image, and @kafleg for reviewing.

WordPress Community Creates 1,000 Block Themes in 1,000 Days Read Post »

6.7, Development, Releases

WordPress 6.7 Release Candidate 1

| 6.7, Development, Releases

The first release candidate (RC1) for WordPress 6.7 is ready for download and testing!

This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended that you evaluate RC1 on a test server and site.

Reaching this phase of the release cycle is an important milestone. While release candidates are considered ready for release, testing remains crucial to ensure that everything in WordPress 6.7 is the best it can be.

You can test WordPress 6.7 RC1 in four ways:

PluginInstall and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).
Direct DownloadDownload the RC1 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.
Command LineUse the following WP-CLI command:
wp core update --version=6.7-RC1
WordPress PlaygroundUse the 6.7 RC1 WordPress Playground instance (available within 35 minutes after the release is ready) to test the software directly in your browser without the need for a separate site or setup.
You can test the RC1 version in four ways.

The current target for the WordPress 6.7 release is November 12, 2024. Get an overview of the 6.7 release cycle, and check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.7-related posts in the coming weeks for further details.

What’s in WordPress 6.7 RC1?

Get a recap of WordPress 6.7’s highlighted features in the Beta 1 announcement. For more technical information related to issues addressed since Beta 3, you can browse the following links:

Want to look deeper into the details and technical notes for this release? These recent posts cover some of the latest updates:

How you can contribute

WordPress is open source software made possible by a passionate community of people collaborating on and contributing to its development. The resources below outline various ways you can help the world’s most popular open source web platform, regardless of your technical expertise.

Get involved in testing

Testing for issues is critical to ensuring WordPress is performant and stable. It’s also a meaningful way for anyone to contribute. This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 6.7. For those new to testing, follow this general testing guide for more details on getting set up.

If you encounter an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums or directly to WordPress Trac if you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs.

Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

Search for vulnerabilities

From now until the final release of WordPress 6.7 (scheduled for November 12, 2024), the monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities is doubled. Please follow responsible disclosure practices as detailed in the project’s security practices and policies outlined on the HackerOne page and in the security white paper.

Update your theme or plugin

For plugin and theme authors, your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for all users. 

Thanks for continuing to test your themes and plugins with the WordPress 6.7 beta releases. With RC1, you’ll want to conclude your testing and update the “Tested up to” version in your plugin’s readme file to 6.7.

If you find compatibility issues, please post detailed information to the support forum.

Help translate WordPress

Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Русский? 日本? हिन्दी? বাংলা? You can help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages. This release milestone (RC1) also marks the hard string freeze point of the 6.7 release cycle.

Release the haiku

I See An R.C.
You See A Chance For Testing
Six Seven For The Win!

Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: @atachibana, @jorbin.

WordPress 6.7 Release Candidate 1 Read Post »

Community, General

Expanding Our Code of Conduct to Protect Private Conversations

| Community, General

At the heart of our community is our shared pledge to create a space that is harassment-free, welcoming, and inclusive for all. Our Community Code of Conduct already outlines a clear set of expectations, while also providing examples of unacceptable actions. Today, we are reinforcing our values by adding another element to our list of unacceptable behaviors: Publishing private messages without consent.

Why This Addition Matters

The relationships we build within our community often involve private discussions. These conversations may involve sensitive matters, personal experiences, or simply casual exchanges. Regardless of the content, every individual should feel confident that their private communications will remain private unless they grant explicit permission to share them.

Sharing private messages without consent is a breach of trust that can also lead to unintended harm, including emotional distress or misrepresentation. When members of our community feel they cannot trust others in their personal conversations, it undermines the collaborative spirit that is crucial to our collective success.

How This Change Protects the Community

By explicitly addressing the publication of private messages without consent, we are reinforcing an existing unacceptable behavior in our Community Code of Conduct: Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting. Sharing private communications without permission is a clear violation of professional integrity.

This new addition ensures that private messages receive the same level of protection as personal information and that sensitive communications shared in confidence will not be disclosed without prior consent. An important exception to this is when sharing private messages is necessary for reporting incidents or concerns to the Incident Response Team, as part of our commitment to maintaining a safe and respectful environment.

Ultimately, this change encourages honest, constructive engagement across all levels of participation.

Moving Forward Together

The strength of our community lies in the trust we place in one another. By clarifying and reinforcing our expectations, we are taking another step toward maintaining an inclusive, respectful, and safe environment for everyone.This new addition will take effect immediately, and violations will be handled in accordance with our existing enforcement guidelines. Together, we can ensure our community remains a place of collaboration, trust, and mutual respect.

Expanding Our Code of Conduct to Protect Private Conversations Read Post »

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